One Last Trip to the Beach

I was feeling kind of sad that my schedule hadn't allowed me to go to the beach one last time to say goodbye to the ocean and my ponies for the winter. But then we had that warm spell last weekend that extended into Monday, and to top it off, my fortune cookie on Saturday had the following message inside:

So it was pretty much a done deal that we would take Monday off. I worked really hard on Sunday, caulking and painting and mowing the grass one last time. I discovered that the mulching attachment on the mower does a fantastic job of sucking up leaves if you leave the bag on.

We headed out so early that the fields on Rt 198 still had their morning mist.

We had planned a little side trip to the Oxford-Bellvue Ferry because I really wanted to take a boat ride in my car, but they only run on weekends starting in November. But that's the dock back there behind the tree. I wonder if that tree is a descendant of the famous Wye Oak?

There was a singing seagull hanging out on one of the poles near the dock.

The water there was kind of oily, probably from the boats, but it made an interesting background for these leaves.

This giant red ball was decorating the gate post at the end of someone's driveway near the ferry dock.

When we saw this persimmon tree, Doug insisted that we stop and have a taste. The fruit tasted like a mixture of peach, apricot, and mango, with a whole lot of nutmeg added. Doug said this was a highly unusual persimmon in that it had virtually no puckeriness. It was pretty good. I was surprised that he didn't pick a bunch of them to bring home.

We saw this lovely sweetgum tree. I think fall is farther along in DC than it is on the Eastern shore.

The sweetgum tree had these balls hanging from it.

After we passed this sunny sorghum field, we stopped at the St. Michaels Perk for breakfast before hitting the highway once again.

Finally we arrived at Assateague. By then the temperature had risen to right around 70 degrees. Everything looked so clean and fresh. I've never seen the horses manes look so white. I guess they had gotten a lot of rain recently.

We had the beach practically all to ourselves. We were there from noon until about 3:00. It felt wonderful to be in that lovely light and to breathe that fresh ocean air.

I don't usually have very much to do with seagulls because one pooped on my head at Rehoboth one time. But on Monday there weren't too many around, so I decided to make friends with this one. He was very clean and white.

If you've never seen seagull feet closeup, now's your big chance!

I decided to entertain myself by taking a video of the seagull. Of course he poops a little bit right at the end of it. That's what I'm talking about!

An Inconvenient Life

We were without internet for over three weeks, until today, and it has been a royal pain. I didn't realize just how much of my day to day functioning is internet-based. But now I've kind of gotten used to living in isolation. It's not too bad. I have a lot more time to do other things. And the course I was taking over the internet has unfortunately pretty much fallen by the wayside. No more straight "A's" for me I guess.

Anyway, that is why my posting and commenting and visiting of other blogs has been kind of light lately. I need silence and my separate keyboard and my separate screen and my trackball in order to be truly functional at the computer. Using my laptop at Panera, parking outside my friend's house in the middle of the night, or sitting on her couch at more reasonable hours still leaves me feeling spastic and unable to think. Also, I haven't yet memorized all (three) of the html things I use for blogging.

While I was feeling sorry for myself about the internet situation, I started pondering some of the other inconveniences that have been added to my life after everything went up in flames over four years ago. The main thing is what I alternate between calling the cinderblock cell and the cinderblock chalet, depending on my mood. We've been renting this house while we get our real house, FoamCoreFantasy, back into liveable condition. It was not my idea for it to take this long, but that's another long story.

The cinderblock chalet is small, and that was fine at first since we had just lost more than 90% of our belongings. And I was on the road or working on a ship for most of the first year so I wasn't really bothered by that or by its ugliness. In fact I like small - it's very easy to keep things neat and tidy in a hotel room or a cruise ship cabin. Ugly is a little harder to take. The kitchen and mud room in the rental house are kind of late 70s trailer home or hunting cabin style. But at least it has a washer and dryer. Speaking of mud, it is impossible not to track things in. The house is built on a slab at ground level and there's no sidewalk up to it so leaves, dirt, and other debris are always finding their way in. I'd have to vacuum every fifteen minutes to keep the floor clean, and that's impossible.

Some of the things we don't have are related to our "temporary" situation, so I guess I shouldn't complain. We don't have a TV, but we don't really have time to watch one right now either. I just drive the 5 miles to the nearest Blockbuster when I feel the need to stare at the screen for a while. We don't have a land line phone, so when our wireless goes out we can't get online. We don't have trash service. We have an oil tank for our heater which never seems to get filled before it runs out. It takes at least twenty minutes longer to get anywhere in DC than it did from my "real" house. But it takes less time to get to Baltimore, so that's good.

One of the weird things about this place is that it has a huge gravel parking lot and the landlord rents out parking spaces to various large vehicles. So for two long years, every time I left the house I was pretty much forced to look at this truck:

Never Have an Ordinary Day!

Isn't that nice?

My days are weird enough already, thank you very much.

