Blog

Posted on

Behold the coming of the Hair Shenanigans!

Internets! This past August I promised you that if Faerie Blood cracked 300 sales, I would dye my hair. And now, since that milestone was reached, today I have made good on my promise!

This is the second time I’ve ever had my hair colored, ever, and getting it professionally done was a big change from the one time we did it back in Kentucky with a home coloring kit. That was a weird strawberry blonde color that ultimately didn’t look quite natural on me, but it looked like it should have been natural on somebody. I figure if I’m going to put weird colors on my head, screw it, go with colors you just aren’t going to find in nature. :D

Blue and green were my colors of choice, as those are my two favorite colors, and the stylist agreed that they’d work well with my coloring. I got the work done by Jade at Scream Salon in downtown Seattle–the same woman who does Dara’s vivid fire-engine red. Jade was very amused by the contrast between Dara having a “warm” color and me rocking the “cool” tones, though, you can make a real strong argument for the shades of blue and green we selected being very warm.

I chose to do a few different shades, with highlight-type blocks hiding underneath my actual hair color. This seemed easier on my hair, and also avoids the problem of my roots growing out and therefore losing the color. Plus, having bits of brilliant color lurking in my otherwise blonde hair seemed to fit me well personality-wise. So now, depending on which angle you look at me from, you’ll get different bits of color!

Jade used bleach on the bits of my hair that she colored, and used the second lowest amount necessary just because my hair’s pretty pale to begin with–and I’m starting to go gray in front anyway. Which meant that when the bleaching was done, parts of my hair were lighter than it’s been since I was a little kid! And it also means that the bits of my hair that’ve gone gray in front turned into some neat highlights against the added color. Jade said as well that this is the brightest she’s seen the colors. My hair apparently took to this really well.

This was huge fun, and it’ll be neat to see how the color changes and fades. I may decide to keep doing this, I dunno yet. Paul says that if I do I should totally rock this brilliant dark blue that’s lurking on the right side of my head.

So here’s some of the after shots! This one shows the colors being kind of subtle:

You’d think, looking at that, that I had hardly any color at all. But you’d be WRONG.

And this one’s my favorite. You can see bits of the blue AND the green:

The full set is right over here!

EDITING TO ADD 1/3/2019: I had to move the pics off of Flickr, so now they’re on annathepiper.org. The links in this post have been changed accordingly.

