Adopt a black cat (please)

Writing about dinner yesterday got me thinking about these photos of some kitties who live with one of my friends, a fellow foster parent. I snapped them at dinner time as we were preparing for an adopter to visit.



What do you notice about these kitties? Well, yes, they are up on the kitchen counter, bad kitties, but they were awfully excited about dinner. I mean, what is the overall visual impression here? I see black. I see a sea of black. And a little white for contrast. Isn't that interesting? A house full of black and white cats.

It turns out that black cats are the slowest to be adopted, a fact which leaves me mystified. I love black cats. They're so practical. They rarely shed, and when they do, the hair is black. Which means it's much harder to see on your clothes and furniture, anyway. But they're also harder to see in photographs, and since many adopters search for kitties on PetFinder these days they don't compete as well as their more photogenic compatriots. Which occasionally leads to pictures like these: a foster home enriched in black and tuxedo.

There was a cute story making the rounds about a shelter that changed the name of one of their long-term black residents to "Jelly Bean". They were amazed when that cat was quickly adopted, and proceeded to name all of their black cats Jelly Bean, hoping to continue cashing in on that subliminal association. In fact, we read that story about the time the Sausages were born. That's Jelly, the tuxedo front and center on the kitchen counter. Not Jelly Bean, but Jelly Belly. I'll have to tell you the story of the Sausages some time.

The other interesting thing to note in the photo are the tails. Straight up. Veeerrry interested in what's going on, which is dinner.



The can is temporarily on the floor, with kitties following. Just one can, though, which means that most can't get to it, so tails are still raised high as interest mounts.



At last, food on dishes, and the tails are now in I'm-busy-eating mode.

Beautiful. If you're thinking about adopting a cat, don't forget to look at the black ones.

Mud room

Feeding six cats at a sitting can sometimes be a challenge, especially when three of them are adolescents just learning table manners,and one is very shy and easily scared away from her food. Once the kittens reach a certain age I move from a communal plate to individual dishes to help them learn self-control, and to more easily police meals so everyone gets a chance to eat.

That's easy with two or three, not so easy with six. The routine that we have settled into is that the three little girls get their plates in the mud room, I shut the door to the kitchen and feed the bigs there. After they (the bigs) have clearly eaten all they want, I open the door and the not-so-little-anymores usually clean the plates. As long as dinner is something they like.

Sometimes it's not. We went through a few trials of new food last month, trying to help John eliminate cheese and grains from his diet to see if food allergies might be playing a role in his gingivitis (probably not). With a few of those meals, this is what I found when I opened the door.

	What's that? A rug? Well, yes, it's the rug by the mud room door, usually the place to leave wet shoes when you come inside. That's what Mud Rooms are for, primarily, or in addition to a place to feed kittens.
	But the rug looked a little bumpy, and it's what's under it that is important. Looks like that dinner choice wasn't very popular. (Seri is very good at covering things.)

This is a more typical sight: three fat and happy postprandial kittens, wondering why it is taking so long for that darn door to open. (Oops. Forgot again.)

Bunny in the yard

Back to single digits this week; I need to dig out my gloves again. I know I am acclimatized because I've been walking around with unzipped jacket and no hat or gloves while the temperature has been below freezing, but zero Fahrenheit still feels cold to me.

It's cold for the critters outside, too. Last night D- and I were discussing cat tracks in the snow around her house, and how to rig up a warm box for any stray kitties outside (a styrofoam cooler filled with straw was recommended). We haven't seen chipmunks for over a month, since the first real snow fall, and we probably won't until the snow finally melts... in a few months? But the bunnies are still out. Occasionally they will make their way up the walkway in front of the house looking for something to eat or a little shelter during snow storms, much to the delight of any kitties stationed near the den windows.

	Funny, though, that I am often the first to see the bunny, even when there is a kitty on window overwatch.
	Look, GiGi, can't you see? There's a bunny right outside the window.
	A little motion (on the part of the bunny) helps, but if they stay in place long enough the cat will finally stop focusing on my wild gesticulations (what's up with Mom?) and look far enough outside to see.
	Ahh, now she's interested.
	Look, everybody! There's a bunny outside the window! (Why don't they pay that kind of attention to me?)

