Go West, Mr. Man!

Here's a shot of Greg dancing with the lovely and talented Miss Dinah Moe. Pop Quiz: Which one has two left feet?

(Actually, they're both pretty good dancers, though Dinah's talents lie more in the realm of aerial ballet.)

The Man is headed west on Sunday for his two-week residency at Ucross. He's been packing for a couple of days now -- hiking stuff here, computer monitor there. I take him to the airport on Sunday after he's done with church, and then he's off to live inside his head full-time until just before Thanksgiving. They'll even bring him his lunch so he can work all day without interruptions, and his cabin doesn't have a TV. (Heck, where do I sign up??)

He thinks he'll be spending much of his Ucross time working on Les sept merveilles (The Seven Wonders). He says of that piece that it's possibly the most intense piece he's ever written, and that he had to finish working through The Waking before he could figure out how to approach it. He has been working with headphones on, so I literally haven't heard more than two notes of the piece. He expects to spend a goodly amount of his composing time at Ucross giving it life and form. I wouldn't be surprised if he came home with a new idea or two, either.

The Waking is essentially done, except for some minor cleanup. On occasion, I've also heard phrases from There and Back Again, which is also somewhere close to being finished -- I think. Until Greg declares a piece to be done and stamps the place and date of completion on it, it's still open for changes.

The Man has actually had quite a lot of news of late. Who's Who in America has now officially left the presses and has started arriving at every public library in the country -- and Greg's in it! He ordered a copy for himself, and it came in two ginormous volumes. Volume 1 bears his name on the front cover and contains his biography (as well as those of everyone else who is Who for 2008). I'm in it too -- listed under Life Partner. I always did love libraries, and now I'm in every one in the country, too.

Greg was so tickled when his copies arrived that he opened up the index of names in Volume 2 and pointed to all of the ones where no address was listed (he did so for privacy reasons). "Look! There's Jon Stewart! Look! There's Zach Braff!" You get the idea. At least in the second volume, the talented and adorable Mr. Hall (Greg, not Monty) rubs shoulders with column upon column of noteworthy persons.

The local papers run columns of community news for the various towns that constitute their readership, and each community has a local reporter. Greg called the Biddeford Journal-Tribune, figuring that he'd get a nice little one-liner in the column for our town, right next to the school cafeteria menu and the Cub Scouts' meeting notes. Was he surprised when the paper sent a reporter and a photographer for an interview and several photos! He ended up in the top right corner of page 1 in last Friday's edition, and the article with a huge second photo ran on page 2.

Of course, we needed to buy several copies for friends, relatives, our bulletin board, and posterity. I stopped into the Irving station and picked up four copies after pumping gas. The cashier looked at the papers, looked at me, and shyly asked, "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Sure," I replied, uncertain whether I'd have to give a long spiel about the state of modern classical composition.

"Did someone die? Another lady just left here with another stack of those papers."

2008 might well be the Year of the Man. The 21st Century Masterworks anthology, featuring the orchestral version of his Water suite (the one that was recorded in Prague this summer), will be available in March 2008 in every outlet from Borders Books to ITunes. We never did see a master CD from that session. It might still be in production at this point.

The Sax Quartets CD might be released sometime next year, too. It should have been recorded at Town Hall in NYC a couple of months ago, but the recording engineer has contracted Lyme disease and wasn't feeling well enough to do the sessions. He hopes to get back into the booth and get the sessions going soon. Two of the pieces have already been recorded, and the New Hudson Sax Quartet will get extra time to learn the other three works in the meantime.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Dinah Moe turned 2 years old this past Saturday. This video is actually of litter sister Buffy, but I couldn't say it any better myself. Happy Birthday, Puppy Princesses!

A Rare Day in October

...is one where I'm actually home on a Sunday morning so I can dust the cobwebs off my poor old blog.

