Breathing room...

Breathing room...

Yesterday afternoon I crashed after going more or less constantly for the prior 4 weeks. I laid down on the couch and slept for 45 minutes... woke up and went back to sleep for another hour. Usually a nap for me is about 10 minutes. And I still went to bed at 9:30.

I've been feeling a lot of stress on a number of fronts lately. Lots of it good - fun even - but still stress.

The MCCO concert Saturday night was a lot of fun. Since November I've been playing first chair in the second violins. I've always tried to do my best, but leading the section turns the responsibility dial up several notches. Besides learning the part and playing as musically as I can, I have to get all my entrances right. Before, even though I tried not to, I did rely on my stand partner to lead; when in doubt, follow. Its a very different experience.

I can't be truly objective about how I did. Our director complimented me, so that is worth something.

The weekend before I finished my seminary course. One of my classmates stayed at my place for a couple nights. I've really enjoyed the class, but it has been quite a bit of work - reading about and practicing direction. All good - but extra.

The really stressful thing is some litigation that has come down in my business. We're trying to resolve it through negotiations. We have a deadline that we're working towards (May 22). Maybe - maybe - we'll have it resolved by then. If not we have to decide how much to give in and how much to fight. Fighting is very very expensive. The whole thing sucks energy out of me like - what? - imagine the most negative coworker/employee you can. Multiply that by 1000. You're getting close. It makes for some sleepless nights.

Meanwhile the garden is getting started. When I planted the asparagus I bought a couple of blue berry bushes. When they arrived I had to make space for them, so I did a bunch of flowerbed rearranging. It looks great, but it all takes time.

Oh - and that's not to mention the skunk that I think took up residence somewhere near my house. No major blasts - just a lingering odor that seemed to emanate from under the front porch. Jerry told me that moth balls will drive them away, so I bought a couple boxes over the weekend and scattered them under the porch. No sign of them tonight. I wonder which neighbor he/she adopted?

So last night and tonight I've let myself alone and putzed around getting a few things done - but not too much. Now it's time to get to bed.

Cood in d' noes

Cood in d' noes

Tonight was to be an Owl's practice, but a few minutes ago I canceled out so I could stay home and rest. Sometime this morning I instituted the 'wash my hands each time I touch a kleenex' policy when I realized that the sneezing wasn't from dust. Everybody I know has been fighting colds so I guess it is inevitable that I'd land one. I think this is the second of the winter. Blech. I looked in a mirror this afternoon and wondered if I was turning into a raccoon thanks to the black circles under my eyes.

All of a sudden I have a bunch of music gigs coming up. The Schmaltzentrubers agreed to play a few tunes for a fund raiser for the Northridge Dollars For Scholars programs next Tuesday.

This Saturday night the MCCO is playing a concert with music by Mozart, Telemann and Villa-Lobos. The Mozart (Symphony #35) is pushing my chops, and I've been putting a lot of practice time in. I wish both my fingers and memory moved faster. But it is a beautiful piece of music. The Villa-Lobos is the sleeper on the program.

Finally, next Saturday night (the 28th) the Owls are playing for the Empty Soup Bowl benefit. You will have to donate to attend this one - $15 for a bowl and supper.

Come on out to any and all of these.

Speaking of music, last Sunday afternoon I got over to ND to hear the Turtle Island SQ. Great music.

Last but not least, it isn't to late to catch my friend Floyd's blog about his time in Guatamala. Great photos about his hike last weekend on an active volcano. Wish I was there.

Quiet day...

Quiet day...

I was going to say I didn't know what happened to this past week but that's not true. I do know. Last night was the final MCCO concert of the season and Tuesday I realized that I could either blunder through the concert bungling a lot of notes or I could put some time into practicing and see if I could still recover. Twenty minutes two or three days a week isn't enough.

So I got up Wednesday morning and put an hour in, and repeated that on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, along with dress rehearsal Friday night.

By concert time I had come a long way and I did OK, as long as I made sure the A# was really sharp enough. (One of the pieces had a movement that was in F# - which means you're playing six sharps. That's a lot of sharps. Another piece had a movement with 5 flats, which is a lot of flats.) We played a bunch of Mozart, and it was a lot of fun - worth the extra work. But the extra practicing, plus something going on about every night of the week, plus a mild cold that came on Thursday night left me worn out and dragging.

