Tumbleweed of Flourish
Sep. 8th, 2018 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoSeven and a half hours of sleep isn't quite as good as eight, but it's a whole lot better than five. I used a clever trick to stop myself from staying awake worrying: I imagined how I would meet various challenges from The Great British Bake-Off. A genoise a day keeps the demons away.
It didn't stop me from freaking out at various points during the day, though. I got a text from Dragonfly to say that her mother died in her sleep early this morning. Her mom was 96, and it was not unexpected, but it was hard because Dragonfly's wife had major surgery and is still recuperating, so Dragonfly was not able to be with her mother. I wish I were going to be around to be supportive, but we're going to visit my mother tomorrow. I agreed to take her to an appointment fairly early Monday morning, so we have to stay overnight in order to get there in time on Monday. Thinking about my mother makes me think of sad things. I need more cake . . . failing that, I did make banana bread so the bananas wouldn't go limp while we were away.
Once upon a time, the Sparrowhawk built a monstrous bookshelf out of slabs of plywood. It's so sturdy that it's still here, forty years later. We've shipped it from place to place with us. Its purpose was to hold our TV and all the stereo stuff, plus books of course. One of the things it used to hold was the Bang and Olufsen turntable and cubic yards of LPs. When we cleared out the storage unit, we brought what was left of those LPs (and it's a lot) home with us. The Sparrowhawk took the turntable to a repair shop. It's the typical shop run by a couple of cranky old guys who are specialists and are only open for business a couple of days a week. They had to order a replacement belt from some other specialty place. They finally got the belt, put it on, and found the turntable still didn't work. And there are no parts for fixing it, because B&O no longer supports their "vintage equipment". But they did have a used Sony turntable that would work with our equipment, at a reasonable price, so he brought that home instead.
And finally, after maybe eight years, we can listen to the vinyl again. In that box of records there are so many memories from our past! I was genuinely surprised by how different the listening experience was. I'd talked myself into thinking I was just being a snob when I thought that vinyl was better. Sigh . . . yeah, it is better. It's less convenient and less accessible for everyone, but the sound really is different--to my ears, at least. It's warmer, richer, fuller, somehow more live, more inviting. We listened to some Bob Seger (the poor man's Springsteen, and a Michigan boy), Beach Boys, The Virtuoso Trumpet, Baroque Brass, The Goldberg Variations, Helmut Winschermann and the German Bach Soloists, and Flanders and Swann: "At the Drop of Another Hat." Now he just has to figure out how to hook up the Time Windows again, and then we can blast the Ray Manzarek "Carmina Burana" till the house shakes. Music also keeps the demons away.
It didn't stop me from freaking out at various points during the day, though. I got a text from Dragonfly to say that her mother died in her sleep early this morning. Her mom was 96, and it was not unexpected, but it was hard because Dragonfly's wife had major surgery and is still recuperating, so Dragonfly was not able to be with her mother. I wish I were going to be around to be supportive, but we're going to visit my mother tomorrow. I agreed to take her to an appointment fairly early Monday morning, so we have to stay overnight in order to get there in time on Monday. Thinking about my mother makes me think of sad things. I need more cake . . . failing that, I did make banana bread so the bananas wouldn't go limp while we were away.
Once upon a time, the Sparrowhawk built a monstrous bookshelf out of slabs of plywood. It's so sturdy that it's still here, forty years later. We've shipped it from place to place with us. Its purpose was to hold our TV and all the stereo stuff, plus books of course. One of the things it used to hold was the Bang and Olufsen turntable and cubic yards of LPs. When we cleared out the storage unit, we brought what was left of those LPs (and it's a lot) home with us. The Sparrowhawk took the turntable to a repair shop. It's the typical shop run by a couple of cranky old guys who are specialists and are only open for business a couple of days a week. They had to order a replacement belt from some other specialty place. They finally got the belt, put it on, and found the turntable still didn't work. And there are no parts for fixing it, because B&O no longer supports their "vintage equipment". But they did have a used Sony turntable that would work with our equipment, at a reasonable price, so he brought that home instead.
And finally, after maybe eight years, we can listen to the vinyl again. In that box of records there are so many memories from our past! I was genuinely surprised by how different the listening experience was. I'd talked myself into thinking I was just being a snob when I thought that vinyl was better. Sigh . . . yeah, it is better. It's less convenient and less accessible for everyone, but the sound really is different--to my ears, at least. It's warmer, richer, fuller, somehow more live, more inviting. We listened to some Bob Seger (the poor man's Springsteen, and a Michigan boy), Beach Boys, The Virtuoso Trumpet, Baroque Brass, The Goldberg Variations, Helmut Winschermann and the German Bach Soloists, and Flanders and Swann: "At the Drop of Another Hat." Now he just has to figure out how to hook up the Time Windows again, and then we can blast the Ray Manzarek "Carmina Burana" till the house shakes. Music also keeps the demons away.
sparrowhawk is a hero of the revolution
Date: 2018-09-09 06:03 am (UTC)wallow in it, dear one. take that, demons.