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November 10, 2013

Final round of surgery prep

Last round of errands and household chores today, before I head in for the surgery tomorrow. And one of the big things I did today was get a haircut–partly because my hair had gotten to that “okay, officially too long now” point that I periodically hit anyway, but mostly because if my hair is short, it’s way lower maintenance. And since I’m about to spend the rest of the month in recovery mode, low maintenance hair is a good thing indeed.

And this is the new haircut. Not bad for a phone selfie, if I do say so myself.

Meanwhile, I also got my thyroid prescription renewed a week early so I don’t have to worry about that later. I bought a few pairs of sweat pants as well as some pajamas since I was advised to wear loose things, and I did manage to find some pajamas that weren’t too stupid-looking.

AND, most importantly, I have acquired five of the six crappy movies for the forthcoming next round of the Murkworks Movie Suckoff! I had to swap in Alligator and Crocodile for the shark contenders, given that Scarecrow didn’t have Ghost Shark, Snow Shark, or Sand Sharks. And while they did have Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, it’s still a new enough movie that Scarecrow still has it on 2-day rental status, which ain’t gonna work. So we’ll be streaming that one. Still though I did rent five things from Scarecrow and that does my heart good.

Rest of the day will go to laundry and bathroom cleanup and synopsis writing. After midnight I’ll go on “can’t have any food or beverages” status, and Dejah will come get me in the morning so I can report for “be knocked out so they can do uncomfortable things to my innards” duty.

I may or may not be able to post from the hospital; we’ll see how coherent I am after the procedure is done. Evergreen has wifi so in theory once they settle me into a room for the evening I should be able to check in. But if not I’ll check in as soon as I’m able to come home. More bulletins as events warrant, all.

November 9, 2013

Medical update on me and Dara both

As many of you saw me posting on the social networks last night, Dara had round two of her eye surgery last night. This was done in a different facility, and this time by a different surgeon as well. Everything went pretty much okay, and I got a lot of sympathetic noises from the nurses who were looking after Dara afterwards, when I told them that I get to go in for a hysterectomy on Monday.

(It was in the middle of one of those conversations that I realized that Dara and I really have had quite the tour of many of the Seattle area’s major medical facilities. I was at UW Medical in the U district when I broke my arm; Swedish did my thyroidectomies; Dara was at Harborview for treatment for the car accident; Evergreen, of course, has been my cancer care, and they also handled last year’s fun with h. pylori and they’re handling the hysto stuff as well. And now we’ve been to UW Medical in Northgate AND to the facility over in Bellevue. And OH YES we’ve also been over to the Overlake Emergency Care Clinic as well. All told: we’ve become rather involuntary connoisseurs of all the medical care Puget Sound has to offer.)

Today, we had the followup with last night’s surgeon. Who says that Dara’s eye is looking good (and honestly it looks less scary than it did after the first round), BUT, he also says that she needs to keep her head under positional restrictions until the next followup appointment, which will be either Wednesday or Thursday; we’re scheduling that on Monday.

This, clearly, makes Monday a problem. So I am already coordinating with Dejah from my Quebec session crowd, who has kindly volunteered to be my chauffeur to and from Evergreen. This frees up Paul to be at the house in case Dara needs anything (she’ll probably be okay, but better to have someone on hand just in case), and also so that he can look after the cats (and since Fred’s on medication, that does need some attending to). So we’ll make it through this coming week, it’ll just start off a bit bumpier than expected, is all.

And Dejah is a rock star, a folk star, and a star of all other musical genres, and I WILL be buying her dinner at some later date of her choosing.

Now we’re just counting down to Monday at this point and taking care of various and sundry errands and household chores that need dealing with.

Anna the Piper Industries appreciates your patience during this time of erratic functionality, O Internets, and we promise to return you soon to your regularly scheduled programming of writing, tunes practice, and fangirling well-played fiddles and bouzoukis. Stand by.

November 8, 2013

Game plan for this weekend and next week

I’m taking Dara to her eye surgery this afternoon at 4pm. I’m expecting this to be pretty much a repeat of round 1, which is to say, it’ll be likely she’ll have to spend tonight constantly looking at her own feet, including sleeping face down.

Tonight I expect any entertainment is going to be strictly audio, since if Dara has to return to Feetlandia, she won’t be able to watch any TV.

Tomorrow there will be a post-op followup, to see how she’s doing and what kind of positional restrictions she has to maintain to promote healing of the eye this time.

Monday at 11am is when we need to report for my surgery to Evergreen. We are planning for this to be an overnight stay, although there is a possibility that they might send me home early if things go well enough. Whether or not Dara will be able to accompany me to Evergreen, and whether she will be able to spend the night if she does, will depend on how Saturday’s followup appointment goes.

