The Christmas cards have given way to thank you notes.  The transition is easy when one uses blank cards.  Now I am on to the subject of gifts which I described to my friend Nancy who can tell every time I have deconstructed a thought, as fraught.   Gifts can be a mine-field and I’m sure  Read the Rest…

I sealed up the last Christmas card this afternoon to be delivered at tonight’s Lessons and Carols service which begins an hour past my bed-time.  I voted against this schedule because not only do I have to be there, I have to be alert.  I direct the choir for one song and I play the  Read the Rest…

The full moon is waning and I am following it down the backside of my Christmas schedule.  Three performances were crushed into this past weekend and my book launch was scheduled for Monday, or in other words, on the day I would typically expect to crash.  Just as I was about to cry “uncle,” on  Read the Rest…

The Great Bazaar Weekends are over.  In spite of all the work they entail, I look forward to them.  All the stuff that didn’t sell last year comes back like favorite Christmas tree ornaments, along with artists and crafters I only see once a year. The Dibble House Craft sale is an institution.  I was  Read the Rest…

Yesterday morning the church choir sang an old-fashioned romantic piece of music that I first learned as a beginning voice student.  It’s called “Thanks Be to God” by Stanley Dickson and it has the word “bedight” in it.  That’s enough to mark it as a piece for Aunt Maud to sing for The Special Music  Read the Rest…

I was hoping I could come up with something more interesting, certainly more laudatory, than today’s topic but since I haven’t: I yelled at the sopranos the other night.  I was appalled.  I am not in the habit of yelling at my singers.  But after having succumbed to the impulse, what came out of me  Read the Rest…

Every few months, my adult students get together for the Terrified Adults and Spotlight Whores Sunday Afternoon Musicales.  These could easily last all day what with my more confident students wanting to pull out another and another piece.  “And now for my fourteenth song.  .  . . I schedule the recitals for my young students  Read the Rest…

I’ve been waiting for the traffic on my last blog to slow down before I posted another.  I don’t know if it delivered all that it promised, but “Sex and Betrayal at the OK Chorale” sure got a lot of hits. (www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2011/04/851/) If that’s what it takes—a racy title—I was toying with the idea of  Read the Rest…

It was a six Xanax quarter with the OK Chorale.  They always pull it off in the end but three pieces made me wonder if this was the quarter when we would break our streak: I didn’t know much about Abba.  My popular music education stopped in 1972. (See https://www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2011/03/piano-students-part-2-the-adolescents/ )  Then one of my  Read the Rest…

Okay, we’re back. I use the third person royally because I actually live alone, not counting the three cats to whom I pay rent.  However I am more introverted than not and I feel like I almost died of people this past week.  I ate lunches, dinners, and high teas such as I don’t believe  Read the Rest…