Knitting in the Shadows

Massage Modalities, a Preview of Energy Work

I started this post about ten days ago, after a nifty sequence of topics in our Massage Modalities class. I've been fussing with it ever since.  Suddenly, I feel like I can neither do good research, nor good reportiing, nor good blog writing, but I'm going to give it a go anyway.

First, we learned a little bit about Polarity Therapy.

Then, we had a bit of a introduction to Zero Balancing.

And most recently, we learned about Hot Stone Massage Therapy.

And because my brain works that way, I found something that seems to tie them together.

Polarity Therapy is primarily an energy technique.  Zero Balancing is a wonderous blend of energy work, and deep tissue work that focuses on effecting what I think of as involuntary joints (not so much the elbow, where pretty much every move it makes is involuntary, but the sacral joints, and the intervertebral joints, and the joints between you ribs and your spine).  And while you may not think of it this way, even Hot Stone Massage uses energy -- the energy held in the bones of the earth.

According to the folks who do Polarity Therapy, "energy fields and currents exist everywhere in nature. Polarity Therapy asserts that the flow and balance of energy in the human body is the foundation of good health. In the Polarity model, health is experienced when: energy systems function in their natural state, and energy flows smoothly without significant blockage or fixation.  When energy is unbalanced, blocked or fixed due to stress or other factors, pain and disease arise.... Polarity Therapy seeks to find the blockages and release energy to normal flow patterns, and to maintain the Energy Field in an open, flexible condition."**

I know that I don't yet know enough about any of these things to write reliably on them my self, so I'm sharing some quotes from others' work:

"Zero Balancing focuses primarily on key joints of our skeleton that conduct and balance forces of gravity, posture and movement. By addressing the deepest and densest tissues of the body along with soft tissue and energy fields, Zero Balancing helps to clear blocks in the body’s energy flow, amplify vitality and contribute to better postural alignment. A Zero Balancing session leaves you with a wonderful feeling of inner harmony and organization."*  (And yes, I've had the chance to experience a zero balancing treatment.  It does leave you feeling more connected with yourself. Even two weeks later, I can feel the difference in the way I hold myself -- my body is more aligned than it used to be.)

Hot Stone Massage  connects "the flow or paths of energy together in order to rebalance the physical body, emotional mind and spirit as one."***  In addition to warming muscles to allow for easier release of tension, the heat works to "open energy pathways" and to energize chakras.^ Additionally, the stones themselves hold their own energy - and over time they seem to hold more and more. I'd have been skeptical about this, had I not felt a real difference today in class when we were learning and practicing how to use the stones. 

Among the things one experiences during a hot stone massage, is having small warm stones placed bewteen your toes (thin little things).  Since we didn't have enough stones for everyone in the class to have a whole set to work with, only one of my feet got to experience the toe warming stones. The warmth felt nice of course, but I found that I could feel a difference that I can only describe as an energetic one between the leg and foot with the stones and the one without.

 Who knew?

I've been very interested in energetic work all along - heck I came into the massage program having already become a Level I Reiki "Master." (I really don't think one masters the Reiki energy -- one merely invites it, like a guide, and facilitates its flow, but the Reiki world refers to it as Mastery).  I had expected that there would always be a bit of "energy work" in my massage -- in any massage really.  But I had not expected to find so much energy work that really works with the bones of the body or the earth.

....

An awesome blogger would have some pithy conclusion here.  This blogger does not.  This blogger's brain is full of studying for the Pathology Final, and is being distracted by wishing she could just put a hold on all that long enough to spend the weekend on a suddenly available seminar on hot stone massage, having received an unexpected gift of the full hot stone "kit" from a secret benefactor.  This blogger is hoping that by sharing this, she'll be able to let it go long enough to go re-learn all that stuff from the first half of the semester (like the differences between Myesthenia Gravis, and Multiple Sclerosis, and Muscular Dystrophy, and ALS -- all of which are real and important and jumbled in my brain).

 

* from http://www.zerobalancing.com/

** from http://www.polaritytherapy.org/index.php

*** from http://winchester-holistics.co.uk/treatments-available/about-hot-stones-massage/

^ from http://ezinearticles.com/?Hot-Stone-Massages-and-Chakra-Energy&id=4352923

I love nooners!

Once upon a time, when my life was a tad less complicated, I used to meet with several friends over the lunch hour (cough two hours cough) to visit, chat, eat lunch, and - most importantly - "craft".  Between us, we pretty much hit all the crafts at one time or another (well, almost, no one has spun at one of our meetings - yet).  Of the four of us, two sew regularly, one quilts, two knit, one and a half weave (I don't quite count yet), two crochet, two darn socks, one makes fun things for girl scouts out of almost anything, one ices cakes (and teaches others how), etc. etc. the talent and skills seem endless.

Today, for the first time in what seems like forever, I actually got to GO to the Crafty Ladies Nooner.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to escape the routine to hang out with much missed friends for two hours and chat and eat and knit!

I was too happy to be there to remember to take my camera, so there are no pictures.

As we parted ways, there were vague discussions of dipping candles next week.  Score! Another craft I totally shouldn't jump into, and yet -- with my love of candles .....

Be afraid.

When I left, after commiserating over the evils of their billing system with another person whose family goes to the same Medical Professional Clinic our family goes to, I returned home to tackle what may be the last round in the war to understand my bills.  I felt so uplifted by that little gathering that even THOSE bills couldnt't get me down.  I was almost finished when I broke for far more important things:  Dinner, and a wonderful band concert featuring Kitty and Bookworm (in what may well be their last concert together), and .. one of the Crafty Ladies' sons.  Gotta love band moms who knit.

Tomorrow, I attend my last class for the semster -- next week is finals week (but I'll actually be able to gather with these wonderful women again!).

And then, summer classes begin immediately.  And they all seem to start at noon.  Sigh.  It may well be August before I get to have this fun again.  But have it again, I shall.  I love nooners!

Another one Bites the Dust

In which I win another battle, in a different war.

You may recall that I'm engaged in a long time war with the dreaded Medical Professionals' Accounting System.  I still love our docs, but their billing system is so bad that even the folks in their accounting department hate it.  

As part of this war, I've been trying to maintain a spreadsheet that will let me see the following things clearly:

1. How much the Medical Professionals charge for each service (and how much they adjust that because of the contract with the insurance company.

2. When we have paid our deductible(s) so that the insurance company will pay their share of the bill.

3. How much the Insurance Company pays the Medical Professional for each service.

4.  How much I've actually paid to the Medical Professionals and

5.  How much of, and where the Medical Professionals have allocated the payments I've made.

and thus...

