Random Midwinter Tidbits

1.  This is the weekend for the Arrowhead Chorale Holiday Concert series, the preparation for which has brought considerable anxiety to me over the past few weeks, and feverish practicing.  The concert consists of a four course meal, separated by sections of music.  While the audience eats, various chorale members play different instruments as background music.  I am excited to be playing clarinet and bass clarinet during the salad section.  I'm also playing bass clarinet for a duet with a trombonist, which has been a lot of fun, although somewhat worrisome as I'm just not quite as comfortable on the bass clarinet as I am on the soprano clarinet.  Our first concert was last night, and went well.  One down. Two to go.  It really is fun in a strange, stressful way.  You can read the review in todays paper about the concert last night here.

2.  I spent all my free moments yesterday doing last minute practicing, which meant that while Mr. Sneaky Pants was playing in the cabin room during nap/quiet time, I was in the living room ironing out some things on the bass clarinet.  I heard a little thump halfway through the passage I was working on and I looked up.  There was Mr. SP, dressed in his full plate armor wielding a light saber with a frown on his face.  (He does NOT like the bass clarinet . . . and much prefers the smaller clarinet.  He lets me know this frequently).  I asked him what was up.  He said that that big instrument sounded like a monster walking around.  And it does, in a tromping sort of way.  It even looks like a monster, with it's pointed beak mouthpiece, its long curvy neck, and its wide silver tail.  He spent the rest of my practice time twirling around the Christmas tree, defending our home from the noisy grenadilla serpant.

3.  We are having a day of lake effect snow.  Lake effect snow is one of the weirdest things about living next to the Great Lakes.  We don't get it as much as the northern part of Wisconsin and the upper penninsula of Michigan, but when we do it is the craziest weather!  Last year, for example, one day we got one inch of snow at the top of the hill.  The bottom of the hill got 18 inches of snow.  (the bottom and top of the hills are about one and a half miles apart).  Today the top part of the hill is getting dumped on!  It just keeps going and going and going.  I think we have to have a good ten inches of snow already.  And tomorrow we are supposed to be getting another storm system that might bring us another foot!  It's a very good thing that I love snow.

4.  I have been enjoying the snow all day, watching it fall out my windows.  It is a great day to snuggle up next to the fireplace with some small people and some good books, and a good day to eat a lot of clementines.  I love clementine season.

5.  I am a little nervous about having to drive down the super steep hill to get to my concert in a few hours.  I don't mind winter driving very much, but our steep hills are a force to be reckoned with.  The city is really great about sanding intersections right away, but on a day like today, there is no way they can keep up with ploughs and sanding trucks.

6.  

7.  Yesterday my students gave their piano and voice recital at one of the assisted living places where I do music class.  They did great!  The residents really loved hearing them, and although many of them were nearly crawling out of their skin in nervousness, they were so well prepared and played very nicely.  Sarah played Jolly Old St. Nicholas.  I made the biggest mistake of anyone, when I forgot to repeat the accompaniment for a voice student.  The residents thought that was hilarious.

8.  This is an old picture of Sarah.  She won second price for the story she wrote for the PTA contest, and third prize for her picture she drew about a family of worms living in a house.  I don't have a scanned copy of the picture, and it's still being displayed at school, so I'll post it another time.  If you are a Sarah fan and you haven't read her story yet, hop over to her blog and read it.  She was very, very excited.