Finally, an Update

Lots to report. Two Pianos Four Hands was spectacular. I haven’t laughed so much in years, honestly. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who’s lucky enough to have it run near their home. Go see it. Especially if you had piano lessons, or any sort of music lessons, as a child (or, like me, are having them now). You will howl. I cried through the whole first half I laughed so hard. The acting and the playing were both of the highest quality. We were Orchestra level, front row, so we were right below the stage, very, very close. In a way it was a tiny bit disappointing because we were actually below the level of the pianos and therefore couldn’t see their hands, but in the end I really didn’t miss that at all. For those of you interested, they played two beautiful Yamaha C3s. (Mine’s a C2.) During one part, they were both goofing around (scripted goofing) and the player I preferred was at the piano right in front of where we were sitting, and they were doing a sort of Medley, playing snatches of all these different tunes, and everybody was laughing pretty hard already, and then when they started to play the theme song for the Young & the Restless, everybody howled even louder. My laughter must have rang out the loudest, and because I was so close to this player, he looked right at me, winked, kept eye contact, winked again, before he looked away – all the while playing. It was really spectacular.

Home Improvement
We spent the long weekend on projects around the house. I recently bought a book on decorating (painting, to be specific), and am working on painting terra cotta plant pots, which took up quite a bit of time this weekend. Mr. P worked on staining the patio door and its frame, which we recently replaced. We had an ugly aluminum door in there, with a torn screen, and now we have a top-of-the-line Loewen triple glaze window in a wood frame. It’s gorgeous. I did help him a bit, but he did most of that, and it looks so nice.

And in the category of no-we-aren’t-really-made-of-money, we have a lady coming out this morning to help us select blinds and window coverings for the main floor windows. This after I dragged Mr. P around from place to place looking for ready-made tab panels, my first experiment with which didn’t go so well. Actually, it’s also because of that beautiful new patio door; we’d like to get rid of the metal blinds that hang there. They’re okay, but now with the wood door, they just don’t match anymore.

Gardening
Not much news here. Though I have big ambitions, as usual, my available time comes nowhere close to matching the ambitions I have. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not get to the bulk of these projects for at least a few weeks – not until after the kids write their exams. I did, however, on the weekend, plant all the little bedding plants I bought in containers, and the patio looks so pretty now (through those pretty patio doors); we also managed to procure a couple of half whiskey barrels over the weekend. Only $10 each! On the internet you can buy them for $80 US (with a liner); we got ours at our local Home Depot. Score! Those get planted this coming weekend, hopefully.

And in my spare (lol) time, I continue to play piano and am trying hard to get back into the theory. It isn’t that I don’t like it (I actually like it quite a bit – it being so like math), it’s just that it’s less fun that actually sitting picking out melodies and harmonizing notes. It’s kind of like the difference between making the pie and eating it. One is necessary so the other is possible, unless you buy the pie ready-made, which probably isn’t the best pie you can eat … okay, that analogy is weak, so I’ll stop it there. I’m also yearning to get back to writing. Alice Munro’s stories can do that to you. I’m starting to realize that I’m really working way, way too much; but there’s not much to do be done about that, so I just have to suck it up. I also realize that the only way to keep from feeling burnt out is to spend at least half an hour at the piano every day, and preferrably, when time is limited, to spend that time composing. I feel a lot less grumpy, then.

And on that note, I’ll sign off for now. More soon, hopefully.