6.  How much we actually owe the Medical Professionals.

I'm keeping track of this stuff myself because (as we've discussed), the bills the Medical Professionals send do not clearly identify what I've paid, and they have a history of failing to allocate all of the money that I've paid.  The bills are particularly confusing since they don't deduct from the total they claim I owe the amount that they almost acknowledge that I've paid but they haven't allocated.

This would be simpler if the Insurance Company weren't in play, of course.  On the other hand, we likely couldn't afford the care we get without the Insurance Company.  Given that we have insurance in play, the spreadsheet gets more than a little complicated:  Each person has an individual deductible to meet before the insuranc company has to start paying; and there's also a family deductible -- once that's met, even if the individual hasn't met hers (or his), the insurance company has to pay anyway.  Of course, some things don't have to meet the deductible.  And ... some things have a co-pay, but others require "co-insurance".

?  That means that if there's a specified co-pay ($20.00 or $40.00 depending), you pay that amount, if not, you pay a percentage of the covered amount and the insurance company pays the rest.

So, in order to figure out how much I owe, I have to figure out how the insurance will be applied.  And, since I've long since learned that you can't necessarily trust the insurance company and/or the medical professionals to do the math right.  That meant that I had to work out some functions that would be able to yield the right numbers, based on whether the individual and/or family deductibles had already been met.  That's easy with one person (well, once you've figured out how to do if statements in your spread sheet, but I did that ages ago), but with three people involved, the if statements got more than a little complicated.

I do not want to discuss how long it took to master that if statement. I fussed with it, then left it, then came back for more another day, rinse, repeat.  But today -- I mastered that puppy.

The spreadsheet war is over (for now), and I appear to have won! I am now fully confident in my ability to create functions with nested if statements.  My favorite was one that went pretty much like this: if family deductible not yet met, then determine which individual's deductible we're working with, then if individual deductible not yet met, then deductible for this charge = the lesser of the covered amount or the family deductible minus the covered amount or the individual deductible minus the covered amount.

Time to go back to the paper wars so I can get that desk out of the guest room.

Hail the Conquering Hero (That's Me)

Today, I marched into the corner of a multi-purpose room that houses my desk and my files and waged a little war.  A war on paper; a war on bill confusion; a war on accumulation.The war is by no means over, but I won a couple of battles.

Why now, you may ask? 

Well, this room is being partially re-purposed so that when we have guests, it can serve as a guest room. (The former guest room has already been repurposed to serve as my Massage Room - and there are rumors afoot that my parents will be coming to visit in the not so distant future)  This room is also being adapted so that the large television can actualy be used to watch, well, television.  And possibly even movies. 

To this end, I must remove some of the furniture that has lived in the room for a long time.  One desk was moved into the "new" massage room, so that I would have a place to write SOAP notes, and put the books and records and oils and such that I need to use there.  This left one computer desk that houses the last desk top in the house (used intermittenlty by the kids, and serving double duty as a storage place for random stuff), one little corner computer desk that houses the very computer upon which I'm writing this blog, and the big desk that seems to serve as much as a repository for all the paper I don't know what to do with as it does a place to do work.

The big desk has to go.  Sure, I could wait until the next guest's arrival is imminent -- but I've just learned that the first four weeks of my summer classes are going to be HARD and intense, and leave me no time for whole days spent flailing at my "office" stuff.  The time is now.

Alas, the big desk also serves(d) as the filing cabinet for all those files I use (or file things into) every month when I pay the bills.  Thus - the first battle - ShadowDancer vs. the Paper Monster.

In my office corner, I have what amounts to six mini-file drawers full of files.  In the closet, I had another two mini-file drawers full of files. Two of these drawers are in the pedestal legs of the Big Desk.  My task -- empty those drawers so that the desk can be removed.

One solution, of course, is to siimply stuff the papers more tightly into the other drawers.  While that seems easy at first, I quickly realized that this would only make my job harder the next time I paid the bills.

Instead, I actually tackled the paper itself.  First, I pulled the wee filing cabinet out of the closet, and went through the files.  With fierce determination, and an empty paper bag, I mercilessly eliminated file after file.  Anything more than ten years old clearly had to have a VERY GOOD REASON to be allowed to stay in the house.  The folder full of cards from my wedding -- gets to stay. 

I then went through the other six drawers, purging all sorts of paper, and rearranging the way the files were organized until all the stuff I touch often fit into the little two-drawer guy, and the other cabinet got a full organizational over-haul.  Finding things will be easier.

With my full bag of useless formerly-filed paper waiting by the door to head down to the recycling bin, I survey a room that looks little different to the casual viewer - but I know that I've won the first battle against the paper monster.  I've won the first battle in the war to reclaim this space for a useful purpose.

 

Cheating on My Needles

When my beloved Darn Pretty needle died, I put the entire project in the time out basket.

I vowed to wait until I got a replacement Darn Pretty dpn to work on those socks.

Then the knitting bag with the Hopeful Socks went AWOL.  That left me without any socks to knit on. 

I can live without socks to knit on.  But my ability to survive with no portable knitting is limited.  Woman to Woman has gotten far to big to be portable.  And hauling a full cone of yarn around is not exactly easy -- so Dwarrodelf isn't portable either.

Today, I caved.

I dug into the dpn case, and found a spare 2.75 mm needle.  It clearly doesn't match (the points are dreadful), but it's good enough for now.... and this

went to a meeting with me, and became this

I feel a little guilty about cheating on the Darn Pretties with another needle... but a girl cannot live with only giant projects.

Ain't it the Truth?

I recently heard someone talking about their day: it had been frustrating, and she was looking back on it laughing a little -- at herself.  She said that she'd realized part way along the day that what was going on wasn't as much that everyone else was making her life miserable, but that if she looked hard enough -- she was making herself miserable.

She then offered up one of those marvelous little sayings that can, if we let them, jolt us back into better perspective. This one is odd -- it's not a sweet platitude.  It's even kinda harsh:  The magic phrase?   "I'm so mad at myself that I hate you."

Yeah, I know, at first glance that makes no sense. But....

Think about it...

When you're behind some drivier who insists on driving the actual speed limit through town when you're running late, you get angry at that person.  It's really easy to believe that the other driver is somehow at fault for your lateness.  But, why were you in a hurry in the first place? Perhaps  because you dawdled at home,and didn't leave enough time to get where you were going.  Perhaps you got up late, or lost track of time.  But even if the reason you started your journey late is your own doing, you find yourself angry "at that person".  Road rage burbles, and you call the poor driver unpleasant names in your head (or out loud even). But ... if you looked closely enough, that person isn't doing a darned thing wrong.  In fact, if you look honestly enough, you'll realize that you're not, in fact, angry with the other driver.  You're angry with yourself, for not leaving the house on time.

oops.

