The French Fries Strike Back

It's Not So Bad

2011-06-11T10:11:00.000-04:00

It's Saturday.

The surgery yesterday went really well. Although we were all convinced that because of all my scar tissue the surgeon would have to convert to open surgery, he was able to manage the job without doing that. The usual placement of the small incisions was blocked by scar tissue, so he moved over a few inches and tried again -- and got a clear shot. I've got more incisions than your typical laparoscopic gall bladder removal, but no open surgery meant I was able to go home later that day, after I proved I could keep a little food down.

It was slightly complicated, but successful. Once the surgeon got in there, he was able to see that the common duct that the gall bladder/liver/pancreas drains into is about half the size it should be for an adult. I must have inherited this from my grandmother; she had gall bladder problems too. But anyway, the other thing that they could finally see was that my gall bladder was full of small stones as well as sludge. Because of the small duct, they were definitely blocking the duct and causing the pancreatitis. The surgeon said the pancreatitis should resolve now.

It actually wasn't such a bad experience. I had requested that such of my family as could be there, if they would be there for me. I just had this really strong desire to be surrounded by my loved ones, and they came through. It was so comforting to have them there. So even though it was a physically painful experience, it felt like an oasis of calm in the midst of the storms that are tearing up my life. And better yet, my good friend S happened to be in the physical rehab place next door (she recently had shoulder surgery), and she came to be with us too after she was done with physical therapy. That was really sweet of her. I felt warm and loved, in spite of the nausea and the pain.

After getting home in early evening, my family continued to take care of me, and S promised to stop by every couple of days to check on me (Hubby has to go out of town, unfortunately).

It's very quiet and peaceful without TK around. I feel bad for saying that, but it's true. The rest of us get along so well. As parents, we did a pretty good job with the other kids. I wish I knew what I did wrong with TK -- I thought I treated him the same as the others. But I guess he needed better than that.

Living in Interesting Times

2011-06-09T23:25:00.000-04:00

Monday afternoon a surgeon told me that I was going under the knife on Friday (which at this point is 12 hours away). His opinion is that because I have pancreatitis going on, it's riskier to put surgery off than it is to do it.

Monday evening Troubled Kid had a meltdown, had a massive fight with the entire family, and ended up in a psych hospital on suicide precautions.

I don't know what to think. I don't know what to do. I'm at the end of my tether. Things have come to such a pass that TK is impossible to live with, but he's also massively incapable of going out into the world and making it on his own, despite the fact that he is close to 25 years old.

The argument was unbelievable. We had given TK a full week to get the trash out of his room, because it was disgusting, smelly, and spilling out under his door into the hallway. The deadline came and went, and we did what we informed him we would do if he didn't do it himself: we went into his room and removed all the trash ourselves, leaving his stuff entirely alone unless we had to move things to one side to get at the trash. I moved a box. I moved a chair.

Dear Lord, I touched his trash. I'm such a horrible person. I have stabbed him in the back. I can never, ever, be trusted again, and he now feels no obligation to respect anybody else's belongings. He lit into his father and I viciously, demanding that we come up with some way for him to trust us again if we want peace in the family.

Um. Yes. Demanding. Under our roof. Completely oblivious to the inappropriateness of his demands and behavior.

He lost the fight, partly because we didn't back down, and partly because one of his brothers was also there telling him he was being unreasonable and childish. At 2 in the morning, he woke my husband up to tell him that he was supposed to go to the emergency room. Apparently he'd been on the phone with his therapist, being suicidal, but we actually don't know that officially. Someone slipped. We're actually not allowed to know anything about what's going on with him, because he's an adult.

I have an issue with that -- how are we supposed to do the right thing when we don't have much of a clue what's really going on?

He's been in a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital all week. And I'm in a moral quandary, because it's bad for the rest of us if he comes back. The stress of dealing with him regressing for the past 2.5+ years has been destroying my health. His brothers say that he ruined their childhoods (not that they told ME what he was doing at the time, unfortunately). My husband has to protect all of us, and he's in a terrible pickle. If we tell the hospital that TK can't come back, he becomes their problem. And he could well kill himself. And then I'd never forgive myself.

It breaks my heart to see him in so much pain that he actively wants to die, but I'm also so angry from the inappropriate behavior and the abuse that he heaps on the rest of us that I honestly can't find any willingness in my heart for him to come back.

I don't know what to do.

Best get some sleep. I've got major surgery tomorrow morning.

This Just In

2011-06-03T19:05:00.000-04:00

I will definitely have to lose some bits. Specifically, my gall bladder, which the test on Wednesday showed is full of sludge. If it's not removed, it will continue to irritate my pancreas, causing it to slowly digest itself. So far, the damage to my pancreas is minor, but it won't remain that way if the gall bladder isn't taken out.

So -- out it's going to go. I meet with a surgeon on Monday to determine when. Better sooner than later, I hope; I just want to get this over with. Even unsweetened peppermint tea gives me a bellyache. And I don't have a lot of excess weight left to lose.

Life lesson: Don't ignore pain. This should have been taken care of 2 years ago.

Three Days to Go

2011-05-29T12:56:00.000-04:00

.. until I find out what, if anything, my doctors plan to do with me. That's when they will subject me to an endoscopic ultrasound, then decide what to do, based on the results.

I'm ready for anything. Surgery, whatever, I don't care. The pain won't go away, I'm losing weight hand over fist and I'm not succeeding in expanding the number of foods I can eat. The hilarious part is that because I've lost so much weight, all my friends are telling me I look great. In some ways it's not fair -- I'm sick, truly ill, for the first time in my life, and I'm deprived of any sympathy because I look great.

Go figure.

Just do it

2011-05-24T09:18:00.000-04:00

Weight is still plummeting because my insides are only happy when they're empty. They don't even grumble about that much, so I've hit a sort of even keel. Trying to tread the line between hunger and pain is difficult but doable. It's a "just do it" thing.

At the moment, it's okay if I shed some excess weight. I can't keep it up forever. Next Tuesday comes one last [uncomfortable] test, and after that, the doctors will decide what to do. If the answer is "Nothing," I think I'll fire them all and get a new batch. At the rate I'm losing weight, considering the very small amount of the very small number of foods I can eat, I can't go on like this past the summer. I guess no doctor worth his or her salt would let me go on like this, in pain and losing weight, but there's always the little voice that's convinced I'm not worth the trouble as long as I can manage to stay alive, so they won't do anything about it. Just do something, docs, please. I can't go on like this forever.

