Days of Shades

Thursday: Took the day off and put up some insulation. Noticed the difference immediately.

Friday: Celebrated 11/11/11 with a rockin' Spinal Tap party at my folks' house. Words cannot do it justice. Jesse nearly hurt himself laughing when we discovered Effect 19 on the effects peddle with the electric violin (westrider says it's a talk-box). It sounds reasonable slow, but when you play a fiddle tune through it it sounds like a chorus of electric guinea pigs singing in a fish tank.

Summary: Electric violin! Effects peddle! And a drum kit! And multiple electric guitars and basses! AND AN ACCORDION. Because I know the type of of people who just happen to have an accordion in the car.

The best picture to come out of the night is westrider in the pink/purple bob wig. O.M.G. There was also a bit of nostalgia when Em, emony42 and I were sitting on each other in the big blue chair, and Em looked at Emony, who was pretty much asleep, and said "This is basically every highschool party we had in microcosm, isn't it? People at work ask what kind of wild parties I went to in highschool, and I say 'I went to Sarah's house and hung out with her dad.'" (at which point Dad, who happens to be wearing a green-and-black rocker wig, looks over and says "Hey!" and Em quickly adds "And it was awesome!").

(Oh, yes -- Emony is totally capable of sleeping through a drum kit, electric violin, two basses, a guitar, and an accordion. This surprises no one.)

Saturday: Hung out with westrider in a slightly quieter environment. :P Started trying to make the contents of three boxes of studio crap fit into two boxes of studio crap.

Sunday: emony42 came to visit and be my Lovely Assistant. Finally reinstalled the light-fixture over the sink. The empty can's only been dangling for, er, a year and a half... One of the downsides of growing up around constant remodeling is that these things don't bother me, which means I basically stop noticing them entirely. But it's fixed now! A few hours after she and her pooch left I even managed to get the cats inside, though Monkey hid under madalchemist's bed and cried until I lured him out with treats.

Also, successfuly got the three boxes of stuff to become two boxes of stuff. Now the third box is full of flamingoes.

In conclusion: Houses! Friends! Flamingoes! Effect 19 is the best effect ever!

And I got sod all done for the creativity challenge. I'll post amphibilizard journals to make up for it, yes?

I would like to know why I get episodes of "I will never accomplish anything in life; I have accomplished nothing so far" depression triggered by buyer's remorse.

Of course, it's quite possible that it's just that it's just the most common form of my depression, and it takes whatever little chink of not-quite-right feeling it can to get in.

Also worth noting: This particular buyer's remorse is because of a harp. So that's nice and odd all by itself. :P

I took Baby up to Applebaum's yesterday and dropped the good bow off for a rehair. They also straightened the warping bridge for me, which is cool for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it took a few hours, leading to this offer:

"If you don't mind hanging around for awhile, you can just pick a violin and play it. I'll point you at the top shelf."

So, about an hour and a half of solid practicing on a french violin from the 1800s, my own fiddle is fixed, I'm much better at the new Liz Carroll tune I've been working on, and I have total instrument lust.

It's only $15000! I could totally afford it someday, if, y'know, money fell on me from the sky!

Sky!Money! The key to all my long term goals.

I've only been home since wednesday afternoon, and in a few hours I'm headed south to Portland and thence to the Oregon Country Fair.

For those not in the know, the Oregon Country Fair is like Folklife turned up to 11 and in a more natural setting. There are two-story vendor booths cunningly woven out of saplings from the site and a lot more toplessness (legal for all in the Eugene area).

I was up at FiddleTunes for the beginning of the week, and took two workshops from Liz Carroll (O frabjous day!). Jammed with friends, hung with the notorious happy hour crowd, basked in the sun, and ran a coffee tab (if you're ever in the Port Townsend area, remember: the folks at Java Gypsy are absolute sweethearts, they have adorable kids, and they make a damn fine latte).

I'm trying to tease out why I don't like it when people perform 'our' (trad/folk) music without being aware of our trad/folk community. I don't think it's a really rational response, which makes it harder (and more interesting) to chase down the bits going into it. I discussed it with a few friends, and found that I'm not alone in the discomfort. Erik -- who is much less involved in the community and doesn't viscerally 'get' the feeling -- can relate in that he'd feel similarly if someone performed jazz in ignorance of it's history and the greats who'd gone before, so it's probably partly an issue of wanting the music to have context.

Perhaps it's also partly that as a fiddler, I go to see a lot of performances by people that could be described as 'musicians' musicians' -- their playing is good enough that an audience made up of people who play the same kind of music are in awe and learn something from them. So hearing that someone is performing without following these kinds of artists always feels a little... arrogant? That word is too strong, but the idea is that we have something to learn and we learn it from each other.