How often do we snarl at others because we're disappointed in our own choices?

And how often is it because we made some choice without paying attention? 

Or perhaps it was a decision that we sort of let slide until the decision was made for us?  Heck, it can even be a decision that made perfect sense when made (and was indeed the right decision at the time), but which has had consequences that were neither expected nor intended.

I'm sometimes angry at my lovely daughters because they're not eager participants in the task of making and keeping our house as clean as I'd like it to be.  Clearly, they're making their own decisions day by day, but even though they're "almost grown," my behavior in the past still has a lot of influence on their behavior today.  So ...... let's look back at the WHOLE picture.

I, myself, am not the neatest person on the planet. (I'm sure you're shocked.) While I really do like to have my living room neat, and my kitchen neat.... (oh heck, I love it when the whole house is sparkling clean, and the wood furniture has that wonderful just polished glow, and everything is in it's place (or would if I ever got the whole house that way all at once) ...  I am completly guilty of leaving knitting projects and textbooks lying around (okay, clustered around the "nest" that is my knitting chair, but still.. not put away.) Thus, my choices (whether concious or not) of what to do with my own stuff hasn't modeled the behavior that I'd like them to exhibit.

Sure, I clean all my stuff up every time I have people over who aren't such close friends that I don't feel the need to make a good impression, but I don't maintain that area as neatly as I'd actually like it to be.  My choices have shown them to leave their books etc. around the living room.

I, myself, have not modeled really cleaning on a regular basis.  Oh, sure, they've seen me clean the kitchen after dinner; they've seen their father clean the kitchen after dinner.  But, as they grew up, they did not see me scrubbing toilets and cleaning bathtubs. they did not see me scrubbing floors either. Why? because I had the luxury of being able to afford people to clean my house for me.   That meant that they didn't grow up associating a clean bathroom with anything someone they saw actually DID to make /keep it that way.

In fact, other than getting them to participate in the daily job of cleaning up after supper, I didn't introduce them to the lovely art of doing serious cleaning chores until they were in their teens.  That was a choice.  It seemed to be a reasonable choice - after all, that choice meant that I didn't have to spend time cleaning a house instead of doing fun things with them, or working, or ... well.. okay or knitting. But, that choice means that they didn't grow up understanding at that level where we don't much have to think about it, that someone has to clean things up, regularly, if the house is going to escape falling into a state too vile to live in. 

And that, in combination with the fact that they're teenagers, means that they resist doing chores - they don't reliably clean voluntarily.  And they don't always clean as well as I'd like.

And I get angry at ---- them. 

Now, I'm not saying that they share none of the blame.... but it's about time I remembered that they don't own all of the blame.  I made choices too.  We all do.

 So, I'm going to try to remember, when I start feeling angry with other people -- amd I angry at myself?

Music Happens

This week I got music.

I got awesome classical music -- and the next night -- I got to see Kitty perform in Beauty & the Beast (more music).

First up, Joshua Bell performing Beethoven with the Academy at St. Martin in the Fields.  I love Beethoven.  Especially the symphonies.  And with this performance, I heard things in the 7th Symphony that I'd never really heard before. 

I've listened to this version (von Karajan directing the Berliner Symphony Orchestra) countless times.

Bell does something deliciously different, so it was familiar and new at the same time.  I love it when musicians do that!

I'm still missing my "mindless" knitting -- so no progress was made on the AWOL Hopeful Socks.  Luckily, The Beethoven was so good I hardly missed it.

And the next night, I saw again why our school's drama department is so well known.  We had a packed house for the third formal performance of Beauty & the Beast.  Alas, I have no pictures, but it was GREAT.

I still had no knitting, but I did spend part of the time waiting for the show to start (and intermission) winding a skein for a new project.

I'm so lucky.

Gratitude for the day:  I'm so grateful to not be tone deaf!

A wee knitting update

I'm still pining for the Hope Socks, which have gone missing (along with my favorite knitting bag, and a just finished baby hat).

I've been a true slacker on the Woman to Woman afghan (no excuses either).

But I have been working steadily on the Dwarrowdelf Curtains. 

Certain of my knitting buds, who see my slow progress from week to week at Knit Night, have called me nuts to embark on this project.  They doubt my ability to stick to it until I have finished not only one, but two of these panels.

They, in fact, have voiced their suspicions that I'll wind up moving to a new house before I finish these curtains. 

To them I say, "Challenge accepted".

Even if steady knitting does not necessarily mean that you'll see a vast difference between this picture and the last one, I shall knit on.  These rows are pretty long, and even though this is pretty much the only knitting project my hands get to tough, I've yet to complete one vertical repeat of the pattern.  Still, I see progress. And thus, I'm not ready to chuck in the towel.

With luck, my camera battery will have plenty of charge for the next picture.  This week, we make do with the phone's picture (see, it is a good thing to have considered photo quality when choosing a phone).

 

 

On Blogging

Every now and then, I think about blogging (which is not to be confused with actually blogging).  I've been blogging for quite a few years now (it rather boggles my mind when I think about it).  I've been blogging long enough that I don't actually remember when I started!  I've been here at Typepad for a bit over six years.  And I blogged elsewhere for a few years before that.

That's a lot of blog posts!

At first, it was a whim.  I thought it would be fun (I was right).  I didn't expect the ways in which it would change my view of the world and what I do in it.

I didn't expect to start feeling as though it was necessary to have a camera with me at all times, just in case something I saw sparked a blog idea and I wanted a picture.  When I started blogging, my cell phone did not have a camera.  Then, for a while, when I upgraded my phone, one of the criteria became whether or not the camera would produce pictures that were good enough for the blog.

Seriously?  Yes.  I didn't ask whether it could take pictures I'd want to keep for myself -- to remember people or events.  I didn't ask whether it could take pictures I'd want to share with my family (photos of my girls for their grandparents). No. I asked whether the pics would be blog-worthy.  (Sigh)

From time to time, I've taken pictures not because I wanted to keep a memory, but because I had to "feed the blog". 

I didn't expect to develop a wee editor in my head who kept track of what event or scene or encounter was "bloggable."  And, when I started,  I certainly didn't expect to find times when blogging became an obligation.  Since then, I've hooked up with BlogHer, and since they now pay me enough to cover the costs of blogging, it is reasonable that I feel an obligation to post regularly.  Which leads me to today's dilemma.

My life is interesting to ME right now.  But it's not as full of what I think are bloggable moments as it used to be.  Because I'm studying a lot and doing homework (i.e. giving massages), I'm spending less time knitting. That means I have fewer interesting knitting updates to provide (assuming of course, that you're interested in knitting at all - but this is/was primarily a knitting blog, so I like to pretend that you are).  I'm also spending less time wandering around my yard noticing all the lovely things -- and thus taking fewer pictures of them.  And I'm not getting in as much travel, so there aren't those things to share.