A still shot doesn't quite capture the whole story.

Sorry, YouTube seems to be having some issues this morning. You'll have to stop back later to see the video clip. Or, what the heck, I'll try out the Blogger video upload feature.

New coffee pot

We had a minor disaster on the home front yesterday. I had set the coffee carafe to soak in a sinkful of soapy water, partly because it needed to be washed (how many months?) and partly because DH had run the sink to soak another bowl, and it was, well, there. A bit later DH decided to scrub the pot, a very generous impulse, especially as he doesn't drink coffee so the grunge in the pot was all mine. Shouting coming from the direction of the kitchen is never a good thing, and yesterday it was his spontaneous eruption resulting when the pot slipped from his hands, shattering the lip of the pot and punching a large hole in the side, then poking a good-sized wound in his hand. Not a slice, fortunately. He probably bounced it against the broken lip of the pot.

We got the bleeding stopped and the wound cared for, then DH began encouraging me to get a new coffee pot. But I am not really interested in a new pot. This one is scarcely more than 15 years old, and works fine. I just need to find a new carafe that fits, and I told him I would make the coffee directly into my cup in the meantime. That shouldn't be too hard; I only make one cup at a time.

This morning I came upstairs to find this:



DH had dug through the cupboard and found my largest mug, then placed it on the warmer in the coffee maker. Wasn't that thoughtful? After I expressed my delight and he went off to work I started thinking about the languages of love. Actions speak the loudest to me - words are too easy to say and not really mean anything, or in fact can misrepresent the truth. I have assumed for many years that actions are most important to DH, too, but this morning I realized that there is something I can do for him that speaks even more loudly: express my appreciation for his actions. He lights up whenever I do that. I can't believe it took me this long to notice.

FLY Pen

I have a new toy: a FLY Fusion Pentop Computer. It was sort of a late Christmas present, and I bought two, one for DH, and one for me. While marketed as a children's homework assistant and game machine, a couple of its basic functions looked very interesting for grown-up uses. The simplest thing it does is to record everything you write (using special paper with thousands of virtually invisible gray dots) and transfer it to your desktop computer, where it is retrievable both as a picture (jpg) and as text using OCR into Word. There is also a nifty music application for composing and playing music that I haven't tried yet, and of course the ubiquitous mp3 player capacity. And the darn thing talks to you, to assist and tell you when you've screwed up.

I bought it for DH to use to capture all of those brain-storming back-of-napkin meetings he does, and he's pretty excited about the possibilities. There are a couple of new habits to learn - carrying the pen and paper along, learning how to use the pen without having to think too hard, uploading and organizing the notes - but this could be a great alternative to trying to capture notes on a computer or PDA on one hand or figuring out how to file and use the scraps of paper on the other.

For me, I'm still looking for efficient and useful ways to record my practice log. The first thing I thought I'd try is a simple log entry system, where I record a few notes about what I did at the end of each practice block or rehearsal. Here is the result of my first try using this thing.

After I finished my 30-minute practice block, I pulled out the pen and first FLY pad, touched the pen on the activating screen, and started writing. No, printing, because the OCR doesn't do well with cursive. This is what a scanned image of the notebook page looks like:


This is what the image of the notebook after importing from the pen looks like:


I obtained this image by e-mailing it from the FLY application. One of the options after you have uploaded a page is to distribute it as a jpg this way.

You can see that a few of the beginning words don't appear. That's because I didn't tap on the "FLY Notes ON" button before I started writing. The front cover of each notebook contains lots of control buttons that are activated by tapping with the pen. It's like a little computer on cardboard. The reason that there are only a few words missing instead of the whole entry is that the pen recognized that I was writing without having given it instructions on what to do with the writing, so it spoke up and told me so. It also suggested that if I just wanted to record my writing I tap the "FLY Notes ON" button. Thank you very much!

