A Few Musical Notes

Did you ever sit down to blog and realize you're out of ideas? I'm there right now, so instead of bullshitting around, I'll just tell you two quick things and be outta here.

First of all, I must give a mighty shout-out to my nephew, yes, the very one and only DJ TaytieMac. He went to All-Regional Band tryouts yesterday. This was his second time. He went last year, as an eighth-grader, and was, well, a little overwhelmed. I think he'd practiced his rudiments, but was totally thrown by the sightreading portion of the trying out. He was very disappointed.

I told him before he went this time to be as polished as he could on his rudiments, and to not even think about the sightreading - I mean, after all, it's nothing you can practice. Hell, I've been playing 30-some years and sightreading's still the bane of my existence.

So I called him last night, when I knew he'd gotten home, and asked him how he did. He made fourth chair Symphonic Band. So basically what that means is that of all the kids trying out from about B'field all the way west to the Tennessee border, my fella was fourth best. I was so proud of him. I was totally kvelling. And he was proud of himself, I think, though he'd never admit it. He just laughed and said, "I figured you'd be happy about that." Such a babe.

Community Band had our big Christmas concert last night. And boy, did it make us feel that Christmas was indeed upon us. This was because the stage on which we played was 30 fucking degrees all night! I'm not kidding; when we weren't playing, which, sadly, was too often, I had my hands stuffed into the sleeves of my shirt. I don't know what happened, but the cold air was blowing so hard it blew a couple of folks' music right off their stands!

It was smaller than it's been in past years, in terms of performers and audience. We normally have a big chorus, and a couple of kids' choirs, and had neither this year. (Incidentally, kids' choirs = families = big audiences) Instead we had the band, and the Community Strings, plus a nice little jazz trio, and a Sweet Adelines group. Thankfully, it didn't last too long, and Mr M and I, who'd planned to leave the building after the concert "like rats out of an aqueduct" (his words), almost made it. But.....

But I decided I had to have Sherman's picture made with Santa Claus, so that took a little doing. Had to find the Big Guy first. (Sherman's Christmas togs are quite fetching, no?)

When we left the building, quite unratlike, may I say, it was snowing like crazy! It was really pretty, quite slick, ultra cold - well, about as cold as it was on the stage - and we wanted to get a pizza and get the hell home. Which we did.

So I came back home today, by way of a few shopping stops. Went to eat dinner with the parents, who are back in town for the holidays. Then immediately went to their loveseat and fell flat asleep. That loveseat is like a crib to me. Five minutes on it and I'm gone. Got up to come home, and found it had snowed again while I was inside, and is still snowing as we speak. Or type. It's quite pretty, but makes me really not want to go to work tomorrow.

OK. There we go; boring blog completed.