Yes, school is dominating my life (yay).  This semester, we're studying pathology, and delving slightly into various massage modalities.  When we were learning muscles, I found more things to share on the blog that had to do with what I was studying.  Now, well, pathology is fascinating, but generally kind of icky.  I'm not anticipating that very many of you want to read about the icky stuff.  And the modalities are fascinating, but we're not studying any one of them in enough depth for me to feel like what I have to say about them will be useful.

So... the thing that is consuming most of my time lately is not as easy to blog about. 

Oddly, that hasn't lessened my desire to blog.  So... you're getting random thoughts and topics.  I'm trying to think of a way that will improve the coherence of the blog (and thus make it more interesting).  So, I thought I'd put up a wee little poll to see if you all are willing to share what you'd like to read more about.

Which topics would you like to read more about on this blog?
	Knitting - even token progress is progress.
	Massage - you can tell us what you think of the modality of the week.
	Introspection - I've enjoyed your recent meanderings.
	The Family - what ARE Kitty and Bookworm and Golf Pro up to anyway?
	Politics - I know it's branching out, but I'm curious about your views
	The Cats - you have THREE now, and we want pics
	Gratitudes - bring those back. It's good to be reminded
	Tutorials! - you stopped teaching us how to knit, and we're sad.
	Other -- explain in comments
pollcode.com free polls

 

Words to Live By - Progress, Not Perfection

I have some friends who are in twelve-step programs.  Every once in a while, we talk about the things they're learning and/or talking or reading about as part of those programs.  It turns out that, in addition to the 12 steps (which define a path for the recovering person to follow) you all hear about, there are traditions  (which govern how the groups work).  And, there are little phrases and acronyms that help people get through a myriad of situations.

The more I hear about these catch phrases, the more I think that everyone could use them too. They apply in so many situations.  The one I'm thinking of today is Progress, not Perfection.

I see it everywhere.  This morning, for example, I came to my knitting chair, where I'd left Dwarrowdelf resting peacefully last night, and picked up my knitting only to find that a good 4 inches worth of the stitches had slipped off the needle.  Why?  Perhaps because I caved to laziness and had stopped mid row, making it harder to slide the needle tips far enough away from the end to protect the project from just such a mishap.

I was annoyed with myself.  I was mildly frustrated at having to pick up all those stitches.

And then, I was reminded of just how much progress I've made in knitting.  I clearly remember the days when this would have felt like a disaster!  When getting the stitches back on the needle would have felt like an all but insurmountable challenge....  And now, it's a mild annoyance.

Sure, in a perfect world, I'd never drop a stitch, much less let dozens just fall off the needle. But this isn't a perfect world.  My knitting (and my responses to it) show progress - not perfection.  And I'm thrilled with the progress.  Perfection is for machines.

I see it in my house.  My family room "looks lived in."  On the coffee table, in addition to the candle that ought to be there, is a text book, a catalog, a novel that the reader finished last week, napkins from the pizza two nights ago, a skein of yarn, a magazine, a set of speakers that would work with the iPod if we could find the controller (and hooked it up to the base that is upstairs).  The table next to my chair has no room for the coffee cup I'd like to rest there.  There are at least two pair of shoes on the floor -- and what used to be a stack but is now sort of a spray of paper from my notes. There are two empty water bottles and a random screwdriver on the side tables (nestled among patterns, yarn, notes, and a camera.

However, there are no DVDs lying about in the hopes that someone will find their cases.  There are no empty DVD cases.  There are no empty cups or glasses.  There are no plates.  Miraculously (what with the cat's penchant for hauling socks around), there are no socks on the floor.

Weeks ago, I'd say it was a disaster area.  It's so far from perfect --- but it's not as bad as it has been (many times).  And I'm not as stressed about it as I have been in the past.  Both of us are showing signs of progress -- not perfection.  But I'm okay with that.  Perfection is for Stepford Wives.

I see it in my parenting. While I may not have become the calm, reasoned, compassionate, understanding yet firm mother I strive to be, I have become calmer.  I have become better at not taking everything personally, so that when my wonderful teen daughters are -- well -- teenagers, I can resist lashing back when they lash out. When they make mistakes, or push limits well past acceptable boundaries, or get their Entitled hats stuck on too firmly, I don't yell at them in anger.  Do I still get angry, definitely! Do I still raise my voice, sometimes, but not every time... and that's progress.  Do I still feel hurt from time to time, you betcha.  But ... I also feel more understanding, and am more able to step back long enough to say things like "let me think about that" before reacting.  I'm making progress.  And I doubt I'll ever be perfect.  Perfection is for robots.... and except for Andrew, robots tend not to have feelings.  Since once can't be a perfect mother without feelings.....

Progress - is about getting closer and closer to a goal.  Any goal.  Even a repeating goal (like, say, having clean laundry).  And if every day, I made progress on some front, then I'm doing good.  I'm getting closer to some goal.

Perfection seems to mean being in a place where you have no goals to strive for.  B-O-R-I-N-G!!!

I think I prefer progress.

 

Knitting ... Back to Slow Progress

If I'm honest about things, I have four active projects in play.

(For those of you with Ravelry access, you can see all about them here (Woman to Woman), here (Hopeful Socks), here (Climbing Cables), and here (Dwarrowdelf.)  There's another that needs to have it's end woven in (a wee hat for a friend's baby, but it has disappeared.

That disappeared thing is more than annoying. First off, it means that giving the hat to my friend when I see her tomorrow.  But additionally, it disappeared in the knitting bag in which the Hopeful Socks live.  Thus, I can't knit my current best knitting-to-go project.

And I can't knit on the Climbing Cables socks because I still haven't negotiated a replacement for the snapped needle.

That leaves me wtih two large slow-going projects.  Woman to Woman is now large enough to be only marginally portable.  And... it's not the most comfy thing to knit in the lovely warm weather we'd been having. (note, this is by no means a complaint about the lovely weather.)

Dwarrowdelf is delightful -- even if visible progress does take days (what with the rows now being over 275 stitches and all).

But, even though it's still only about 7 inches wide, it's still not terribly portable.  I mean, a cone just doesn't fit in a nice little on-the-go knitting bag the way a ball of yarn does.

I can't decide whether to go on a massive project hunt for the missing knitting bag, or to start a huge hunt in the interwebs for a replacement purple Darn Pretty dpn (they're not currentnly in production).  I'm in that icky place where the hunt would mean a level of house-cleaning I'm not excited about, and the DPN replacement is likely to mean spending money I can't afford right now.

