Overdue on the Christmas Post

Bits and Pieces

I was finally able to slightly redo my work layout at work.  It's always been complicated by the fact that, although I have a desk, I cannot comfortably fit under it.  Not when I'm wearing heels, not when I'm crossing my legs, and definitely not when I'm doing both.  The new layout is a tad cramped for my chair, but I can fit under the table! Yay! (N.B.  Swivel chairs are so much fun they should be outlawed.)

Also, the Computer Fairy finally replaced the old clunker of a monitor with a 19" flatscreen.  It's a little weird getting used to the changes in color saturation from top to bottom, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. ;)  The display has also gone up to 1280x1024 resolution, but Mr. Flynn looks just as buccaneering as ever. :D

I'm trying to saturate my plants with water so they don't wilt and die over Christmas.  I won't be back in until January 2 - long break this year.  Finding the plants' saturation point can be... a little bit of a mess. Oops.

Bro. No. 2 now calls me "Mrs. Charles" for no other discernible reason than that he and the other boys've been re-watching my Thin Man DVDs.

Apparently there's a Christmas party tonight that I'm supposed to go to.  If I ever knew about it, I must have forgotten shortly thereafter. Oops.  I hope it doesn't go too late.  I fell asleep in the car on the way home from work yesterday (no, I wasn't driving), mouth hanging open and everything. It took a LOUD Christmas carol on the classical radio station to wake me up.

My room, she is finally being cleaned! I'm terrible at letting clutter build up, especially now that virtually all legitimate storage space is in use.  (And I'm talking floor-to-ceiling boxes and organization - I can't even stuff stuff in corners any more.)  Now I just need to balance my accounts for the last, oh, four or five weeks, and I can sew with a clear conscience.  (N.B. I definitely need more bookshelves [four doesn't cut it], and I definitely have no place to put any. Dilemma.)

Jordi, there are some notes I wanted to put in your package, but I was in a rush to get it out the door and forgot about writing anything. Let me know when you get it. *bounce*

Dad's Civil War brogans have finally given up the ghost.  After 11 years! How dare they!  Brogans are rough, soldier-issue or low-class shoes, and Dad primarily does civilian now.  A different type of shoe would be more appropriate, and potentially better-fitting or more comfortable.  So I inquired of Robert Land if he could fit my dad, since Daddy wears a 15 narrow (he's 6'8" but built like a mountaineer, not an NFL linebacker).  I finally heard back that Mr. Land can't; his size 15 lasts are wide and extra wide.  Bummer. :(  And BANG goes my Christmas present, too.  (N.B. Did Dad's original brogans come in narrow or regular? If not... Must inquire.)

So poor Daddy will instead find under the tree a cordless electric drill that, judging from the two-battery price (altho' Mumsie snagged a one-battery special deal), is The Drill To End All Drills.  (My dad doesn't ask for tools because he needs them the way I need that extra skirt; he uses his tools.  He's gone through a fair number of cordless drills over the years.  Matter of fact, I think he's been without for quite a while.  I seem to remember him using the old corded one when working on the trestle for the garden train last spring.  I hope this one will last a long time.  It's intended for contractors, so it really ought to be a good 'un.

I think I entered a hungry spell yesterday.  I had a quite decent bowl of soup for lunch, but by 3 o'clock I was hungry.  I tried to pretend it was all in my mind, but I gave up after 30 minutes and made a bag of popcorn.  Then I ate a decent dinner (usually a little difficult after a whole bag of popcorn) and was fine.  And this morning I woke up at 5:30 as usual, but ravenous.  *glances at empty tupperware bowl*  I don't think I brought enough lunch.

Does anyone have the original "Yakety Sax"?  It's a favorite of my mother's (her father used to wake them up with it!) and she even has it for her ringtone.  I've never heard the whole thing, though, and for some reason I want to.

