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.

Urban Possum Sighting....

Although seeing a herd of up to seven deer in my backyard in Silver Spring is not that unusual, I was still rather surprised to see a possum in downtown DC tonight on the way home from my gig at the Market Inn.

I was stopped at the light at 3rd and D Street SW right by the Federal Center SW metro station when the possum trotted across the street in front of me. He crossed during the walk signal, stayed in the crosswalk, and continued on down the sidewalk on D Street. At first I thought it was a giant rat, because why would there be a possum running around in this section of DC? So I had to check it out.

I turned left on D Street when the light changed and followed him. He stopped near some bushes and we stared at each other for a minute and then he continued on his way. It was definitely a possum, or an opossum. Weird.

Two Good Things

I sure hope we can get our house finished this summer because I'm going to be pretty busy this fall. I recently found out that I'm going to be able to finish my M.M. in Jazz Studies with the help of a teaching assistantship. Awesome!

And in June I will be subbing for a week with the Jack Million Band from Belgium for a series of concerts in Iowa, including the Glenn Miller Festival. Yay me.

So I'm getting in tiny little bits of travel here and there, but the major stuff like touring and ship work is going to have to wait another whole year.

out of the blogging closet

Well I’ve finally outted myself. Sort of..... At least now I've got one foot out the door.

Today I played a rehearsal and I asked my colleague Deborah if her friend that I saw at the April concert was named Barbara and it turns out that, yes indeed, that's exactly who it was. Wow. So I told Deb how I had happened to have become a regular reader of Barbara's Looking2Live blog. Deb seemed to be pretty amused by the whole thing. It is kind of hilarious when you think about it even though it felt pretty awkward for me there for a minute.

I really need to say hello to Barbara now. I’ve enjoyed reading her blog for such a long time and it’s time to let her know how much I enjoy it. Maybe I’ll wait until she gets back from her trip to Italy, which I happen to know about because I read her blog!!!

Anything Goes

I think I like this show even better than “Kiss Me Kate” which I used to think was my favorite Cole Porter show. Anything Goes is my new favorite. This was a high school production, but it paid decently and I was able to keep myself very amused.

Here are a few things:

1. Check out what the editor and publisher, or maybe even Cole Porter himself, wrote into the bass part!!! That’s pretty funny!

2. There were two dog characters in the show. One was played by a real live dog and the other was played by a stuffed animal. The guy who played the owner of the stuffed dog had to carry him around for most of the show, pretending he was real. It was pretty amusing. There wasn't a whole lot of interaction between the two dogs, obviously.




3. And the favorite quote for this show is:
"I don't think Erma picked that guy for the length of his pants!"

Amazing April

I don't know what was up last month. I had an astounding total of 33 gigs which is at least twice as many as I usually have. In addition I also did some big band rehearsals and played a concert with the Friday Morning Music Club Orchestra for fun. (no pay). I played jazz gigs at Lia's, the Carlyle Club, and the Market Inn. I played with a swing band at Glen Echo. I did 3 dates with the Harry James Orchestra. I played 7 concerts with a guitarist at various retirement communities. I played a recording session and 3 different musicals. This month might actually beat the entire year of 2007. Amazing.

I'm really loving the quantity and the variety of music I'm playing right now, but unfortunately my time spent working on the house is way down lately as a result of all of these gigs. So in spite of it all, I feel a little guilty. But I also feel very peppy and physically unexhausted since I'm not working on the house as much. And my hands feel great!

Was that her???

I think I might have seen Looking2Live today at a concert I played with her friend Deborah. She held the door for us and then was walking out with Deborah and her husband. After I got into my car I started thinking that she looked familiar somehow and then I suddenly realized who she might be, because she has pictures of herself on her blog. I’m not totally sure it was her, but I’m pretty sure. And now I’m really creeped out – I feel like a stalker or something. But her blog is really interesting and she seems to like having people read it. It’s just so weird the way I happened to stumble upon it. I guess I’m going to have to quit being shy and introduce myself. Maybe I’ll leave a comment or something. I haven’t made any comments on any blogs so far. I suppose that as a seasoned blogger she is accustomed to the idea of total strangers knowing a fair amount about her, but now that I have possibly seen her in the flesh, so to speak, I’m somehow not that comfortable knowing all that I know. I guess it’s okay though since she writes for all of the internet to read - and she even uses her full name sometimes. But maybe that wasn’t her after all. Eeek, I should still probably just identify myself and tell her what I’ve been “up to” before too much more time passes. In the meantime I think I’ll just go back and hide under my rock for a while longer

Man of La Mancha

I’ve been playing a bunch of performances of “Man of La Mancha” recently. My favorite quote from that show is:

"Let's just say I dislike stupidity, especially when it masquerades as virtue."