I've always found that when I need cheering up, cookies and milk do the job quite nicely. I don't keep cookies on hand because that's kind of the last thing I should be eating, but I'll go buy them if I get the urge. So for two years I somehow found myself buying those Pepperidge Farm cookies on a nearly daily basis. What can I say, I was pretty miserable and cookies cost a lot less than drugs or alcohol. Fortunately 7-11 has them in a two-pack and they come in a bag of eight at the grocery store, so it's a large amount of excess calories, but it's not nearly as much as a normal sized bag of cookies. And it is more comfortable to "only" eat two cookies, or eight, or sometimes six, if I was feeling generous. Anyway, I recently noticed that I haven't had the urge to buy Pepperidge Farm (Chesapeake, if you must know) cookies for about six months and that may very well be how long the truck has been gone. I tried (and apparently failed for the most part) to not see it, so I didn't notice exactly when it stopped being there. I remember glaring at it each morning, already regretting how my day would undoubtedly end. I'm really glad that stupid truck is no longer parked there. I need to have ordinary days, without the cookies. The school buses that park there now don't seem to be activating any food urges, so that's good!

I could continue to gripe about this place that we will be living in for hopefully only a couple more months, but I'd rather just forget about it. Ignore it. The one thing that I've really enjoyed about staying here and can't ever ignore is the beautiful and huge magnolia tree. Here it is in the spring:



And here's the same tree in the fall. I definitely like this tree even more than I like cookies!

Phabulous Pho

Pho Real. Seriously, that's the name of my very phavorite pho place. Okay, I promise I'll stop with the phoolishness now. Oops, that was a PHAIL. I'm having way too much phun here.

Pho Real is located in the shopping center at the corner of Briggs Chaney and Old Columbia Pike in the outer reaches of Silver Spring. It is very attractively decorated and very clean, and the broth is always fresh and delicious, and never greasy. They serve it with basil, bean sprouts, jalapeno slices, and lime, which you can add as you see fit, along with the red chile sauces. I usually skip those because I like tasting the combination of basil, jalapeno, and lime with the broth without the distraction of hotness. I always put the bean sprouts in first so that they'll become as soft as the noodles. The summer rolls at Pho Real are also excellent.

And here's one more photo phor you. On the way there today, I spotted this cute out building on Briggs Chaney Road. I think it looks rather nice against the phall pholiage.

sad start to the day

As much as I complain about the deer eating stuff in my back yard, I still think they are beautiful and I do enjoy seeing them and I am slightly attached to them because they visit us so often. But I also wish they weren't so bold because in my area they are constantly being hit by cars. I guess they aren't that bright and just don't know any better, so they get scared and bolt out into the road in a state of panic.

This morning I pulled up to my house ready to begin a day of painting, and there was a deer that looked like it had just been hit lying right in the middle of my driveway at the edge of the road. It must have suffered a concussion because there wasn't any blood or broken bones. She was really pretty - her stomach was so clean and white. Anyway the sight of that pretty much ruined my morning. I called animal control and was told that they would pick her up within 48 hours.

I took the recycling out to the curb and as I got closer I couldn't bring myself to look at her. I noticed that there was no smell yet. I went inside and took a picture from the second floor, but I've decided not to post it - that wouldn't be right somehow. I kept thinking about her lying out there in the driveway and about how the animal control people might not come for another day or so, and since I was still wearing the rubber gloves I had put on to stain the threshold, and since she didn't smell at all, I decided to go out and move her over to the side of the driveway.

So when I went out there to move her, she was gone. I figured that animal control must have already been in the area. But then about an hour later when I was inside painting my foyer, animal control came and knocked on the door, wanting to know where the deer in my driveway was. At first he didn't believe me, so I showed him the picture I'd taken.

I guess someone saw that the deer was "fresh" and saw an opportunity to have a couple of months' worth of free meat or something. I felt a little less sad after thinking that something useful might have happened as a result of "my" deer getting killed. I wonder what the animal control people do with all those deer that they pick up every day? The guy who came to my house had two deer that he'd already picked up today.

This deer situation has been getting worse and worse over the past ten years or so. I hope the powers that be will eventually come up with a solution that is both intelligent and humane. As long as they continue to develop every possible inch of space, it's going to continue to be a problem.

random observances

The sky was so beautiful today. I'm SO glad it's not raining anymore. Now if it would only warm up enough for me to go to the beach one last time!

This bird was just sitting there on the top of the cedar tree. He was big and fluffy and light gray. I have no idea what kind of bird he is.

This is the worlds tallest stump. It's been like that for two years.

These balls are looking out the window and wondering how much longer they'll have to wait to assume their proper place in the world.

Another beautiful fall sky. I can't believe the leaves are changing already!

P.S. Don't forget to vote for your favorite moulding!

while the cat's away.....

Cyndy will play..... this time with power tools! (cross-posted at foamcorefantasy)Usually I avoid these things like the plague because they can be very dangerous to your hands and I need my hands. But I decided to save a whole lot of decision-making time by constructing a few mockups of potential moulding for our kitchen cabinets.



We were planning to use a copy of the original crown moulding from our old house to go around the tops of all the cabinets. Doug really want to use it in the kitchen for sentimental reasons. But the other day, he got started putting it up and we realized it didn't look good because the recessed lights cause the moulding to completely cast a shadow upon itself. So we'll just use it somewhere else instead. There are plenty of places it could go.

I remembered the experience with making the vent pipe covering and decided to get things moving by doing a sample of what I had in mind myself. That way when Doug gets back from his trip it won't take as long to get it done because all of the discussions will have already taken place.

My original idea was just to use a piece of half-round. It would look neat and clean and simple. But the sizes I bought were not big enough to look right so I ended up splitting a wooden closet rod in half. That one was so easy to make that I decided to get fancy and play around with the other sizes of half round. The second one I made is a flat trim board with small half-round beads on the top and bottom. Then just for laughs, I made another one that was three pieces of half-round attached to a trim board.

