The Cake that Took the Cake

I missed a February post by that much. Blimey. Oh well, I prefer March to February anyway - now that I don't get Presidents' Day off from work. Happy March! Beware the Ides of it! Aaaaand scene.

I've been home over a month now. Can you believe it? I can't. I left Arlington, VA, on January 24th and arrived in Tulsa on January 25th. I think we can all agree that I've been home over a month. And this week will be my fourth on the job. How did I get so Tulsan again so quickly? I don't know where the time went, but I'll tell you this: I'm loving it. Who knew I'd be back on the streets of Tulsa - driving, not walking, as this is no pedestrian city - and so happy to see that Taco Cabana and that Panera bread and that ORU?! It is good to be home again.

Alright, I'm going to insert my foot into my mouth RIGHT NOW and tell you what my goals are for this year in Tulsa. Yes, please remind me of these in 9 months and listen to my sob stories of how I just couldn't quite get them all accomplished. Whatever. Here we go: I want to take violin lessons again, I want to learn to cook more foods, I want to pick up this physical fitness thingy again and I want to spend more time poolside during the warmer months. My first goal isn't set in stone, but I would love to be a sub again for the Tulsa Signature Symphony. I did that when I was living here last and it was great fun. Plus, this October my dad and brother will performing with the symphony, and it'd be jolly good to play with them. I told my mom I wanted to learn to cook more and I'm worried that will be interpreted as let-me-cook-for-you-often. Nope! I just want to try new recipes and...okay, that does sound like let-me-cook-for-you-often. Okay, maybe I'll start trying one new recipe a week. Geez, I should just take some initiative. I'm not shaking on it!

Alright, here's the rub with the physical fitness thing. I really have to do it. Problem! I don't walk everywhere anymore. In DC I walked two miles everyday just to get to and from the metro. I canceled my gym membership because that was enough of a work out for me in the winter months. Well, now I'm driving everywhere AND sitting at a desk all day AND sitting on my couch at night to (re)read Harry Potter. But how to get motivated to pick up those running shoes again? Maybe look in the mirror. Ha! Self-deprecating humor! It's like I'm hilarious and British! Anyway, that's a goal. March is a good time for this. Perhaps I'll pair that goal with giving up something junk foody for Lent. Perhaps.

Finally, let's spend some time at the pool, people. I don't have one, but I know people. I have pool connections. I just have to milk them for all they're worth. Not that I'm using anyone. Aaaand scene.

You know, I've found myself a lot busier than I thought I'd be upon returning home. For some reason I had this expectation that I'd be home every night, wondering what activities I should get involved in so I could "plug in" to the community. I guess that's been my task the last two moves I've made (i.e. Kentucky and DC), so I assumed the same would go for Tulsa. Nerd. How about all the friends I haven't seen in ages? How about the musical events I attend because I'm finally in the same city where my dad and brother play? How about it?! Maybe that's why this month flew by...

Alright, I have a cake story, slash explanation for the picture that won't seem to copy and paste to the bottom of this post. My Sunday school class made a cake to auction off at the annual FUMC Birthday Banquet, an event to raise money for youth missions. Not only were we making a cake to raise money for the youth, we were making a cake to win the "Best Cake" prize. Last Saturday we gathered, tools in hand, to make a penguin and his igloo look impressive. We even incorporated a class "uniform" into our presentation. Gotta admit, victory tastes sweet.

I'm on Twitter (And Other Things)

Heyoooo! This post's original title was "The Fall Bucket List." However, I joined Twitter yesterday so that takes precedence now. Yes, I caved. I used Twitter bug repellent for months and finally yesterday I forgot the ole spray can and the bug bit me. So now I tweet. Weird. Feel free to follow me: @gillyblythe.

Even though I tweet I still feel very out of touch with modern social media. I'm using Twitter on my iPhone and I don't understand what all the symbols/buttons mean. So I could be misusing the system and not even know it. Eh, ignorance is bliss.

