Blueberry Fields Forever...

Since we seem to be living indefinitely at our temporary home in the outer boondocks of Silver Spring, we are becoming well acquainted with nearby Ashton and all it has to offer.

Dempsey's is a great place to get excellent breakfast all day long. After our breakfast for lunch Doug wanted to go pick blueberries since Blueberry Gardens was just down the road on Route 108. At Blueberry Gardens they offer pick-your-own organic blueberries, massage, acupuncture, and yoga and QiGong classes. How handy is that? Very handy if you live in Cloverly, Sandy Spring, or Ashton.

Since I am somewhat immobile these days I decided to stay back and take some pictures of my foot on the hood of the car. At least I can still do that. It's just wonderful having to hobble around on something that looks and feels exactly like a ski boot.

The last time we went blueberry picking was about 15 years ago in Oregon, near Mt. Hood. We picked quarts and quarts of them and ate them all that day. The next day we both had green pee.

Doug was back in about 15 minutes with these yummy petite organic blueberries. It's the end of the season now, but they still taste good!

The other good thing about today is that our real house, or fantasy house depending on how you look at it, is starting to somewhat resemble a house at the beach. I kind of like that.

More Clarinda

Okay this is the last one, I promise! I was recently sent this link to a 10 minute TV feature about the Jack Million Band's trip to play at the Glenn Miller Festival in Clarinda Iowa. It took place during all of the flooding and tornados back in June. It is quite interesting to hear all of this described in Dutch, and also to see some of the recreational activities the locals decided to share with the visiting musicians from Europe. I didn't know about the guns - that must have been the day I was out exploring on foot. Anyway this clip is highly entertaining, at least it is to me - because I'm in it!

sometime it's okay and sometimes it's not

Last week we took down a whole bunch of the lower branches on our birch tree so that it would be easier to mow under and so that it no longer looked like an enormous bush. It is beautiful now.

When we came back from taking the branches to the recycling area at the dump we continued to work on the siding. We've made pretty good progress, but it's not going nearly as fast as we'd like.

Towards the end of the day my left foot suddenly started hurting a lot in one spot just above the arch. I'd sprained my right foot a few days earlier and since it was almost all better, with the help of an ankle support, I was back working at the house again. I guess my left foot had been working extra hard to accomodate my sprained right ankle.

I iced it when I got home. It continued to hurt all night so the next day I went to a podiatrist. The x-rays showed that I have a couple of extra bones in my foot and that apparently the one above my arch has a rather pointy chip sticking out that looks like it might be a little fracture. She sold me a $275 boot that I'm supposed to wear for six weeks.

That means I can't climb a ladder, or go for walks, or play bass standing up, or mow the grass, or do anything else that I need to do, for SIX WEEKS. The timing of this is absolutely horrible. We have so much work to do on the house and now I'm totally useless. I'm starting back at UMD this fall too. That's going to be fun.

That was Friday. And I had to cancel out of a gig Friday night, which totally sucked. On Saturday Doug had a gig in Wilmington that included a hotel room. Since I wasn't working that night, I went along so that I could sit on the bed and watch TV all evening, giving my foot some rest and elevation. In our temporary place we don't have a TV or a couch so it's not that much fun hanging around the house. I can only take so much time in front of the computer.

On Sunday we had to get up at six to make it back down to DC for my brunch gig. I took a stool and it was fine. And I could walk about twice as fast as I could the day before. But it's still really slow with this boot thingy. Anyway here's a view from our hotel room in Wilmington at 6AM Sunday morning:

How do you like them apples?

The apple tree is producing a huge quantity of excellent apples this year. They are so crisp, tart, and juicy. Yum! I love McIntoshes. And there are plenty for the deer and for us. I just hope they don't learn our trick of shaking the tree to get the ripe ones to fall off.

Beautiful Day

Wasn't the weather today just perfect? We were putting up siding and it just felt great to be outside all day long. Look what we did. The front is well underway.

The clouds today were amazing.

And here's a little backyard rabbit action.

We worked until 8:30 and then went to see "Bottle Shock" at Bethesda Row. Delightful movie. Very tired now. Must sleep. More siding tomorrow, then a gig.

Assateague

On Friday we took the day off to celebrate passing our inspection and headed down to the beach for the day. I love Assateague because it is usually uncrowded, the scenery is beautiful, and it's fun to see the horses.

Unfortunately there a ton of flies, more than I've ever seen down there, and they were biting. We ended up spending the whole time in the water, which was actually an excellent way to spend the day.

