It doesn't take much

Here are ten things that have made me very happy recently:
1. The weather has warmed up to a somewhat normal temperature.
2. Doug has put most of the floorboards down on the back porch and has finished nailing most of what he has put down.
3. Yesterday we finished putting up all of the Tyvek inside the back porch and we put up most of the rest of the siding inside the porch. It will look even nicer when it is finished
4. Today I put up most of the rest of the siding on the outside of the back porch. I'm just waiting for Doug to cut the final piece. It will look even nicer when it is finished.
5. Today we took down most of the scaffolding on the south side and some of it on the north side. It will look even nicer once it is all down.
6. Today Doug finished putting up the soffit trim on the north side so the north side is almost finished. It will look even nicer when it is finished.
7. Today we loaded up the truck with a huge amount of construction trash and I drove it to the dump and they didn't make me go in the truck part which is great because I forgot my dust mask.
8. We might actually finish most of the outside of the FoamCoreFantasy before we start working on the inside. Maybe. But I'm not holding my breath.
9. Most of the things we've done recently are much closer to being actually finished than usual.
10. I was able to accurately use the word "most" more often than the word "some" for a change, in describing our recent accomplishments on the house. I'm happier than usual about our progress because "most" is much closer to "all" than "some" is.

Tennessee Tour

We left late Wednesday night last week for a little mini-tour which involved a lot of driving but was also a lot of fun. We had some gigs with a Benny Goodman/Peggy Lee tribute show that started in Cleveland, TN on Thursday and ended in Bluefield, WV last night. The headliners were from Boston, and most of the rest of the band was from the Knoxville area except for a drummer from North Carolina.


I had most of the day off on Friday so I did some exploring in the Knoxville area, but it was so cold that I spent the entire morning goofing off in a coffee shop in downtown Knoxville before heading out in my car to check out the rest of the downtown area and some sections south of town. I attempted to go for a walk by a lake. It was a pretty lake but too cold for me so I finished the day back at the coffee shop.




One thing I noticed while hanging out there was that a lot of the customers had nose piercings, which is fine, but they weren't the usual single stud or loop on the side of the nose - instead a lot of them had a piercing through the middle that looped down and ended in two balls, with one coming out of each nostril. Maybe it was the weather, but I started thinking that it looked like they all had silver snot hanging out of their noses. Now that's a whole lot more attractive than real snot so I'm actually kind of glad it was silver. But ewww, what if you had a piercing like that and suddenly had to blow your nose?


When I went to pick up Doug I got to see the amazing restoration and remodeling work that Vance and Emily are doing on their house way up on a hill overlooking the Tennessee River and downtown Knoxville. The style of the inside of their house is exactly how I want mine to look if we ever get to that point. Emily has done most of the molding work herself and has even built a few couches! Now I almost feel like trying that. Almost. Anyway it was very inspiring, and cool to see how good some of the things I had been envisioning actually look in a real house.
(A real house, as opposed to a Foam Core Fantasy).

We drove about an hour east to the Sevierville area to spend the night at Tom's house which is on top of a ridge way out in the woods in the Great Smoky Mountains. His driveway was about a half mile of this:

Kind of exciting in a Deliverance sort of way!

Tom's house reminded me of a ski lodge - very rustic but very nice. Doug said it was sort of log cabin style construction. If so, it was the most luxurious log cabin I've ever been in. The weather was appropriately cold - it got down to 17 degrees that night. Tom's girlfriend Teresa made an incredibly delicious dinner for us and also breakfast the next morning. Then we caravaned up to the gig in West Virginia.

Tom was nice enough to find an orchard store that we could stop at on the way that had Doug's favorite apple, the Arkansas Black, in stock so we bought an entire bushel of them.

They got quite a bit of snow down there in southeastern West Virginia, but the roads were fine.

This mountain didn't photograph very well because of the glare of the sun - be sure to shield your eyes!

trying to appreciate the cold

I'm stuck working outside these days and unfortunately it involves a lot of standing around in the freezing cold. Fortunately I'm able to entertain myself by taking pictures until the next time I have to help Doug lift something, hold a board in place, or help with the sawing.

Azaleas aren't really supposed to bloom in November, are they?


