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.

summer worries

We finally wrapped up the house plans with the architect after we got back from the tour and what I was afraid would happen did happen. Doug was too busy dealing with a bunch of idiotic crap on tour to notice that things were not going all that well with the plans.

I was worried during the entire tour that we basically couldn't afford all of the fancy and and unnecessary and weird things that Doug wanted - like 3 phase and radiant floor heat, to name just two. It is expensive to add a whole bunch of energy saving details all at once, even though it will be much better in the long run.

We might not even be able to afford the things I wanted, which were a screened in back porch, a separate bathtub, an efficient floor plan, and to have professionals (not us!) build it so that we could move back in as soon as possible. I really just want to get all of this behind me.

Anyway, the plans look fantastic but as I was dreading, both of us are now realizing that we won't be able to afford to have the design/build company finish the job. So now we have to buy the plans from them for extra money and figure out some other way to get it built. This disturbs me because we are just about back to square one - not knowing what we will do next. And anything that involves us doing even more of the work means that it will take forever.

Recaptured Memories

Today I made a wonderful discovery. The very first digital camera that I ever owned, which I had purchased only a few months earlier, has actually survived the fire!!!

We were cleaning out the dining room in preparation for tearing down the house, and I decided to cut open the melted wad that my new nylon backpack had become, just to see if by any chance there was money, or my old passport in there. We had discovered previously that melted plastic or nylon would actually occasionally protect an item, that is, if you could manage to get the melted stuff off of it. I used a saw to get inside the backpack because the scissors weren’t tough enough. Deep inside, surrounded by many other melted things, was the bright blue neoprene eyeglass holder that contained my camera.

My camera looked brand new, exactly as it had the last time I saw it about a year and a half ago. The battery was dead now, of course, so I took it home and charged it on my replacement camera’s charger. The three months worth of pictures, which dated back to December 2004, were all just fine!

I had purchased this camera just after Thanksgiving, immediately prior to the final leg of our Fall 2004 tour, and now I'm so glad that I had not yet downloaded any of the pictures, because it meant that they weren’t trapped forever inside my melted laptop.

I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I was to get a tiny piece of my pre-fire life back and intact. Here are some highlights from my reclaimed photos:

My very first skydiving experience, and Brittany's too. Brian skydives a lot. We had a day off and Brittany wanted to do it for her birthday. I was game.

That's me way up there! I loved being so high in the air, especially after the parachute opened and the wind stopped rushing past my ears. It was so quiet and peaceful then. I paid big bucks for a video of this experience but it was destroyed in the fire. I'm glad that Doug came along and took some pictures.

Brittany became seriously ill the next day after we went skydiving, although the timing and the aftermath of the skydiving which first called attention to her illness, may very well have saved her life. Anyway, a bunch of us from the tour got together and crocheted and knitted her a patchwork blanket.

Doug and I took a lovely trip to Florida for a few days in January 2005.

This is the only picture that I have of Seymour now. All of the other ones are gone. Seymour died in the fire and we miss him so much.

2005, the year in review

This was a most bewildering year. It started off nicely enough, with a January vacation in Florida for Doug and me, and a 4 month ship gig with an awesome itinerary to look forward to. Then the fire happened, but I was still able to do 3 months on the ship. Things were up in the air with the insurance company for the longest time. Our credit cards were maxed out from all of the stuff we had to buy. There was weirdness on the fall tour. The lack of decisiveness about what we were going to do with our house was scary. Then I had a really nice December full of interesting gigs. But I have to say that over all 2005 has definitely been the strangest year of my life so far.

gigs, house plans

We got back from the tour and picked up Ted. He really seemed to enjoy staying at Nancy’s townhouse. She has lots of nice windows to look out of – not like this dark, dismal place we are renting until we get our house built.

I had a very busy and fun December. The gigs ranged from holiday pops concerts with several different orchestras, to jazz combo gigs at holiday parties, to Amahl and the Night Visitors, to West Side Story at the Lyric Theater. We finally had a chance to work on our house plans. At the end of the month we met with the owner of a design-build firm and he felt that they would be able to build our house within our budget. This company is known for their quality work and they seem to build in a style that we like. I’m very excited. Finally something is happening!

"In the Mood" Fall Tour Part Six

After our fabulous Halloween Party in Elmsford NY we played in
Smithtown, NY
New Wilmington, PA
Youngstown, OH
Pittsburgh, PA
and Sandusky, OH

Unfortunately our show was the last thing scheduled for this beautiful old theater in Sandusky before it closed, which was very depressing.

The next day I drove the car so that the wardrobe person and her assistant could relax on the bus. I got some nice foliage shots in WV on the drive down to Beaufort, SC.

The rest of the fall tour was on the east coast. From November 8 through November 19, we did shows in:

Beaufort, SC

Rocky Mount, NC

Harrisonburg, VA

Newport News, VA

Clayton, NC

Southern Pines, NC

Elmsford, NY again!

New Bedford, MA

and finally, Kingston NY

Here are a couple of pictures from our last day off in Plymouth, MA

Apparently this is Plymouth Rock

It seemed rather fitting to be visiting Plymouth just before Thanksgiving!

"In the Mood" 2005 Halloween Party!

The Halloween party took place at our hotel in Elmsford NY where we were playing at the Westchester Broadway Theater. There were tons of fun costumes and a pinata. I'm not exactly sure why, but it seems there are often pinatas at our "In the Mood" parties.

Doug went as his theme song "I'm Getting Cement All Over Ewe." Notice the words "ALL OVER" written in cement on his sheep's costume. Cute, huh?

