![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Solstice Weekend
Saturday, June 21st, 2025 05:22 pm |
93F and partly cloudy this afternoon, going down to 75F tonight.
Ace of Clubs week began on Wednesday.
Slept in until 2PM, and then spent the day doing a summer solstice ritual.
By night I turned a lapis lazuli I'd bought last week into a necklace to wear at Studio C, to help with my voice...
The copper wire I used is from a spool that's been with me since the DSL Install Tech days of 2000.
The wrap was kinda chaotic, because the stone is so smooth, but I soldered all the intersections, so now it's this perfect chaotic recording talisman involving old copper and a solder iron!
I was up by 12:30 on Friday and, for once in my life, shaved and showered first thing before coffee!
After the coffee was ready, I went out to get beer and groceries.
I had bought stuff to make a grilled cheese last Sunday, but today I bought cans of tomato soup, chili, stew, and cream of chicken soup.
First canned goods I've bought since moving in here a year ago!
So after I got home I was planning to do a grilled cheese & tomato soup, but I decided to check first, where the burners were plugged in.
Did they have their own dedicated circuit?
No!
They're plugged into the same 15A outlet that the mini-fridge is!
Why they designed the kitchenette this way?.. I dunno! But it might explain why they removed all the mini-fridges, in favor of taller fridges to be plugged in elsewhere!
Fernando acted like that was just a nice thing they did to give us poor studio dwellers more space to store food!.. and acted like any little mini-fridge (like mine) that actually fit under the counter was just barbaric!
In reality... they were probably blowing breakers ten times a day, as fridge compressors kicked on while electric burners were at full blast!
The fix for this is easy, in theory.
Just turn off the fridge while the burners are going!
But fridges don't have on/off switches!
And nothing I had on hand would work to rig mine up with one.
So I had to order a cord with a switch on Amazon and it won't be here until Monday!
Thus, no grilled cheese for me this vacation! :(
I did a little more spell work on Friday, then talked to Brian in the evening.
Last Sunday I booked two hours in Studio C for today, but didn't check the forecast until Monday, when I saw to my horror it was gonna be 96F today!
I went to cancel the booking, but couldn't find the link to do it!
By Tuesday, I decided, Just go and record when it's hot, you wimp! This is supposed to be your summer project, so you can't puss out the day actual summer arrives!
And I'm glad I went today, because it wasn't what I feared.
The walk to Elgym wasn't bad, because we had a nice breeze down here by the river.
And when I got into the building I could feel that it was a bit cooler than the outdoors, meaing they have some kind of crappy central air!
Up in Studio C, somebody had left the window AC running, so that was nice and cool too!
I let it run while setting up my gear on the little coffee table, and kept it running as I recorded a first practice take of the vocals.
Finally it was down to business.
The AC went off, and I recorded seven more full vocal takes of, Bed in the Suburbs, which is a jam about the summer!.. so it felt very fitting to be singing it today!
My old voice, for this one, was right there, too!
So, after doing it on a 94F day, I'm certain now I can keep this up the rest of the summer!
On the walk back, I stopped on the bridge to ponder the river, and saw a turtle sunning itself on a rock!
I felt like it had to be a sign, cuz... I've never seen a turtle down here before!
I went into Hoof+Horn to see if Ruby was there, to tell her I'd seen a turtle, and wish her a happy solstice, but something was going on in there.
Ruby greeted me briefly, but was very preoccupied with whatever was going on in the basement.
The shop was full of witchy types, hanging out and chatting, as dark emo played.
I'm always struck by how cliquey the witch crowd is there!
Everybody's all nicely groomed and stylishly dressed, with an almost yuppie vibe, like their witchcraft has really helped them get rooted into the upper middle class, or something?
Dark magical yuppies.
Very weird!
And, of course, nobody really wants to talk to the schlubby old straight-guy with his scruffy beard, in T-shirt & jeans, with a yellow & black backpack, and a dingey gray baseball cap!
Same vibe I got in my born-again Christian phase, the one bible study I went to!
People don't do things to get on the same wavelenth as the cosmos, they do things to fit into social groups!
And if the social group helps you get ahead, then... you can think it was the cosmos!
I don't care.
I walked back to the tower, and now I'm in the flat cooling off in the AC.
°¦}
