We may have hit a new low in choir practice.

There was the usual amount of complaining and bickering. It is all good-natured and is sort of a tradition. The kind of thing where, as a newcomer, you have to be assured that it is in fact appropriate in the culture of these people, and then you listen respectfully like a good cultural pluralist.

"Where's the bump bump?" asked The Chemist querulously. "I think he's playing it twice, and it should only be once."
"It's not that," said Suwanda. She was a bit shrill. "You're having us come in on three and there should be three counts on that 'joy'. That's why we can't get it."
"If we just turn the page and look up," I said helpfully, "Bigsax will bring us in and we'll be fine."
The other Suwanda (or one of the others; we have anywhere from one to five of them) shook her head and murmured, "She's so naive."

The quarrel went on, culminating in Suwanda's getting up and shaking her music in Bigsax's face and then hitting him (playfully, let us hope) on the side of the head.

That was not the end of the quarrel, however. That was just the climax. It continued for quite a while after that.

"See," I said to my neighbor, "I think this is a waste of time. He's the director, so he's right by definition."

We pondered a bit on whether this event was related to the question of whether absolute good and evil exist, a topic we had been discussing earlier that afternoon in another group.

"When you said that about the multiplication tables having objective reality and being there for us to discover," my neighbor said, referring to an argument I cribbed (with attribution, of course) from C.S. Lewis, "it reminded me that that was what I had liked about math. It was so absolute, unlike good and evil. And since music is based on math..."
"I don't know about that," I objected. "It wasn't till Pythagoras that anyone really brought math into it, and music had been around a long time by then."
She checked the publication date on the music. However, since it was of course in Roman numerals, she had to say, "This was printed in... ummm.... after Pythagoras."

I conceded the point.

By this time, the choir had finished roughing up the director, and we were about to sing again.

We got through rehearsal and have an anthem chosen for Sunday -- chosen not on the basis of its fitness with the sermon or the season, but on the basis of what the choir members declared themselves willing to sing.

Maybe I should think of this as an empowered choir, rather than a badly behaved one. Fortunately, it's Not My Problem.

The bells are also playing this week. It is entirely possible that I will play the piece correctly.

I did get the answer to a little mystery I've been having. For several weeks now, I've had occasional mysterious twinges in my left arm. It has sort of worried me, because I couldn't figure it out. Usually, if I have a symptom for which I can't imagine any reason, I figure it's a rare tropical disease that I will soon die from, or possibly allergies. This strange pain couldn't be explained in that way. It was almost like... sore muscles. However, since I haven't been getting around to my weightlifting lately, it couldn't be that.

Yesterday, I did get around to weightlifting. I did a nice upper body workout with free weights (light, since I've been skimping in this area). When I started playing the "Processional Rondo," with already somewhat fatigued arm muscles, I noticed that pain again. It hadn't occurred to me, but swinging a 1.5 pound bell (I looked it up) in a circle four to eight times a measure for most of an hour could actually be a bit of a workout. I suppose that my right arm is enough stronger than the left that I didn't notice it.

What this tells us, of course, is that I need to quit skipping strength training.

And here is Erin, showing the current colorwork on the sleeve at the right hand side of the picture. The pattern is written with dropped sleeves and I have changed it to set-in. It is also supposed to have the same big elaborate colorwork as the body, which you can see on the left, but I have decided to use the small geometric band only.

We'll see what happens.

I met with the choirlet last night, and enjoyed the rehearsal very much.

As soon as I walked in the door, though, they asked, "So, what did you think of the praise band?"

In meaning voices.

They had a lot of very interesting things to say about music and worship. There was some rough language, frankly, so I won't reproduce the conversation here.

But I mentioned that the Worship Task Force is trying to move toward a more cohesive style of worship. We have consistently excellent sermons, and the music is now pretty satisfying in both services, or definitely on the way. But we want to have the music, the sermon, and a number of other multisensory elements work together and support one another.

So far, the "technology" --

And may I just say here how much I hate the use of the term "technology" for "computers"? An atlatl is an example of technology,too, and it is just confusing and stupid to say "technology" when what you really mean is "computer." I have to put up with that a lot, too, in several contexts in which I don't feel that I can complain. Thank you for listening.

--- the "technology" tends to be screwed up. The participatory elements come and go. The anthem is often unrelated to the message and the opportunities for reinforcement of the seasonal and scriptural points get lost.