This is what the entry looked like after I opened it as a document (in Word):


Certainly not perfect, but recognizable. You can import pictures by telling the app not to convert them, but I'd have to look up how to do it. It might be better just to use a text equivalent instead of an eighth note symbol. And I have to remember to write my "8" with a singe stroke instead of two circles, because the pen uses the drawing of a circle to identify applications and that confused it.

So, the pen seems to work pretty well, and I'm looking forward to playing with it to discover other functions that might be useful. And I'll experiment this week with using it to record my practice log.

Stre-e-etch

One very fun thing about watching kittens grow up is observing the way they model the behaviors of the older cats. Seri started doing this only a month-or-so ago: a nice, big back-bending stretch, offered spontaneously when she sees me coming towards her. She's a smart little lady, and knows that if she offers me her belly in such a beguiling way I will almost always stop and give her a full body rub before I continue on.

But this is where she got the idea in the first place. Observe Aunt Cricket's lovely curve.





It's Tummy Tuesday. To see more of the (feline) sunny-side-up variety, visit LisaViolet's Diary.

State of the bow hold

January is Bow Month at The Stark Raving Cello Blog, and this is my entry.

My bow hold is still a work in progress, and a major topic of discussion at my lessons. The primary change T- initiated was the thought of a "bow change motion," where the wrist, hand and fingers flexibly respond to the change in bow direction initiated by the arm. T2- used to say "hand motion is reactive, not generative," so this was a continuation of the same general principle.

My thumb is curved, more when at the frog than when at the tip, and tends to straighten, especially when I am trying to hold on too tightly. My major fault is that the bow comes out of the string when I change direction. That's much, much better than when I started on this path, so I am hoping that when I repeat this experiment next year I'll be able to see the progress I intend to make.

Other things I note are that the back of my hand remains relatively parallel to the floor, and because there is little obvious pronation (which T- calls "the P word"), my thumbnail tends to be perpendicular to the bow rather than parallel. One advantage of this angle is that it really hurts to grind the edge of my thumb against the sharp edge of the frog, so I am rewarded for relaxing. A disadvantage is that, particularly since I have a very tapered thumb tip, my thumb tends to slide between the frog and the thumb pad. It's something I constantly struggle with, and because it's not easily seen my teachers haven't been able to help much with that directly.

My little finger lies near the button on the frog, and T- teaches an upward lifting on the frog with the 3d and 4th fingers when the bow is at the tip in order to add weight to the bow without excessive pronation.

Isn't it fascination how many different variations there can be of doing essentially the same thing? Dragging the bow back and forth across the face of the cello seems like it should be such a simple thing... until you try to do it!

At the frog	At the tip

And here is the bow in action, just playing an open G string.

I know where I'm going

...and I know how to get there.

Sounds existential, doesn't it?

Actually, it's the key to shifting. I've mentioned this lesson point tangentially on several occasions, and thought I'd fill in the details for easy referral in the future.

Where am I going? What note is it? What is the interval between where I start and where I end? Where is the note located - what position am I going to, and which finger am I going to use to play the note after the shift?

How am I going to get there? Whenever I muff a shift in my lesson, T- barks out "finger, string, stroke." ????????? That's shorthand for "describe to me exactly how you plan to do that shift." And there are exactly three possible answers to each component of that question - new, old, same.

As in...
Which finger are you shifting on? Old - the finger that is already down on the first note. New - the finger that will be playing the second note. Same - the same finger plays both the first (before the shift) and second (after the shift) notes, so the shift is made on that finger.

Which string are you shifting on? Same - the easiest one, when both notes are on the same string and you are shifting up or down that string. Old - shift on the first string, then cross to the new one to play the second note. New - cross strings first, then shift on the second note string.

Which bow stroke are you shifting on? Same - again the easiest choice, and the correct answer whenever the the two notes at each side of the shift are slurred. Old - shift before changing bow direction, which means the finger is in its new place and ready to play at the beginning of the next stroke. New - shift after changing bow direction, which results in a little "mew" before the second note that can be milked for an expressive slide or masked by slowing the bow speed.

