I’ve got my fall schedule organized, everything set up online for scheduling and billing my students.
I’ve got rehearsals and concerts lined up for the fall. Plenty to do!
I’m going in for surgery on Wednesday, and then I’ll spend some time recovering.
It’s been a busy end of summer but mostly just getting things in order, going to some parties, cleaning the house, and running errands. I played enough concerts and shows in July and August to really feel like a performing musician again, and taught more students than ever before. We had some lovely meals out at the Whittemore House Wine Dinner and at the Lucky Accomplice. Louie defended his dissertation! I read lots of books and started learning Norwegian just for fun.
Things are good, and will be even better once I have this medical stuff behind me. Wish me luck!
It’s August, and I could say, August already, but I do feel like I’ve been feeling the time passing pretty well in July. (June flew by).
It’s been a busy few weeks of actual violin playing, which has been fun. I joined up with a local group, the Gateway Festival Orchestra, for 3 concerts, which was fun, and then some chamber music, plus opera. And teaching! I’ve had plenty of time to relax and read as well. We haven’t done much outside as the weather has alternated between being super hot and flooding, but there were some nice days this past weekend and we got out for some walking.
This month I have surgery. I won’t go into details here but, it’s a big deal, but not a big deal, all at once. It’s a common surgery, mostly for prevention, and I’m feeling pretty good about it, but yet I’ve also been exceedingly stressed out at times and very emotional. I imagine now that this is how many people feel leading up to surgery, but since I have never had surgery before as an adult, I didn’t know how I would feel. Anyway, the date is August 17 so think of me then, and I’m taking two weeks or so off to recover, and hopefully that is enough. If not, I’ll take more as needed. I find that having this hanging over my head at the end of the summer has made everything more difficult, so I’ll be glad to have it behind me when I’m at that point. Sorry for being vague!
You can tell when I haven’t been doing much when I don’t even have any recent pictures on my phone. The cats have been boring (haha) and just sitting around sleeping most of the time. Louie is preparing to defend his dissertation, and I’ve been working a lot of evenings so we haven’t done too many interesting meals. But I figured I’d pop in here to say hello!
Assuming my surgery goes well, I anticipate doing a lot of reading and watching Netflix (and the like) during my recovery time. I have stacks of books and I’m sure plenty of shows to watch, but more recommendations are always welcome.
I wanted to sum up our trip to Norway in one post, for easy sharing and referencing for people interested in going. I’ve had a few questions from friends, so this will make it easier!
We were there about 2 1/2 weeks. In a nutshell, here’s what we did. We loved everywhere we stayed, but I’m only going to list the restaurants we really enjoyed and recommend, and the same for the activities. Everybody loves different things, so do your own research, but this is what we loved.
“Sognefjord in a Nutshell”: Express boat from Bergen to Balestrand and then to Flam. The folks at Trip Advisor don’t like this tour, but we absolutely loved it. 4 hours on a boat, sign me up! It was terrific. I’m sure “Norway in a Nutshell” is great as well.
Oslo: We stayed at a fantastic AirBNB, great location, cute place. My only caveat would be that it is a loft bed, which we enjoyed but is not for everyone. Coffee/pastries: Apent Bakeri Frogner. Restaurants we loved: Lorry, Engebret Cafe (I loved it, Louie couldn’t go with me to this one.) Restaurants we liked a lot: Roti Shop Oslo, Mucho Mas, Jewel of India.
To do in Oslo, in a quasi favorite order: Vigeland Park, Norwegian Folk Museum, National Gallery, see a show at the Opera House, Fram Museum, Kon Tiki Museum, Holmenkollen Ski Jump and Museum, day trip to Drobak and Oscarsburg Fortress via ferry, Akershus Festning, Norwegian Resistance Museum, the Royal Palace.
It’s easy to get around: you can walk everywhere, or buy tickets on the public transportation system. In Oslo, download the Ruter app to your phone and you can buy tickets for the trip, the day, or the week (or longer!). I also always recommend downloading Google Maps for offline use as you never know when that will help.