This was yet another outstanding production by the Washington Savoyards. I've really enjoyed playing with them this spring.

Beauty and the Beast

I subbed for a production of Beauty and the Beast this past Saturday. Ever since then I've had Beethoven's Symphony #6 in my head. Why? Because the song "Belle" starts with the exact same rhythm and interval pattern in its first four notes. I guess the composer of Beauty and the Beast knew a catchy melodic fragment when he heard one. And I have now proven what a huge music nerd I am.

Naming My Blog

In general I’ve always hated making up titles for things I write. But this thing has to have a name, I guess. The first title I came up with was LIFE IN LIMBO, which applies pretty well to me right now. But it sounded way too similar to the title of the main blog that I read nearly every day, which is called Looking2Live.

Then I came up with WAITING FOR DOUG-O. I thought that was kind of funny, and Doug liked it too, especially after I told him it was a spoof version of the title of the fairly well-known play and movie, WAITING FOR GODOT, which he had never heard of. He’s a trombone player, what can I say? Anyway, the waiting, in both instances, is rather similar in both the movie and in my life, for those of you who know both of us. Doug was actually kind of disappointed when I told him that I’d changed my mind about naming my blog after him. There’s something not quite right about having only your husband’s name in a blog that is supposedly mostly about you. It almost happened though. I had already written the little explanatory blurb and everything. So in honor of Doug here it is, for posterity:

WAITING FOR DOUG-O
A little dyslexic humor here…Waiting and Doug both continue to be key things in my life - sometimes simultaneously, sometimes not. The main thing I am waiting for right now is to move back into my house. I truly believe that day will eventually arrive. Until then I wait….

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, that was definitely super corny. Corny, but true. Okay, enough about him already!

So PHOTOCYNTHESIS, which I know is kind of boring, ended up being the name. It's because there are photos, there is me, there is writing, and it’s all a process, even if it is misspelled. So as dull a name as it is, it applies and that is what my blog will be called. Maybe I’ll come up with something better later on.

Pirates of Penzance

February 29, 2008
I’ve been playing a number of performances of Pirates of Penzance with the Washington Savoyards this month. It is an excellent production. I have a favorite quote from the show:

“…my mind has long been gnawed by the cankering tooth of mystery!”

I don't know why, but I love that sentence and I crack up every single time I hear it.

Valentines Day

I’ve had a really nice warm glowing feeling all day today. Valentine’s Day actually started for me last night, shortly after midnight. Doug presented me with a lovely card, a beautiful pink potted hydrangea, and a very fancy miniature CAKE!!! That’s right, he bought me a cake for Valentine’s Day. That’s weird. But it’s really nice. It was delicious. And tonight I have a gig in a Thai restaurant with a really excellent guitarist and drummer.

another fire

I don't know what is up with all of these house fires that seem to keep happening recently to me and people I know. First we had a fire, then a year and a half later my roommate from college had a fire, and now a guitar player I know in Baltimore has had one. He and his wife will be displaced for six months because some guy who was working on their from porch accidentally set it on fire. When will this end?

How I Discovered Blogging

I had heard of blogging but I hadn’t really paid any attention to the phenomenon and I really didn’t get what it was all about, and I didn’t really care. It didn’t seem like at all like something I would ever end up doing. But one day last year I was trying to find a dermatologist to go to and I was googling all of the various names that I’d come across. This was one of those nights when one google led to another and suddenly I was in a googling frenzy.

