I was called this morning by a storyteller in Toronto who collects storytelling books. A book given by one of the founding members of our small local guild to the local library had joined his collection, via the States.

As usual, the conversation drifted and included pros and cons of putting our history on the computer. He still uses Netscape, so you can guess his overall opinion, although he obviously likes used bookstores to have an online presence.

(My position is the more tools in the toolbox the better we will be able to preserve and use our history. Also, the latest tool, while better than the old ones in some ways, is also worse in others. You have to look at the current need.)

I also mentioned that the first story I ever told was chosen because I have both physical and electronic copies.

In 1920 or so, my grandma’s uncle gave her a copy of Kipling’s Just So Stories. It’s an oversize volume bound in blue, with coloured illustrations, and tissue paper inserts over the drawings. When I was a young teenager, Grandma gave it to me.

When I got my first handheld, I loaded it with old favourites, including Kipling. Later that month at the cottage, those stories were handy, so I read those stories to my kids.

A few weeks later I took a beginning storytelling course. Rather than pick a story from those laid out on the table, I chose The Sing Song of Old Man Kangaroo.

My love for the stories are from that blue book Grandma gave me, how we clean our hands and the table first and are careful to cover the pictures with the tissue paper.

My love for telling it as a storyteller combines that with the convenience of having the entire book in my purse.

I made Son call Dad a month before vacation.

Dad found the schematic for the minimum theremin. He had Son redraw it, replacing logic gates of one type with the type he had on hand. (Yes, Dad has logic gates on hand.) Then he reviewed Son’s soldering skills, helped fine-tune them, and turned him loose with a bunch of parts, including a resistor colour-code chart and a magnifying glass. They used an oscilloscope to track down stray oscillations, removed an unnecessary bit of the circuit, added a filter, and added a diode to save the device in case the user puts the battery in backwards.

Unlike my one-and-only electronics course, they did all this without a single derivative or integral. They used a calculator once, to find the current, V=IR. (Dad could only find his HP, with Reverse Polish Notation. Son learned.)

I’m proud, and a bit jealous.

Daughter, age 10, spent her Grandpa time fishing. She caught more fish than he did. She also arranged a photo-shoot with a 3D puzzle.

Not bad for a 43-year-old with three-and-a-half years. (The first 40 years were spent developing bad habits which had to be undone.)

Yes, I’m glad I did it. It forced me to work harder. I improved more during the last two months than the year before. My voice teacher recommended three very different songs. The more styles you do, the better you are at all.

Next year it’s back to low-stress, fun repertoire, hopefully including a ballad (which isn’t represented at all in the exams, nor in my teacher’s repertoire), and another exam the year after that, whichever grade my teacher recommends. It’s not a race.

Next fall I want to sing for the B-Guild. ‘B’ as in the town name, since for variety and quality of telling and coaching it’s the ‘A’ guild. Four of the members are well-known nationally. I expect they’ll say I should keep practicing, but I’m not ready to sing at First Friday. I’m an established, solid teller, and they’ll hold me to close to that for singing. If I were a new performer, they’d give me two points to work on, maybe ask that I keep at it and bring it back to the guild in a few months, then get me on stage. The only way to learn is by doing.

Ballads are a bit different, since they’re often done without accompaniment. Just a pitch at the start. I’m used to anchoring my pitch to the piano. Even when it’s not playing my line, I hear how my voice sounds against it. The first time she dropped the melody line I felt something was off, but soldiered on. She asked me if I realized what she’d changed. She understands how big each step is when it looms in front of you, even if it’s one she mastered years ago. Now when she makes a mistake (she’s playing and listening at the same time), it doesn’t throw me.

I’ve already done some online searching for a good ballad book and emailed a guild-friend for recommendations for the first book on my ballad shelf. It’s an interest, not an obsession. I want to be true to the tradition, but there’s no need to be an expert.

Next on my project and deadline list:

- Press releases, abt 150 words, for Tea and Tales. Today.

- Storytelling. Continue to keep Inn of the Stolen Moon in repertoire. Polish and time Knitting story. Reprep (last done 2007) Sing Song of Old Man Kangaroo.

- Bills. Also sign up for e-delivery of the last few. Canada Post’s employees are going to have an even smaller pie to fight the company for after this strike.

- Shorthand. Continue my own training. I’m 1/3 of the way through the first book, at 65wpm. One book says that’s a good speed for the end of the book, another says I should keep pushing a bit each chapter to hit 85 by the end. Also continue putting quasi-polished dictation files online for others’ use.

- Fanfiction. Bring all of SL:AS up to current standards. Put online. Repeat with the rest of the series.

