Today I am reminded of how our freedoms shouldn’t be taken for granted. Let’s all work together to make our country great for everyone!

Our local park does their fireworks show this Saturday. We will have a BBQ before it. Growing up in South Carolina, we called it a cookout if you had hot dogs and hamburgers. If you had a BBQ you had actual barbecue. Incidentally, barbecue was one of my “spelling bee words”, you know, the word that lost you the spelling bee. I spelled it “barbeque”. The thing that burns me up, RIGHT NOW, is that my blog program doesn’t mark that as misspelled. But I lost the spelling bee.

In any case, it’s a big annual event for us. I don’t even really like fireworks…I think I’ve probably complained about this before, because I’ve been complaining on this blog for years, but they are loud. I’ve played many orchestra concerts in the past where we had to play while the fireworks started, really near us, or while we had to wait for them to finish before leaving, because they were too close to leave. I am like a cat and don’t like sudden, loud noises, so I don’t really like fireworks.

I’ve been dog sitting for Banjo this week too, so I’ve got the two dogs. They don’t seem to mind the fireworks too much, though tonight will likely be louder (everybody in St Louis demonstrates their patriotism by blowing things up and making it sound like a war zone around us, and then when people complain online, they further demonstrate their patriotism by telling those people that their opinions don’t matter, that they are wrong, or that they should just suck it up, that it happens every year, and who cares if their pets are terrified—you can tell how I feel, right?).

The fact of the matter is, I haven’t found something Banjo is afraid of. I used to joke that the only thing Mackenzie is afraid of is the vacuum cleaner, and that is still mostly true, although I suppose the vet ranks pretty high up there, and then she’ll have a weird instance where she refuses to walk down a particular street, but that’s not really fear. But Banjo, he’s not afraid of the vacuum. He just stares at it blankly when I use it, which is really good for Mackenzie to see, that it isn’t something scary to Banjo. Banjo likes to sleep up against the front door, for (I presume) my protection. And the other night the fireworks from various places around us were pretty loud and Banjo kept pacing from door to door in the house. Mackenzie too. I don’t mind that they are here.

They are both old though, and sometimes I get sad thinking of it. I haven’t known Mackenzie for four years quite yet, but almost. I don’t find myself to be as physically affectionate with dogs as with cats, but she has grown on me and I don’t know what we would do without her.

ANYWAY. I should never blog before having too much coffee. You guys know I just spit this stuff out, stream of consciousness, right? This is why it’s terrible and my only followers are hate-followers.

(I hope that’s not true. You all like me well enough, correct?)

What are you doing for the fourth? I’m going to stop by a friend’s house in the afternoon before going to another friend’s house in the evening. I have beer and pasta salad to share.

Have a wonderful holiday! I hope most of you get to relax and enjoy time with friends and family!

Does anybody else lose all motivation in the summer? Have I blogged about this too many times already? I feel like during the school year, until the very first day of “vacation” I am a planning and organizing beast, full of grand ideas, goals, and action plans to get there. And then here it is, almost July, and I’ve accomplished so very very little. Maybe this is the ebb and flow of life.

Things I wanted to accomplish: Learn more how to play the viola. Read several very specific books on music and music history (I’ve read a dozen mystery novels, does that count?). Reorganize my teaching studio (to be fair, I’ve done some of this). Some boring stuff involving spreadsheets, oh, and learning how to use them. Oh, and finally finished blog recaps of LAST summer’s trip (to be fair, still waiting on some pictures from Louie, haha!). There’s some random stuff I’m leaving off but you get the idea.

I suppose I should cut myself some slack, as always. I look back and see that I’ve done a fair amount of working out, lots of interesting activities, read tons of fun books, relaxed a lot, visited with friends and family…also I’ve practiced a fair amount and made progress on a decent amount of rep for the summer and fall. I’ve made some new connections and friends, and I suppose, I’m resting and recharging. But I still feel unmotivated and lazy.

