I tried to run today. I need more time off. This is me foam rolling with a different cat.
I’m heading home this evening for a few days. The flight is already delayed an hour which I don’t understand. How do they know already?
Wish me luck getting home!
It’s been a crazy weekend so far!
"You’ll sleep when you’re dead." –Leslie
This was in reference to tomorrow and the subsequent days: I have a 7:30 flight to Phoenix, arrive there around 9 am, then we have a party starting at 3 pm and going…until. Sunday and Monday are also busy ("busy" in wedding planning and celebrating terms, to be clear, not actual busy, but things like "final dress fitting," "do bikram yoga," "visit the venue to plan out decorations," and "drop off bridesmaid dress at dry cleaners" are on the list. It adds up.) Oh, then I get home Monday night around midnight, and leave again on Thursday afternoon. Plan: sleep on plane.
For the party—who doesn’t love Mad Libs. Some of these are already done since somebody else got married recently. (This is Leslie’s something borrowed?)
Got my haircut and my brows waxed for the festivities. I’ll need extra undereye concealer by the time this is done.
We have created an abomination against nature. Or this is just a really unflattering pose.
I had purchased some pumpkin spice kisses at Target the other week. It occurred to me that they would make excellent cookie toppers. Last night I made snickerdoodle cookies and put a kiss on top of each one. DELICIOUS!
When Chris saw me with the "ingredients" for snickerdoodle cookies–(I’m not going to lie: I bought a box of snickerdoodle "cookie mix." Probably I have all the ingredients for actual snickerdoodle cookies on hand, because I imagine they include, you know, sugar, flour, eggs, cinnamon, baking soda, butter…but I was just that lazy, and I didn’t feel like looking up a recipe nor verifying that I had all the ingredients, NOR, dare I say, pulling out the kitchenaid which I ended up having to do anyway…but I digress)—when Chris saw me with the box of mix, he said "I don’t care for snickerdoodle cookies." I told him I was putting the kisses on them and his ears perked up. After I made them I think he ate a half dozen.
Basically I’m telling you that these cookies really compliment the kisses, if you are looking for a good pairing.
I packed my running shoes. I thought about going for a run this morning, but I decided that I should stick with my original plan of not running for at least a week, plus there is no need for me to be a hero. We did deadlifts yesterday to work on my hamstrings and they felt really good at the time, but naturally I’m sore today. I am blogging, then foam rolling. Another couple days off will only help really, not hurt.
What are you up to this weekend? Any suggestions on places to hit up in Old Town Scottsdale on a Saturday night?
So…I’m sure you’re all wondering what a day in the life of Hannah is like. No? Lots of other bloggers do this, so I figured it might be fun. Every day is different of course, for me, though often Wednesday is the same as Wednesday, and Tuesday is the same as Tuesday. (Wrap your brain around THAT one, dear reader!)
Here was Wednesday:
8:00 am Get woken up by annoying dog nearby that was yipping. Go back to sleep.
9:30 am Get woken up by annoying alarm clock. Snooze once.
9:35 am Get up. Do bathroom stuff. Go downstairs. Make oatmeal in the microwave and pour a cup of coffee that Chris already made. Eat oatmeal.
10:00 am to 10:45 am: Write recap of MO Cowbell Half Marathon and check email and twitter.
10:45 am Take shower.
11:00 to 11:30 am Start packing for weekend trip and do some straightening up/cleaning.
11:30 Go to the hairdressers
11:45 Get brows waxed and get hair cut and styled.
1:00 pm Home for lunch—chicken and rice with salad.
1:15 to 1:30 Sit on ice packs.
1:30 to 2:45 Various errands around house, ranging from dishes to emails to paying bills to taking pictures of the cat to send to Chris who is at work.
2:45 Leave for work, call Leslie on the way to continue the texting conversation we’d been having about her wedding, leave message.
3:15 Arrive at work, set up room. Leslie calls back. Chat for about 20 minutes.
3:45 to 8:30 Teach students. During teaching have a snack of a few almonds and some beef jerky.
8:30 Lock up the school and turn off the lights. Realize as I wrote this that I forgot to reset the thermostat.
8:35 Drive home. Call Leslie again to talk about her wedding.
9:00 Arrive home, put on pajamas while still on the phone.
9:15 Make dinner: eggs, sausage, pumpkin swirl bread. Cat is desperate and lonely for attention so she follows me around everywhere.
9:45 to 10:00 Write this blog post (rough draft), ice legs and butt.
10:00 Wait for husband to come home…aka read blogs and other crap online.
10:30 Hang out with husband.
11:00 Read in bed
11:30 Go to sleep
This is a fairly typical day, minus the constant Leslie’s wedding talk (soon that will be done!) and minus the fact that I didn’t work out at all, which is less common. Also I didn’t do any practicing which I often (okay, well, sometimes 😉 ) do!
What do you think of when you think of Mahler? Horns? Lots of people on stage? Chorus? Really long symphonies? That guy who sat near you at the concert texting the libretto to Mahler 2 to someone as it appeared on the screen…even though it is available online and in the score and the light from his phone was incredibly annoying, leading my friend to exclaim "that’s the last time I’m ever going to be friendly to anyone!"?
