Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

I got to acolyte on Christmas Eve. Whee? (first time with the new pastor, and on Xmas Eve with a full church. No pressure.) OTOH, it *was* a full church. Haven't had one of those for a while, even on Xmas Eve. Part of it is that the weather cooperated -- it wasn't storming or really really cold -- but I think part of it that the new pastor (yes, that's two new pastors in less than three years) is a much better fit than the prior pastor. (That was such a bad fit that both the Church Council and the Pastor were complaining to District -- she is a nice enough person, but she came from a large formal urban church, and was not at all comfortable with a tiny somewhat casual country church. Nor did she want to be, afaict.)

Yesterday was a Lay Servant Day -- new Pastor is on vacation, taking her kids to see relatives, etc -- so Worship Committee decided to do a Service of Lessons and Carols. In theory, those are nice, but when the choir is one person, it's a lot of work for that one person. And I've sung more in the last month than I had in the previous three or four, so my voice was beginning to crack by the end of the service.

Ji is being crotchety today -- his preferred human is gone, and it's my fault. And it rained all day yesterday, which was also my fault. Sunny and clear today, but the ground is still wet from yesterday's over 2" of rainfall. So he went out a few times this morning, but not for very long stretches. Then I had the temerity to *leave* the house, so he was trapped, trapped, I tell you (uh-huh. you were sleeping on the bed until I got home). At which point he went outside for half an hour or so, until the neighbor's dog saw him and started barking.

Annabelle is being serenaded by calico Friend Cat. Who is outside on the deck, looking in. And aligned such that it took me actually *looking* to realise that it was another cat on the deck, not just a reflection in the glass. The best way to break up this stand-off is to leave the room and turn off the light. So I will. :)

chilly and dreary, looks like it's gonna rain today. I have errands to run, but I've got a really strong case of the 'donwannas'. Tomorrow is supposed to be actual rain, and Sunday is the LCCB Halloween concert (plus I'm singing at church). But I've been out either to rehearsal or on errands every day this week, and I just wanna stay home at least one day....

Wednesday I got my COVID booster - the nurse doing it said that that was the first day that they'd opened COVID boosters to their general patient population - staff first, then high-risk patients by invitation, then the rest of us. I didn't know that it was the first day of availability - it was just the first available day when I went looking. Go me. (no side effects, other than a sore arm for the rest of that day.)

J is safely back from his trip to a suburban Minneapolis roof. (via Roscommon and Laurium, as one does.) The black cat has just about forgiven me for the week that J was gone -- he brought me a (dead) chipmunk yesterday.

It rained all day yesterday. (over an inch of rain. never very hard, but it rained from about 10am to about 8pm, with bits of drizzle after that.) Today they're telling us that the high temperature will be in the mid 60sF -- Wednesday it was 85F in my yard. I did no yard work on Wednesday, even though I should have finished weeding the E garden -- my back was complaining, a lot, and I have learned that pushing through that level of complaint leads to a week of doing nothing. I'll give the garden a try later this afternoon, because this is as warm as day as they're predicting for the next week.

I expect that the FCB gig on Sunday will be cancelled. (currently, NWS says it will be 51F with 40% chance of showers.) That will make my life more difficult, as all of the things I'd take to the gig need to get to the cider mill on the 15th -- when I have a gig in Howell at the same time. So I'll be hauling all those things up to Farmington on Monday and handing them off to "someone else" to deal with.

Ji (the black cat) is being an obstreperous little beastie. Monday he decided that it'd been too long since he'd seen his preferred human and went on a hunger strike. I was a bit concerned, but he started eating again on Tuesday. I've not been able to get more than four or five of his pills into him - J's been gone since Thursday morning, so Ji is well down on his meds. foo. It's a long-term systemic med, and missing a few days really isn't going to cause any real problems, but still.... (My thumb isn't as long as J's, so I have to get the cat's mouth open farther to get the pill in. the cat doesn't like this.)