Ah well.  Dwarrowdelf will be at least mostly portable for a while yet.....

Happy Belated Birthday......

Wednesday, we celebrated a very special birthday here in Shadowland.

It was so special, that even the rehearsal lords at the school cooperated, which meant that by 4:00, the whole family was free from our various obligations.

It was so special, that the massage gods granted mercy on my, and let my body not go into exhaustive melt-down at the end of Clinicals (the fun day during which we go in at 11:30, prepare our spaces, and then do three massages back-to-back, with only 15 minutes between the time one massage ends and the next begins - more on that in another post).  So I had actual energy to be THERE to celebrate.

The postal gods were not as kind, and thus, the birthday celebrant has only IOU's to show for the day.

Despite the fact that there are probably thousands of pictures of our celebrant on Facebook, she was a bit camera shy.

Who is that person?  You mean you can't recognize her from the black fingernails and ginger hair?

I'll give you some hints.

She's bright and witty (though lately her wit has become a bit ascerbic).  She's got an uncanny ability to remember exact lines from a dizzying number of  movies and TV show episodes.  Despite having a mother who is only marginally adept at applying make-up, she's came into the world with a talent for applying make-up that some professionals wish they had.

She may hide from the camera, but when she's behind it, she takes some pretty amazing pictures.

She is talented, and responsible, and fun.

She has an internal radar for bargains that means that her wardrobe is larger than mine, by a lot, though she buys it all herself, using only allowance money (and the earnings from occaisional baby-sitting).  She's thrilled with birthday gifts of gift-cards from her favorite stores, and always manages to stretch them into at least twice as many clothes as anyone else would be able to buy.

I'm sure you'll be shocked to discover that she plays in the band. (Well, maybe not.)  Since she plays trombone, it's usually hard to get a decent picture of her in concert.  The last one I took was at least four years ago.

She's adventurous.

And stylish

Not to mention foxy enough to make a parent nervous.

And now...

she's a ginger.

This week anyway.

But whatever her hair color, she's one of my favorite people.

 

happy birthday Bookworm.

 

Incentives to Tailgate

Normally, I'm one of those drivers who likes to keep at least a car length between me and the car ahead of me. Especially on the highway.  In fact, when traffic is civilized, I tend to keep several car lengths between me and the car in front of me.

Especially in the morning, when I'm driving the kids to school, before my coffee has fully kicked in.

But...

When the view in front of your car looks like this:

You begin to think about projectiles and their arcs, and suddenly, you want to be close enough that an errant cannon ball will fall BEHIND you, not on top of you.

And you kind of want to be right up on that sucker's tail.

Until you realize that there are multiples....

Luckily, monitoring mobile cannons is not a usual part of my mornings. 

"All on an April Fool's Day Sunday"

'Tis the day to listen to this song by S.J.Tucker:

 

It's one of my favorites. (okay, I confess, she is one of my favorites). It's from her album Blessings.

And not only does it acknowledge April Fool's Day -- the day in question is a Sunday!

I've not done much with my Sunday.  Every time I tried to face the bill-paying chore, I came up against something that was just too frustrating.  The medical bills continue to baffle me.  They don't bother to show you what you've paid.  At least I know I've paid for Kitty's clarinet lessons through the end of March.

I've been knitting away on Dwarrowdelf, but now that it's very wide, you can't really see the progress.  I'll wait until I can actually show you something.

When I'm not listening to S.J.Tucker ... I'm listening to the frogs, who have arrived at our backyard pond.  They're singing away out there, calling for their mates.  I wonder if we'll have tadpoles this year?  I wonder what the weather is going to do to their normal cycle.  If it's this warm this early, what will it be like in a month? 

 

 

 

Passing it on: Subject for Debate: Are Women People?

There's a trend -- and I'm joining in.

Several of the blogs I read have shared this article (by sharing the first two paragraphs).  I'm doing the same.

"All my adult life, I’ve been pretty sure I’m a sentient, even semi-competent human being. I have a job and an apartment; I know how to read and vote; I make regular, mostly autonomous decisions about what to eat for lunch and which cat videos I will watch whilst eating my lunch. But in the past couple of months, certain powerful figures in media and politics have cracked open that certitude.

"You see, like most women, I was born with the chromosome abnormality known as “XX,” a deviation of the normative “XY” pattern. Symptoms of XX, which affects slightly more than half of the American population, include breasts, ovaries, a uterus, a menstrual cycle, and the potential to bear and nurse children. Now, many would argue even today that the lack of a Y chromosome should not affect my ability to make informed choices about what health care options and lunchtime cat videos are right for me. But others have posited, with increasing volume and intensity, that XX is a disability, even a roadblock on the evolutionary highway. This debate has reached critical mass, and leaves me uncertain of my legal and moral status. Am I a person? An object? A ward of the state? A “prostitute”? (And if I’m the last of these, where do I drop off my W-2?)."

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/07/subject-for-debate-are-women-people/#ixzz1qesCiQ4L

There are so many things going on in politics today --  And so very few of them seem good -- especially if you're a woman.

In various states, they're working on repealing the Equal Pay Act.   Even though women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar men earn.

In various states, they're setting things up so that a woman who wants an abortion -- regardless of why she wants it -- has to under go a transvaginal ultrasound first.  Even if the woman is seeking to abort a child she already knows has died.   Heck, Georgia had a go at requiring a woman whose fetus is more than 20 weeks to carry that fetus to term -- even if it has died.

But there's all this inconsistency -- if we have to have babies, whether we want to carry them to term or not, shouldn't we then be able to take care of them? Shouldn't we be able to provide the best food for them, even if we have to work to keep food on the table for the rest of the family?  Evidently not, since in Texas  women can be fired for bringing breast pumps to work. And the judges are upholding that nonsense.

It's blowing my mind. 

I wonder... can we all claim benefits under the ADA?  After all, they're clearly acting as though having that XX chromosome means we're functionally disabled?

100!

I have the coolest homework assignments.

Every week, I have to give at least two massages.

Every week, I have to use my skills, and the love in my hands, to give two (or more) people relief from pain, a sense of peace, ease from stress.

Darn.

I think that's so cool!  (and when I graduate, and get my license, I'll be able to do that every day).

I think it's so cool, that I almost always give more than two of these home-work massages each week.

Today, I gave my 100th homework massage since I started the massage program.

I have learned so many wonderful things -- in class, following up on lessons by watching videos on the same modality, and by paying very close attention every time I get a massage from someone new (especially a new professional).

Today, my "client" came to me with pain in her low back, and her feet, and her neck, and her chest muscles.  She left, with happy, happy feet, a soothed low back, and an open feeling in her chest muscles. And it was my hands that made that happen!  I still find that pretty amazing.

and yet -- find it as natural as rainwater.

