Zhoen's Challenge

WHAT I'LL NEVER DO, AND THAT'S OK.

Be perfect.
Sight read piano.
Keep the Dust Bunnies out.


WHAT I'VE DONE, AND WOULD LIKE TO DO AGAIN.

Take motorbike trips.
Hike up Matterhorn.
Play second trombone in symphony.
Play second trombone with big band. (I do this now.)
Play in trombone quartet.

WHAT I'VE DONE, AND WILL HAVE TO DO AGAIN.

Cook.
Work out at the gym.
Clean.
Organize.
Carpool.

WHAT I WON'T DO AGAIN.

Be young.
Move my left ankle.
Drink Long Island Iced Tea.
Eat cake.
Run.

WHAT I MAY STILL GET TO DO.

Create beautiful rooms in home.
Have vision for garden, then make it so.
Learn new trombone playing tricks.
Keep a car until the ENGINE breaks.


If you are middle-aged ( whatever that may be) and read this blog, consider yourself tagged. Please let Zhoen know.
(To do that, you'll have to link off to Secret Hill and follow her link to Zhoen, as I'm inept.)

Another Trip

I'm just back from another trip down to my Dad's house. The car is full of family heirlooms, the mirror my great aunt gave my grandparents when they were married, stuff like that. I'm going to hang the mirror where I now have a print my brother had made of another great aunts drawing of The Family Tree.

My brother says I should go through all the recent snap shots (there are hundreds or maybe thousands) to see what should be kept, copied, shared. My car was full the last trip, so I will need to make more trips. He's made many many more than I. He discovered a leak in the chimmney and was reparing it when I left yesterday. Clever fellow.

Fight Fight Fight

Here it is, Thursday morning, and I'm still battling the huge stashes of Stuff. Some of the Stuff is Stuff I just brought back this summer from Dad's. I think I have made inroads in the Stuff, but could anyone else tell by looking? Maybe some, like BRS or Mrs. Staggs, who are familiar with Stuff Fighting. I mentioned Craig's List to HH, who thinks just Garage Sale and EBay are better for getting rid of Stuff that's too valuable for the charity shop or the garbage. I keep seeing the directions to put things in 1) Trash 2) Give Away and 3) Keep containers, with labels on. Maybe I should try it--the labels, I mean.

Photo is of Crooked River off Highway 20, from HH's run last weekend with antique motorcycles. He says part of the adventure is the possibility of a breakdown. He keeps getting little boxes of parts from UK, and had been expecting some for days, and was all atwitter earlier this week when box came. Now he's got his B31, the BSA from New Zealand, up and running. Funny thing about that bike. The previous owner has the same first and second name as HH, and his last initial is also the same. Isn't that interesting? He (HH) told me he had to strain his little gray cells a bit and go back into what he called "The Vault" while pointing to his head, probably from electronics 101 in 1969 or so to get new old generator rotating in opposite direction, to make bike happy. Now bike and man are both happy.

Baby Day

I visited two babies today. First was a sweet little trumpet player's baby, who woke up and wandered all around the coffee shop while I held both her hands, because she can't really walk yet. Ha ha. She was so funny. She picked up her knees like she was a drum major leading the marching band, and sometimes she planted her feet, and sometimes she didn't. She'll probably be walking in a couple more months. Oh, my! And how she smiled. Just beaming at anyone who spoke to her.

Second was MIL's baby long haired dachsund, Heidi. So sweet, and like trumpet baby, ecstatic to be visited. Just full of joy. Unlike trumpet baby, Heidi is very agile, and flies around, leaping over her new doggy bed, after her new squeeky toy, or having a go at her tail. So funny! MIL talking about not being long for this world. I reminded her she has to be strong so she can take care of Heidi. Also, I'm not ready to loose another elder, but I didn't mention that bit.

I thought, But

Picture this: Lots of piles of books and boxes, very messily arranged and stewn about. There. That's your photo, whatever you have in your mind's eye. DD is thrilled because she started back to school today. No, that's not it, she's thrilled because her new viola case came in the mail. Since my band is playing in the park tonight, we can't pick up the viola that was my mum's until tomorrow. The old viola's original case has the wool lining, which encourages the carpet beetles, which eat the horse hair strings of the bow, so we couldn't use it, never mind that it is a great looking case. The shop owner suggested if we want to not toss it, to kill the bugs, then strip out the insides. She thought we should put little shelves in it and use it as a wall hanging, but my favorite parts of it are the latches and handle. HH wants it tossed. I think it is Art.

What Fun

Instead of battling all the poison oak yesterday, I went to the Saturday Market and bought lovely tomatoes, and when I returned, I found that HH had mowed the little strip of lawn around the roses between the two driveways. The little baby rose, is no higher than the dandilions blooming in the lawn, and its blossoms are a pale yellowy orange, so it got mowed in an accident that was bound to happen, but it only affected it's top most bits, which I then trimmed off, and no harm done. I wonder if I should plant the new azalea, which is still in it's florist shop pot, in the row with the roses? Would it look out of place? Only if I never get around to planting daisies and vinca and phlox, too.

I don't remember how, but suddenly it was two o'clock, and we planned to see the movie The Heart of the Game at 3 at the Darkside Cinema. We were the Only People in the Theater! A private viewing. We were very entertained. It is a documentary about girl's high school basketball in Seattle, Washington.

After the movie, we picked up the daughter and went to see MIL and Katie-who-is-now-Heidi. Even DD, who tries to claim she is not a dog person because she is a cat person, could not resist the charms of Heidi. MIL tried to call her Katie, but just naturally kept calling her Heidi to the point where she said "Ah, heck, I'll just call her "Heidi", so Heidi it is. DD kept muttering to herself that Alley (her cat) (when she's not my cat) is cuter, like she was trying to convince herself.

Beware the Poison Oak

The shiny chrome and red BSA is HH's. When I got back from Klamath Falls, the first thing HH did was ask me if I could go to Fred's Honda to buy a motorcycle he'd picked out, which is a non-fancy, non-expensive 650 Honda Night Hawk. He's thinking now of keeping it for his daily runabout, and selling the W650. DD is Devistated, because she says the Kawasaki is her favorite of her dad's bikes. We all like the W650, but he has already had it longer than he used to keep a bike. I liked it because it's a 2000 and he had a bike he could take trips on, and I wouldn't worry about him breaking down and not being able to get parts, which I worry about with his old Brit bikes. He says he has the BSA Lightning running really great.

Anyway, down in Klamath Falls, my oldest brother and I the middlest, got to join our youngest brother (French horn) in a rehearsal and concert with the Klamath Symphony. What fun. We all got to sit in a row, French horn (one of 2), bassoon, trombone (one of two), and there was a shortage of trombone parts, so now and then I'd play 2nd bassoon, and once both us trombones played along with the cello, except there were 3 cellos instead of the one that came to rehearsal, and the director told us there were trombone parts, and it was a shame we didn't have them, because it was a good part, but people are pretty casual down there about getting their parts turned back in. I think it was the 1st time we'd all three played together.

Now I'm in a panic to make room for my mom's baby grand piano here in my tiny house that is chock-a-block crammed full. I got rid of two boxes of books and it didn't even make a dent! You'd think that would make a dent. OK, I'd think that. I'd already planned to get rid of books (sometimes it's a wrench) to make room for the piles of music on the Bagley Cannery Box shelves, but now I'll probably have to get rid of the boxes all together? I don't know. That's the sort of furniture I have in my bedroom, too, with more books. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Oh, I nearly forgot. We're planning to go out and do battle with the yard today, with all it's vile noxious weeds.