Sign

Sign seen in a resteraunt where I recently went for dinner:
If you came here to drink and forget, Please prepay!

Jazz

Today I had the opportunity to go to a jazz concert and it wasn't just any jazz that was being played! One of the musicians is a guy that came up from Portland to play with some guys from the Jazz Project and he has this electric guitar that has been modified to sound like an electric organ. I am not kidding, honestly it's really not very describable but very interesting. I closed my eyes and listened and quite often during the songs if you couldn't see the guy with the guitar in his hand you wouldn't have been able to tell that he wasn't playing an electric organ. He had done something to it so had different foot pedals, etc. that enabled him to change the sound alone the way.
I haven't ever really listened to jazz, much less seen it live so I didn't really know what to expect. It was fastinating. I was completely intrigued by the interplay of the instruments and musicians in what seemed to be rather unscripted cooperation. I suppose it's totally possible that these pieces were so familiar to them that they don't need any music and that that have all have played together so much that they just know what the other person is going to do, but regardless it was unlike anything I have ever seen before and I found it totally fascinating. The time just flew by, just when I was beginning to get a feel for it it was over. Honestly I hardly remember the "music" because I was so focused on watching the guys work together that in many respects the music actually just flowed over me and I took it in but it didn't stick with me as much as the actual making of it. I wasn't able to quite make up my mind how complicated the music actually was but it really felt more like music that you had to feel to play rather than music that anyone could just read off a page and play reasonably well. In all the years I took piano lessons I have sat through a lot of the same songs and while there is some variations in the skill level with which they are played the general songs remained the same. Unlike the music that I am so used to which is very measured and clear cut, all written down on paper and very predictable, this was much more free formed, or so it seemed. The musicians faded in and out to give each other moments in the spotlight as it were and very often played with their eyes closed. This felt very different, like the same song could sound very different depending on the mood of the musician and how much the musicians were playing off of each other. I could be totally wrong but that was the impression that I was left with upon first hearing.
I was so intrigued watching the interplay of the instruments and the musicians that the time flew by. I was a little unsure about going to a concert that was going to be at least an 1 1/2-2 hrs. long in a genre of music I haven't ever really heard but I was so interested that it seemed like I had hardly sat down and started to get into it a little and it was over. Definetly out of the realm of my usual music fare but something I would for sure sample again.
It didn't hurt that the few people I talked to were very friendly and the lady that sat next to me needed a little help with her crocheting so I jumped in and gave her a little crocheting advice and a lesson in making tassles! Through my connection with the wife of the Jazz project director I had become aware of the organization and so on one of my forays into local events on the internet had stopped by and seen this concert on the calender. It caught my interest, I asked some more questions and the answers only intrigued me more. I just had to go and I am so glad I did. Thanks Monique and Jud for your encouragement and assistance to make my attendence at this event possible. Definetly an enjoyable and educational experience! Then I went down the hill in Fairhaven and took in the Ski to Sea festival and a little country music to finish off the evening before heading home to do more chemisty! Yeah!

Time away

I just had to share that I had a great weekend. I didn't do anything too special and I guess maybe that's the point. I was house sitting for someone with three dogs (which makes me love my cats all the more but that's another story) and she had a nice big bath tub, a recliner and lots of dog hair everywhere. Oh wait I wasn't going to talk about the dogs! So anyway I guess it was kind of like my own mini vacation. I went to a church I don't normally attend, met some great people, took a couple of long hot baths, painted my nails, which for some reason did wonders for my outlook (if that's isn't the dumbest thing I have said in a while I don't know what is but alas I somehow felt better with shiny light mauve nails, must be a girl thing!) talked on the phone to a dear friend for a while and read, and read and read. I can't remember when I took the time to for so many hours anything that wasn't a text book and it felt wonderful. On Friday after Toastmasters in the morning before I came home to be with Anita I had a little time to kill and I ended up going garage saling! I can't remember the last time I went to a garage sale, let along 7 of them in one morning. I had so much fun and found some awesome treasures, things that I had been looking for and things that I didn't even know I needed until I saw them! Of course I couldn't leave without getting a few books and I those were what I read during the course of the rest of the weekend. One of the books I read was about Elizabeth Blackwell who was the first woman to go to Medical school back in the early to mid 1800's. That was a book I needed to read and it did wonders for my resolve and frustration level! I also watched a few interesting TV programs about cars and possible future designs, primordial dwarfs and people with giantism, sort of a weekend of extreems. Since I don't have TV I forgot how fast time goes when you are watching one program after another. I usually just watch a movie or two here and there but it's very different when you are watching continuous programing. Made the truth of a comment I heard recently seem very true. "What does TV stand for? It stands for Thought Vacume!" I found the commericals annoying but the shows were pretty interesting.
So anyway now its back home again and while I am still not working, probably won't be for a while yet, I at least feel a little more like it's all going to be ok and a few months in the course of a lifetime isn't really that long. I know I should be happy for the time without the demands of work and I really need to work on using my time a little more effectivly. Guess now that I have had my few days of vacation without having to plan around anyone else's schedule, without having to take responsibility for anyone but myself, etc. I can jump back in and make that my goal for this week: to use my time more effectively, to get more homework done and to help Nicki get more organized. All things I didn't seem to have as much time for as I wanted when I was working. I shall look at this most recent turn of events that is forcing me to be home as a blessing not an inconvenience, yes I will work on that!

Hope you all have or are having a great week!

PS: For those of you who don't know, Anita is Nicki's mom who was in a motorcyle crash a couple of weekends ago in which she broke her shoulder badly and so now instead of job hunting I am needed at home to help her and to be available to take her to appointments and Nicki to things that Anita would normally have taken her too, etc. I wasn't even not working at the nursing home for a week when this happened so everything has been kind of upside down around here for the last few weeks.

Something to make you smile!

I know I have posted some depressing things lately so I thought it was time for something a little more upbeat. Enjoy.

What if...

Have you ever wondered what if your best isn't good enough? What if you work really hard for something and then you second guess yourself when it really matters and make a big mistake that pretty much wastes everything you worked for? How will you respond? Will you think its all been a waste? Will you able to go ahead and chalk it up to experience and let it go? Or what if it is only the tip of an even crueler iceberg? Even if it's something that might seem small to everyone else what if it's only a symptom of what might happen later with something that REALLY matter? If you can't even get through something small without second guessing yourself and messing it up what about your future, your education, career, marriage, important relationships, your salvation, and any number of other things that matter? How do you just "let it go" when you see people all around you making choices that effect them and other for a long time to come and you have no guarantee that you won't make the same mistakes, especially when you find yourself making mistake after mistake no matter how hard you try????? What if the next one is the one that really matters and you choke???

Enough unanswerable questions for one post.