Okay, so I’m completely over COVID and have felt fine for some time, in case you were worried. I did fall off the map here a little bit, but that was due to us deciding to take a cruise in May! I never thought I would cruise again since Louie was opposed, but I convinced him to try an Alaskan cruise in May out of Vancouver. We are very excited, and I’ve been doing research on it when I have time rather than blogging. But today I thought, maybe I’ll blog a bit and catch you up on things.

February has been an odd month. I missed a bunch of stuff due to COVID, and then I was back at it, feeling great, not contagious (I hope, who really knows) and had a VERY busy Valentine’s day weekend. I played for three different romantic concerts and had a blast doing it, then it was a Metropolitan Orchestra concert and hearing a concert at the 560 with Karen Gomyo and Orion Weiss.

Dressed up for the concert, this one on viola.

Karen and Orion, smiling at each other after a successful performance.

The following week was a bit derailed by bad weather, with one rehearsal getting canceled and more online teaching. I finished off the week with a long day playing just a few songs with the St Louis Children’s Choirs, but it was fun.

In between it all I have been researching Alaska as well as working on an asynchronous online Violin Teaching Course I’m taking with the Royal Conservatory of Music (Canadian) but there are due dates every month. I have most of our trip planned as well as flights, hotels, and many excursions. It will be a blast!

March looks very busy: both Louie and I have some trips, mine very small overnight trips here and there and him a trip to Germany to present at a conference and visit an old friend. Luckily work has already reimbursed him for the flight so he doesn’t need to worry about funding–the situation with universities right now is scary and a bit dire, and we don’t know what will happen. Here’s an interesting article about university funding and why they can’t just “use their endowments” to cover things.

But we won’t let them ruin things, as I’ve said. Everybody has to do their own thing, but in my household we are doing our best to continue living our best lives WHILE doing what we can to make other people’s lives better too. I continue to donate to groups that are important to me (I donate regularly to Planned Parenthood, Kiva, Safe Connections, and a few more) and I call and email my representatives, for what it’s worth (more than it feels, I hope!). I would love to get out for a protest, but life is too busy right now, so I’m doing what I can. But I’m also continuing to do fun things and plan for the future, because I am hopeful…somewhat.

Here are two cats lying on top of radiators for warmth. The colder it gets outside the warmer the radiators get, and the happier the cats are!

This week is warmer though, highs in the high 50’s/low 60’s. It’s great!

Louie and I went to Jazz St Louis on Friday night with friends. We had dinner there and enjoyed a great show by Kendrick Smith and his band. I had a delicious salmon dinner and we had a great time.

We used to do a small subscription but the new CEO took away the parking perk so we figured it wasn’t worth subscribing. We also heard and read some bad things about him, and aren’t fans, but we wanted to support Kendrick Smith, as he’s a terrific local musician.

Anyway, this weekend is busy with some out of town gigs–for some reason this year I started getting invited to play some things further afield, nothing fancy or exotic, like southern Illinois and Kentucky, and I’ve done a few of them. I don’t know if the trend will continue, but the other weird thing is that they are mostly on viola…if the trend continues I’ll have to get a whole new blog for this thing, which seems tiring and difficult at my age!

Anyway, if you’ve been on an Alaskan cruise, I’d love recommendations, though don’t be mad if I don’t take them. We are visiting Vancouver for a few days, then sailing Holland America and stopping in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan.