valentine finale

Valentine's Day hasn't been as bad as it could have been. I got candy from my quintet coach (which I wolfed down in lieu of dinner on the way to teach), a little bit of very tasty lamb (that I ate too quickly as soon as I got home) from Cindy, and a box of chocolates from my student, Chuck. Traffic was horrible (it took me an hour to get from USC to the Feders, urgh). I talked to both my parents, who are sadly separated from each other til Sunday, when my mom returns home from NYC. I think poor dad's a little lonely, but mom was happy for some extra time (she was supposed to leave yesterday but couldn't because of the weather) with old friends in her home town. A responding text message from that same city made me inordinately happy. I haven't seen most of the couples I know today, so that hasn't been icky. And I had an invitation to go out with friends which I unfortunately had to decline to do some desperately-needed laundry. I had coffee Kim, who was feeling very down, and I think I made her feel at least a little better, and I had a lovely lunch in the California sunshine with Shirley.

I haven't really practiced for a few days, been spending far too much time in rehearsal or working, but there's nothing I can do about this. I'll just have to keep trying, and maybe I'll get something done tomorrow. I'll have to, really. Reeds for oboe and EH are driving me nuts, but maybe I'll get some good ones soon.

And Shirley's right, my blog looks like a morgue, so, PLEASE, people, STOP DYING!!! Thank you, Gabrielle.

what gives???

and now i must add Norman Herzberg.

and yet another

Gian Carlo Menotti.

77019

I found out that, unfortunately, I have yet another person to add to my mourning list. Molly Ivins, the liberal Texan newspaper columnist. She died of breast cancer. I didn't read her columns regularly, but I had read a few and enjoyed them, and I'd heard her on Prairie Home Companion once. And I felt a sort of affinity to her because she went to St. John's and was on the school paper there, the same as me. And she was from the same, very red, very oily zip code, so now I can point her out if people give me guff about that :) Along with my other Texas dems that I mention (Babara Jordon, Lyndon B Johnson, Ann Richards, Sheila Jackson Lee, etc).

I myself have been a little psycho lately. Having three friends visit in three weeks was great fun, but now there's a ton of catching up to do. So if I've been rude lately, it's because I've been very stressed, and although I'm not sure that will actually get much better anytime soon, I hope that I at least can keep up with everything with fewer distractions.