After the glue was dry I cut them with the miter saw and glued the two mitered ends together on each one. I couldn't find the staple gun or the finish nailer so I just used glue to put them together. I primed and painted them last night and this morning I put them up to see how they'd look.

#1

#2

#3

#1

#2


#3 - that's just silly!


#2 on the left, #1 on the right

different angle - #2 on the left, #1 on the right

When I first made #3 I was laughing because I thought it looked like Lincoln Logs, if you're old enough to know what I'm talking about. Then yesterday as I was driving home from my gig, I saw this and it just made me feel like mocking #3 even more.

If you think they all look bad, please don't hesitate to tell me, because the other option is to go with no trim at all. Except that then the stupid outlets for Doug's recessed rope lighting will show.

Posting from Panera

So yesterday was my first day off from EVERYTHING in over two weeks and the weather was just wonderful in honor of the occasion. I'm pretty much not a rain type person, but it did cause this rose bush to look rather delightful.

The internet is not working, but at least I have heat. Hopefully the oil truck will show up before it runs out. Meanwhile, I'm keeping the thermostat set to 55 degrees. That feels really nice.

I have a test I'm supposed to take for an online course I'm taking, but I'm not used to being able to think with a bunch of loud inane conversations happening all around me. Maybe it will be quieter in here tomorrow and I can do it then. I'm not in the mood right now.

Apparently Panera is the big hangout for the Leisure World crowd. There's this old couple in front of me looking out the window and giving each other a non-stop commentary about the various goings on out in the parking lot. "Let's see if that idiot can back out of his space without hitting anyone." "Oh look, she's putting on her seat belt." Most of their comments were really smug and obnoxious and completely unnecessary and unfortunately they were irritating me so much that I was not able to ignore them. It was almost like the senior citizen version of Mystery Science Theater. I sure hope I don't become that bored, obnoxious, and smug when I get old. I'll probably become one of those silent types, rocking in my chair out on the back porch looking at the herds of deer running through. I hope I won't be compelled to say "look, a deer" to anyone who will listen, although I think I've shown telltake signs of that behavior already. I'll just have to watch myself.

I'm not really feeling this posting from Panera thing so I'm probably going to make myself scare for the next week or so. Unless the secret project I'm about to go work on ends up being photo-worthy.

I hope this weekend of wetness passes quickly for all of you!

like a deer in the headlights

.



They sure are pretty. But they don't respect me and they're not afraid of me or my car. They eat my apples and they sleep lying down right in the middle of my back yard at night. I don't know if you can make them out in the picture below, but there are two pairs of eyes there, glowing in the dark. If you click on the picture you'll see that they are relaxing in the grass. Don't bother getting up, it's just me flashing my camera at you in the dark. I hope I'll be able to grow something besides grass after I move back in. Sheesh!

Fall Flowers

The other day Doug ran out of gas right next to the Heyser Farms orchard way out here on New Hampshire Avenue in Cloverly. I was already working over at the house when he called, so I grabbed the gas can that I use for the lawn mower and went to rescue him. I've only ever driven by there before, but since I was parked there for a minute I decided to get a few shots.

It looks like they have a cutting garden in addition to some very loaded apple trees.

It also looks like they just dump their unsold produce into a compost pile of sorts. There was a very strong apple cider vinegar smell. If you click on the picture you'll see that there are all kinds of vegetables there in addition to the apples. It's a very colorful compost pile!

In other news, today is day six of thirteen straight days of gigs. I am very grateful to be working so much this month doing what I love, instead of working so much on the house . Well I'm still working on the house every day, so nevermind. Anyway, I'm happy to be employed. And we are making good progress over there right now. Slow, but good.

Fetching Fan in Frederick

Yesterday Doug was so eager to get the fan that he'd just bought on eBay, that he couldn't wait for them to send it. So we drove all the way up to Frederick to pick it up. It's a very handsome fan, and although it's a little more modern looking than anything else in our house, I think it will be okay on the porch. At least I hope so.


We stopped at the scenic overlook on the way up. I'd never stopped there before. The sky was actually more scenic than the scenery. The area does have a vibe though. It looks out over the Monacacy River Valley where one of the many gruesome Civil War battles took place. After their victory at the Battle of Monocacy, the Confederates marched to Fort Stevens in DC. Even though they'd won that battle they had a lot of casualties and I think that's why they didn't actually attack in DC. I think they decided it would be better to just leave. Anyway, here's a view from the scenic overlook. The trees are kind of in the way of the view of the valley in the distance.


On the way back we saw a huge Black Walnut tree in the old section of Rockville. It's already lost most of its leaves, but the walnuts were shining brightly in the afternoon sun and I loved the way the green looked against the blue sky.

Sunday Afternoon Sky

The clouds were pretty cool looking this afternoon. These photos only show a tiny bit of what was up there today. Clouds like this always make me happy, especially when the sun is shining through them.

A Cat Concerto for Ted and Tom....

... and Felix and Seymour and TopCat and Lulu. These are all of the cats that have been important to me for one reason or another. Sadly, none of them are still here with us, except in spirit. The video below, which I initially stumbled upon over here somehow made me miss all of them even more. I realize that the cat part of this video is very cleverly patched together, but it has been incorporated into the composition so beautifully that it's become a work of art in its own right. Maybe I've turned into a crazy cat lady (who no longer has any cats), but I somehow felt Ted's spirit around me when I watched it:

This time of year contains a little sadness for me because it was around the end of September two years ago that my beloved Ted passed away. And last September my friend lost her cat Tom, which made me doubly sad. I'm certainly not a natural-born cat lover the way my husband is, but Ted changed all that for me, at least during his lifetime. Now I have an appreciation for cats that I would not have had otherwise. Ted was special. They all were. So I'm declaring September to be National Cat Memorial Month.