If I were a responsible adult, I probably wouldn't be here now, either. Sunday morning is rally-roo day for Seamus and me, and we haven't been to a rally class in months due to dog shows every frickin' weekend since forever. Don't get me wrong. I love dog shows. I love rally class. It's just that sometimes, I love taking a little break even more.

Greg's cousin Dan (actually, his mother's first cousin) and his wife Nancy came to visit from BC for the weekend, and the pups and I just bade them farewell at the door with go-cups of coffee. They're headed over to the church to hear Greg play the organ at the second service, and then they're off to visit Nancy's relatives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. They're the first of Greg's relatives whom I've met, and they're delightful people -- plus they're Golden Retriever folks, so we had plenty in common. We took them out walking on Wells Beach and to the Weathervane for a Maine clambake (using the gift certificate I won a little while back). They and Greg shared stories about the family and old photos, and Greg played piano for them. In addition to the go-cups of coffee, we sent them off with copies of the old photos (courtesy of my scanner and Photoshop) and a CD of some of Greg's more recent pieces. I meant to cook them a proper Danish breakfast, but we ended up at the Maine Diner instead.

Anyway... sloth, glorious sloth. I have to be by myself in some distant locale in order to be able to sleep later than 9 AM any more, but it's still luxurious just to be able to greet the morning at my own pace, armed with a cup of caffeine and a complete lack of an agenda. Oh sure, I have a BCCME Board meeting this afternoon, but the afternoon is still a long ways away.

My busted finger is just about healed, enough so that I've stopped wearing the irritating "buddy tape" on my right ring and pinky fingers. Both fingers are a bit creaky from lack of use, so I have to keep practicing making a fist. At least I can close my right hand now -- a while back, I couldn't even hold on to any coins I received as change unless I did so left-handed.

If You're Ever Hungry in Portland...

Greg's birthday was October 9, already ancient history by this end of the month. His birthday-dinner instructions to me were, "Pick someplace in Portland where we don't usually go." That could be most of the city; I guess we're just creatures of habit. (I should have chosen hot dogs and beer at Hadlock Field, but that would have suited me better than him.)

It's said that Portland has more restaurants per capita now than just about any other city besides San Francisco. I'm not sure whether it's true, or whether they were counting the Mickey Ds along with the fine chef-owned establishments... but no matter. It's easy to be spoiled for choice when looking for a really good restaurant in Portland these days.

We ended up at 288 Fore Street, which (surprise, surprise!) is located at exactly that address, just one block up from the ferry terminal and just outside of the Old Port. The building was a ship's chandlery back in the day, and the interior still features the beams and brick from those days. The kitchen area is situated in the main dining area, and you can enjoy the fires from the brick roasting oven and the roasting spit while you await your meal.

And what a meal it was! Greg opted for a selection of different seafood mini-entrees featuring local crab. (The restaurant makes use of as much locally-grown and raised food as possible.) I opted for the dry-rubbed, spit-roasted pork with locally-made sauerkraut. Veggies and other side dishes are a la carte, so we ordered and split a side of fresh local beets.

What a complete pleasure everything was! The place was a little on the noisy side with a capacity crowd, but it was easy just to lose yourself in the food. Greg and I stole morsels from each other's plates. I'm shocked that we even had room for dessert, but Greg's came dressed with a birthday candle -- and no one was forced to sing.

Reservations are a pretty good idea -- even on a Tuesday, the place was humming -- but the staff does set aside a certain number of tables for last-minute diners. Whether you plan ahead of time or not, just go there sometime.

Dog Stuff

I'll get to Dinah's show news on her blog when I'm done here. Let's just say there's a lot of it to catch up on.

Last Saturday BCCME held a fun match here in my yard. I like to think a good time was had by all, but I'm afraid that probably includes the yellowjackets (like the Bush family, yet another species with no real purpose on earth). Folks inundated us with all manner of treats, from cider and donuts to fresh-picked local apples to birthday cake to cookies to... you get the idea. Greg bundled up a lot of the leftovers and brought them to church the next morning. Everyone had fun at our "practice dog show," and I think we might even have inspired one of the new members to consider showing her new puppy when she gets one.