Troubled Kid is continuing his own spiral downward. His room is a pigsty, which I haven't been at all happy about, but now the trash in his room is migrating out into the hallway. I've been leaving it, just to see if he'll actually pick any of it up. This is getting redonkulous. It's bad enough he's stopped taking care of himself, but now he's letting his environment become unhealthy -- and then he complains about his allergies acting up. Well DUH.

Oboe practice is sporadic at best. The last practice time I was able to spend was Sunday. It went well, except for my embouchure getting weaker. I still managed 30 minutes. I need to practice more, or I'll lose that much. It's hard to motivate through the pain, but I've got to do it. Just do it -- adults do what needs to be done, it's part of being an adult. Just do it.

'Nuff said

2011-05-22T15:57:00.002-04:00

10 Things You Never Knew About Me

2011-05-16T16:45:00.000-04:00

Just playing a game. Here are 10 things I almost never tell anybody:

1) I taught myself to read when I was 3 years old.

2) I was supposed to skip 9th grade, but my father wouldn't allow it because it would have put me in the same grade as my older brother, who was supposed to be 2 years ahead of me but had flunked a grade in elementary school.

3) I dropped out of high school.

4) I don't have 4 children. I have 5 children. One of them died of congestive heart failure at the age of 10 months. (I don't talk about it because it tends to be a real conversation-stopper.)

5) I don't have my appendix.

6) I listen to Barry Manilow when no one else is home.

7) I was once a postulant.

8) I have a scuba diving license.

9) I'm a published computer game author.

10) I like to drive big semi-commercial trucks. (It's compensation for being a small woman -- har! just try to mess with me now!)

Shh, Don't Admit to Progress!

2011-05-14T10:15:00.000-04:00

Or it might go away!

Yesterday afternoon, Hubby made a batch of whole wheat bread without adding any oil, and made one loaf's worth into rolls. Since the only ingredients were whole wheat flour, water, yeast, and a bit of salt, I decided to try eating one of the smaller rolls. I didn't have an attack of pancreatitis! Yay! And it was wonderfully filling. I think I almost forgot what that was like. Ahhh, bread! The staff of life!

Ssh! Don't say it loud enough for my insides to hear! They might strike back! (No, wait a minute, isn't it the french fries that strike back?)

While I'm still nervous about eating -- it's amazing how serious pain can squash your appetite -- I'm beginning to be a little hopeful that my diet can consist of something more than just oatmeal, cream of wheat, oranges, and baby carrots, which is what I've been living on lately. And I do still get some pain no matter what I eat, but it's not the oh-crap-what-is-this pain that sent me to the hospital on April 28th.

I've been saying for years that I'll take physical suffering over spiritual suffering any day of the week. And now I think I can safely say... that I still say that. The two different kinds of suffering are in different compartments in my mind, I think. Physical suffering -- it's easier to attribute that the brokenness of the world, and not blame it on God. Our DNA is corrupted, and getting more corrupt with each passing century. My maternal grandmother had similar sorts of digestive issues; I come by this honestly. I can be philosophical about it.

Spiritual suffering, on the other hand... God could step in. He could comfort the afflicted one, but for reasons we can't understand, chooses not to. Sometimes I rage against Heaven, metaphorically pound on its doors, screaming, "WHY WON'T YOU OPEN???" Then I become despondent, convinced that I will have to spend the rest of my life in this wretched desert of the soul, this blighted dark night, because that's not something I can look forward to.

It's so very hard to drag myself to Divine Liturgy, that half the time I can't do it. Then I have to drag myself to Vigil so I can go to confession before I dare approach the chalice again. I used to be so very reliable -- I was eager to go to every service, you couldn't keep me away. Now it's like pulling teeth. Father understands, or seems to. Every time I come back, he patiently hears my confession, encourages me.

I have to remember the bluebird.

A lot of years ago -- I'm not sure how many, maybe something like 20 -- I was in a pit of despair, certain that God didn't care about the likes of me. To be honest, I'm still not sure about that. But anyway, I was in the kitchen, raging at my husband, asking him (I thought) rhetorically, "What's God going to do? Send a bluebird to prove he loves me? God doesn't work like that!"

Right then, right at that moment, a male eastern bluebird landed on a branch outside the kitchen window.

I have absolutely no explanation for that. It certainly challenges my deeply-seated conviction that there are two kinds of people in the world: the people God cares about, and the people God doesn't care about, and that I'm one of the latter. Some people get all the breaks. Some of us just get left in the cold, with no comfort and no way to understand. Why would God send a bluebird to the likes of me? One of the ones he leaves in the desert, in the dark night, without spiritual comfort or sustenance, to the point where it all becomes so meaningless, to the point where it takes everything I have to drag myself to services, to the point where I don't even succeed half the time?

And then, there is this grown, 24-yo son of mine. Who is, I now know, mentally ill. Who is becoming impossible to live with. Who is causing so much stress that I can no longer physically sustain it; my health is breaking down. Who even denies that the way he's behaving stresses the rest of the members of the family. Good Lord. I can't take it anymore. I spent the last half of the spring semester commenting to my husband and close friends, "I don't know how much longer I can take this stress." I then found out exactly how long I could take it: until April 28th, when an attack of acute pancreatitis caught up with me. I can't live with wondering what he's going to do next -- is he going to launch another verbal attack, screaming profanities? is he going to destroy something else? what's he going to throw in the trash next time? will he become physically violent -- which he refuses to promise not to?

I remember my grandmother, toward the end, when all she could eat was baby food. I'm not doing much better than that. Oatmeal and cream of wheat, oranges and baby carrots and bread. Peppermint tea, it must be added. Water, plenty of water, must stay hydrated. The extent of my gastronomic world.

Enough maundering for one morning.

Starting from a Full Stop

2011-05-12T14:43:00.000-04:00

That's what my husband called it, anyway.

I finally felt well enough to get out my beautiful Rigoutat and practice. Due to my health problems, I haven't even had a lesson in 2 weeks. The first week of that, I was in the hospital, so there was no possibility of practicing. In the week since I came home, I've been too ill. But I felt better today -- took a short walk with my husband, then decided I felt able to give it a go on the oboe.

