arghhhhh!

Today Jim is buying (another ) car - how can this be? Amazingly he has now got about 16 cars but he promised that he will sell this one - it was just such an amazing deal! Anyway, for thrills you can check out the new rig (and all the old ones) here http://tank.windwireless.net/~jimc/

survivor

What a weekend! I am soooo glad it is over, everything went well. Great weather - fireworks were better than ever. Today I had a lesson and brought my former teacher's Laubin. We were able to adjust it pretty well, but some binding on the C# and a couple weird things - so I left it with local repair genius Peter. He is very busy right now, but I figure I wasn't using it anyway, might as well get it in line. I'm also having him replace all the bladder pads (I think there were 5 on the lower keys) with nice cork. Should be a lovely horn when it's done.

Anyone out there have Laubin experience?

tonight,tonight

Wow, I had the greatest reeds of the century for the first act tonight! I felt amazing, it was so great. But in the morning I have not one, but two 2.5 hour rehearsals for the Fireworks concert (all baroque stuff; read: chop-killing) and then another show. Yikes. Because Sunday afternoon is closing for Putting It Together, then the Fireworks. It is the only gig I have ever played with security. That's how I know it's really cool.

In other news, we went to Goodwill today (my favorite store) and I got the cutest little potential reed case - it looks like a tiny briefcase, with little flippers and everything. Inside there is even a partition (I think it is for business cards) that would be great to hold a plaque. But I need to figure out how to make the "guts" of a reed case. I know people used to do this, seems like there should be directions somewhere on the the web!

home decorating

No joy on the floor yet, but we actually discussed giving some of the old furniture away to needy relatives (you know who you are!) and Jim didn't have a heart attack. It would be my dream to get a new couch (which we can totally afford) and maybe a hide-a-bed too, which would even fit if we got rid of some of the obsolete computer equipment (or at least put it in the garage). *sigh*

But I am excited to have my office space - just have to empty one of the many bookcases (full of obsolete computer manuals) and then I'll have room for all my DR journals! (and a few other things)

HP no spoilers

Well, I'm done with Harry - good book! I actually enjoyed all of them, so there.
Of course I should have been practicing the Fireworks music - we are doing the Royal Fireworks Music as always, but also a bit of Mahler's 4th, Beethoven's Turkish March, Nais by Rameau, and Danserye by Susato, along with several marchy things and Fanfare for the Common Man. Of course DD has arranged all these for our instrumentation, which is about 20 oboes, 4 EH, 16 bassoons, 8 horns, 8 picc tpts, and perc. Can't wait!

D has a cold right now, so we have stayed home all day and I actually cleaned! Maybe we'll make progress on the kitchen floor tonight (down to sub floor, has been for months).

break!

Yay! First week of the show is done...time for a much needed break. Today for the first time I had terrible water in the B, Bb and A keys. What a pain, only one really gurglly sounding exposed part - but I worked myself into a frenzy swabbing and papering and blowing (and fretting mostly). Other than that the show went very well, although my beloved was not a huge fan, he only liked the song about sex (Bang!) and the one about the crazy bride (Not Getting Married). These are both from Company, maybe I'll take him to that sometime. D was pretty good, but he said he likes shows with a story better.

Now for 2 days off!

potter

We joined the ranks of millions and purchased a copy of the new Harry Potter book. I figured I might as well since we have all the others even though I won't have time to read it for a while.

Tonight's show went pretty well, things are really starting to gel. I am kind of excited that my family is coming tomorrow for the matinee. D is very suspicious, he wants it to be just like Mame. I think Jim will appreciate the lyrics, Sondheim is much more clever than some other popular musical composers...