Early in my sight singing study I used to whine that I could hear the note in my head, but I couldn't seem to get it out on pitch. When my teacher told me again and again, with more than a little amusement, that the reason I couldn't sing it was that I was not actually hearing it, I argued. Fruitlessly, as it turned out, but it helped pass the time until I could finally hear the note, and then sing it. Now I know that whenever I can't sing one of my pieces, it's because I don't know the notes well enough to hear them.

My shifting journey has followed a similar path. Whenever I am having difficulty with a shift, the solution is clear. If I'm missing the destination note, I make sure that I truly know where I am going by singing the note and describing it's location by position and finger. Then I make sure I know how I am going to get there - finger, string, stroke - and practice those elements slowly.

It works every time.

News Flash

Just got back from running errands, which included returning the lovely 230 year-old French cello I have had on loan while the cello to replace the one that disintegrated with multiple cracks last winter was being built. And... it's here! I visited it for the first time today, unstrung and seams open for a few weeks while it acclimatizes. It's really, really beautiful. The back is a 75 year-old piece of subtly flamed maple, with a spruce top more finely grained than my original. It's antiqued, on a butterscotch base, and really looks old to my admittedly not well-trained eye. I hope, I hope, I hope it sounds and plays as beautifully as it looks. Keep your fingers crossed.

New Year News

I really didn't mean to take off a whole week from blogging over the holidays. Events conspired against me.

DH was off from work the whole week, shades of things to come should he ever decide to retire. It's good to be forewarned that there are adjustment problems ahead. I will have to get over feeling like I need to keep him amused, and he will have to learn how to amuse himself when he is not occupied with professional projects.

Speaking of professional projects, the biggest reason for my lack of blog time was that I did four hours of continuing education each day for the week. I hate it when I arrive at year end without having gotten all of my hours, and am very glad that there are reasonable options now for studying on-line. And also that I realized early enough that I was short 24 hours so that I could break it up into four-hour chunks and still finish on time. I'd make a resolution that this year I'm going to get done earlier, but I did that last year and it didn't work, anyway.

Like many others, I felt the "clean up the nest" urge as the new year approached. "You can have 30 minutes," DH said, when I suggested we organize his professional journals, stacked willy-nilly on five 7-ft tall bookcases in the office. I admit to an ulterior motive - I wanted to completely unload the center case so I could pull it away from the wall to check whether Holly, our Christmas visitor, was hiding behind them. But that's another story. The end of this one is that eight hours later he was still jokingly saying "30 minutes." It's not done, but we left the remaining shelves for another day and congratulated ourselves on how much better the 80% we finished looked.

Most of my lessons and rehearsals are curtailed until next week, but cello lessons continued, and last week's was exceptionally good. I had planned to play the C Major 4-octave scale, but T- asked for f# minor instead. Other than a momentary mental lapse moving from the D to the A string, that went well, good intonation and overall sound. Hah. Then I played the second half of Lee's melodious etude #7, again with nary a comment. We touched briefly on #8, which I have done once before, then went on to #9. Red letter day, as I haven't gone beyond the first eight in 2 1/2 years of working on them. As the next student had arrived and we were wrapping up he asked which concerto I was working on. I said "Saint Saens," half in jest but also because I have been exploring it for a few weeks, encouraged by Emily Wright's interest in using it as material for a podcast on slow practice. T- did not take it as the least bit of a joke, but, obviously delighted, launched right into a mini demonstration on approaching the double stops on page 2. So that's it - I'm committed now. Thanks, Emily.

And now for the weather. It's up to 12 degrees F today, and it's not snowing. Woo hoo!

Happy New Year

I'm sleeping in.
It's 2 degrees outside.

White Christmas

A few seconds of snow for those who are lacking same this Christmas Day. The forecasters predicted 1/2 inch, but I think there's more already, and it's falling steadily.

To all of you

From all of us.

	Madeleine
	Cricket
	John
	Sharae Maria
	GiGi
	Serengeti

Merry Christmas!