Bring an umbrella, you’ll need it. For getting to and from the airport quickly, flytoget is super easy to use, though more expensive and not much faster than the regular train, apparently.
Fjaerland is a magical little place.
Oh, and we NEVER used any cash during our entire visit. We didn’t take any out, figuring we would if we needed, and we never did. Everybody uses credit cards. You don’t have to tip at restaurants either, even though the machine will suggest that you do. (We are suckers so we usually did a little, but really, they are already being paid well.)
The only cash we saw was in the museum! I do wish I had some coins as a souvenir, but oh well.
Trip planning resources: I used Rick Steves’ Norway Guidebook, Fodor’s Norway Guidebook, Trip Advisor (forums) and lots of internet searches. We also watched Occupied and I read the Harry Hole mysteries by Jo Nesbo (both entirely optional, just for fun). If we went back, there are more places to go (further north especially) but we loved all the places we visited and we felt like our research had paid off.
I am still thinking fondly of our trip over a month later. If you have an opportunity to go to Norway, GO!! I reserve the right to update this post along the way if I want to add anything.
After several years of everything being canceled due to COVID, Louie was speaking at two conferences in June, with just a week between. The first was in Oslo (if you are reading this and missed my posts about that trip, I recommend!) and then in Austin, Texas. Neither of us had been to Austin before, so as he was making his travel plans, I decided to come down for part of the conference. I wanted to teach a few days that week, so I went from Sunday to early Thursday, and he came back the next evening.
We were regretting our travel plans on Saturday before we left, as we had only been home for 4 days really before having to leave again, and still recovering from jet lag (and/or COVID, who really knows). With our original plan we would have had 6 full days of jet lag recover (and no COVID, that definitely wasn’t in the plan) but…anyway, we left bright and early Sunday morning and flew direct to Austin.
We decided to mask in the airport because there are a lot of people there and COVID isn’t the only thing you can catch!Our plane was getting ready.
The plane flight was uneventful, and we got to our hotel easily. We were staying at the conference hotel, the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center which was on the edge of the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. We were able to check in to our room early and got settled. It was hot outside, but very nice and cool at the hotel. I had had images of hanging out at the pool, but the pool was located on the side of the hotel by a busy street and never looked as appealing as the pictures of it (surprise!).
Louie didn’t have anything scheduled on Sunday, so we headed out on foot for some sightseeing and ultimately a late brunch reservation at Comedor.
We walked by the Texas State Capitol and realized you could also go inside, so we did that (it was good to get out of the heat).
The grounds were very pretty and had many different statues.
We had to go through a metal detector to get into the Capitol, but I think if you had a gun you just had to declare it. I was struck by how many non-English speaking people were at the Capitol, as well as many different looking English speaking people, likely a full cross section of America as it is, rather than America as…well, the people who run the Texas State Capitol wish for it to be. Keep in mind this was also still before my rights to my own body were taken away from me…it was an interesting visit and a beautiful building, but the underlying message that we have received from the Texas government is not a welcome one.
Texas is obsessed with stars. You see them everywhere!Looking down into the rotunda.It’s the little details, too.A sculpture outside on the grounds. It was hard to get in a picture, but it was the Texas African American History Memorial, and had a lot going on. It is interesting to note that we were actually there on Juneteenth! That sentence: “The conflict did not readily change the Black experience in Texas, as most African-Americans continued to be held in bondage and forced to labor.” I didn’t know until a few years ago that it took a long time after the Emancipation Proclamation for enslaved people to be freed. Austin is full of murals. The idea of “Keep Austin Weird”, they say, isn’t about the murals necessarily but just about having so many local businesses rather than chains. Brunch at Comedor. We were used to Norway prices, so it seemed reasonable.
We LOVED Comedor. We had fish tacos and a few other things.
Fish tacos!The Huarache with mushrooms, egg, and tomatoes.We finished with a pancake the size of a car tire. We did not eat the whole thing.
After lunch we walked down to the Congress River for a bit, which was beautiful but I was really hot, so we headed back to the hotel then.