Since I was googling doctors, I googled my roommate from college who is a doctor in Ohio and whom I haven’t seen in a few years. Then I googled another doctor who plays in an orchestra with me, and I came across a blog that was written by a friend of hers. I thought “this is incredibly nosy and absolutely none of my business and I must stop reading this immediately!” because it contained a bunch of rather personal stuff. But since I had already started with the googling, it was kind of too late to be un-nosy. My bass player colleague who is a doctor was mentioned by her full name in just one of her friend’s entries that I know of, and it showed up on Google. So just for the hell of it, I read a few more entries and then I thought I was done.

But the next day I went back and read some more. It was pretty interesting to read, and then suddenly I became completely hooked and spent a few days reading HER ENTIRE BLOG. It became like a book that I could not put down. The main things in my life at the time were ashes, sawdust, sweat, and additional tedious accounting work for the fire inventory, so reading this woman’s blog was the best escape ever! And it turns out that we both even had our thyroids taken out by the exact same surgeon. Weird and amazing.

After I finished reading the past two years of her life story, I started in on some of her friends. Then I started noticing that there is an actual blogging “scene” out there where the bloggers get together and meet each other. It seemed to me like this was some strange new alien culture that I’d stumbled upon and it was really quite fascinating. They are all so into writing, and it is interesting to see how different the writing styles are and the various ways these people choose to describe their lives. It is amazing and pretty cool.

I decided that it was time for me to make my own blog about the progress (or lack of progress) of my house. Then I wouldn’t have to talk about it as much. It is hard to know how much detail people actually want when they ask about the progress of the house. Now that some progress is actually taking place, it is much more fun to talk about, but it definitely wasn’t an enjoyable topic of conversation at the beginning.

I don’t know why this is, but apparently the cause of the fire is the single most interesting thing to a lot of people, even now, and they don’t really seem to want to know much about how it has affected your life in other ways. So if they want to know, it’s now here on this separate blog for them to read. And they can find out how psycho I really am. I'm not putting this stuff on the house blog because that is just about the house.

So the dates of the earlier entries are not the actual blog-posting dates. I decided to alter them to either the dates when they were actually written or dates that are closer to the events described. From here on out they will be posted as I write them.

So far I have only been a lurker on the blogs I read. Maybe now that I am an actual blogger I will get up the nerve to write some comments. Apparently bloggers love it when you comment. I have been too shy to write any comments so far, but I guess I had better start because some of these bloggers have stats and they know when you’ve been reading a lot but not commenting. They might think I’m a stalker or something.

I just realized a really excellent thing about having a blog. If my house ever burns down again, I won’t lose all of my photos because some of them will still be here on the internet!

2007, The Year in Review

2007 started off like this. I totally trashed my hands working on the house, but I guess it didn't matter since I didn't have any gigs. It takes a while to get back in circulation after being on the road for so long. We got a lot of work done on the house on the house, but it is nowhere close to being finished. We were over there day in and day out and finally we had some professional help as well, although there were some mixed results in that regard. There's a full description of the year's events over on our house blog.

We got all of our back taxes done and it was a huge relief to get this major area of tension finally resolved. I am putting this mildly. At least we didn't owe any money, so we didn't get in trouble. I kept wondering when they were going to come after us and throw us in jail. I am just going to have to be a pain in Doug's ass about this in the future, that's all there is to it.

I took a jazz arranging course at UMD.

Our beloved Ted is no longer with us.

In the fall I took a trip to Montana with my parents and brother to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins. It was a little bit of a road trip because we went via Salt Lake City and Yellowstone.

I started gigging a lot more from September through the end of the year. We are still renting and insurance is no longer covering it, so we really need to finish our house as soon as possible. But it feels like the pace of work has gotten slower. We are wearing ourselves out. I'm trying to be cheerful and supportive, even though this was not how I would have done it. I guess I'm stuck. It sure will be great when the house is finally finished, sometime next year.

Visualization

We were down in Pensacola recently and we visited our friend CJ who lives just over the line in Alabama. He is an infectiously joyous person who has spent a great deal of time exploring his spirituality.

One technique that has worked very well for him is visualization. I believe that everyone does a certain amount of visualization and in order to feel optimistic about something, visualization is practically a requirement.

