It’s January. The sun is filtering through the high, cold clouds and the cold sneaks in under the kitchen door. I just worked out from under a mountain of papers I’ve been “saving” for just such a lull as this past week. Many are now in the file cabinet, but most are thankfully filed where I will never have to think of them again.
It was a fun trip to old Vienna for New Year’s Eve. I’ve recounted bits of the story so often now that I’m tired of it, but I will say it was a great recharge- of my outlook, physical energy and most of all, with music. To fly over the ocean, pick up an instrument or three and play with dear friends from long ago, with style, I might add, boosted my ego and gave me a reason to count myself among the living again. Since then, I’ve had a few jam sessions of renewed joy with the gang from Calvert Hills and, of course, Brulee. I also started teaching again, now at Winterhalter Music in Bethesda. I was recruited by email in December, even as I was applying for other crazy jobs to make ends meet like as an archaeology lab tech or the recycling coordinator at the University of Maryland. Cassie and her team seem well organized and, in the words of my venerable colleague there, Paul Langosh, that they’re in it for the right reasons.
We finally leased our Ellicott City house. I had real trouble finding the right folks in spite of the 100-hundred-plus inquiries. In the end I had to choose between a business man who needed to rent a second home near his favorite golf course and a family of five that wants to upgrade from an apartment. What a choice!! Suffice it to say that I feel great about the choice Beth and I made.
Oh, and I bought this last week…