Assateague is a very narrow island.

The flies were driving the horses crazy too!!!

The sea gulls were handling it okay though.

On the way home we did our usual stops for crab cake sandwiches at the Assateague Market, and eastern shore veggies and goat feeding at Wright's Market. We picked up a few bargains at the outlet mall in Queenstown and headed across the Bay Bridge. The sky looked like a giant crab crossed with a bat.

There is two-way traffic on the Westbound span on Friday nights.

The End

Dupont Circle

I have been seeing way too much of this image recently. We have nearly finished covering our house with Tyvek this week. Then we can finally put up the siding and Foam Core Fantasy will finally begin to look like a real house that might one day actually be finished.

" FOAM CORE FANTASY "

Summer Weekend

I had a nice variety of gigs this weekend. Friday night I subbed for Man of La Mancha at the Church Street Theater. The regular guy left his bass for me to use so I took Metro down. It was great not having to haul a bunch of equipment for a change. Things were really jumping at the Dupont Circle Metro on the way home.

On Saturday night I had my favorite kind of summertime outdoor gig. It was a backyard party on Capital Hill with the Stateside Steel Band. I just love the playing calypso music with a steel drum band outside where everybody is having a good time. That's what summer is all about.

Sunday I played my usual brunch gig at Lia's in Chevy Chase. It's a jazz duo with bass and guitar. And I get to eat what usually ends up being my favorite meal of the week. The food is excellent.

National Arboretum

Today we went to the National Arboretum out on New York Avenue to do some research on crape myrtles. We want to plant some eventually and we had heard that they have a rather impressive array of them there.

The first thing we saw was the Capital Columns. They were moved from the Capital in 1958 to make way for an addition. I had no idea that I'd be seeing them. In the distance they look like ancient ruins.

Then we saw the Giant Log Monster wandering through the underbrush.

Finally we located the Crape Myrtles. They were magnificent.

Some of them were quite huge.

They came in all sorts of colors.

They have tons of crape myrtles, azaleas, magnolias, and other stuff there just growing wild. The grounds of the Arboretum are huge. You can't really walk around and see everything unless you spend the entire day walking. A lot of it has a slighty abandoned quality which is unusual for something that has "National" in its name. But the slightly independant character is kind of fitting in a way. They also have a pretty large formal Chinese garden which we didn't really have a chance to look at. We'll check it out next time.

Dancing Headless Work Uniforms

I have noticed that my blog, which began as a somewhat articulate (or so I think) description of certain miserable events, has recently devolved into random and utterly meaningless frivolity. I guess I'm just trying to keep myself amused and entertained while I wait for whatever is coming up next. Anyway, here is what amused and entertained me today on the way to the dump:



It looks like the guys in the back of the Washington Gas truck are just getting warmed up here.



Now they're starting to get their groove on.


They're going wild!

In other news, the quantity of deer under my apple tree has now doubled.

If I get Lyme Disease.....

It will be because of this apple tree. Granted it's a nice tree and produces delicious slightly wormy organic McIntosh apples, but it is a real pain to mow the grass under it and my head always brushes against the lower branches. It's going to be difficult to spot that bulls-eye rash when it finally appears under my hair. There are always deer under this tree and that's where the ticks come from. I remain hopeful that my eventual demise as a result of Lyme disease is just a hypochondriatic delusion. Wish me luck!

At least this one is actually eating his apple. Most of them take one bite and drop the rest on the ground. And I don't have a very nice attitude toward these deer now do I? I'm just grouchy because I had to mow the grass today.

The King of Jazz

On Tuesday evening we went down to the Library of Congress to see a screening of the 1930 movie "The King of Jazz" starring the very appropriately named Paul Whiteman. He is not the first person that most people would think of as being jazz royalty, but he was definitely one of the most successful early bandleaders who played "jazzy" music. This movie is a spectacularly entertaining example of the musical revues that were popular back in the 1930's. It features singing, dancing, novelty numbers, and some very elaborate costumes and scenery.

The Library of Congress might consider placing this movie on the National Film Registry, which means that they would then be able to preserve it and repair some of the blurriness and scratchiness that exists on the original. If you are interested in the restoration and preservation of this movie let them know by writing to:
National Film Registry Public Review Process
M/B/RS Division, Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540

Here are some clips from the movie that I found on YouTube.
This first clip is the cartoon prologue:



This one has some amazing dancing:


George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" was written as a result of a commission by Paul Whiteman. This is one of the earliest performances.

