commotiocordis

Moped around and didn't really do anything today. Went to the hardware store, as our water heater is dying. Like, my parents don't expect it to make the week, dying. Due to aforementioned water heater problems, I didn't take a shower today though I kind of needed to, and as such, my hair feels a bit skuzzy. In retrospect, I probably should have made a point of taking a shower today while it was still working at all, but I didn't so much think of that. I'm not a fan of showers when there's a chance of the hot water dying on you right after you put the shampoo in.

But at least we've finally got the heat turned on. I was tired of waking up and trying to drag my arse out of bed when it's -4º C outside in the mornings and just about as cold inside. Pretty much impossible to get out of your warm toasty bed when it's below freezing, as I'm sure everyone knows. That stupid dust burning smell you get when you first turn the heat on each year pervaded the house for several hours when we did it yesterday, though, which was annoying. I'm always afraid that I'm going to end up getting some variant of black lung disease from the burned bits of dust.

Taco Bell annoys me. Twice in the past week I've been there (which is crazy, as those two times are the only times I've been there in more than 2 years) and both times it's sucked.
First time, it was a 7 layer burrito thing with no cheese, less than a teaspoon of each beans and rice, and about 1/3 of a cup of guacamole and easily more than 1/2 of a cup of sour cream. No other discernible ingredients. The latter two things of course being the two things that I rather disliked out of the 7 layers in question. It wasn't bad, the bites I had where you could get some of everything. Which was about one bite, as it was very layered: the beans and rice at the very front bite, and then just the goopy stuff in the whole rest of the taco. But when you've got whole bites of sour cream: yuck.
Had a cheesy bean and rice burrito tonight (as I decided that I wanted to give them another chance and was in the mood for a taco). It was supposed to be a 1/2 pound thing. Nope. Maybe a tiny bit more than 1/3 of a cup of stuff in the entire taco. On a huge tortilla. It doesn't count as 1/2 of a pound if 3/8 of that pound is tortilla.

So yeah. I'm going to send them an email complaining about that place's bad food. *has now done so*

Did some singing with my sister today, just for fun. We had her mp3 player on as loudly as it would go so we could both hear it and used my mp3 player to record us singing along. We harmonize rather well. She's quite better at singing than I thought she was if she knows the songs well enough and is trying. And though it doesn't sound like it live, when we recorded the first verse and chorus of "Angels Would Fall" she sounded just like Melissa Etheridge. I was impressed.

She tries sometimes to jump octaves like I do, though, and can't get back on the note when she does so, but she'll get better at that simply from playing the viola if she actually sticks with it. That's the reason I'm really good at it, as viola music jumps up and down octaves all the time, especially when you're in the first years of playing and don't yet know how to shift. That and from practice now when I'm too lazy to shift up or just decide to bring it down because my top strings don't sound nearly as good as my lower ones. Or when I'm making up my own part, which I do quite often as viola parts are mind-numbingly boring most of the time (I was quite notorious for doing this all the time in our fiddling group, combining the best bits of all the different instruments' parts and making up my own harmonies when none suited me). Especially the latter reasons because it's not written in and you have to do it in your head. You get good at going up and down.

Plus, I've got an octave below middle C on a good day singing-wise (though that's stretching it, on a normal day I'll only get a C-sharp or D) but though I've got a D, maybe an E an octave above, it doesn't sound as good as I do below. So in church and stuff I'll jump octaves around all the time to try and keep it towards the middle of my range, as that's where I get the best tone (like everyone does, I presume).

I'm not a terrific singer; I can't go very high (and range is what I tend to measure singing skill by, that and being able to jump large/weird intervals quickly and stay in tune, which I'm actually pretty good at) and if you want it to sound really good, you've got to give me a couple of notes between the top and bottom of my range and what we're singing, but I've got a good ear, so I know when I'm off and can fix it immediately, which is better than lots of the choir types I know. Which is handy. And I can stick with a seemingly very different harmony without being screwed up by people around me singing different stuff; it comes from my playing the melody and singing the harmony of "Amazing Grace" at the same time. Which is also nice.

And I'm talking about my singing skills. Don't know why. We'll stop that.

I had a whole long thing about Fiddlers in here where I got way off topic (Off topic? Alexandria? No way!) when I was talking about "Amazing Grace", but I'm taking it out. Because I just need to write down everything about Fiddlers. That was such a huge part of my life for years and I'm really sad to think that I might forget things about it at some point. I'd do it now, but I just looked at the clock, which currently says 3:01am and realized that it's really late. Which is bad. Because I didn't realize when my parents left for church last night so I missed it, and as such they're going to make me go today. And they've got some kind of dumb-arse rule saying that if you don't go when they go, you have to walk. Dumb. And if I go at 10:30, the mass is longer so the whole day is practically gone. So I'm going to have to go at 8. Just so it's only 45 minutes instead of an hour. Which means I've got to start walking in about. . . *looks at clock again* 4 hours and 30 minutes. Damn. I hate it when I'm not paying attention to the time.

Though I tripped and twisted my ankle something fierce last night. Which is going to make walking, though not impossible or anywhere near as bad as my arthritis on a bad day, a bitch. I might be able to squeeze a ride there and back out of my parents if I tell them that it still really hurts. Because *tests ankle gingerly* *winces* it really still does. I hoped it had gotten better, as I haven't moved much in a while like the late night losing (Whoa. Typo. *is tired* I had 'loosing' there. Almost didn't catch it, too.) track of time computer geek I am.

*hobbles to bed*