The hotel room was nice enough to hang out in, and we cooled off and I chatted online with my family for the weekly meeting. Louie was able to work a bit as well as check into the conference and get the official book.
After that, we decided to go to a nearby restaurant called the Texas Chili Parlor. It was a dive bar, but it was welcoming, very near the hotel, and ended up being terrific. The prices were good, quick service, and we enjoyed chili and frozen margaritas.
The conference started Monday, so I had a few days to figure things out for myself. Some of the things I’d hoped to do Monday ended up being closed due to the Juneteenth Holiday, so my Monday ended up being fairly uneventful. I ate at the Driscoll Hotel at the1886 Cafe for breakfast, and did a little wandering around after that. I had tacos for lunch at the Velvet Taco, and spent the afternoon at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, which was one of the reasons I’d decided to go to Austin.
People had a lot of things to tell us to do in Austin, and I’m sure many of them were great fun, but I was most interested in the museums. Unfortunately visiting from Sunday to Wednesday wasn’t the best to see museums, as I only managed to fit two in during that time, but those were great. I loved the LBJ Library and learned so much!
Inside the Museum–you can see the documents, filed on shelves.I read this as “Please do not touch the Murial.”Selfie in the Oval Office replica.The view from Lady Bird Johnson’s office.
I walked back to the hotel after that, losing and finding my walk since nearly everything in the area was under construction. We met up with Louie’s boss for dinner and planned to go to a nearby Indian restaurant, but the wait was estimated to be 1 1/2-2 hours, so…we decided to go to the Chili Parlor again. And yes, it was again for all of us.
The next day I had signed up for an organized tour for BBQ and wineries in Texas through the company Austin Detours. I am finding that when traveling on my own it’s nice to have something organized and pushes me out of my comfort zone. I get so worried meeting up with things, and of course, it was easy and the tour guide was welcoming and friendly.
There were just 6 of us plus the guide, and it was a wonderful day. We started downtown with a tour around from the van and then headed to the hills to the Salt Lick Barbecue. Now, you may know that I eat a mostly pescatarian diet, but my reasons for doing so allow for occasional meat eating opportunities, especially when it seems integral to the understanding and culture of a place, or for special occasions.
I got the burnt ends and the pulled pork. It was pretty good, but nothing will ever hold a candle to the barbecue of my youth, Hickory Hills in Clinton, South Carolina.
Next we went to the Fall Creek Winery, which was very nearby.
The tour guide liked taking pictures of us so I got some fun photos from the day.
We did a tasting there of about 6 wines and there were enjoyable. Not great, but certainly…as good as Missouri wines, I would say.
And then we went to the Duchman Family Winery. The tasting was different: we stood at the counter rather than sitting, but it was another 6 or so wines and though most in the group preferred the Duchman wines, I preferred the Fall Creek wines. I didn’t buy anything, as flying home with it would have been too difficult.
We stopped at this sign on our way back to Austin for pictures.
I recommend the tour if you have an afternoon free and want to do something different.
That evening Louie and I went back to Comedor for dinner. We are evidently creatures of habit, and loved the food for brunch so wanted to try it for dinner. I know there are many more places, but it seemed like most recommendations were barbecue and tacos and this was like, fancier tacos. We had an avocado tostada, an okra and corn side, a quesadilla with mushrooms, fish with mole sauce, and for dessert, chocolate tamal with ice cream. The meal was great, especially the okra side and the fish with mole sauce. The odd thing was that the restaurant, as it got darker outside, simply got darker and darker, to the point that I was struggling to see my way to the bathroom after the meal and nearly bumping into everyone. It was an interesting mood lighting choice.
The fish with sauce.
Wednesday morning Louie took the morning off from the conference, and we went to the Texas History Museum. It was a nice way to spend a few hours.
I told you they like stars. This one outside the museum is probably the largest.Standing in front of an Alamo replica. Remember!
The museum was interesting, and covered the history of Texas from the beginning of time until the present day. Some of it was a little starry eyed, and some of the stuff about slavery was especially starry eyed/propaganda, but I’m glad we went.