A few of you have already offered transport duties, and that’s much appreciated. Though since we are a three-person household, Paul’s already kindly agreed to take care of getting me (and hopefully also Dara) to and from Monday’s adventures. Everybody please think ongoing positive thoughts that Paul’s health stays solid, mmkay?

A couple of you have also kindly offered to come cook for Dara and me, or bring us a meal. That is also most appreciated. If you’d like to discuss that with me further, email or PM as appropriate. Pretty much “any time Tuesday or later” will be the time frame to shoot for there.

Meanwhile I’m going to be spending this weekend doing the synopsis for Vengeance, taking care of cleaning up stuff as best I can since Dara and I both will be effectively out of commission for some days, and other necessary “prior to my brain going into Vicodin mode” tasks.

Good thoughts, virtual hugs, lit candles, playing of music, or any other positive activities are, again, most appreciated. October and November are turning out to be rough for the Murkworks this year, and apparently 2013 is making up for the off-time from medical crap we had in 2010, 2011, and most of 2012.

November 7, 2013

So much for going to OryCon

Dara had another followup appointment about her eye surgery this afternoon–and was informed, much to our dismay, that she had further retinal tearing. There had been a ten percent chance that this would happen, and apparently, she’s just managed to roll REALLY badly on her Luck roll.

This means another round of eye surgery tomorrow. And no going down to OryCon this weekend. AUGH. We’ve cancelled our hotel reservations and gotten our Amtrak points back for the train, and additionally, OryCon’s concom said oh god yes of COURSE we can have a membership refund; they’ll deal with that after the con is over.

So. Dara’s next round of eye surgery is tomorrow at 4pm. Which means I get to spend tomorrow morning writing a proper synopsis of Vengeance of the Hunter to hand over to my editor, and then I will take Dara to her procedure. She’ll have a post-op followup on Saturday as well.

This may make Monday more challenging. We’d already realized that oh shit Dara’s not cleared to drive yet, and had gotten Paul’s agreement to drive us to and from my surgery. However, now that Dara’s going to have to have another procedure of her own, this may make it difficult for her to go with me to the hospital at all. Much will depend upon whether she is still under position restrictions by Monday, since the first round of this fun required her to spend the next day or so constantly looking at her feet and having to sleep face down as well. Which would be PROBLEMATIC, trying to stay overnight with me at Evergreen. But we’ll see what happens with that as of Saturday.

Tonight Paul made us a tasty dinner, and there’s been cider, and I’m also having a shot of cake vodka, given that tonight pretty much took a hard turn into the land of Fuck Everything. The forecast of instruments being picked up later tonight is also very, very high.

Please keep us in your thoughts, folks. And if anybody finds the son of a bitch who decided to bump up our medical misfortune this year, let me know, okay? I have a heat ray and an itchy trigger finger. >:|

November 1, 2013

Fun with La Bottine Souriante lyrics

So y’all know that fun La Bottine Souriante concert video I posted yesterday? I totally got songvirused by the second song Éric Beaudry sings lead on in that–because the back of my brain kept going “HEY YOU TOTALLY KNOW THIS SONG”.
Except that it doesn’t appear on the later La Bottine albums, the ones M. Beaudry appears on. So it took my audio memory of the melody a bit before it finally went DING and appended “you know this song, but sung by André Marchand“! Turned out I recognized it because it’s “Pinci-pincette”, on the early La Bottine album Y’a ben du changement, and it was in fact on my playlist in iTunes for my favorite La Bottine songs!
‘Cause yeah. As I’ve said before, two of the biggest things I adore about Quebec trad are call-and-response and podorythmie, and this song’s an excellent example. Once I figured out which song it was, I promptly found the words right over here.
Let’s see what happens when I try to read through the lyrics without Google Translate, shall we? Here are bits and pieces of it I can take a guess at without looking them up. Translation attempts behind the fold!
Continue reading “Fun with La Bottine Souriante lyrics”

October 31, 2013

La Bottine Souriante is here to rock up your Thursday

I’ve posted before, O Internets, about how my rampaging love for Quebec trad can be traced straight back to La Bottine Souriante when I saw them perform at the same show where I first saw Great Big Sea. (Little did I know at the time that that concert at Chateau Ste. Michelle was going to be the birthplace of two of my three biggest lifetime musical fandoms!) I have not, however, had the good fortune to see La Bottine in concert since, and I’d really like to see them with their current lineup.
But I ain’t expecting that to happen any time soon unless they show up in Vancouver. Because transporting a band that big is, I’m sure, logistically challenging even without asking them to cross the US border. (Bah.)
BUT! Even if I can’t see them in person, the Internets have now consoled me with the surfacing of a great video of an entire show they did on their recent tour to Mexico. Behold! (And for all the non-Francophones reading this, note that the band members do introduce the songs in English; there’s only a little bit of Spanish attempted at the beginning.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7P8BJD7FA?hl=en_US&version=3&w=420&h=315]
And I gotta say, after watching this, I am convinced that Éric Beaudry has access to the same shoe-based arc reactor technology that powers the feet of Olivier Demers. ‘Cause I mean damn, people, when your feet are the entire percussion section for a band as big as La Bottine, you have some mighty rhythmic feet. (+10 as well for Éric’s intro to the second song he sings lead on! Of which he has two, and they are both awesome. Dude can sing. But I’ve said that before, too.)
Go! Clickie! And be careful if you’re listening to this by a desktop computer. You may find yourself in danger of foot-tapping all over your power supply. Well, for values of ‘you’ meaning ‘me’. ;)

