Wilmette-Milwaukee

I'm back at home in Wilmette now...I drove up from Arkansas on Tuesday. For some reason, it slipped my mind that I would need to be going home at some point, so I was kind of scrambling to get things together on Sunday and Monday...but it all turned out just fine...well, except that I left my dress pants back in Little Rock, and I need to wear them tonight and tomorrow for the Braun wedding extravaganza. But since Moby ate my extra pair, I was in need of buying some new ones anyway...so I did...yesterday.

Since I've been home, I have practiced a bit, done a bit of CCE scheduling for the time we will be in Little Rock (well, really just typed up what I had already scheduled) and brought my bow in to get rehaired. All very exciting for you to hear, I'm sure.

In just a few short minutes, I will be en route to beautiful Milwaukee, WI where I will meet up with the one and only Heather Braun. Her sister is getting married tomorrow and I will be playing for the ceremony, and doing double duty as Heather's date.

Fun times!

Oh!! And my cello should be arriving on Tuesday!!! Yay!!!

Photo Shoot x2

I have spent the majority of the last few days sitting under the burning hot sun getting 365 photos taken of me by the fabulous Sharrell Holcomb. Beth (who lives in my building) hooked me up with here, and the three of us met on Friday afternoon at the Clinton Library...and ended up taking about 200 pics around the grounds there...and then when were weren't satisfied...met the next morning and went over to the North Little Rock side of the River Trail and took a whole bunch of pics on a cement formation in front of the quarry...and then drove up to Fort Roots and snapped a few more!

Needless to say, it was a pretty tiring two days of sitting in the sun.

But I did get a whole lot of pretty cool pics. Sharrell has a great eye for catching some really interesting shots. Unfortunately I have been kind of sluggish in the eating and exercise department so I came out looking a little more porky than I wanted to. There are a whole slew of super artistic shots though, and some where I do look quite handsome...if I do say so myself.

The main reason (for me) was to get a head shot with my instrument that I could send to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette for the article they may or may not be writing about the upcoming Cape Cod Ensemble Concerts in July and I definitely got a few that I could use for that. I think I'm going to go with the one posted at the top of this blog. What do you think?

Dog Sitting

For the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of dog-sitting Zhuzha. Zhuzha has stayed with me before when her mother (Tatiana, the violist in my quartet) has gone out of town for a day or two. However, she has been gone for nearly a month, and Zhuzha has settled right in with me. Its kind of nice to have someone to keep me company when I am sitting around at home!

I'm also getting very used to having a dog...and I'm thinking that I'm going to have to replace her when Tatiana comes back home. Well, at the end of the summer at least, since I'll be in and out of Little Rock for a few weeks!

Today I am doing double duty...my upstairs neighbor Beth is out of town for the day, and I'm taking care of her Dog, Ginger, as well. This morning I tried to walk both of them at the same time...but Zhuzha was not terribly happy about this (although they have shared plenty of walks before)...and I was going to have Ginger hang out in my apartment so she wouldn't have to sit by herself all day...but Zhuzha was not very welcoming, so poor Ginger has spent the day by herself upstairs. And they have been getting walked separately.

More exercise for me I guess.

Busy Busy...Busy

The past few weeks have been super busy...much more so than I could have anticipate. I guess I was just super scared of having three months with nothing to do (since the ASO is off season right now) so I went ahead and over-scheduled myself.

I have been working hard on finding a venue for the Cape Cod Ensemble to perform...after many phone calls and visits, I finally was able to schedule Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall at University of Arkansas @ Little Rock. This concert will benefit the Arkansas AIDS Foundation...so tell everybody to come!! (Monday July 6th at 7:30pm) Special guests Kimberly, Heather, and Jonathan will be in town for the concert!!

This past weekend was the Arkansas AIDS Walk...I basically signed my life away for two straight days volunteering for this event. Friday night we had a wine and cheese kick-off event at the Boswell-Mourot Art Gallery in the Heights. I drove around with Michael all day picking up stuff for the event, and then getting the gallery ready. And then I had to play for an hour and a half! Then the next morning was an early morning and more running around picking up last minute items for the walk...set up and talk down...and many many hours standing out in the sun (it was a beautiful day)...needless to say, I passed out soon after I got home.

All in all, both events went very well and everything was a great success! Now its on to getting all the details in line for the concert...its only three weeks away!!

In other news...I was supposed to be going to Denver on Thursday to pick up my brand new Chris Dungey cello...but I got a call last week saying that he had fallen ill (possibly with the swine flu?!?!?) and he wasn't going to be able to get the varnish on there in time to bring it to Denver (and in fact, he canceled his whole Denver Trip)...so I'm not going to Denver anymore (sorry Mary...) and I'm waiting to hear what the new delivery plans will be! Should be any day now.