I was only able to practice for 30 minutes. But you know, not so very long ago I was wondering if I'd ever get to the point where I could practice more than 15, so that's not so horrible unless I think about the hour I was able to practice before going into the hospital. Still. Not bad for, as my husband put it, "starting from a full stop." Even not so very bad considering this love affair with the oboe has only been going on for 6 months.

On the practice menu until my next lesson: #14 and #15 in the Barret progressive melodies, and Shepherd's Song by Sol. B. Cohen.

I'll have to see if my face will let me spend another half hour at it later today.

To be honest, I'm horribly discouraged. It still hurts to remember the catastrophe that was my first "public performance" (in actuality, a class recital wherein we played each other's compositions), when I clutched hard and sounded so bad. And now I wonder if I ever sound good. When the oboe is resounding through your own head, it's hard to tell what it sounds like to a pair of objective ears. So perhaps I've been sounding horrible all along. I just don't know.

I'm questioning everything. Do I have any musical talent at all? Will I ever be good enough to play with other people without making them wince, or worse, feel sorry for me? Should I have taken on something a little less challenging, like maybe clarinet or flute? What am I doing, studying a new instrument at my age? Am I wasting my time and and my husband's money?

I just don't know.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling a little better today, healthwise. I still can't eat much of anything, but I've found a few things I can eat with minimal payment in pain. Oatmeal. Cream of wheat. Fruits that are mostly juice, like oranges. I'm getting my appetite back a little bit. I had a short walk with my husband. I felt up to practicing. As soon as I finish writing this, I think I'll sit on the porch and enjoy the lovely spring weather, which has come rather late to Pittsburgh this year.

Things are no better with Troubled Kid, sadly. Now he's decided that Dad is the bad guy. He's not speaking to me, either, but he blames that on me for not making the first move. We can't win for losing, of course, and recently I've begun to seriously consider the idea that we can't provide the kind of care that he needs, quite aside from the fact that he's become almost impossible to live with. If he were a minor, I'd put him in a psychiatric hospital of some kind. Seriously, I would. He needs more, and more intensive, care than we are qualified to give. I think we're doing him a disservice letting him live here, although we still don't feel it's appropriate to kick him out. He has nowhere to go. I'm pretty much at the end of my rope trying to take care of him. Nothing I do works; everything I do makes things worse.

And the stress just makes my health worse and worse. Lovely! /cry

New Directions?

2011-05-09T17:50:00.000-04:00

So. Since my health is the big issue lately, perhaps it's worth adding a health focus to my blog.

Big changes are absolutely non-negotiable, unless I want to live in pain and die early (which I don't). However, trying to navigate the knife's edge of what little food my body will tolerate, while I wait for an endoscopic ultrasound that might finally show what's causing all this, is no fun at all. The good news is, I've already lost weight since leaving the hospital. The bad news is, I can't seem to find much of anything I can eat that doesn't result in a lot of pain. For example, today's lunch consisted of a sandwich made of fresh baby spinach, sliced mushrooms, and sliced tomato on fresh whole wheat bread. That kind of thing could have come straight out of a Dean Ornish cookbook, ya know? Unfortunately, something in it set me off (I'm guessing the bread had a little too much fat? not sure). The pain didn't last very long -- thank goodness. But it was pretty intense while it lasted. Sometimes all it's taken is a handful of raw baby carrots and I'll be intensely uncomfortable for a couple of hours. Come on. This is ridiculous.

I will have to go to a plant-based whole foods diet, for sure. Hopefully at some point I'll be able to tolerate eating even that much. My gastroenterologist is convinced that my gall bladder needs to come out. My family doctor disagrees and will continue to disagree unless test results show something pathological going on. Me, I'd just as soon keep all my parts if at all possible. Our bodies have all the various organs they do for good reasons -- there's even a good reason for the appendix. But this pain is weakening my resolve. I'm doing everything the docs told me I needed to do -- it's not like I went home and feasted on fatty food (not like I wanted to, but still). I'm essentially vegan now. How much damage will be done to my pancreas before we get all this under control? I don't want to hurt every time I eat and I don't want to end up a diabetic, either.

A vegan diet itself is a bit problematic, and I need to figure that out. I'm legume-intolerant -- unable to break down and digest beans or peas (no, Beano doesn't help). That's the major source of protein for people on plant-based diets. Soy? Allergic to it. Nonfat milk? Um, I'm also lactose-intolerant. A bit of seafood? Allergic to iodine. I know. I'm a pain. But that's what I have to work with. I know I can get plenty of everything other than protein on a plant-based, whole foods diet, because other than my allergies and intolerances, I enjoy a wide range of foods. Fruits? Never met a fruit I didn't like. Veggies? Love loads of them. Greens? Not fond of them cooked, but I'll eat any of them raw. Whole grains? Love 'em.

So, there it is. Trying to get healthy, and studying the oboe. Oh, and trying to keep my sanity while one of my grown children regresses back into childhood. But that's a story for another day.

Just when you try to get back in the water...

2011-05-06T11:26:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I made it to the end of the semester. The most wretched Russian class ever was finally over, and I had 3 days to finish up a music analysis project (I chose no. 5 of Beethoven's opus 126 bagatelles) while studying for the music theory final. Then I sailed through that final -- aced it! -- turned in the project, and I was done with classwork for the semester. The plan at that point was to spend the day relaxing, finally, with my family, and then to dive into my oboe studies with both feet, spending the summer trying to get as good as I can before the fall semester starts.

Well, that's what was supposed to happen. What actually happened was, some pain I've been having for months (and ignoring because I was too busy to bother with it) ballooned suddenly into pain the likes of which I have never, ever experienced before (and I've had 5 babies, mind you). I scared my family spitless, because when the pain came on, it was literally breathtaking -- I was gasping, even though I wasn't actually having trouble breathing. Pancreatitis. I spent a week in the hospital, most of which was spent scanning me six ways from Sunday and keeping me off food while the inflammation subsided. The rest was making sure I could tolerate food before sending me home.

Tolerate is relative. I'm not tolerating very well the (very) small amount of fat I'm allowed to have. But at least I can eat bland foods with no added fat, like fruit, steamed veggies, rice, or hot cereals like oatmeal. I can live on those for a while.

Upon reflection, I am considering changing the name of this blog to "In Danger from French Fries."