The sky to the south

The pine tree to the north

weird but good made-up turnip slaw

Our landlord brought us a bunch of super fresh looking turnips from his garden. I don't usually go out of my way to consume turnips, but I have enjoyed turnip greens in the past. So we immediately cut the tops off and cooked the greens. They were pretty good.

I've had cooked turnips maybe once or twice - I remember them being kind of bitter and mushy. I'm okay with bitter, but not when combined with mushy. Our landlord said that he usually slices his turnips to put into salads. That made me think that raw turnips probably taste similar to jicama or radishes. Then I started imagining coleslaw with turnips instead of cabbage. Doug went on line and found out that turnip slaw actually is a thing that people make. Some of the recipe reviews weren't too favorable but we decided to go for it anyway. Except that we didn't follow any of those recipes.

We knew we were going to have a mixture of turnips and carrots, but then Doug decided to throw in an apple, which totally matches the turnip's texture but is sweeter. Then he asked me if I thought some red bell pepper would be okay. I thought it would be weird, but maybe not too weird for this particular salad. Then I thought of adding dried cherries - which is weird, but it ended up to be an excellent accent flavor. Our made-up turnip slaw turned out to be really delicious - very fresh and tangy, and just a tiny bit sweet. I would have prefered less sugar, but I think some sugar was probably necessary to counteract the bitterness of the turnip.

I actually didn't make this turnip slaw - Doug did all the work. I'm glad he likes to cook because I get to just sit here and say add this and add that. I usually come up with more delicious food combinations than he does, so it works out. He's the cook, and I'm the "food designer." Ha Ha Ha. But this time we designed it together.

So here's the very vague recipe:

Shred 1 turnip, 2 small carrots and 1 crisp unpeeled apple.
Add 1/2 chopped red bell pepper and about a half cup of dried cherries
Make a dressing by mixing mayonnaise, white vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper
Stir it all up and enjoy. It's pictured here on a bed of spinach in a cracked bowl.

November Sky

The sky went through many changes this afternoon.

Here are a few of the photos I took today:

You can make them bigger by clicking on them. They look better bigger.

Yep, I've been around the block a few times.....

As if I wasn't busy enough already, now I'm in grad school, trying to enrich my life as Doug and I drive ourselves into the ground building our house. I was awarded a teaching assistantship so sometimes I am also the teacher of some of my fellow students. On top of that I'm quite a bit older than most of the kids in my department and I'm the only female. I've kind of been enjoying the weirdness of both of those things. It can be pretty amusing at times. My immature sense of humor is serving me quite well in this situation.

So yesterday I was running the jam session and one of the guys came up to me afterwards and said "You seem like you've been around the block a few times...." and then asked for some advice about making an audition tape for something. I was kind of flattered that he'd ask me such a question and also relieved .... I guess..... that he was at least thoughtful enough to use the word "seem" instead of "look." I guess he was trying to be all casual and cool with that "around the block" expression. Anyway, I was laughing about that for the rest of the day!!!

an extra day in New York

The plan for the next day was to get up, check out of the hotel, get my car before the street cleaning deadline, drive downtown to pick up my bass, and then head home. But I was really enjoying my solitude so I decided to see if my room was available for an additional night. It wasn't, but they did have a different room so I decided to stay. I opened the curtains and looked out the window. The view included a brick wall about four feet across from the window and this plastic owl:

I guess he was there to scare other birds away.

I had to check out and register separately for another room so I left my bag in the checked baggage room and got to my car about 10 minutes late. It was the only car left on that side of the street and I guess I lucked out not getting a ticket or getting towed.

As I was heading back uptown after picking up my bass I suddenly, on a whim, decided to see if I could drive to Coney Island. It was about noon and my room wouldn't be available until 2:00 and I was already in my car, so what the hell. Except that I've never been to Coney Island and the only thing I knew about its location was that it is on the ocean in Brooklyn. Since I have a decent sense of direction and had plenty of time to kill, I wasn't too worried. If I couldn't find it, I'd see other stuff instead.

I turned right on Canal Street and went over the Manhattan Bridge and that became Flatbush Avenue. I've seen that street on subway cars so I thought so far, so good. I'm not lost yet. It went by Prospect Park, which I'd heard of. It looks like a beautiful park and it's big - maybe it's Brooklyn's answer to Central Park. So far Brooklyn seemed really nice - it's kind of more like DC than Manhattan in a way. At least what I'd seen of it so far. At this point I had no idea whether I was heading towards Coney Island or not, but I was perfectly happy driving on Flatbush Avenue for no particular reason.