Here's something my friend Nancy wrote about Ted after having him as her guest for two months while we were on the road:

A study in Triangles

Ted.
His face
is a broad,
lovely triangle.
The brown front end
of his nose is a microcosmic
triangle of the larger face,with
two black nostrils defining its outer
limits. When he tips his head upward,
looking at you over his shoulder, while
laying on the bed, the large triangle-head
is inverted, nose at the top. At this moment,
a person standing in front of him sees a whitish
triangle, his soft neck and chin tipped skyward. His
rubbery black craggy lips form a two-sided arrow of a
triangle. And, of course, one can't miss the nearly isoscoles
ears. Finally, Ted's tail is the narrowest of triangles ever imagined.

a multi-cultural weekend

On Friday night I had an orchestra gig at the KORUS Festival in Annandale, accompanying the local Korean-American community's answer to The Three Tenors. They sang a few Italian arias and the orchestra played The Barber of Seville overture.

In between the opera segment and the US and Korean national anthems, there was a spectacular performance by the Gambling Crew, which is an ensemble of Korean break dancers. I don't know about you, but Korean+break+dancing are three words I never thought I'd see in a row, much less on stage. I guess I don't get out much. Anyway, their show was really impressive and exciting. And for some reason it didn't occur to me that boys would also get tramp stamp tattoos, but again, I just don't get out very much.

On Saturday a friend of Doug's who was visiting from Texas stopped by to see all the work we've been doing on our house. Afterwards we went to grab a bite to eat at the Ukrainian Festival which was happening nearby. We had pierogies, sausage and sauerkraut, and borscht. They also had stuffed cabbage and various pastries, along with regular hot dogs and hamburgers, and a Ukrainian beer garden which we did not indulge in because we had work to do.

There was lots of dancing and assorted musical performances. It was interesting to hear virtuosic Russian gypsy violin being played with a disco style backup track. I can't say I liked that aspect, but hey, I guess that's multicultural too! I was disappointed to not see any balalaika bands while I was there. The various Russian dance troupes were excellent and almost as exciting as the Koreans. But their costumes were much more interesting and the dancing was a lot closer to their actual cultural origins. Nearly everyone who came to this festival (except for us and a few others) were wearing embroidered Russian peasant shirts or costumes of some sort.



Another thing that tied these two events together for me was that one of the songs the Three Korean Tenors sang was O Sole (get it?!?) Mio, and then on Saturday one of the virtuosic violinists who performed was named Solomiya Horokhivska. Really! Okay that was really really bad. But true! Anyway, she played beautifully.

I wonder if my geese migrated over to this nice pond at the back of St. Andrews Orthodox Church.

And one last thing - if you ever happen to be in outer outer Silver Spring (as in Cloverly, way out on New Hampshire Avenue), be sure to stop in at O'Keefe Orchard and pick up some fresh, crisp, juicy apples.

I think it's pretty close to the end of peach season by now, but the ones we've been getting there for the past month are the best I've had in years. Incredibly delicious and impeccably unblemished. But their apples are also equally outstanding.

Endless Summer

Summer is not over (for me) until I say it is! September is actually my favorite "summer" month because it's the very best time of the year to go to the beach around here. The air is still warm and the water is a very comfortable 68 degrees. And the light at this time of year is amazing. Click on my short little litte video and enjoy the beach for a moment without getting any sunscreen in your eyes or sand in your shoes:

I've decided that since I didn't get a "real" vacation this year, I'm going to revert to my old habit of taking as many day trips to the beach as possible during September and October. Summer won't be over for me until the water is too cold for swimming and that will not happen until the very end of October, thanks to the Gulf Stream.

So yesterday we did our usual day trip to Assateague. My camera's battery was dying so my picture-taking was limited. Anyway, here's a picture of a giant jellyfish that was on the beach. I've never seen one so huge here before! Usually there aren't jellyfish there at all.

There were ponies on the beach, but they didn't come near us. It's always fun to see them, but they can sometimes be pests. One time I was in the water and when I came out there was a pony standing right in the middle of my blanket and he was nosing through my bag. They are totally unfazed by people so I couldn't really chase him off - I had to wait until he decided to leave. It's a good thing I was done for the day because I wouldn't have wanted to get back on my blanket after that. Here of some of the other horses grazing in the distance.

For a long time, Ocean City was the main beach I went to. Then I went through a Rehoboth Beach phase but now I'm back in Maryland and Assateague is my beach of choice. During the last several years they've made a few changes in order to improve the flow of traffic to and from the beach. I used to consider Vienna, MD to be kind of the armpit of the trip. It was such a dinky little town that Route 50 had to go down to two lanes, and I think there might have been a drawbridge there at one time. It always kind of annoyed me. It was definitely the slowest section of the the trip, and not very scenic.

They finally built a bypass, including a big new bridge, but I was kind of surprised at my reaction the first time I went over it. At first I thought that it was great that they'd finally done something about the delays that would often happen there, but then I started feeling a little disappointed. It seemed sort of anticlimactic passing by Vienna now - the poor little town was sitting over there all lonely in the distance. But that's progress I guess.

