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two weeks after I started it. And to think I started out writing a chapter a day.
This weekend has been sort of busy, however. Friday and Saturday were mostly given over to the Pleasanton Games. The Caledonian Club has been putting on these games, according to their material, for 139 years -- does that mean since 1865? It was all very large and disorienting and strange. Emma's event was on Friday, before the games actually began. The disappointing thing was that the Grade 1 (professional) piobaireachd competition was at the same time, so the Grade IV competitors, who are students really, couldn't listen to the top guys do their thing. Emma's grandparents came and listened and then took us to lunch at a strange and interesting restaurant called Blue Agave Club, which was technically good food but weird -- tequila in all the sauces and sauces on the burritos. We got Emma's score sheet which had no score or placement numbers on it and comments like "generally very nicely played" and then something in cantareachd (the syllable jargon pipers use to express the music when they're talking about it) and then something utterly illegible. One of Jay's other students placed and had to go back on Sunday to compete again. Emma was just as glad to only go back on Saturday, with the assignment of listening to Canadian pipe bands (the unofficial theme of the games was Canada; we also listened to a kilt-rock band called Kinship from BC). We listened to some bands, though I don't know if any of them were Canadian. We also ran into a passel of folks from town, including members of the SC high school pipe corps, which meant that Emma spent the time we were watching the Grade I band competition critiquing the mallet work with our former tenor drummer who is coaching our current drummers, and I spent that same time with Sarah's father, sharing in his delighted discovery of the bass drummers' strategies in these bands. He's learning bass drum with Jay's band, where Sarah also plays.
We settled another controversy, in that we found a not-too-exorbitant sporran (crotch purse thing) which Emma liked almost as much as the little rabbit one, which also fit the description of the kind that Jay wants her to have if she's in his band next year. Simple, tassles, Celtic knotwork on the flap -- but smooth leather. Emma says she has to go to at least enough more of these games to get the little sgian dubh dagger thing, the ghillie brogue shoe things, the wide belt, and I forget what else, one at a time.
Um. She's going to compete next in our own backyard, at the Loch Lomond Games .
Also my son came home, unarrested and unbeaten. He mostly demonstrated with the labor guys, since he was tagging along with his friend's union (graduate students).
And other than that -- I have reorganized yet more large chunks of kitchen, producing two bags of garbage -- mostly old shelf paper -- and a bag of stuff for the charities. I am stripping paint. I am stirring wine.
And now I'm getting on with it.
I have also a pinched goddamned nerve in my shoulder, causing nerve compresion in my left hand. No, it's not carpal tunnel -- that causes compression on the nerve that feeds the thumb side. This is mid palm and the pinky side.
This weekend has been sort of busy, however. Friday and Saturday were mostly given over to the Pleasanton Games. The Caledonian Club has been putting on these games, according to their material, for 139 years -- does that mean since 1865? It was all very large and disorienting and strange. Emma's event was on Friday, before the games actually began. The disappointing thing was that the Grade 1 (professional) piobaireachd competition was at the same time, so the Grade IV competitors, who are students really, couldn't listen to the top guys do their thing. Emma's grandparents came and listened and then took us to lunch at a strange and interesting restaurant called Blue Agave Club, which was technically good food but weird -- tequila in all the sauces and sauces on the burritos. We got Emma's score sheet which had no score or placement numbers on it and comments like "generally very nicely played" and then something in cantareachd (the syllable jargon pipers use to express the music when they're talking about it) and then something utterly illegible. One of Jay's other students placed and had to go back on Sunday to compete again. Emma was just as glad to only go back on Saturday, with the assignment of listening to Canadian pipe bands (the unofficial theme of the games was Canada; we also listened to a kilt-rock band called Kinship from BC). We listened to some bands, though I don't know if any of them were Canadian. We also ran into a passel of folks from town, including members of the SC high school pipe corps, which meant that Emma spent the time we were watching the Grade I band competition critiquing the mallet work with our former tenor drummer who is coaching our current drummers, and I spent that same time with Sarah's father, sharing in his delighted discovery of the bass drummers' strategies in these bands. He's learning bass drum with Jay's band, where Sarah also plays.
We settled another controversy, in that we found a not-too-exorbitant sporran (crotch purse thing) which Emma liked almost as much as the little rabbit one, which also fit the description of the kind that Jay wants her to have if she's in his band next year. Simple, tassles, Celtic knotwork on the flap -- but smooth leather. Emma says she has to go to at least enough more of these games to get the little sgian dubh dagger thing, the ghillie brogue shoe things, the wide belt, and I forget what else, one at a time.
Um. She's going to compete next in our own backyard, at the Loch Lomond Games .
Also my son came home, unarrested and unbeaten. He mostly demonstrated with the labor guys, since he was tagging along with his friend's union (graduate students).
And other than that -- I have reorganized yet more large chunks of kitchen, producing two bags of garbage -- mostly old shelf paper -- and a bag of stuff for the charities. I am stripping paint. I am stirring wine.
And now I'm getting on with it.
I have also a pinched goddamned nerve in my shoulder, causing nerve compresion in my left hand. No, it's not carpal tunnel -- that causes compression on the nerve that feeds the thumb side. This is mid palm and the pinky side.
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