Annabelle (the gray cat) has been going outside on her own for most of the summer - she's figured out doors, so we're a little more willing to let her out. She was out yesterday morning when it started to rain. While it didn't rain really hard, it did start with fairly dense big raindrops. She was very confused by the sky throwing things at her. She trotted right in when I opened the door and called her.

Yesterday I ushered at Rackham Auditorium. The Jerusalem String Quartet did Haydn's E-flat Major, a UMS premiere of P. Ben-Haim's Quartet No. 1, and Dvorak's Quintet in A-Major where they were joined by Inon Barnatan on piano. The Quintet was my favorite, but that was mostly because the cellist and the pianist were having so much fun cuing each other. By the third movement of the quintet, the lead violinist was getting in on the fun. The encore (decided that morning, according to the violist) was a Scherzo from a Shostakovich quintet. I liked the Ben-Haim, but there were people in the audience who didn't like it because "it sounds wrong". (there was one old man who wouldn't/couldn't even admit that it was well-played -- I couldn't tell which. He was complaining to me because I was wearing a UMS badge.) Ben-Haim was a German Jew who moved to Palestine in the 1930s, and the quartet uses a lot of non-European folksongs and tonalities. If you want new stuff that's just like the old stuff only different, you're not gonna like this one -- not like the Haydn, which shuffled the "standards" of a string quartet but still kept within the Western musical sound.

And I have three things!

I have been *learning*(!) stuff. :) The high school band that the FCB used to share music with was, erm, not very responsible with their music. Last week, the librarian handed out a piece of music that was missing the Tenor sax, bari sax, and timpani parts. Some pieces you can buy just the part you need for $5 or so, but not this one. So we asked around, and none of the usual sources had it. But the score is available for free.... I downloaded it, and transcribed the Barisax part, which took a few hours. The Tenor sax part is nearly identical, rhythm-wise, to the BSax part and so only took 30 minutes . Then I looked at the timpani part, and it was pretty easy to transcribe. Once I learned how to do rolls and an uncounted measure and stemless notes....

The weather has been downright weird! Wednesday it was over 50F, so the snow all melted. On top of frozen ground, so it puddled/ponded everywhere! The field behind the house is flooded deeper than I ever remember, and there is a debris field in the easement from the water running into it. It was 40F when I got up this morning, and it's now 28F, and they tell us it will be 7F tonight. And it will start snowing at some point. I hope that the upper air levels will be cold enough by then that we will just get snow, not snow/ice/sleet... But we shall see.

When I went out to feed the birds this morning, there was a squirrel on the hopper feeder completely blocking my view of it, so I had no idea how full it was. He didn't leave until I was five feet away from the feeder, and then he dropped onto the packed snow underneath the feeder and scrabbled a lot on the ice, trying to get away from the "monster".

Ji-kitteh has discovered the small toy mice, and has been playing with them. There are two, and he plays with one at a time. He picks it up by the tail and flings it into the air, then bats it around until it goes under furniture, at which point he walks away 'who me? that wasn't me making all that noise.' an hour or so later (after his nap), he's back doing the same thing. He still "hunts" the larger IKEA mouses when the house is empty, but they're not as much fun to play with.

Rehearsals are getting a little more intense as we near performance dates. Odd how that works. I need to do some work on a couple of places in the LCCB repertoire, mostly so I can reliably nail an octave drop. The FCB stuff needs more work. The Britten has been moved off to the May concert, so I have more time to work on it. I have my suspicions that Esme can't play that lick -- I'm not entirely sure that the key action on the larger keys is fast enough. Newer horns tend to have faster action, between shorter key travel, lighter keypads, and lighter/more efficient rod & spring design and placement. The hazards of playing an older horn....

The weekly hunt for stands has reached ridiculous levels. When Harrison closed, four racks of stands (22 stands on each rack) got moved to North, which already had three racks. Six months into the school year, we can't reliably find enough stands for a 90 piece wind symphony. We have resorted to swiping stands from the orchestra room and replacing them after rehearsal. The music directors at North claim to have no idea where the stands are disappearing to. Chairs are getting hard to find, too, which is beyond annoying - North *had* a hundred band chairs, and got 60 usable chairs from Harrison.