Since we seemed to be headed in a barnyard animals direction, I picked up this cow costume at one of our many stops at Walmart for the low, low price of $11.99. I though it needed some accesorizing so I hung a milk bottle below to catch the drippings.

Here the lovely Quincy and beautiful Brian L, dressed up as some typical members of our audience.

Brian C and Al M are probably the ones responsible for the pinata.

Nicole's costume was a reinactment of our Pawley's Island SC show which was easily our most rugged venue. The stage was inside a tent!

It was definitely the most intricate costume of the evening.

Bud, our producer, pianist, and the creative genius behind the show wore his Uncle Sam costume.

One time at a sound check Bud said "I need more Christina in my ear" which somehow became "rear" and she willingly obliged and paid tribute to it with her very cheeky costume.

Wendy wants to suck some blood!

The Inimitable Big Al

Tom got mugged in the hallway of one of our hotels. He decided to pay tribute to that exciting event because it was even scarier than Halloween!

Tugboat Brandon

Emily the Geisha Girl

At one of our boondocks venues the local crew was made up of people from the county jail, so our technical director Jeff came as one of them.

Wild Bill W

This is either Jody or Bill H.

This too must be either Jody or Bill H.

We had an honorary guest - Arthur Francesco, who sang in the show for the two previous years. I'm so glad he was there - I've really missed him being on the show this year! The final activity was the Beating of the Pinata.

"In the Mood" Fall Tour, Part 5

Holland Michigan Lighthouse

From October 17 - 29 we played shows in the following cities:
October 17: Holland, MI

October 18th: Interlochen, MI

October 21st: Pawleys Island, SC

October 22nd: Wilkesboro, NC

October 25th: Rutherford, NC

October 27th: Richlands, VA

October 28th: Morganton, NC

October 29th: Clinton, NC

I was helping the crew with the driving for some of the shows and I got to wander around Wilkesboro for a bit while the crew was setting up. Here's what I saw:

The Doc and Merle Watson Theatre

This was our theater in Wilkesboro, NC

frankie condon memories

I just learned that Frankie Condon has passed away. Since I’m out on the road for another month I won’t be able to attend his funeral. So I guess I’ll just have to memorialize him here instead.

The first time I became aware of Frankie was when I was away at school, finishing my degree in classical piano. My friends from Montgomery College were all excited about a new jazz club which had opened up down the street in Rockville, of all places. It was called Frankie Condon’s and you could go there to hear live jazz just about any night of the week. It quickly became “the” place to go, and when I finished my degree, I soon became a regular there as well. It was great to be able to go right around the corner and hear the big bands of Frankie Condon, Bill Potts, and Mike Crotty several nights each week, along with the many “name” performers that Frank would book there. At the time, although I was merely a fan of this music, I still realized that it was an amazing thing for Rockville to have an actual jazz scene and Frankie Condon was the man who brought it all about.

A couple of years later I started playing the bass for fun in the Montgomery College Orchestra. Lenny Cuje and Frank attended our concerts fairly regularly because Lenny was dating someone in the orchestra at the time. Frank would come up to me after the concerts and say “When are you going to come sit in with my band?” I was very shy back then and didn’t think I was capable of playing jazz, so although I avoided all opportunities to sit in for about two years, I did begin to realize, because of what he had said to me, that I really did want to give playing jazz on the bass a try. I started practicing with play-along records and took some jazz classes on bass at Montgomery College.

Frank continued to ask me to play with his band, even if it was to just sit in for one tune. Finally I got up enough nerve to say yes. Although I was very concerned about the miserable time everyone else was going to have with me there barely being able to play, it was still an amazing experience to get to play with all of those other seasoned players. I was totally hooked. And even though everyone was warning me how difficult it would be to play Frankie’s bass, with those old gut strings, I really liked it in a way. There was a certain aura, like a real old school vibe or sense of history just oozing out of his bass, and I could feel that as I played it. It was cool. I played on his bass whenever I came to sit in.


When he started asking me to do the whole gig I eventually began bringing my own bass. I played regularly with his band during the late 80’s and early 90’s and occasionally after that. It was an invaluable experience and he was always very encouraging.

I learned many specific things from him about playing bass in a big band, but the most important thing I learned came from observing him playing and leading his band and that was the wonderful feeling of joy and happiness that was always there no matter how he happened to be feeling otherwise. He just loved playing the bass, and he loved playing big band music and he was the one who, more than anyone else, first opened up that whole world of joy and happiness to me. I will always be grateful for that.

Rest In Peace Frankie!

"In the Mood" Fall Tour, Day off in Chicago

We had a day off in Chicago which was one of the many highlights of the fall tour. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast.



The first thing we headed for was the skydeck of the Sears Tower.




That's a pretty nice view from way up there.

We got some Chicago-style deep dish pizza which was excellent, but I think we still like the Armands pizza the best. It's DC based Chicago-style pizza.

Then we were thrilled to discover that there were tickets available for the Chicago Symphony that afternoon. What an incredible orchestra! They played Mahler's Fourth Symphony.

After the concert we headed up to the Navy Pier to meet the bus. We rode the huge ferris wheel and had cotton candy. It was nice to have a day to ourselves for a change. It was completely delightful in every way.

"In the Mood" Fall Tour, Part 4

After playing in Burlington Iowa, we played shows in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Crystal Lake, Illinois. Here are some photos of beautiful Sheboygan which is on Lake Michigan:

In addition to beautiful lake views, the town was really cute and had interesting old-fashioned architecture:

There's Doug standing in front of the theater.