I met up with a friend for lunch then. A friend who used to live in St Louis now teaches at UT-Austin and we went to Kerbey Lane Cafe for lunch. It was great to catch up and chitchat, and reminded me that sometimes you can just have a nice time meeting up with a friend. (Sometimes it feels overwhelming visiting places where you know people and feeling like there’s no way to fit everything in, seeing the sights, seeing people, making people happy!) And then for dinner we met up with an old friend of Louie’s and had pizza and beer at Pinthouse Brewery.
Beer.
So that was my trip to Austin. I didn’t get to any of the Art Museums I wanted to see, I didn’t get to see my friend Heather who was also in Austin that week, we didn’t see the bats at dusk on the Congress Street bridge, we didn’t get Torchy’s Tacos or Franklin’s BBQ, we didn’t get to the swimming hole at Barton Springs, but we had a nice time, we still miss the Chili Parlor, and I was especially glad to have seen the LBJ Presidential Library.
Traveling is funny: it’s wonderful to explore and see new places, but with the internet and instagram, there seem to be these ideas that there are certain places everybody must see and do, and that there are places you must take pictures and post online, and…I think it’s important that we don’t see traveling as a series of checklists to cover. I enjoyed Austin on my terms, taking what people said and choosing from them and adding in stuff that I found.
The same with Norway: we loved what we did, and we definitely did some of the most popular things, but we also did things that particularly interested US, which isn’t necessarily the same thing that interests everybody else. In my day to day life, I do things that are very different than many people, so why would I do the same things in travel? I do think we might have enjoyed the bats, but it just didn’t work out with our dinner plans.
When I was young, my family took a long road trip “Out West”, as we called it, and one thing we did one night was sit in an amphitheater outside Carlsbad Caverns and watched the bats in their mass exodus from the cave at sunset. It was awe-inspiring, and part of me wanted to keep that in my memory as it is, and thought, maybe that’s enough bats for me right now.
My flight home was early on Thursday, and I had been hearing that the Austin airport was a nightmare, so I arrived about 2 hours early. The airport was the opposite of a nightmare and security took no time at all, haha, but it’s always better to be too early than running late. I’m glad I went to Austin, and I hope that Louie does some more conferences in the future that I can tag along on!
After getting home from Norway, I didn’t waste any time in putting together a photo book. I got it last week and I’m happy with it!
I ended up spending about $40 on it from Snapfish after a sale code–I think it has about 200 photos, and took me a few hours to put together. First I picked out the photos to use, then I had their program organize them into the book, and then I went through and edited it to what I preferred. Overall I’m happy with the book and I’m glad to have a physical album for pictures. As far as Snapfish goes, never pay full price: make the book online whenever you want and then wait for a good discount code, they come around pretty often.
I haven’t done this in the past as much, and it’s my new goal to “catch up” on photo albums, and then have that be a new thing that I do RIGHT AWAY. So I also made a photo album this past week, for…some trips we took in 2017. I had never done anything with those photos and thought, well, why not now. Maybe it’s silly to print photo books and I won’t look at them much, but I imagine I’ll look at them more than I do a bunch of photos that are doing nothing at all. I have at least one more trip I want to make a book of, and that’s our trip from 2019 when we went to Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, and Jasper. Otherwise, I’ll probably just keep book-making on my list of things to do post trip.
The last week went by quickly. It was busy with teaching and quartet rehearsals. This weekend was busy with opera rehearsals and a morning quartet performance. It wasn’t THAT busy though, except for yesterday, when I worked all day long. This week is also busy as we have opera rehearsals the first three nights and then performances start: I am playing with Union Avenue Opera (local readers, please come to see us perform Falstaff.) I am glad to be playing some opera after a few years–I am no longer with Winter Opera (I resigned due to a variety of reasons) and so I did miss playing some opera. I also enjoy working with colleagues–teaching from home is lovely but I have so many freelance colleagues that I like and don’t see that often.
The heat finally broke here, at least for a little while. Today’s high is only 84, after days over 100. It will be a nice respite!
I played an outdoor concert last night with the Gateway Festival Orchestra and afterwards I saw this little fellow.