 

In Which My House Feels Like A Day Spa

When I got up Sunday morning, my plan included studying for Monday's Pathology exam, possibly paying bills, reading, and giving one homework massage.

Instead, I took Bookworm to the store to get supplies to repair a hair disaster, and spent the next couple of hours carefully re-bleaching her hair, in preparation for re-coloring her hair. 

Bookworm is very grateful that my camera when on strike today.  Otherwise, you'd see photos of the hair disaster (in which her hair color ranged from the dark mahogany/burgundy brown she'd last died it, through various shades of fox, dark strawberry blond, butterscotch, platinum blonde, wheat, apricot, ....

While it could have been VERY COOL, the color ranges weren't in interesting natural looking streaks.... they were more.... spotted.  Like someone took the fur colors of a red fox or red panda, and used the patterns of, say an ocelot.  In short... NOT good.

There would also be pictures of the process, with her hair mostly pinned up, and some foil wrapped, to show you just how small the sections were that I worked with, so that I'd bleach the brown parts, and lighten the darker foxy colors, without over bleaching the honey and platinum.....

Of course, there are also no pictures of the almost finished results -- the bleaching is done, and her hair looks pretty good -- sort of strawberry blond.  But we're going to even it out a little better with a round of blonde dye after it's had a chance to breathe from two days in a row of bleaching.

For the record -- I'm actually opposed to my high school aged daughter dyeing her hair.  I'm even more opposed to her doing it in ways that require bleaching.  But -- the whole thing started months and months ago when she slipped out to Walgreens and spent her own money on hair dye.  She surprised me with the new color - fait accompli.  And luckily, it actually looked quite good.  I decided that this was a battle I was not going to win.

However, after this weekend's mishap, she and I had a chat about intense color changed (especially ones invovling bleach. Next time, she's going to buy the product from the beauty supply shop, not Walgreen's, and she's going to have ME help her for things more complex than simple coloring.  Kitty meant well, but she's never had it done, much less watched it being done, and thus didn't quite know how to tackle the job.

By the time stage one of hair repair was done, it was time for me to give a massage.  (Day spa time... get your hair colored (or trimmed), and a massage.  I can even paint your tonails, though I'm no pro at the whole pedicure thing. (snicker).

I closed the day giving a massage to Golf Pro, who was long overdue.

I finally got to the pathology book at about 11:30 p.m.  Color me grateful that the exam wasn't until 2:00 p.m.

I'm hoping that the camera and I get back on good terms so I can show you the new BookWorm.  It looks great, even if I do keep having to do double takes.  (It's a pretty drastic change).

The Return of Lace

Once upon a time, I seemed to knit nothing but lace. Lace lace lace.

I loved lace so much, I talked my dear friend into helping me start a Giant Repeating Lace KAL. We called it Seasons of Lace.  And I knit lace and ran the KAL for several years, and it was good.

And there was lots of lace.

  And then there was life. And massage school.

And suddenly, I was buried in way too much to do! It got so bad that lace all but disappeared from my needles.

It's been socks, and the lovely shadow-knitting afghan that I was commissioned to design and knit.

And the current lace project languished, pining for my attention.

As you may recall (well, likely not, since it's been so long .... ) I've gone on a tear, and am adapting Susan Pandorf's Dwarrowdelf Stole pattern for use as curtains. This means I needed to make them a lot WIDER to fit my windows.

So, being the oh-so-professional planner and detail person that I am... I hauled off and knit a top edge, vastly increasing the number of repeats called for by the stole pattern.

And then I looked to see what the ratio of repeats on top edge piece would be to the repeats on the body, and my brain fried a little.

In many ways, it has been simple (ish) math that was getting between me and my lace knitting.

I knew that the repeats on the top edge were 14 rows "wide". I knew that the ends of the top edge included a five row edge. (I spaced for the longest time on the three rows of set up at one end and the four rows of ... well... set down at the other).

I knew that I was getting approximately 7 rows to the inch. I knew that the repeats on the body would be 24 stitches wide. I knew that the ends included a 9 stitch edge on one side and an 18 stitch edge on the other.And... I knew that I was getting approximately 6 stitches to the inch.

Clearly, forgetting those 7 extra rows bollixed me up for a while.

But suddenly, after my brief escape to Oak Park, I made the math work! And here, we see the winding up of the skinny top edge:

It's pushing 44 inches long here. This aftenoon, I knit that five row edge, and bound off.

I'm now in the throes of picking up three hundred and some odd stitches along the edge that runs along the left side in that picture. So much for something to work on where the rows are short and I can feel like real progress happens when I knit for a few minutes.

I'm Handy!

Every now and then, I remind myself that I'm competent at more than knitting and massage.

Last week, I proved myself on plumbing!

I got cranky with my shower head.  It was dripping in ways that it's not supposed to be dripping.  Ordinarily, I would probably ignore a little dripping from my shower head that only drips when the shower is on.  I mean, really, I'm a little lazy.  But...as it got worse, it was having a negative impact on the water pressure in my shower.

Here's what I found when I took the shower head down:

Yes, cracks...  It gets uglier...

Well, no WONDER it leaked!  Sheesh!

I took my handy wrench, and took that puppy right off the pipe in my shower.  Then, I cleaned the pipe, applied pipe thread tape, and attached my fancy new shower head:

W00t!

I'm feelin' so womanly!

I ran away from home --

Monday, I boarded a train, and ran away from home....

sort of. 

It's not like everyone at home didn't know I was going, and where I was going. ...

And what was I doing?  HOMEWORK!

No, seriously.  I went up to Oak Park to complete a homework assignment.

Among the homework assignments we have each semester is to get a massage from a massage therapist who did not graduate from our program.  AND... this semester, we have to get a massage from a person of the opposite gender of the person we got a massage from last semester.  So, having cast my eye around town, and having discovered that all the female massage therapists I'd heard good things about actually did graduate from our program, I conceived a plan -- to go back to Oak Park (from whence we came ten years ago), and get a massage from the woman who was my initial inspiration to go into massage school in the first place.

It was such a good idea! 

I rode the train up, relaxing.  And then I walked from Union Station to the Ogilvie Transportation Center (a whopping two blocks), and found that my timing was perfect -- I boarded the METRA train about two minutes before it left the station.  When I arrived, it was a bit misty (having rained while I was riding the METRA), but I walked through the old area, enjoying recognizing old places -- and loving seeing this:

and this:

Honest -- I wasn't in Britain... I was in Oak Park, but there it was, none-the-less.

Okay, fine... you want proof?

 

Unity Temple (yes, it's Frank Lloyd Wright -- and yes, he built it to be a church in the first place).