Posted on

Album review: Ici on fête, by Various Artists

Ici on fête
Ici on fête

I owe a large debt of gratitude to my friend Melanie in Montréal for alerting me to the gem that is Ici on fête, a recently released live compilation album featuring a broad swath of bands and artists in the Quebecois trad genre. This thing features not one, not two, but FIVE of my top favorite Quebec bands, all of whom I’ve posted about in glowing terms as you all know. La Bottine Souriante! De Temps Antan! Le Vent du Nord! Genticorum! And Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer!
It’s pretty much only lacking Galant tu perds ton temps to be a stunningly accurate summuary of my entire collection, really. And while I must sadface at the lack of that fine group, there is much consolation to be found in several other familiar names out of my collection here–Les Batinses, Mes Aïeux, Nicolas Pellerin, Yves Lambert & Le Bébert Orchestra, Les Chauffeurs à Pieds, and Michel Faubert.
Melanie pointed me at this communique about the album, from which I learn that the redoubtable M. Faubert (whose voice I came to know as part of the Charbonniers) is a driving force behind the collection. He in particular is represented on three of the tracks, and he’s in excellent voice in all three, setting the bar very high for everyone else’s performances–and, happily, every other artist on the album meets and matches him.
Tracks 2 and 3 all by themselves make this collection worth the price of admission for me. Y’all already know I’m a De Temps Antan fangirl, and hearing them whip through a live take of “Buvons mes chers amis buvons” is always fun. But what really blew my socks straight off is La Bottine Souriante’s track 3, “Le p’tit porte-clé”–which I immediately recognized as the song I know as “Le ziguezon”, a very early footstomper from La Bottine’s first couple of albums, recorded with André Marchand singing lead. “Le ziguezon” is one of my regular repeat favorites, and to hear it sung by Éric Beaudry here, doing it fine lively justice, made me want to start stepdancing through the streets of downtown Seattle.
Of course I cannot talk about my favorite tracks without talking about Le Vent du Nord. They’re here too, checking with a very strong take of “La fille et les dragons”. This is a song I’ve experienced as its studio take as well as on both of Le Vent’s live albums–but not with a drum track, which was a startling and fun addition, though I wouldn’t want to make a habit of that. (The drum track, after all, rather drowned out the laser precision of the feet of Olivier Demers. And we can’t have that, now can we?)
Genticorum also represents, with a take of one of their earlier instrumentals, “Cascou”, from their album Malins Plaisirs. The only lament I have about this performance is that Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand is not playing his flute on this set. But since he is cutting loose on the bass, that lament is actually fairly small. I’ve seen and heard that bass with my own eyes and ears, people. Five-stringed fretless basses are love.
And then there’s Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer, who offer up what to my ears is a treat indeed: a song of theirs that I do not, in fact, have represented on any prior album of theirs I own! The song is called “Tout l’monde est malheureux”, and it flips back and forth between morose and full harmonic speed. My ear for a song is tugging at this, convinced I’ve heard it before at some point, but I don’t currently have anything else by the same title–so if some other band I’ve purchased music from has recorded this, they did it under a different title. Clearly I’m just going to have to listen to my entire collection again until I find it. Oh darn.
“Souliers rouges” was another song I immediately recognized, though here it’s performed by Manigance, and I’m familiar with the version by La Volée d’Castors. Still, I find it great fun to hear different artists’ interpretation of the same song (the aforementioned “Le ziguezon” is a great example of this, given that I’ve got a version of that by Mauvais Sort in my collection too!). This time was no exception.
Les Tireux d’Roches, as if to console me for the lack of Genticorum’s flute firepower, handed me some of their own and filled my ears with glee. And harmony, for that matter. Very much liked their take of “Maluré soldat”. I’ve got a bit of this group represented in my collection now, but I didn’t have this song yet, which is one on of their albums I have not yet acquired. I shall be rectifying this problem at my earliest opportunity.
I was quite pleased, too, to see women take the lead on the singing at least on a couple of the tracks, so I’ll call them out both by name here: Mara Tremblay on “La chanson du bavard”, and Angèle Arsenault on “J’ai un bouton sur le bout de la langue”. This wasn’t quite enough consolation to make up for the lack of Galant tu perds ton temps, but it did help!
All in all the album is upbeat in spirit, which is befitting a release targeted for the holiday season (c.f., the communique I linked to above). While the material here isn’t specifically holiday-themed, it is nonetheless quite festive–one of the things that made me fall in love with this entire genre of music to begin with.
So if you’re looking to get into Quebecois trad, Ici on fête would be an excellent place to start. Investigation leads me to find it only available to a limited degree–it’s on iTunes, but only on the Canada store, here. And if you want to order the album from Amazon, I’d strongly advise hitting Amazon.ca in particular, since the Amazon.com site has it at import prices. You’ll get it much more cheaply from Amazon.ca, here. (Note the slow delivery time. But also note that Amazon.com right now isn’t showing the album in stock at all.)
Quebec listeners can get it from Archambault digitally here as well as on CD. Renaud-Bray is also carrying the disc here.
Outside of Quebec though, your easiest bet will be to try to scarf an iTunes gift card for the Canada store and buy it that way. It’ll be a hard hunt, but if you can find it, your ears will be rewarded.

Posted on

Tri-lingual Hobbit re-read: Chapter 14

Fell behind on this again due to being in MASSIVE DEADLINE mode with Vengeance of the Hunter–for the past several months. But now that Vengeance is signed off on text-wise, and with the coming of The Desolation of the Smaug VERY NIGH, I feel a mighty need to return to this project.

So let’s get cracking with Chapter 14, shall we? Esgaroth has a pissed-off dragon to contend with, after all!

