Catch all

Sunday morning - never mind the post date - and we had a good concert last night. Somehow I made it through the hellish swirls of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", and didn't get lost once. I realized that was my goal afterwards. We'll play the show again in a few weeks, so maybe some progress can be made on the speedy parts. Many compliments on my tux and much encouragement from the fine folks in the group; they are a sweet bunch.
Had our own sort of after party at a young friend's tradtional birthday party at a place reknowned for karaoke; got one tune in, then the hour was far too late and we rolled home in our pumpkin.

Volunteer state

The PT at my mother's new abode asked me if I'd be interested in helping her with an art project for the residents able to give it a shot. I said I would, so we'll see what happens. Many of the folks were out enjoying the sunshine today, whether just basking or doing some walking, like my mom.
Busy week, meeting up with old friends from truly days of yore back in Ohio, and we had a great time. They cooked a salmon dinner and I took them for a walk in Discovery Park the next day. One sister is an attorney for the IRS, and her oldest sister is a retired high school math teacher who has reunited out here with a high school friend; they seem to be enjoying one another a good deal.
Band rehearsal early in the week, and another big one before the concert; be still my pounding heart.

Seasonings

Skipping along through the days, tra-la. Pleasant evening on Friday, sandwiches and brew with our beloved offspring, his buddy and her mother, visiting from the Eastern U.S.; football-o-rama for the beloved spouse the next day, and Sunday I got out for an unusual evening session with a great friend and her college-aged daughter. We had a good time, watching the ropegun girl whisk up stuff we'll never lead.
Most delicious getting home to find the guys had saved me some pizza, which is wonderful after exertion.

timelines

Some people don't have them at the other end of their lives; I get this impression whenever I go to see my mother in her new living situation. Time gets fragmented, smudged, spotty for the elderly people in her house. It is often said that the very old "live in the present", but that's not quite right. Even from moment to moment time is not reliable for them. The taste of a chocolate truffle may not even last through its consumption; one lady forgot she had it in her mouth and started to choke. I think there's a need for life's end coaches as well as ones for regular life, to get all the way through the various processes. Takes a village to help a person live to the end, whenever it might be.
Only a week in our timeline until we must face brass tacks and take the sorcerer squarely by the horns...

Trilling and running

Applies to musical techniques, which I am still slowly re-mastering; there seems to have been a wee bit of improvement, so I'm past the point where I look upon my music folder in despair, knowing the evil which lurks within. Fear shall not o'erwhelm me any more. At least not as much as previously...
Onward to another week of practice and hope, with the emphasis on the former.

On our lips

Good gravy; four hours of band rehearsal today. I am swirling around in the maelstrom of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", a mere bit of flotsam, about the size of a B-flat clarinet reed...
We savored what we could of the remains of the afternoon, then went off to the theater with a fellow band member to see what proved to be an absofuckinglutely brilliant version of Moliere's "A Doctor in Spite of Himself." It is difficult to describe the hilarity and bizarreness; it was in the Commedia Delle Arte tradition, but no aggravating rhymed couplets, rather a stream, blast, explosion of silliness and wit. With two wonderful musicians, two men playing trombone, tuba, clarinet, drums, accordian, assorted sound effect thingamawhatsits, on a set which started out looking like a Surrealist landscape of nothingness and became all things to all players.
I'd see it again.

Improving connection

Our nonegenarian is doing better, according to her caregivers and my observations; she's rested enough to comment that things get a bit boring, but that people are nice, and she likes the other two little old ladies who are her housemates with whom she can chat. Thursday will be hair do day, which she has always enjoyed.
Very last farmers' market in our shopping district, and probably the final one forever; the disagreement with nearby merchants was never resolved. So, last call for fresh bagels, German butterball potatoes, tomatoes that taste like something, huge ears of yellow sweet corn, last of the harvest and sweet as can be; the dairy fresh "crack" butter, reputed to be so delicious people have eaten it all at one meal, which is probably hyperbolic but accurately describes its flavor. No more oddly-voiced older hippy guitar player who knows all the songs of my youth and college years; his gravelly tonsils did Joni Mitchell justice.
Walked home in full low-angling sun, almost sweating.