Which is perfectly normal. In worship, and -- as CD pointed out -- in many styles of music, too, there is a feeling that "polished" is the opposite of "authentic." No one in our happy little church wants to have the megachurch/televangelist experience of feeling as though the service is a stage show. But I think that having the elements support one another will make the service more satisfying, without the people's really even thinking about the change. And I think that the whole "No, that's the wrong screen -- uh, sorry, we thought we'd have the words up ---" is distracting.

The choirlet played a bluegrass song for us at one point, and CD took the opportunity to mention how excellent the quality of their music was. "The pitch is spot on," she said. She raved about their timing. I agreed fervently.

I think the choirlet are converts to the idea of precision and quality in the music. They are fun to work with, and good at arranging pieces. They have been able to embrace the idea of working on pitch and dynamics without losing the pleasure they take in belting out a good country gospel tune.

Next, the praise band?

The past twenty-four hours has been filled with little irritations.

I couldn't get online for hours yesterday morning, and since online is where I work, this was a big issue.

Before that was resolved, I had to take #2 son to his CAPs conference. The gas light was on -- I was not the last driver of the car, of course, so I didn't foresee that. I also didn't foresee the traffic and parking problems of getting to the high school at 8:00 a.m., but that was just stupidity on my part.

I stopped for gas on the way home -- and left my purse at the gas station, so I had to hare back to get it.

I managed to get online and get my work done, but of course I had to work later than usual to make up for the late start, and so I was irritated again when my husband came home and needed help going to the unemployment office. And really irritated when #1 son wouldn't help him, and I had to stop work and go. And then the people in the office informed us that they stopped helping people an hour before we arrived there.

I overcame that irritation and spent a pleasant evening with my family, but woke this morning to foul-smelling messes in both dogs' crates, which is just not what you want to wake up to.

Especially not as early as I get up.

However, I got all that cleaned up and set to making a special breakfast, because today is #1 son's birthday. We're starting out with mini quiches and little bran muffins, and the Spiderman themed ice cream cake that #2 son bought at his workplace.

Someone has put my tools away in the wrong places, so that I had to search the kitchen at every step, instead of reaching for the right tool in the right spot.

It is a good thing that I was able to take a walk in a lovely park yesterday.

 Actually, the various complexities of life and the viruses that I've faced this year have left me with an average of only three days a week that I actually get out walking or to the gym. I have hardly been doing any strength training at all. So I guess it is time to recommit to getting the right amount of exercise.

I do that so often -- realizing that I am falling short and recommitting again -- that I get bored of it. I can see why a  quarter of Americans are completely sedentary and only a third of us actually get the recommended amount of movement into our lives. You just get tired of trying to do better.

However, I probably won't die young. So I don't really have an option. The medical establishment makes an error, I think, when they couch recommendations in terms of number of years of life lost. If you do this, they say, you will live 3.7 years longer than if you didn't. Young people say, "So what?" Life stretches out ahead of us (even at my age) so far that losing a few years doesn't seem important.

What they should say is, "If you don't do this, you will spend your final 27 years suffering from horrible little health complaints."  Then they should get a bunch of elderly people who spent their youths living sedentary lives, eating fast food, smoking, etc. to come in and complain about how they feel now. Do you feel inspired?

Since I am beginning my day with quiche and birthday cake, I hope I will feel inspired enough to get some weight-lifting in before I go up to the store today.

I went to lunch with friends after church yesterday, but I made my family a nice dinner.

These sandwiches are easy to make, but very snazzy. Here's how you do it:

Slice boneless chicken breasts into strips, hit them with a bit of Cajun seasoning, and saute them quickly. While they cook, mix together romaine lettuce, Caesar salad dressing, crumbled bacon (I buy the kind that's ready-made for salads), and a grating of good fresh Romano cheese. Slice sandwich rolls and toast them, and fill them with the chicken and the salad.

I made the rolls with my bread machine before church, but store-bought rolls work, too. Not counting the breadmaking, these take 15 minutes start to finish.

I put out chips, melon, and lemon tarts with the sandwiches. I made the lemon tarts earlier in the afternoon. They take more than 15 minutes, but they are absolutely worth it.

This is the recipe that I used, but they're pretty much all the same. The key is to use only real foods. If you find a recipe that involves food coloring, corn starch, that kind of thing, then move on. This lovely effect is created from lemons, eggs, butter, flour, and sugar. You simply don't need anything else.

Decoration is another matter. I grated a little dusting of very dark organic chocolate onto some and gave others a little puff of whipped cream with my decorator. They are also very pretty with candied lemon peel or chopped pistachios, if you are ready to go to more trouble.

While I was doing these things, I had the opportunity to think about a little quandary I'm having.

Those of you who always read my blog and have total recall will recall that I am helping out with the music for the early service at my church. Yesterday morning was the debut of the praise band.