Continue reading “Tri-lingual Hobbit re-read: Chapter 14”

Posted on

Further reflections on the imminent loss of Sean McCann from GBS

There’s a lot of high emotion going around Great Big Sea fandom this weekend, what with the imminent departure of Séan McCann from Great Big Sea. And a lot of reaction in particular sprang up in response to this, posted by Séan just yesterday. I gave this a listen, and while I’m trying very hard not to read too much into those lyrics, they are nonetheless highly loaded, even to a fairly objective ear.

I’m not going to get into speculating what’s in Séan’s head, not here. But the possibility has been raised to me that Great Big Sea will bring in a new guy to replace him. Since the band has not yet issued an official statement on the matter, I can’t know for sure whether that’s going to happen. And so what I want to talk about in this blog post is what Séan’s presence in the band has meant to me for the last thirteen years, and what it’d mean for me if Great Big Sea continues without him.

As you all know, Internets, I’m a raving Doyle fangirl and always have been, from the very first day I visited greatbigsea.com and thought “well goodness, that guy with the long brown hair is gorgeous“. But it’s Séan’s vocals that actually first caught my ear.

His singing “General Taylor” is the very first memory I have of Great Big Sea–when my housemate Mimi was playing Rant and Roar to bring people in to her yard sale, and I thought, “WOW these guys sound good”. And the samples of him singing “I’m a Rover” and “Ferryland Sealer” on Turn, up on the greatbigsea.com of the year 2000, are what made me commit to buying their music in the first place.

All three of these songs are excellent examples of what made me fall in love with this band: the rich harmony, the strong traditional music, and the overall energy of the vocals.

Losing Darrell from Great Big Sea in 2003 was a notable blow to that energy for me. Don’t get me wrong–I think Murray Foster is an amazing singer and a wonderful bass player, and I love what he can bring to a bass line in “River Driver” or “Safe Upon the Shore”. But to this day, raving Doyle fangirl that I am, “Excursion Around the Bay” still sounds wrong to me not sung by Darrell in concert. It’s Darrell’s song, for me, on an emotional level.

And there’s still a difference in the vocal chemistry in the group, post-Darrell.

Post-Séan, the difference in the vocal chemistry will be even greater. Even if they bring in a guy with a great voice, the very real possibility exists for me that I simply won’t click with his voice the same way I did with Séan’s. There are a lot of wonderful singers in the world–and I’m perfectly capable of aesthetic appreciation of a strong singer’s voice, no matter who they are. But that’s not the same thing as being in love with the voice.

A new guy may absolutely bring some Awesome to the table. C.f. Murray, as I said above. Also c.f. La Bottine Souriante, who have had considerable member turnover through the years; I’ve posted before about how much I love Éric Beaudry’s vocals, even though overall I like the Yves Lambert era of La Bottine better. And going in the opposite direction, Le Vent du Nord’s current membership configuration is the magic configuration for me, though I like the previous two iterations of Le Vent as well.

But I can’t know what a new guy in Great Big Sea would be like until I actually hear him. And even aside from what kind of a voice he has, there are more intangible questions of band chemistry as well. Séan has been so critical a presence on the stage for the GBS shows I’ve attended that not having him there will be a quantum shift in the stage chemistry.

And even if a new guy turns out to be awesome, that still doesn’t diminish my sadness at losing Séan from the group. The man is, after all, the voice that pulled me in to begin with.

Great Big Sea has brought me such happiness over the years that I want those boys to be happy as well. Their voices have gotten me through a great many rough times in my life–my dad passing away, all the medical crap I’ve gone through, more. I would much prefer for Séan to leave the group and be happy, rather than continue and be miserable.

But losing him from the group will still be for me, on an emotional level, something like losing a body part. And I’ve lost a body part, so I know what that feels like. You continue on through it, and even if you’re still reasonably happy and healthy, the transition is still hard, and you are still nonetheless fundamentally changed.

I really hope that if Great Big Sea does continue, that they do so in a way that lets them all continue to be reasonably healthy and happy. And if they do bring in a new guy, I will certainly give him a fair listen. But until that happens, bear with me, folks. As I’ve said, the transition is hard.