Right after Prospect Park I saw Ocean Avenue and figured that was the ticket and it did seem to go in the right direction. It went for a long way through some beautiful old neighborhoods with really great architecture. I passed an absolutely gorgeous old synagogue called Midland or Midfield. Unfortunately my camera was in the back of my car and it was raining so I didn't get a picture. Then I saw Avenue M, N, O, and P, and was getting all excited that I'd see Avenue Q (I've seen "Avenue Q" but not the actual street) but there was a Quentin Street or something and then it went back to Avenue R, etc. I thought that was pretty rude.

Anyway I took Ocean Avenue all the way to where it sort of bumped into a harbour and I turned left on Emmons Avenue but it ended after a few blocks. The area I was in was called Sheepshead Bay.

So I turned around and headed south. I turned left at the next road that I thought went east and that finally took me to the ocean. I parked and walked up to the boardwalk there. I was surprised to discover that nearly everyone was speaking Russian. I used to play in a balalaika orchestra and I've been to St. Petersburg a few times so I know what Russian sounds like. It definitely was not Yiddish. Also, people were dressed the same way they do in St. Petersburg - kind of more dressed up than you'd ordinarily expect to see at the beach. Anyway, I discovered that I was in Brighton Beach and Coney Island was farther south on the same boardwalk.

But it was cold, windy, and a little bit damp, and my still-recovering foot was not feeling that great so I got back in my car and drove a little farther south. About half of the stores had signs with Russian letters and no English letters. This one had both:

I didn't really realize there were actual Russian neighborhoods in Brooklyn - because I don't know anything about Brooklyn! So I'm already making some cool discoveries on my little trip to Coney Island. I guess previously I thought all of the Russians mostly lived in Jewish neighborhoods, which shows how little I've actually thought about where Russian immigrants might live. Because, obviously not all Russian immigrants are Jewish. Duh!!! Anyway the balalaika players in DC certainly don't all live in the same neighborhood.

I still had my bass in the car and the neighborhood did not exactly have what I would describe as a crime-free vibe, but I managed to find a parking space that offered a little psychological protection, if nothing else:

I didn't see a police station, but there sure were alot of police cars parked there. Now this is the kind of building I was really expecting to see:

And especially this one, which is where I ate lunch of course!

They grill their hot dogs so they have delicious little burned places on them. I got one with sauerkraut and mustard. Yum! After lunch I went to the beach:

And then to Astroland. Everything was pretty deserted. Since I was having a deliberately antisocial trip, I kind of enjoyed that. I would have ridden on these rides if they'd been open. But I think I read somewhere that some of the main rides in Coney Island have recently closed for good. That's a real shame.

Since the weather was so dark and dreary I was not able to obey this sign:

I decided to see where the "Belt" Parkway went when it was time to head back to Manhattan. I lucked out once again. It went near Governer's Island where I stayed once when Doug was in the Air Force, and then there was a tunnel to Manhattan that I didn't even know existed which eventually became the West Side Highway. So that was super convenient. I didn't find any street parking so I parked in a garage instead. When I got back to my hotel my new room was ready and it had completely different scenery out of its window:

To the left

And to the right

I went up to the TKTS place and got a half price ticket to see Gypsy which was excellent, but very long. The kids in the show were fantastic. The orchestra was fantastic and it was great to see them behind the stage for the overture and entracte. Patti Lupone's Mama Rose was very different from Rosalind Russell's. She really made it her own. I'm not sure if I liked it better, but I did enjoy the fact that it was different. Her voice was a little distracting because the tone quality varied widely throughout her range. She had a lot of breaks. But it was all in tune. The final scene where she kind of goes nuts was intense and powerful and her tonal quality was all of a sudden extremely consistent. Maybe her voice only works really well at super loud volumes.

After the show I went down to Knickerbocker's and heard JoAnne Brackeen and Cecil McBee. They were wonderful as usual.

The next day I headed home. The clouds began to clear away the second I crossed into Maryland. Doug said the weather had been warm and sunny the entire time I was gone. But that's okay. The weather in NY was a better match for my frame of mind during the time I was there.