While all that was going on, Dinah was at the Beardie beauty parlor, getting ready for a show on Sunday. I had to be insane to let myself get talked into driving to New Jersey just for a one-day show, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. That's a story for another blog, though.

Sad to say, Seamus's and my next APDT rally trial, scheduled for next weekend, was cancelled. There were some problems getting the judging panel in order, apparently -- but there will be more trials next year. We might even practice for them ahead of time!

Greg Stuff

I can't believe it's almost November! Greg will be leaving for his residency at Ucross in a couple of weeks. He'll be home just in time for Thanksgiving, hopefully with some good work and some inspiration. By that time, he'll need to start making plans to head to New York for the recording session for the Sax Quartet.

We're still awaiting the master copy of the CD from Prague with the Water Suite on it. Not that Greg's been idle in the meantime. He's finished The Waking (song for voice and piano), and has been messing around with There and Back Again (instrumental for winds and percussion). He also burned a CD of the premiere performance of Clayton's Runaround and sent it, along with a printed and bound copy of the manuscript, to the owner of Clayton Farm in Mabou, NS, where the piece was inspired. (You can see a photo of Greg playing the antique pump organ at the farm here on his Web site.

Knitting Stuff

There hasn't been a heckuva lot of progress to report. Since I shipped off the Tofutsies socks to my sister, I've been putting in occasional moments on the second of the Sockotta socks. I've just about finished the heel turn.

Now that it's fall and my thoughts turn to wool, I hope to get back to the old sticks and string pretty soon. I've meant well -- I've carried my knitting with me everywhere I've gone this season -- but it hasn't really seen the outside of the knitting bag for more than a minute here and a minute there.

Most of the time, my stash lives in the living room on my overstuffed easy chair. Back in the olden days, only a couple of projects lived there and the rest lived downstairs in my work room. Now that the work room is in a complete shambles, all of the knitting projects are crammed into the easy chair, and no one can sit in or anywhere near it. I had to shove everything but the "sock bucket" into the bedroom closet just so our company could sit down someplace in the house. Now that our company has departed, the migration from closet to easy chair will begin again shortly.

It's Football Season!

Our household is a loyal member of Red Sox Nation, and none of us have a lot of interest in professional (or even college) football... but Dinah Moe is always interested in a little pickup game in the backyard.

Still Busted

Cute photo of Seamus and Dinah...

The finger is healing nicely, thankyouverymuch. I'm still stuck in this ridiculous splint and still trying to go through life pretending I'm left-handed. In another couple of weeks, though, this splint will be history! By then, my eyes will have stopped stinging from the last time I tried to spray a can of Lysol left-handed. Pow! Right in the kisser!

If I had known what a conversation-starter a crummy old splint in an Ace bandage would be, I would have bound my hand up years ago and used it to pick up guys while I was in college. It's just amazing -- no matter where I go, I end up striking up a conversation with someone about my busted finger. The splint attracts everyone from toddlers fascinated by an adult with a "boo-boo" to outdoorsy-type guys in flannels eager to relate their own misadventures and share the pain. People still seem vaguely disappointed by my story, though, so I have resolved to not tell the truth any longer. This week I think I'll say I rescued a kitten from a fire escape on the 40th story of a burning building. Hey, do we even have any 40-story buildings north of Boston?

You Like Me! You Really, Really Like Me!

Actually, I owe it all to Dale. Back in March when we brought our respective clubs to Meet the Breeds in Saco (Dale as POC, myself as BCCME), she got to talking with the editor of Downeast Dog News. DDN, for those of you who don't live in Maine, is a monthly newspaper-format publication dedicated to all things doggy going on in the State of Maine.