And I’m gonna miss you, Shantyman.

Posted on

My thoughts on flutes, let me show you them

Today my friend Aron pinged me on Facebook to ask me my thoughts on flutes, since he’s thinking of getting himself one. He’s a newbie to flute playing as well as to playing tunes in general, but is taking well to whistle and likes flute as well, and wanted to know what my thoughts were on his getting a keyed flute.
BOY HOWDY do I have thoughts on this! (And it was rather a relief to see that I was coherent enough to present a cohesive opinion on the topic. Yay, medical recovery!)
Maybe you’re brand new to instruments and don’t know which one to pick. Or maybe you’re like me, and you’re coming out of a school band background, but you’ve found trad music and you want to see if you can take your previous school flute experience and apply it to playing trad tunes.
Here’s the thing though–that flute you played in school band is perfectly capable of producing tunes. It is not, however, exactly a traditional instrument. And if your eventual goal is to play in a session environment, your chances of getting frowned at if you show up with a Boehm-system keyed flute are sadly pretty good. Your mileage on this will vary depending on the session; some sessions may be more amenable to flexibility in instrument choices. But don’t rely on that. You should default in favor of choosing an instrument which will get you taken seriously if you show up at a session with it.
With that in mind, how should you choose an instrument to play?
Suppose you say to yourself, “Okay, I like having keys. I’m comfortable with those. Good clear accidentals are my friend!” Should you try looking at Irish flutes with keys?
Here’s the problem with that–Irish flutes with keys are super expensive. The reason for this, based on my own research across different makers, is because the keys get made out of silver. And that can run you up a pretty hefty price tag with each additional key you put on there. As a concrete example, Casey Burns sells his basic keyless D flutes for $700 each. And each additional key runs you up another $450.
Do the math, and that means a flute with several keys on it, capable of producing whatever accidentals you may need in whatever key you may want to play in, is going to run you a lot of money really fast. This right here will be THE reason I don’t have a proper Irish flute of my own with keys on it yet. That kind of money is up there with the most expensive Apple laptops!
At this point you may now be boggling and wondering what the hell that kind of pricing is based upon, if you’re coming out of a background like mine–wherein you may have paid a couple hundred bucks at most for a flute played in school. It’s very important to keep in mind though that the vast majority of Boehm-system keyed flutes, the kinds of flutes that do get played in schools, are a) mass-produced, and b) specifically targeted for the student market. By contrast, if you’re looking at Irish flutes, the makers of those are not making mass-produced instruments, and they’re not targeting students with them. They’re putting more individual care in the quality of instrument produced, and they’re going to be working with better materials, all with the goal of producing serious sound.
And if it helps lessen the sticker shock, think of it this way–you wouldn’t want to play that flute you played in school if you were joining a serious orchestra, either. If you wanted to be a professional-level player in, say, the Seattle Symphony or something of that scale, you’d be going for concert-grade instruments. And those are going to be running up the price tag considerably as well. I can assure you that I boggled quite a bit at the pricing on some of the concert-grade piccolos I’ve looked at over the years!
In short, if you want to get into playing trad music, go keyless first. The Casey Burns Folk Flute I have is an excellent starter flute, and he sells them for $375. Similarly, I am VERY happy with the carbon fiber flutes I’ve recently acquired from Carbony Celtic Winds. The big D flute I got from them clocks in at $455, and the two smaller flutes I have from them are proportionally less pricy than that. The carbon fibers have great voices on them, and I’d recommend them as a viable alternative to wood if you have concerns about where the wood in a flute may have come from. Also of important note, I’ve been very happy with the exchanges I’ve had with Rob from Carbony, who was very helpful working with me to get a big D flute suited for the reach of my hands and was willing to do custom hole placements for me if need be.
One more maker you might check out is Sweetheart, who also came highly recommended when I started poking around for session-class flutes for myself. I have one of their Renaissance fifes in high D, which was really cheap at $49, which is pretty awesome for a starter-grade instrument.
You can get by in a session with something in D, either a big flute or a fife-sized instrument, as long as you can get good clear sound out of it in a couple of octaves. That’ll do you fine for a large number of tunes–you can do stuff in D, G, E minor, or E dorian without much effort at all, and with only having to half-hole or cross-finger the C. If you want to get a bit more ambitious, you might consider a large D with a smaller backup instrument in a different key, if you want to increase the range of stuff you can play in a session. (Which is why I got myself the A.)
But if you’re just starting out, you should definitely go for a starter-grade instrument, just to make sure that you don’t sink a couple K into an instrument you might ultimately decide you don’t want to play after all. If you keep at it, you can always upgrade to a more serious instrument later. And hi, this’ll be me eventually wanting to commission a serious instrument with keys from Mr. Burns.
Any other flute maker recs out there people want to share? Drop ’em in the comments!

