Confession: I didn’t have tacos today.

BUT I did have tacos on (I think) Sunday night, so that totally counts, I believe. Vegetarian (perhaps even vegan, but I’m not counting) tacos with sweet potatoes, seitan, onions, and peppers. I am not a huge fan of peppers but I’ll tolerate red peppers that are cooked. I am a huge fan of onions and sweet potatoes though.

As an aside, I can’t say “sweet potato” without thinking of “Suite Potato” which was the name of a family concert with the Canton Symphony many years ago. My sister Leslie had this sad, homestar runner like way of saying “Suite Potato” that went on all season in anticipation of the family concert. I don’t have much recollection of the actual concert, but I do recall her saying “Suite Potato.”

I’ve decided that my life has gotten kind of boring lately. I’m spending entirely too much time focusing on the violin and teaching and playing and practicing and whatnot, and what is left? Yeah, sure, there’s running and dog walking and pet parades and such, but I feel like mostly it’s work and then TV watching. Which honestly, is totally fine LIVING it but writing a blog about it…perhaps a bit boring? Maybe it’s my fault for not making what I do sound more interesting. That’s probably what I really need to work on. Because obviously work is important and what people mostly do in their lives, right? And TV, especially Dr. Who and then Broadchurch because you miss David Tennant as Dr. Who, well those are both important and interesting…right?

One of the highlights of every week is quartet rehearsal.  We rehearse nearly every week on a morning, because that just works well for us. Oh, and we have a concert coming up on February 21 at 7 pm. I was thinking about playing chamber music the other day. While at school (back in the day) I wasn’t really into chamber music. I had a few groups here and there and they generally dissolved with great drama, anger, and resentment between the parties involved. We never managed to get our acts together and be mature enough to really have fun and play together. I’ll never know if this was mostly my fault or just bad luck but the most awesome part of my quartet is that AS OF YET we still get along well enough and respect each other and have a great time making music. I’m sure we each have days where we leave rehearsal a little annoyed and it’s not that every rehearsal is just a love fest (though many are, in that we end up just telling ridiculous teaching stories and waste half the rehearsal doing that!) but that we learn from each other, we work hard, and we are (mostly) all on the same page as far as our goals and our commitment to the group. I also feel that my playing has improved since joining the group and it’s just been one of my favorite things that I’ve been involved with in the past year. I’m really looking forward to our next concert as it includes two of my all-time favorite quartets—Borodin’s Quartet no. 2 (my guilty pleasure piece) and Shostakovich’s 8th quartet.

I was having a discussion with Louie the other day about being our best selves, and I said to him that I really felt I was in the best violin playing shape of my life. l don’t know if that’s true exactly, because how does one know? But I do know that I feel like I am, and that I feel like I’m becoming a real violinist, and a real person, and I’m not living in anybody’s musical shadow or following them around anymore, and it’s really been quite fun. I won’t say that I don’t have moments of feeling like a total failure but overall, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I’m also not saying that my calendar is totally full and in fact today I thought to myself, wow I have mostly wasted the day AND I’ve gotten most of what I needed to get done done…I need more to do! But then I remembered a whole bunch of things that I should be working on so I think I just had one of those days where I didn’t feel stressed or productive. I could use more paying work, but who couldn’t? And I’m sure that the calendar will fill up and get crazy again soon and this is just the late winter lull…and I’m trying to take advantage of it and have fun! And it’s been easy to do that on the weekends at least.

Anyway, that’s my brain dump on this here “Taco Tuesday.” I had bean soup for dinner.

I like to take this stuff and make it in the crockpot. Today I added “Soyrizo”, carrots, a can of diced tomatos, and some barley I had on hand. It turned out great and I had nearly two bowls worth.