- Knitting. Pretty pink shawl, hope to give it to voice teacher this summer. Socks with the green/orange yarn. Socks with the brown yarn. Will probably include hours of pattern searching. I should just cast on with any pattern that interests me, so I have a pair on the needles when traveling. That doesn’t mean I can’t search for a pattern for the brown yarn.

- Knitting Masters. BM wants to do it with me in the fall, but last week she auditioned for and was offered a part for October, so maybe I won’t wait for her.

- Blog Series. I’ve started one or two series, including a review of Python programming books, that I should finish.

First, though, is getting the day started. It’s already 10:30 and I’m still in my PJs. A friend is performing at Fairy Fest this afternoon, so a group of us are going.

Pattern is in Knitty.
Changes as suggested by the designer. Increased ankle band and higher instep.

These aren’t easy questions for me. First nothing appears for days, then a germ of an idea, then an explosion. I’ll follow the advice I gave my son. You don’t have to choose your favourite animal to write about, just pick one that’s easy to write about that’s also one of your favourites.

If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?

Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa T’s. All the family were there, everybody happy. Grandma and Grandpa were still alive. Dad and his brothers were telling stories about each other. Grandma baked pies and cookies and date squares.

Which of course leads to Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa A’s, which was much quieter and also good.

Which leads to long weekends there when I had a summer school term. Studying while watching the squirrels play, and my cousin asking how I could study during the summer. I prefered studying in the summer. It’s a happier season.

Summers at camp. Watching girls learn and grow. The inevitable pyrophobe who, with a bit of one-on-one time becomes a pyromaniac.

If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?

The lost year. First my fanfic, then the online role playing addiction. The kids, pre-schoolers, had very busy schedules, and all my free time was spent on the computer. I lived in the characters’ heads, not my own. The lessons were more intense versions of ones I obviously hadn’t learned the firsttime.

Bedtimes. Any that were too late, which is most. I hate going around in a fog and being unable to focus or stay motivated.

What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?

The boing guy in the street. The witness. The driver of the truck that’s in the way. I don’t go out of my way to solve murders or rescue people. I’m unaware that those three speeders are in a car chase. My memory is unreliable.

I used to think I was the person caught up in the action who realizes that, when the chips are down, she can do more than she thought. These days I have my doubts. I’d like to think I’m the person who brings casseroles to the widow, but I don’t talk to the neighbours often enough or know their routines well enough to notice they need.

Fortunately, I’m not a Desperate Housewife or anyone on a soap opera. I’m not the villain. I’m just not one of the heros.

If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would it be?

Same as most people. A villain, if it was the most effective way to prevent them from hurting someone badly, with an eye to the bigger picture. Getting away with it can include the cops knowing, and agreeing it was justified. It also includes the rescuee’s reactions to my involvment.

I’d have to go with my gut feeling at the moment, and be satisfied that I did the best with the information I had.

Name one habit you want to change in yourself.

Lack of focus and follow-through. I go for days without working on any of my priority projects. The first would be going to bed on time every night, so I could rule that out as the source of the other problems.

Describe yourself in one word.

Can it be a German word, where all the adjectives are combined with the noun?

Eclectic. I like computer programming, writing fanfiction, music, knitting, shorthand, storytelling and homemaking. Many tell me I’m good at those skills, but I am surrounded by people who are even better.

Persistent. I’ve been working at some of those skills for three decades.

Describe the person who named you in this meme in one word.

Focused. She gets things done, with an eye on both big and small pictures. She’s in the moment.

Why do you blog? Answer in one sentence.

I’m chatty.

Name at least 3 people to send this meme to, and then inform them.

@SongBirde
@GloriaOliver
@IvyR

I’m self-taught, and my programs only have error checking if it’s faster to do that than restart if I make a typo when using them. My husband, with 20 years in the business, laughs at my little programs and, after I work at something for hours, can find the problem in minutes.

My first language was AppleSoft BASIC, from the books that came with the Apple II. I was 13. The graphics mode and game paddle were built into the language, so immediately after counting from one to ten I made a ball cross the screen, in two dimensions, and made the ball move when I moved the paddle. I wrote a program of several hundred lines to keep track of my Pathfinder (Girl Guide) badge progress. My advanced math class learned matrices as an extra, and the teacher asked me to teach the class about multiplying matrices with a computer program.

Dad thought I was getting cocky, so he introduced me to FORTH. Its lack of a GOTO floored me, even though I’d avoided spaghetti code. I still miss FORTH’s BEGIN-WHILE-REPEAT loop, which exits in the middle. (Modern languages’ ‘while True’ still distracts me.) Stack arithmetic was an eye-opener. (Yes, I later bought an HP calculator.)