Dale has a particular talent for drawing people out. After schmoozing with Holly (the editor of DDN), she determined that what Holly really needed was more writers to help with articles -- and so she recommended me. After some months of off-and-on conversations and emails and sending of links to samples and suchlike, Holly and I have finally been able to meet, talk about some topics, and get things started.

I'm pleased to say that I now am a member of the dreaded media elite, since I am a freelance writer for DDN. I now have to get some articles together and my first two are obedience-related, so Dale and Sue might be asked to grant interviews one of these days. If I bring a camera, can I be referred to as "paparazzi" too??

And This Day in Yarn...

I finally finished Joyce's Tofutsies socks and shipped them off to her. She loves them, and doesn't care that they're fraternal twins instead of identical ones. That will still bother me until approximately forever, though. Joyce, however, loves the heck out of them. That makes the effort worthwhile.

As for the Sockotta socks, Sock #2 is still a cuff, but I'm about an inch away from the heel turn. I can't knit too quickly, but I can still knit -- so I'm making progress.

Since I've been lusting after some sweater patterns I've been seeing in the catalogs of late, I thought it would be a mighty good idea to at least finish the one I have in progress. I picked it up and tried to knit, but quit after about a row and a half. Since my hand is still in a splint, I can't hold heavy needles properly, and the three working fingers all feel strained from trying to adapt. This might not spell good news for sweater production, but I've been working on socks like crazy. They're light, and I can hold them without too much stress on the fingers.

Maybe it's seasonal and maybe it's not, but with the coming of fall, I find myself even more consumed by yarn lust and the desire for some new knitting projects. I've had to go on a yarn diet simply because I have no place to fit any more yarn -- so in order to acquire anything new, I need to keep on knitting until there's a visible hole in the current stash pile. I half-satisfied my need for Something by pulling out a skein of Mountain Colors Soxie (in the Caribbean colorway, which more reminds me of the colors on a peacock) and winding that into a ball. I placed it on the top of the yarns in my sock queue, partly for inspiration and partly because I really, really want to work on something I haven't been looking at for months on end. Maybe I'll fool myself by pulling out all of the other yarns in queue and replacing them with different sock yarns from the stash. Then, everything will look all shiny and new, and I'll be inspired to knit a wide swath through the collection. Sounds good, huh?

Tails of Good Karma

Between Meet the Breeds in Saco back in March and yesterday's event in Portland, BCCME has done its share of community service/education for the year 2007.

For those of you not familiar with Portland, Paws is one of the main fundraisers for the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland. They hold their "walkathon" event in Deering Oaks Park in downtown Portland, and they invite dog rescues and dog-related businesses from all over the state to set up meet-and-greet tables.

Pat (the VP for BCCME) and I and our designated BCCME "show and tell" dog, Dinah, set up in the park yesterday morning. We came armed with the Beardie Rescue banner, information about Beardie Rescue and about BCCME, a DVD of Beardie photos, and Pat's portable DVD player. We set the EZ-Up up, parked the table and chairs, got Dinah settled in a crate, and prepared to schmooze our crowd.

We actually met some Beardie people -- one woman with a Beardie mix whose front half was Beardie and whose back half was Collie (I'm not kidding!), another couple who lost a Beardie and were interested in getting to know some Beardie people (maybe)... and even the daughter-in-law of Dinah's uncle Badger Burfitt's owner in Virginia! We shook hands, kissed babies, and visited with members of other rescues. Dinah enjoyed being the subject of much admiration, though I had to tell a few people that she was for "show and tell" only, and not up for adoption. The Eastern Maine Agility Club set up next to us, and Dinah was eyeing the A-frame for a long while -- but by the time we were free to run their course, she was just too tired from entertaining all day.

It was a lovely day for a dog walk in the park -- especially one that came with free Starbucks coffee. We were all pretty much worn out from entertaining by the time things ended, though. Back at Val and Pat's house, Dinah got to see Her Trav and bounce around with him. Trav did his pirate impression for me ("arrrrrrr") and nibbled my nose. Of course, their other Beardies, Maddie and Mac, thought I came to see them. Don't tell them that I went to see Val!

