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.

What a week it has been. Thursday I tested positive for COVID (symptoms, sore throat, congestion, chills) and then I spent some time telling various contractors for weekend gigs and that was a whole thing. I was really quite disappointed about missing stuff, but that’s the way of it, right?

So then I did some online teaching, not a lot, which was good for a few days because I definitely had two days of feeling quite lousy. But now I’m feeling much better but possibly still contagious, as I’m still congested. I haven’t taken a new test yet but might today.

It’s been a lot. This whole “living through an administrative coup” is tough, and takes a lot of emotional bandwidth. And today they are talking about how judge’s can’t tell people what to do, so I guess we know what that’s all about.

We are pretty stressed in the house, worrying about what these cuts to the NIH and NSF will do to Wash U and Louie’s job and our health insurance, but we also don’t want to let them win, so it’s a lot. A LOT. I left a whole bunch of voicemails on my senator’s voicemail boxes last night telling them how I felt about them ending cancer research, and I suggest you do to. If you don’t think this will decimate medical research, you are wrong.

My quartet played a concert at the Kemper Art Museum last week–isn’t that a fantastic backdrop? Also, I believe it was made with legos, if I’m remembering correctly. (The brain fog is real!)

We had a nice crowd and had a fantastic time. We played a piece by a fairly unknown composer named Maddalena Laura Sirmen and Debussy’s String Quartet. Side note: when I was a girl I was told that we didn’t play music by women because women didn’t write music that was any good. I have since learned that of course that wasn’t true at all. And IN REAL TIME I am seeing how the men of the current regime are making people cover up evidence of women and people of color achieving greatness…if that isn’t a true lesson as to how much women and people of color have truly accomplished, yet these white men are so fragile that they can’t handle it…anyway, the piece by Sirmen was lovely and we plan to play more of her quartets. And of course Debussy was lovely as well, because women can write music and men can write music, and neither need to compete with one another.

While I was sick, which I arguably still am, I spent a lot of time lying in bed reading and petting these cats. I also spent too much time doomscrolling.

Things to do: make sure you are calling your reps. Yes, they may not care, but you may also give them strength to do the right thing, who knows. Protest if you can. Do nice things for others. And be sure to take time for yourself as well: do not let them destroy your mental health. They love making you upset! We can still have joy through our troubles.

Things nationally are bad (and internationally), but I figured, I should pop on and say hello on this sunny Monday.

Louie and I have attended quite a few events in the past few weeks: we saw two plays, one at the St Louis Repertory Theatre–Athena, and another at the Marcelle this past weekend by the Upstream Theatre, Pictures from a Revolution. Both were terrific.

We saw the symphony play with James Ehnes, and we saw two Great Artists Series concerts at Wash U: Emmanuel Pahud with Alessio Bax, and last night, Stephen Hough.

We also went for a hike one day, and I went to a needle felting class and felted a little bear.

Teaching has been good, but busy. And this week I have two performances and three rehearsals, so there’s a lot going on.

The cats enjoy the cold weather because it means cuddles and lots of radiator time. It’s been a bit warmer the past few days and I think they must be confused! “Why aren’t these hot metal chairs hotter?”

Muriel just does what she wants, and I’m so jealous.

Seen at a church near our house. We walked up to the Loop for dinner on Saturday night, Thai food at Fork and Stix, so yummy!

Anyway, that’s the quick rundown on me. Mentally, not too stressed, but I have moments of sheer panic and worry: Louie and I waffle between whether we need to get OUT and what that would mean, or whether we need to just take some deep breathes. I’m heartened by seeing protests, and I find that contacting my (useless, but still) senators and representative helps my mental state. Do what you have to do, but don’t give up.

And go see a play! We really have been enjoying it!

I have chosen to focus on my world. Last time, I spent 4 years being stressed out and horrified…this time I plan to keep an eye on the news (which is already both horrifying and exactly what we all thought would happen even as others, including many major media outlets, told us we were fearmongering and overreacting…but I digress…though at least there is the feeling of, yes, I was correct, I was not overreacting…) WHILE focusing on my personal world. Like, how would we be living if there weren’t news?

Of course, this makes me feel guilty that I do have such an insular and privileged life that if I ignore things I can mostly just live my life (for now!) while being concerned for many things. Because living my personal past reproductive age life is easy, but many of my friends are women of child-bearing years or before, many are on the ACA, many are lgbtqia+, many are immigrants…not to mention all the destruction from the fires in CA and how inadequate the federal government response to the next disaster is likely to be.