Some members have a lot of trouble with pitch. They also took far more time than was allotted to them. I had spoken with them carefully ahead of time so they would know that they were being asked to bring the offertory. They did six songs. This brings up a whole bunch of questions:

• Do people generally care how bad they are, or is it just me and the pastor and the pianist? Choirs fondly believe that most listeners are practically tone deaf and aren't bothered by bad pitch, but I have trouble believing that. As The Baritone said, "It causes dissonance in your brain, even if you don't know what's wrong." Maybe that's true.
• Would if be okay if they were that bad if they only did one song?
• Would it sound that bad if they were not so loud?
• If we're really just talking about a couple of Yoko Ono voices, would it be possible to offer them help and support and fix the problem in that way?
• If so, is it possible to offer help and support in a way that they would find acceptable?
• If they didn't find it acceptable, would that be worse than having to listen to that again?
• CD tells me, on good authority, that they believe that as long as they are led by the Holy Spirit in their music it doesn't matter what it sounds like. Given this belief, is it possible to bring up pitch with them at all?
• Would the Holy Spirit ever really do that to the rest of the people in the room, or are they misunderstanding the Spirit's leading?
• Since there are some skillful musicians in the group, and it is not possible that they have not noticed the problem, or are these people who are a) completely unwilling to accept help or b) so sweet-natured and loveable that people who know them well do not mind their being off pitch?

I have often been in situations where the sound is not the main point of the music. We used to have a pastor who bellowed hymns out in a raucous, yet joyful voice, and it was a pleasure for me to hear her doing so. She was so filled with happiness and spirit herself that I smiled to hear her. However, she was singing with a lot of other people, and not into a microphone.

I feel some responsibility here. The pianist counsels honesty. The pastor washes his hands of it, but doesn't want to go through that again. And of course, it is essential that whatever is done, be done in a loving and prayerful way.

When I was a child, we use to preface any sassy thing we wanted to say with, "With all due respect..." Maybe I could say, "If you want to sing again, you're going to have to let me help you, and I mean that in a truly loving way."

Let's talk about WIPs -- Works in Progress. Here you can see Erin, the lovely Alice Starmore sweater on which I achieved three rows last night.

Erin has been hanging around for two years now. I also have a two-year old quilt, and a year-old quilted table runner. All still In Progress.

Normally, I can make a quilt or a sweater in about six weeks. Indeed, I have actually made runners and sweaters in six week periods over the past couple of years. I don't really know whey these particular WIPs are still languishing in the WIP pile. It isn't that I've gotten tired of them or decided against finishing them.

I did finish some things yesterday.

 I made a couple of pounds of soap. We were running out of soap -- all we had left, in fact, was manly-scented soap. While I like those scents a lot, I don't want to smell like them. I even looked quickly while I was grocery shopping to see whether any reasonable quality soap could be had for less than the cost of making it.

Nope.

So I decided to use recipes from the nice Melt and Pour Soapmaking book

The yellow stuff has honey and shea butter. There are some with jasmine, ginger, and tea. There is some rose-scented soap with olive oil. There is one with cinnamon. There are also some plain glycerin soaps with Grass Stain and Stargazer Lily.

I think we are set for a while.

I also dug the garden. I have the blisters to prove it.

This doesn't mean we can now plant the garden. My husband is strict about soil preparation. We don't plant till the garden is gorgeous. I have been trying to persuade #1 son that he should do the next round of work on it.

"It doesn't make any difference to me whether we have a garden," he said, "whereas you like the garden."

Again, the suggestion that  only the person who wants the chores done should have to do them.

However, I have this sweater, runner, and quilt I haven't gotten any work done on. I think, especially given his sassy remark, that I will probably have to spend the afternoon working on those.

Not to brag or anything, but now I'm on the front page at myzip. Apparently xangans rock.

In the course of plying the Dark Art, I have become familiar with a whole bunch of blogging platforms.

Don't ask. I could tell you, but then... you know the rest.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my experience of these things with you, and ask for yours in return. I have included xanga, which I probably shouldn't. Since xanga is a social network for me, I probably can't compare it properly with sites I've used just for sitebuilding. However, I would still have to say that this is one of the easiest hosts to get started with. I'm not including things like linkedin, facebook, and myspace, because I have only used them for their networking functions, and not for sitebuilding at all. My failure to include them is therefore not intended to show that they don't deserve awards. I'm also not including site hosts that aren't bloghosts. Have I included enough caveats?

