These weeks really fly by, don’t they?

Okay, so I had some good things happen this week. I didn’t post on social media, but posting on my blog is a little bit different somehow. Maybe this will help someone else.

I knew my time to be eligible for the COVID vaccine was coming up soon since I teach in the schools. I actually teach at 3 different elementary schools and see three different groups of children each week! In any case, thanks to a social media post by a friend and a facebook group I below to, I learned that teachers can go to Walmart or Walgreens in Illinois and get their shots already. I asked my friend for advice, as she had an appointment, and I started trying to get one. The whole time, I figured it probably wouldn’t work, but I lucked into an appointment at a Walgreens in East St Louis, which is under 20 minutes away from me (St Louis is right on the border of Missouri and Illinois.)

I asked myself if I was doing the right thing, taking this appointment, and I decided yes I was, because I was teaching those three groups of kids, plus another small class in person, with no employer provided health care or sick days. Additionally, I knew many other teachers were doing the same thing, and I also felt like since I was driving less far to get the shot than I actually drive to work, I wasn’t even going out of my jurisidiction. These shots are paid by my tax dollars, and just because the idiot governor I didn’t vote for won’t let teachers get them didn’t mean I didn’t deserve one. Me not spreading COVID will help all the kids at that school, and the people I come into contact with. And it’ll help Louie lower his risk, since college teachers aren’t eligible yet in either state. Sure, I’m rationalizing, but aren’t we all?

I’m sure others deserve them more, and everybody deserves them and hopefully will all get them soon and I frankly think it’s ridiculous that we said how important grocery store workers were and yet won’t give them vaccines or raise minimum wage. But I digress.

So I drove over the river to East St Louis on Wednesday, all the time assuming there was a good chance I’d be turned away. But NO. They took my ID and my insurance, and I signed something saying I was an essential worker (the employee said that’s what teachers should say, that they had been vaccinating teachers all morning) and then I waited a few more minutes, and the pharmacist came out and gave me my vaccine. I thought I would cry, and I almost did, but I was just so excited. I also felt super guilty  for getting the shot, and I felt like I was doing something that was unfair since Louie couldn’t get his shot yet, but I am glad I did it. I got the Pfizer shot, and I go back at the end of March for my second dose.

I do know my privilege (of internet skills and having a flexible enough schedule to take a weekday morning appointment, and easy access to a car, though this site would have been possible via public transportation as well) helped me get this shot, and the rollout statewide and nationwide is really awful, but if I hadn’t taken it, someone else would have, and this helps all the teachers in the district, all the kids, their parents, etc.

If you are reading this, and you are in Missouri and are either already eligible or will be eligible very soon (or are a teacher), I recommend joining this facebook group for information. There are people on the group helping others get appointments as well and ways to help with transportation. If you know any elderly people in the area still looking, that’s a great resource for them or for you to help them.

Other good things happening: one of my students defended her dissertation yesterday! I watched on Zoom, and it was really amazing. She is a chemistry student (or was!) and will be going to work at Pfizer next month. She did a great job and although I didn’t know really anything that she was talking about, it was really great to watch. I am amazed how much I don’t know and I am so glad that others do work with all of these subjects I don’t understand at all.

Otherwise, this week seems to have flown by, as usual. The weather has been lovely but I’ve been inside too much. I have a few online seminars I’m attending this weekend and have a gig Sunday, but hope to get some outside time in. It feels like spring is here, and while that might not be entirely true, we are on our way. The weather gives us hope (as well as the hope I feel having gotten vaccinated).

I wasn’t sure this day would ever come.

I don’t want to jinx anything, but I think it’s going to happen.

I can’t wait until we have a president who isn’t constantly lying to us, and who is willing to admit that COVID is a real problem that we have to deal with.

The past few weeks have been pretty tough, every since the riots especially. I’ve just been working, getting up early to go teach violin to small classes at a school (in person).

I’ll sleep better tonight than in a long time, knowing that the people in charge will be doing their best for the American people again. They will fail at things. They will do things wrong and we will disagree, but I will know that at heart, they are doing their best. This isn’t actually too much to ask in our government, as we have had it for most of my life.

