that was nice....

I did wind up going to Capricon. I _did_ spend the weekend looking for the 'least bad' chair, but as the GT room was on the business suite floor, there were a lot of very nice upper management conference chairs in the room, so my back is no more cranky than it was when I left. Perhaps a bit less, as I didn't spend a few hours every day moving things in the workroom....

I did keep up my tradition of not going to programming, but as it's been a decade since I've gone to any, this should not be a surprise.

It was a very small con, for fairly obvious reasons. There has often been a large 'out-of-region' contingent for the con, and many of those people decided they didn't feel comfortable flying, and who in their right minds wants to drive into the upper Midwest in the winter? (some people with memberships were snowed in!) In addition, the convention has been out in the northern suburbs of Chicago for decades, and it was the first con in a (huge) downtown hotel. Lotsa Chicago peeps decided they didn't want to come downtown for a convention, so we missed them. (J was talking to his walking group from work, and said 'we're driving to Chicago to hang out with people who live 20 miles from us' and he was not entirely wrong.)

The cats were frantic when we got home. It's been *YEARS* since they've been left all alone. Usually when J and I went somewhere together, at least one kid stayed home for Reasons. And we forgot to put out an extra bowl of food when we left.... But they survived, and have (for the most part) stopped giving us the evil eye.

Oooh! I forgot to mention this....

Notes listened to! (for those coming in midway, I usher for the University Musical Society at UMich. I get to go to concerts for free (well, and an hour of being polite and competent).)

It's been a very light season so far, and most of the UMS sponsored performances have been on days when I have other commitments, so this was the first concert that fit into the schedule.

A week ago, I ushered the Imani Winds and Catalyst String Quartet (Im)Migration show. Contemporary chamber music, with an emphasis on BIPOC composers. A world premier of a Florence Price string quartet (found in manuscript form in a house she used to live in); a piece written for the two groups to play together; something from a Cuban composer; something from a Puerto Rican composer. It was good, but I was reminded that I just don't "get" contemporary chamber music. But it was nice to see a live performance, and I'll rarely turn down a show at Rackham Auditorium.

The next two UMS gigs will be the Philadelphia Orchestra at Hill Auditorium later in the month. Those will be good, and probably much more to my taste. (I'm not going to work the jazz concerts, because I don't "get" modern jazz, either. A stick in the musical mud, I am....)