Meet the cellist (ahem)

For quite a while I’ve been looking for a project that would involve my efforts for several years, something I would work to accomplish but would look back on the work it took as a good investment.

Well, here it is!

My new cello! (Looks just like it anyway…)

I saw a little note in the newspaper about a violin and cello class starting for adult beginners, and that’s when the lights went on. The class didn’t cost that much for 12 classes, and I could rent-to-buy a cello for a few dollars a month. I signed up, and it was challenging but just the level of difficulty I needed. There are two beginning cellists and two beginning violinists in our class, all gals. What fun.

I had to own one. Three cellos later I am happy with my new solid spruce top model and the British-style hard-cover case that goes with it.

After six weeks of class I’m still struggling with reading the bass clef! I know those notes. I’ve played the piano since I was eight years old and learned to read music early on. Both bass and treble. But when I see a line of music, it just “looks” like treble clef.

“No!” I scold myself. “That is not an F. It’s an A!” There isn’t time for misreading the note, scolding myself, correcting myself, and getting the right note in time to go on to the next one.

I realize it will take an enormous amount of perseverance and patience on my part to learn those notes and where they match on the cello–much less how to draw a beautiful tone from the bow and strings. But I’m in for the long haul. Giving myself two years to qualify for playing in a school or community orchestra and four years to be able to play easy music in public.

JG

The capricious and malicous flu bug

The flu bug can’t get me, nah!
The flu bug can’t get me!

It can flutter its wings
And flash its toes
It can split my head in two
And buzz up my nose
It can do all the tricks that flu bugs do

But
The flu bug can’t get me, nah!
The flu bug can’t get me!

Joyce Griffith
My Home Page

Learning to draw–what?

I’d share my drawings with you, but I’m not sure my scanner works. I think I’m making a teeny bit of progress, but I’m not anywhere close to my goal of being able to draw human faces, bodies in motion, and other living objects to my satisfaction. I’ve been working on thumbs for weeks.

But whaddya know? The city’s recreation department has decided to offer a six-week free-hand drawing class starting February 4, and I intend to take it. I’m trying to persuade my bro Dave to take it as well. It’s for brush-up folks as well as beginners.

(That’s not me…)

Another cloudy day. I decided to find out how much water is in clouds and was shocked to learn that we don’t really know how raindrops manage to land on earth.  I thought even farmers knew how much water was up there whether it was raining or not, but this geology professor says that’s not so.

He says the average “cloud droplet” (a raindrop in the making) is less than 0.02 millimeters in diameter and would need 48 hours to fall from the cloud to earth. By then it would evaporate. Some scientists think that the drops bump into each other and form larger drops on their way down. Others think that the ice that forms on top of a rain cloud in a huge ice crystal melts to make rain. This is pretty technical, but here’s the explanation.

And all this time I thought we knew what causes the rain to fall from the clouds.

The day after and the day before

It’s the day after Thanksgiving, but since our family is celebrating tomorrow, it’s also the day before Thanksgiving!

I came home from a trip to Boise the other day to see a large box on my sidewalk. Sure enough. Inside the box was my new wood stove. My bro Dave had told me it weighed 350 pounds and that he’d pick it up for me at Lowe’s in Nampa.

“Hmm,” I thought. “That is more than I weigh!”

A lot more, I might add.

I have learned from many years of making it solo that almost anything can be moved if you take it slow enough and if it doesn’t fall on you.

The box had already been cut open and was just sitting on top of the stove. I pulled if off and began working. Very carefully I jiggled it just a bit. Nope. No progress.

So I tried pushing and twisting and got it to budge about a quarter of an inch. Repeat. This time almost an inch. Then a tiny part of a quarter of an inch.

By the time I got the stove moved a foot and a half down the sidewalk closer to my front door I realized that even if I got it to the door I’d never get it across the door frame, and after that it was ceramic tile. So I quit working on it.

My bro showed up without prompting a bit later, and we maneuvered the stove onto a hand truck and got it inside. Sometime next week we’ll take the old stove out and install this one.