Man of La Mancha at Church Street Theatre

Last weekend I subbed on bass for Man of La Mancha at the Church Street Theater, AKA Keegan Theatre, in Dupont Circle. It was a nice production and apparently this review will appear in the Alexandria "Metro Herald", whatever that is. Anyway, this theater is a great place to see a show because it is so small that there are no bad seats. I won't be there, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

One of the best things about this particular gig is that the regular bass player left his bass there for me to use, so I didn't have to haul all of my stuff down there. It was pretty nice to be able to just walk in, pick up the bass, and play the show.

Shameless Self Promotion

So I learned a new blogging skill today. (see above) The drummer is the amazing and incredible Brooks Tegler. The bass player is me. The trombone player is kind of cute, isn't he?

In Transition

It has taken me a while to post about my trip to Clarinda, Iowa. I ended up putting fake blogging dates on those posts so that they wouldn't all appear to be on the same day.

While I was in Clarinda I would optimistically drive down to the Super 8 every night to take advantage of the super slow wireless, only to have my laptop thoroughly misbehave. Some nights I couldn't even get online. The misbehavior of my laptop continued after I came home, and then it took a really long time to transfer things over to my new laptop. I'm not really much of a computer person so all of the chores that I'm having to do just to get the new one up and running are kind of making me want to run in the other direction. The new computer keeps asking me questions that I don't know how to answer! It is a very tedious process.

In a similar vein, I had decided shortly before the computer issues started happening that it was finally time for me to become acquainted with my fancy new sewing machine that I haven't used once in the nearly two years that have passed since I bought it. I lost 2 sewing machines and I especially miss my favorite sewing machine of all time - the Singer 404 because it was so basic and sturdy and easy to use. I eventually got another machine that did some fancier stitches but I always felt like I was cheating. I didn't really enjoy using it and I didn't much care for the fact that it was made out of plastic. So after the fire took both of these machines from me I decided to combine their value and get one super-duper sewing machine. It is made by Brother and can do some truly amazing things and it is really well made. But the instruction booklet is over 60 pages long. At least it has an instruction booklet, unlike my new computer. And at least the instruction booklet is so well-written that I can actually tell what the instructions mean.

So far I've only used the straight stitch for a couple of projects but that was enough to get me excited about the potential of this machine. Unfortunately I'm probably not going to have time do any more sewing until we get back in our house. Then I'll be able to set up a real sewing area instead of having to move my computer out of the way. Also I have to buy all of the basic equipment again. And there's nowhere else to set up the sewing machine so I have to use the same card table that I use for my computer. Complain, complain, complain.

It's all pretty inconvenient, but I'm learning a few new things and re-learning quite a few more things as a result. But I'm pretty sure that the days of sewing bathing suits and winter coats and reupholstering the car seats are long gone. These days I have other diversions.

The Baggage Handlers at Midway

I was just looking back at all of the posts I made about my trip to Iowa. I sure seem thrilled by it all. I'm guessing it will be the only significant trip I'm going to be taking this year, mostly thanks to this unending project , so I'm milking it for all that I can. In another year I'll finally be free to get back to taking some longer trips. Finally.

Landing in Chicago

On the flight back home I had another chance to take a video of my bass being manhandled by the baggage guys. I guess at the end of a long day, a gigantic "99.5" pound bass trunk is about the last thing a baggage handler wants to see coming down the conveyor belt. I sort of wish I hadn't seen this, but it's good to be aware. Anyway, the trunk really is built for this kind of treatment (I hope) and there was no damage to the trunk or the bass whatsoever. Still, this is one scary video featuring one very angry baggage handler. The video from the flight on the way out was a lot less horrifying.

So far the cost of the trunk and the risks I have taken in flying with it since 1997 have all been well worth the playing experiences that I've been able to enjoy, all because I happen to own a bass trunk. Here are a few of the highlights:

• My first cruise ship gig, which included 2 months in the Caribbean, crossing the Panama Canal several times and 2 months cruising all around Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Greece. I'll never forget playing out on the deck, serenading the people on land with Italian tunes as we entered Venice for the first time.
  
• A big band theme cruise with Tex Benecke, and crossing the Atlantic playing several additional big band theme cruises.
  
• A New Years Eve gig with the Artie Shaw band in Tunica, Mississippi.


• A few gigs with the all-female big band Diva.


• Four years on the road travelling all over the USA with the In the Mood show.