Posted on

Fun things that showed up in the mail yesterday

We received not one, not two, but three packages yesterday, all of which deserve some shoutouts.

First of all, thank you to Scott in Kentucky who sent Dara and me a couple of pretty necklaces that he got from a vendor at a flea market local to him. The stones, he tells us, are unakite, and according to the vendor’s usual pagan/New-Age customers, they are intended for healing. Dara and I could use some healing, and this was a very sweet gesture on Scott’s part.

Unakite Necklace
Unakite Necklace

Secondly, Tiny!Flute has arrived! I am chagrined to discover that the current state of my healing abdomen pretty much dictates that I can’t carry coherent notes more than a few measures at a time so I can’t actually reasonably play this little guy yet. But quick experimentation suggests that he’s got a REAL nice voice on him. Dara tried him as well and smiled and said that he sounds like Popcorn. (Popcorn, y’all may remember, is the bamboo flute Dara lost when we lost her backpack on the way down to Oregon.)

Here is a pic of the new Tiny!Flute next to Rossignolet, for size comparison. Rossignolet is 15 5/8″ in length; the new one is 12 5/8″. Put another way, Rossignolet is just a bit longer than my forearm, while the new flute is just a bit shorter.

Little Flute, Littler Flute
Little Flute, Littler Flute

Last but most assuredly not least, my sister’s little girl made a special point of picking out a stuffed animal from her very own personal collection and sent it to Dara and me, after learning from her mommy that we’d both been not feeling very well lately! This is hands down the most adorable thing that has happened to me all year, and so I made a point of asking my sister to ask her daughter what the giraffe’s name was. Because if you’re going to have a giraffe come to live with you in your house, it’s VERY IMPORTANT to address the giraffe by the proper name!

And so, Internets, I’d like to introduce you all to Fluffy the Giraffe, now joining the Murkworks household.

Fluffy
Fluffy
Posted on

One week surgery recovery report

So far so good.

I’ve been very sleepy a lot for the past seven days, as you’d expect with a lot of Percocet in my system. Percocet also kicks my ass harder than Vicodin does–for a lot of my previous medical crap I’ve had, I’ve had Vicodin rather than Percocet, and I’m pretty sure I have to go clear back to when I broke my arm for the last time I was on Percocet. This stuff makes me have very weird, very intense dreams, and sometimes sensory hallucinations as well. I get into a half-dreaming state dozing off, and imagine things like people coughing outside, or somebody tapping my shoulder, or the cats making prolonged, siren-like whining noises.

The dreams have been weird, too. This morning’s involved my dreaming I was Liv Tyler, the actress who played Arwen in The Lord of the Rings, only this was on the set of The Hobbit. (Note: Liv Tyler is not actually in the Hobbit movies, but this was dream logic at work here.) Dream-me (as Liv) was on my way to a scene, only I came across one of the actors playing one of the hobbits in the movie. Somebody had attacked him and stuffed him into the bottom of a remote-controlled barrel on wheels that was out of control on the set. I had to retrieve the poor guy–he was a little person, actually hobbit-sized, as opposed to a more typically-sized actor being shrunk down via CGI for the role–and get him to security. And then get to my scene.

I remember that the set was laid out bizarrely like a cross between a theme park and bits of the Harrison Hot Springs resort that we were in this past July. And that I had to work my way back around to the front of the grounds and go through a VIP line to show them my credentials and demonstrate that I was, in fact, one of the cast. Which is the last thing I remember before I woke up.