So I started thinking that maybe if I began to visualize a little harder about my house being finished, it might happen even sooner than I realistically expect it to. I realize that the end of that sentence kind of negates the whole visualizing effect. Nevertheless, the time I spend waiting for the house to be done will definitely pass more pleasantly if I am visualizing its completion. And our lives are going to be so much better when we are back in our house. That is a fact and is very easy to visualize.

Then I remembered all of the times when we’d come back from tours or vacations and Doug would comment on the fact that the house hadn’t burned down. I think he was joking, but for some reason we were always relieved to see that it was still there the way we’d left it. I guess in our case this could be an extreme example of visualization gone awry. You just don’t want to mess with those bad vibes, I’ve learned. They might come back to bite you!

Yellowstone Videos

Yellowstone Park is an amazing place to visit. There is wildlife everywhere and it is pretty exciting to be able to get so close to all of it.

Here is a very short video of a peaceful waterfall at Lookout Point:


Here is a really good video similar to the ones I took, that I decided to put up here for comparison and entertainment value. The main differences between this one and mine are the much more skillful camera work, and a different family in the background. Click here:
http://www.noolmusic.com/videos/amazing_sight_yellowstone_buffalo.php

These are some videos that I made of the very exciting encounters we had with some buffalo and a raven. Please be warned that I often regressed to my ten year old personality during this trip, stimulated somewhat by the presence of my parents, but mainly by my brother Kenneth. I haven't travelled with my family in years and had no idea this would happen to me. I really thought I had my "mature" demeanor under control - apparently not!!!



Buffalo Next to the Car

The Cawing Raven

More Buffalo Excitement!!!

You might want watch to the peaceful waterfall video again after all that.

our beloved Ted has passed away

Ted 1989-2007

Ted was born outside under our bedroom floor to a neighborhood cat in 1989. I had seen some of the kittens for a few days before Ted presented himself to us. The other kittens were white with some tabby patches. The mother was also about half white and half tabby.

I think the mother cat was in the process of moving her kittens one at a time and had left Ted for last. I was painting the other side of the house when I heard a bunch of meowing in the bushes nearby. I figured it was one of the kittens so I started meowing back. I should explain that I'm not really a cat lover and my mood as I meowed was halfway between bugged and amused. We meowed back and forth for at least ten minutes.

Finally I got down from the ladder and went over to the bushes to investigate but I didn't see anything. I was expecting to see one of the tabby-patched kittens. I went to find Doug because he LOVES cats and when we came back Ted came out and he didn't look like any of the other kittens. He was a full tabby. He was the cutest kitten I've ever seen.

I looked at Doug and said "this must be the work of Theo." Theo was Doug's previous cat. Actually he belonged to a roommate in the group house who left Theo behind. He didn't officially belong to anyone, but after we got married the other people asked Doug to come and get him. I was not please. Theo was nice, but he was an outdoor cat and he had not been fixed. Eventually I took care of that, but I'm sure he had enough time to have an affect on the cat population in his new neighborhood. He had passed away a year earlier, so maybe Ted was his grandson. That's why we named him Ted, after his grandaddy Theodore.

Ted had quite a personality. He was more like a dog than a cat. He followed us around everywhere. I remember the look in his eyes when I first fed him milk out of an old contact lense solution bottle. He had such a loving and devoted look in his eyes. So his full name became Tedapuss because he loved his mother (me) so much.

He was really intelligent. There used to be an old man who played the fiddle next to the shed on the next property. There was a field in between. Ted would hang out with him because he'd sit out there all day playing old country tunes in the sunshine. Actually he played "You are My Sunshine" quite often. Whenever we called Ted from the back door he would always come running. There was no training involved - this is just what he did.

One time Doug left the basement door open and Ted caught a baby rabbit that was actually bigger than he was. He brought it in through the basement and carried it up the stairs to show it to me. He was very proud of himself. I was impressed. Fortunately it wasn't that difficult to catch the poor little rabbit and put him back outside.

Ted loved to be picked up and expected everyone he met to at least give him a hug. He would put his arms around you and his whole body would be limp. He was so cuddly. He really liked it when I held him like a baby and sang songs with made-up lyrics that contained the words Ted, best cat in the world and love. And this from the person who is not a cat lover. Doug loved him even more than I did.

