FKO part 2: Magic's In The Air

Photo by Phil Mills


I'm writing this report while sipping vanilla jasmine tea from Colleen Savitsky and munching on some lovely dark chili-cherry chocolate from David P. and Marilisa. Mmmm.

Allison has been posting some great reports of FilKONtario over on her Livejournal, for those interested. Last I checked, she had the following up so far:

FilKONtario '08 - Part 1: concom thanks, Tony birthday conspiracy, rehearsals, Marilyn Miller
FilKONtario '08 - Part 2: Tom and Sue's wedding
FilKONtario '08 - Part 3: Urban Tapestry concert
FilKONtario '08 - Part 4: Friday night concerts, one-shots

Rather than duplicate content, I'm just going to expand on bits of Allison's reports. It was so great to be able to finally hang out with Michelle Dockrey one-on-one before the convention started; I knew I wouldn't get much of a chance later on because she'd be involved in GoH duties.

Michelle/Vixy and I have a lot of overlapping interests, I've found, not the least of which is artstuff. Wish we lived closer. Anyway, I think we managed to squeeze in a lot of topics into the hour or so we had together. :-)


Photos by Phil Mills

Many thanks to Phil for letting me use his photos for today's Blathering. The photo at the top is from our Friday night concert, which was fun. It was great to perform Another Round with Juliane, the composer of the song, and be able to do the round with all four parts! Thanks also to Dave Clement for helping us out on Phantom Doll and Green Hills Of Harmony.

And many thanks to our friend Walter for agreeing to be our Seventies Guy! I admit I didn't think he'd do it when Allison and Jodi suggested his name; though I've known Walter for longer than they have, I figured he'd say no.

I was totally delighted at how enthusiastically he threw himself into his part! Walter had shown us a few props, but not much else. During the actual performance, I laughed so hysterically at his disco outfit that I almost fell over (and quit playing my tambourine).

He got changed for his part in the adjoining kitchen after getting permission from the staff, then burst in dressed as Dr. Who after cueing a Tardis sound effect. As Allison, Jodi and I performed The Seventies Song, Walter pulled out various props including a pet rock and enlarged pictures of the Brady Bunch, etc. At the climax, he flung off his Dr. Who outfit to reveal a blinding white leisure suit.

Can't wait until his Friday night gaming guys see these pics. Heh.



Photos by Phil Mills

Allison, Jodi and I were happy to see the newly married Tom and Sue in the audience when we sang them "Magic's In The Air," part of our wedding present to the happy couple. Allison came up with the idea of having two possible endings to the song, depending on whether the audience voted for Tom kissing Sue, or Sue kissing Tom.

The audience voted for Sue to kiss Tom, but we sang them the other ending on Sunday.

MAGIC'S IN THE AIR
By Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Performed by Urban Tapestry
Dedicated to Sue Posteraro and Tom Jeffers, Apr/2008

CHORUS:
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Sure, he may look scary
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Don't bother to fight it
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Yeah, he's kind of hairy, but
B
at least he's not a bear
A                     E
and magic's in the air tonight.

E                      D
Her name is Sue, she is walking in the forest
E                            D
Humming to herself as she is wont to do
E                               D
Her life's about to change, you'll find out in the chorus
E               D
And trust us, every word is true.

E           D               E            D
Five years ago, Tom was enchanted by an evil sorceress
E              D                    E    D
he ticked her off but we don't know how
A                      B
Now he's a moose, but no one knows
A                           B
'til love's true kiss lands on his nose...

CHORUS

E                           D
Sue heard a noise and her humming stopped
E                             D
some branches snapped as they are wont to do
E                         D
The moose appeared, she stared at him in shock
E                       D
Tom's heart leapt when he saw Sue.

(Jodi sings the "FIve years ago" counterpoint while Allison sings the following)

E                      D
Her name was Sue, she was walking in the forest
E                            D
Humming to herself as she is wont to do
E                             D
Her life about to change, you'll find out in the chorus
E               D
And trust us, every word is true.
A                      B
Now he's a moose, but no one knows
A                           B
'til love's true kiss lands on his nose...

CHORUS:

BRIDGE:
D                 A                   E
"Hey, he's kinda cute," thought Sue, "for a moose!"
D   A                E
Still she hesitated...he was a moose, after all.
D                  A       E
Poor Tom stood mute and hairy, feeling like a goose
A             B
But then the birds began to call...

==> At this point, ask audience which song ending they
prefer: if Tom kisses Sue, or if Sue kisses Tom.

