In the first place. . . .

 

In the first place, gods, daffodils and plum duff*  I love you guys.  The Harass Oisin Riot Thread is amazing.  There ought to be a way to harness all that and end war or reverse global warming or something.  As it is I may have to give away more than one poster.  Maybe even a book. 

            Don't stop now.  You're totally on a roll.

            And anybody who doesn't ordinarily read the forum . . . reform your habits at least this once.  Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee.**

I can use a little frivolity and gaiety.  Darkness was terrifyingly sick yesterday, pretty much the worst I've seen him since I finally figured out the cereal allergy two years ago.  It was so bad that my auto-shut-down mode went into effect, which is why I didn't mention it here yesterday while it was going on.  He's much better today, but a seizure like the last 24 hours has to be very hard on his system, not to mention his caretaker.  And what I'm afraid must have happened is that he picked up the end of someone's sandwich*** while the dog minder was hurtling them Saturday night in the dark, while I was at the opera.  She knows about the allergy, but the severity of it isn't tattooed on her synapses the way it is on mine—and when hellhounds are doing their army on a rampage trick they're also pretty hard to keep perfect track of—especially after dark.  So I'm twice worried:  I'm worried about Darkness, and I'm also worried that I may be going to lose another dog minder.  She may decide she doesn't want to have to cope with this—and indeed if it happens again I'll pull the plug.†

            Meanwhile I decided I didn't want to risk leaving Darkness at home in case he suddenly needed to go out right this minute . . . so I cancelled the dog-minder's standard Monday afternoon hurtle and took them along to my voice lesson:  the driveway where you park is not only off road, it's immediately outside Nadia's music room, so between screams—er—I mean exquisite musical renderings, I could look out and check for intra-Wolfgang frenzy.  Hellhounds were fine.††

            I was . . . um.  It's ridiculous how much I love singing, whether or not it loves me.  There has been some slightly mysterious sea-change however from the time Blondel left to three weeks ago when I started with Nadia;  it's like what he'd been trying to drum into me has had an opportunity, over the last months, to seep through secretly after all.  So we're already starting slightly beyond where I was when Blondel left in September, which is a bit exhilarating.  It also fascinates me the way that Nadia is clearly aiming at the same mark as Blondel although her explanations, exercises and suggestions are slightly different.†††  I'm still persecuting The Minstrel Boy, but I said (hesitantly) that I'd been looking at Vaughan Williams' The Roadside Fire—from Songs of Travel—partly as a result of our conversation about English song last week, and she said great, bring it along next week‡  ::Beams::

            And tonight at tower practise Colin, obviously deranged from grief at the loss of last Friday's quarter, had us ringing Grandsire minor.‡‡  And Erin.  Which was created to confuse Stedman ringers.  Which is very unkind, since ringing Stedman successfully is a feat.  We should be allowed, if not to rest on our laurels, at least to have them.  Erin rushes in, stage left, shouts, nanny nanny boo boo sucks, and races off again, leaving jangling noises and the sound of Colin shouting.   Feh.  Well, it was his dumb idea.

            Darkness ate supper and is crashed out.  Yaay.

* * *

* http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/plumpuddingplumduff_89799 , just in case any of you Americans thought I was making it up.  Really, if I'm going to swear by a British pudding it ought to be spotted dick http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spotteddick_78629 , but that would probably be asking for trouble.  And we've already had the joke about Oisin's enormous organ, so we don't need to have it again.  I will remark, however, just lightly and in passing, that every time I have to refer to the damn thing—the one with keyboards that plugs into a computer, it's the only one I know anything about—I waft a small fretful complaint to the language gods that that particular large and exceptionally thrilling musical instrument doesn't have A BETTER, MORE PRECISE AND INDIVIDUAL NAME.  

** I was trying to choose one to post here as an example of the really superior twistedness and creativity that this blog seems mysteriously to attract.  I can't.  But here are two: 

The first from ned: 

Dearest, darlingest, loveliest Oisin. Please write a guest post soon, or I will be forced to begin singing Kumbaya over and over and over again in proper protest fashion. However, since I don't know any of the proper verses, I'll be forced to make some up:

"Someone's knitting, my lord, someone's knitting…"

"Someone's turning on the lights, my lord, someone's…"

And someone else will be grading my exam, and someone else will be selling me coffee, and someone else will be trying to teach me and an entire class full of grumpy pre-meds about microbial physiology. That last one will be a bit difficult to fit in one verse without horribly disrupting the rhythm, but by that point I'll probably be a bit woozy from lack of breath and won't notice.