He had cancer behind his eye and it had spread quite a bit. We did what we could to save him but in the end we had to put him to sleep. He's buried in the yard of our house and we planted daffodils and crysanthemums there so we will always know where he is. He was the best cat in the world.

maybe I should start another blog

So I've been doing the bright and cheerful news about our house progress on a different blog so that I could keep it separate from the more dismal facts of my existence that not too many people really want to know about.

I've actually been writing about my experiences ever since the fire happened but I was not really aware of the fact at the time that I could do it in a blogging format. If I end up doing it I'm going to have to see if there is a way to post-date the stuff I've written previously so that it stays somewhat chronological, relative to when it was written or to when the stuff happened. We'll see if I get around to it.

It has been interesting (to me at least) to observe the differences in the way I have felt about things before, during, and after the fire and the rebuilding process. Some of the changes in my life that occurred as a result of this pretty awful experience have not been what I would have expected, but it seems like a lot of the bad stuff paves the way for a much improved future. And I have learned more about myself as a result going through all of this than I would have otherwise. So I guess I will continue to write about whatever phase I happen to be in until we are finally back in our house for good.

And apparently I did manage to figure out how to change the date!

A GOOD EXAMPLE

AUGUST 29, 2007
A GOOD EXAMPLE
This past weekend we were driving home from New Hampshire and we stopped in for a visit with Jennifer, my roommate from college, and her family. About a year ago she also had a house fire. Her garage spontaneously and rather explosively burst into flames while she was out of town.

They had to move out of their house for about 6 months while the insurance company’s contractor rebuilt the inside and replaced all of the roofing and siding on the outside. That is basically what the insurance company was going to do for us before Doug, I mean we, got all creative with the alternatives.

Jennifer's house is now a new and shiny replica of its formerly beautiful old self. It looks great. I feel discouraged that ours is taking so long, but I am also inspired to see how beautifully hers turned out. Ours will be equally beautiful one of these years.

Jennifer was, and continues to be, one of my main inspirations for playing the bass. I used to be her accompanist in college and I saw how much fun she had playing her bass in so many different groups and styles. We went to hear her play in a big band concert while we were there visiting, and all of the memories of watching her play way back then came flooding back to me. I am so glad that we became friends and are still in touch after all of these years.

Fires on Wires

We were driving around some neighborhoods in our area looking at door trim and exterior lights on various houses when we passed a wooded area that was slightly on fire. It was burning relatively gently – not anything like our fire. We looked up and saw that the power lines between two telephone poles were in flames. That was kind of scary looking.

We called the fire department and then we called PEPCO. We hung around until they came so that we could give them an update if it started going crazy. It didn’t really spread very much. I thought it was weird that we, of all people, would be the ones to happen upon an exterior electrical fire.

It felt good to be able to do something about it before it caused any real damage. I wonder whether it affected the electricity for the people who lived nearby while the lines were burning. I guess the electric company probably had to turn off the power to do the repairs.

SHE ALMOST HAS HER SENSE OF HUMOR BACK!!!

ALMOST…..
A few days ago I played a session with Tom, the drummer from the show I used to do. It was nice to see and play with him in a small group setting for a change. We were talking about the house and a mildly humorous candle reference occurred.

Although I know now that Doug always felt that the lamp had caused the fire, that fact seemed to always be overshadowed in other people’s minds by the fact that there also happened to be a burning candle present at the time. This impression is probably entirely my fault because I never ever failed to mention it when anyone asked. Candles can be a fire hazard - that is a fact.

So Tom seemed kind of surprised when I explained the whole lamp theory to him. I really didn’t know the extent to which various people have had an opinion about the exact cause of our fire. I’m not saying that Tom is one of those people, but it is possible that some people think that I used a candle to burn Doug’s house down because I was there when it happened and he wasn’t.

I know there are people who might prefer to look at it that way because I’ve overheard them actually saying things to that effect. Of course they were joking, or at least I hope they were because it’s really quite hilarious, don’t you think? I suppose that I will also be able to laugh at the whole thing once I am back in my house and have been able to resume my previously wonderful life of gigging and traveling.

