This is the real “back to school” week, as my new job started this morning. I have to get used to getting up at something like 6 am weekdays, which is early for me! (It’s early for anybody, I think.) I naturally woke up earlier than that because I was stressed. In any case, we had some technical glitches this morning, not due to anything I did, and only half my class showed up but it went well for what we had. Mondays are one of my busiest days with 7 hours of teaching! I have one new college student this week and several returning students, and it should be a fun week.

This past week was kind of crazy: I had three different playing jobs which was so weird! I was actually kind of stressed about it, because I have gotten used to only teaching and not having to worry about what to wear and when to be places other than, in front of my computer. But I did a recording for a church service, played at a retirement community (outside) and then played an orchestra concert, outside, in a park, with Leonard Slatkin! Which was awesome—it was with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St Louis, which is a group I play with quite often. The conductor of MOSL, Wendy Lea, set up a whole program and really went above and beyond. I don’t know if we were safe playing together, but we followed the best practices we could: everybody was on their own stage, spread out six feet or so, we were outdoors, and everybody who could play their instrument wearing a mask did so. The flute players had these weird caps on their flute heads that blocked their breath from going too far.

The audience may or may have been safe, I can’t be concerned about everybody. It looked like maybe only about half were wearing masks, which is concerning, and makes me NOT want to go back to St Charles (that’s where we played, at Frontier Park in St Charles) but they were pretty well distanced from one another. I don’t know if I would agree to do another large event like this one during the pandemic, but getting to play Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 with Leonard Slatkin was pretty much well worth it!

The masked violinist!

It was really nice to see some colleagues…I hadn’t seen any of those people in six months or longer. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been doing this isolation thing for so long, yet it feels like forever, doesn’t it?

Other weekend happenings: baking zucchini muffins with the last of the garden zucchini! I made a recipe that made over three dozen muffins, but since I only have two muffin pans, rather than do in two batches I decided to make 24 muffins and a small loaf with the rest. I added some coconut and chocolate chips to the recipe because I had them on hand and wanted to use up the chips.

I think the next time I’m baking quick bread it’ll be pumpkin time! I can’t believe it’s almost fall and we are still in this pandemic with no end in sight. I read an opinion article recently talking about how we are in the risk mitigation part of the pandemic: we can’t stay at home all the time and avoid risk completely, but we have to make decisions about what to do and how to live our lives in the least risky way possible. Louie is off to the classroom today, but he is hopeful that the safety protocols the University has implemented will work for him (I think if he and those in the classroom follow the rules they will work).

Miles joined this little stuffed cat for a catnap in the kitten hammock. He barely fits but he makes it work.

I was excited to see two of the reviews of sheet music that I had written in the past year were in this month’s American String Teacher Journal.

We moved this green chair to make room for something else and Muriel immediately started sitting on it. She loves when furniture is in a different place.

I have done some serious meal planning this week, hoping to stay on top of things. We don’t have the option of running out for a quick meal out after a long day (whether or not we technically do, my risk assessment says no) so that means lots of cooking. I prefer to cook dinner after work and then have leftovers for lunches, so that means we often eat late, but it’s been working well. I have thought about cooking and doing dinner leftovers but it’s just not as fun. Louie and I tend to do our best chatting about the day while cooking so it is a good bonding experience as well.

I’m reading two books right now, switching back and forth between them. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, and The Broken Heart of America by Walter Johnson. Both are good reads but heavy.

How was your weekend? Reading any good books?