Herewith, the awards:

• Hardest to use: bravenet and zerocatch
• Coolest: weebly and spruz
• Most elegant pre-made themes: edublogs and squarespaces
• Worst pre-made themes: zerocatch and wikispaces
• Best wizards: tripod and edublogs
• Easiest to get started: terapad and xanga
• Most irritating to use: blogspot and livejournal

By the way, after widespread experience with these and several more platforms, I have to say that Macs don't work well with them. Often, you have to do the whole thing in HTML, can't see the edges, get your pictures in odd places and your knickers in a twist, and find that great wodges of your work disappear when you try to save it. So a special award for

• The least totally Mac-unfriendly: tripod

I can't believe how long it has taken to prepare this not-so-interesting post. I hope you all come and comment about your favorite blog hosts and why you think xanga is cooler than spruz and how livejournal and blogspot are not either irritating, so that I will feel this has been worth it. For the record, I like xanga best as a community, and it is no surprise to me that we xangans are all over the myzip front page.

I am not the only one having victorious accomplishments, as my son used to put it when he was a preschooler. #2 son has been accepted for Governor's School, which was a great thrill for me, though he is being pretty blase about it. #1 son got a promotion and a raise at the sandwich shop, and asked me to make him a headband for work really fast. He felt that I should have finished it last night, actually, but I did not. However, it is sitting here in my "in basket" (the basket is imaginary, so you can only see the in) and I might finish it today.

However, it is also cleaning and errands day, and I hope to get some work done in the garden as well.

Enough of this idle persiflage, then. Enjoy your weekend!

Cooking took place last night chez fibermom.

I made a nice little curry with cous cous, pleased that I would actually be home at dinner time. In fact, I had checked to make sure and it seemed that everyone in the family had the evening off, so I figured we could actually have dinner together.

The boys called me around 7:00 to say that they were climbing and would I save them some dinner.

So I just grabbed a bowlful for myself.

Yum.

Knitting also took place. This is Erin, from Starmore's Celtic Collection. It has a long and complex history.

Right now, I am working on the sleeves. For reasons that seemed compelling at the time, I am working the sleeves backwards. Or rather, I am working them from the top down, as Erin's sleeves are supposed to be worked, but I switched to a set-in sleeve, and the pattern from which I filched the shaping is written from the wrist up.

I am therefore following the shaping directions backwards. I am doing both sleeves at once, so that they will match, and I have finished the sleeve cap and started on the colorwork.

I did this while watching Scotland, PA, with the boys. I thought it was very well done. I don't know what it would be like to watch this movie if you were not familiar with Macbeth, but fortunately we all are. We were therefore watching the movie with the play going on in our heads, adding to the sense of the movie.

The other thing I did yesterday (well, I went to the gym and I worked, but I mean the different thing) was to apply for some jobs. I'll let you know if anything exciting happens there, but I just wanted to say that when a person spends a lot of time going through a lengthy online application, answering questions which are only barely relevant to the position in question, she should not then get an email saying that her application will be complete as soon as she submits her resume, transcripts, license, and three letters of reference. If you have to do that, then that ought to be the first step.

Craftymommavt has tagged me to say seven odd facts about myself. Hers are very interesting and unusual. I always have trouble with this meme, because I am very ordinary and because I've already done it a few times. I started out with the statistically unusual stuff (I went to college at quite a young age) and then moved on to things my kids told me were weird (I don't talk to animals), but I have used up those things. Hmmm.

1. I have no sense of time, and can't estimate how long a time has passed, even to the hour -- except for the 50 minute academic hour, which I can still fit my presentations to easily, even though I no longer do 50 minute presentations.
2. I never wear shoes if I have a choice. When I was young, I never wore shoes unless it was legally required.
3. In general, I don't like doing easy things. Including things that have become easy through hard work.
4. I don't like chocolate ice cream.
5. I got my first white hair when I was 11. I was going seriously gray by age 30. My difficulty with appointments (see "agoraphobia") kept me from coloring my hair, and by now it is too late, since everyone has already seen my gray hair.
6. Overall, I think I'm not very good with the physical world. I'm better with sounds and ideas.
7. When I meet a new piece of music, I give it a scenario (like "Chapel on the pirate ship" or "1980s sitcom" or "Silent film version of Gilbert and Sullivan.") Until I can do that, I feel uncertain about how to approach the piece. Some directors will help with this, but my fellow choir members think I am crazy.

Okay. I have tried to come up with seven interesting things. Now it is your turn, O seven bloggers I'd like to know more about: CanadianNational, Lostarts, DadJoke, Smarticus, PinkHebe, Rampaige, Truefeed. You must tell us seven surprising things about yourself and then tag seven others.

