So much has happened this weekend that I need to splash it all down in point form, to be expanded upon later:
1. Finally, finally I got to meet Brendan Myers! We’ve been missing one another at events for the past couple of years. It was a bad fibro day yesterday so I had to pass on the first part of the day, which would have entailed attending his reading and workshop, because I would have used up my available daily energy and ended up bailing on our planned evening out, which would have been dreadful. So at dinner time I met him and a group of dear local people (none of whom I see nearly often enough) in Old Montreal, and only got home at midnight. (People, that’s unheard of for me these days.) It was wonderful. Bren is sweet and thoughtful and quirky and thought-inspiring and has crammed more living into his life than most people our age have. I clicked with him right away, and I’m so looking forward to maintaining and cultivating this special new friendship. This gets a whole blog post of its own very soon because there’s a bunch of ideas to put down.
2. HRH cleared out the garage yesterday. Ye gods. There is space. Also, the garage door now works again. Huzzah!
3. I’ve been reading my fifteen year old issues of Strings magazine. Reading about music makes me want to play it (as if I haven’t been obsessing about it enough what with the 7/8 issue eating my brain lately) so after a couple of hours of reading I sat down and played forty-five minutes of pizzicato cello this morning while the boy played with his trains. Gave myself a blister on my middle right finger doing it, too. I played through dozens of pieces at about the RCM grade 5 level, things I’d been playing before I stopped with my lessons, messing about with them position-wise and intonation/tempo/vibrato-wise. Very satisfying.
4. We had a delightful visit with the ADZO family this afternoon. The kids are at an age where they can safely play in the next room on their own and either interact or parallel play doing their preferred thing, and it was so good to just sit and talk about anything and everything while they enjoyed themselves. (And eat. Ye gods, when we go over they just keep casually putting food in front of us, blueberries and watermelon and tea and cheese and crackers and yum. Then there was dinner. They spoil us dreadfully.) As a result of this meandering chat something extremely special might be coming into my possession, via a stroke of serendipity. More news as events warrant. ADZO and I have a date tomorrow morning to explore the situation.
5. Local freelance work. Yay! Small projects, but comfortable ones. Every dollar counts towards the 7/8. Which is important, because the second-level Jay Haide celli I’m going to be looking at in Toronto (confirmed date with the shop: Tuesday July 29!) are twice as expensive as the entry-level Eastman 7/8s I’ve been testing locally. If I like them/one enough I might right rent one/it for two or three months; it’s an affordable option with the shop I’m primarily interested in visiting.
Right. As wonderful as this weekend has been, I have used up all my spoons and have run out of available energy. I’m going to have to be careful over the next couple of days.