And the docs are arguing about what caused all this. Gall bladder disease. Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. Autoimmune pancreatitis. Who knows what else, I don't care, I just want to know a) what it is, and b) how to avoid another attack of it. The only thing they know for sure is that it's not alcohol-related, because I scarcely ever drink (I think I've had a total of 3 drinks in the past 6 months, and the last one was in February). There's a blood test still pending, and we're in the process of scheduling an endoscopic ultrasound, which was the one thing they couldn't do at the hospital I was at. After that -- it's pretty much all she wrote. Short of cutting me open and taking a look, if those tests are inconclusive like all the rest, it looks like there's nothing anybody can do.

And the Drama Continues

2011-04-24T21:20:00.000-04:00

Still smarting a little from Friday's misadventures in music, on Saturday evening I got ready to head to church for the Paschal Vigil services.

I couldn't find my shoes.

Okay, I'll wear my clogs -- wait, where are my clogs?

What the -- ?

Hoping I wouldn't look too strange, I pulled my walking shoes out of a corner and wore those. Since our services are 4 hours long, it really wasn't such a bad choice, overall.

This morning I found my shoes and my clogs. In the trash can under a fresh bag of garbage. Suspicion immediately fell on our child of "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" notoriety. Which child, not surprisingly, never did come down for a big breakfast that he normally races down to dig in to. Sausage. Eggs. The works. Never showed his face.

*sigh*

I don't know how much longer I can live like this. What's next on my kid's hit list? My oboe? How do I protect my stuff from someone living under my own roof?

I don't have the faintest clue what to do now.

Well.

2011-04-22T16:37:00.002-04:00

It was a bad day.

I clutched so badly in a class recital that a flautist had to take my place, playing a fellow student's composition. I just couldn't play. It was simple. Start on a dotted half note G5, then float downwards, stepwise, over the course of 2 measures, to Bb4, in the key of G minor. Easy. Even I could play that. Flawlessly. In practice.

Could I play it in front of an audience? Heck no. My fingers refused, utterly refused, to play left F, insisting on sliver F instead. This, of course, made the Eb that followed squawk as the 4th finger of my right hand tried (and failed) to slide from sliver F to Eb smoothly. When I did once force myself to play left F, my fingers refused to find the Eb. We restarted several times, at which point the professor kindly suggested that I take some time to calm down and went on to the next piece with the next group.

When he came back to us later, I was unable to face trying again. Thankfully, K. the flautist volunteered to play it for me, while I sat there feeling like a fraud. "I call myself a musician???" I was thinking, as my face burned from humiliating myself. "I'm twice these kids' ages and I can't play a simple little passage that isn't any harder than Lightly Row???"

My entire purpose in taking up the oboe was to be able to play with other people. Here I get the opportunity and I clutch so hard I can't continue. GAH.

Propranolol for performance anxiety isn't going to help -- I already take it, every day, in large doses, for my heart. I clutched anyway.

It wasn't made any better by having been the follow-up to failing my Russian oral final. Every single student in the class failed the oral final today. Every single one. I was already feeling really awful going into the recital.

I'm very discouraged right now.

edit: I should have clarified that in this class recital we were playing each other's compositions. I was given an oboe part to play that was about 30 bars long and dead simple.

Beta Blockers for Performance Anxiety

2011-04-12T10:31:00.000-04:00

This is a new one on me. I googled the topic, did a little reading, and decided I have no idea what's going on with this. I take propranolol for medical reasons, under medical supervision -- 160mg daily, which is a much, much higher dose than the 10-20mg that would be prescribed for anxiety. My ability to concentrate has not, so far as I can tell, been impacted. (If it did, I'd probably not be pulling a 4.0 GPA going back to college.)

This piques my curiosity, because I had no idea that interfering with one's ability to concentrate was a possible side effect (it's not listed as a possible side effect on webmd.com, for example). Did I shrug it off? Did I just not experience it because I didn't expect to (sort of a reverse-placebo sort of thing)? I've been taking this drug for years now, so any transient side effects would certainly be long gone. Is this a side effect that only occurs if you don't take it regularly, failing to give your body the opportunity to adjust? Do those who experience this side effect have it because they expect it? So much to think about!

Quote of the Day

2011-03-25T09:08:00.000-04:00

Don't practice oboe when you have a cold! The back pressure will make your head explode.

How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth

2011-03-13T21:46:00.000-04:00

Most parents in western culture experience ingratitude from their children sooner or later. I expected it, at least in the short term, until they have children of their own and realize how much their father and I have done and continue to do for them.

But betrayal. A stake in the heart. I don't know who this kid is anymore, and I don't know what I did wrong that he should be so twisted. He is nothing like his brothers -- his brothers, fine young men who make me fairly burst with happiness and pride when I see them stretching their young wings and flying. The world is their oyster.

I treated them the same. I don't know what happened. My third child, the oldest I have with my second husband. He could not seem to learn compassion, he could not seem to learn to share, he could not seem to learn that there is a whole world past the end of his nose. I tried to just keep loving him through it. I thought if I just kept being patient and caring, he'd eventually come around. But now he has turned on me, tells wild stories of things that never happened. I never believed in false memories -- I always thought it was just a fabrication made up by desperate abusers trying to hide their barbarity -- but now I have graphic proof before my own eyes that people can think they remember things that never happened.

I am finding out who my real friends are. And they are few. It cuts all the deeper for that. All I can think is that I am paying for my sins -- such as they are, the ordinary petty sins of a housewife -- I am paying for them at a vastly accelerated rate.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, said the Bard through his beleaguered Lear, to have a thankless child. How sharper, indeed. In the searing pain of this, yes, I think I would prefer to face a serpent. A serpent can only kill you. A thankless child can tear your heart out while you still breathe.

3.14159

2011-03-09T09:29:00.000-05:00

Somebody wrote a fugue based on the value of pi. Really cool!

Making Lemonade

2011-03-07T23:44:00.000-05:00

When I have a migraine and my nerves are on fire, Beethoven symphonies are drop dead amazing.

The Long Journey Home

2011-02-24T01:07:00.001-05:00

This past Monday, Pittsburgh got socked with about 8 inches of snow. The snow began during rush hour and continued until close to midnight. I have a late class on Mondays, so I didn't get to the bus stop until 7pm, well after the snow was beginning to cause problems for motorists. I stood at the bus stop, watching the roads in Oakland turn into a sloppy mess. The front of a car would stop, while the back would keep going. I was amused, and glad that I wouldn't have to worry about driving. I should have been apprehensive.