Last night I actually did a bit better with the bells. There were moments when it felt like playing music. That is a first, I think. Usually, I just count as well as I can (which is not that well, though I am improving) and hope that it ends up sounding like something to an outside observer. I also was able to find my place again when I lost it, which is a big improvement. I think it may be that I am improving at reading music. If I were one of those who believed that everything happens for a reason, I would say that I have been suffering through bells for the past year in order to learn to read music properly. Though I still find that rhythms are easier if someone just tells me what they are (as in "It goes da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da") than if I try to look at the squiggles and dots and make it out myself.

In choir, we're singing "Lay Up Your Treasures in Heaven", and I went ahead and asked for the solo. I had given it a week or two for others to ask for it, and no one else had. I have been in choirs before where I was automatically given every alto solo and most of the mezzo ones, and I don't think that's right. It's better for the choir and for the listeners if there is some variety there.

So I said, "If someone who doesn't usually sing the solos wants this, give it to them, but if no one else asks, I'd like to do it."

"Isn't it too high?" Bigsax asked.

There are a couple of Es in there. A couple is no big deal, though. It's when the piece stays up there for measure upon measure that I don't like to take it as a solo.

"Nah," I said. "Or, if it is, you can tell me so. 'Stop screeching and sit down,' you can say."

That seems fair.

I'm worrying that my voice is going to age and desert me. Chanthaboune claims that continuing to work on it will stave that off, so I am going to work more on my upper register. Back when I actually worked on my voice, I used to rehearse to an A flat. There is no reason for me to be screeching on the Es.

We are also doing an '80s piece. Allen Pote's "Breaking the Bread." As you listen, you cannot help but think that the sitcom is about to begin. I suggested to my neighbor that we ought to do it with fixed toothy smiles and that gesture they used to use, where they were leaning sideways and looked as though they were about to snap their fingers. And poufy hair. My neighbor is used to this. Sometimes I suggest saffron-colored draperies and shimmying, so this was comparatively mild.

Now here's some exciting news: our xanga homegirls Chanthaboune and Alissa are BOTH on the front page at myzip, where probably no one even realizes the connection between them -- namely, that Canadian National brought myzip into the xanga neighborhood and they jumped on the bandwagon. I think it is possible that Rampaige has also joined the band, though that may not be the case. In any case, I was glad to see that my neighboring (and much more exciting) zipcode now has a blogger, so I won't be tempted to write about them.

I have to get out early this morning, so I will leave you with that thrill.

No, wait -- if you actually came here for family news, you ought to know that #1 daughter's car suffered serious hail damage, including a broken windshield, and that #2 daughter has a good shot at a seriously exciting job. In fact, I am only restraining myself from applying for it because she wants it. Oh, and I don't live in that state.

One of the small amusements of the weekend was listening to M. Bassoon's Pittsburghese recording. He is from Pittsburgh, so he is allowed to make fun of the local speech, and the recording was making fun. We didn't know that ahead of time, however, and so we gathered in his studio and listened respectfully to a recording from Mothers Against Worshipping Satan, having no way of knowing whether the speaker was his own mother, or perhaps this was a cause he espoused, or what.

It turns out that there is a lively industry making fun of the local dialect.

• Check out this handy Pittsburghese translator.
• Or take the Pittsburghese test. (I did pretty well, actually, with a high B, and was higher than 29% on yinzerness, whatever that may mean.)

As I was listening, I remembered learning in school about the people who say "gum band" and "redd up." They were the classic example of a small local dialect holding out against the rest of the nation, and indeed the world. We saw a video of people being interviewed.

"What do you call this?"
"A gum band."
"Have you ever heard of another word for it?"
Blank stare. "No."
"Have you ever heard it called a rubber band?"
Deep thought. "No. I think it's called a gum band."

At this point, it seems to me, some of the speaker's friends vaguely recalled having encountered that term somewhere, and they had a discussion about it.

We were a bit amazed that adults could have gone their entire lives, presumably buying things in packages labeled "rubber band," and never realized that everyone outside their city used a different term from their own.

I admire that, myself. While it smacks of bloodimindium (the element the Discworld wizards conclude Roundworld has instead of narrativium), there is something admirable in clinging that fiercely to your own way of doing things.

Last night, having nothing scheduled, I finally got around to doing the taxes (yes, I had done them before, but there was a glitch in the online process, and so I ended up doing them by hand) and #1 son's FAFSA. Today I will be going to the store.

Here's what's not getting done around here: housework, sewing, knitting, gym visits. This needs to change.