So, onto the meat of this post - the "other things." This fall is shaping up to be uber busy. With the departure of Roomie K I felt the need to fill up my schedule so I'd be less likely to feel her loss (read: weep). Ergo, I decided to do three things that I hadn't done this summer. One, I decided to take Spanish. That's right! Soy estudiante de espanol. And I love it. Granted, I'm only in Level 1 and always forget to practice what I've learned so my progress isn't quite the same as The Little Engine That Could. However, I know some stuff now. And with any luck, I'll go on to the next level after wrapping this one up in a month.

Here's the scenario for Spanish. Three of my friends and I meet our tutor at 7pm on Monday nights at the local Barnes & Noble. We set up shop for two hours, learning everyday conversational Spanish, and go home to practice and do our homework. Last week I bought a children's book of Spanish words. It has pictures. It's helpful. Anyway, we found out tutor through this program called Spanish Blackbelt. It's solid. We're working on our white belt right now. Let's hope I pass the test.

The second thing I put on my schedule for this fall was musical. I am the sole violinist in the pit orchestra for Centreville Presbyterian Church's winter community theatre production of Les Miserables. We haven't started rehearsals yet, but we will soon and so I guess I should practice, errrrr....? That project will be keeping me busy this fall and winter. And boy do those show composers seem to hate musicians. Could you add more key signatures??? I mean really. It's ridiculous.

So, the third thing I chose to add to my list is semi-new. I mean, I've done it before, but... Okay, I'll start over. I decided to join a new church. So, in getting involved in the new church, I decided to join a small group. I've done the small group thing before with my former church, but this is the new one, with new people. So that's a weekly thing. I'll miss my former church, of course. There were lots of good people there, but I'm excited about getting more involved in this new congregation and gaining a greater sense of Christian community. And, since I won't be working in the Children's Ministry anymore, I won't have little two-year olds yelling at me and breaking my necklaces. Ugh. They sure get testy when they're separated from their parents.

So those are the things. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to Twitter.

The Trinidad Post, Pt. 2

Aaaaaand we're back! And it's only been two days, suckas! AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And you thought I couldn't do it. I didn't think I could do it, for crying out loud. But anyway, back to basics. Back to the Motherland. Back to Trinidad.

No, not back to Tobago. We were supposed to go to Tobago on Thursday, but that didn't work out on account of all the boat races in the waters on that day. The ferry was full! No matter. We didn't need that tourist spot anyway. (Just kidding - I've been to the Bag and I love it. Hmmm, "The Bag" [pronounced with a long A sound]...I think I just started something.) Instead, we traveled to Harry's Water Park in T-dad. I just want you to know, it's way more fun than Big Splash. Don't think I'm being disrespectful to Tulsa, cause I'm not. I love me some Big Splash. However, in Trinidad they let multiple people go down the twisty slides at once. That's right. Three grown adults can all spoon up and go down the twisty slide at break neck speeds. What a rush. I almost killed my mom and me when I launched us from the top of that slide. And Laurel, Uncle K and I were flying down that thing. Good times, though. Good times. You haven't lived until you've seen your life flash before you whilst traveling down a water slide. Anyway, we swam, we grilled out in our own little cabana, Kyle and I practiced jumping and swimming in the kiddie pool, and the cousins and I had somersault contests and underwater distance swimming contests. It was an unofficial family olympics of sorts.

Now, on the way to and from these various site seeing adventures we had plenty of time in the maxi to get to know each other. For example, I know exactly which one of my cousins is the most competitive at the alphabet game, and who will get frustrated the quickest playing Mafia. Ha! The adults were up front singing old hymns and gospel songs and we young ones were in the back killing each other off in games of Mafia. Generational divide, peeps. Granted, we young kids also did some singing, but it was more along the lines of songs from Glee and not so much the sacred stuff. Oops. OH! I missed one important site seeing event. The night before the water park trip (Wednesday, for those keeping track) several of us family members took a long ride out to some Trinidadian beach to watch giant sea turtles lay eggs. I don't have any pictures of this since we're not supposed to use flash photography with the turtles (*cough* Laurel *cough*), but this thing was COOL. This turtle was bigger than I am and it was all laying its eggs and stuff. I even got to touch its shell and flippers once it had gone into its egg-laying trance. That was cool. I also got to see another smaller kind of turtle laying eggs and even released a newly hatched sea turtle into the water. Those things are squirmy. Now that's what I call vacation. Of course, it's a little scary walking along a dark beach, listening to the sounds of the waves absolutely CRASH against the shore. I kept thinking turtles were going to bite off my toes. And those stars there were incredible. I've never seen so many stars in one stretch of sky in my life. HOlla!