Alone with my thoughts

This is kind of rambling – but that’s the way my brain operates on a day like today. I’m on a quick little trip to NYC that is all about me for a change so I don’t have much to distract me from my thoughts.

I’m taking my bass up to my favorite luthier for a little touchup work, then I’ll go hear some music, pick up my bass tomorrow, and head home. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a trip to New York that didn’t have some other people or agenda attached to it and although it is always fun to go to NYC for any reason, I especially like going there by myself.

I haven't completely isolated myself – I’ve checked in with Doug a couple of times. The first time was after I passed the Moravia Road exit on 95. I always think “there’s Bob Fields' exit” whenever I drive past it and it's been a while since the last time I was up that way. Bob had a rehearsal band that met in his basement nearly every Tuesday morning for more than 30 years. He wrote a whole slew of 7 piece arrangements that were really fun to play. I was his regular bass player for five years until about 2003, when I began to be out of town more than I was home. I loved playing with him and was really sad when he called me to sub a couple of months ago and I couldn’t do it. I wish I had just cancelled whatever it was that I had because that would have been my last chance to play with him. He passed away almost a month ago. In his usual understated way, he kept quiet about how sick he actually was. I wish I’d known. I miss him. So I called Doug and we talked for a while.

Not more than an hour went by before someone called me with some sad news about my friend John Greeley, who is also one of my very favorite drummers. We used to have a steady gig together but our paths stopped crossing as much after I went on the road and it’s been nearly a year since we last played together. I always had in mind that he would be over at my house all the time for jam sessions after we moved back in. But he passed away last night so that’s not ever going to happen. John was a super nice guy and a fantastic drummer. He was always up for a jam session if he didn’t have a gig. His lung cancer was pretty far along when it was first diagnosed about six months ago.

I was really glad to be alone for the drive up so that I could think about all of the wonderful ways that these two people had enhanced my life, as a musician and also on a personal level. I feel very lucky to have known both of them, but I sure wish they were still around.

The one bright note for the drive up was that it took only 3 hours and 20 minutes to drive from the outskirts of Silver Spring to Lower Manhattan. I don’t even think I was driving that fast – I just drove straight there and didn’t make any stops. So at least the super gloomy trip was unusually short.

When I got to David Gage’s shop, he and everyone else there was in a very celebratory mood about Obama’s victory. It hadn’t been on my mind at all today so far. It was nice to see them all so happy. Later I got lucky and found street parking a block and a half from my hotel and I don’t have to move my car until 11:00 tomorrow morning. As I was walking to my hotel I heard conversation after conversation about Obama. It seems that all of New York is happy today.

Tonight I went to the Blue Note and heard Charlie Haden’s Music Liberation Orchestra with arrangements by Carla Bley. It was a musical celebration of our country – every arrangement was based on specifically American songs. The orchestrations were quite interesting. All of the players were outstanding. The group consisted of three saxes, two trumpets, french horn, trombone, and sousaphone with piano, guitar, bass, and drums. I was amused to observe that Vincent Chancey, the french horn player and Curtis Fowlkes, the trombonist, standing next to each other kind of reminded me of John Clayton and Ron Carter. The players were all outstanding. They had exceptional control of their quiet range so it was a very pleasant overall volume level for such a large group. Charlie Hayden has some issues with tintinitus and can’t tolerate loud volumes anymore. It must be pretty awful to have a problem like that, especially when it affects what kinds of groups you can play with. But in this case I would say the group benefited from having to play softer – and the audience benefited as well.

While they were playing Amazing Grace and the theme from the New World Symphony, my mind started wandering again, back to John, and Bob, and then also to Larry Eanet and Keter Betts, and finally to Frankie Condon and Bill Potts. I hope I see them all again one day.

dinosaur egg and fishes

I don't want to build my house today. I want to put silly things on my blog instead. Okay, that's done. Off to work now!

What is it, Groundhog Day?

It's nearly cold enough to be. And this groundhog most certainly did not see his shadow. We were working outside all day today and it felt like February to me - all dark and dreary. I'm especially not looking forward to winter this year if it's starting out like this.

I want to run away and join the circus!