I just love his style --

(And why exactly did I just NOT SEE this all the time I lived there -- I'd have joined in a heart beat).

I went out to dinner with wonderful friends, at a delightful little restaurant in Evanston called Trattoria D.O.C.  I'm a little appalled by how much I ate, but DAMN that steak was good!

I stayed in the Write Inn -- a nifty old place, that houses the oldest elevator in town.  And pet friendly even.  See --

Just outside the kitchen door.

Alas, old also means old HVAC systems.  Even though I arrived on the night in which the Equinox happened, it was HOT!  And the hotel system, which they claim is a water system, takes three days to switch over from heating to cooling.  Thus, they had no means to effectively cool the building.  They gave me a fan, which was both loud and ineffectual.    I slept poorly.

But breakfast at Hemmingway's was lovely.

And after breakfast, I walked down Oak Park Avenue to get my massage.

It was SO worth it!  It was wonderful to see her again.  And... her massage (though different) was every bit as wonderful as it used to be.  I learned a yummy new stroke from her.  And.... tee hee ... she learned one from me (because we traded!). 

Not only that, but I found the wonderful place where folks like me should retire.  My wonderful therapist works in the Oak Park Arms (a retirement center).  I was actually compelled to take a picture in the hall that leads to the Massage Therapy center:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen -- this is a WEAVING ROOM!  there is also a Needlework room.  Who knows what else is in there!

On the way home, I noticed these decorations on St. Edmund's church -

I've never seen those before -- here's a closer look...

If anyone knows what these are, and what they signify, I'd love to know.

I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the gorgeous weather, sitting in the shade on a bench in Scoville Park, reading Hunger Games.

My day ended with the arrival of my family, who picked me up, and took me to dinner at my favorite Oak Park restaurant -- The Marion Street Grille.  The frog legs are as wonderful as ever.

All in all, I say that my Equinox was glorious.  A perfect balance. 

Whining...

I've been pretty good about posting positive things lately.  Heck, I've had posts that are nothing but telling the world I'm grateful for things.  But today... I'm cranky.

Sure, I'm still very grateful for lovely moments with Bookworm (she woke me with coffee!  And then, later in the day, she bought me more coffee.)

And yes, I'm also grateful for a generally good life. 

But, I'm really cranky about the amount of time I've spent today working on medical bills.  While I'm not happy with the size of the bills (who is?), that's not what's making me cranky.

We are a family of four mostly healthy people.  All of our doctors (including some, but not all of the dental professionals) work at the same organization.  That ought to make things pretty simple, right? 

Wrong.

Some of the complexity comes to use courtesy of  HIPAA, which requires the clinic to create a separate billing account for any mental health care charges one might have, so that no one seeing a regular medical bill can tell that you've ever seen a mental health care professional.  But that ought to mean we have two accounts to deal with.

Nope.  We've got ten, or is it fourteen?  I can't even TELL how many separate accounts we four have with our health care providers.  I get upwards of six bills at a time.  All of them from the same folks -- but with different account numbers. 

I'm not kidding.  I get two separate bills from the C**** Physician Group.  Golf Pro gets three separate bills from teh C**** Physician Group.  Bookworm has one of her own from the C**** Physician Group.  And, even though one has labs done right there at the same clinic where the doctors' offices are, they get billed through the C**** Foundation Hospital -- so I have one account with them; and for some reason Golf Pro has somewhere between one and three, but they show up on one bill.  Of course if you are actually in the hospital and see a doctor, the Hospital doesn't bill you -- C**** Physician SERVICES bills you.  But wait... if you see one of the dental surgeons, they have their own separate account numbers (still under the C**** Physician Group name... ).  I'm lost before I even look at the bills.

But you know, one can slow down, and take one step at a time, right?  Look at each bill as just another bill.  How bad can that be? I mean, I can (and do) put all the little payment slips for the same billing entity in one envelope and mail them together (yes, I've put five different slips in one envelope going to C**** Physician Group, each with a separate payment via a credit card).  So why does it take hours?

Here's why:

When they bill you, they don't tell you which doctor you saw.  And, they don't necessarily allocate your co-pay to the charge you thought it applied to.  And though they swear that they allocate any payment not designated as a co-pay to the oldest outstanding charge, they don't actually do that.  Heck, sometimes they split payments between accounts! (If they can do that, why can't they just send one freakin' bill???)

And they usually divide up any given payment between several charges.

And.... if you've actually paid a charge off with a payment, that whole thing disappears from your next statement, so you can't SEE that the payment was allocated to a given charge.  We were actually all caught up for several months -- our co-pays kept us fully paid.  So, we didn't get statements at all.  That meant that I never got confirmation from them that they'd received and allocated the whole payment for any payment we made.

This has meant that I have to call the patient accounts office monthly to request detailed statements that actually reveal most of the information you might need.  Those statements take weeks for them to produce.  And today, I found one in which they'd allocated part of one of my payments to a charge that had been fully paid for by insurance.

Of course one of today's bills included two co-payments, but didn't actually include the charges for which those co-payments were made!

This complex slight of hand with the payments sometimes means that they don't, in fact, allocate the whole payment -- which leaves a few dollars here and a few more there just... hanging out there.  Of course, if a payment hasn't been allocated to a charge -- they don't count it as having actually been made when they tell you the total amount you should send in.  It'll count on the next statement (maybe),once they 've allocated it.  And sometimes... they change the allocations -- so that something you were sure was paid off, isn't anymore, and something else has some or all of that payment as a credit.

It's so confusing that I've taken to making up my own spread sheets.  They show the charges, the insurance allocations, and my payment allocations on one worksheet -- and the payment I've made and their allocations on a second worksheet (just to verify that they line up, which they don't always do).  So, in paying their bill, I seem to have two worksheets for each of those nine, er, ten, um, fourteen?? accounts.  It's a pain in the *ss.  But it saved me over $500.00 one year (they'd actually failed to fully allocate that much).

This doesn't stop them from threatening collection.  There was a $12.78 charge for something to do with the lab (I think it was the charge for the phlebotomist doing the stick (the tests get billed by someone else).  I'd paid it, by sending in the statement with a credit card number etc.  Then I got another bill, and paid that.  But they'd hauled off and allocated both payments to a different account anyway.  So then, I got a call warning me that the account in question was about to go to collection. 

And forget about making things work out if you're using Quicken to keep track of things.  "Reconciling" a statement is just plain impossible.

This makes me very cranky.

I don't mind paying my bills (much).  I have even almost gotten over the gross injustice that is our mental health care coverage.  But I really resent having to put in a full days work each month just trying to figure out the bill.  If I thought for an instant that I could trust them to really allocate the whole payment every time, I might just write the checks -- but I've learned over and over again that I can't trust them to do that. 