It’s a shame how little some people are willing to settle for. It’s a shame that some people think that lies, hate, and violence are the way forward. It’s a shame that some people choose white supremacy while, at the same time, insisting that racism isn’t a huge problem in this country.

It’s a tragedy that over 400,000 Americans have died of a disease due to one man’s ego taking over. The president couldn’t stand failure so he just pretended it didn’t exist. He chose to stoke division and hate rather than lead. Instead of our country taking the lead in the pandemic and possibly saving 100s of thousands of lives, we relinquished all leadership and left the pandemic management as a free-for-all. Those of us lucky enough to have lived so far have lost nearly a year of our lives trying to stay healthy. Some have chosen to live their lives however they feel, not caring who gets sick around them, and this has divided our country further.

I don’t envy the job President Biden will have ahead of him. I doubt he really wanted this job, but I think he’ll do it, and he’ll do his best. That’s a change from the previous occupant, who did his worst, intentionally.

I’m not happy yet, because the past ten months have taken my ability to feel true happiness away.

I did buy a bottle of sparkling wine to open tonight after work though. We will celebrate at home, just the two of us, as we have celebrated all the holidays in the past year.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. I know that times are still tough and we have to get through the next few months, and this is bad week for COVID cases, but I feel like maybe we can do something different in our country.

Fall is here, and it’s been a gorgeous month. Having more time to enjoy it on the weekends has been nice too.

The leaves are so gorgeous and the weather this past week has been unseasonably warm and wonderful!

COVID cases are bad here…I keep waiting for another shutdown. I’m already working from home still so hardly anything more can affect me, but Louie has been teaching classes in person. Exponential growth is a scary thing.

I do feel like the days are all the same though…I can’t decide what exactly I miss about my old life, but I miss it. I miss the freedom of it all the most. If everybody wore masks, we would get some of our freedom back, but that’s not the country we live in.

I thought about trying to book some sort of getaway for us over Thanksgiving, but if we are going to go somewhere and just be stuck avoiding people who aren’t taking the virus seriously I’d rather just stay home. I’m hoping the weather will be nice over Thanksgiving (it OFTEN is) as we have a couple of hikes further away that we might try. I also have a little more frozen fruit in the freezer that I want to turn into jam, and there are always baking ideas! There’s no shortage of things to do: my reading list is long, there’s plenty to do around the house, etc, but as far as things that take you away from the everyday…it’s harder. I just have to remind myself that I’m lucky to still be so busy with work, lucky to have a nice home to live in (not everybody would agree, but I like it), and lucky to have so many things to do.

I’m enjoying the semester for the most point: my new teaching position has given a focus to my days, and makes me get started really early in the day (class starts at 7:15 am) which means nights have gotten earlier as well. It works well, but makes some days long. At some point it will be in person rather than in my living room, but not this calendar year. And I had a great time teaching a tiny Improv/CAD class on Saturday, and plan to go to weekly classes in the spring.

This week I’m recording some music for a Christmas Concert, and I’m waiting to hear the final recording of the play I helped create music for last month. I also finally finished all my MMTA judging (so many fantastic student performances!) and I’m still participating in some teaching seminars. I’m getting tired of it all and need a break soon, so Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough. I’m not sure what we are doing, if we are going to just do Thanksgiving the two of us, and cook or order takeout dinner from somewhere, or try to do some sort of dinner with Louie’s parents where we mostly wear masks and stay far apart. We know just the two of us is the safest, but there are inherent risks in other activities, such as driving in a car for a three week road trip, and perhaps having a mostly masked dinner with a few other people who have also been being quite careful is okay? I also like the idea of getting a dinner from a restaurant and supporting them (I don’t want to make Thanksgiving dinner for two). 

What are you doing for Thanksgiving, do you know yet? How are you holding up?

Today I shall dedicate to good stuff happening in my life.