For the past couple of weeks I've been enjoying a book called Girl Clown , a few pages at a time, each night before I fall asleep. I wish I weren't so exhausted because I'm always eager to find out what will happen next, but I just can't stay awake, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the book. Girl Clown is a semi-autobiographical novel written by a blogger named Bozoette, who joined the circus back in the 1970s, and had all sorts of exciting adventures during her stint as a circus clown. It is very interesting and quite entertaining as well. But it really makes me miss being on the road - a lot. My life on the road was not nearly as rugged and exciting as hers, but I loved the life of travelling and performing in a new town each night. Or being in a new port each day.

I can't wait to be finally free to get out there and do it again. I'm really looking forward to it. As soon as we finish building our house and get settled back in, I'll be looking for another road or ship gig, that's for sure. Until then, I fall asleep each night and dream about running away with the circus.

sulking

I've been living my life at a reduced capacity for three years now, due to this house project that Doug wanted to undertake and I did not. In an effort to be supportive, I have basically put my life on hold until we can move back into our house. I wanted to have the insurance company rebuild our house because that would have been the quickest and least complicated way to deal with the situation. But in "our" world, apparently, uncomplicated is unacceptable.

So when Doug goes off on short tours and cruises that pay less than what he would make if he had stayed home, I look at it as kind of an unfair delay in our progress. During the past three years I've had to turn down offers for ship gigs in Europe, the Pacific islands and Australia, and a long term hotel gig in Dubai, all for the sake of getting our house being finished "quickly." I knew all along that it wouldn't be finished in another two months, which is what Doug has been telling everyone all these years. I guess realistic is also negative. That's me alright.

Anyway, I hope he returns all fresh and rested and ready to get back to work on the outside of the house before it gets any colder, because it's not fun working outside in the cold and the wind.

Then we can do all of the drywall in the basement and all of the door and window trim upstairs, and then before you know it, we'll be back in our house. Yaaaaay!!!!!

Sarah Palin, Jazz Vocalist

Listen to this a few times, the "melody" becomes more apparent each time. I don't care who you are voting for - this is brilliant!

evening shots

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Have a Great Weekend!

The Night Has 1000 Eyes, John Coltrane vs. Bobby Vee

The combo I'm coaching at school is playing this piece on their concert next month. I had to submit the tune list to the head of the department today and I decided that I should double check all of the composers of the tunes my combo is doing. The Night Has 1000 Eyes is in a fake book we use which is called, rather ironically, the Real Book. This book is well known amongst jazz musicians for being full of errors and the composers that were listed for this song somehow didn't seem right to me. I thought I should double check.

So I did my research the fast and easy way, using Google, and found out who the correct composers were for this tune, which happens to be the title song from a 1948 movie. It has become a jazz standard as a result of John Coltrane's rendition:

In addition, I discovered that there is in fact another song by the same name and the composers are the ones that are incorrectly listed in the Real Book. This song is from 1963 and was a hit for Bobby Vee. The video is hilarious:

empty nest syndrome

It has been a year since my beloved cat Ted passed away. I had been planning to write one final post about him would include a few baby pictures that we found, but I don't have it in my heart to do that right now. Ted was the closest thing to a child that we ever will have and we still miss him alot. It has been awful not having him around anymore although we had him for a good long time. He was 18 when he died last year.

Now a very good friend of mine is going through the same thing. Her 18 year old cat Tom died on Sunday night. I feel sad all over again. I really liked Tom a lot. Doug and I stopped in to visit him one last time on our way home Saturday night. He was very thin and very weak, but still just as friendly as he could possibly be. I'm glad we got to see him although it makes me miss Ted all over again. And now Tom as well.

R.I.P. Tom Handsome

lots and lots of music

The weekend has barely gotten started and I'm exhausted already. Hopefully by the time it's over, I'll be exhilarated. I've been back at work over at the foamcorefantasy house now that I can wear an actual pair of shoes, but I've really gotten used to not working on the house during the past seven weeks. We're still putting up siding, and the backyard "pets" are still in abundance.

Tonight I heard a wonderful concert featuring vocalist Gretchen Parloto and bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spaulding. They were both amazing, but Esperanza completely blew me away. She is phenomenal and inspiring.

Tomorrow morning I'm subbing on a Sweeney Todd rehearsal, putting up some more siding, playing another little gig, then I'm going to try to make David Sanborn's late set at Blues Alley if they put me on the list. (I know someone in the band - ha ha ha, actually I know at least 3 people in the band!)