So hi yeah, this is my brain on Percocet.

Not too much pain to deal with, thankfully. I’m sure most of this has to do with the aforementioned Percocet, though there are bits of me suggesting that they’re still tender enough that once I slack off on the painkillers, they’re going to be crankier at me. Which suggests that I’m probably going to need at least one more round of pain meds to finish up recovering; this is consistent with my recovery patterns with previous medical adventures.

Also, working from home was the exact correct plan here. I’m getting coherent enough that I can actually accomplish stuff on the computer but I am not physically up to my usual commute patterns of bus + four miles of walking in a day. I’m barely managing to make it through a full day without needing a long nap in mid-afternoon, and even with a long nap, I’m going to bed rather earlier than is normal for me as well.

Still not letting George on the lap, either, which bemuses the poor kitty. But he’s 14 pounds of cat and periodically pointy on five of his six ends, so if he gets on the lap at all right now, it’s with the buffer of the largest pillow we have in the house.

I have at least gotten to the point where I can work from home and will be working on automation updates for my team this week. And I’ve also managed to do a lot of operating system upgrades on my personal computers as well as on my work laptop. Put Mavericks on my main Mac laptop, and it did not explode, so I figure this is an accomplishment on my part.

Session happened this past Wednesday and my session peeps actually played a song for me. (heart) They did “La Fée des Dents”, which I’ve posted about before, being partial to that one as one of the ones I can actually play. Looking forward to having enough physical strength back so I can actually stand to play my various flutes. Not too sanguine about wanting to strain my stomach with necessary breath control quite yet. But I do have the small carbon fiber flute on the way! Hope to be able to show y’all pics of that real soon.

Be another couple weeks before I can start pulling words out of my brain again, but starting in December, come hell or high water, I will be editing Bone Walker. And also starting planning for Victory of the Hawk. Somewhere in there will be a copyedit round on Vengeance of the Hunter, and hopefully soon I’ll be able to show y’all some cover art for that.

More news as it happens, and as I continue to get my brain back.

Posted on

End of an era

Séan McCann, the beloved Shantyman of Great Big Sea, has set off a firestorm of reaction by announcing that this is his last tour with Great Big Sea. He posted this up to his Facebook wall:

Sean's Done
Sean’s Done

Dara and I have kind of felt this coming for a bit, actually. Between Séan falling hard off the radar a couple of years ago, just after dropping his second solo album… and Alan and Bob also being off doing their own solo projects… and there being a distinct lack of new material in the big GBS box set… the whole XX tour has had a feel of “last hurrah” about it. And this announcement now just pretty much clenches it.

I can’t imagine that GBS will last past this point. Séan is far too critical to the band’s overall sound, and Alan and Bob do have other things going on–though to be fair, I haven’t seen the band announce specifically yet what the group plans are. We’ll have to stand by and see whether they have the band as a whole stand down, or what.

Either way it’s the end of an era for me. I’ve put thirteen years of love and joy into the music of Great Big Sea, and have therefore been with them for a good chunk of their twenty-year run. Twenty years is a good strong epic run, and if they’re going to stand down, I do actually prefer them to do it while they’re still fairly energetic and happy. And I like the idea of Séan going home to raise his kids and mentor the next generation of Newfoundland musicians. And maybe have some epic jam sessions at Erin’s Pub in St. John’s, now that Bob owns the place.

I’m very grateful at this point that I got to see GBS three times this year, and especially that I finally got my pic with Alan. A wistful-making day for all of us in GBS fandom. Much love and many hugs to all my fellow fans. I’ll be raising a glass in the Shantyman’s honor as soon as I’m medically okay with having alcohol again. I recommend y’all do the same. And go express your best wishes to Séan if you’re on Facebook or Twitter. Let the man know he’s loved and he’ll be missed.

