I haz alpaca! And boy, are they puuuuurty.

Three white, one red, one black, one fawn, two chocolate brown.
I am laying claim to the red and one white, and in serious danger of falling in love with the black and the fawn, so the sooner you come see them the better chance you have of prying one or both away from me.

...to the dedication of the Trinity mosaic.
When: Sunday, December 23 at 10:15 AM 
Where: St. Maron Church, 600 University Ave NE, Minneapolis
Why: Because...it'll be really cool?

After three years of work, including two months of installation, the Trinity mosaic is finally done. And I'm out of work, which is another subject entirely. So...yeah. I'd be thrilled to see some of my friends there, even though this is ridiculously late notice. Mass starts at 10:15, and is about an hour to an hour and a half long (yeah, everyone's been really specific about that) and the short dedication ceremony and unveiling will follow.
I'm pretty excited about it. I mean, I've spent a lot of time really close up to it, seen it in all its stages, and actually got to see the whole thing from the ground on Wednesday (without scaffolding in front of it!) but, since there was never a dedication for the 14 Stations, this is really going to be the culmination of my last three years of work.

Wednesday was fun. Christine got sick and couldn't come, but Lori and I spent 5 hours with a mobile scaffolding doing the last of the grouting, and an insane amount of polishing. I reeked of orange oil afterwards, and we're afraid one half is a lot shinier than the other...but it was a good day.

Griffon helped out Friday, Saturday and Monday. Interesting going to work together. Helped us soooo much, though.

Ooh, shiny...

The ballet studio I work for is talking about doing Sleeping Beauty in the spring. They have never put this on before, and it requires (surprise!) a large number of "medieval court" costumes. If you or anyone you know knows of a good source of these, either to rent or buy, I would be most grateful. The cast is likely to be mostly kids, but they sometimes incorporate adults into it as well. 

::headdesk:: What have I gotten myself into?

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.



Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities*
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha (I saw the movie?)
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : A Memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit*
White Teeth
Treasure Island*
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers


Actually, some of the italicized ones I do intend to go back and finish - The Silmarillion, Emma, Canterbury Tales, Sense and Sensibility. It wasn't so much that I couldn't finish them as that I got distracted. Except with Emma. I just didn't like it. But I think I might like it better now that I've seen the movie. (Yes, that's rather shallow, but I do better with some books when I have a visual to go with it.)

Aha. I just realized why I'm still up and with little inclination to go to bed: I had caffeine waaaay too late.

Bad Mira. :(

But sunrise is in a little over an hour, so I think I'll try and stay up for it.

I know I'm going to pay for this later, though. I'll probably crash this afternoon.

Yay home! And yay for having internet at home at last. Jamie said it just got hooked up on Tuesday, so just in time for me to get home.
Mom called Christine on our way in yesterday morning, but she won't have work for me until Sunday...which means, since I have rehearsal Monday night, I have to pick it up on Sunday...which means I'm going to miss book club. Again. Damn. I don't even go to talk about the book (which I haven't read), I just really miss socializing with the MNF people, especially since I don't get to do it vicariously through Ny anymore. :p

So, so, so glad to be home again, though. I missed my city, I missed my bed, I missed my roommate, I missed the kitties, and...I think there was someone else...

Oh. Right. I missed Griffon, too, of course. :p

Jacques and Amy were very happy to see me. But Jacques woke me up this morning, which was not appreciated. He was trying to get into his food, so I yelled at him, and then he came over, stuck his head over the edge of the couch, and meowed inquiringly. He got nothing more than a pat on the head so he went back to trying to open the cupboard with his food.

Mom is having lunch with Elissa this afternoon, and I'm supposed to be hemming my jeans so I can actually wear them...because if I wait too long to get that done, it will never happen. So I should really get back to that, since I've got my machine already set up.

Me = highly amused.

Went shopping with Mom today. Got new shoes (among other things, but the shoes are the most amusing). And no comments about how many pairs of shoes I already have. I needed these; my old summer-running-around shoes were getting very ratty.

If I can figure out how to post a picture, I will do so at some point.

Random amusement: watching Oprah today, and someone on the show said, "You need to take a scaffold to that relationship." And I went, "...huh?" Judging by the hand motion he made I can only assume he meant guillotine, but I'm now trying to visualize how one would end a relationship with scaffolding.

Grr. Crappy day. :| Wouldn't have been so bad if I'd at least gotten an early start, but I didn't. I really didn't. And then realized that, while I don't have to do the beard because I'm missing a rather vital colour, that just means I'm doing gold. And Christine did the lines. I'm seriously tempted to erase all of hers and redo them, because that makes it a hell of a lot easier. It means some extra work...but then the rest of it goes faster and I'm not wanting to throttle anybody by the end of the day. And Nyree would probably appreciate not being strangled when she gets home from work.

I suppose it's worth it.

This would be one of those days when I hate my job.

