It's been circled on the calendar for weeks--the first day in 11 days that I didn't have to drive to Buffalo or Syracuse. The day off. Date Night In, the day to reconnect with the boys. The day to get practicing in, the day to get stuff done around the house.
TO DO:
PM-Date Night In
Sadly, I've participated in almost none of the prep for DNI so far. J seasoned the lamb chops, managed to get creme fraiche and panna cotta to set properly, and took care of all of the shopping. My lone contribution has been twice (unsuccessfully both times) trying to find fresh rhubarb, which I finally gave up on this afternoon. Instead of topping the dessert with a ginger/rhubarb we'll go with balsamic strawberries. Incidentally, it's been WONDERFUL to have fresh (though not Panek-fresh, of course) strawberries in the house for the last week. I don't think I've ever eaten a strawberry without feeling the divine smile, and that's especially true if I'm eating lunch in the car on the way to rehearsal. The boys love them too, and J's been making spinach salads with them.
J Lessons
She has her three students on Monday, which meant that I loaded the kids into the Yaris and went to do our Monday errands--deposits to the bank, picking up wine, visiting the Pittsford Wegmans for produce. The boys are such stinkers. They know exactly where they can ask for sweets. When we were checking out at the liquor store James leaned an elbow up against the cash register, smiled at the cashier, and asked with a grin "So, do you have any candy?" (She gave him a dum-dum from the secret stash that he knows about.)The highlight for Owen, though, was seeing a life-sized bear head in the display of Gnarly Head wines. He saw it from the cart, pointed, shrieked, and then gave the most convincing bear growl a 17-month old is able to make. I took his picture with it, but James thought it was scary and hid behind the cart.
Wegmans trip/Deposit checks
Everyone knows it's impossible to go to Wegmans and only pick up what you were going in for. (Balsamic vinegar, more strawberries.) So we also walked out with St. Albans cheese, ice cream (not my idea), pomegranate seeds, leeks, spinach, bananas, and celeriac.
Family Exercise
We ran down Winton road to the branch library there. It's a tired-looking one story brick building that we've turned up our noses at ever since we moved out here, but we needed to get some overdue library books back and didn't want to drive all the way to Pittsford. J had actually been before and had some very nice things to say about the children's librarian. She was very sweet to the boys, and James found a bunch of Berenstein Bears books that weren't available in Pittsford. It was still just a little too cold for the boys to really enjoy sitting in the stroller, but it was a lovely long run, and we hadn't been out with the stroller as a family in over a week.
Oil Change and Tire Mount
With all the trips across the interstate I was long overdue for an oil change, and I also needed to have my all-season tires put back on. I suppose this winter was probably the one year when I could have made due without the snow tires, but on the few nights when it was really gross out I appreciated having the extra traction. Bonus to owning a house--having a spot in the basement to store four tires. (Although every time James sees them he insists that our trees need to get bigger so we can have a tire swing.)
French Grammar
Hadn't touched my French book in almost a week, but mon livre was opened again this afternoon so I could read about personal pronoun rules and possibly drive J a little nuts by repeatedly practicing the last syllable of vous invitez.
Hesiod
Officially finished the Theogony this afternoon. (Though, of course, since the last bit of the poem is missing, no one ever really finishes the Theogony.) Taking a break from hexameter, going to move onto Demosthenes as my next big classical Greek project.
I Maccabees
A little bit of the Septuagint on the couch during naptime. Loimoi is the new word I learned today--"pests" or "pestilences."
Martial
The big news about my project of reading through (and copying out, in an attempt to get a better ear for the meter) all of Martial's epigrams is that I've reached the end of one of my nice green-tint notebooks as of today. Potor nobilis--a noble drunkard. Does nobilis refer to high birth, or is it a joke about a heavy drinker of gentlemanly manners?
BCP
Today's readings were Psalm 25, a bit of the Exodus story (Moses taking his father-in-law's advice), the last little bit of I Peter, and the introduction of John the Baptist from the gospel of Matthew.
Dineson
Did not get to read any of Out of Africa today. (At least not yet.)