Of course, this can only end one way:

"Someone's coming at me with a chainsaw, my lord, kumbaya;

If only Oisin had written that guest post, my lord, kumbaya…

I guess I'm not too young to die, my lord, kumbaya,

Oh, lord, kumbaya."

And after that I will HAUNT you, and keep singing it. Somehow. Possibly borrowing the vocal chords of your friends and loved ones. And you will have only yourself to blame.

. . . which had me pretty well sick with laughing.

And from Mrs Redboots:

My dear Oisin, some months ago, we're told

A certain Hellgoddess, known to us all here,

Performed an act of magic in your rooms,

Lifted her voice, sang, warbled, made a noise

That you had longed to hear, had begged, beseeched

Upon your bended knees entreated her.

The hellgoddess, as is the way of such,

Drove a hard bargain: "Yes, you'll hear me sing

If you will write an entry for my blog!"

She sang. And now, Oisin, the time has come

For you to do your part in this exchange.

Pull out your keyboard – no, the other one,

The one on which you write, and make a start.

You'll find it's not so difficult to do.

But if you fail, beware, beware the wrath

Of all the minions threatening on this thread.

. . . which had me declaiming.  Yah.  Rah.  Blah.  ::gestures:: 

I also like the squeaky cats, the yowling violins, the ill-favoured lullabies, the note from PamAdams that a Google search for 'Octopus and Chandelier' brings up this thread^ and that Oisin is therefore wasting a chance to become more famous, and the threat from one forumite to lock herself up in Oisin's music room and play chords that don't resolve.  Aaron has also posted the beginnings of a canon which I admit is giving me very nasty ideas. 

            And you know, Oisin ought to be in a fairly fragile state after a nimiety of octopi . . . we should certainly manage to produce an effect . . . but whether it will be a blog post or a nervous breakdown remains to be seen. 

^  ::hysterics::

*** And I would like to kill the lazy thoughtless slobs who throw food any old where because they're too damn lazy to put it in a bin.  Granted my hellhounds' problems are unusual, but garbage looks like hell, stinks, and attracts rats and disease—and I object to tax money going to pay extra civil support staff to pick up after pillocks.   

† Yes, I have often thought of muzzles.  But the off-lead aggressive dog problem still gets priority.  It's bad enough my guys have to deal while they're on lead—I'm just not going to muzzle them—I'm not going to wreck their personalities too.  I've told you Darkness starts showing some symptoms of defensive aggression when we've had a bad season for truculent four-legged nincompoops—and even Chaos can be pushed too far.

†† Except that it's suddenly so cold again.  When I found out tonight's bell practise was at South Desuetude I went back to the cottage and put on longjohns.  I wasn't expecting to get my longjohns back out again this winter.  Never mind.  And—just by the way—there is nothing cuter than two hellhounds in the back seat with a blanket tucked over them.  It's interesting, the whippets never learnt to settle down under a blanket—they'd always shake it off (this was mainly Holly, who was dim) and get cold.  These guys, you break out the blanket in cold weather and they're all, Yes!  We're lying down now!  Lovely blanket!  They were entirely content while I was screaming, er, singing, although when I got back to the car there was a definite air of okay, we've been good, now you're going to hurtle us in this fascinating new neighbourhood, aren't you?

            Dogs are such a treat, even when they're a total pain in the butt.  I don't know how people enjoy themselves without a little domestic fauna around causing complications.

††† Except when they aren't.  Both Nadia and Blondel are big on arriving at a note from above rather than below, for example.  I think one of the reasons singing fascinates me is because so much of it—apparently—is taught in mad metaphor which turns out to be absolutely practical.  What nonsense is it, to let your in breath carry you up that octave, so you're already there before you have to sing the note?  But it works. 

‡ It has one serious drawback:  it's in five flats.  Please.  And that's not enough, it has extra flats, here and there (including Cb and Fb, which are the best^), and double flats.  ARRRGH.  I remind myself that I now understand that equal temperament tuning has meant that all notes are not created equal, but Fb STILL MAKES ME CRANKY.  And what this means in my practise is that, since I know the tune, I will be singing the pitch so my frelling finger on the frelling piano can find the right note—rather than the other way around. 

^ For the non-musical:  if you look at a piano keyboard, you have white keys, plus little groups of black keys in twos and threes.   C Major is where the world begins, and it's the scale that is all white keys.  You start adding black keys as sharps and flats.  The two places you haven't got a black key to make a flat are C and F, so it's a bit ridiculous.  There are reasons why an otherwise sane composer gets into these positions+ . . . but you don't really want to know. 

+ Hint:  equal temperament tuning. 

‡‡ Which might be likened to the bell version of Cb.  You know it exists, you even know why it exists.  You still rather wish it didn't.  Although Grandsire minor is easier to play than five flats.