Focusing on what is right here: teaching started up last week and OH MY GOD IT IS SO COLD OUTSIDE–my phone says it is currently -1 degrees and for my international readers, that’s FAHRENHEIT. I would say I am grateful that I don’t have to go outside today and my students come to me, but I really need to go grocery shopping, ha! I’m grateful I have a giant purple winter coat that keeps me quite warm on days like today, and I’m grateful for my seat heaters. And my amazing radiant heat in the house: radiators are seriously where it’s at and we feel warm and cozy here.

Stay warm and stay informed, but stay calm and collected. We won’t let them ruin our lives: they love “triggering the libs” so the important thing to do is not be “triggered” but that doesn’t mean what they are doing isn’t also real. Gosh, it’s so awful and complicated, isn’t it? How sad that making other people upset is such a main priority! The thing I try to remind myself is that mostly they just want money and power, and again, how sad is that? It really shows me how glad I am about the choices I’ve made in my life about what’s important to me.

It has been a LOVELY week. I should have vacation every week!

I’ve slept in, I’ve woken up early without an alarm, I’ve stayed up late and gone to bed early. I’ve read, watched tv, organized, cleaned, hung out with friends, watched a movie, snuggled with Louie and the cats, decorated for Christmas (more to do), baked bread, planned baking for Christmas, hiked in the woods, eaten lots of great food, enjoyed the snow, and just plain old relaxed.

It’s been fabulous. And today is the last day, sad!

But, that’s okay. Three weeks more of work and then I get to spend Christmas hosting my family, and then I get more vacation after that, and really, life isn’t bad at all. (If you ignore the news, easier said than done.)

Thanksgiving dinner was lovely. We met Louie’s family and some of their friends at the Whittemore House for a buffet, and enjoyed several hours of eating and conversation. It was a little sad not to have leftovers, but I think Christmas will be enough of that.

We met our friends Michael and Heather at Pere Marquette. It was sunny but very cold. We hiked about 3.5 miles and then went to the Old Bakery Beer Company for lunch.

I snapped this picture of the house getting home from a wedding yesterday (I did play one gig over the “break”). While we were eating dinner some young girls stopped by to ask if we needing our snow shoveled so we paid them a little to do so. One shoveled off the porch edges which wasn’t necessary at all but we don’t like to micromanage 🙂

Anyway, I’m doing laundry and probably going to pickle some cranberries now. Later we are hitting up the old house and then eating dinner out somewhere in the old neighborhood, and then back to work tomorrow. How has your Thanksgiving been?

It’s finally here! I work today and then I’m off until Saturday!!

I woke up with a headache though, which was annoying. I am blaming the weather change, but maybe I’m dehydrated as well? I realized that the sparkling water that I love was maybe making me have a bit of acid reflux or similar, so I’ve been cutting back, but have I been replacing it with regular water? Of course not, because that wouldn’t be as fun. So we watched Cobra Kai for several episodes last night and instead of my usual sparkling water I drank absolutely nothing. And woke up with a headache, hmm.

The weekend was fun and we took full advantage of the offerings at Wash U (a short walk away!). Friday night we saw Nicole Mitchell play at the 560 Center as well as some of our local favorites like Kendrick Smith. It was through New Music Circle, but was really jazz, in my opinion, because it felt so improvised and had a drummer. What does definite these different genres, really? Kendrick is a terrific jazz musician, and plays the saxophone, so that seemed like jazz. But nonetheless Louie and I enjoyed the concert.

Saturday night we went to see a play at the Performing Arts Department of Wash U. It was The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa Fasthorse, and we really enjoyed it. The acting was terrific, the play was hilarious and really thought-provoking. I found this New York Times article about it just now. I have to remind myself that we have so much to do here in St Louis when we look for it, and usually I am too busy to do it anyway!

Otherwise, the weekend was the normal work, a wedding, a Sunday afternoon concert, etc. I would have enjoyed having even more downtime but I don’t regret the events we went to. Always the choice!

But now, just one more day. We have some fun events planned for Thanksgiving besides dinner: Garden Glow, lunch at Florentin, a hike at Pere Marquette with friends, a girls’ night, and more! And I’d love to get the Christmas decorations up (and will) — we started yesterday late afternoon with outdoor wreaths which I am super thrilled with. We also set up a chest freezer in the basement that I am eager to fill with baked goods for the holidays.

What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Are you traveling? I’m kind of sad I’m not, but I’m also really happy with the things we have planned and look forward to just relaxing at home as well.