Fold Laundry
The laundry was sorted into three baskets as soon as the boys were upstairs for naps, and then put away after dinner. The laundry is clean, long live the dirty laundry! We are still having a bit of a laundry crisis in the house, since I reinvented the way that I fold everything, and J and I no longer have matching systems. Theoretically this should work out very well for her as I would just fold everything all the time, but I think that the guilt of watching my do it by myself is slowly getting to her.
Trumpets to Basement
Usually I don't have more than a trumpet or two upstairs at any given time, depending on what gig I am going to or arrived back from late at night. But last week, just on Thursday alone I needed flugel, Bb, C, Eb, and the picc. We randomly used B-flats for the Broadway show we played in Syracuse, and the rotary and the cornet were called for on Saturday. Anyhow, there were a lot of trumpet cases sitting out in the living room. James was upset that that his baseball field was compromised. I was upset that Owen kept on attempting to stand on the soft cases. It was in everyone's best interest to move them back to the basement where they belong.
Listen Shostakovich
Did not get done
Listen Bruch
I did listen to the Bruch with a score and mark up my part (rehearsal for this starts tomorrow) but I was driven to earbuds after the first movement when Owen started running the remote controlled car all around the downstairs.
Practice BPO folder
Done. Shostakovich likes to write high notes for the trumepts
Practice Excerpts
Done. All the other composers in the western tradition also like to write high notes for the trumpet. I did three chunks today, a big 45 minutes session in the morning, then a half-an hour after lunch and twenty minutes before dinner. J, bracing herself for the third session: "What do you need to work on now?" Me: "Well, I don't have anything else in particular up for today, it's more about finding ways to find a bunch of high Cs after you've been burning them up all morning." J: "Well, this sounds like it's just going to be everyone's favorite."
Fix Bed Squeak:
Not done yet. Will have to be tomorrow.
Blog
Doing it right now, slighly guiltily, following the disappointed comments of regular readers. I am free to type all of this because James is stuck at the table refusing to eat his stir-fry. Owen has mostly stayed out of the way, but did clothesline himself with the laptop power cord when he tried to walk off with it. Me: "I'm not sure that 'I told you so' is strong enough."
Write to K
Not done yet
Minimalia
I read this book (which I intend to blog about soon) for the Blogging program about the minimalist movement--consciously owning less, finding ways to give away what you have and fight the consumerist mentality. I've been making lists of things we can give away over the past few days--camp t-shirts that we haven't worn in years, books that we're never going to get around to reading, old silverware, etc. (By the way, last week I finished the Books Unread list I made of all the books that I owned but hadn't read. Unfortunately, since I wrote that list almost a year ago, I've acquired enough new books, none of which I've read, since I was reading the old list, to make a Books Unread 2.0 list.) Anyhow, I took a step towards the minimalist project today by loading up some books to give to friends and moving a shelf of books down to the basement that were of a more trumpet/music reference nature. Anyhow, there's more space and less clutter in the library now, which is the big ultimate goal. Definitely more updates to come on this project.
Renew library books
As noted earlier, ended up just taking them down to the Winton branch library
Call Kohls
I have a pair of Columbia boots that are just a hair too small, and I've only worn them a few times. I dug around in the basement earlier and managed to find the box they came in--with the receipt. The store policy is to accept returns up to 12 months, so I scrubbed what dirt they had acquired as best I could, and will attempt to get a size 11 at some point this week.
Mouthpieces
Selling more mouthpieces on eBay. I'd been doing this before I read the book about minimalism, but it's all in the same spirit. If anyone needs an 11C4, 10.5C, 7C cornet, or 6C mouthpiece, be sure to search on eBay. They're very reasonably priced.
Bulletin info to church
We're going to do a Roy Ringwald number called Join Hands. That guy has a great name.
Dishes
Done, although not by me. It's okay, I'll make it up to J by taking care of all of the DNI dishes.
Speaking of which, James (not having eaten his supper, which will be waiting for him tomorrow morning) has been put to bed, and it's time for DATE NIGHT IN.
And I think I made pretty good progress on my day off to-do list.
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