ETA: So much for that. I'm in a perfect mood for drowning kittens right now. :|

Okay...feel like screaming, either in terror or delight. Not really sure which.

Just got off the phone with Jamie to hear about what happened at the AGM last night...and sure enough, I'm on the board. And am now wondering why I let her talk me into running for it in the first place.

And Michael's moving to Ireland. :( The upside of this, however, is that now when Jamie and I make our trip to the UK, we'll have lots of places to stay: Helen, Orion and Claire in Wales, Helen B in Scotland, and now Michael in Ireland. But still...why must so many of the good dancers move away?

Bouncy. :D :D :D

Life is yay. :)

Mom keeps saying, "Work more hours, work more hours," and yet she insists on calling me at a time when she should know I'm working, and am not wanting to take an hour long break to talk to her. And she persistently resists making it more convenient to talk to her in the evening when I'm done with work. :|

She is very unhappy with the concept of me going without a car of my own indefinitely. I should have talked to Dad about it first. She's not being entirely irrational, but she really doesn't like it when I remind her that I'm living on my own and can make decisions that she might not be thrilled with, if I think they're best. I definitely did not tell her that if I made every decision based on trying not to make her worry I would never do anything. And even then she'd worry. I'm going to go mad if I let her dictate my life, and I refuse to be guilt-tripped into doing things I don't want to.

Yay! :D I've got a place to live. :) And a very nice place, that I'm quite happy with, so I'm looking forward to moving, and can now start packing in earnest - although I really don't have a hell of a lot to pack. And I can tell my Jamie that she'll be able to help me move after all. :D I should call Mark, too. He was helpful last time.

I've now officially surrendered Pinewoods for this year. I e-mailed Bob to let him know I wouldn't be able to make it...and I'm sad, but okay. I really couldn't afford to fly out there, and that was the only possible way to make it without missing a lot of time in Montana with family.

And now, back to the regularly scheduled work week. :)

Heard back from Joy this morning: I won't be performing at FoN on Friday. :( Although, honestly, I'm not too terrifically disappointed. I really enjoy it as a spectator, and I should at least be able to watch the show. And Mom and I love the bazaar. So it will still be nice.

The people looking at the apartment came and went this morning. I got up at a relatively decent hour this morning so I'd have some time to make the place presentable, and then got the hell out of the way. Gave them a reasonable amount of time and then came back. It's nice outside, but there's just enough of a breeze to make it a bit chilly.

Bored now. Not sure when Mom and Dad are going to make it here, and not really sure what we're planning on doing today. Not sure how excited I am about the day. Hmph.

Mark took 2nd place in the state History Day competition! And I still have to read the paper...
But I'm so proud of my baby brother!

Also: Wheeeeeee! I got accepted to Pinewoods this summer! Now I just have to pray I get the scholarship so I can actually go. Two weeks of dancing, with Jamie, and the chance to see my sister. And maybe New York. And scout out the area in case Jamie decides to renew her efforts at dragging me out there next year - although she may find I'm a little more firmly anchored here than I was last summer.

The Passion Play was...interesting. Slightly disappointing, although I'm still glad I went. I found myself watching from the critical perspective of comparing it to how I might do it, which, it occurred to me, was more than a little condescending considering how very little experience I really have in such things. 
I thought the lighting was good, although the strobe lights were overused. Such things should, in my opinion, be used sparingly. They definitely overdid it on the fog machines; it was sometimes difficult to make out what was going on through the fog. The only part I particularly liked it in was the very end, where, combined with the lighting and the costumes, it made everything look surreal. But I was still choking on it.

I liked the costumes for the most part, although personally I would have used more muted colours - and preferably different materials. Because of the brightness of all the colours, everyone tended to blend together for me.

A few of the songs were nice; I could feel real joy in them, and those were the ones I liked. But overall I found them unmoving, although I think at least a small part of that was in the style of music. I spent most of them wishing they were over, and they had an unfortunate tendency to go on and on.

I thought they lingered too long over some scenes, and passed over others too quickly, but I suspect that's mostly just my personal preference and perspective based on the (not-generally-accepted) versions of the stories that I was raised with. I wanted to see more of Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary. I wanted to see each Station of the Cross referenced, rather than spending forever on Pontius Pilate and then practically jumping to the crucifixion (although there was a nod to Simeon taking up the cross). And ohmyGOD he took forever to die. I mean, I know he was up there all day, but we don't need to depict the whole damn day - and then have nothing of him being stabbed in the side. (Yes, my pet peeves are random.) Also: anyone who complained of the multiple "false" endings of LotR has obviously never sat through this play. I thought it was over at least five times.
Definitely agreed with Anne that the flying angels were silly. It's hard to make that look good. And the angel-at-the-tomb (Gabriel?) had the wimpiest wings. Archangels have magnificent, powerful, beautiful wings, not silly little things that stick straight out from the shoulder blades.