Violins?
(I really just wanted to post this picture because it’s funny how much taller I am than everybody else…including the other teacher in the picture with me. Also my neck looks broken.)
But. Mahler. The greatest of all composers. Except maybe Beethoven. Okay, don’t make me decide, that’s just not fair. I’ll take late Beethoven quartets and my Mahler symphonies and die a happy woman.
This weekend the Symphony is playing Mahler’s Symphony no. 3. I’m going Friday night, but the performance repeats on Saturday night if you are busy watching baseball or something on Friday. (I don’t watch my team, that just ruins things.)
I recommend you listen to (well, at least the beginning of) Mahler 3. It’s the longest symphony by Mahler, and is just wonderful and intense and covers all the emotions. As always for Mahler, I’d rather play than listen, but I’m happy to do both. I can’t wait.
Here’s the Wikipedia article about the piece: Mahler’s Third Symphony.
And the music itself. That one starts right away.
And this one is of Leonard Bernstein and has the entire symphony, so if you have an hour and a half to listen, go for it! I’m bothered by the fact that the first 45 seconds or so are silence, but be patient.
I’m listening to it right now!
I can only think of two times I’ve played Mahler 3…I might be forgetting something, but I think it’s just twice. Once with National Repertory Orchestra and once with the Charlotte Symphony. I’ve definitely heard the Cleveland Orchestra play it, and I feel like there is probably another performance in there somewhere, but I can’t remember everything!
Since I’m talking about orchestras and music, now is a good time to share some links I’ve read recently. You may be aware that various orchestras are running into financial difficulties and many players are being asked to make concessions. Classical music, and indeed, the arts, are so often the first thing cut when people have money issues. I’m lucky that my parents considered music lessons to be of the utmost important when we were growing up—even though money was tight, there was always room for lessons. Without them, where would I be today? I can attribute most of my success and happiness in life to my music lessons. Sadly most people do not feel this way.
A friend quoted the National Endowment for the Arts’ motto recently: "A great nation deserves great art." I guess it depends on whether or not you consider the US to be a great nation. I certainly do.
It’s important to remember that for the vast majority of American orchestral players, a spot in an orchestra does not bring a six-figure salary, or even, in many cases, a living wage. (from the Philadelphia Inquirer)
How to turn things around (one man’s opinion)
Does skill justify their pay? (From Minnesota Public Radio)
The MLB sides with the Atlanta Symphony Musicians– "the Players ARE the Game" (sadly the orchestra had to take a crappy settlement, cut their salaries, cut their weeks and their players, while the management remains bloated and overpaid…)
Many boards seem to think that musicians are easily replaceable… if this is the case why do so many positions go unfilled?
Oh, and to make things end on a happy note (though with Mahler looming that hardly seems necessary!)–
The St Louis Symphony just had its best year in a decade (from the Riverfront Times)
We classical musicians are constantly reinventing ourselves and battling against people who don’t see the difference between a teacher or performer with advanced degrees and a high school student…I could go on for days on a soapbox about that…the best way to teach people to tell the difference is to just continue to perform and teach at a very high level. The further along my students get the more they stop simply impressed by someone playing the violin and start being impressed by HOW someone plays the violin…the difference between a beginner and Itzhak Perlman for instance.
Oh and here’s Perlman on the Colbert Report, speaking of ;) This delighted me to no end—a famous classical musician on a popular show. FANTASTIC! And great news for violin, right? At least for every few steps back we take a few steps forward.
Okay, this is totally one of those "oh isn’t her life hard moments" but I’m just going to whine…I have to work all day today and into the weekend…the issue is all the darn lessons I have to make up from my Paris trip (hence, isn’t her life hard), so I’m teaching several hours each day in addition to weddings and other gigs. This really cuts into my social life.
I decided to make Wed and Thursday as "weekend-like" as possible, since those days I didn’t get started teaching until later in the day. That meant I did a lot of sitting around, watching tv, reading stuff on the internet, and doing laundry.
Anyway, really none of this is interesting to you (or me, really.) It’s been a crappy week and the weekend isn’t going to be much better.
I did have a fun trip to Target yesterday—I picked up the new JK Rowling book. I’ve started reading it, and so far I am really enjoying it. Of course that’s to be expected because firstly, Rowling is a wonderful writer, and secondly, I love British fiction. It’s dark, it’s REAL, and it’s nothing like HP except that it’s well written and has good character development. So far, so good.
It was cooler and overcast yesterday so I figured I’d jump on the "is it Fall" bandwagon. I also got some Thanksgiving decorations from the One Spot—we are hosting this year.
I’m not entirely sure we can handle a candy bowl but I thought it would be an interesting experiment.
I wanted to get under the blanket and read but the cat had other ideas for the blanket.
Just like she has other ideas for my lap than the computer. It’s not easy to blog with a large feline in your lap.
While I was teaching…silly Barack, always asking for money. He acts like he’s inviting me to dinner, but then he really just wants money. (Oh, and of course Leslie keeps texting, but not about money. She’s getting married soon and there are a lot of details to discuss…I imagine this texting/calling thing will continue until October 21 and then I’ll never hear from her again…)
Make me jealous: what fun things are you doing this weekend?