By this afternoon I was ready for a nap and a lazy day. It rained most of the day, so inside and lazy was good.

Yesterday the weather was gorgeous, so I picked up a couple plants at the market. Now I have tomatoes and peppers in the ground. Frost danger seems remote and I can finish planting any time. What is amazing to me is that stuff actually comes up. You put a seed in ground and it turns into a plant. How cool is that? Did you ever stop to think about what kind of miracle that is? I'm more and more impressed by this fact the older I get.

High...

High...

Yesterday's performance of 'Fragments of Celestial Color' was an amazing experience. Many hours later I realized that it evoked some of same feelings as participating in the birth of my children some (almost) 20 and 24 years ago. Of course nothing can ever compare to the intense sense of awe and wonder you experience watching your own child come into the world, but when that last chord rang out at the end of the piece I felt an overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude, awe and wonder.

We did record it. I have to find out if I can post links. More later.

Orchids

Orchids

You'll never guess what was in my mailbox tonight! I'm so excited. OK, you can see it here in the photo. Neil's music arrived today!



If you don't know the story, this is the music that my mother commissioned for the Maple City Chamber Orchestra in memory of my dad. The funds came from the sale of his orchids after his death. Neil Dufallo is a fantastic NYC-based violinist/composer with shoestring connections to the MCCO. He was delighted to tackle the project and today I got the score and parts. I can't wait to hear it, but it looks like it will be fun and accessible by our little group. It is written for string orchestra, so it should lay out nicely for quartet too. The piece is titled Fragments of Celestial Color, and is based on Maori legends about orchids, and, of course, photos of my dad's orchids. I haven't seen the program notes yet so that is as much as I know.

Rehearsals start after Christmas, with world premier at Sauder Hall on February 25. You better be there!

Bloggingrhythm

Bloggingrhythm

My first problem with blogging is keeping a rhythm going on my postings. For me, once I've broken that rhythm it is kind of hard to know what to pick up and what to leave out. So this turns into more of a diary than anything else.

Not that I don't have a good excuse for the long gap between posts. And not that I need an excuse, but so much has happened.

First - I'm in my new place. To say it feels like home is a stretch, but I have books unpacked, and I'm getting my kitchen stocked with equipment and utensils. Today I bought an iron and ironing board. Yesterday it was decent butcher and paring knives. And I have some salt and pepper and other spices in my cupboard, along with rice, flour, lentils and some meat in the freezer, and jam in the fridge. Oh and some good bread from Rachel's.

Second - well its been a busy week with something musical just about every day. Today was the MCCO concert with Dan Berggren. The concert itself was fun, but the high point was the musician's gathering Friday night at Rachel's Bread. We put out the word to area folky types that Dan would like to meet us and play with us. Maybe a dozen showed up from 8-10. The Schmaltzentrubers kicked it off with 'Poor Wayfaring Stranger' and 'Ain't Misbehavin'. Then Pete and Jen joined us and we played a couple D dance tunes, followed by 'Wagon Wheel', and it took off from there. Dan played a couple of his tunes, and we just kept playing. I was the only fiddler, and at one point I took a break and played harmonica. It was fun - more than fun I've had in a long time. Dan brought such a gracious and generous spirit.

Thursday night the Schmaltzentrubers played a benefit for the Interfaith Hospitality Network (and we had practiced the night before). It was a volunteer gig, and we've learned over the years that there is an inverse relationship between how much we get paid and how much fun we have: the free concerts have always been the most fun. The audience was really appeciative - and we sounded pretty good. We could hear each other really well, and somehow we were just 'on'.

Finally, I've been waiting to get high speed access at home. My new modem / wireless router arrived Friday, but somebody needs to throw a switch somewhere, and they aren't scheduled to do that until the 20th. After grumbling about that for several hours I realized that I could write this off-line and then load it up across the old-fashioned slow dialup.

I went to church today and a whole bunch of people told me how glad they were to see me and glad to hear that both of us plan to continue to attend. I'm not sure how this will work for me, but only time will tell.

Looking ahead, tomorrow I fly to Boston area. I give a paper Tuesday morning at a conference, and then on Thursday we have a north east region user conference meeting, and I have a presentation there. Wednesday and Friday are prospective customer meetings. I return Friday evening, and my friend Ralph is driving down for a visit from St. Jacobs. I appreciate the moral support.