South Park Mac vs. PC

Bwa ha ha ha! The only thing that could have been better is if the PC were played by Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo!

Busted.

Considering all of the stuff I used to do as a kid, it's probably a miracle that I didn't sustain at least one broken bone. I'd climb trees, jump off of large rocks, dive, play contact sports, took horseback riding lessons... and the worst injury I sustained was a sprained wrist when I slipped on the ice while skating. I split my head and other appendages open on rocks, sustained multiple wasp and hornet stings, and probably spent the first several years of life with perpetual scabbed knees -- with nary a trip to the emergency room.

Maybe that makes it even sillier to admit that I broke my right pinky finger just falling off the street a couple of days ago. Yes, that's right -- I fell off the street. I wasn't even drinking at the time! The town has been repaving some of the crummiest sections of plowed-up pavement around town, a fact I was well aware of when I decided to take The Lovely One for a little walk down the street to the river. The newly-paved road rises quite a ways above the shoulder in some places now, as much as 6-9 inches.

I wasn't watching where I was going, quite frankly. Like Wile E. Coyote going off a cliff, I stepped off the pavement into thin air, realized my mistake a half-second too late, and then succumbed to the pull of gravity. Unlike Wile E., however, I plopped face-first into a stretch of newly-laid pavement -- rummy, rummy. The leash flew out of my hands, and Dinah skittered down a nearby driveway. Thank heavens there were no cars and no witnesses. The judges would have given me a 9.5 for the dive.

When I picked myself up, Dinah was my first concern. She came right back after I called her, and I caught her leash. In spite of being covered neck-to-knees with fresh tar, I briefly considered continuing the walk -- but my hands and knees were scraped, one hand was bruised and hurt like hell, and my dignity was wounded beyond repair. We turned around and headed for home.

I changed my tarry clothes and scrubbed the tar off those parts of me that didn't hurt too much to scrub. My right pinkie was purple, but I chalked that up to a bad sprain. Greg and I dropped over to visit Dale and Val for burgers, veggies, and beer, and to smooch on their puppies for a while. My finger hurt badly and looked worse, but I was fine as long as I didn 't bump it on anything (dog heads, corn on the cob, beer bottles...).

The next morning, it was no better. I decided to spend the morning at the local urgent care center instead of at rally-roo -- for which I owe Seamus yet another apology. The nice nurses and techs took me in, looked me over, took some X-rays, and introduced me to the doctor. He showed me the break in my pinky on the films and splinted the thing for me. Armed with instructions on how to take care of my finger and whom to call once the country opens up for business again on Tuesday, I climbed into the car and faced my first challenge: How to get my car keys into the ignition while encased in a splint that extended beyond the length of my fingers. (Stick them in left-handed and try awkwardly to start the car with your left hand while leaning over. Fun, fun, fun -- and so graceful-looking, too.)

Greg called as I was attempting to start the car, which made stopping to answer the phone an adventure in itself. When I explained where I was and why, he mentioned that two of his favorite church choir members had invited us to their place on Moody Beach for lunch. Since I was just around the corner from the church, I agreed to meet him -- but only if he'd drive us to the beach. He agreed.

We had a delightful time visiting on the beach -- took a walk, enjoyed a nice grilled lunch, smooched on their little Yorkie, and stayed around just chatting and laughing for much of a perfect sunny afternoon. They've sold their house on the beach and will be moving to a newer house in town in November, so this is one of the few remaining summer days they have left before they go. They say that after 15 years in the old house, they won't miss the view -- but I know I would.

Anyway, I get to visit the orthopedist tomorrow and come home wearing something -- whether it's a splint, a cast, or "buddy tape" -- but all I hope for is that whatever contraption I get to wear will allow me to take showers, start my car, and fasten my bra (which I had to ask Greg to do for me). Being able to hold a fork or a pen would be a nice bonus.