But in the meantime I am forced to stay home to do grueling 14 hour days of carpentry, sanding, painting, vacuuming up all of the sawdust, being hot and sweaty and dirty and gross, and having to buy millions of house-related things that I really wish I didn’t have to pick out. It is not fun at all, but I am stuck doing it and there is no reasonable alternative.

I really am looking forward to the day when I can look back at all of this and laugh about how crazy and absurd it all has been. I’ll just have to be patient a little while longer…..I’ve had to wait for a lot of things longer than most people could ever imagine, so I can wait for this too. Better times are definitely coming. Eventually.

It was nobody...with the lamp....in the bedroom

Perhaps, but I really haven’t a CLUE!!!

So I was at a rehearsal the other night. After the break the piano player says “I guess you probably noticed that they have a candle burning upstairs in the bathroom.” I said “yeah I noticed….it creeped me out a little bit….but it’s not my house”.

That was supposed to be funny, but it might have come across as mean. I’m trying to be a little more lighthearted about this whole thing with varying degrees of success. I said “Not all houses burn down just because someone lit a candle.” Then he said “you know my son’s girlfriend’s house burned down and it was caused by a lamp.” I said “Doug thinks that the lamp was to blame for our fire and for some reason I am starting to believe that too, but for the longest time I thought it was the candle.” So sometimes lamps can cause fires and sometimes candles do not cause fires.

Eventually I might figure out what this all means…..DUH. I’m very sorry that yet another person has had to go through having a fire, but somehow I feel better knowing that lamps can cause fires too. It’s kind of pathetic, but I’m really glad he told me that. It is really a lot easier to blame a “thing” than it is to blame yourself. I think that some progress and healing may have occurred the other night. Thank you, Paul.

some thoughts

The fire and its absurdly stretched-out aftermath has got to be the world's biggest example of my inexplicable tendency to feel incredibly guilty for things around me that are less than good. I have no idea why I have this need to think that the fire was all my fault and that I could have/should have prevented it. There is no rational reason for me to take full responsibility for a huge bit of bad luck, but that is exactly what I have been doing for over two years.

Maybe it was just bad luck after all…..or dumb bad luck
Fortunately I am now making a tiny bit of progress because as I continue to replay all of the events leading up to the fire, I have recently found myself rationalizing (being rational?......or just making excuses?) about it a lot more. I am now remembering all kinds of things that support the case of it not being my fault. Doug backs me up by saying “that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.” Hmmm…..he wasn’t very persuasive early on. But maybe I wasn’t yet ready to be persuaded.

I guess I was just letting in too much of the candle vibe from other people to notice that. I completely ignored the burned-out hole in our bed’s headboard where the lamp had been, and just yesterday we both simultaneously remembered that the stupid lamp had been turning itself on and off randomly and making occasional spitting noises for several months before the fire. Hello? Both of us are both dumb and negligent.. The stupid lamp was giving us all kinds of signs of its impending explosion and we just sat back and let it do its thing to our house.

So it’s still my fault…..just not 100%. I should have commented on the lamp’s weird behavior more forcefully. I figured the lamp was heading in the direction of simply not working and that was as far as I went with it because I tend to leave the electrical matters to Doug. I wonder if he ever gave it a second thought. I figured if it was that big a deal, he’d take care of it. I also wonder whether it was the lamp that went bad, or whether some bad wiring in the house caused the lamp to go bad. Doug has mentioned from time to time over the years that the wiring in our very old house might be somewhat questionable.

We have been living for 20 years in a really old house that probably had bad wiring when we bought it. It has exactly the same wiring that it had 20 years ago. It seems that part of the excitement of living in an older house or building is always having in the back of your mind the notion that your house could catch on fire at any time. It’s just part of that old house vibe. We were living life on the edge, I guess.….it’s very easy to get used to that.

Too Little Time

In order to keep my brain engaged during this very weird time of my life I took a jazz theory course last fall and now I'm taking jazz arranging. I'm not that skilled at it yet but I can figure a few things out. I adapted a big band arrangement of the Henry Mancini song "Too Little Time" for Doug to play as an encore for his concerto performance with the Fairfax Concert Band.

Doug's beautiful trombone playing has probably saved our marriage on numerous occasions. I'm a total sucker for his playing and I can't live without it. I hope you enjoy it too.

