Well, it’s been a couple of weeks and I’ve had a chance to internalize things and get the tears out of the way and get my head back into everyday things like work and brass and bills and other similarly riveting things.
After playing Mom’s memorial service a couple of Tuesdays ago, I jumped back into the banding world by returning to Atlanta in time for a rehearsal that night.
I’d planned to return a tuba that I’d been play-testing to the middleman who was trying to sell it, but he told me to hang onto it for a while, so I kept it for another week. During the week, I offered the owner $4500 for it. He counter-offered $5000, but before I had a chance to respond, he put the thing up for sale in an eBay auction, effectively pissing off me and the guy who’d been acting as the middleman.
I immediately bid $4000 for it on eBay (not enough to meet his reserve price), and the sale ended last night with nobody else going over $2000. I’m hoping that the seller goes back to the middleman to tell him that my offer of $4500 is now acceptable…at which point I’ll say that I saw the horn on eBay and he couldn’t get $2000 for it, so my offer is now $3000.
Jerk.
On Friday night, the band rehearsed with Dr. Joe Parisi, director of arguably the best brass band in the states – and one of the best in the world. For about 3 hours, he put us through our paces on the two pieces that we’ll be playing at the championships next month. Yesterday, we resumed rehearsing with Joe, this time for 7 hours. Not sure how much we’ve improved as a result, but my chops are sore today.
That’s not a particularly good thing, because we’ve got a concert tonight. I’m looking forward to it anyway.
Must get some shopping done (I’m completely out of food), and then figure out how to waste 5 hours before I head to the concert.
TWD