So as we were heading home yesterday, we saw an amazing sight as we were crossing the bridge there - a tugboat was pushing a barge loaded with huge piles of sand down the Nanticoke River. I decide to take the exit and see if I could drive to where the old Route 50 used to be and get a picture. The old bridge isn't there any more and there's a small field where the road used to be. We got there just in time.

Since we were already out of the car we decided to walk around a little. Vienna is actually much nicer than it ever looked from the old Route 50. They have a tiny little river walk, and there are a bunch of nice old houses facing the water, and several of them are for sale by the way. There's not much else there, but it's a very nice little sleepy town.

The Nanticoke Inn is still open for dinner every day from 4:30 until 6:00. I guess they have enough local business to have survived the moving of the road. And they still have those lovely decorations on the side of the building.

We opted to stop in Easton for dinner. Easton is really cute, but it's sort of turning into St. Michaels South. There are a lot of excellent but pricey restaurants there. We went to Darnell's Grille and Catering, which was excellent but reasonably priced. The cream of crab soup was completely amazing. Doug got the soft shell crab special with collards and macaroni and cheese, and I got Rockfish with coleslaw and potato salad. Darnell used some huge basil leaves as a garnish, and so my coleslaw was infused with a hint of basil, just from that leaf laying on top. It was really good! Doug added some of his basil to the collard greens, which were good to begin with, but again turned into something spectacular with the basil. I guess we just love basil. My rockfish was delightful. The softshell crabs were delightful. The potato salad was excellent. The macaroni was some of the best I've ever had - kind of light and fluffy, but the cheese was very flavorful and present. We shared a delicious piece of lemon cake for dessert.

I will definitely be going back to Darnell's Grille. Darnell is an excellent host and an outstanding cook, and his prices are totally reasonable. The address is 22 N. Harrison Street in Easton, MD. Check it out the next time you are passing through!

So today it was business as usual. The porch ceiling is nearly all the way up, and then we did a bunch of odds and ends most of the day.

Our Trip to Tangier Island

A long long time ago, when I first went to college as a piano major, we were required to sing in the chorus. Then all of the chorus members were strongly encouraged to be in the onstage chorus of the opera. My very first one was Faust and I loved it. I went on to be in Pearl Fishers, Carmen, and during my last year my friend JoAnn and I played celeste together down in the pit in a newly composed opera by Gerald Muller called Joshua. It was based on the life of a preacher on Tangier Island, out in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, who had been required to lead prayer services for the British troops on their way up to bomb Baltimore in the War of 1812. The music was exciting and the story was rather interesting. It left me hoping to one day visit Tangier Island myself.

I had kind of forgotten all about that until I read this post from Capital Spice, which described their recent trip to Tangier Island in great detail. I decided I HAD to go there this summer, and a few weeks ago I finally did. If you want to visit Tangier, definitely go read their post - it has all of the necessary links for transportation and lodging. We basically replicated their trip except that we arrived late in the day and stayed for two nights.

It was a great getaway, and could have been totally relaxing except that we spent the entire day we were there riding bikes, paddling kayaks, and walking around all over the place. The island is really small so we just rode around everywhere about six times. They don't have or need cars on Tangier, but nearly every family there has a golf cart. Some of them keep a car on the mainland.

Most of the people who live on Tangier Island are descendants of the original families and we saw the same last names over and over in all of the various grave sites. It was interesting to hear the rather unique accents - they all had the same features, but in varying combinations and amounts. What I mostly heard was British sounding vowels, combined with some of the inflections and rhythms and articulations of Baltimore. I had a nice conversation with one little five year old boy who was already tending to his very own crab cages and he definitely sounded more British than anything else.

So we took the late afternoon ferry from Onancock, VA which is just over an hour south of Salisbury, MD off of Route 13. We got in to Tangier around 7 pm, checked in to Hilda Crockett's guesthouse, went out for dinner, walked around some, got ice cream, and then went to sleep.

The next day we had the huge and delicious breakfast, went for a bike ride, split a softshell crab sandwich, went to the museum, went kayaking, ate the huge and delicious lunch/dinner at Hilda Crockett's, rode bikes some more, walked down to get some ice cream, and then went to bed so early that we were able to squeeze in another bike riding session before our 7am departure the next day.

Since we were so far south we decided to go to the beach at Chincoteague. It was beautiful and I'd go there more often if it were closer and didn't have so many ferocious flies. After we were done with the beach we drove home.

And here are the pictures - you can click on them if you want to see a larger version:

Onancock Wharf, where we caught the ferry

Some of the many crab shacks we saw on the way in to Tangier

The town, from the water

The softshell crab sandwich

The Reverend Joshua Thomas

Hilda Crockett's guesthouse

an old abandoned house

another old abandoned house

more crab shacks

crab cages

bird houses

snails

a white heron

a blue heron

local kittens

the birds at Chincoteague

A Tequila Cleanse?

Question: Can drinking 17 shots of tequila cure depression?

This has been a particularly woe-is-me kind of summer with an onslaught of hard physical labor and exhaustion, no big fabulous trips, no money, not a lot of playing, and fewer fun excursions than usual. I haven't felt much like blogging mostly because I didn't want to wallow in my misery any more than I already have, and there's not that much else to write about. Plus, I'm usually too exhausted when I get back to the cinderblock chalet so it's all I can do to click a few links and drop a few comments here and there.