I was thinking he was a frog, but Louie said he was a toad (or she, I don’t know how to tell) and I suppose I forgot about toads as an option. The toad stood very still as I walked by and took his picture.
The week went by quickly with teaching, practicing, and well, relaxing. Summer has been really refreshing for me. I’ve had plenty of work so I don’t worry, but between traveling and having more free time than normal, it’s been really wonderful. On the one hand, I wouldn’t be mad if life continued like this, but on the other hand, my monthly take home is a little lower than I want all year long. I do enjoy some of my other jobs (especially teaching at Wash U, I’ve had such wonderful students there!) but man, it is nice sometimes just teaching from home and playing some orchestra concerts and chamber music with friends.
There’s more chamber music this week, and opera as well. It’s perhaps my lightest teaching week all summer, so I have some “early” evenings (7:15 is early, I guess) and plenty of time during the day to do what needs to be done. This does not entail gardening this year: 1) too hot to do yardwork, at least for me. 2) I never did get the vegetable garden in last year.
I think what I need to do is in the fall I need to really put the garden bed away, do a lot of yard work once things die off and then make a real plan in the spring. I miss having fresh veggies, but then again, we may end up traveling a lot next summer too. Either way, we never did our fall “yard clean up” last year and we are paying the price this year with some overgrown stuff happening. (Alternately, we need to just pay somebody to come do that, plus take care of a few trees which are too big probably.)
Miles out on the catio.Muriel pretending to nap.Avocado toast and soup.Brown cheese on waffles with a side of scrambled eggs.
We haven’t been doing too much cooking, but I’ve got a Purple Carrot box coming this week. I think it’ll get us out of the rut, maybe. I want to do more meal planning and make fabulous meals, but then I remember there are only 2 of us…it’s much easier to just roast some broccoli and make a frozen veggie burger, or open a can of beans.
Book wise: I haven’t mentioned much lately, so here’s what I’ve been reading:
The Inspector Brunetti Series by Donna Leon (I’ve read about 15 of these)
Glass Houses by Louise Penny, Inspector Gamache series (loved this series for the most part)
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling: I like this series, even though I am upset by Rowling’s anti-trans stance. I checked it out from the library so I feel like it didn’t really help her out, but I am conflicted.
Maid by Stephanie Land. I’d watched the tv show and the book was more detailed and really made me think about how lucky I am and how we can treat workers better.
The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri. Great read, about an Iranian women and her and her family’s experience immigrating as well as other refugees as well. Reading too many books like this can be overwhelming, but it makes you consider your privilege, what you could lose, and how other people are connected to you.
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate. Good read , recommend.
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. Also enjoyed this one, recommend. (I don’t have to write a book report, use google 🙂 )
Book Lovers by Emily Henry. Quick read, predictable but delightful.
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza. Very good, recommend.
Ruth Galloway Mystery Series by Elly Griffiths. I’m 4 books in and really enjoying it.
TV: Barry–we finished Season 3 recently. Not as good as Seasons 1 and 2, but still enjoyable.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: currently watching. It’s entertaining but starting to feel a little bit cliche, like the characters are developed beyond being actual people and are now just the most ridiculous parts of their personalities. Or it’s always been like that but I’m just in a darker place now?
Anatomy of a Scandal: I wanted to like this, and I did for parts, but overall eh, not recommend.
Oh, and we watched the new Borgen show, I forget the name, while traveling. Loved Borgen, loved the newest season taking place in Greenland as well as Denmark.
We could probably use some television recommendations, as it feels like Netflix isn’t hitting the mark anyway and the other apps are super annoying to browse. Right now we have Netflix, Apple, Amazon and HBO (too many probably!)
Oh, and we went to see Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky with Union Avenue Opera. I thought it was well done, but I didn’t love it. The first act was slow and I wish there could have been a bigger orchestra for some of the music. It was nice to see though, I’m always glad to see new things and I was unfamiliar with the opera.
I guess that’s it for now! I have some practicing to do. Oh, and stay tuned, I am still planning to recap our trip to Austin and tell you what we did there, but I just haven’t yet.