October 22, 2013

Oh look yet MORE medical fun

And this time, it’s Dara’s turn.

Dara was experiencing some weird vision problems, an uptick in the number of floaters she was seeing in her right eye, and so she scheduled an appointment with an ophthalmologist yesterday to get herself checked out. The verdict: she’s got retinal tearing. JOY. Which means that today, she gets to go in for emergency eye surgery, because if they leave this untreated, it could lead to blindness in that eye.

NOT AN OPTION, so yeah, we’re dealing with this NOW. With LASERS. Because that’s what a supervillain and her right-hand girl do: solve problems with lasers!

From what Dara learned, this is very old damage resulting from childhood abuse trauma (Dara talks some about said abuse on her link, trigger warning as appropriate). A weak spot in her eye finally gave way, and there are a couple other spots that are also in danger of tearing, so while the surgeon’s in there, he’s going to secure those too.

Today I’m going to work from home so that I can accompany Dara to the surgery. I need to be there since a) she’s my wife f’r chrissakes, and b) I’m also the one authorized to make medical decisions for her if need be, since we are each other’s PoAs, with appropriate paperwork saying so. I’m likely going to be chugging through the line edits on Vengeance of the Hunter while I’m waiting, and then I’m going to come home with her, jump on the VPN, and do day job work.

All hail my team at work who are being VERY understanding with this sudden outbreak of medical adventures on my and Dara’s part, too. Gods, we’re tired of this. And between this and my fun still coming up next month, we’re sad that this’ll mean we probably won’t be able to make Worldcon in the UK next year, just because we’re going to be paying off medical bills over the next several months. AGAIN.

But I’m still going to see Le Vent du Nord in Victoria next March. And very likely De Temps Antan in Vancouver the weekend before. Because after all this shit, I’m here to tell you, people, gonna need me some music.

I’ll be posting updates on how things go on the social networks today, so for those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook or G+, be on the lookout for further bulletins as events warrant.

October 20, 2013

New big carbon fiber flute!

The first of my two new flutes has arrived from Carbony Celtic Winds! This is the bigger one in D, since they aren’t going to send me the fife in D until next month. But that’s TOTALLY okay, since this one will be fun to play with until then.
The new flute is just about 23 inches in length, about 58.4 centimeters–just a scooch longer than Norouet, my wooden flute in D. I can’t weigh them both but unsurprisingly, the carbon fiber one feels slightly lighter than Norouet does. Norouet has a slightly wider inner diameter, at just over half an inch; new!flute is just about half an inch.
However, and this is a big however–the spacing on the holes, at least for my left hand, is a bit wider than I’m used to. Not out of the question, but it’s a bit of a stretch; I’m going to play around with it for a few more days and see whether I can comfortably play this instrument. But there are concerns here, I think. I’m okay on this instrument if I try to play something slow, like, say, “La Fée des Dents”. But if I go to something fast, like “Manteau d’hiver”, I start missing holes because I have to stretch to hit them and my hand may not be able to do that for long. This will require some experimentation.
The nice gentleman at Carbony who acknowledged my order in email says that they have another model in D with holes slightly closer together, but which sacrifices a bit of power. So worst case scenario is, I send this one back and he sends me the replacement when he sends me up the fife.
Check out the hole spacing in this comparison pic. This is the new carbon fiber next to Norouet.

This is, I suppose, the risk I take when ordering instruments online–I couldn’t have handled this particular flute beforehand, so I had no way of knowing until it got here if I was going to be able to play it. But hopefully this will be a solvable problem. I’ve sent the above pic to the guy at Carbony and asked him to tell me what the hole spacing is like on the other D model they have. It’d be a shame to lose power but that’s an acceptable tradeoff if it means I don’t risk my hand cramping up when I’m trying to play.
(The tone’s REAL nice on this one, though. Somebody with bigger hands than me could probably rock the hell out of this flute! And even given the uncomfortable hand stretch for me, I can get a cleaner and crisper tone out of it than I can out of Norouet.)