In retrospect, I should have known I was in trouble when I saw buses starting to slip in the snow. I should have been sure of it when 4 buses in a row refused to take on passengers at my stop. After a grueling hour-long vigil, a bus heading the way I needed to go finally took passengers. It wasn't going exactly where I needed, but it would get me part of the way. I took it.

I still didn't twig to the possibilities when the bus headed up the long hill on Forbes Ave at a speed I could easily outrun (and I have a hip injury).

I exited the bus in Squirrel Hill and headed a block down Murray to catch a bus to the Waterfront. As I walked around the corner of Forbes and Murray, a small silver car begin to struggle in the icy intersection, blocking it, spinning its wheels and getting nowhere. It wasn't heavy enough to get any traction. Cars and buses backed up. There were still plenty of people around who could have helped. Healthy-looking, strong-looking young men walked by, paused to watch, continued on. Any two or three of them could have easily pushed the car through the intersection. None did. A worker walked out of the Rite-Aid on the corner and yelled at the driver. The car continued its struggle. I wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do. One small woman with a damaged hip can only hurt herself trying.

It was a sign of things to come.

For another grueling hour, I waited at a bus stop on Murray. I saw buses heading the other way, but none were coming my way. A man whose brakes had just blown and a woman who couldn't drag her roller-pack through the snow stopped to wait for the bus. Traffic thinned. Pedestrian traffic thinned too. The snow was blanketing everything by now, giving the world that quiet, muffled air characteristic of a snowy world. By now it was 9pm, and I was just beginning to get twinges of anxiety. Finally, a bus turned our way. It was a 61D. Exactly the bus I needed. We cheered. I thought my trip home was almost clear.

It was a long, slow drive to the Waterfront, but I was in a cheery mood. I'd get to the Waterfront, and I'd catch a 53 home. That was the usual procedure.

Not tonight.

About a dozen or so people were waiting there at the Giant Eagle at the Waterfront. They told me the 53 had just been and left 10 minutes earlier. Gah. At that time of night, they run once an hour. I had about a 50 minute wait, and it was 9:30. Oh well. I settled in to gab with the other people waiting.

Shortly after 10pm, a bus on its way to the garage stopped briefly to inform us that the Port Authority had ordered all buses off the road. NOW the true nature of my predicament hit home. The Waterfront closes at midnight. The Waterfront is between the river -- and Homestead. My house, only a few miles away, might as well have been the other side of the moon, because Homestead lay in the way. Homestead is a dangerous place to be at night. Especially if you're alone. Especially if you're a woman. People have been murdered in Homestead within the past couple weeks. Just this morning I waited for the bus with a young man who was robbed at gunpoint there last night. It was less than 2 hours until the Waterfront completely shut down and there would be no safe place to wait out the storm.

Even if I could walk safely through Homestead, I couldn't drag my rolling backpack up the steep, steep hill -- my hip has been extremely painful lately, probably from the winter weather, and I'm not sure I could make it up that hill unencumbered, much less dragging a roller through snow. Even if I could make it to the top of the hill unmolested, which I very much doubt I could.

I called my husband.

My husband, being Polish American, being stubborn, having what we like to call Slavic Genetic Disorder, was of course determined to come get me, however difficult it would be to get a 2-wheel drive minivan down the steep hill on West St in the snow and the ice and the muck. I know there's little else a husband would want to do, which is why I was reluctant to call him. Surely there was something the managers at the Waterfront could do. Call the fire department? Call the Red Cross? What do you do when people are stranded in a storm? But nobody was doing anything. Stranded bus passengers were frantically calling anybody they could. Taxis were only running for medical emergencies, which wasn't us. A few employees were offering to take people going their directions, when they got off work at midnight. But no one was going up that hill. I was stranded.

It took my husband a half hour to dig our minivan out of the snow and get it out of the side-street behind our house. The idea was for him to drive to the top of the hill, leave the car there, and walk down, then help me to get up the hill. I was extremely nervous about this plan. I wasn't sure my husband could walk down those icy sidewalks without breaking his neck. I wasn't sure he could walk through Homestead at night without getting mugged, or worse. I wasn't sure the pair of us could get back up the hill without getting mugged, or worse. It was all just a terribly scary situation, one I didn't see any way out of.

But God bless him, my husband got our minivan down that hill without sliding out of control into cars, buildings, telephone poles, pedestrians, or the river. When he called to say he was driving on 8th St, which is just to one side of the Waterfront, I couldn't believe my ears. Our minivan can take 6 passengers (including me). So we were able to get some people home -- a scared couple with a baby who were deathly afraid for their little one. And then, miraculously, we were able to get back up that hill, and, wondrously, there was parking in front of our house. When I walked into the house, I nearly cried. The kids came down to greet me and give me a big hug and make sure I knew they'd been worried. It was midnight. My journey had begun at 7pm. I sank into my chair and shook for an hour.

I don't know what happened to the people we couldn't help. I dearly hope they had safe journeys home.

Is this true???

2011-02-17T10:47:00.000-05:00

Chase Britton, the boy without a cerebellum

This is amazing, truly.

Acapella!

2011-02-16T22:51:00.001-05:00

I love Rockapella, and I get a huge kick out of this song. (At one time, it was on our answering machine!) This particular concert took place in my hometown of Santa Barbara, California -- looks like the Granada Theater.

Back to Music!

2011-02-16T22:20:00.003-05:00

Viola Fail. At least he took it in good humor, but what an ouch for a 250-yr-old instrument!

A Political Aside

2011-02-16T21:50:00.001-05:00

As the US Congress contemplates an internet kill switch bill, I can feel the earth shake as our Founding Fathers roll in their graves.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, February 1775.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

George Washington, "Circular to the States" (8 June 1783)

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Archibald Stuart, Philadelphia (23 December 1791)

I've lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth — That God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that except the Lord build the House they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this, — and I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our Projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and Bye word down to future Ages.

Benjamin Franklin, Speech to the Constitutional Convention (28 June 1787)

People Who Can Make Music With Anything -- Phantom of the Floppera

2011-02-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

I love the way some people find innovative ways to make music with, well, just about anything. Here's something you've probably heard before -- making a floppy drive sing.

Something to Just Love

2011-02-08T20:02:00.000-05:00

Given that Vivaldi taught at a girls' school, I would love to see his reaction to this (one of my personal favorite acapella renditions).

The Little, uh, Alto? That Couldn't

2011-02-06T18:45:00.001-05:00

Christina Aguilera singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl.

I called out to the TV, "Come on, you can get it! You can get that high note!"