Sunday I've got my brunch and then I'm heading down to Twins to hear pianist Leslie Pintchik. She's great and so is her bass-playing husband. Then I'll probably stay up really late getting ready for my class on Monday.

A Medley for Change

We did a quick little recording session yesterday and it's on YouTube already! Here's the link to it on YouTube in case the thing here doesn't work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i2S5A-x0Ig

jazz for barack obama

Look at the groovy campaign button somebody gave me today!

One Last "Summer" Getaway

I am never ready for summer to be over. When I broke my foot we had to cancel our little 3 day trip to the beach because I could barely walk and the sand would be much too challenging. Also I didn't want to get my cast any dirtier than necessary during the six weeks that I was going to have to wear it. Since I'm almost done with this ordeal (I hope!) I figured it was time to take the make-up trip.

I don't know why this is, but Doug has a thing for bed and breakfasts. I'm more of a hotel person, but it's pretty cool staying in a really old house like the Merry Sherwood. Supposedly it's even haunted. I was very happy to learn that they were serving breakfast at 8:30 which is a relatively reasonable time. I hate having to drag myself out of bed at an unnaturally early hour to eat an incredibly delicious meal before I'm even awake enough to appreciate it.

It was raining cats and dogs the day we left and the Merry Sherwood was looking pretty gloomy. Our room was also kind of gloomy, but cozy at the same time. We slept under this extremely ornate chunk of wood:

The entire house is completely filled with amazing antiques. The transom and side lights around the front door are pretty unusual.

So we had our delicious fancy breakfast and headed off to Assateague even though the weather didn't look too promising. As it turned out, we got in about three hours of beach time. The sun actually came out. Because there had been a really bad storm there a few weeks ago, all of the soft white sand had been pushed back into the dunes. The black sand that was left was very hard and flat and therefore very easy to walk on. Apparently the sand shifts from the storms every winter and the white sand comes back in the spring. After we had our afternoon at the beach I couldn't resist taking more pictures.

The ponies were nice and clean from the previous day's rain showers.

Bambi and his mom were also looking very fresh.

This is Miss Assateague. Isn't she pretty with her Veronica Lake hairstyle?

Here's a little video of a couple of big ponies and a very frisky little one:

All over the eastern shore the bean fields are beginning to turn yellow.

On the way home we stopped in Berlin at a wine store that is associated with the Atlantic Hotel. Doug bought some marinated anchovies, olives, and a couple of interesting cheeses. We couldn't find any decent bread in Berlin to complete our picnic spread, and it was raining really hard again so we stopped at the Panera in Salisbury, took our food in, bought a loaf of sourdough, and had our picnic inside the Panera. The anchovies were delicious and tasted really fresh - not anything like those awful dried things people sometimes put on pizza.

We got back Saturday in plenty of time for our gigs. On Sunday I played my brunch, did an orchestra rehearsal, and went to the Wayne Shorter concert at UMD. By then I was really far behind in my preparation for school the next day. So I guess that was the last hurrah of summer. I'm ready to accept that it is fall now. But I still might do one last day trip to the beach - I just can't help it!!!

Concerts this weekend

A fundraising cabaret-concert for the Obama campaign at the beautifully restored Atlas Theater, 1333 H Street, NE, will be held this Saturday, September 20. Bar opens at 7:00, concert is at 8:00. Noted local singer Steve Washington will perform with a 7 piece jazz band. Donations start at $35 and there are plenty of cool places to go on H street after the concert. Tickets can be purchased at the door or by visiting http://www.aconcertforchange.org/. Hope to see you there!

Steve Lippia, THE Frank Sinatra tribute singer, will be performing Frank's biggest hits with his band this Sunday at 2pm at the Weinberg Center in Frederick.

The Friday Morning Music Club Orchestra, conducted by Pablo Saelzer, will perform at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, 6601 Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda on Sunday at 5pm. The program will include the Strauss Emperor Waltzes and Brahms Symphony #2. Donations are appreciated, admission is free.

Invasion of the Crickets

The place where I am living right now is literally crawling with crickets. If it were any other kind of bug I would be totally grossed out, but I guess that whole Jiminy Cricket thing makes me think they are nice. Sort of. Thanks to Walt Disney they've risen above mere bug status in my mind.


