Busy like beaver

[ciroccoj]

• A day to hit the ground running. Home schooling in the morning, music and English and math and French, everyone very productive. Started a walk at noon. Stopped at a shawarma shack for lunch, went to the lawyer's office¹, Toys 'R' Us to try to spend Justin's colouring contest gift card (we didn't), the library², and back home by about 4:00. That's a long time to be walking around, especially since it finally feels like winter in Ottawa (only started snowing last week; global warming is clearly just a bunch of hot air). At which point I collapsed, thinking of the blissful 1.5 hour or so we could just rest before going off to TaeKwon-Do.
  
  
• Bzzt! Wrong! Chris locked his keys in the car, downtown. ::groan::
  
  
• Drove off to get him, got back just in time to get some groceries before TaeKwon-Do, then rushed off to choir, where for our first number we sang "Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall," from numbers 69 to 48, in British finishing-school accents, slightly out of breath.³
  
  Rest of choir rehearsal went well. Starting with a joke from a bass who'd started telling it to one of the second sopranos, but ended up telling it to the entire choir because more and more people stopped to listen as he told it, so that when Kurt told us to get started, about half the choir said No! Let him finish first!⁴
  
  Anyway. This concert is going to rock. One of our pieces is by Mark Sirett, who single-handedly reconciled me to the idea that not all Canadian choral composers were deaf sadists. Balulalow.
  
  Kurt: (After having told us it would be really really nice if we'd, you know, look at him once in a while, because he's tired of looking at the tops of our heads as we bend over our music) Yeah, that was almost perfect. See how much better it is when you're looking up? Well, except for the one part in the 35th stanza, men...
  Tenor: We were just so blown away by the women's line right before it.
  Women: Aaawww...
  Bass: And besides we were so busy looking at you, Kurt, you know, we just missed that part of our music...
  Kurt: Yeah? Busy looking at me with the eyes on the top of your heads?
  Women: Ooooooh...
  Bass: Oh you see those too, do you?
  
  
• Got back home, trying to finish the conclusion of my Suzuki essay, which is difficult since I have no access to the hard drive on which I wrote the rest of the damned thing. Thought I'd take a bit of a brain-breather and read some fics. Found more proof, as if it was needed, that spell-checkers are not proof-readers:⁵
  
  "At last, morning comes, waking Harry with its yolk."

******

¹ Lawyer? Trying to sell my mom's home. And his partner's helping a friend of mine through a divorce. Small world.


² Library? Have begun an MS Readathon for the local home schoolers. So far we've got 25 kids entered. Justin and Daniel have two sponsors each: me and Chris. They're not supposed to go door to door to get sponsors, so we're kind of at a loss here. If my mom and Guy were around, they'd be the obvious choices, but... yeah.


³ 99 Bottles? No, really. It's for a play (possibly by Bernard Shaw) being put on locally, about a socialist uprising in England. At one point the townspeople kind of riot and tear down a wall, while singing the only song they can all agree on. The riot doesn't take place on stage, but is heard offstage. Hence our recording.


⁴Bass humour? This guy wakes up, head pounding and mouth tasting like death. Through the horrible nausea and ultra-bright morning light, he spots a glass of water and a couple aspirin on the bedside table. He takes them, then stumbles to the washroom, where he gets a bit of a shock when he looks into the mirror. He looks awful, grey-faced and red-eyed, with a huge shiner and extensive bruising on his face, and his shins are really banged up.

And on the mirror is a note from his wife: "Darling, I've left water and aspirin on the table, so make sure you take them. I've made your favourite breakfast and I'm off to get some groceries for lunch. How does lasagna sound?"

He somehow makes it to the kitchen, where his son is sitting and reading the paper. On the table are all of his favourite breakfast things: waffles, bacon, coffee, orange juice.

"Hey, Dad. How're you feeling?"

"Um... OK. What... happened?"

His son laughs. "Well, you went out last night with the boys. I dunno what happened, but you came home waay late, drunk off your ass. We woke up when you crashed into Mom's coffee table."

"Oh god."

"Yeah, you were pretty wasted. You yelled a buncha things when at us when we tried to get you upstairs, crashed against the hat stand with your face, swore at the cat... total mess. Mom was pissed."

"Ugh." He thinks for a while, then has to ask. "So... um... why the breakfast?"

His son grins. "Oh that? Yeah, see, when Mom tried to put you to bed and started to take off your pants? You started yelling, 'Stop! Stop! No! I'm married!'"


⁵ It's no yolk?
Funnily, I have never yet come across greater proof of this than the immortal line, "Scully woke up blearily, groaned, rolled over, and threw up into a bowel next to the bed."

Although I must admit to having contributed to the horror myself a few times. I recall writing that a character had "followed his father's footsteps into prison, with a little less flare" - and no, he wasn't supposed to be an arsonist - and that his father's tone had been "imminently reasonable." Look out! He's about to be reasonable!

Thank God for betas is all I have to say.