Posted on

And now, the hospital report

As pretty much expected, I was at Evergreen only from yesterday morning until this morning. Many, many mad thanks and props to my friend Dejah Leger, who gave me a ride to the hospital, hung out there until I was out of surgery and settled into a room, and then came back to get me this morning. We got in some lovely musicgeeking about various Quebec musicians and hard-to-find albums, too.

Everything went well and Evergreen’s staff took good care of me. I got several nurses making very sympathetic noises indeed as I explained that my wife hadn’t been able to accompany to the hospital due to recovering from her own surgery. And to my surprise I honestly haven’t been in much pain at all following the procedure. My stomach feels weirdly stiff and sore, but to the degree of “I did a whole bunch of situps” rather than being actively painful. I can move around pretty well and I’m pretty coherent. I am on mild painkillers, but so far have needed only a single Percocet and a Tylenol when it’s time for me to have any painkillers at all. We’ll see if that continues once the anesthesia finishes processing out of my system.

I’m instructed to walk as much as I can tolerate, although I am not to do any vigorous exercising, and I’m to do “active” resting as well–things that let me read, or be on the computer, or in general keeping me occupied as long as I’m taking it easy. Which, already planned for. Yay, crappy movie marathon!

It turned out to be a very good idea to cut my hair, since that helped make me more comfortable at the hospital. And I spent most of the evening alternating between looking at Facebook comments, playing Plants Vs. Zombies 2, and reading a Nora Roberts novel on my Nook. Zonked out around 7:40ish and slept off and on through the night, round about to 6ish or so in the morning. This morning, Dr. Isbell showed up to chat with me and clear me to go home, and Dejah showed up at 10 to get me, so great turnaround time there, really.

The type of hysterectomy I had was specifically geared towards minimal recovery time, for which I’m grateful–specifically, laparosopsic hysterectomy. Since I’m still pretty young and healthy they felt this would be a good choice for me. And given that I am in fact in minimal pain at the moment, it certainly seems like it was the correct decision!

Now, they did go ahead and take my ovaries and tubes, too, so this was pretty much a complete uninstall of reproduction.lib, as it were. So any future attempts at reproduction on my part will have to involve cloning, or parthenogenesis, or maybe just splitting in half like an amoeba. Or maybe getting Dara to build me a duplicator, or getting a hold of the copier that can duplicate people in that episode of Gravity Falls.

And okay yeah yeah I could also more figuratively reproduce myself in my work an’ stuff.

So now I’m at home and I get to wear pajama pants and loose shirts, and watch a whole LOT of crappy movies. Dara goes in for her next eye followup tomorrow afternoon, at which point, hopefully, she’ll be cleared to look up again. At that point, the Movie Suckoff will officially begin!

Many thanks, many hugs, and much love to folks on various sites who have been sending kind words, offers of meals, and offers of companionship. Thanks again to Dejah for playing chauffeur, which is totally getting her dinner at a future date of her choosing, and probably a bottle of Sortilege as soon as I can find her some. Thanks to Geri in BC, who’s sending us some help for Dara’s stressed back and neck. And thanks to Kaye, who sent us a big ol’ gift package full of chocolate-covered strawberries and pineapples and general tasty treats!

Yum!
Yum!

Once Dara’s cleared to look up again and we can return the couch to its usual configuration (right now we’ve got it set up so she can lay on it as comfortably as possible and play with her iPad at the same time), we’ll be visitable. Local folks, if you want to come over, just let us know! Call me if you have my number, or email, or drop me a PM on Facebook, whatevs.

And as a lovely postscript, I’ve also just received word that my other carbon fiber flute purchase, the fife in D, is ready to be shipped up to me! And I just got my “Greetings from Mount AWESOME” t-shirt as well from Teefury. :D

Now comes the recovery agenda for the week, and movies, and more reading. Cherie Priest just dropped her brand new release, Fiddlehead, which I happily slurped down onto the Nook; I’ll be buying the paperback of that ASAP as well. And I got a Kickstarter backer reward for my friend Chrysoula Tzavelas’ new release as well, Infinity Key! And I hope to finally finish up Chapter 14 of the Trilingual Hobbit Reread, too!

All in all this’ll be a relaxing week.