1) One of my high schoolers on Friday asked if I thought she was on track to go into music education with the goal of being a music therapist. She’s a junior, and I was excited to hear this. I hope I gave her a good answer, and I think I expressed that I thought she was on a good track though the more she practiced (more carefully) the better. She’s more of a fiddle player and we’ve been also working on theory and rhythm practice. I am excited about her future.

2) Today is my band’s benefit concert at 4 pm. We are playing a short set with another friend playing a short set to raise money for the Oregon Food Bank, in order to help people misplaced by the fires. Check it out, and even better, please donate if you can.

3) I had rehearsal yesterday (responsibly of course) for an upcoming recorded but “live” concert. It will air Sunday, October 11 at 4 pm CST and I recommend you watch. This is a concert that was supposed to happen in late March. It is nice playing with people again. Visit this link to see the information about the Couts Music Series, which I am thrilled and grateful my friend and colleague, Andy Peters, has  put together (with funding during these times.

4) I am so far quite enjoying my new early morning teaching job. I’ve sort of made two goals for the next few years and one is to improve my teaching and push myself out of my comfort zone in teaching, which I’m doing through this job and also starting an improvisation class.

My other goal is to be a more confident and creative musician, and playing with my band helps that (by creative I mean, not just playing the same old classical music and worrying about what some dot a composer wrote 200 years ago means) as well as a few other things on the docket. One is a potential opportunity I just found out about yesterday, and the other is a longer-term online course working with a teacher who has ten years experience teaching improvisation and Creative Ability Development to children in order to improve my own skills and my teaching skills.

I have realized I am a bit happier being out of the “rat race” of the freelance world….worrying about who was asking who to play what and how to stay on top of the list for this and that and worrying if you said no that they wouldn’t ask again. It’s exhausting and a bit soul crushing. I do enjoy playing violin, so much, and it’s great to get paid to do it, but I’m just tired of it. And it’s so nice to just finish teaching and then be done, or to have so much more time on the weekends. I enjoy being busy and doing a lot of interesting things, I don’t think I’ll ever be happy just sitting around all weekend or not feeling like I’m making a difference, but taking the ego out of it (freelancing and performing is SO MUCH about ego) is a happier way to be. I will never win the freelance game, because it’s sort of like the Game of Thrones, you don’t win, you just die. And then some weird person ends up on top after you’ve spend years and years practicing, being nice, showing up early, saying yes to things and missing out on so many other opportunities in life. I’m declaring myself officially out, and I will continue to play things if they seem interesting when I’m asked, but I’m not running around, I’m not saying yes for fear of not having another chance, and I’m not going to play things that make me feel bad.

5) We got delivery from Stone Soup Cottage with Louie’s family last night. It was delicious! It’s definitely expensive but delicious.

We have gone over to Louie’s family here in town for dinner a few times, and we eat out on the back porch at a socially distanced table. Otherwise we wear masks if we need to go in the house or move around. I don’t normally eat meat but occasionally make an exception.

I snapped a quick picture of the soup course. I had a small amount of red wine as it was the suggested pairing and it didn’t give me a headache at all today, which was good. I think I had about half a glass.

It was getting quite dark on the porch by the time we ate the pheasant, and then dessert was entirely too dark. It was all very tasty! I would recommend ordering from them for a special occasion. There were some things that needed to be heated up and some other things to be done, so it wasn’t a meal you can just unpack and eat, but it was fairly easy to do I believe, and the advantage is that everything is hot when you eat it as well, which is one of the problems with takeout. And did I mention it was absolutely delicious? They don’t do any dietary adjustments or substitutions to their menu, but if you are okay eating whatever is on offer (the menu is listed online so you’ll know) it is a wonderful meal.

6) I just made social plans with a friend for next weekend, just me and her! I haven’t hung out with anybody without Louie since before the pandemic. I love Louie and we are used to spending a lot of time together, but I do sometimes wish I had more of a social life without him, and I often feel we are too codependent. So yay! We also have dinner plans with another couple this weekend (at least tentative) and then I have a million other things to do work wise this week (all fun stuff, but there is practicing to be done.) All of this is good: it’s good to focus my energy on positive things rather than all the bad in the world.