Nice or not, they're kind of annoyingly loud at this hour. There's one over in the corner right now that I just yelled at a few times. It crawled about six inches each time I yelled at it. So they're not deaf - they know they're being loud at all hours. Sometimes I attempt to clear a few of them out, but I know it's basically pretty hopeless this month. I must admit that sometimes I get mad - I've stepped on a few because I'm a bully and an evil cricket murderer. But most of them get to be free-range crickets. I think in China they eat crickets. Or maybe it's the Phillipines. Or Africa? Somewhere I know they eat crickets. These crickets of mine should be grateful.

I don't know where all the crickets go in October but all of a sudden they disappear. They stop chirping. Does the end of cricket season mean that they've died? Do they go back outside? They must, because if they came inside to die I'd see piles of dead crickets lying around everywhere. Maybe they just come in to say goodbye. I should be a little nicer to them if that is the case.

This evening when I came home there were five crickets lined up on the stoop outside the door, just waiting for someone to open the door. I had my bass with me and because of my limited mobility with the foot cast and the wheel on my bass, I was not able to knock any of them out of the way. All five of them hopped in as soon as I got the door open. That's five additional crickets in the house right now. These crickets are driving me crazy!!!

It's Official....

I still love teaching! This is good news because it is my "retirement" plan, the only one I've got so far.

I started teaching piano when I was 14 years old. I hid that fact from my piano teacher because I thought she would be horrified. I only charged twice as much as I made from babysitting because I didn't want to rip off any of my poor guinea pig students. I went on to get a B.Mus. in piano performance with the intent of becoming a professional piano teacher.

I put off getting a M.M. because I had become interested in going to law school. I took the LSAT and did pretty well on it so that was definitely a possibility. I also wanted to make sure that I liked teaching piano enough to spend the additional money on a masters degree because I knew it would undoubtedly be much more difficult to pay off student loans as a piano teacher than it would be as a lawyer. I also wanted to party like it was 1999, but that's another story. Fortunately that phase didn't last too long.

So I taught piano. And I loved it. I had 35-45 students most of the time. One year I had 55 but that was a little too much. I was involved with all of the local music organizations, and hosted 3 or 4 recitals per year for my students. I made sure that they got used to performing because it's supposed to be fun, right? Most of them seemed to enjoy it. They all did well in the various competitions they played in too, especially in the ensemble events.

Somewhere in there I took up the bass. It was my fun new hobby. I was teaching piano full time and playing bass here, there, and everywhere. I didn't practice much because I was too busy playing. Gradually I started getting gigs. After several years I got a call to do a road gig playing "Meet Me in St. Louis" for 3 months and that pretty much changed everything for me.

I spent a few years gradually easing out of teaching and I've pretty much just been a bass player for the past 10 years. Over all the money's not as good, but the experience has been well worth it. I love performing on the bass, especially in a group setting. Who knew? I wasn't particularly crazy about performing when I was a pianist. And I love the travel opportunities that have come my way. I'm missing that a lot right now, but if I go on the road my house will never get finished. On the very first day of school this year, I got a call about a 3 month gig with a piano player and singer at a hotel in Dubai. Way to rub it in, ye cursed forces of nature!

So I'm in school, and my teaching assistantship duties include teaching a beginning jazz theory and improvisation course and coaching a combo. And I have to say I love teaching just as much as I ever did. There's just something about it. So far it's my favorite part of being back in school.

I am especially overjoyed to realize that this is still true, after 10 years of not doing it, because we designed our house with a really nice set up for me to teach in. Once I become too old and decrepid to lug the bass and sound equipment around all over the place, I will go back to teaching piano, and maybe bass too. And I will probably do it until the day I die.

weekend end

I'm in school now. That's keeping me pretty busy and has reduced the quantity of random occurences that I tend to blog about. I don't have any photos this time either.
So this weekend I had a couple of gigs and then we went to the Silver Spring Jazz Festival on Saturday night. I heard Marcus Johnson who I enjoyed very much in spite of the fact that smooth jazz is not really my thing. But music is music and he put on a great show. Then the Mingus Big Band performed. The playing was fantastic, but they weren't able to do a sound check and it showed. The videography was outstanding. The temperature was pleasant and the full moon was beautiful. All in all it was a very nice evening.
Today we saw the Coen Brothers "Burn After Reading" and we both loved it. It is hilarious and clever and I highly recommend it, although it might not be for everyone. There was a lot of very lewd language, but it was completely appropriate for the characters . Tonight it is humid but there's a nice breeze too. It kind of feels like the air in Hawaii.
And now I have to do a bunch of work for school. See ya next weekend!