Bro. No. 2 and I need to finish learning "O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?" from The Messiah.  We worked on it over the summer, but we just got the point of singing without the recording when he had to go back to school.  It's a great, (too) short duet for alto and tenor.  Of course, the fact that I sing first soprano and he's a second bass (as deep as you get) didn't faze us.  My total possible range is three octaves, so technically I can sing alto, tenor, and nearly all baritone; but my transitions between alto and soprano voices are lousy, and my alto voice is weak.  And that still leaves poor Bro. No. 2 out on a limb.  For a bass he's got a great upper range - but a Handel tenor is high!  So now I'm singing the tenor part - moved up an octave, it's a respectable soprano part - and Bro. No. 2 is singing the alto an octave lower, which makes it a nice baritone/second tenor. :D  Sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself; although if someone knows what it's supposed to sound like, it'll be a bit of a surprise. *g*  If it was only longer, we might have a chance to actually perform it for the Reflections choir talent show, or maybe even at church... although that'd be pretty high pressure.

I've posted these before, but here goes again: (All are less than 1 Mb.)
Me as a soprano (not very high): Star of the County Down
Me as a low alto: Lullabye in Ragtime (with Bro. No. 3, who's really a baritone, but usually ends up singing second or even first tenor because he's stinking good) (Watch out for the end - the recorder maxed out.)
"Lullabye in Ragtime" is actually a Danny Kaye song. *g*
Me in three parts (soprano melody, alto harmony, and soprano harmony): The Wondrous Cross
I haven't yet recorded anything as a baritone. Slacker, aren't I? ;)

These are all very rough recordings, made as experiments.  I definitely need to sing out more when I record again. I can be fairly loud in choir, and I hit a high C at the end of "Be Our Guest" last week when Dad was blaring the Beauty and the Beast CD through the house.  Notes that high are to be shrieked, not sung. :p

*very small voice* If you enjoyed these, I'd be happy to take requests. I want to record some more, but I do better work - on anything - when it's "assigned" to me instead of me choosing it. I may even be able to shanghai a brother or two into the mix.

Or if you have recordings of yourself *coughJaelcough*, send me an .mp3 or something and I'll... harmonize with it. *eg*  I don't sing alto by preference, but I taught myself to harmonize a long time ago. Of course, my harmonies can be alto, tenor, baritone, or high soprano - whatever I feel like at the time. ;)

So Monday I received a pudding a beautiful present, made of a suitable material, from the Tree herself.  Thank you, dear! :D And your card arrived yesterday!

By the way, I don't think I ever thanked you for sending those two books earlier this fall - Leigh Brackett's The Long Tomorrow and the I Spy book.  And thereby hangs a tale. Because I've heard about the I Spy books, that they're really pretty good, and the author always wished that he'd written under his own name instead of under the pseudonym John Tiger.  I'd been intending to track one down but just haven't made it.  Well... frankly, it was so cringe-worthily-awful it was downright unbelievable! (Well, it wasn't that bad.)  Considered just as a story, an adventure-spy story, it was slow, wordy, and very lacking in action.  As a companion to the I Spy TV show, it was a huge failure.  It had no mood at all, much less the quick-changing humor and concentration and even anger of the show, besides being slow and wordy and action-less (all very unlike most I Spy).  Only in a few conversations did it approach the brilliant, ad-libbed repartee between Scotty and Kelly. And the epithets drove me up the wall!  How many times can you repeat "the Rhodes scholar" or (this is awful) "the agent with the face of a movie star"?!  I have never cringed like that before.  And when he wasn't using epithets (which was rare), they were "Robinson" and "Scott."  Sorry, but nobody thinks of them that way. They're "Kelly" and "Scotty" and always will be. Aaah!

But anyway, Aspen dear, Thank You! :D  I really appreciated (besides the fact that you saw it and thought of me! Squee!) the opportunity to read one. And now I know for sure, I certainly do! I may try another again, of course; I still love those guys. I'm also still in disbelief that I found it that bad, I who so thoroughly enjoy Captain Future, etc., AND adore I Spy!  *giggles a trifle hysterically*

This and That