I've always been rather moderate in my drinking habits, sticking mostly to beer, wine, and the occasional margarita. But for the most part beer has been my drink of choice, especially when there is a lot to be consumed. I used to hold it pretty well, but these days I wouldn't even know.

So last week I went to a Tequila Tasting party. My friends have somehow managed to accumulate 17 different bottles of tequila, and they felt it was time for people to check them all out, all at once. They provided us with a list so that we could indicate our favorites. Apparently I'm still in school mode - I must obey all instructions exactly so that I'll be sure to get an A, especially when there's a handout. I took the whole tasting thing VERY seriously.

Fortunately they served food about halfway through, or I never would have made it. Also, I didn't really drink 17 full shots - I had 17 semi-half shots. That's not that much I guess. But it's a whole lot more than I'm used to. And everyone else except for Phil only tried about 6 or 7 of them. So Phil and I became lab partners. He rated all of his shots with stars, and I wrote comments for mine. I revisited several of the early ones that I had neglected to comment on, (it's easy to get distracted and forget) and I even had some of the one with the dead scorpion in the bottom which tasted sort of hickory smoked. I think they said that was called mesclun, not tequila. Whatever, it was on the same table so I drank it.

I found the tasting experience to be pleasant and delightful over all, and I enjoyed having a sense of purpose about something that could be completed in one evening. I did have to take a couple of breaks in order to maintain some semblence of coherency in my comments though.

I was worried that I'd have a huge hangover the next day but I woke up feeling unusually clear-headed - it was really quite amazing. And what is truly astounding is that I was also suddenly in a ridiculously good mood which has lasted to this day. I feel like a completely new person - all negativity has been completely cleared out, cleansed if you will.

I don't know whether it was the tequila or the wonderful life-affirming news that we received earlier in the evening, but the fog has definitely lifted. I feel more energized, enthusiastic, and happier than I have all summer long. And now it's September so I'm good to go.

a great teacher

My bass teacher from several years ago passed away last week. I've held off on writing about him because I really didn't want to interrupt the flow of thoughts and feelings I've been having since he passed, and writing would have done that. I think I'll just mention a few of the ways that he helped me to become a better bass player.

When I first met George, he was playing principal bass in an orchestra I had just joined and I could tell right away from his suggestions to the rest of the section that he would be an excellent teacher for me. At the time, I was teaching piano for a living and playing bass was still a relatively new hobby. George suggested that instead of paying for lessons, I could give his stepson piano lessons in exchange for bass lessons. This was a wonderful arrangement because not only did I not have to pay for lessons but I also got to work with Alex, which I really enjoyed.

Early on during my time working with George he convinced me to go to a week-long Francois Rabbath workshop in Cincinnati which completely changed my whole outlook on myself as a bass player. George's teaching is based in large part on Rabbath's techniques and as I studied with him many ideas that Rabbath had introduced began to fall into place. It all made so much sense physically to me. And emotionally. And musically. I reached a completely new level as a player during the time that I studied with George.

Possibly the most important thing that I learned from him is how seriously harmful modesty can be to musical communication. It gets in the way of how much you can feel and how much you can express. I already knew that, but since I was musically advanced enough to be completely aware of how unadvanced I sounded on the bass, I thought that I should be modest, out of consideration for others who might have the misfortune to hear me. George helped me to realize how this attitude was really holding me back, possibly more than anything else was, and I immediately began working harder with my students on exactly the same thing. It makes a such a huge difference when what you want to put out there doesn't have to pass through a curtain. You can give so much more, but the real reward is what comes back to you in return. This is something I'll always probably have to work on myself, but at least I get it. And I will always be grateful to George for showing me that.

The funeral was incredibly moving on many different levels. Except for the sermon, the entire service was sung in the traditional way by the choir that George had conducted at St. Marks Orthodox Church. The music was simple but extremely beautiful and made the content of the service seem that much more meaningful. The church was completely packed. I could really feel his presence coming back throughout the day from all of the many people who had gathered to pay their respects.


The International Society of Bassists wrote the following:

A Great Teacher - A Great Friend

George Vance passed away on August 16th after a brave battle with pancreatic cancer. He was internationally recognized as a pioneer of pedagogy for young bassists. The author of Progressive Repertoire for the Double Bass, a method for teaching the bass to young students, he was on the faculty of the University of Maryland, and lectured and gave clinics in Ireland, England, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Australia and throughout the United States, as well as holding his own popular annual workshop. A student of Tony Bianco and a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, he was awarded the American String Teachers Association "Citation for Outstanding Leadership and Merit" in 1990. In 1995 the International Society of Bassists presented him with a Special Recognition Award for his groundbreaking work. He held a teaching certificate from the Institut International François Rabbath.

There will be a requiem service and viewing Wednesday night, August 19th, from 7 pm until 9 pm at St. Mark Church, 7124 River Road, Bethesda, MD. On Thursday morning, August 20th, there will be a funeral service at the church at 10 am, followed by a graveside service at Rock Creek Cemetery, concluded by a lunch and reception at St Mark Church. All are welcome.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to either St. Mark Church, or to the George Vance Young Bassists Education Fund, established in George's honor and dedicated to offering educational opportunities for young bassists. Send donations payable to the International Society of Bassists and addressed to the George Vance Young Bassists Education Fund, International Society of Bassists, 14070 Proton Rd., Suite 100, LB 9, Dallas, Texas 75244. The ISB is a 501(C)(3) organization and all donations are tax deductible as allowed by law.

