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Christmas approaches...
Dec. 17th, 2019 09:02 amThe baking is done, the boxes are shipped. Mum's arrived yesterday. We played package swap, as the box of fruit from a FL grower that she sent us arrived at about the same time yesterday. DB opened the box and ate a pear almost immediately. (I don't blame him. Good pears are hard to find around here, even in season.) K's box is in Melbourne, so it will probably get to her before the expected delivery date of 12-23, although it depends on how much interest Customs takes in it -- she says that one box got opened in a random check, but they passed it through in about 15 minutes.
Band is over until January, and Esme is in the shop. I don't usually take her in over the holiday break, but one of the 'snaps' that holds the larger keypads in place fell off sometime before Thanksgiving. It wasn't causing any real problems yet, but eventually the pad would loosen and start shifting around and then it would leak and the sound and tone would go wrong. Best to get it fixed now while I had a break, rather than waiting for the pad to fall out. :) A couple of years ago, the shop that I take her to offered me a service contract, and I took it. It does make it easier to take her in for little things. The clerks at the front desk are sometimes surprised that I come in all the way from Chelsea to an inner-ring Detroit suburb, but Mum used to live five miles from the shop.... And even now that she's moved, I take advantage of being in that direction anyway to stop at IKEA and the Henry Ford and different fabric stores, etc.
They've been boring cables in across the street (the ground's not frozen deep yet), so the black cat has been sulking about that - he's not fond of diesel engines.
The big storm that went across the US yesterday went south of us -- I got about a dozen raindrops while I was out, and drove through flurries on Sunday, but no accumulation.
Sunday's concert went pretty well, I think. It was short for an FCB concert (75 minutes or so, where they usually aim for 90 minutes), but we had missed two rehearsals, so a couple of things got left out. Only three holiday pieces on the program, which is about right for the FCB. Livingston's holiday concert was all holiday music, but it's nice to have something else on the program. No Leroy Anderson Sleigh Ride again this year (we really don't miss it, but the audience seems to expect it). There is some chatter that next year we'll program three or four different "sleigh rides", while still not playing the Anderson. Jingle Bells is "a one horse open sleigh", there's the Troika from Prokofiev's Lt. Kije, and I'm sure there are others.
Band is over until January, and Esme is in the shop. I don't usually take her in over the holiday break, but one of the 'snaps' that holds the larger keypads in place fell off sometime before Thanksgiving. It wasn't causing any real problems yet, but eventually the pad would loosen and start shifting around and then it would leak and the sound and tone would go wrong. Best to get it fixed now while I had a break, rather than waiting for the pad to fall out. :) A couple of years ago, the shop that I take her to offered me a service contract, and I took it. It does make it easier to take her in for little things. The clerks at the front desk are sometimes surprised that I come in all the way from Chelsea to an inner-ring Detroit suburb, but Mum used to live five miles from the shop.... And even now that she's moved, I take advantage of being in that direction anyway to stop at IKEA and the Henry Ford and different fabric stores, etc.
They've been boring cables in across the street (the ground's not frozen deep yet), so the black cat has been sulking about that - he's not fond of diesel engines.
The big storm that went across the US yesterday went south of us -- I got about a dozen raindrops while I was out, and drove through flurries on Sunday, but no accumulation.
Sunday's concert went pretty well, I think. It was short for an FCB concert (75 minutes or so, where they usually aim for 90 minutes), but we had missed two rehearsals, so a couple of things got left out. Only three holiday pieces on the program, which is about right for the FCB. Livingston's holiday concert was all holiday music, but it's nice to have something else on the program. No Leroy Anderson Sleigh Ride again this year (we really don't miss it, but the audience seems to expect it). There is some chatter that next year we'll program three or four different "sleigh rides", while still not playing the Anderson. Jingle Bells is "a one horse open sleigh", there's the Troika from Prokofiev's Lt. Kije, and I'm sure there are others.