'Twas the night before Christmas

The little girls are sleeping, dreaming of treasures to be unwrapped in the morning. Or anyway, of wrapping paper and boxes to play with. John is in the nursery, comforting Holly, our Christmas visitor. Holly was rescued this week from the side of the road by a good Samaritan, face bleeding and possibly injured. We think she might have been thrown out of a car window by someone who decided s/he no longer wanted an adorable tuxedo kitten. After five harrowing days in a dog kennel under the jurisdiction of Animal Control, and as her clock ticked toward euthanasia, she was scarfed up by one of the rescue groups D- and I foster for. D- is off for her Christmas holiday, so Holly is staying with us for a few days.

Madeleine is snoozing somewhere, but Cricket - what's Cricket up to? It looks like she hears something...

Christmas week

It has been a busy week. No, two weeks, with all of the extra rehearsals for the church Christmas concert. But this week, my music schedule looked like this:

Sun AM play in church, two services (3 hrs)
Mon PM Christmas concert dress rehearsal (3.5 hrs)
Tue PM Christmas concert (2 hrs)
Wed PM Voice class - Christmas carols (1 hr)
Thu PM Cello lesson (1.5 hrs) and Orchestra rehearsal (2 hrs)
Fri PM No music because of DH's holiday dinner
Sat PM Cello studio class (5 hrs - really - no breaks)
Sun AM play in church, two services, 7:15 AM call (Ugh) (4 hrs)

One more performance tomorrow afternoon for Christmas Eve services (2 hrs) and my holiday schedule is finished. (I'm the only cello for that one, so I had better buff that little solo line.)

Physically I have withstood the stress well. My shoulder was a little sore after that three hour non-stop dress rehearsal, but a little ice took care of it. I think I was over-pressing in response to the loudness of the music. And for the rest of me, I've had a daily stress reliever thanks to the combination of adolescent cats and their first Christmas tree. Here's a little taste of what I am likely to see whenever I hear strange rustling in the living room.

Peek-a-boo

Not me

I have no idea how the blankets got knocked onto the floor, but I didn't do it.

Maybe she did it.

No, we weren't looking for the presents hidden in the closet.

Really.

Absolutely not.

Wedge hog

Decorating the tree

I don't know when I became such a Grinch. The roots might have been during house staff years. We got one guaranteed week off each year, and it was during the winter holidays, either the week over Christmas or the following New Year's week. Half the staff got off each week, and because Christmas week was more popular DH and I volunteered for New Year's, under the theory that it would be less likely that one of us would not get our request. In that case we would be stuck with a year having different weeks off, in addition to those long months of being on out-of-sync every-third-night in-house call. Plus, it was a nice gesture to our fellow house staff who wanted to be home with their kids on Christmas. But the result was that we were working over Christmas, so got out of the habit of doing much for it.

It might be simply a side-effect of living in the Frozen Tundra of the North, where by this time of year the days are very short and the nights are very long and heaven help us when we have multiple storm systems moving through and we don't see the sun for weeks, as happened this Autumn. I have no interest in anything requiring exertion at this time of the year. (Though I am happy to report that the light boxes I invested in a week or so ago appear to be making a difference.)

Or, it might be because of my approach to life in general and holidays in particular, which is that if I keep my expectations low, anything nice that happens will be a pleasant surprise, and if nothing nice happens, no big deal. I'm not even going to try to dig out the roots of that philosophy, which has the useful result that I don't have elaborate expectations of my friends or lover regarding things like birthdays or Valentine' Day, or Christmas. But I must admit that it is occasionally problematic because I don't do much for my friends' birthdays, either, or at this point really comprehend that others may be emotionally invested in these events. Methinks the pendulum may have swung a little too far.

Well, an unexpectedly nice thing happened this year. My friend D- couldn't bear the thought of our not decorating for Christmas, though I assured her that I was pretty sure we had a fiber-optic 15-inch tree in a box somewhere in storage, and we would drag it out and set it up by Christmas. My two-minute decorating approach. So she came by with a large box of lights and ornaments, including a 3-foot tree, that she wasn't going to use this year, and we set up the tree and hung garlands of light around the house.