The ISB extends its deepest sympathies to George's family and students. His extended family family includes the many bassists around the world who have been inspired and influenced by his life's mission of teaching. George will live on in the memories of the students and colleagues whose lives he changed for the better. He made a difference in his too-short life, and we will miss him with all our hearts.


If you are interested in reading more about George and his remarkable teaching career please click here

Julie and Julia

Here is my review: Lovely and delightful. Had a smile on my face throughout the entire movie. The End.

Okay, here's a little bit more: Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child's mannerisms was a little over the top, but I got used to it and it was okay after a while. Her kitchen cabinets at her house in Cambridge, MA were the same color as mine, which made me feel very happy for some reason.

I took the day off today from working on the house, since my hands were killing me from all of the work we've been doing. They felt absolutely horrible at the rehearsal I played this morning. It's been like this before so I'll probably recover.

I painted a couple of rooms last week and we've been working like maniacs installing the floors. I want to get this damn house finished! On Friday we worked until about 4pm and it went so well that we went back over there after my gig and continued until 4am!

On Saturday we slept in until 1:00 pm but we were still too tired to start back up again, so we went back to Centennial Lake (our new favorite cheap place to have fun) and this time we rented a kayak. We saw some more turtles, on a different log this time. What an exciting life we lead!

On the way back we saw a pair of conjoined sycamore trees and then we had a lovely meal at Great Sage in Clarksville. Finally we were ready to get back to work, and by midnight we had finished the floor in the other bedroom. All that's left upstairs, floor-wise, is a tiny bit of the hall and one more room which is a big square, and I should be able to do that one all by myself, after I paint it.

And that brings us back to today. Here are some pictures from my oh-so-exciting recent activities:

The conjoined sycamore trees

A beautiful bean field behind the sycamore
A tree that looks exactly like a bean tree, near the back of the movie theater

A cute mural near the movie theater

One last thing - I would love to hear some opinions about color of the vent pipe chimney in my kitchen. A first time commenter actually went to the trouble to make a version of it in yellow for me, so you can see it in both colors. Should I keep it as is, or repaint it to match the walls? I can't make up my mind, but I am now slightly leaning towards the blue version.

Paddle Boats

On Saturday we went paddleboating at Centennial Lake up in Howard County. I've been a fan of paddle boats since I was a kid. At first Doug didn't think much of them, but I think he's been gradually warming up to the idea now that he's done it a few times. He was actually the one who suggested it this time, which was very nice. But out on the lake I saw him looking longingly at the kayaks. Maybe we'll do that next time. Anyway, the weather was perfect, with a nice breeze. I should have been mowing the grass, but postponing that was well worth it. It was nice to have some fun for a change.

Centennial Lake is actually man made but it's been there a while so it has nice vegetation and animal life. There were lots and lots of turtles, for example.

The turtle on the right was HUGE! His shell was over a foot long.

After the big one left, several more came up to sunbathe. There are five turtles on the log above.

Turtle Love - I guess they are "necking."

We weren't the only ones having fun on the paddleboats.

As we were leaving the park, I decided to try out the flower setting on my camera since there was no bee setting.

After we got back I went over to the house and put a second coat of paint on the porch railings. It took exactly 6 1/2 hours straight for me to paint all of them. By the time I finished, my back was completely trashed from all of the bending over. But it's better today. We've been killing ourselves working on the house and not having a whole lot of fun. Doug likes that more than I do, which is very nice for him. It is rewarding to see how beautiful everything is turning out though. Maybe when I get another burst of energy I'll do a post over on the house blog. But most of the the time lately I've been too exhausted after a long day of work.

And that's not all of them either...

Free Fun in the Woods

Yesterday evening I was ready to head out to a movie, but was suddenly hit with an urge to do something different for a change, especially since we are basically broke right now. I remembered reading a really wonderful blog post from The Natural Capital about a trail near the Burnt Mills dam, which is on Route 29 about halfway between Four Corners and White Oak, and decided it was time to go check it out.

Burnt Mills is on the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River and was originally a grain processing facility which then became a water filtration plant which was the "first of its kind in the world." If you would like to know more, just click on the picture below.

There is a lovely trail there that you can take all the way to Brookside Gardens and it also continues in the other direction to somewhere in PG county. The trail is not rugged at all and is very clearly marked.

We decided to make it a short little hike because we wanted to get back to our car before it got dark. It was for the most part a rather serene and peaceful outing.

But then, as darkness approached, it suddenly began to get a little creepy out there. The monsters of the woods began to present themselves. The first one to appear was the Evil Root Monster:

Next we saw the slightly cross-eyed, rather angry looking Log Monster:

Around this time the Hairy-Legged Spider Monster began to emerge from the depths of the Northwest Branch:

But somehow we managed to emerge from the woods unharmed. I was a little disappointed that I didn't see the legendary ghost deer on our walk. I will definitely be going back for another look. One thing that we encountered that was a source of complete delight was an area that was full of the sound of singing birds (and mosquitoes). I decided to take a video just so that you could hear a small segment of their singing.

And since I'm a total music geek with no life apparently, I decided to transcribe the song of the main bird on the video below so that all of you music buffs can follow along. These are the actual notes the bird sang. The notation actually starts about 5 seconds in, immediately after the mosquito introduction which seems quite reminiscent of the Theme from Charlie's Angels. The meter for the main bird call is in 7/4 meter (my favorite!) and you can hear the other birds keeping the beat in the background with various answering figures. I was especially impressed by the fact that although the main bird was a beat late with his pattern in bar 3, he managed to get right back on track with the four 16th notes on beat four. Maybe he was just backphrasing in that one measure. The tempo is very slow - only about 56 beats per minute.