The birds continue to eat birdseed, the deer drink out of the birdbath and dig into the snow to get to spilled birdseed. The snow melted over the weekend, so they haven't had to dig through a crust of snow. They tell us we're going to get snow tonight.

We got a new cat tree on Saturday, which the cats have so far mostly ignored; as expected. The old one had a long drop from the bottom level to the floor, and the cats are getting older (Belle is 8, Ji is 12). The new one is, well, new. And smells a bit like packing box and a bit like new carpet. They'll eventually climb it -- Belle is currently curled up in the bottom level, in a sunbeam. Ji rarely curled up in the old tree, but some of that is because the top bed was really too small for him and he's getting too old to be comfortable overflowing a bed - this one has bigger beds, and more of them, so while I don't think they'll ever both be in it at the same time, at least he'll be comfortable.

One holiday concert down (LCCB), one to go (FCB). Stage rehearsal for FCB on Friday (good thing, too, as DC was not at rehearsal last night!). It will be better performed than the LCCB concert, but may not be up to the FCB's usual standards. Especially as I heard some chatter afterward that the first trumpet player has somehow gotten himself scheduled for a gig every night this week. And he's known this for a while, but did he bother to tell anyone? or have someone else(s) in the section work on those parts? or even decline one of those other gigs (he's not getting paid for most of them)? what do you think?

The LCCB is a good community band. They're not Very Good, and certainly not Outstanding or Superior, but better than many I've heard. The flutes are sharp, the 'bones tend to blatt when they get loud, the percussion is suspect, etc. But it's fun, and it's different music than the FCB.

Still waiting to hear back from EU about requests for her Xmas box. Will be making the stuff to send to Mum tomorrow, and get that out on Thursday

The black cat is glaring at the outside. It's snowing just a bit (there's a solid cover on the deck, but it's not deep enough to cover the grass yet), and he's not a big fan of falling snow. I wouldn't mind so much, except that he glares at me too, because it's obviously my fault that it's snowing.

this one thermoplastic, thumb only. Which is nice, because now I can at least move my wrist. It's much more restrictive of thumb movement than the old one, so now I can skip taping, which is good because the skin under the tape was getting really dry. OT seems to think that I might be able to play with it on, but I don't think it's the right shape for that. Typing is harder in some ways because I can't really move my thumb.

Not real pleased with the initial eval, as she seems to think it's just arthritis. Which it isn't because the symptoms are wrong and they don't respond to the treatments for arthritis (other than immobilization). OTOH, that will become apparent during further visits (I have six scheduled, and may get more depending upon progress) Doc says tendinitis, which matches symptoms much better.

OT was a bit irked that I'd been in the wrist splint for so long, but it's not my fault that it took over a month to get an appointment with the specialist and then another week to get in to the OT. So now I'll get wrist exercises as well. whee. I get to take Esme in with me next week, so she can see exactly what movements cause pain. She asked what my goals were, and I said "to not say 'ow' four or five times a day, and maybe be able to practice three or four hours a week".

However, the five weeks off from playing seem to have helped quite a bit -- didn't hurt nearly as much at rehearsal on Monday as it had at the concert. Bunch of new, hard music this time. I expect we'll get the easier stuff later as we won't need to rehearse them as much. There's also a woodwind choir piece that has two barisax parts(!). I *really* need to practice that one - while the key signature (5 sharps) doesn't bother me, the double sharps and accidentals are tricky, and the range is pretty ridiculous.

Ji ia really annoyed with me -- it's been cold for the last couple of days; yesterday it was icy and today it's snowing. I am really incompetent at this weather control thing. who knew? (and it's also my fault that J didn't do the litter box last night. again, who knew?)

FCB Concert Band vs The Weather -- the FCB won last Monday's match. It was pretty much perfect weather for a concert in the park (in their backyard). Just enough breeze to keep the bugs down (the building uses citronella in the courtyard, so that helps). The building we were at is two sides of a square, with the building itself shielding the courtyard from the road and the parking lot, and looking out over a large city park.