Alright, so the day after we went to Harry's Water Park we headed out to San Fernando, Trinidad to check out the world's largest natural pitch lake. Well, it might not be the largest but it has some sort of world record that's impressive. I don't remember these things. This lake is strange because half of it is soft pitch that you can walk right over, and then there are random pools of water in which you can swim. We saw people in a swimming hole and right next to them, still in the lake, were some kids kicking around a soccer ball. Cool. In some places our feet would sink inches into the pitch.

There were also pockets of sulfur water in the lake. We all splashed around in the green sulfur water, filling our water bottles with it and making sure it got to every single mosquito bite and blemish still afflicting our skin. Natural healers. Gotta love 'em.


There was also a white sulfur water stream that we used to clean jewelry. Unfortunately, this water quickly revealed what jewelry was real and what was fake. Some people ended up with black metal that used to look gold.

Wow, I can't believe we're up to Saturday morning now. But we are. I've skipped over a bunch of the fun parts, but how many times can I say that we watched Kyle dance to Michael Jackson songs, laughed at our own silliness and played board games till we keeled over from pure exhaustedness? HOW. MANY. TIMES? Saturday morning we foreigners did some souvenir shopping. We walked into the shopping hub of Arima....um, I think it was Arima...and bought things to take back to our friends and family in the States. And Japan. Saturday night most of us headed to the church to rehearse for the church service we were commandeering the next day.

Let me just tell you about how I ruin people's things. I was slated to play the violin for service, right? I didn't want to transport my own instrument internationally (flying with an instrument anymore is just ridiculous), so my family found a church member who was willing to loan me her violin for the day. What a nice woman. Um, sorry about what happens next. Well first she brought out her electric violin. I was like, YES! I've never played one and always wanted to. Well I'm warming up and I'm having a hard time not hitting two strings at once. This is not good as I'm not playing double stops in this piece. Turns out, the bridge on an electric violin is flatter than one on an acoustic. Luckily she had an acoustic violin, so I took that one over and proceeded to tune it. And that's. when. it. happened. I was trying to wrench the D-string peg into place. It was being very stubborn. All the others had done my bidding with a little coaxing. Why wasn't this one doing the same??? I yanked that peg one time too many and. * POP* The string broke. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! I felt like the biggest jerk on the planet. Um, hey stranger, thanks for being so generous with your stuff....that I broke. She took the D-string from the electric violin and put it on the acoustic. She was very gracious about her loss. My dad and I played and it was fine. But wow. That wasn't the most fun I've had breaking something.

Let me tell you a little bit about this church service. We took it over. I mean completely. We made up the band, the worship team, the special music, the announcements and the preaching. It was all Ryans. Poor congregation. Sorry we shoved ourselves in your face. They didn't seem to mind too much, though. We sang, we danced the electric slide, we clapped. I even got to play the bongos during one worship song. That's right. Me, playing bongos. Living the dream. I had to concentrate so much and I was not good at all, but it was the most fun.

Sunday was really the last day that we all had together. Family members started heading out that night so we had one last dinner/hurrah to end the week on a good note. In fact, in honor of my dad's (gulp) 60th birthday, we even roasted him. Surprise roasting, if you will. We played games, ate our faces off, danced more salsa, watched more music videos, played more Michael Jackson for Kyle and hugged each other goodbye as people started to leave.

That's the best trip I've ever had. Even though I can't talk Trini to save my life. (My sister told me I sounded more Hispanic than anything else.) Never mind that. And no offense to anyone I've ever visited. I had fun with you, too! But that trip, with my family, in the motherland....it was just...perfect.