She didn't get that high note.

<Dr. Smith> Oh the pain, the pain! </Dr. Smith>

*wince*

(Yes, I know she's a soprano. Which makes it all the more puzzling.)

Like a First Date

2011-02-03T18:02:00.000-05:00

Today, my oboe teacher did two things after listening to me play this week's etude: 1) she started to teach me vibrato; and 2) she announced that I should start playing some Handel or Haydn.

I feel like a young girl about to go out on her first date, all dressed up for the first time.

Only on Facebook

2011-01-31T21:20:00.000-05:00

One of my friends on Facebook writes:

I had to sign a HIPPA statement for my rat's medication. It's nice to know that her little rat privacy will be carefully guarded.

Yes indeed, good to know. *falls over laughing*

Oboe sign! Is that oboe sign?

2011-01-28T19:18:00.000-05:00

Okay, I admit, you have to be a pretty hardcore science fiction geek to get that one.

I've got 4 oboes on trial, and today my oboe teacher and I spend some time going over them. She made me leave the room while she put them together and lined them up, then started handing them to me without telling me what they were. I would play all of them, then she would play all of them, in the same order. Then she'd mix them up and we'd go through it again. That was a "round." They were:

Loree C model, standard bore
Fox 300, resin
Howarth S40C, standard bore
Rigoutat Expression

The Loree got eliminated in the first round. It was a little bit shrill, had a sort of whistle, and was just generally harsher than the others. I probably won't spend any more time on it; it really did set my teeth on edge.

The Howarth got eliminated in the next round, which surprised me. I thought the resin oboe would get eliminated before the Howarth. It got eliminated because I liked the other two better, rather than because of any dislike of it. It's a nice oboe with a good tone. I just liked the other two better.

The Fox got eliminated in the last round because I liked the Rigoutat so much more. The Rigoutat has a rich, chocolate-y tone that I just love. When my teacher was playing it, part of me just went, "Ahhhhhhh" and relaxed. When I was playing it, it was easier to play and seemed to suit my small hands better. My teacher said it sounded better than the others when I was playing.

We didn't test the pitch too much, although I was able to play all of them in tune with a good reed. I plan to test that in more detail this weekend. I'll be playing the Fox, the Howarth and the Rigoutat a lot more, so I'll see if my feelings about them stay the same.

Intermediacy

2011-01-27T21:24:00.001-05:00

Today, after slightly more than 3 months of lessons, my oboe teacher told me I am no longer a beginner.

I am absurdly pleased with myself.

When Motion Sounds Like a Circle

2011-01-27T11:41:00.002-05:00

I have auditory synesthesia. Synesthesia, for those who don't know, is rather like having your brain cross-wired. Stimulating one part of the brain -- such as knowing the alphabet -- automatically stimulates another part -- colors -- and voila, letters become inherently colored. I'm not a scientist, and that's an oversimplification, but I hope you get the general idea. Numbers can become colored, days of the week can take on personalities, years can take on spatial locations. There are auditory forms of synesthesia which have only recently been identified, such hearing motion. I hear motion. I also feel sound, and I hear it when someone touches me. This is unrelated to volume -- I can have a full-body experience of a Beethoven symphony while listening to it at low volume with earbuds. When I have a migraine, the lightest touch can be painfully loud; my family knows what it means when my face is pinched and I say, "No touchie!" There are other strange cross-connections: the spoken word "wow" sounds round.

If you want to test yourself for motion-sound synesthesia, watch this video. If you have this form of synesthesia, you WILL hear it. (To me, it's pretty loud. YMMV)

I hear an F4 when the dots are moving outward and a D4 when the dots are moving inward. Other people hear bubbling or whooshing. If you hear something, please post a comment tell me what it is!

Before I became aware of my synesthesia, I thought everybody experienced the world the way I do. It's just not quite as blatantly obvious that an auditory synesthete is experiencing something different as it is when a visual synesthete tells you that a P is red or that 5 is green or even that E flat is blue. Nobody ever talks about these things, really. How was I to know that the person standing next to me can't hear the little birds hopping around on the lawn across the street? I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to hear them.

These days, I like to think of it as my life having an enhanced soundtrack.

Because of my synesthesia, I experience music differently and I have odd opinions about the great composers. Beethoven was a towering genius. Well, many musicians and music lovers think he was a towering genius, of course, and I have the same opinion on that level, but Beethoven took his music into another dimension. It's so perfect that I suspect he had to be an auditory synesthete himself. The way his symphonies and piano concerti flow through the body is amazing. It creates euphoria. It plumbs the depths. He had to have been aware of what he was doing. By contrast, I listen to Brahms and it's pale. There's something missing. Beethoven had it. Brahms didn't. Rachmaninoff could do it (I wonder about him too). His mentor Tchaikovsky couldn't. Beethoven played with it. It's patently obvious. I feel like I know Beethoven, the man, what he was underneath the temperament and the eccentricity. What a pity he lived only 56 years.

I wish, I so so wish, that I could get together with other people who feel music like this and listen to symphonies together and talk about what it does. It's probably an entirely subjective experience, but it would be fascinating to know what other synesthetes feel when they listen to Beethoven's 3rd, for example.

There are drawbacks to being this kind of synesthete. Big ones. I canNOT listen to sustained dissonance. My brain interprets dissonance as physical pain. It can make me quite ill. It can trigger a migraine. It triggers my fight-or-flight instincts. If I can't get away from it, I cry. It's just impossible to listen to it; liking it is beyond absurd. So there's a great deal of 20th century music, including unfortunately much of jazz and "modern classical," that I am completely unable to appreciate because I just can't listen to it.

But what I can listen to, which is pretty much all Western music from the Renaissance up through the Romantic era, well -- some of it, definitely not all of it, but some of it, is pure exaltation.

I love Russia

2011-01-26T21:17:00.001-05:00

Only in Russia.

These pictures are blatantly stolen from the Only in Russia blog.

The sign says, "This is our favorite store." Yes ma'am, even the baby loves this place.

And my only question about this one is, Did the bricklayers just come from the store above?

I just love that country. :-D

Melodious progress

2011-01-24T20:59:00.000-05:00

I'm in heaven.

I have oboe lessons on Thursdays. Last Thursday evening my oboe teacher assigned no. 6 of the progressive melodies in the Barret for me to work on. This same piece looked me in the face a month ago and growled at me. It did. Really. I heard it. (Yes it did. Stop looking at me like that.) So I started working on it Friday not really sure how it was going to go.

