BANZAI! BONSAI!
What makes me happy today (day six, I believe, since I was Out And About yesterday), is BONSAI.
While we were bumming around Harvard Square yesterday, she vanished into a flower shop. My mother drifted in after her, but in deference to my allergies I settled myself on one of the granite benches on the sidewalk with my rapidly cooling sencha. My aunt came back out a few minutes later with a little package wrapped loosely in purple paper. I didn't unwrap it until we got back home, and discovered a tiny little juniper in a gentle slanting style. I love it. I watered it heavily today because I'm not sure how much water it had in its soil, and I'm planning on giving it plenty of cool air for it's pseudo-dormant needs, because keeping the heater on while I'm not home is just silly. I'll probably stick it on the porch from time to time, too, but for the most part the window ledge should serve pretty well (the front balcony gets a lot of sunlight, and my room gets nothing direct). I set it up on one of the windows earlier today, next to the Unidentified Leafy Tree, and misted them pretty well, too. Poor little juniper is probably all kinds of confused right now. I'm going to dig out the old stones from the defunct fish tank (from junior year of college, holy hell, being a packrat pays off for once!) and make it a gravel tray. I want it to be inside as much as possible, because I'm possessive like that. I'm going to wait for some of the water currently in there to evaporate, first.
I have named it BON. Mostly because I default to calling the ULT "Tree," since I was never really able to definitively match it up with anything, and I realized that I was calling them both Tree earlier and that is simply unacceptable.
Tree is currently sitting on the corner of my desk, just at my elbow. BON has had a rather stressful day, what with the heavy watering and the misting and the warm temperature and the strange lighting, but is now sitting on the windowsill by Mr. Coffee, the only part of any window that isn't over the heater. Nice and cold.
Re: concert last night The first half went extremely well, if I may say so myself. The second, not so much, because the tech people turned off the monitors during the intermission and didn't turn them back on, so when I started "The Best Is Yet To Come" I was all right, but after a few of those intervals I psyched myself out and then I really was singing the wrong notes but I couldn't tell WHAT notes I was singing and didn't really know if I should adjust for being sharp or flat or in a different key entirely. dslkjga embarrassing. But! I managed to find it again just before the transition, and I'm told that I made an interesting face at that point but I finished the song really strongly, so fuck it. And I'm only saying that because I've been beating myself up over it for the last twenty-two hours, because I am a perfectionist and that was the only song I knew really well even before the start of the semester! ...and the president of the university was there, so it's great to know I screwed up in front of him, whoopee. Ugh. I'm working very hard at not being highly disappointed in myself, and thus far I've worked it down to occasional outbursts of I CAN'T BELIEVE I SCREWED UP LIKE THAT WHAT THE HELL I HAVEN'T DONE THAT IN YEARS. Whatever, I'll listen to my imeem streams of last semester's concert and make pouty faces at the songs I didn't mess up.
...I...I am going to go curl up under my quilt again, I think, and Not Do Any Work. Mostly because I'm tired as all get out (seriously, put an insomnia who manages maybe four to six hours a night in the same room as an insomnia who manages maybe two, make them share the bed, and then put another person in an air mattress on the floor who shouts in their sleep, and see if any of them are well-rested...on the upside, though, there were a lot of latenight/earlymorning giggles). The weekend went far better than I expected, mostly because my mother spent a lot of her time playing the Pseudo!hostess since she is more familiar with the area than her sister. There were some tense moments in a shoe store and apparently it's highly inappropriate for me to have my bedroom door open when a male is using the bathroom across the hall. Oh, and I can marry the pianist for the jazz group because he has a loving family.
Em! I received your email, and YAY COFFEE DATE, but it will have to be Thursday or Friday or Saturday, I think. I've got a presentation thinger on Wednesday that will take most of the day, some appointments on Thursday, a paper due next Monday, and another paper due next Wednesday. So...that'll be fun. Heh.
While we were bumming around Harvard Square yesterday, she vanished into a flower shop. My mother drifted in after her, but in deference to my allergies I settled myself on one of the granite benches on the sidewalk with my rapidly cooling sencha. My aunt came back out a few minutes later with a little package wrapped loosely in purple paper. I didn't unwrap it until we got back home, and discovered a tiny little juniper in a gentle slanting style. I love it. I watered it heavily today because I'm not sure how much water it had in its soil, and I'm planning on giving it plenty of cool air for it's pseudo-dormant needs, because keeping the heater on while I'm not home is just silly. I'll probably stick it on the porch from time to time, too, but for the most part the window ledge should serve pretty well (the front balcony gets a lot of sunlight, and my room gets nothing direct). I set it up on one of the windows earlier today, next to the Unidentified Leafy Tree, and misted them pretty well, too. Poor little juniper is probably all kinds of confused right now. I'm going to dig out the old stones from the defunct fish tank (from junior year of college, holy hell, being a packrat pays off for once!) and make it a gravel tray. I want it to be inside as much as possible, because I'm possessive like that. I'm going to wait for some of the water currently in there to evaporate, first.
I have named it BON. Mostly because I default to calling the ULT "Tree," since I was never really able to definitively match it up with anything, and I realized that I was calling them both Tree earlier and that is simply unacceptable.
Tree is currently sitting on the corner of my desk, just at my elbow. BON has had a rather stressful day, what with the heavy watering and the misting and the warm temperature and the strange lighting, but is now sitting on the windowsill by Mr. Coffee, the only part of any window that isn't over the heater. Nice and cold.
Re: concert last night The first half went extremely well, if I may say so myself. The second, not so much, because the tech people turned off the monitors during the intermission and didn't turn them back on, so when I started "The Best Is Yet To Come" I was all right, but after a few of those intervals I psyched myself out and then I really was singing the wrong notes but I couldn't tell WHAT notes I was singing and didn't really know if I should adjust for being sharp or flat or in a different key entirely. dslkjga embarrassing. But! I managed to find it again just before the transition, and I'm told that I made an interesting face at that point but I finished the song really strongly, so fuck it. And I'm only saying that because I've been beating myself up over it for the last twenty-two hours, because I am a perfectionist and that was the only song I knew really well even before the start of the semester! ...and the president of the university was there, so it's great to know I screwed up in front of him, whoopee. Ugh. I'm working very hard at not being highly disappointed in myself, and thus far I've worked it down to occasional outbursts of I CAN'T BELIEVE I SCREWED UP LIKE THAT WHAT THE HELL I HAVEN'T DONE THAT IN YEARS. Whatever, I'll listen to my imeem streams of last semester's concert and make pouty faces at the songs I didn't mess up.
...I...I am going to go curl up under my quilt again, I think, and Not Do Any Work. Mostly because I'm tired as all get out (seriously, put an insomnia who manages maybe four to six hours a night in the same room as an insomnia who manages maybe two, make them share the bed, and then put another person in an air mattress on the floor who shouts in their sleep, and see if any of them are well-rested...on the upside, though, there were a lot of latenight/earlymorning giggles). The weekend went far better than I expected, mostly because my mother spent a lot of her time playing the Pseudo!hostess since she is more familiar with the area than her sister. There were some tense moments in a shoe store and apparently it's highly inappropriate for me to have my bedroom door open when a male is using the bathroom across the hall. Oh, and I can marry the pianist for the jazz group because he has a loving family.
Em! I received your email, and YAY COFFEE DATE, but it will have to be Thursday or Friday or Saturday, I think. I've got a presentation thinger on Wednesday that will take most of the day, some appointments on Thursday, a paper due next Monday, and another paper due next Wednesday. So...that'll be fun. Heh.