Oops, I did it again

I judge myself for using that refrain as a title, but it is apt my friends. Oh, it is apt. (Apt...should have used that word when I was losing to Kristen at Bananagrams last night. Blimey. Oh well.)

You want to know what I did again - oopsily speaking? I signed myself up for something, wished I hadn't until the moment I'd arrived for said something, then ended up having the time of my life and wanting to do it again. Now, this generally happens to me with any sort of volunteer opportunity (few and far between unless you count the little kiddies at church) or musical obligation. I'm all trying to get involved and stuff and then I'm all, why the heck did I sign up for this again?...cause I'd rather be sleeping. Well, yesterday I drove out to the city-town of Reston, VA, after a trying morning with the pre-K kids. (It's never fun when someone pees on you.) I had my violin in hand, ready for an afternoon of Brahms' String Sextet #1 with some people I'd never met from the meetup.com group - DC Chamber Music Players. I really was not looking forward to this. I assumed I would be underprepared and would just really stink up the place, figuratively speaking, with my hideous rendition of a piece I'd only listened to on YouTube. Never mind that I could have practiced a lot more than I did. (Don't jump to conclusions. I DID practice...just not that much.) Anyway, I was nervous. It's never easy playing with a bunch of new people. I always underestimate my skill level (it's not that high, but never as low as I tell myself it is) and I didn't want to make a fool of myself in front of seasoned chamber players.

NO WORRIES! We started off with some encouragement. The Violin I player, Joe, said "I'm just warning you all that there are mutliple lines in here I can't play. I'll just play whatever notes come out." He was met with a chorus of, "It doesn't matter" and "We're just here to have fun." Yes! That's what I like to hear! I knew right then that I would enjoy myself. Plus, I was well prepared for the read-through. I knew my part and I only got lost a couple times :). Plus, the music is great. Have you ever heard that sextet? Youtube it, if you haven't. It's SO good! I was playing my little heart out. Everyone was so encouraging of the others and constructive with their musical suggestions. It was just pure fun. So yeah, I'll be doing that again. Plus, it was the most gorgeous day we've had all month - and that's saying something cause we've had really nice weather here lately - and I had the most fun driving between church and Reston and home. Windows down, music blaring, traffic light. (No, not traffic lights...traffic was light.) Perfection.

So it will probably be another month or two before I get together again with a chamber group. They have a couple meetings this month and next that I can't make as I'll be in Tulsa when they happen - woohoo! But one of the violists told me I should pick a piece I want to play in which i would play the first violin part. He said to pick a piece and let them know so we could all play it. I was like, alright! Any suggestions? Any beautiful chamber piece will do.

In other news, I will now update you on the new rug situation. Remember the rug? Quick refresher - K and I were carrying a rug to our house after we picked it up off the street. We caught the attention of some neighbors (who told us to look out for bed bugs) and subsequently made tentative plans to get acquainted. Well, in our perpetual state of silly K and I decided to invite the neighbors over for this past Saturday night. We had no contact information for them so we wrote them a note and dropped it off. The silly part comes here - the note said that we were inviting them over to celebrate our new rug and that they should R.S.V.P. via pigeon post by September 12, 2010.

...

We heard nothing for two weeks. I was convinved that my brilliant pigeon post comment had frightened them off forever. However, we decided we would be prepared for company on Saturday night just in case they chose to show. On Saturday afternoon we heard a knock at the door. On our front porch was a bottle of Resolve and a note that said "See you tonight." Clever, no? So feel free to tell strangers to reply via pigeon post when you write them notes. It doesn't scare them off. In fact, it will facilitate witty gift giving. Now we have some new friends in our neighborhood. Yay!

