A friend was making fun of me the other day for often having “lunch dates”. I was thinking about this, and it makes sense. Not that I don’t work, but that I often work during other “social” times, like happy hour (hahahaha to being free on weekday evenings between 5 and 7) and traditional weekend evenings…even when I might be free during those times, the (probably also a musician) friend I’d want to see would be busy!

So I do a lot of lunches with people. I usually don’t start working until the mid-afternoon unless I have a daytime rehearsal, so lunch is my favorite. Plus it gives me a reason to get up and get going on my day, rather than spending all morning in pajamas reading the news.

For instance, today I met my good friend Sarah the photographer at a neat little noodle place in the Loop, called Corner 17. They make their noodles fresh in house and the soup was delicious! No, I didn’t take a photo because I was too hungry. But before lunch I was up and at the gym working out, because I knew I had a lunch date and therefore needed to get it done first. (I’m getting back into twice weekly weight workouts, and I feel fantastic. By that I mean I can’t bend down or lift my arms.)

Recently I also went to Mai Lee for lunch with another friend.

Yummy pork chop plate. Well, don’t eat the plate, but do eat the stuff on top.

I think animals standing is always funny, isn’t it? She was very interested in something happening outside. Probably a squirrel, but I can’t say for sure.

Sausages at Volpi on the Hill.

And over the weekend…my view of the Winter Opera production of Falstaff. We have a weekend off before starting rehearsals for the next production, Lucia di Lammermoor. I’m surprised sometimes that many people haven’t even heard of Winter Opera—I’ve been concertmaster of the orchestra for about four seasons now, and the quality is just getting better. All of the operas are sung in the original language with subtitles when needed, and we do a great job on a small budget.

I have a couple of other random gigs happening this month too, and I’m working on getting to know my electric fiddle. (Pictures of me playing it need to happen soon, I know!)  This is kind of a “down” week, with just teaching, which is a welcome change to the hecticness of the past few weeks, so I’m trying to catch up on practicing and random stuff that I manage to get really behind on. (For as few hours as I work, I manage to get plenty behind…does anybody want to clean my house? That is really just because I hate housecleaning though, not for lack of time.)

Okay, that’s is. Brain dump of random info, and photo dump too. Obviously I’m not taking enough cat pictures, but I’ll try to do better. I need to get back on the Caturday house…perhaps this weekend!