• Playing with the awesome Jack Million Big Band from Belgium at the Glenn Miller Festival.

I probably wouldn't have been able to do any of these things without a bass trunk, so I'm extremely happy that I made the investment. However I may be thinking twice about flying as much in the future. I've heard all of the horror stories and one of these days it will probably be my turn too. I really hope I'll be able to stop before that happens, but I'm not finished quite yet.

Driving through Iowa

This morning the band flew back to Belgium and I had all day to meander back to Omaha from Des Moines. First I decided to drive in the direction of downtown and I saw a really fancy building with golden domes on top in the distance. So I drove up to it to see what it was and it turned out to be the state capital building. I never expected to see such a thing in Iowa, of all places. I went in and looked around. It's very cool.





Then I went down to look at the river. A few days ago it had flooded but everything seemed to be relatively okay at that point. The worst flooding was farther east, and it was especially bad in Cedar Rapids. The river in Des Moines was very muddy and turbulent and the railroad bridge was about 2 feet above the water. There were tree trunks jammed all along the upstream side of the bridge. It must be incredibly frightening to know that a flood is coming and not really be able to accurate predict how high the water will get. Having your house wash away in a flood has got to be at least as bad as losing it in a fire, and probably worse.

Between Des Moines and Omaha there is an area of Iowa that was settled by a lot of Danish pioneers who have kept a lot of their old country crafts and architecture. I took backroads all the way because I had plenty of time. Many of the barns were decorated with large squares that were painted to look like quilts. I guess these might the Danish versions of the hex symbols you see on the sides of barns in the Amish areas of Pennsylvania.

The Bridges of Madison County

On the way to Des Moine from Clarinda I drove through Madison County which is famous for its covered bridges and for being the birthplace of John Wayne. I made some videos during the drive:

This is an example of a divided highway in Iowa. They just use clods of sod in the middle of the road - so practical!

Here you get to have an actual behind-the-wheel experience driving through one of the famous Bridges of Madison County.

And here are some additional photos from my trip that day, including horses of all sizes:

John Wayne's Birthplace in Winterset, Iowa

Additional Covered Bridges

And some cows.....

The Glenn Miller Festival

Glenn Miller's Birthplace in Clarinda, Iowa

I had an absolute blast playing at the Glenn Miller Festival with the Jack Million Big Band from Belgium. They were all outstanding musicians and super nice people too. I really enjoyed getting to know all of them. I was also very happy to spend an entire week playing with Brooks Tegler on drums. The singers that came with the band from Belgium were first rate, as was the guest singer, Jan Eberle. She is the daughter of Ray Eberle, one of Glenn Miller's original singers, and she actually spent her early childhood on the road with the band in the 1960's. Here we are:

They had a very large exhibit of Glenn Miller memorabilia. I was rather amused when someone pointed out an old newspaper article on one of the tables which featured a picture of my husband who was there performing with the Airmen of Note.

For the festival we played two rehearsals, three concerts, a dance, and a parade through town. On the last day we played a concert just outside of Des Moines which honored the soldiers from Iowa who have perished while serving their country.

Clarinda Photos

I really enjoyed the six days that I spent in the lovely town of Clarinda, Iowa. It was a true small town experience. The Super 8 wasn't big enough to hold all of the musicians and people attending the festival so I got to stay at Ruthellen's house which is a beautiful old four square that was built in 1917. It was gorgeous both inside and out, with lots of Craftsman style details, including several stained glass windows, and I felt very fortunate to be staying there. It was a very cool house and Ruthellen was an awesome host.

I walked around quite a bit each day when I wasn't playing, and at night I would drive down to the Super 8 and attempt to get on the internet. It was a relaxing week in many ways. Here are some more pictures:

I don't know exactly what it is that the Lisle Manufacturing Company makes, but apparently it requires them to have a "creeper" department!

Beautiful Clouds

Sometimes the best way to escape the heat in DC is to just leave town, which I was lucky enough to do today. The clouds were absolutely beautiful. I pretended they were big globs of snow and it really cooled me off.

Later I got a little bored. Fortunately they brought snacks and I was able to amuse myself with that. As you can see, I'm easily amused.

The farther we got from DC, the colder it got. Eventually the windows

became rather icy.

At the transfer point in St. Louis I was able to take a video of my bass coming out of the cargo hold. As usual it was lying bridge side down. Fortunately the case is designed for that type of treatment. My bass has flown about twenty times without incident, but I still worry about it.