Sounds of the Season

My favorite part of Christmas is the music. Okay okay! Let's be real. My real favorite part of Christmas is celebrating the birth of Christ. Buuuuut! Whilst celebrating the great coming of our Savior, one often finds celebratory words put to...wait for it...music. The secular stuff is pretty good, too. Ready for some trivia? My favorite sacred piece: ooo, tough one - probably "Silent Night." I do love a good "Lo How a Rose," though, and "Good Christian Men Rejoice" makes me jolly. Favorite secular piece: definitely "The Christmas Waltz." Love it, love it, love it. Right now I'm listening to the full Nutcracker score. Gets me every time. More trivia - did you know that "Coventry Carol" was written as the mothers' lament when King Herrod was killing all their infant sons? That's what someone told me at orchestra rehearsal last night. I'd like a second opinion.

As my fellow musicians can attest, this season is probably the busiest one for people who love listening to music, making music, and appreciating music. Especially for those who make music, it's a very busy time. These days I don't make music for money, so my schedule isn't quite as full of Christmas parties and church services as it has been in the past, but that hasn't stopped the music from coming to me, as you'll see.

Last Tuesday afternoon I left the office at 3 o'clock to catch the metro to Bethesda, Maryland. The Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic was scheduled to perform a special one-night-only Christmas concert at the Strathmore Concert Hall (totally gorgeous, by the way) that evening at 8 pm. I will preface this story by stating that this is the longest day I can remember in recent history. You might think it was only 24 hours, but I must have fallen through the space-time continuum somehow. I arrived at the concert hall ready to rehearse for two hours. We had a lot of music to go over. Several guest artists made appearances with the orchestra that evening, so we had to go over our pieces for each one of them. What a disaster! One guy never got his music for a piece, so he was singing along in the wrong key. One guy said he'd only ever played the love theme from The Godfather in c minor, and he wanted the entire orchestra to transpose the piece so he could play it "like [he'd] been playing it for 23 years." We couldn't do that. Let me rephrase - most of us string players couldn't do that, so the guy had to play his oboe in g minor instead. Then, of course, every time we were ready to rehearse with a different soloist that person was nowhere to be found. Ultimately our dress rehearsal ran a bit over time. We all had a sick feeling that the concert would be the same way.

It was. We had less than an hour and a half's worth of music to play. We started the program promptly at 8pm. You know what time we ended? 10:30pm!!! Yes, thanks to our emcee/guest oboist, we ran an hour longer than necessary. Never have I heard a man tell so many stories! And I am now aware that he has not only played at Strathmore, but at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and all over Europe as well. You know what was especially fun? After we played the Godfather theme and our oboe/emcee man had made his "impromptu" appearance he grabbed the mic, tried to make a joke about c minor, said "Hit it, Steve" to our keyboardist, and proceeded to play the entire piece again in c minor. Apparently, it was really important that the audience hear him play this piece in the key with which he was most comfortable. Gah! I worked very hard to school my features. People could have seen me roll my eyes, after all. Well, I heard enough anecdotes and bad jokes that night to last me throughout the entire Christmas season. This man would set the mic down and start walking off stage, then turn around and come back to tell another story he forgot to mention previously. I couldn't tell if the audience loved or hated him. Maybe both. But the icing on the cake was dropped from the metaphorical spatula when this emcee joined the orchestra for our final number, the "William Tell Overture." He fiddled with his chair and music stand for a bit, got settled, looked at his watch and whispered quite conspicuously and in all seriousness to our conductor, "We need to speed this one along, Ul, we're out of time." I just about stabbed him with my bow. Don't worry, at the last minute I remembered Christmas is about sparing, not spearing.

I mentioned that the fateful Tuesday was the longest day in recent history. We concluded the concert at 10:30pm. I walked to the metro, waited for 10 minutes, rode the rail for 30 minutes, switched platforms to catch the next train, waited for 20 minutes, caught the Orange line and walked home from my metro stop. I got home about midnight. Too late for this ol' gal! It took me the rest of the week and weekend to catch up on my sleep. You do realize that missing two hours of work meant I made it up the rest of the week by either staying late or coming in early. Staying late is the bane of my existence, so I chose to come in early. That did not help the sleepyness.

Okay, so that was Strathmore. A detailed description, I know, but you need to realize that the pain you experienced reading my tale is nothing to the pain I experienced living it. Yeegads! You ready for another story about music? Okay, here it is.

Every year the Office of External Affairs, of which I am an employee, has an office door decorating contest. Every office decorates its door. We all vote on our favorite door at the office party, and the winners receive a half day off work. Tempting. This year we had a little office meeting - there are 6 of us total in our cubicle-ridden file cabinet of an office- and decided that in order to be competitive this year we needed to stimulate not just the eyes but the ears as well. I did not volunteer my musical services. No indeed, I was volunteered by another. You see, I generally like to keep it mum around the office that I play the violin. Having this knowledge encourages my coworkers to ask me to play for things like office parties. I always nip that in the bud as quickly as possible, but I can never quite wipe away the disappointment they feel for not being able to procure free entertainment. Plus, this punky's not a solo player. No, I like to play with an ensemble...if the occasional solo is thrown my way just because I happen to be playing the lead first violin part then fine, I'll do it! But I'm not about to set up my stand and be the only thing for people to listen to. Blech. Regardless, my boss proposed a fetching idea for our audio stimulation. "I'll sing," she says, "and Gillian can play the violin." AHHHHHHHHHH!!! I didn't say no, though, because the prize is worth the risk. So tomorrow afternoon I will be playing "The 12 Days of Christmas" with my office's resident flutist. Don't worry, we're just going to record ourselves on a little digital recorder and attach it to our door so people can play it at their leisure while they peruse our display of the 12 Days of the Economy. Or did we decide on the 12 Days of a Campaign? I think the campaign one (think fundraising, not political).

Anyway, I just got home from work after a little practice session with the office arranger/flutist. Great arrangement, by the way. We'll make those Office of External Affairs people proud! Can you believe how much work we've put into this? I mean, JT actually took the time to write out a score for flute, violin and voice. Impressive. And it better pay off! I could use that extra half day to sleep and stuff.

So I rounded out the week with another orchestra rehearsal. We're playing 2 concerts with violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (www.wmpamusic.org) and her repertoire includes some fun fiddley Christmas tunes. "I Saw 3 Ships" does sound much more exciting when you're pretending you're Irish. Attempting to fiddle (a favorite pastime of mine) and playing Christmas music (a favie for life) are going to make these upcoming concerts WMPA's best yet! If you're in the DC area stop by. You won't be disappointed. Plus, I'll wave to you from stage and flash a toothy grin for the camera. Booyah!

(See that pretty picture at the top? That's 925. Nice, id'nit?)

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!

Hanging With the Ryans

Blood is thicker than water. Ew, that's just weird. Well, this past week I was blessed to get not one but two opportunities to spend time with the Ryan/Trinidadian side of my family tree.

Family time part 1 - In the first picture, you'll see my dad's niece, Karenmay, and her children Zane, Kariel, and Jariel. Before last Thursday, I hadn't seen this family since my 2001 trip to Trinidad. Last I remember, I was giving these kids piggy back rides, having tickle fights with them and chasing them around the house. Now the oldest one (Zane) is more than half my age. Sheesh. When did I stop being the kid and start being the grown up that says, "Last time I saw you, little Bobby, you were knee high to a grasshopper!" (Please reread this aloud whilst holding the small of your bag, smacking your gums and leaning on a virtual cane. Why? Because that's how I intended it.)

These Ryans were in DC for a day so the boys could get a surprise visit to the National Air and Space Museum. Karenmay called me up and asked if I could meet them on the Mall, and I was more than happy to oblige. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see them for very long. They had to catch that Chinatown bus back to the Big Apple. But I did get to hang out with them for a few minutes, and it was totally worth it. It was so much fun to hear my little cousins rib each other in their cool Trinidadian accents. I can't mimic that one at all. Believe me, I've tried. And they've laughed. They've all laughed!