Here's a link to a post that has a short clip of him playing it at the concert.

Love Springs Forth From the Ashes

One of the truly wonderful outcomes of our fire is that our roommate John got a life, so to speak, and then proceeded to meet the love of his life. And then he married her! John was the best roommate ever. He had lived with us since 1985 when we bought our house.

John was intelligent, witty, friendly, and very quiet. It was great having him there. He took care of the cats and the mail when we were on the road. He would even periodically raise his own rent! He had millions of books, magazines, CDs, and other things and nearly everything he owned was destroyed in the fire. But according to various sources, this experience caused him to enter a new phase where he suddenly felt free of the shackles of all of his possessions. He seemed to have a new lease on life and soon after that he began dating Stefanie. They got married today and will soon be taking a fabulous honeymoon in Hawaii.

2006, Summarized

If 2005 was the strangest year on record, then 2006 has been the most miserable. At least now I can look forward to things definitely becoming better.

During the spring tour my husband was captured by aliens. That is a metaphor for the social climate that existed for us on tour this year. We did get a good set of house plans designed, but it was definitely a struggle to accomplish this while on the road.

We had a wonderful trip to England and Scotland and Wales. It was really nice to go on a trip where we were unencumbered by others.

When we came home for good we shovelled all of the remaining ashes out of our house (4 dumpsters worth) and watched it go away forever. That was depressing. What is left, which will eventually become our new house, still looks pretty pathetic.

In spite of all of the weirdness I was really sad that I could no longer do the tour. I miss the road life a lot. And I turned down three different ship gigs with excellent itineraries so that I could stay home and work on my house. The stuff we are doing right now is exhausting. It's been a rough year, that's for sure.

WORK, WORK, WORK

We have been slaving away on our house all summer long. We spent most of June shovelling the charred remains of the last 20 years into huge dumpsters in our driveway in preparation for the teardown of the house. It was incredibly hot, we got totally filthy every single day, and it was also rather depressing.

Our house has been a total eyesore for the neighborhood for the past year and a half and there's nothing I can really do about it except keep the grass mowed. Now it looks even worse because we had some people come in to remove the 1950's asbestos siding. The unacceptable appearance of our house doesn't really seem to bother Doug at all. Oh yeah, I forgot - he's the guy who had 9 or more rusted out dead cars out in our backyard for years and years. I guess I just can't expect him to be appreciative of my desire to just have a pleasant and normal looking house. But he's charming and delightful and that makes it all worthwhile. Yeah, right.

Speaking of thwarted efforts in the direction of a pleasant and normal looking house, I can't believe how the heat from the fire made the fresh coat of gray paint I put on last fall just peel right off of the wood siding. So now part of the house is back to Doug's pink color, and some of it is down to the original barn red, and where they took down the siding it's beige. The shingles on the addition are still gray. The whole thing is pretty damn ugly.

Also we have been working in the addition to prepare it to become our new house. This involves removing the basement steps and putting in joists and subflooring in the stairwell area for all on the main floor and the upstairs.

Before we can put in the flooring we have to get the foam core panels that will become the new front exterior wall all moved upstairs. They are big and heavy so we have to use a pulley. Then we put in the floor. We are now getting to the upstairs via a ladder that goes through a hole in the floor. We are mostly doing this work at night because it is too hot during the day. This is stuff we were planning to do ourselves anyway, to save money, before the professionals came in to do the finish work.

If you are really interested in what all of this work looks like, click some of these links:
Installing the Floors and Moving the Panels
Cutting the House in Half
Almost Ready to Install the Wall
Preparing the Foam Core Panels

And if you want to see some additional pictures and videos of our house demolition, click here.

Putting the foam core panels up on the front wall of the addition after the roof is already on and before we separate the front of the house from it is a weird and scary operation. And physically pretty difficult. But Doug has figured out a way to do it that is completely structurally sound. He is amazing that way. So I put up with him.

This construction work is not my cup of tea at all, but I'm doing it. I really hate getting all dirty and sweaty and having to wear work gloves in this heat to protect my hands. It's really the only way that we can afford to get what we need in the way of a house. Although we are building a house that is actually much better than what we need.