Days of Shades

I'm still busy, but far less stressed than I have been, and a maniness of good things is shaping up today. I had my shoe appointment, and instead of being frustrating and draining it was relaxing and fun, because instead of the old corp I went to a tiny place run by the music friend* who got fired by the big corp five years ago, the guy I've always liked, the one shoe guy who's always been absolutely genuinely honestly dedicated to not changing things that work and treating me like the expert on my own body. His office consists of him and an office manager, who also seems super sweet, and my 'appointment' was an hour and a half during which we also caught up on what we'd been up to for the last five years.

Before the appointment I went to pick my baby rent-a-tree up from Puget Sound Plants, which involved a few navigational failures on my part and quite a nice drive around the libby road/36th area. :P (I know the area and where I was; I just forget which roads actually go through. Answer: Not the one I was aiming at, apparently). It was a little weird because it's a wholesale nursery without a big public face, and I went in the wrong driveway, so I had to be pointed at the office -- but in the office was didotwite2001's little brother, who recognized me and has (she said in a tone reminiscent of an elderly aunt) really grown up into a nice young man. :P (He seems super happy to be working there too, H! He said he really likes it. Awesome!). I got my baby tree and four of the dwarf red osier dogwoods (3 for me; 1 for my cousin Kelsey, in Seattle, just because it's the 'kelseyi' cultivar :P), and a nice chat to boot.

To top it all off, I have a whole week off to look forward to, and caladri and I are finally figuring out plans for dinner, which is both fun and makes me feel less like a social failure. When I get really stressed I avoid making plans, and then worry that people will think I'm avoiding them, so finally getting it worked out is a marvelous thing. :)

Oh! And I've started getting cards, all but one of them From the Internet. I wouldn't usually count westrider's card as 'from the internet', since we met in meatspace and have even lived together, but this time... well, Westrider, you know what you did. :P It was so very from the internet. So internet. Much meme. Very christmas. :P

*"Music Friend" can refer to a wide range from close friend to acquaintance. It's really "Member of my music community", and it could be someone I see every week and have known for 15 years, like Tom the Dulcimer, or someone I haven't seen for years, like Brett The Shoe Guy. There's still a big sense of community because we know so many of the same people, and are there in an emergency (for instance, Brett is the guy who had the low-lying farm that was flooded a few years ago; I went down and helped with a work day for that).

And he explains one of the many benefits of real live musicians over piped-in sound:

"I may have saved a guy’s life while busking in the bus tunnel yesterday. He was old and threatening to fall backwards off an “up” escalator. He was keeled over on the handrail and his feet kept going up while the rest of him stayed in place. I didn’t see how he got into that predicament. His family was already at the top, unable to help him. I had to gently throw down my sitar (it’s REALLY hard to put a sitar down quickly!) and run up the escalator to catch him.

Tip your buskers, people! Canned music will just sit there and let you die."

Title not intended to promise that this will be a recurring feature, merely that we need some way to get through Monday. Post for and inspired by evilsherbear and opalgirl.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops

I'm not nearly as familiar with southern fiddle styles (Old Timey, Bluegrass, etc) as northern (Irish, Quebecois, etc), but I <3 the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They go from traditional to farther afield with the same energy, fun, and grace. Also, Rhiannon Giddens, or at least her beautiful voice, were part of one of the most eerie auditory experiences I've ever had (other key elements ere geography and weather).

Liz Carroll
Liz Carroll is one of my all-time favorite fiddlers and tune-smiths, mad Irish tunes by way of Chicago. When people spring the "Who's your favorite fiddler?" question I usually answer Liz.



The video is a great accoustic set at Fiddle Tunes (I'm pretty sure I was at that concert) with John Doyle. John is not only a phenomenal accompanist,* but jaw-dropping solo guitarist. He also sings and plays fiddle (left handed), though I'm not sure there are any videos of the latter -- I've only seen it in a session.



De Temps Antan
Can't forget Quebecois! I was actually looking for instrumental clips, but the audio wasn't meeting my standards. De Temps Antan is Andre Brunet, Eric Beaudry, and Pierre-Luc Dupuis.

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?

Brett and Lizzie of Full Circle Farmstead live in the Chehalis reiver valley and were hit by the flood - not near as badly as many, but enough to want some clean up help. There was a work party down there today, full of musicians and contradancers, and as I'm singularly ill-suited to tromping through uneven fields in the cold, I brought coffee and scones and pies from mum, and pulled inside duty. Which meant babysitting. No, I did not actually know this when I headed down.

As you might have gathered, babysitting is not my favorite chore. Mentally, I would far rather be out in the barn mucking out, but my fingers go numb and my ankle twists and it's just very impractical. Besides, Brett is the guy who does my shoes, and he knows these boots are new. :)

It was a pretty productive day, and by dark we'd been able to bring all the animals down from the various neighboring high-ground farms where they'd been taken (Brett and Lizzie didn't loose a single animal, which is really rare - some lost hundreds). I went out to help with the goats (Goats! Goats are cute. Goats go MAAAaaaa. I like goats).

We ended the evening playing a bunch of old timey tunes in the living room, and it was really nice to see the community come together to help out. Really, everyone in Lewis county has been great, but I'm particularly touched by seeing *my* community, the musicians and dancers.

This is my church.

Bass player Tony Mates passes on the tradtion.

It's always good to have a second career option to fall back on. If anything goes wrong with my current path, I'm going to be a wino. And I'll be prepared!

( Folk tradition is a wonderful thing. Thank goodness for Fiddle camp. )