Family time part 2 came this past Saturday. My dad's first cousin Audra (not pictured) lives in Hay Market, VA, with her husband and kids about 50 minutes from my house in Arlington. Sweet miracle of miracles, three of her siblings were going to be at her house that night and I was invited to come hang out. That was so much fun! First of all, it's nice to know that my love of the Olympics comes honestly - everyone of us was cheering on the marathon runners as they stumbled through the last 6 miles of their race. (Can you have a dishonest love of the Olympics, though? Seems that would just be sacrilegious.) Anyhoo, I got to hang out with Patti (to my right) and her mom Aunt Eulah (far right...and Dad, correct me if I've spelled that incorrectly). Oh, and second of all I got to eat some great Caribbean food. Yum! I need to learn how to cook that goodness. That night I also got to hang out with my second cousins Elliott and Jordan. Again, cousins I hadn't seen since they were babies. It's so weird to be the one that kids don't remember now. And I can just hear my dad laughing at me - yes, Pops, it's a delight to age :).

It's so cool to get to spend some time with relatives that I haven't seen in years and listen to (and try to understand) their Trini accents. I'm going back to the Motherland ASAP and I will study the socks off that way of speech. Then I will never speak like an American again. Ever. I'll use words like "vex" all the time and say "and so" at the end of my sentences. Oh, and the family says hi to everyone. And they want you to come visit, too.

In related news, I found out not half an hour ago that my beloved Wright family will be driving my way in about a month. Aunt Karin and Uncle Keith, I'm going to show you a good time! Woot woot.

In completely unrelated news, I auditioned for the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic community orchestra on Saturday before I headed out to Hay Market, and I am pleased to announce that I'm the newest member, I think, of that group of musicians. Yes! I'm back in an orchestra and so excited about it. The past two weeks I've been working up the first movement of the Bruch g minor violin concerto so I could wow the music director at my audition. Though I didn't play well enough to wow anyone (except maybe for his greyhound, Grace, who slept through it all at my feet), he was pleased with my playing and said I was in like flin. So, starting Sunday the 7th of next month I will be rehearsing. It feels so good to play again. So there you have it. That's the news for now. I'll be back soon with more exciting (not really) details about my life in DC.

Cheers!

Tuning

Recently I decided that life without music is no life at all. I sat at my cubicle, registering gifts in the computer system, and I realized that my favorites (e.g. Coldplay and John Mayer) just weren't cutting it. I needed my Debussey, my Rimsky-Korsakov, my Tchaikovsky and my Ravel. Boy did I ever open Pandora's box. Every strain of the violin I heard on my "Classical" iPod playlist made me yearn to play. (Sorry to say I hadn't touched my violin in months, certainly not since I moved to DC.)

Thus motivated, it seemed postponing work to explore community orchestras was my only option. In my excitement I emailed three different groups to see if they were holding auditions for the coming season. In their excitement, one of them responded. And yes, I have an audition in three Saturdays. Yipes.

Of course, I hadn't been practicing in anticipation of an audition. No, no, no...I had just been daydreaming and not doing anything practical at all. Today I set up the audition. Today I practiced for the first time since...well, since 2008 began. Needless to say, my violin was extremely out of tune. I pulled out my trusty tuner, flipped the switch to 440/A and - wait for it...nothing happened. The battery was dead. Well I certainly couldn't practice an untuned violin. What to do? I grabbed my cell phone, hit #2 speed dial and put it on speaker.

"Hello, this is Donald."
"Hi, Dad, how are you?"
[blah blah blah]
"Hey, Dad, my tuner's dead. Would you give me an A?"

Yes, good people, over speaker phone my father went to the piano and gave me the A I needed to tune my violin. Now THAT'S music for you.

On another note:
This blog provides me an opportunity to keep the people I love updated on my life in the big city, a.k.a. my life after higher education. I'm not the best at calling as often as I should or sending fun postcards of monuments and such, but I want to keep you in the know. I do not promise thrilling stories or entertaining adventures, but I do commit to letting you know what's up. As the last of the Ryan kids to blog I feel a bit like the resistant elder who can't quite handle the technology, but my siblings have set an excellent example. Check in on Laurel to see how she's faring in the land far away (entertaining adventures almost guaranteed). Click over to Barron's blog if you're feeling nostalgic about his summer here or want to reread a classic post. Then visit me. Snooze Fest 1999 it might be, but now you'll know the rest of the story.