So all in all it turned out to be a wonderful alternative form of entertainment. And best of all, it was FREE!

Fun Fourth

I thought my 4th of July was going to be a little on the rinky-dink side, but it turned out to be quite fun. We found a new beach on the Chesapeake that is absolutely delightful and then we went to Doug's concert with the Junkyard Saints in Easton.

Afterwords we did a little driving around to look at the beautiful old houses there and started our trip back over the Bay Bridge at a little after nine. And that was perfect timing to see from the distance about fifteen different fireworks displays all up and down the Chesapeake on both sides. Even though it was nothing like sitting there underneath them it was still pretty cool to be able to see so many different ones all at the same time.

As we continued west on Route 50 we had an excellent view of the downtown Annapolis fireworks for about ten minutes. Then we saw a few more as we headed past Davidsonville and Bowie and several more as we got closer to the Beltway. When we got to Greenbelt there was a display practically right next to the road and it was a good one. I couldn't take it any more so I got off at the next exit and was able to park with everyone else on Kenilworth Avenue. We saw the grand finale and it was spectacular, or at least good enough for me. And so easy too! All in all we saw about 30 different fireworks displays during our ride home.

Sorry, my fireworks video skills are not the greatest.....

what I did on my summer vacation....so far

It finally feels like summer is here. It's about time! Most of the rest of this summer will be spent working on our house. Maybe by September we will finally be able to move back in.

If you'd like to read about our progress, just visit http://www.foamcorefantasy.blogspot.com/ which is my somewhat sarcastic name for our extremely unrealistic housebuilding adventure. Doesn't that name sound kind of porn-ish? It's not - our house is made out of structural insulated panels, also called foam core panels. They are super insulating and as soon as we get back in there it will cost us very little for heating and cooling, which is great because we'll need that money for interest payments instead.

Today we drove down to Smoot Lumber to pick up a replacement cabinet for one that had been sent in the wrong size. We were in Doug's car and I wasn't driving for a change. So of course I was snapping pictures of every little thing that entertained or amused me. People were certainly making excellent use of their pickup trucks today:

On the way back from Smoot we decided to take the scenic route to try and avoid all of the early rush hour traffic on 495, so we took Memorial Bridge across and then drove up through Rock Creek Park.

Memorial Bridge Statue

(and in case you were wondering that's a foot under that horse)

We stopped at Peirce Mill Dam for a minute and saw this lovely duck:

After crossing East West Highway we stopped at the roadside stand there and picked up some fresh squash, romaine, cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, and blackberries. Later we had them all for dinner, along with some brown rice and vanilla ice cream. In appropriate combinations of course. But that would come later.

We continued on our way and when we got to Glenmont I saw that the "Glenmont Artist" for lack of a better description was still working on her most recent project. For the past three days she's been working in front of this sad little house at the corner of Randolph and Georgia which is due to be demolished sometime soon I guess. Previously I'd seen her doing the Glenmont water tower. I sort of want to stop sometime and talk to her so I can see what her deal is. We obviously share a mutual attraction for the various types of scenery that you might see in beautiful downtown Glenmont.

When we finally got to our house we worked for several hours. Doug immediately installed the new cabinet that we had just gotten and that made me very happy. While I was sanding and painting a bunch of pieces of moulding he put up the rest of the trim around the little windows in the pass through. He did a really nice job.

Then we went home and had our oh so fresh and fabulous, delicious and nutritious dinner. Tomorrow I'm going to mow the grass and then take Saturday and Sunday off for a change. Have a great weekend!

Harvest Moon?

Did anyone see the moon this morning at around 1:30 AM? I was heading over to my real house to do some painting when I saw it sitting kind of low in the sky. It was amazing - it looked like a huge red blob and was about 3 times its normal size. Considering that it's July, it's probably not a harvest moon but I wonder if it has some other name particular name when it looks like that. So now it's 4AM and I'm just heading off to bed. That's what I get for drinking coffee at 6PM. It works!

Foxy

While I have plenty of rabbits, squirrels, and deer in my back yard in Silver Spring, over in Herndon they have foxes!

Here's a short video of him in action:

And speaking of things with red hair, here's my nephew making his YouTube debut with a movement from a Boccherini Cello Concerto.

And here he is playing it with his school orchestra.

I Want Sunshine!!!

Okay, I got that off my chest. I am truly bored with this weather. So I'm going put up some pretty pictures now - maybe that will cheer me up.

Last week I was at the Church of the Reformation almost every night doing a recording session. It was a delightful experience and the highlight of my summer (if you can call it that) so far. The architecture in this church is very unusual - I'm not even sure of the style, but it was a nice place to be for most of the week. I like the way the middle supports for the beams look like giant pencils.

These guys were about a foot from the side of my head all week long. I enjoyed their company very much.

I walked around a little bit during the breaks and enjoyed the interesting architecture outside as well.

The church was only two blocks from the Capitol. It was pleasant to see it from this point of view on East Capitol Street. I'm usually driving towards it on North Capitol.

This week I've been wondering if it means anything that the cabinets in the house I'm never going to get to move back into are exactly the same color as the mist always is in Twilight: