A Brief Summary

Although it has been many weeks now since my last post, many many things have happened, which I will be more than happy to share. However, I would like to include pictures and video (!!) in the full layout post, and my sad sad internet here at home is simply not capable of such things. So I will be making a trip to the BU with my laptop in order to give a full version of the past several weeks. A sister's wedding and a trip with dear dear friends deserves a long post with lots of multimedia inserts, in my opinion.

Many of you have probably already seen some of the pictures from the wedding from Hannah's blog.

As a preview, here is one of my favorite pictures from my camera.

I'm sorry for the lack of posts. I'm in Milwaukee helping Holly and my family with last minute prep for her wedding this Friday to Anthony Schmidt, June 26th.

The next post I put up they will be married and I will have pictures!

Game Night, June 2009

I am not sure many of you know, but Molly and I host a game night once a month. Or, at least we tried to, and did during the fall 2008 semester, but this past spring semester was so crazy for us it was more like twice a semester. In any case, our dear friends Jesse Barrett and Bob Mollicone have graduated and are leaving Boston for good very soon, so we had a final official game night in their honor tonight. I put my camera on a timer and we took this picture. Now that I see it, I wish we had done this after every game night. However, I am grateful for this one. Even though they are leaving, it won't be our last game night - but we will miss them terribly.

As Emily, a fellow BU masters and now DMA violin student says, "People will come, and leave, and come back again, and leave again, and we'll STILL be here." 

We are still here, and can't wait for those dear ones to come back again.

Bridesmaid Dresses: A Post of Gratitude

I have played for two weddings in the past two days. They were both incredibly extravagant, beautiful, wealthy weddings. However, something that was incredibly disappointing in both of them were the bridesmaid dresses.

I'm not skilled enough with words to describe them accurately - yesterday's were light green and short, with the top to the waist kind of billowing out before falling straight to the knee. Today's were of a very shiny, clingy material that no one looks good in, silver, and had an empire waist. None of the girls (three yesterday, seven today) were the proper body type for these types of dresses. However, the dresses were such that I don't know if anyone would really look good in them. And all girls had the same dress.

I'm not sure if many of you know about the bridesmaid dresses that the six bridesmaids of Holly and Tony's wedding are wearing (maid of honor Angie, Heidi, me, Hannah, Veronica, and Tony's sister Heidi). I will tell you now. They are all apple (dark red) colored, and we each were to choose a style that we wanted. We six bridesmaids are all very different body types. So it was with much gratitude to Holly that we were able to choose dresses that looked appropriate and flattering to each of us. I think we all choose well.

I have been very lucky. By this time in two weeks, I will have acted as a bridesmaid three times. (I know I know, always a bridesmaid, never a bride. I've heard it before, trust me.) They are all beautiful, tasteful dresses I will wear again and again (see the ones for Mary and Holly in upcoming recitals for my DMA - for Heidi's I wore my dress so repeatedly in high school - three different dances and a Prism weekend - that it is now retired).

I would like to take the time to personally thank Heidi, Mary, and Holly for excellent taste, judgement and kindness to their bridesmaids. 

Unfortunately, the bridesmaids for the past two weddings I've played for are not so lucky.

Martino

About his Seven Pious Pieces (choral work written in a serial style) he writes :

"A traditional tonal analysis of any of these songs can be made by anyone who is ingenious in the application of secondary-dominant labels and/or who is a fanatic."

Since I'm not ingenious in the application of secondary-dominant labels, I must be a fanatic. 

Good to know.

My Twenty Cents/Happy Anniversary!

One of things that makes me incredibly sad is that across the street from CFA is a Starbucks. This particular Starbucks no doubt does incredibly well, considering all that happens at the CFA building, and the amount of people that simply walk across the street to get their coffee. Its ALWAYS crowded. The reason I am sad is because if it was a small, privately owned coffee shop, it would do very well, but instead its a Starbucks.

There is a reason for all of this, I assure you.

I have been very good on the not-buying-coffee-but-making-it-at-home front lately. Incredibly good, actually - even last week, for my three days of jury duty where I had to get up around 7 (6 on Tuesday), I always made coffee and brought it with me in the cute, non-spill travel mug Molly gave me for my birthday (which I love). Anyway, today, after step class, I was dragging and had a lesson to teach yet, so I decided to get a coffee at the Starbucks across the street. I don't necessarily love their coffee, but its better than some, so I was looking forward to the little treat.

Now, when I DO get coffee from Starbucks, I usually get the smallest size they sell - called a short. I don't need a whole tall (aka small) coffee, and the short size, which is really like a kids size, is much more what I prefer. It is also 20 cents cheaper than a tall. Twenty measly cents is not a lot to some people, especially to Starbucks as a whole, but its enough to me to take a stand. 

So today, I asked for a short coffee. The guy working gave me a short coffee. Then asked for $1.73. I KNOW that a short size costs $1.53. I told him this. He told me that it has never been $1.53. I said that couldn't be possible, that I have certainly paid twenty cents less for a short before. The other guy working said, "Dude, you're wrong. She's right. You messed up." First guy looked at me, and said, "Its only twenty cents." I simply replied, "To me, thats a lot." He gave me a look of disgust, but handed me back the correct change. 

Come on. Like Starbucks NEEDS my twenty extra cents. I need twenty extra cents from them. I was so mad. What a jerk. Wonder who else he's ripped off lately. 

Its really really just too bad its a Starbucks across the street. It would be nice to promise that I will boycott that particular store, but I know I would break that promise by the time school starts again. Its the nearest coffee shop for about three blocks to the building I walk in every single day during the school year. 

Anyway.

Happy 3 year anniversary to Mary and Daniel! I was reminiscing often today. Can't believe its been 3 years......

Little dearies.

In honor of my darling baby nephew's nine-month birthday today, here is a picture of him and me from about three weeks ago when I was watching him for an afternoon. I haven't posted a picture of him since Christmas, although Hannah did post one from her spring break visit. Isn't he adorable? Such a happy little boy!

And this one is from a couple days later, when I had them both together. Adelaide is a wonderful big sister, and Finnis adores her - no one can make him laugh like she can.

I should be doing millions of other things than posting cute pictures of the wonderful children in my life, but whatever. They're much more interesting and important. Click on them to make them bigger - they seem a little small but I'm not sure how to solve that issue.