Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 62

From Twitter 11-02-2010

09:44:07: RT @patinagle: RT @bookviewcafe: Today's Special from Deborah J. Ross: new chapter in Jaydium - read it for free at http://www.bookviewc ...
09:44:57: RT @KSmithSF: http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/?q=33 - Signed financial reform law allowing shareholders of publicly traded compa ...
09:46:04: RT @NASA: [News] NASA's Fermi Finds Giant, Previously Unseen Structure In Our Galaxy: NASA will hold a media teleconference ... http://b ...
09:46:28: RT @robinmckinley: Note that there's a link to the first THREE chapters of today-released PEGASUS on opening page of my blog: http://rob ...
09:47:17: RT @joshtpm: Great 2010 irony: dozens of wall street funded GOPers running on anti 'wall street bailout' platforms
09:49:33: Last night's rehearsal strenuous but effective. Tonight will, I hope, go well.
09:51:03: Election Day in USA: Vote! Yes, it matters.
10:51:24: RT @robinmckinley: RT @violinknitter: Forget Election Day @robinmckinley's PEGASUS is out 2day! Get & read it, it is lovely & wonderful ...
11:25:16: RT @johnjosephadams: In honor of election day, read Resistance by Tobias S. Buckell and find out what happens if you outsource your vote ...
23:14:46: Requiem Mass tonight, singing Durufle...wow. What a wonderful bunch of people I get to make music with!

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Requiem Mass: Durufle

Well, we did it.  Unfortunately R-  came down with a gut bug today and could not go with me,  but I trekked down through the rain and traffic in plenty of time.   It was a very different experience from last time--last time we did it with an orchestra and organ, as a performance,  in a different church but not as part of a service, and with a different director.   This time,  the parts were used as service music in a Requiem Mass...and we had David Stevens directing  (and leading all the rehearsals, so we were much better prepared.)

It worked...amazingly.    The meaning of the words mattered more in that context, embedded in the service itself, than in a purely performance setting.   There were little human blips here and there, but nothing that really detracted.   Every section outdid its rehearsal self, and the rehearsal selves weren't just your average choir.

Austin, our organist, also amazed--the organ accompaniment for this thing is very complex and in places (looking at the organ score) seems impossible if you aren't born with a couple of extra hands and feet.  Somehow he handled it all with only two hands and two feet (and a page turner.  At least we had a hand free to turn our own pages!)

Election Day: Vote!

If you didn't vote early, vote today.  

Vote even if  the media insist your candidate doesn't  have a chance.  Your candidate doesn't, if all his/her supporters stay home.

Vote even if it's inconvenient--even if it's difficult--even if there's a line out the door of the polling location and you hate standing in line. 

Vote even if no candidate passes your personal purity test by agreeing with you on every single point.   Vote for the best you can find--or against the worst if you must--but vote. 



(I was going to post this late last night, but a line of thunderstorms came through and blipped our power.)  

From Twitter 11-01-2010

07:45:32: Dress rehearsal tonight.
08:03:10: Anniversary today. It's been a very interesting 41 years with someone who still makes me laugh out loud regularly. Good hugs, too.
10:54:50: Cooper's Hawk in back yard, drinking from water garden then perching in pecan--got a good view. Adult male. Came back w/camera--gone.
15:06:46: My computer believes Standard Time began last week. It used to. But now we're stuck with DST longer, so its time is an hour off.

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Forty-one Years

Today's our forty-first anniversary. Celebrated so far with bacon at breakfast and a slow dance in the kitchen, to the hummed tune of "Tea for Two."

A lot of memories to look over, like old snapshots..."Wasn't this the time...?" "OMG, look how skinny we were!"

Ups and downs, as anyone has in that length of time. Nothing turned out the way we imagined it would 41 years ago...for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health...but the one thing we were both fixed on...we're still here, still together, still loving.

The thought we had (or I had, anyway) that All Saints Day was a good day for a wedding (easy to remember, anyway) and Halloween a good night for a rehearsal dinner has been tempered in recent years by the realization that the church and choir directors tend to think of All Saints/All Souls as a great time for choir performances...last year, on our 40th, we each had one, in different choirs, in different churches, just barely offset enough that I got to hear his.   This year  I have the Durufle Requiem tomorrow night--and a dress rehearsal tonight.