Oh my. It has rough spots, but generally, I swing right through it. I practiced until my mouth wouldn't form a seal around the reed, then reluctantly swabbed my oboe and put it away, but I was high as a kite from how well I managed it. And possibly from oxygen deprivation... :-D

I tried it again Saturday with the same result, except it was a little smoother. Same high. I'm loving it.

I seem to have gotten over a knobby little hump without realizing it. There are mountains to come I'm sure, but dang, practicing just suddenly got FUN.

Box? What box?

2011-01-23T18:55:00.001-05:00

In another part of the internet, I commented about the fact that Windows Media Player insisted that a CD of Schumann's 4th and 5th symphonies was actually a CD of his violin concerto, even going so far as to name the mp3 files on my hard disk as movements of said violin concerto.

So, my little sister (who is the same age as my children) responds, "You are so far outside the box when it comes to music." She listens to Sheryl Crow and Lil Wayne.

I can't stop laughing.

Speshul!

2011-01-13T15:38:00.000-05:00

The borough of Pittsburgh in which I now reside was so very happy to have me that they sent me not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR (identical) Certificates of Voter Registration this morning. I feel so speshul. Does that mean I get to vote four times? blink blink (Not hardly! kicks dirt Shuckins!)

I hope Allegheny County wasn't charged postage for all four of them, but I suspect it was.

Today's Note

2011-01-12T23:25:00.000-05:00

A solid D sharp. I'm feeling absurdly pleased with myself for no reason that I can discern.

Несмотря на то, я не закончила моё домашнее задание. Я должна написать сочинение о театре, где и когда я шла в театр, какую пьесу я посмотрела, и т.д. Я посмотрела пьесу ... тридцать пять лет назад. Ой. Я не знаю то, что писать.

For those who can't read Russian, what I think I just wrote is: "However, I didn't finish my homework. I'm supposed to write an essay about the theater, where and when I went to the theater, what play I watched, etc. I watched a play ... 35 years ago. Oy. I don't know what to write."

I guess I'll have to lie. :-X

Oboe? Oh boy?

2011-01-10T23:11:00.000-05:00

Having decided to buy my own oboe, I'm at a complete loss.

I'm wondering if I should take a small step and buy something like a Fox 300 -- definitely an oboe someone like me could grow with for a while, and I wouldn't have to get all OCD about making sure it didn't crack, since resin oboes only crack under extreme provocation.

Logic tells me that there have to be oboes available in the Pittsburgh area, but having only lived here a year, word of mouth is of limited help.

Must go ponder.

Fibercane (or NOT)

2011-01-08T13:45:00.000-05:00

On a lark, I ordered a fibercane oboe reed from a company which will remain unnamed for now.

Wow, was it ever a disappointment.

The first thing I did with it -- which I do every time I pick up the oboe anyway -- is to play a few scales. I ran up the oboe from the low D and didn't even make it to A before I had to stop, frowning. And again, slower this time: D.. E... F#... G... Ewwwww. There was perhaps 25 cents between the F# and the G. Again, blowing as hard as the oboe would allow without honking: D... E... F#... G.. ***FULL STOP*** Might have gotten a 30 cent difference in pitch this time.

At this point, I'm thinking, "They call this a reed?"

I turned to my music and played the first couple bars of an exercise. *cringe* It wouldn't play E natural. The thing just buzzed and hissed a harmonic. I looked at the thing in stark disbelief. "They tout this as a valid alternative to natural reeds?"

I have well and truly discovered why oboists hate fibercane reeds. Yup.

I brought up my email client.

I received my order yesterday. I was *extremely* disappointed in the fibercane oboe reed. It is so unstable that it's impossible to play a simple scale in tune, let alone a melody. Some notes that are normally a little unstable on any oboe (such as E natural) won't sound at all; the reed simply buzzes along with an out-of-tune harmonic. I was hoping the fibercane reed would be a free-blowing and longer-lasting alternative to natural reeds, but I'm seriously disappointed. It is completely unplayable, and I fail to understand why you even sell such travesties.

PPPBBBBBLLLLTTTTHHHH

2011-01-07T20:02:00.000-05:00

For the first little while when I start practicing oboe, I sound like this, but afther a while I starpl thoupppll lithe thpppbbbllll.

Decisions, Decisions

2011-01-04T14:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's oboe lesson was challenging. Even with 2 weeks to practice, I couldn't play the pieces I'd been given anywhere near adequately. After struggling with the first 2 measures of the first piece and restarting them several times, she told me to remove my reed and hand her my oboe so she could try it, whereupon she proclaimed, "Your oboe sucks. That could be what's causing most of your frustration."

O.O

That comment started a chain of thought that led to my decision this morning to forgo the Summer Language Institute this year and buy an oboe instead. The chain of thought went something like this:

My husband's general plan was to get me an oboe for Christmas 2011. Now that I know my rental oboe is really bad (where before I suspected the oboe was terrible, but still thought that all the deficiency was in me and my playing), waiting until the end of the year will be even harder.

The summer will be the fourth semester in a row of taking classes at Pitt, and the Summer Language Institute is extremely intense (a full year college language course, in 8 weeks). That's a possibility of burn-out right there. Additionally, if I do that, I won't get a substantial break until summer 2012, after 6 straight semesters of college work. I can't see myself NOT getting burned out.

Tuition for the summer would be more than $4500. That could buy a really nice oboe, and I'd only have to wait 4 or 5 months to get it instead of the entire year.

I'm opting for the oboe. :-D

An Ear By Any Other Name

2011-01-02T17:08:00.000-05:00

A probably useless exercise, this, since nobody reads this blog.

I can tell when a note is on pitch. I cannot tell you what the note is, however. I can tell when a melodic interval is sung correctly. I can usually tell you what the interval is, if it's played ascending. If it's a descending interval, even odds I can't tell you what it is, except possibly tritones. Play a note for me, and I can tell what register it's in, but I can't give you the note name. Ask me to sing a note for you, and I'll get close, but I'm almost always flat. I'm told that might be my age.

Sing out of tune, and I will start to climb the walls and, eventually, cry. So long as you stay in tune with yourself, I'll be reasonably comfortable. I'm more comfortable if you're in the right key. It just feels weird if you're not.

Different keys feel different. C Major is majestic. G Major is grand. D Flat Major is calm. F Major is somewhat melancholy, almost minor sounding. And so on.