I’m aching for the warm fire from that stove. The sun has been shining, but I know it will be cold before long. And there’s nothing like fire from a wood stove to make one feel warm and cozy.

A stove–just in time for winter!

Sometime tomorrow or Tuesday my bro Dave is going to pick up a brand-new wood stove for me at Lowe’s. It is supposed to cover 1,000 s.f. and take logs up to 16 inches wide. I also bought a chain saw so I can turn my furniture into firewood if things really get tough.

It’s nice to have a piece of security! I love wood stoves and fireplaces and campfires. I’ve got a wood stove in the place where my new one will go, but it’s very old and doesn’t have a door to keep the wood inside.

It may look a lot like this: (sort of ugly but if it’s warm, that’s what counts)

I’ll post a picture of it when I get it installed and fired up.

JG

A ghostwriter’s life

I came across an interesting piece by US News & World Report on ghostwriting as desirable work. I was delighted to see that the writer of this piece has exactly the same perspective on ghostwriting as we do at Griffith Publishing. My favorite sentence: “You’re writing your clients’ ideas, not your own, and in their voice, not yours.” First rule of ghostwriting: be SURE you agree with your author on all points covered in the book. You don’t want to get into debates or arguments while you’re writing the book.

Amusing, the suggestion in this piece that the best way to start ghostwriting may be to call a famous person you respect and offer to ghostwrite that person’s autobiography. Let’s see. I have 20 such names on my “to call” list. I’ll call Barack Obama tonight, and tomorrow I’ll see if T. Boone Pickens could spare me an hour or so. I’m sure Bill Gates has time on his hands these days. I’ll call him Friday morning. 

Life as a ghostwriter can be hectic since you can’t take on more than a couple projects at a time, and they don’t line up nicely just as you have time and need more money. So the graph of your income zooms up to the top and then to rock bottom.

Also, it’s not true that people who ask you to ghostwrite a book for them have all the information you need. Even if they have it in their heads, you have to draw it out and ask pointed questions to get the facts needed to complete the story.

Still, I love ghostwriting. I think I’ll be ready for another project by February or March of next year.

My biggest hurdle is being careful not to take on a project unless I have a strong hunch that I’ll like the person and will enjoy working with him or her. Disregard the chemistry, and trouble will tumble after you.

Brought to you by Griffith Ghostwriting.

This is November…

When I was growing up here in Southwest Idaho, it seemed that November was the month of rain and wind, frost and snow, mud and bleak skies.

Not this year. One day after another the sky has been blue, the sun warm, and my dog Rusty squirming for a walk. We didn’t take a walk today, but yesterday we walked an hour, and we’ve walked 45-50 minutes four out of the past five days. Rusty is learning to take the leash much better, but she sometimes jerks me off balance by pouncing to an interesting tree or fence with a dog behind it. Not as bad as it used to be…

My bro Dave and his wife Miriam are in College Place for Grandparents’ Day at Clara Rogers Elementary School. Says he’s been there every year since Matthew started attending, and I think that was three or four years ago.

Instead of walking for an hour, Rusty and I took the car to Costco to get my thyroid prescription refilled. While there I had a piece of cheese pizza and a vanilla frozen yogurt treat. Total cost was about $3.50. Total calories, too many.

Looks like we’ll have a very merry Christmas this year. All of Dave’s kids will converge on Arline’s place. Christmas is on Thursday, so I will probably drive up Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning and stay until Friday afternoon. Or maybe I’ll stay through the week end. I bought all my Christmas presents at Carol’s ranch! I just need $$ to pay for them.

More to the point, I just need to get to work to get $$$ coming in!

Brought to you by JG at Griffith Publishing.

A one-day trip

Bev and Carol at the Bear Creek Ranches house

Yesterday my friend Judy and I left for Carol’s ranch a few miles out of Ola, Idaho, about 9 a.m. and took our time getting there. Judy drove her car. We had a wonderful time.

For dinner I had a nice serving of elk lasagna. First time I’ve ever eaten elk meat in my life. It was tasty and well seasoned. Judy can’t eat any milk products, and there was cheese in the lasagna, so she didn’t get a taste. We also had potato salad that Judy brought, delicious banana bread that she also made, yogurt pretzels and Doritos that I brought, jello salad and more provided by Carol and Bev.