We had multiple ornament casualties the first day, as they shattered when knocked off the tree, which is on a table surrounded by wood floors. (Thank you, Sharae. Bad kitty.) The tree did seem a little naked with only lights, and everything else looked so much nicer, so I overcame my inertia and bought some less breakable bulbs and garlands and did up the tree proper. And I remembered, while looking at ridiculously expensive tree skirts that I declined to purchase, that I had a nice red afghan, usually used by the cats in the den, which would make a perfect Christmas tree skirt. The kitties concurred, and since the tree has been finished someone generally claims the best spot underneath for their afternoon nap.

DH seems especially happy to have the house decorated for Christmas, as he was big on holidays before he married a Grinch. We plug in the decorations every night now, enjoying the emotional uplift of the extra lights in the dark afternoon and evening. There is good reason our species has festivals involving lights at this time of the year.

So thanks, D-.

Paper test

A tidbit from my cello lesson this week.

No, you shouldn't be able to fit the paper under the foot of the bridge.

To fix, loosen the pegs slightly, grasp the bridge with both hands, and gently but firmly tip the top of the bridge toward the tail of the cello. Check with the paper to ensure that both feet have good contact with the top, and visually to see that the bridge is straight, then re-tune and check one last time.

Consequences of not fixing it? In my case, just a little increased wolfiness. Over time, though, the uneven tension on top can warp the bridge, leading to uneven tuning of fifths (thus even harder to play in tune), and on rare occasion to catastrophic bridge failure. A bridge either breaking or suddenly falling over can damage the top and potentially result in a fallen sound post.

Gotta remember to do periodic paper tests during winter peg-popping season.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Tummy target

GiGi is presenting Seri with a nice broad expanse of white as a target in their wrestling matches these days. Every time I see her I tease her that she looks like she swallowed a toad. I should probably stop that before I give her a complex.



It's Tummy Tuesday. To see more of the (feline) sunny-side-up variety, visit LisaViolet.

Posture police

If at first you don't succeed

When I set up this blog almost two years ago, I claimed the address for "gottagopractice," because I intended it to be some kind of on-line practice journal. But, violating one of the basic precepts of blogging, I entitled it If at first you don't succeed....

If at first you choose the wrong specialty, go back and choose another one.

If at first your patient doesn't get better, do another assessment and change the therapy.

If at first you choose the wrong career, step back, take stock, and change your career directions.

If at first you play the passage wrong, stop, figure it out, and play it again.

If at first the cat won't do what you want him to do, reassess what you can do to train him.

If at first your student doesn't get it, figure out how to break "it" down into small enough steps that she will succeed through the process.

The title captured one of my central philosophies, one which has also been a topic of discussion in the cello blogosphere this month, regarding a comment by Emily Wright: ...the only difference between those who succeed and those who don't is persistence. Though I'm not sure I ascribe to the "only" qualifier, I heartily concur that trying again is a major component of success.

But what I don't understand is why so many people are looking for "If at first you don't succeed" on the internet. Every day, three or more searchers land on my doorstep. What do suppose they are actually seeking?

Bach Suite 2 Sarabande Take 1

Found time. T- called to cancel my lesson yesterday due to illness (get well soon, T-), and while I hate to miss a cello lesson, with the roads as bad as they are right now it meant an extra three hours to... what?... yes, practice. At least part of it.

So, feeling happy that I can finally play through the Sarabande from the 2nd Suite, and since I haven't posted a practice clip in a long while, I thought I'd record it once through without repeats and do my own lesson this week.



OK, the obvious stuff. I really, really must do something about that facial tic. It has improved so much that I thought it was completely gone, but IT'S NOT! No wonder T- has me grinning and doing other distractions while playing at my lessons. I also notice that a few head tossing mannerisms have snuck in now that my hair has grown a little longer and is getting in my eyes and under my left fingers occasionally.

I moved the stand far off to the right side (since I don't have this memorized) to be out of the way of the camera, and I wonder how much extra tension is induced just because I am turning my head farther than it should be. It will be interesting to compare another recording after it's memorized. In a few weeks, maybe. (Hah!)