I don't know if this is relative pitch or something else.

Every year my husband goes to a Byzantine Catholic pilgrimage in Uniontown, PA. For many years, I've been going with him. The cantors at this pilgrimage are entirely volunteer, and every year, there is a pair of women to whom my husband and I refer as "The Andrews Sisters." The one who sings harmony isn't in tune with the other, and the one who sings melody isn't in tune with herself. You could use a recording of them to etch glass.

It is one of the mysteries of the universe that so many people at the pilgrimage love listening to them.

I, on the other hand, find it excruciating. Every year, when they are singing, I pray for God to blow out the PA system. I feel like a trapped animal. I stick my fingers in my ears and hum, but that usually doesn't cut it. There is nowhere to escape from the horror. If it were possible to gnaw my own ear drums off, I would do it. I begin to feel as if I will scream in unendurable agony if I have to listen to another moment of it.

I know a lot of musicians who completely enjoy listening to singers who cause me pain. Heck, it's hard for me to listen to opera. Those sopranos don't always *quite* hit the high notes. How is it that nobody else hears it?

How, indeed?

Oboe Inside

2011-01-01T14:24:00.000-05:00

If I were a musical instrument, I'd be an oboe.

I'm finicky. Sensitive to the environment. Need constant adjustment. I can stand up to immense pressure. I can crack from a gentle breeze at the wrong moment. Play me wrong and I honk like a goose. Play me right, and I'm the sweetest thing on earth.

Oh yeah, I'm an oboe all right.

Gratitude

2010-12-31T21:39:00.000-05:00

Things I'm grateful for, in no particular order:

Getting to make a trip to Alaska. Making new friends there, and having the opportunity to venerate the relics of St. Herman of Alaska and the grave of Blessed Olga of Kwethluk.

Having the opportunity to go back to school, which kicked me out of the blue funk I was in.

Having hip surgery that finally, after 5 years of chronic pain, got me walking again.

Having the opportunity to begin studying oboe.

All the beautiful music, music which makes it possible to get inside the mind and heart of the person who composed it. However distressing the personality of the composer, it just goes to prove that there is something beautiful -- the spark of God -- in everyone.

I am grateful for Beethoven. For Rachmaninoff. For Tchaikovsky. For Bortniansky. For them all.

But most of all, for the wonderful man I married 25 years ago and has stuck with me through all the pain, as difficult as I can be.

New Year's Ease

2010-12-31T17:29:00.000-05:00

Wasn't invited to any New Year's Eve parties this year, so will spend a relaxing evening at home.

Brassy Footwork

2010-12-29T17:33:00.000-05:00

I'm still giggling over this one.

What Habbens When Libs Go Nub?

2010-12-29T17:29:00.000-05:00

You talk like this: Dear? By libs are nub.

That's me, after practicing for about 30 minutes on a medium soft reed.

Hey, that's not bad for only a bit more than 2 months of oboe lessons!

I still haven't conquered the left E flat (thanks to abnormally short fifth metacarpals, I wonder if I ever will), but on the positive side, I can play a simple arrangement of Bach's Ode to Joy pretty well -- at least I can until my lips stop forming a seal around my reed. Then the only sound I can make is PPPPPPPBBBBBBLLLLLLLL accompanied by a hiss coming from the bell of my oboe.

Another day, another numb note.

Today's note: Middle C. Yeah, that feels about right.

The Blizzard That Wasn't

2010-12-27T19:56:00.000-05:00

During the great blizzard, my part of Yankee territory got about...

One inch of snow. Or so. Maybe less.

So, unconcerned about the weather, I spent a couple of sessions today trying to master a passage in which Eb5 is preceded by Db5 and followed by Ab5. I just can't get it right, blast my small hands. This piece also spends a lot of time above high G -- which means I can only practice in very short sessions, due to my weak, two-month-old embouchure. My face feels like raw hamburger after about 5 minutes. It's taking forever to master this.

The more I practice, the stronger I'll be ... a few months down the road. Mommy, can I just wake up when it's all stronger?

At least it's an intermediate piece. I'm no longer a completely raw beginner honking away and being absurdly pleased with Lightly Row. All those years of piano lessons weren't entirely useless -- I pick up new instruments pretty quickly, and I have a really sensitive ear (not perfect pitch, but darn close to it -- you sing out of key and I will climb the walls and start to cry). My oboe teacher started me into some early intermediate material a couple of weeks ago.

Why did I choose oboe? When my face feels like somebody is using it for a punching bag, I wonder why I didn't choose something easier on the face, like flute. Then I remember what a flute sounds like when it's wailing away above high C, and I happily quack my oboe again.

Today's note: A.

Music, the Other White Meat

2010-12-25T17:40:00.000-05:00

Can you live without music?

I can't. I can't live without hearing it. I can't live without playing it. I can't live without symphonies playing in my head all the time.

It's only in recent years that I've been discovering that most people don't walk around with music playing in their head all the time. I still find that very hard to believe. Because sometimes I think I'm entirely *cough* composed of music. If the music stopped, I'd cease to exist. Wouldn't everybody?

Wouldn't you?

Mostly Harmless

2010-12-24T17:19:00.000-05:00

Hello, my name is Anna McNonymous, and I'm not 172 years old. I feel like it sometimes, but I've only just passed the half century mark.

I play the piano, I've just started playing the oboe, I write music, and I'm learning Russian. I also like to make quilts and knit sweaters. I'm about as harmless as you can get and still continue breathing. I'm only dangerous if you're a medium-rare steak. Or a french fry. Particularly a french fry with cheese melted over it. Then you need to be aware that I still possess all my own teeth, which the Russians will assure you can bite harder with. I will assume that since you're reading this, you aren't a french fry -- french fries can't read. Sorry to sound like a bigot on that point, but there it is. It's just a fact. French fries also can't hear, so don't bother trying to warn them about me. Well, you can try if you insist, but I assure you that you can't save any of them from my french fry habit. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Today's note: B flat, with occasional forays up to C. No C sharps today, but no A flats either. We like this.

If I sound barmy, it's because today I am. It's not every day I find out that my father who disappeared 20 years ago is still alive and being taken care of by a half-sister I've never met. And oh, by the way -- she's pregnant. I'm going to be an aunt by a sister who is younger than my children. You'll have to forgive me for being a touch distracted today.

It's Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas, one and all.