Another part is that it's fundamentally a community music, whether you're playing Irish, old-timey, or contra. At some level it always feels fake if it's too separated from the community.

Lastly, who wouldn't want to drink margaritas in the sun while Reverend Big Dave randomly proclaims from whatever paperback he happens to be reading, Forrest sings the blues about That Time He Lost His Car*, Cathy and Sally sing competing western swing, and we all try and avoid the park rangers? I mean, really. Happy Hour Friendship is what it's all about!

*Best fiddltunes story evaaar.

Headed off to see Tim Minchin in Seattle, with Erik, madalchemist, and emony42!

I feel fine. :)

I've been down for a week with Chest Cold Two: Bride of Cold, which has keept me basically useless for anything other than napping and dorking around on the computer.

Due to a combination of cold meds and too much Dragon Age II, I had a vivid dream in which I was in a city on the eve of war (between mages and templars. Dragon Age). The factions were gathering in the streets, full battle was inevitable, and the only outcome could be carnage... but still, I stunned all of my faithful companions by venturing out alone into no-man's land, standing between the opposing armies, and...

singing Jonathan Coulton's "First of May."



Everyone listened! People stopped sharpening blades and muttering incantations! For a moment, it seemed like it just might work! My people WOULD get together outside!

And then that little dream voice, the nagging one that tells you "wait, this isn't your house. Rabbits don't come in purple. Have you forgotten about gravity?" says:

"It will never work. It's April."

It is perhaps telling that the next morning when I told my housemate madalchemist the first thing he said was.

"But... it's April!"

Then, after a moment of consideration, he expressed suprise at the idea of solving armed ideological conflict with massive outdoor orgies.

But. But. APRIL!

Tuesday, Erik contacted me while I was at the optometrist waiting for my eyes to dilate. Through no fault of our own, Pinniped landed a surprise!Gig at the Spar downtown (now run by McMenamins). A real gig with a stage and a sound system and sound guy and everything...everything except more than 48 hours notice. :P

We played Thursday night, and it was a blast. Considering that Erik had banged his finger in a car door Sunday and Dad was up past his bed-time, we did really well. I took a few wrong turns (which Erik referred to as "death defying improv") and managed to find my way back, a few friends showed up, and the manager seemed to like it (Yay!). There weren't a lot of people, though, which you'd expect for a thursday night with less than two days notice. When the people with kids started leaving around 10 the place emptied out a lot and it made it really tough for me to keep the energy up -- as on as Erik and Dad are bringing music and using stands, I'm the 'front' person -- I really pour on the energy to make up for the distance imposed by the stand. It's a lot harder to do that for any length of time when you don't have a crowd giving you energy back.

Still, there was much dancing about!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
In the same exciting 48 hour span, I found out that there was a whole lotta water on the ceiling in B's room, and apparently there had been for some time. I hadn't known, because B rents from me, and We Do Not Enter Renters Rooms Without Notice And Permission. Whole lotta water. Which he apparently just forgot to mention.

Slight roof-related panic ensues, in which we discover they didn't pull a permit to do the roof in 2009, and I have no record of the company. Luckily, my realtor was totally on top of things (If you're looking for a house in the Oly area, Marle is great). The roofers had someone out within an hour, and...

It was condensation. B's window and door were always tight shut, and the dirty clothes pile was...daunting. I didn't believe them at first (did I mention it was a whole lotta water?) but I've since been up in the attic, and it's dry as a bone, except...

Except for the bathroom fan vent. The fan had vented into the attic; when I bought the house I stipulated that it be vented to the outside as a condition of sale. Which they did! ...by running venting 15 feet over to the gable, instead of 3 feet straight up and out the roof. And not actually attaching the 6 in diameter vent to the 4 in diameter fan exhaust.

Uninsulated attic + 15 feet of vent + weak fan = vent is FULL of water.

Dad and I emptied it onto the bathroom floor and the lawn outside in the process of discovering this. Amazingly, it's never dumped on the ceiling drywall. Yet.

UPSHOT: Pinniped might be asked to play at a McMenamin's establishment again, and as soon as it's warm enough to work with roofing tar, I'm installing a new fan/vent! Wheeeee!

Did I mention all this started on my day off? And that in the same time I was pulled over by the state patrol*? Remind me never to try to relax.



*I may have slipped up and told my mother I was stopped by the space patrol. Maybe. btw the Space Patrol man was very nice and was just telling me the headlight was out.

We're playing at the Shelton Timberland Library tonight at 6:30, in our firstest ever public gig (we've played for weddings and private shindigs so far).




There's a brand-new section for such musical activities at Skellington Art.

I want a magic flying luck spaniel.

Also, Otters' Holt played pretty damn well at the Rotary club talent show, even if we did flub the very beginning and I did feel out of my element among the comfortably affluent people. Also, I may have had too much wine.