Burtonsville Fire Department Carnival

It's still summer! Since we are currently living in the extreme outer boondocks of Silver Spring, Doug thought it would be fun to attend the local fire department's annual summer carnival tonight. We had a blast! There weren't too many people there and it wasn't too large of an area for me to drag my foot around. We ate corn dogs. We rode the rides. We like rides.

My favorite was the kiddie bumper cars. I was so happy that all of the children I gleefully smashed into understood that it was all in fun. They smashed back. Sometimes the kids doing bumper cars get scared from all the mean driving, especially when it is done by big scary adults. But these kids squealed with laughter when the crazy lady came barreling towards them. Sometimes it's fun to pretend you're ten years old. Doug and I had a couple of nice head-on collisions as well.

For 18 bucks you can get a pass for unlimited rides for the entire day and it benefits the Burtonsville Fire Department. As both of us well know, fire departments are important and deserve our donations. And what this carnival lacks in sophistication, it more than makes up for in cuteness.

That's Brandi serving up those corn dogs. She says "hon".... a lot!



Funnel Cakes and Cotton Candy!

BALLOONS!!!

(and no, that's not me - she's a "carnie")

Also, I just ate the most amazingly delicious peach. It came from O'Keefe Orchards way out on New Hampshire Avenue in Cloverly. The O'Keefe family has been growing fruit there for 67 years.

So it's not all bad living this far out of town. You just have to find the fun!

Kind of in a lull right now....

I think I've been bored with blogging. I'm still reading all my favorites, but I'm kind of bored with myself and I don't really have much to say.

Last Friday was my three week anniversary of having a broken foot. So I only have 3-5 more weeks of wearing this damn cast. Then hopefully I'll be able to walk like a normal person again and do the things I need to do like work on the house and mow the grass. I know that there are plenty of people out there who are far worse off than I am, but that just makes me feel even worse about feeling so sorry for myself.

We cancelled our little three day trip to the beach because I can't walk on sand in this condition. We don't have a couch or any comfortable chairs, or even a TV in our rental house, so I decided to accompany Doug the following week on his trip to NY. That way I could rest my foot all day long, get a whole bunch of TV watching out of my system, and practice bass in the, believe it or not, more pleasant environment of the Microtel.

On the way up we got off at Exit 4 on the turnpike so that Doug would have a chance to experience Forno Pizzaria and Grille which I had stumbled upon with some friends a few weeks ago coming home from NYC. We were looking for something better than rest stop food and boy did we find it! Their pizza is amazing and the gelato is out of this world. The people behind the counter speak Italian to one another. It's as good as anything I've had in NYC or even Italy for that matter.

So my foot feels much better now. It was not getting the rest it needed before. Since I was already most of the way there, I drove up to Connecticut one day to visit my roommate from college who had been residing at Yale University Hospital for the past three weeks. Jennifer is my hero. She is amazing, and she is totally going to recover from her stem cell transplant and get back to teaching soon. But she has to work really hard to get her strength back and get her health restored. What in the world am I complaining about with my poor little foot? Anyway, she is going to get better because we have plans to go to our college reunion next spring and to the bass convention next summer. The opportunity to visit Jennifer again was the real reason I went on this trip. I'm so glad I was able to make it up there.

For the past few years Doug has gone up to an Labor Day weekend event known as the Honda S600 Gathering. The S600 was in production for a few years, from the mid-1960s through the early 70s. Jay Leno has one of these vintage cars in his collection and he has on occasion had Brian Baker, the founder of the Honda Gathering, come out to LA to work on his car. Doug also has two of these cars that he hopes to finish restoring one day. He has a bunch of the other early pre-Civic Hondas too. None of them run. He used to supplement his income working on these cars back when people actually drove them.

This is Doug and his new project

(as if he needs a new project...in New York no less)

This video shows Brian Baker and a fan driving off in his meticulously restored Honda S600.