Violin Nation, President: not me so much

Greetings, travelers. Welcome to the oasis. Parched? Have a tall glass of...I really really really should have practiced more last week! Blerg. Just yesterday I participated in the season opener for the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic. My performance was, well, less than thrilling. The same cannot be said, however, for my colleagues and peers. Cheers to the WMP! We had a solid first concert, accompanied by chorus. And with the added fan base of the chorus, we even had a solid audience, too. In fact, my weekend was bookended by some great music. Listen well, children, and I will tell you the tale...

The other day, my roomie Kristen and I were walking through a neighborhood park close to 925. We saw, on a telephone pole, a flyer for a FREE chamber music concert performed by the IBIS (I still don't know what that stands for) at the Lyon Park Community Center. The flyer assured us that the theme of the evening was "movie music", and you should know that I can never, ever turn down an opportunity to hear movie music. That settled it. We had plans for Friday night. When Friday came around I skipped merrily home from the metro. No, that's a lie. I would never skip home. How embarrassing. I walked home with a bit of spring to my step, delighted that the weekend was nigh and the temperature was high. Nope, lied again. The temperature was not high, it was more like perfection. We'll say 70s. Soooo, I entered my house, sorted the mail, walked up the stairs with my mail in hand, passed through my doorway and immediately plopped down in front of my new computer.

Here's a side note: I got a new computer. Yes, friends. I am the new owner of Laurel's technologically delicious Mac Mini. It sits primly on a ghetto black coffee table in my room, and it works like a dream. I received the highly anticipated computer package the previous day (Thursday) so I was still working on personalizing it and getting all my settings adjusted to my liking. Oh, I'll have you know that I set it up all by myself. I'm no slouch.

That being said, I spent a bit of time playing on the computer before I took off with Kristen to run some errands before the concert. I would just like to say that every time I drive around Arlington and the Pentagon and the Potomac it just renews my excitement for living in DC. We were just running an errand to Pentagon City and there was the Air Force Memorial, piercing the evening sky. That's probably my favorite memorial, by the way. It's so cool. Anyway, I saw that magnificent feat of engineering on my way to Costco. Costco is not a magnificent feat of engineering. It's more like a magnificent setting for organized chaos. It brought back so many memories of shopping with the 'rents at Sam's Club. Good times, good childhood. Okay, so after some errand running, Kristen and I stopped to pick up some dinner at Noodles & Co. (don't tell my P90X coach) before heading to the community center. We didn't think it would be a good idea to eat our smelly pasta dinners in the community center, so we sat at a picnic table in the park right outside and scarfed down our meals in the dark. We walked into the community center, found a seat near the back, and were promptly transported to a dream world of magic. Well, I certainly was.

IBIS is made up of 6 musicians: a string quartet, flutist, and harpist. All the musicians are employed either by the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra or the Boston Esplanade POPS, or something like that. They're all professionals - that's the point. I heard a violin duo piece, string quartet pieces, a flute/harp duo, a harp solo (lovely piece by John Williams from Angela's Ashes), and a quintet arrangement of Mischief Managed from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, also by John Williams. I LOVE JOHN WILLIAMS! Ahem. Anyway, it was great. It was free, it was musically sound, and it was creative. Me likey.

The rest of Friday night and Saturday passed in a blur of sleep, movie watching, computer playing-onning, and birthday partying. Sunday I arose for my first WMP orchestra. No, I wasn't nervous. I was too sleepy to be nervous. Plus, I sit at the back of the second violins. Not too much pressure there. However, I am pleased to announce that we had a good first show. The violins were a wee bit skimpy, seeing as how we were missing two of our first violins (that's what happens with a volunteer community orchestra), but we pulled it off. I heard nothing but good things from the audience members. The Hymn of Praise for chorus and orchestra, written by F. Mendelssohn, was really lovely. It's murder on the violinists to play. We have practically no breaks and consistent brush strokey 8th notes for pages on end. It's very exhausting. But I made it, sleep deprived as I was. And we get a second chance to make it even better when we perform the show again this coming Sunday. The WMP's season is comprised of 5 different programs. Each show is performed twice, once in Alexandria, VA, and once in DC. So this Sunday is the DC Sunday. After that, it's back to rehearsals for our Christmas concert. My favie! :) I mean, just yesterday I was making sure that all my Christmas CD's are in iTunes to make for the best Christmas playlist this town's ever seen.

By the way, it is very difficult to rebuild one's playlist when one's iPod has gone to iPod heaven. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if my iPod was in purgatory with as much trouble as it gave me at the end of its life. I had some great music I'd downloaded from my brother and sister's computer and now it's all gone cause I never had the songs in my own song arsenal. Fool of a Took! Oh well, I'll build it back up again. No worries. That's what the iTunes store is for.

So that's that. I'm enjoying my new computer. Trying to find a Mac compatible webcam + mic so I can Skype my sister like it's my job. Oh, and I did get a call from the Alexandria, KY Police Department. "Oh, sorry about that. You can just disregard that citation. It shouldn't have even been mailed to you. Our systems were down that day so the officer wasn't able to verify the license plate at the time." All one big misunderstanding, folks. Happens to the best of us.

So this week I'm holding down the fort at the office, preparing myself to be a stellar volunteer at the Smithsonian's national board meeting this Thursday and Friday, and trying to finish my book for book club next week. Cheers, y'all!