======== if Sue kisses Tom ===============

CHORUS:
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Sure, he may look scary
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Don't bother to fight it
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Yeah, he's kind of hairy
B
at least he's not a bear
A                     E
and magic's in the air tonight.

E               D
Sue gazed up into the sky, where
E                        D
stars shone as they are wont to do, "What the
E                       D
heck," she thought, "I may as well try!"
E               D
and she gave Tom a kiss so true that
A                       B
and Tom turned back into a hairy, cute guy
A                   B
and the animals started to harmonize...

==> go to FINAL chorus.

======== if Tom kisses Sue ===============

CHORUS:
E                A
Kiss her, Tom! quick before she can protest it
E                   A
Kiss her, Tom! Just do it right
A               A
Kiss her, Tom! Sure you're flea-infested but
B
at least she's not a bear
A                     E
and magic's in the air tonight.


E            D
Tom gazed into Sue's eyes, which
E                     D
sparkled as they are wont to do, "What the
E                     D
heck," he thought, "I may as well try!", and
E
magic stirred as Tom kissed Sue...

(gradually start slowing down here)
A                    B
and Sue grew hairy, her smile serene, the most
A                           B
beautiful she-moose Tom had ever seen...

============ FINAL Chorus =============

CHORUS:
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Sure, he may look scary
E               A
Kiss her, Tom! Don't bother to fight it
E               A
Kiss him, Sue! Yeah, he's kind of hairy
B
at least he's not a bear
A              E
and magic's in the air tonight.

Photo by Phil Mills

Above: singing Home To FilKONtario at the closing ceremonies with the FKO concom.

More about FKO soon...



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Post-FKO

Back from FilKONtario, sleep-deprived but happy. A truly wonderful weekend for so many reasons. Many thanks to those of you who came up during the convention and said that you were glad that things turned ok for me re: last week -- I truly appreciated it.

Kudos to the concom for an amazing time; not only were the guests and guest performances fantastic (more on this later), but it was heartwarming to see how the convention and its people embraced the celebration of two of their own: Sue Posteraro is now Sue Jeffers, the wife of Tom Jeffers! Many heartfelt congrats to Sue and Tom.



My friend Dave Clement is coming to visit, so I likely won't be posting a con report for a little while. For those interested in seeing pics of the wedding and the rest of the convention, however, feel free to visit my FKO Flickr set -- I'll gradually be uploading more photos over the coming week. Allison, Jodi and I were able to arrive at the convention a day early to hang out with friends as well as rehearse with guest musicians, so I've included those photos as well.



Above: Vixy and Tony giving their very first Guest of Honour concert. More on this AMAZING performance later, but right now I just have to rave about their NEW CD, which I can already tell is going to be played many many times in our household over the next while.

Whether or not you're a filker, I strongly urge you to check out Thirteen: Vixy and Tony, the debut CD of Michelle Dockrey and Tony Fabris as a duo. You can hear sound samples on their new MySpace page. In their concert, I was especially delighted to hear a new song, Apprentice (you can hear this on their MySpace page), which is about the Firefly character, Inara.

More about Vixy and Tony in an upcoming Blathering.

Also, congrats to this year's Filk Hall Of Fame inductees: Colleen and Steve Savitsky, and Bob and Annie Passavoy.



Have a great week, everyone!





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Urban Tapestry's 15th Anniversary

Above: For Illustration Friday. Theme from last Friday: "Homage." I opted for a tongue-in-cheek interpretation. :-)

[9:20 am EST update: Just got the official phonecall from my doctor - the follow-up mammogram and ultrasound were all clear. I'm going to enjoy FKO -so- much more now, woohoo! Thank you again for all your support and encouragement.]

Leaving for FilKONtario today! This time I'll be taking a bunch of stuff to sell in the dealer's room (my first time), including acrylic paintings, greeting cards (including my new Blush cards from the UK, which I just found out are going to be sold in JAPAN, woohoo!), 8x8 prints and one (1) piece of pottery. The pottery is a joint project between my friend Luisa and me; she created the hand-thrown pottery and I painted it with a Little Nightmare design.

Urban Tapestry is also donating a special "Squirrels Are Evil And Taking Over The World" package that includes a CD recording of a new song (plus the lyrics/chords), a talking Evil Squirrel, and an original vampire squirrel painting by yours truly.




Our concert is tomorrow night, and I think it should be fun. We'll be including some old songs we haven't performed in a VERY long while as well as a couple of brand-new songs. It's our FIFTEENTH anniversary as a group this year! We've started writing a group history, if you're curious. The version online is very rough; I'll be polishing it after FKO, and Allison will be adding Part 2.