The elk season officially ends today. The fish & game dept has a few days open for hunting bull elk and then after a few days with no hunting at all, and then the cow elk season opens for a few days, and I think there’s a time when any elk can be hunted.

Bev, Carol’s partner, says they make about $5 an hour on their leather and other products, but they keep at it anyway. After lunch Carol and I got serious about my Christmas shopping. We made a list of all of my College Place and Pendleton relatives. I decided to buy Cliff and Lora a gift, Arline and Sid a gift, David and Mandy a gift, and a special gift for Alan, Andrew, Brianna, Amy, Ben, Jessica, and Matthew.

Carol gave me a nice chunk of light-colored leather for Dave to work on and use in his book production hobby. She said the roll of leather was free, but that would be six bucks for the string tying it together. When I delivered the leather, Dave seemed to appreciate it a lot. I wonder what he’ll do with it.

Brought to you by JG

Try this cure!

My blower looks a lot like this

Wednesday morning I was buzzing along, doing just fine. After my assistant left at 12 noon, I went outside and played with my new blower, blowing leaves from the sidewalks in front of my house as well as from the drive way.

About an hour later I was hit with a pain that sent me screaming to the floor. It was in my back, on the right side where I used to think my kidneys are located. Every move hurt, but if I didn’t move, the pain went away. I sat down and tried to do some work with the computer. As long as I was perfectly still, no pain. Even sedentary work involves moving, so I gave up, crept upstairs and took a hydrocone pill left over from a previous ailment.

It took me about ten minutes to stretch out on the couch upstairs, but I did get there and fell sleep as soon as the narcotic took over. Four hours later I woke up and took another one. Managed to handle a phone call without sounding drunk.

I slept all night. Thursday morning I tried to get some work done, but I was too sleepy, so went back to bed. After spending most of the day and last night sleeping, I woke up this morning with no more pain! Gone!I feel great!

Not mine, but same make and model except rear decoration

Ed from United Muffler came by yesterday and got my car and brought it back this afternoon. He replaced the fuel pressure regulator, which had gone bad and was causing my ‘01 Olds to stall every time I slowed down or stopped. Then he noticed the brakes were wearing badly, so he put new ceramic pads in place. And changed the oil and checked the antifreeze, to top things off.

Today’s bill plus the one a week ago totaled just about $1,000, but my bro Dave looked at the list of things I had done and says it was a good choice. My car should be fine for quite a while in the future. At least it will start, run, and (when I put the brakes on) stop.

November 4 will soon be over…

I’ve had a little bit of fun this week learning more about WordPress. I still don’t have a clue what some of the deeds we’re supposed to do are good for, but I’m catching on slowly.

Sad news about the sweet wife of our senior pastor. Seems she has melanoma, the worst kind of skin cancer one can have. They’re cutting, then they’ll be burning, and then poisoning, but the picture doesn’t look good at all. She couldn’t get to an appropriate surgeon for a month. That is disgusting. Who is responsible for the death of a person who could have been cured if there had been a surgeon available? She will probably be feeling pretty good until it spreads.

I really don’t care who wins the national election a week from Tuesday. Both candidates for President are decent men. I even like Palin, but not as much as I need to like her to be a supporter. I’ll just be glad when November 4 is here so I can watch something besides the Dow on TV. Every morning I guess which direction it will go, and usually I’m wrong. Tomorrow, I’m guessing, the DJIA will go up 100 to 200 points.

I’m watching the first game of the World Series. We’re in the 9th inning. The Phillies are at bat and ahead in the game by one point, 3 for Tampa Bay and 2 for Philadelphia. I don’t have strong feelings for or against either team in the series. Am I turning into a don’t-care person?

Ah…The Phillies now have a runner on second base. And they’re ahead by 1. Now we have runners on first and second. What happened? Must have been a walk…I’ll set my no-win wager that the Phillies will walk away with the first game of the Series but not until they get 2 more runs across the plate.