October 19, 2013

The most important thing about the Great Big Sea show tonight

Internets, my usual full concert report will be coming about tonight’s Great Big Sea show in Edmonds real soon–but before I post that, I have to post this, because THIS was the high point of the evening and I’m still trying to ramp down from the outburst of ZOMG in my system.

As you all know, I’m a novelist. I’ve completed five novels, in fact. Verbosity is my primary superpower. I have a LOT of words in me. So you’ll know that if other people’s pictures are worth a thousand words, this one, coming from me, is worth an entire trilogy. This happened after the GBS show in Edmonds tonight, when I and several other fangirls were hanging out by the band’s tour bus!

Thirteen years. THIRTEEN YEARS I’ve been in this fandom and I’ve finally scored not only the opportunity, but also the gumption to ask Alan Doyle to his face if I could have a picture with him. He promptly said “sure!”, invited me to get in close, and put his arm around my shoulders. I handed my phone off to my friend Helen, who then needed me to unlock it for her ’cause duh right access code. THEN she had trouble finding my camera app, so she made cracks at me about how “should I draw this out a little longer?”–’cause Alan was standing there with his arm around me the whole time. I chirped, “I’M GOOD!”

There was laughter, and the picture was finally taken. One other girl in the group also snapped a pic which she promised to send me, so this wasn’t even the only one!

(ALSO! There was bonus Murray! Most of the group wanted pics with Alan, so after I got my turn I turned to Murray and asked him about his fundraising efforts for his Cocksure Lads movie–his mockumentary about a fictional 60’s British rock band. Great fun. I was in on round one of that fundraising and I’ll be chiming in on the second one too. Because Murray is awesome.

Also, mad props to Foster when I told him I was annathepiper on Twitter and that we’d chatted some about Tolkien. He remembered that. YAY!)

So yeah. This was a TRIUMPH. Making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

Also note: I neither confirm nor deny any rumors of high-pitched squealing and a victory dance as soon as we were out of range of the bus.

October 17, 2013

Album review: Autio Huvila, by Kardemimmit

Let me tell you about Kardemimmit, Internets!

Kardemimmit are a group of women from Finland who do folk music featuring the kantele, which is apparently Finland’s national instrument. I first heard of them via De Temps Antan, since Éric Beaudry of that band was posting on Facebook about having had the opportunity to learn about this group while De Temps Antan was recently on tour in the States. Then they shot straight onto my listening queue thanks to a kind person giving me their album Autio Huvila as a gift!
So I promptly did the appropriate thing and listened to that album ASAP (well, after thanking that kind person in email, because awwwwww :~) ). Because pro tip: giving me surprise music that features unusual instruments is an excellent way to get my musical attention. I looked up the band, went “ooh” at the instruments in their splash page pic, and then looked up the kantele at the Wikipedia link above. From that, I learned from that that it’s an instrument of the dulcimer family, and from Kardemimmit’s site, I learned that they play it in 15- and 38-stringed versions.
Then I listened to the album itself.
Now, I don’t speak a lick of Finnish, though I’ve gotten pretty good at coaxing halfway coherent meaning out of Google Translate (coupled with judicious actual Googling) if I’m trying to figure out bits of a language I don’t know. But since the band has no lyrics posted on their site, not even in Finnish, I have no earthly idea what any of these songs are about. These girls could be singing the names of all the streets in Helsinki, in alphabetical order, for all I know. But I did note with interest that iTunes tags several of the tracks on this album as “Explicit”, which made me make the O RLY? face. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from Quebec trad, it’s that the most innocuous-sounding song can have very bawdy lyrics. (Le Vent du Nord’s “Les métiers”, I’m looking at you. ;) )
Just by sound and style alone, though, this isn’t stuff you’d think would earn that particular rating. The women of the group all have lovely voices, and between their harmony and the chiming of the kantele they play (note: kantele is both a singular and plural noun), the album’s all very bell-like and beautiful. There’s energy, make no mistake. Right out of the gate, listening to the lively first track, I decided this was very compatible with my rampageous affection for Quebec and Celtic trad. I was particularly amused to hear the singers break into something that sounded a lot like a turlutte, even–though I suppose they call it something else in Finnish! And I kept finding myself totally wanting to give them a podorythmie rhythm track, or maybe a bodhran.
I’m not a hundred percent convinced the album’s instrumentation is all kantele–I could have sworn I heard a bass or extra percussion in there every so often, but if there were any other instruments at all, they were scarce. Mostly, this album’s all about the women’s voices, and about the kantele they play. And I found it highly enjoyable. I’ll be exploring the rest of their work.
Kardemimmit live over at kardemimmit.fi, and you can find them on Facebook as well! If you like Finnish folk music and/or the kantele, or even just think you might, go give ’em a listen.