Concert at Digeri-Douze in UK, 2000. Photo by Godfrey Joseph.

Many thanks to those who posted in response to my abnormal mammogram Blatherpost; thanks especially to those of you who shared your own experiences.

I haven't yet received the official okay from my doctor, but I'm still hoping to hear before I leave for FKO today.

Hope to see some of you at the convention! Have a great weekend, everyone.



Outside the recording studio
for our first album (1993)



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Abnormal mammogram

The following is one of my longer Blatherings; I'm including so much detail mainly in hopes that this post might help other women who are as ignorant as I was about what happens with abnormal mammograms.

Though you probably couldn't tell from my Blatherings this past week, I've been pretty distracted.

It began when I got back the results from a mammogram I had early last week, when both my doctor and Sunnybrook Hospital phoned on Thursday within minutes of each other to say that I needed to go back for more tests. Apparently there was a small abnormality in my mammogram that they wanted to check out more thoroughly.

My doctor reassured me that it was probably nothing, but I was still quietly freaking out inside. As I started to do research online and talking to a few friends, however, I discovered my doctor was right ... chances were good that it was probably nothing.

According to several sources I found (including this one
and this one), 90-95% of abnormal mammograms recommended for follow-up will turn out to be "false-positives," which are abnormal mammograms which do NOT result in a breast cancer diagnosis within a year.

Thanks to those of my friends who told me about their own experiences with false-positives. And special thanks to Beckett, who HAS had breast cancer, who gave me info about what to expect either way.

Because even though I knew chances were good that it was probably nothing, it was the non-zero part that scared me on a very deep level. Too many of my friends and family members have been affected by cancer for me to casually dismiss the risk.

Intellectually, I understood the risk was small. Emotionally, I was running around in wild circles, alternating between being reassured and freaking out. The worst part was the WAITING.

A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that women who receive the results of their screening mammograms immediately after their examination have less stress and anxiety compared with women who have to wait several days for their test results.

Well, DUH.

Yesterday morning, I went to Sunnybrook Hospital for my follow-up appointment. I sat in the outer waiting room for a while (I arrived way too early); there was a young guy waiting there as well. I was surprised but then remembered that men can get breast cancer as well.

When my name was called, I was led to the change room and handed a hospital gown. I was asked to remove any deodorant I was wearing, and to put any non-valuable items in one of the lockers. Then I sat and waited with the other gown-clad women.

I was acutely aware that although we were all strangers, we were all there for similar reasons: our breasts. The word "breast" is an odd one, when you think about it. It certainly isn't pronounced the way it looks. And it has such complicated connotations and associations throughout one's life.

Sometime during adolescence, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd always be on the smaller side. I was embarrassed about it when I was younger. Now, I just don't care. I think it helps that I ended up marrying someone who loves me just the way I am, but I've also grown more confident over the years.

But back to the waiting room.

It seemed so weird to me that we were all sitting in that small room pretending none of the others were there, so I made some comment about how I had put on my hospital gown backwards compared to the others (with the ties in front rather than in the back). One of the women immediately said that she had just been thinking that my way of putting on the hospital gown made more sense; another women laughed and said it probably didn't matter at all.

From time to time, one of the hospital staff would show up at the door and call a name; one of the women would leave. The rest of us continued to wait, commenting on the cooking show that was playing on a small tv up in the corner, or talking about the process.

One of the women had been there several times; she told the rest of us about the different technicians -- most were nice, she said, but one wasn't ("After my mammogram, I had bruises all around my breast! And I don't have much breast left...").

When it was my turn to do the mammogram, I was disappointed to see that I didn't have the same technician as last time -- she had been a friendly and talkative Australian girl. This time, the technician was courteous but very businesslike.

You can see a demonstration of the machine and the mammogram process in this video. It's not a comfortable process, but I've never experienced pain; some women do, I know. I've been told it's a matter of breast sensitivity, not size. You basically have to lay your breast on a small platform, wait while the technician rearranges it (like a piece of meat on a plate, really) and then lowers another platform on top of it until it's squished flat like a thick pancake, then wait again while she goes over to the control panel and takes the x-ray. They usually do several in different positions.

I asked the technician if I was going to find out any results today, and she said that I might be able to, that I should try asking the radiologist.

Then it was back to the waiting room. Different women were waiting there from before. We chatted a little bit until I mentioned that I was there for a return visit because I had an abnormal mammogram the week before. I guess that was a bad topic because they all got quiet after that.

When one of the women came back to get her clothes after her mammogram, however, she leaned over and murmured, "I hope everything turns out okay for you."