Ji -- doing much better. Whatever he had, the meds are working on. I took him in for a followup with his actual vet on Tuesday (SOP, once Lane gets test results back). He was already perkier and less glum. Doc says he sounded fine and was staying hydrated. He was fairly chatty in the waiting room, so one of the vet assistants came out with a "calming towel", thinking he was scared. Nope, he was expressing his displeasure with being in the box. He's been getting very vocal about his desire to go outside. He's also annoyed with me for misplacing J. Still not happy about the antibiotic, but doesn't hiss or fight anymore. Still trots off and hides under the bed when it's done, but only for a few minutes, then comes out for his treat.

Weather in general -- not hot. no rain, though. We got just over a tenth of an inch (2mm) of rain yesterday, but other than that, nothing appreciable here since sometime in June. Other places in the metro area have been doing much better. Last Saturday, I drove up to Southfield for a thing, and got dumped on both ways, and it rained pretty much all the time we were there. The flat roofed building we were in still leaks a bit around the atrium windows. Always has, to the best of my knowledge. (It was held at the building where I went to church when I was younger. The church sold the building in the early 1990s and moved to Farmington.)

A source tells me that the Belle Isle concert series got rained out on Sunday (July 22). So their season is not going as well as ours. They've had at least two days of matches cancelled due to weather. (The source is CB, who plays in both the FCB and one of the groups scheduled for July 22. Another of the groups he plays in is scheduled for sometime in August. He's hoping for cool weather and no frogs or fire. :) )

So much not much going on here.

FCB rehearsal on Monday was hard -- the guest conductor for the next concert came in, and she worked us hard. The fact that I'd missed the previous week's rehearsal probably did not help at all. There were three pieces of music handed out that week, and only two of them made it into my folder. I was able to track down who has my music, but he wasn't at rehearsal. It's for the mass band at the Motor City Festival, so we probably won't run it before out April concert anyway.

It's been too cold to work in the garden, and my back's been bothering me more than usual since I went to the dentist on Thursday.

Mum's furniture made it into her apartment on Saturday morning - she said she turned in the key to the guest suite Saturday afternoon, after she found sheets and made the bed.

There's been entertainment in the yard, though. The crows and the sandhill cranes were having a standoff, cawing/chattering at each other and the cranes flaring their wings whenever the crows got too close. A hawk dove into one of the tall shrub next to the pond and a whole bunch of birds flew out. Then the hawk came out, settled its feathers and tried diving into the other shrub, at which point Ji went bounding across the yard to see if he could catch anything. They both missed, and another bunch of birds flew out of that bush.

And it's April 1. So far the only April Fool's joke I've seen is from Dharma Trading, who told me that the alginate they sold for marbling trays was somehow contaminated by 'magic grow sea animals", and offering to foster the critters with their warehouse octopods. :)

it's weird.

J is at the annual picnic, which I have skipped, yet again. The seats in his car and my back do not get along -- a Chicago trip (especially coming home after a con) is about as much time in the front seats as is comfortable, and annual picnic is about twice that. Driving would be worse, I think, as the headrests force my head into an uncomfortable position (he replaced the passenger side headrest with one from an earlier model, and it's much better)*. I'd like to go to the UP and see people, both those who live there and those who are visiting, but....

DB has run off to Chicagoland with a friend and her aunt to see a concert. Don't know which one, or where; some K-pop band, iirc.

The birdbath was knocked over this morning when I went out. I suspect one of the raccoons missed a jump. :)

Frog count is 8 in the pond plus at least two tree frogs.

I had intended to get some work done in the sewing room this week, but have been thwarted by cats. Either Ji is outside or Belle wants to "help". sigh. Belle will only get worse when DB goes off to Western in September, I suspect.



(* let's just say that when I replace my car, it will not be with an Escape. The seats don't fit me, and Esme doesn't fit in the back....)