I learned more from the AppleSoft BASIC book and the second chapter of a Pascal book from the library than I did in two high school courses in the 80s, which were supposed to teach me BASIC, FORTRAN and Pascal. Well, I did learn another operating system (CP/M) and how to debug classmates’ code. The final assignment of analyzing a paragraph in several ways was a nice challenge. I was the only student to complete the assignment. The teacher was temporarily confused by a variable that said whether to print to the printer (for the final submission) or a file (for debugging) and the option to run through each analysis method in order rather than sit at the computer and enter each choice one at a time.

My first university work-term was to write a FORTRAN program to analyze Xray crystallography data. I learned FORTRAN from DEC manuals. Next term had a required programming course. A classmate reached the end of the course without learning that a FORTRAN math program needs four sections: housekeeping, data input, data manipulation, and data output. The only things I learned in that course were the differences between work’s computer and the school’s, five ways to find root-finding algorithms, and two sorting methods.

When I got a Mac in my sophomore year, I also got LightSpeed Pascal, which included a tutorial on Pascal and event-loop programming, and some advanced Mac programming books. I confused the Process Control TA (who later sat down and learned) by using an event loop in my BASIC program to monitor and control the unit’s feedback loop.

The guy I liked was a programmer, so I asked to borrow a Pascal book. He finally married me to get it back. He’s amused at my pitiful attempts, especially when I spend hours searching for a bug he finds in seconds.

I almost had a cribbage program in Pascal working on the Mac. I did a few reports on VGA Planets data sets in C++ (part of my husband’s program to help him make turn files). A few years later I learned a bit of PHP to configure my website. (I use PmWiki.)

But none of the later languages had the simple joy of AppleSoft BASIC.

My husband likes Python for quick utilities and wrote some for me, but I got frustrated with asking him for every “small change”. So, with the help of the online documentation and a working program to start from, I learned Python (for a small value of “learned”). (If anyone wants to insert ssml delay tags in txt files so a speech-to-text reader will read at a specific, slow wpm for shorthand practise, including calibration, let me know.)

Python has almost all the features I missed from AppleSoft. It has a command-line interpreter so you can do something neat before using a program file. There’s no compile / link cycle. PyGame gives it a simple graphics interface. It runs quickly and has a decent debugger (though not as nice as C++). There’s a bit more housekeeping than with AppleSoft, but it’s only a few lines.

All this had me thinking about my 12-year-old son. It’s time he learned. (Yes, I messed up by being enthusiastic, sigh. I used to catch Dad’s enthusiasm, but my son isn’t like me.)

For all the kids’ books, you should be in the next room. Sometimes an extra eye when debugging can be the difference between frustration and accomplishment. Also, you should quietly work through the first chapter or two yourself to catch differences in your installation.

My plan is to review the following books: Invent Your Own Games with Python, Livewires, Snake Wrangling for Kids, Dive Into Python, Introduction to Programming at Pasteur.fr, and the tutorial that comes with the language.

They lied!!!

The polls at West End Rec Centre are still there. They have not been moved.

Elections Canada isn’t stupid. Most voters go from work to the polls. They wouldn’t get the message. The polls would be filled with frustrated voters.

The people who don’t want me to vote will be sadly disappointed.

For posterity:

12 dire rats
11 litches leaping
10 iron golems
9 necromancers
8 hydras hiding
7 giant scorpions
6 eyes a’floating

5 golden dragons
4 raging orcs
3 cursed swords
2 partial maps
And a single healing potion.

Let the pictures age on the dining room table from December holiday until late September, all the while hoping they don’t get broken.

Realize hammer is upstairs, and there are nails left over from the new office shelf.

Measure very roughly, put in first nail, hang first picture, be happy with it. Realize I need the level to get the second nail directly under the first.

See (or rather not see) that light in tool room is out.

Go all the way upstairs (5 flights — it’s a split-level) to bathroom for flashlight. Reverse trip with flashlight in hand. Realize flashlight battery needs changing. Big, old, C or D size batteries, incandescent bulb.

Get level. Back to middle floor. Take off first picture. Draw vertical line, hold picture by wire — you know the drill. Got it good enough first try.

Now to deal with the flashlight and burnt-out bulb.

And we wonder why the simple stuff never gets done.

Clutter is something that doesn’t belong in your home, and you’re not quite sure why you still have it. Or you are sure, and the answer doesn’t reflect well on your housekeeping. Either way, the thought of sharing the goal makes sense to you.

Set your own guidelines for what counts as in progress vs clutter, and what counts as dealing with. It can change as we go. Have fun with it.

Report on Twitter with the hashtag #declutter2011 or whatever social media site you prefer, or here in the comments.