Instead of a dinner out somewhere, a dance in the kitchen in the morning.   Flexibility (if not of knees and backs, of responses to life's challenges.)  Shared laughter, shared tears (less than of shared laughter), all that other sentimental stuff.  It's been a very full forty-one years.

From Twitter 10-31-2010

11:05:03: Young leopard frog found dead in water garden; other frogs still hopping around healthily. No injuries, no abnormalities but death.
11:05:37: We have frog predators, but they eat the frogs they kill.
16:32:12: RT @Quotes4Writers: "Don't worry about meaning. If a story's any good, it can't help but have meaning. Let the PhDs tell you what your s ...
16:33:57: Regenerating the remnant of the soup w/ some chunks of leftover sausage, can of tomatoes&green chilis, can of black beans.
22:13:10: Finally got over to rancher-friend's to see his new cattle guard, stock tanks, and the prospective replacement bull.
23:30:24: Unfortunately, Streaker is the only one of my cows that survived the last round of culling (still not enough grass.)

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From Twitter 10-30-2010

07:11:00: Off to rehearsal very shortly. A beautiful day will be spent struggling to make beautiful music, but all the day has to do is exist.
16:36:17: RT @patinagle: RT @bookviewcafe: Today's Special from Sarah Zettel: new chapter in Camelot's Blood - read it for free at http://www.book ...
16:46:39: Long rehearsal, lots of mistakes, so came home and made banana nut bread. Ahhhh. (If I could only make good tea!)

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From Twitter 10-29-2010

08:29:46: RT @vondanmcintyre: Nautilus Ch 7 featured free, Sunday, Book View Cafe. Sneak peek: http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Vonda-N.-McI ...
08:29:54: RT @robinmckinley: Certainly not at my level RT @AdviceToWriters: No matter what level of success, there is no such thing as a secure wr ...
08:33:46: Plot ideas bursting free at midnight lead to mornings of "Uuhhhhh?" and "Urrrggg." OTOH, new plot bits...SHINY. #writing
18:03:00: RT @KSmithSF: Four questions for Republicans...and four answers for undecided voters http://t.co/Qh8NV39
21:57:56: Young men who get mad and resentful and storm out of the house in a huff are not watching for danger. #writing

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From Twitter 10-28-2010

11:19:49: RT @patinagle: RT @bookviewcafe: Today's Special from Katharine Eliska Kimbriel: new chapter Fires of Nuala - read for free at http://ww ...
11:19:53: RT @patinagle: RT @bookviewcafe: Today's Special from Gerald M. Weinberg: new chapter in First Stringers - read it for free at http://ww ...
11:20:24: RT @MarsRovers: Spirit still hibernating, but analysis of data/pics from her sand trap on Mars yield new surprises. Water? http://bit.ly ...
11:23:52: Cool...crisp...gorgeous day...so why am I still inside and only now getting to Twitter? (Books don't write themselves.)
12:14:45: Lunch over. Back to work. Scene in which good deeds continue to have distressing results. Realistic, that. #writing
14:33:27: RT @KSmithSF: KY-Sen: Target of Conway prosecution funding Rove's shadow group http://t.co/qtY81L1
16:12:43: RT @crooksandliars: New At C&L: My Conversation with Billionaires About Taxes, Responsibility, and Libertarian Lies http://gocl.me/cWL1VF

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From Twitter 10-27-2010

11:03:15: High today near 90 (predicted, 89F) and low tonight in the 40s F after the next front comes through. Already quite warm, wind still SE.
11:04:12: Morning work on book--good progress today. Difficult scene untangling. #writing
21:58:14: Note to self: a touch of food poisoning does not improve the voice. The F#s were pitiful.
21:59:48: RT @KSmithSF: Why we needed health-care reform, in one graph - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/10/why_we_needed_health- ...
22:32:51: But the stronger cool front is even now pumping cool air into the house. Should be nippy by morning.

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