...and Again With The Quick News of the Quotidian...
The ionic air purifier seems to be working quite well; there's a lot of cubic feet of air in this house, so it will take quite a while to process the whole place. I'm moving it methodically from spot to spot. Scott's pulled the filter for the first cleaning - WHEW!!! I'm glad we picked it up; $4 well spent.
I did not break any land speed records getting things done today, but at least I'm holding my own right now with household chores. We knew we were going out this evening, so I marinated steak in a teriyaki blend for a quick supper and made a four-cheese pasta side dish. We went by Fred Meyer's last night and picked up three pallets for firewood; Scott devoted some time today, among other work, to making them into woodstove-sized splits. We're approaching the end of woodfire season - which is sad. I'm not a big summertime fan; in fact, it's my least favourite season. Part of me wishes I could go to the Southern Hemisphere for this part of the year - or at least habituate the Oregon Coast.
Tonight was the May Oregon Festival Chorale performance, and they did "Carmina Burana". Our own au purr, Kirstin, was in the soprano section! The poor baritone soloist wasn't quite up to the entire range, but he did a magnificent job with all but a few bars. The soprano was strikingly lovely, and I think has a lot of promise - she's only a junior in college. I personally like to see soloists who look a little livelier, but her voice is awesome.
It was a nice spring night in Salem; perfect weather. We parked a few blocks away and walked to the theatre, and I'm glad we went as early as we did. Instead of a full orchestra, they had the Western Oregon University percussion section and two pianos, the latter of whom had to pick up all the orchestral melodies. Quite a lot for any pianist to undertake. They got a little out of sync with the basses on one occasion. The theatre was mostly full, which is *great* news. There seemed to be some sort of prom activity in downtown - when we were walking in search of our apres-theatre stop, we noted that the police had been called in on some event going on the top floor of the building we were heading for, an event that involved teens in tuxes and formals. We also saw a white stretch limo cruise by.
Scott was up for trying the Governor's Cup, but I wanted to try Grand Vines, a wine bar on the corner of Court and High we had to pass. It turned out that there was no really comfortable seating in the Gov's Cup, so Scott said we could do the wine bar instead. It wound up being the perfect place, despite the fact that the barrista had a '70s disco mix playing. We found a tall table for two with a shaded light with the whole grape/vineyard motif against the window, so we could read, and we ordered a glass of wine apiece - I tried something called Cremant d'Alsace, and Scott had the Oloroso (port). There was a small crowd in there - a nice buzz of conversation, but nothing loud and obnoxious. Definitely bears a repeat visit. Again, while we were relaxing and reading as we sipped our wines, a fire truck came down Court from the east with all the lights going, but no siren. They rounded the corner and stopped...right in front of the building entrance, where the kids and cops had been by the elevators. They didn't stay long; either the emergency was not real or it was dealt with swiftly and discreetly. All in all, good for relaxation, minor new experiences, and people-watching from safety. :-)
As always, focus continues to be a problem; so I've given up on tight focus for the moment and am back taking in massive input. I'm revisiting my yen to write something set in the 'Star Wars' universe. I also found some new resources on Old Kingdom Egypt. There is absolutely no connection between the two :-). They're separate writing projects. The latter revolves around my fascination with the historical figure of Imhotep (really *not* the same as in "The Mummy", not even close), who was an ancient world Leonardo da Vinci.
I'm working on building tools - folders on the computer, timelines in Excel for the solidly historical stuff - because a lot of the timeline stuff drives my plotlines. The folders are because I've realized I need to be able sometimes to capture little snippets having to do with a work of art or a cultural artifact that is a nice touch towards making an ancient time three-dimensional. It doesn't have to be perfectly described, but I've found that I have a lot of assumptions that have been tossed at me over time that are almost hard-wired by now which aren't necessarily true. Part of the visceral joy of research.
I did not break any land speed records getting things done today, but at least I'm holding my own right now with household chores. We knew we were going out this evening, so I marinated steak in a teriyaki blend for a quick supper and made a four-cheese pasta side dish. We went by Fred Meyer's last night and picked up three pallets for firewood; Scott devoted some time today, among other work, to making them into woodstove-sized splits. We're approaching the end of woodfire season - which is sad. I'm not a big summertime fan; in fact, it's my least favourite season. Part of me wishes I could go to the Southern Hemisphere for this part of the year - or at least habituate the Oregon Coast.
Tonight was the May Oregon Festival Chorale performance, and they did "Carmina Burana". Our own au purr, Kirstin, was in the soprano section! The poor baritone soloist wasn't quite up to the entire range, but he did a magnificent job with all but a few bars. The soprano was strikingly lovely, and I think has a lot of promise - she's only a junior in college. I personally like to see soloists who look a little livelier, but her voice is awesome.
It was a nice spring night in Salem; perfect weather. We parked a few blocks away and walked to the theatre, and I'm glad we went as early as we did. Instead of a full orchestra, they had the Western Oregon University percussion section and two pianos, the latter of whom had to pick up all the orchestral melodies. Quite a lot for any pianist to undertake. They got a little out of sync with the basses on one occasion. The theatre was mostly full, which is *great* news. There seemed to be some sort of prom activity in downtown - when we were walking in search of our apres-theatre stop, we noted that the police had been called in on some event going on the top floor of the building we were heading for, an event that involved teens in tuxes and formals. We also saw a white stretch limo cruise by.
Scott was up for trying the Governor's Cup, but I wanted to try Grand Vines, a wine bar on the corner of Court and High we had to pass. It turned out that there was no really comfortable seating in the Gov's Cup, so Scott said we could do the wine bar instead. It wound up being the perfect place, despite the fact that the barrista had a '70s disco mix playing. We found a tall table for two with a shaded light with the whole grape/vineyard motif against the window, so we could read, and we ordered a glass of wine apiece - I tried something called Cremant d'Alsace, and Scott had the Oloroso (port). There was a small crowd in there - a nice buzz of conversation, but nothing loud and obnoxious. Definitely bears a repeat visit. Again, while we were relaxing and reading as we sipped our wines, a fire truck came down Court from the east with all the lights going, but no siren. They rounded the corner and stopped...right in front of the building entrance, where the kids and cops had been by the elevators. They didn't stay long; either the emergency was not real or it was dealt with swiftly and discreetly. All in all, good for relaxation, minor new experiences, and people-watching from safety. :-)
As always, focus continues to be a problem; so I've given up on tight focus for the moment and am back taking in massive input. I'm revisiting my yen to write something set in the 'Star Wars' universe. I also found some new resources on Old Kingdom Egypt. There is absolutely no connection between the two :-). They're separate writing projects. The latter revolves around my fascination with the historical figure of Imhotep (really *not* the same as in "The Mummy", not even close), who was an ancient world Leonardo da Vinci.
I'm working on building tools - folders on the computer, timelines in Excel for the solidly historical stuff - because a lot of the timeline stuff drives my plotlines. The folders are because I've realized I need to be able sometimes to capture little snippets having to do with a work of art or a cultural artifact that is a nice touch towards making an ancient time three-dimensional. It doesn't have to be perfectly described, but I've found that I have a lot of assumptions that have been tossed at me over time that are almost hard-wired by now which aren't necessarily true. Part of the visceral joy of research.