I wish I could bill them for my time.

If continuity of care weren't so darned important to me, I swear I'd drop them and go in search of medical professionals whose business office has any respect for their patients at all.

It makes me wonder -- is this standard for the medical industry? or just the special behavior of our local medical professionals' business office?

 

 

Woman to Woman

Among the many things I do instead of sleeping is serve on the board of our local rape crisis center.  It's a good thing to do.  Sometimes, it means I know things about our community that I'd rather not know (after all, one likes to believe that the evil things in the world don't happen near one); sometimes it makes me immensely proud of the folks in our community who do the right thing.

Last year, our Executive Director got married.  She  and her partner were part of the first wave of folks who got married when our state legalized marriage between people of the same gender.  The board commissioned me (sort of) to knit something for them.  Eventually, we agreed on an afghan -- which I designed for the purpose.

It's a tricksy afghan (if I do say so).  When you look at it from one angle, it looks like this:

She said blues and black.... and that's what we've got.  But it's not quite that simple.  Because if you shift it just a little, suddenly it looks like this:

I'm calling it Woman to Woman.  I'm guessing I'll work one up for a Man to Man afghan once this is done.

It's taking far longer than I expected it to -- kind of like getting that law passed in the first place.  I'm pretty sure I'll have it done for their anniversary.

Gratitudes

Periodically, there are surges of "post three thankful things each day" that go around.  I always try to join in, because I do believe that if we focus on the good in our lives two things will happen:  1) we'll be happier with our lives as they are, and 2) we'll attract more good to our lives.

As far as I know, there's no "x days of Gratitude" going around, but I was thinking of that premise this morning, and so I'm going to share some thankful thoughts, just because:

I woke this morning to the sounds of mourning doves cooing outside my window.

Bookworm had already made coffee.

Despite some rocky moments during the day yesterday, the event I had planned worked beautifully (thanks to those who were here!)

We have girl scout cookies in the house

My migraine has retreated, and the rest of us are healthy.

The washer and dryer both work (we expect them to, of course, but I'm still glad that they do)

I've already finished my reading for next week, so tonight needs only studying for the test.

Zara has all but stopped snarling at the other cats.

and.... as I prepare to give someone a ride... I'm confident my car will start.

Getting Ready (or Duct Tape Bondage)

I'm about half-way through a project that I'm hoping will really help me in my sweater knitting.  It will also help me hem things, the next time I whip out that sewing machine to make myself something.

What can do both?  Why a duct tape "dress manequin" of course!

My dear friends, the Divine though Blogless Elizabeth, Elizabeth's daughter, and Colleen of Cgirlslife, arrived Sunday morning with many rolls of duct tape, several over-sized T-shirts, and a very positive attitude.  Over the course of the next four hours or so, we mastered the fine art of duct taping the human torso:

In doing so, we discovered that there are very few straight lines on the female torso that are more than a few inches long.  I knew that, sort of,if I'd thought about it,  but I hadn't really looked realized it... The curvier the area, the shorter the strips of duct tape we needed. Here's a whole new way to understand where short row shaping can work to make a sweater fit better...

We also discovered that a well taped torso almost looks like it's wearing a fancy cocktail dress.

Of course, once you're all taped up, you have to be released from the armor (and yes, we did feel rather like super-heroes in our shiny duct tape armor, why do you ask?)

The marks let us know where the center line on our bodies really are, and where we bend (revealing the actual waist line. 

Then, we have to carefully close up the back again --

As you might imagine, by the second or third duct tape suit of armor, we started getting pretty silly.  I have no idea what I was orating about here, but by this point, the giggles were all but incessant, so it's likely it wasn't terribly serious:

Our next step will be to seal the things up, and stuff them.  The look sad and slouchy without bodies inside them.

Sadly, however, they still manage to show off just where one most needs to lose weight.  BUT... with these participating in the fitting process, it will  be much harder to delude ourselves about how big (or small) we really are.  I know It will look better stuffed, but it's also clear to me that no matter what shape I am in my head, I'm not the same shape in the outside world.

It's an eye opener -- seeing my body shape in 3-D this way makes me aware of my body's actual shape in a way that mirrors just can't do.  It made me wonder if making these would be useful for people struggling with their body images.  So many of us have inaccurate impressions of our own bodies.  And they're fueled by unreasonable representations in the media.

 

So much music!

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending my daughters' band concert.  As always, I'm a little bit amazed at how well their high school band performs - how good they sound, and how challanging the music they play is. 

This year, Kitty is First chair clarinet -- which means that I get to really see her! (First chair players are right there on the front edge of the band. One of the pieces they played included lots of really quick notes in the clarinet section - watching her fingers flying was kind of amazing.  (BookWorm, alas, is a tiny thing, who sits in the center of the back row.  Only by careful and luckyseating can I ever see her on stage).

Having enjoyed Tuesday's performance, I then had the honor of driving Kitty to a small town 45 minutes away for the IMEA Solo & Ensemble contest, where she played something wholly unrelated to the band concert music.  Her solo was beautiful and challenging -- starting slow and gentle and lyical, then speeding up, until at one point the sixteenth notes were just flying, and then slowing back down again, all the while maintaining tone, and using sometimes subtle and sometimes overt dynamics (getting louder and softer for those of you not enmeshed in musical performance).  Her performance was really good.  The judge thought so too, awarding her what turned out to be one of his few I's of the day.  (We've since learned that he handed out a lot of II's). 

This performance was particularly amazing to me, since there was a bit of a mess about getting there.  I had planned on rousting us at 7:10 or so, and leaving by 7:30 at the latest, sneaking a quick detour to buy her "real" (or as I call it "foofy") coffee, and arriving no later than 8:30 for her 8:50 performance. This would have given her an easy 20 minutes to warm up and prepare herself. 

ahem.

My alarm clock declined to participate in that program.  I woke at 7:57.  We flew out of the house at about 8:10.  I bent the speed limit laws into unrecognizable pretzles, careening down back country roads at speeds that were likely unwise, and thanked the universe that there was no traffic on them.  We arrived at 8:45.  She had time to find her room, and breathe for about 2 minutes outside the door before she had to go it.  She had time to warm up with one scale while the judge finished writing notes about the previous performer ... and then she was on.

And wow.

and then....

Monday, we were gifted with tickets to see Gaelic Storm.  They performed last night.  Very different music again... but so much fun.  (And listening to Patrick Murphy 's yummy Irish accent as he introduced the songs did not detract from my evening <grin>). 

I'm rather fond of this song -- which they sang last night.

And Thursday -- I'll be going for more music.

Pardon me while I wallow in my own good fortune.