Finally the radiologist came to get me for my ultrasound. I was taken to a room with a bed, asked to lie down and wait. Ah great, more waiting. I lay down and found the mattress and pillow much more comfortable than I expected; I would have likely dozed off in other circumstances (circumstances that didn't involve a test that might change the rest of my life, that is).

After about ten minutes, the radiologist came in. As she was getting stuff ready, I asked her if there was any chance I could find out results that day. She gave a polite smile and said no, that I'd have to wait until I heard from my doctor. Oh well.

The ultrasound was pretty much what I expected - some liquidy goop and then the ultrasound wand. The radiologist kept her eyes on the screen while she did the ultrasound, and I noticed that she focused mainly on one part of my breast; I assumed this was the questionable area that showed up in the mammogram.

I found that by craning my neck (being careful not to move any other part of my body), I could see what was on her screen. I half-expected the radiologist to complain but she didn't, so I kept looking. It was the first time I had ever seen an ultrasound; it just looked like white water to me -- constantly shifting waves.

The radiologist didn't say much during the entire procedure. At one point she handed me a towel and left the room without saying anything. After she was gone for about five minutes, I assumed I was supposed to clean myself up, and that the ultrasound was over. When she came back, however, I discovered that the exam wasn't over after all; she had just been to the other room to check my mammogram.

Well geez, couldn't she have just said so? I suspect that people like this woman had done this test so many times that sometimes they forget that the women they're examining are actually PEOPLE, not just nameless breasts. I don't think this woman made eye contact with me at all except for a brief moment when she called me from the waiting room.

More cold goop and the ultrasound wand. Finally the radiologist said she was finished and said I could clean myself up and put my gown back on. As she was doing something with the machine, I remembered again something my friend Judith had told me: to not be afraid to ask questions, like when the results would be ready.

So I asked, expecting a vague "when your doctor gets them" answer. Instead, I was surprised to see the woman hesitate.

"Don't worry," she said, her tone softening a bit but still not meeting my eyes as she took the now-goopy towel from me. "I didn't find anything." She warned me that it wasn't official, however, until I heard from my doctor. (Side note to those waiting and who weren't able to get an answer from their radiologist: this doesn't necessarily bode ill. My friend Luisa said that she's asked and NOT been given an answer, but still had follow-up results that turned out to be nothing.)

Even unofficial, however, those few words were a HUGE relief.

The hardest part of this past week has been the waiting, the not knowing. The feeling that I was in a sort of limbo-land, unable to get on with my life. I haven't been able to concentrate on work and have had trouble sleeping.

I fervently hope that someday someone comes up with a way of quicker follow-up for abnormal mammograms...there must be other women who go through this kind of stress while they're waiting.

Anyway, I'm hoping to hear from my doctor today or tomorrow. Even though it looks like I'm fine, it would be nice to get the "official" word before I leave for FilKONtario, and perhaps more info about what the mysterious spot on my original mammogram was.

Thanks SO MUCH to those of you who knew about my situation and provided emotional support while I was going through my yo-yo stress; it was much appreciated.

And now to catch up on all the stuff I haven't been able to concentrate on this past week! Leaving for FilKONtario tomorrow...

Related Resources:

Study Looks at Reasons for False-Positive Mammograms (thanks to Judith for the link)

Breast Cancer: Understanding Mammogram Results

Mammogram Screening Procedure Info (from Medicinenet.com)



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Husqvarna

It's around this time of year (ok, maybe long before this) that I start craving warmer weather. The snow's starting to melt around Toronto and I'm crossing my fingers that we've seen the last snowstorm.

GIVE ME SPRING ALREADY!!!! I've been browsing Beckett's Flickr pics and envying those in sunnier climes right now.

Meanwhile Jeff has launched the Canoe Lake Ice-Out Page for this year. I'm predicting Sun May 4th as the date when the ice goes out on the lake this year.

My friend Walter was looking at the photo I took of my new sewing machine, and he was curious about the "Huskystar" brand. Out of curiosity, he Googled it and discovered that the company is Husqvarna, which he says is best known for making items like:

Manly Tool Example 1:



Manly Tool Example 2:



NOT Manly Tool Example:



Also, he said that apparently Husqvarna has been making sewing machines since 1872, and that they originally started in 1689 as a weapons foundry, only getting into sewing machines when the rifle orders dried up.

From Walter: "So you can be proud to know that your precision sewing machine is made by a company with over 300 years of weapons/tools of destruction history."

Ah, it's good to have friends.

:-D



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