I'm not too unhappy with the playing. Could still use some intonation work, and would like to improve the sound quality of the chords. Maybe make them a little longer so they ring more, which I can probably do by relaxing and convincing myself psychologically that I have more time than I think. I'm still not landing the upper notes right on the beat, so need to look at timing for the chords, too. I think my rhythms are correct, finally, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Other than that, it's just more of the usual. Shifts, string crossings, vibrato, yada, yada.

The cello sounds much, much better than it did in my first recording. I broke three strings in the past month, having never broken one since I started playing. The original D stretched by breaking the core on the peg, and I replaced the A and D with Jarger mediums. The original G broke the same way, and I replaced it with a Pirastro Permanent. Sounded kinda wussy, so I wasn't too mad when I broke it stupidly by cranking it instead of the C string after a pre-concert peg-popping incident, when I was in a hurry and not paying sufficient attention to what I was doing. Replaced it with a Jargar medium, which had a smooth sound but seemed to make the whole cello tight and muted. So changed it out for a Prim a couple of days ago. I still have the original Spirocore chromesteel C. Sounds good now, so I'll leave it alone until I break another string.

Don't worry, this is just a short diversion. My next practice log post is under construction.

Practice Journal

It's snowing (again). I'm sitting in the office, surrounded by lights (this winter thing doesn't really agree with me) and cats (mostly sleeping on the desk and surrounding chairs). I'm just about to finish my (first, large) morning cup of coffee, looking at my schedule, and wondering what (if anything) to write about today. This post has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while now, but I had no idea of how long until I took a look at my drafted (but never finished) posts. Wow, a whole page-worth, and I started this one on December 7, 2006. I suppose I should write it today, before it celebrates an anniversary in limbo.

My original idea when I started this blog was to use it as an on-line practice journal. Nine months after the idea was conceived and I set it up, I finally began, not with practicing, but with foster kittens. It's been a duality since then, schizophrenic in common parlance, though that is a completely inaccurate use of the word. But it works for me.

I played the 'cello off and on (and mostly off) for a decade before the 'cello-bug bit me and I decided to get passionate about learning to play it well. Along with finding a new teacher (T2-) who was willing to do some serious technical work with an adult, I started a practice journal to organize my goals and my work. After surveying all of the commercial products available at the time (not nearly as many as now), I pronounced them all inadequate and made my own. Thanks to some nifty plastic ring binders I found at Staples, I made up an official-looking journal for each year of study.

This is a random page from the third year:


You know what? If I write everything I want to about the elements in this journal, and my thoughts about what I am in transition to, well, lets just say it exceeds the standard scope of a blog post. So consider this the inauguration of a series. Tomorrow I'll describe the sections for you.

Or not. That's the nice thing about a blog. No commitments <g>.

What's that white stuff?

JJ

I was looking through some old photos for a good tummy shot while the snow is softly (and persistently) falling outside and I am not practicing. But look at my reward: a JJ tummy extravaganza. He did have a knack for the full-body let-it-all-hang-out don't-bother-me-I'm-sleeping back-bender. That's Elle behind him, washing Sharae's ears, and GiGi peeking up from below. Even though I am very happy that Elle and JJ found a lovely home together, I miss them now and again. This was a nice blast from the (rainy, not snowy) past.

It's Tummy Tuesday. To see more of the (feline) sunny-side-up variety, visit LisaViolet.

Bow police

Sunday

I've written about playing with my church orchestra on Sunday mornings, and thought you might like a visual. You can see attendance is a little sparse at the beginning of the first service, not entirely unexpected on the day after a big snow. This Sunday the orchestra is off to the right, and the cellos are in the second row on the outside. Yes, those are two big screens on each side of the auditorium so that people up high can see what's going on. They also project the words to the hymns there. You can probably guess my opinion of singing hymns without being able to follow the music.

Look - a kitty!

Saw a trailer for this while watching Enchanted last night (great fun - my face hurt from laughing).

And thanks to Blueberry for pointing to this 'idgit.