May 1st already. How’d that happen?
Last week was Easter and I had a gig with Betsy, John, and some college kid who I didn’t know, in a little Episcopal church in the teeming city of Americus, GA. It was a decidedly strange affair – beginning with the instrumentation. Originally, this was to be either a brass quartet or quintet, but one of the trumpeters bailed on us about a week before the gig, so John flew in from Texas to replace the missing trumpet – with a trombone. So we ended up with the kid on 1st trumpet, John playing the 2nd trumpet part on a trombone, Betsy playing the 1st bone part on a euphonium, and me playing the 2nd bone part on a tuba.
 |
| My hand was not attractive after I polished my tuba for an Easter gig |
Oddly enough, it didn’t sound all that bad. We were quite attentive and well-behaved during the service, by the way, because we were scolded by the priest, after a rehearsal on Saturday night, that we’d better behave and pay attention during the Sunday services. I’m fairly certain that that’s never happened to me before, and I can only assume that it was prompted by some previous group of instrumentalists at the church; but John summed it up well enough: “How about you treat us like professionals, you jerk?”
He didn’t actually say that to the priest, but I think we were all thinking some variation of it, and John verbalized it in the parking lot after the scolding.
During my drive to the rehearsal on Saturday, I started chewing a piece of gum and one of my crowns fell out. Lovely. I spent the next two days trying not to play with the gaping hole in my toothline with my tongue (I was not successful and ended up with a sore tongue). Got that under control eventually, and had the crown glued back in (and got everything else cleaned) on Thursday.
While eating a hotdog yesterday, I managed to make the crown fall off again…
In the news this week: Obama has proven, for about the third time, that he is an American citizen. Birther wingnuts finally forced him to show the “long form” birth certificate (to go along with the certificate of live birth, birth announcements in Hawaiian papers, the fact that his mother is American, the fact that he was vetted by the DNC, etc.). Of course, the validity of the birth certificate was immediately called in to question by people who don’t know the first thing about PDF files, and several of my former Facebook friends decided that the whole birther conspiracy must be real.
I say “former” Facebook friends because that type of idiocy is just too much for me. I can deal with rapid conservativism, but when you just go batshit crazy, you are no longer a friend of mine. All told, I think I “unfriended” about 7 people.
The fuse to the front cigarette lighter in my car is now blowing on a regular basis. I went out yesterday and got an extension so that I can power things from the rear outlet for now, but I also spent a great deal of time researching just how to get the center console/arm rest out of my car so that I can try to figure out what’s causing the problem. I may try to do that today. Also need to mow the lawn, though – and I need to get some gasoline for the mower.
Have two very large projects on my plate at work – neither of which interest me.
Earlier this week, we had some incredible storms in the southeast. Tuscaloosa and Birmingham were both hit pretty hard by tornadoes, and I was pretty worried – watching radar – that my house wasn’t going to exist for much longer. Actually, I wasn’t worried about that – I was sort of looking forward to having State Farm build me a new one. I was worried about saving my cats and my car and my horns and an antique clock and various other things.
Fortunately, the storms literally split in half just before getting to my area. Some went to the north and some swung around to the south. Other than some gusty winds and a few drops of rain, my neighbourhood was untouched.
Cooked a couple of burgers on the grill last night. First time I’ve fired it up this year. It was such a lovely evening that I felt compelled to be outside as much as possible. Today looks to be a repeat of yesterday…maybe I’ll grill some corn or something.
TWD