Happy days 9 & 10
Dec. 22nd, 2008 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vgqnSaturday we went to the PDQ Bach concert in the afternoon, admired Christmas displays at Union Square (well, at Macy's, really, didn't get any farther), had a delicious dinner at paul k, then back to Davies Symphony Hall for the Pipe Dreams Christmas concert. A symphony double-header!
I could have done without the soprano at the organ concert, though. She was exactly the kind I most dislike, with a large, constant vibrato. The restless kids in the family seated next to us didn't like her either and got even more restless whenever she sang. Their parents thankfully whisked them away right before O Holy Night, which was the second to the last song anyhow. The organ, the real reason I wanted to be there, was indeed magnificent. It has over 9000 pipes, and the organist had some pipes out on stage to discuss and demonstrate at one point. Fascinating.
Yesterday was the carol singing party. Attendance was a bit lighter than usual, due in part to the rain, I suspect (yes, Californians can be such wimps, and readily admit it), but a good time was had by all, and a huge pot of hot cider was drunk, as usual. I should remember to put out one of my tea sieves, because I suspect the only reason the last bit of cider remains in the pot is because of the spices floating around the bottom of the pan.
It's been my cunning plan for the last several years to let the carol party folk place all the village figurines in our light-up village. It's fun to see where other people choose to place them. But alas, the village did not get fully populated this year, so I guess we'll have to do it.
I was very focused yesterday for party prep, in part because our next-door neighbors were hosting a neighborhood party from 4-7 (the carol singing party was 7-10). It was good because it gave me an earlier deadline to work towards (i.e., be taking a shower at 3:00). A lot of what I was doing wasn't strictly necessary. Would anyone have cared if I hadn't cut roses for the bathroom? Could anyone even tell that the kitchen floor was washed? (It's a mottled grey which is utterly unrewarding to clean.) And absolutely no one but me could care that I scrubbed the the range top controls back to a semblance of gleaming chrome. However, I have a theory of party cleaning that it's important to include tasks that, while unimportant to the party, make me feel happy to have done. And gleaming range top controls are going to make me smile for weeks to come, believe me.
On today's agenda: damp mop dining room and kitchen floors (there are always some drips from that dang hot cider), get my new crown installed (final stage of that root canal I had done a while back), and have dinner at my brother's with my dad who's arriving today. Oh, and try to attend to a bunch of MG stuff that I put off in favor of party prep. My sustainable vegetable gardening class is looming, just a month away. I need to start some chard seeds asap so they'll be ready for potting up!
I could have done without the soprano at the organ concert, though. She was exactly the kind I most dislike, with a large, constant vibrato. The restless kids in the family seated next to us didn't like her either and got even more restless whenever she sang. Their parents thankfully whisked them away right before O Holy Night, which was the second to the last song anyhow. The organ, the real reason I wanted to be there, was indeed magnificent. It has over 9000 pipes, and the organist had some pipes out on stage to discuss and demonstrate at one point. Fascinating.
Yesterday was the carol singing party. Attendance was a bit lighter than usual, due in part to the rain, I suspect (yes, Californians can be such wimps, and readily admit it), but a good time was had by all, and a huge pot of hot cider was drunk, as usual. I should remember to put out one of my tea sieves, because I suspect the only reason the last bit of cider remains in the pot is because of the spices floating around the bottom of the pan.
It's been my cunning plan for the last several years to let the carol party folk place all the village figurines in our light-up village. It's fun to see where other people choose to place them. But alas, the village did not get fully populated this year, so I guess we'll have to do it.
I was very focused yesterday for party prep, in part because our next-door neighbors were hosting a neighborhood party from 4-7 (the carol singing party was 7-10). It was good because it gave me an earlier deadline to work towards (i.e., be taking a shower at 3:00). A lot of what I was doing wasn't strictly necessary. Would anyone have cared if I hadn't cut roses for the bathroom? Could anyone even tell that the kitchen floor was washed? (It's a mottled grey which is utterly unrewarding to clean.) And absolutely no one but me could care that I scrubbed the the range top controls back to a semblance of gleaming chrome. However, I have a theory of party cleaning that it's important to include tasks that, while unimportant to the party, make me feel happy to have done. And gleaming range top controls are going to make me smile for weeks to come, believe me.
On today's agenda: damp mop dining room and kitchen floors (there are always some drips from that dang hot cider), get my new crown installed (final stage of that root canal I had done a while back), and have dinner at my brother's with my dad who's arriving today. Oh, and try to attend to a bunch of MG stuff that I put off in favor of party prep. My sustainable vegetable gardening class is looming, just a month away. I need to start some chard seeds asap so they'll be ready for potting up!
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Date: 2008-12-22 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-22 09:17 pm (UTC)I think we (well, Tivo) will be recording the Blackadder Christmas carol tonight!
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Date: 2008-12-23 03:30 am (UTC)So what kinds of Chard will you be growing? (I'm fond of 'Bright Lights' for pretty -- generally arranging a row or red, orange, yellow, and white-ribbed ones in spectral order -- but there's a cultivar with broad white midrib that's more prolific, and (frankly) I rather prefer regular beet-leaves for taste (with the note that the flavors differ slightly between the old 'Detroit' and 'Chioggia' and the yellow-rooted forms).) Which reminds me that I thinned the 'Chioggia' bed yesterday and should steam some this evening.
Mind you, my soils (both at home and at the Community Gardens plot) are infested with nematodes that attack both beets and chard, so I may have to resort to large planter-boxes filled with Supersoil.