The live animals were fun. My favourites were the duck that really wanted to take off, and the very peeved llama that spent its whole time on stage with its ears laid back. Seriously, though, the Roman soldier riding into Jerusalem on a horse was a nice touch. I liked the Romans.

The one thing I think I unequivocally liked was the set. It was huge, and from my place in the audience looked fantastic. I shudder to think how much money they put into that.

Overall, my opinion of the show: Meh. I'm glad I saw it once, for certain aspects, but I really don't think I'd go see it again.


And now I'm going to stop being absurdly condescending and go to bed. Long day tomorrow.

Scotland small? Our multiform, our infinite Scotland small?
Only as a patch of hillside may be a cliche corner
To a fool who cries "Nothing but heather!" Where in September another
Sitting there and resting and gazing around
Sees not only heather but blaeberries
With bright green leaves and leaves already turned scarlet,
Hiding ripe blue berries; and amongst the sage-green leaves
Of the bog-myrtle the golden flowers of the tormentil shining;
And on the small bare places, where the little Blackface sheep
Found grazing, milkworts blue as summer skies;
And down in neglected peat-hags, not worked
In living memory, sphagnum moss in pastel shades
Of yellow, green and pink; sundew and butterwort
And nodding harebells vying in their colour
With the blue butterflies that poise themselves delicately upon them,
And stunted rowans with harsh dry leaves of glorious colour
"Nothing but heather!" -- How marvellously descriptive! And incomplete!

-- Hugh MacDiarmid

One of these days I'll actually get to see it myself. :)

Good heavens. It's not yet 11 and I feel vaguely inclined to go to bed. What has come over me?

ETA: Ooh! Talking to Jesse will distract me from wanting to go to bed. :)

Returning home do you feel you talked too much?
Cleverness, do you feel very tired?

Do you feel like sitting quiet in the blue cottage
Burning incense, after a bath, on return?

Do you feel like wearing a human body at last
After taking off the demon's dress?

Liquid time carries moisture into the room.
Do you feel like an ananta-shayana on her floating raft?

If you feel like that, come back. Cleverness, go away.
Does it really matter?
Let them say foolish, let them say unsocial.

I love dance and being with the people there, but afterwards it's nice to be quiet alone or with just one other person. :)

Didn't get to dance with Fer or Jamie tonight.

But I'm very happy nonetheless.

Well, yesterday didn't go too badly, except for finding out that the person who was going to take my car off my hands doesn't want it after all, fighting with my mom (although over what, I can't remember), oh, yeah, and my computer dying. :| Thank goodness for Ny, who understands my addiction to it.

However, I got an e-mail from my sister this morning. :)

I am in the most delightful mood today. :D I very much hope it lasts all week, but I'll settle for all day.

Eric called me this morning: has a "throw-away car" I can probably have for free, plus a little money for repairs, that would get me through till I can get a long-term car. So I called Dad to run it by him; he said get more details, but probably yes, and by the way, (sister) Monique is looking to get rid of her Isuzu Trooper. Would be happy to sell it to me, would take payments for it, and the only issue is how to get it here. I, however, have no objections to flying to New York to get it, and get in a visit with Monique and Ross and Rose at the same time. And if I end up having to wait for summer, well, I'm still hoping to go to Massachussetts, and Monique promised to come and see me if I do. I could just drive home again, possibly with Jamie. (Speaking of Massachussets, I've got to get my application filled out...)

So, all that and the fact that I got to talk to my Daddy (generally less stressful than talking to Mama) makes me very happy. :)

I'm just praying that everything will work out. And trying not to get too attached.

What the heart of the young man said to the psalmist

 Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
     Life is but an empty dream! --
 For the soul is dead that slumbers,
     And things are not what they seem.

 Life is real!  Life is earnest!
     And the grave is not its goal;
 Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
     Was not spoken of the soul.

 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
     Is our destined end or way;
 But to act, that each to-morrow
     Find us farther than to-day.

 Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
     And our hearts, though stout and brave,
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating
     Funeral marches to the grave.

 In the world's broad field of battle,
     In the bivouac of Life,
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
     Be a hero in the strife!

 Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
     Let the dead Past bury its dead!
 Act, -- act in the living Present!
     Heart within, and God o'erhead!

 Lives of great men all remind us
     We can make our lives sublime,
 And, departing, leave behind us
     Footprints on the sands of time;

 Footprints, that perhaps another,
     Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
     Seeing, shall take heart again.

 Let us, then, be up and doing,
     With a heart for any fate;
 Still achieving, still pursuing,
     Learn to labor and to wait.

	-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I love A Psalm of Life (although mostly the first two stanzas), and Longfellow was my first favourite poet. One of my mom's favourite stories about me has to do with him, and I have fond memories of reading his poetry aloud to Christine on the long drive to Montana. This poem in particular was my argument in our discussion as to whether or not cows are stupid. And someone wrote a rather delightful parody of it involving chickens.