Resting and recharging is probably important though, right? We need the ebb and flow of life to sustain us? I have been getting a few more “around the house “ things done, and finally took care of some car things I’d been putting off. (For a long time!)

I am looking forward to a relaxing holiday weekend. I have a few gigs and only one day off from teaching, but overall it will still be relaxing. I find mid-week “Fourth of July” holidays to be odd—do you turn it into a long weekend or just take the day off? In previous cities I’ve lived I played on various orchestra concerts on the day but here I don’t have any groups I play with.  (Suddenly I find myself very sad and missing playing more orchestra music! Well, not very sad. Slightly sad. Where does the time go?)

ANYWAY. I’m now thinking of things to do, people to contact, and I remind myself, a little laziness probably isn’t too bad, particularly for somebody as high-strung as I can be! How’s your summer going?

It’s officially summer (well, as of a few days ago, whatevers) and yet, the weather is gorgeous! We’ve had some of the most beautiful days of weather ever over the past few days.

I’m not even exaggerated. last year when my sister Leslie and niece visited, it was almost too hot to do anything outside. This year…amazing. We did a bunch of stuff: Grant’s Farm, the Magic House, various ice cream shops, lots of Asian food. It was a whirlwind visit, and unfortunately I had to work a bit, but it was great fun!

I’d gotten Candy Land awhile ago with the idea of using it for teaching somehow. We opened it to play, but Athena (not 3 years) didn’t quite understand the whole board game concept. Good yogi though.

Selfie on the Grant’s Farm Tram. I didn’t take too many pictures, but there were bison and ostriches and deer and more!

The goats really liked Louie.

Nothing better than getting a toddler to hug a giant poo emoji. I didn’t realize how many stuffed animals I had until I collected them all to play with.

They have these outside pianos places. This was on the Loop. I think the moral is, don’t leave a piano outside. It kind of ruins it.

I had to play a few weddings one afternoon so Louie put Athena to work washing the truck. She kept saying “bad, dirty truck!” and soaping over parts he had already rinsed. Gotta teach them young how to wash a car, right?

Anyway, it was nice to see Leslie and Athena (and brother-in-law Peter for one night too). Now it’s back to the “grind” of teaching and playing.

Yesterday we recorded two pieces for a CD of saxophone and string music I’m playing on, and then today I did all manner of car related things. I’m getting some car repairs (woo-hoo…wait…) and finally got my car properly titled after my divorce. (Learn from me, don’t put things off forever, especially when it turns out they are pretty easy to deal with.) Tomorrow I have another random chamber music rehearsal, and otherwise it’s just teaching, a few weddings this weekend, and reading. I’m loving this summer so far, honestly.  One month down, approximately two to go, and the living is easy and fun. Life as a musician might not be so bad after all

Summer is here! At least, school is out. I am probably one of the people who is most attuned to the school schedules without being a parent, since my livelihood depends on it.

In any case, I remembered I had a blog, and that I’ve been running all over the country (well, from Phoenix to Lebanon, Missouri, to St Louis) doing interesting or at least somewhat interesting stuff, and not sharing it with you.

I keep doing too much, I guess. Or I do a lot and then in my downtime I want to read, or chat with Louie and friends, or hike or bike or watch something on Netflix or Amazon. I want to document and share, but it’s been less of a priority.

Life is good, overall. Except my friend April is moving…she is moving for a fantastic job and will be doing great things making the world better, but for those of us here, she’s making the world worse I’ll miss her!

I’m working on getting ready for a retirement home performance this evening and a house concert on Friday. This house concert should be fun, but since it’s a brand new thing for me, there’s been a learning curve. I’m finally at the point of the year where I have time to think about things, and I started planning it before then, so some stuff got left behind…but it’s all going to be okay, and hopefully fun for everybody.

So I’m off to practice, teach, and then play for the older people. Who lately haven’t been the biggest fan of mine. (too loud! too unfamiliar! too classical!)