The Beethoven Dancer

This weekend's concerts were a lot of fun. The two pieces I played in were Kodaly's Dances of Galanta and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, which I believe was originally written for two pianos. There were also two double bass concertos, played by a phenomenal bassist named Edgar Meyer.

It was very well attended, which seems to be the running trend again for us (finally!), thanks to the valiant efforts of our management team. JoAnn Falletta conducted. She's the Music Director of both the Buffalo and Virginia Symphonies, and has turned them both around financially from floundering to flourishing. I really liked her. She possessed a lot of the requirements I have for a likeable conductor: respectful, didn't talk too much, relatively demanding, and clear.

Believe it or not, having a clear beat pattern is not always common in the conducting world! I never could understand that. Barnewitz (the MSO's Pr. Horn) and I have decided that all conductors should be required to complete an entire seminar on limiting their vocabulary to just six words: longer, shorter, louder, softer, faster, and slower. (The few conductors out there who have an ear for it can expand their vocabulary to sharper and flatter, but the requirement is that they be able to accurately discern this, and many cannot.) Some of them get up there and give you a whole sermon on how you need to put your entire life's passion into one measure, or how you need to spin the phrase into a beautiful gossamer rainbow with a pot of gold at the end.

To which we almost always ask a question like, "so....you want us to play it softer?"

Okay, so I have to tell you about this guy who came to both Friday and Saturday's performances. (The same concert both nights.) I noticed him sitting in the loge seat closest to the orchestra on the (from my vantage point on stage) left side. I noticed him because he was wearing a corduroy button down shirt loosely opened, with what looked like a string of rawhide bearing a wooden cross around his neck. He sort of stood out from the usual look of symphony-goers, because he was dressed very casually, almost hippie-like, and he had a large mane of long brown hair. Having gone to Oberlin, the hippie mecca of the midwest, I felt a sort of fond kinship with him. I was glad he was there.

In fact, I recognized him. He was one of the MSO groupies that I see sometimes, waiting at the stage door outside on State Street where the musicians come out to go to the parking garage. He's always smiled really big at me, and I have returned the favor, though we've never spoken.

Well, on Saturday, he was sitting in the loge seat closest to the orchestra on the other side, wearing the same shirt and cross on rawhide around his neck. Since he was closer to me and I could see him better, I noticed something new.

This guy wasn't wearing anything under his corduroy shirt, which was unbuttoned and just hanging right open. How am I sure of this? I could see his belly button, proudly winking at me plain as day just under his wooden cross.

At first I was shocked. I'm just not in many situations where I see naked manflesh outside of my own bedroom, and seeing it in Uihlein Hall admidst all of the other men in tuxedos and dapper suits was just wonderfully incongruous. There was definitely some shock value in that, and whether this guy knew it or not, he was making a very loud statement about the kind of person who attends a Symphony concert.

As I thought about this, I began to realize that this was, in reality, so completely awesome. This guy obviously felt so comfortable coming to the orchestra concerts just as he was! His presence there, in all his fleshy glory, made a huge statement about the improved image that the MSO is working so hard to project - that all you have to do to come here and enjoy the concerts is to show up as you are! We in the orchestral world desperately need to project this image and convince our community that you don't have to be a rich, academic, snobby, well-dressed older person to come to the symphony. Whether he knows it or not, this guy was really helping to change our image!

The other thing about this being so cool was the fact that this guy came both nights ~ and paid for a premium seat both nights. Not only is this guy helping to support the symphony, but his very presence is helping to add diversity and variety to the audience, which might encourage the development of other MSO "groupies". He gave standing ovations after every piece, oblivious to the fact that no one behind him was standing, but he didn't care. And he shouldn't have.

I turned to Krystof and Bill, and said, "do you see that guy up there?! He's not wearing a shirt! You can see his belly button!" And Bill said, "That's the Beethoven Dancer! That's the guy!"

Marty Woltman, our English Horn player who's been with the MSO for many years, loves to tell all kinds of stories. He especially loves to tell them on tour buses, when we're on a charter bus on our way through the cow-studded prairies of Wisconsin to play run-out concerts. Marty had told me all about the Beethoven Dancer, a story I remembered very well and fondly.

The Beethoven Dancer had earned this name back when the MSO used to have a summer season and played concerts on the Summerfest Grounds. During Germanfest, the MSO would do Beethoven's 9th, and there was a big grassy hill on which the audience could sit and picnic. Apparently the Beethoven Dancer would be up at the very top of the hill, behind everyone so as not to block the view of the rest of the audience. And he would dance the entire symphony. Man, I would pay a good sum of money to have seen that.

What was hilarious about this was that although he was behind the audience, of course the entire orchestra could see every move he made. Marty said that The Beethoven Dancer was very expressive and really got into it. Apparently the orchestra got an enormous kick out of him.

I just love this guy. I want to some day introduce myself and meet him, and thank him profusely for coming to our concerts.

Long live The Beethoven Dancer!!

Can I see your digs? You bet I can.

I was talking to my friend Ross the other day about a situation I was in recently involving a person who was making me feel horrible.

What's interesting is that this person was coming off all sweet, nice, even helpful. She was phrasing her digs as something that either had nothing to do with me, or as just a seemingly random comment on something she had an opinion on.

But though it was veiled, I could definitely tell that it was directed at me, and the subtlety and casual delivery of her comments made the sharpness of her digs all the more incisive and deep.

The person I was discussing with Ross is not the only one, either. There are other people who say things that end up hurting me, but they pull it off in such a way that I'm left thinking, "they couldn't have possibly meant it that way" or "maybe they don't realize how much it hurts when they say that".

It is very subtle most of the time. It can be just the person going off about how she hates something that you really like (and that she knows you like). Either that, or if you're having a really rough day, maybe at work or something, and they'll either not respond to you at all, or they'll say, "oh, I'm sorry..." for a few minutes, and then they'll almost immediately transition into "did I mention that I had a great day at work today?" and will go off about their success.

You could be really excited about a recent purchase and tell her how much it was marked down, and the person will exclaim, "wow! That's a great deal!" [that was the niceness, the disguise] "I wouldn't have guessed it was worth that much before it was marked down!" [that's the dig.]

It's always phrased carefully, so that the digger is covered if she's called on it. Someone who knows you have a weight problem, for instance, might smile sweetly and ask you, "are you getting enough to eat?" when you're in the middle of eating something that she doesn't think someone like you should be eating. Again, the dig is cleverly and subtly disguised with smiles, a very pleasant voice, and a very casual, seemingly random or routine delivery.

My first reaction is to dismiss this kind of pointed negativity, to not want to believe that someone - especially someone close to me or in a situation where I desperately want to be accepted and liked - would want to throw digs at me. Like everyone else on the planet, I have a very deep (and normal) need for people to like and accept me. My own personal reaction to this need is to go out of my way to earn people's respect and to be extra kind to them, in hopes of getting the same treatment in return. Often I invest so much energy getting people to like me that I feel horribly drained and violated when that isn't reciprocated. Something I'm working on.

It's difficult for me to believe it when people seem to want to make you feel bad, whether they want to on a conscious or subconscious level. It's difficult for me to believe that this kind of subtle verbal attack is, in fact, intentional. But the more I think about it, the more I know it is.

Because I know these women - and they're all, in my case, women - aren't stupid. They are damn smart. They know exactly what they're saying. Which is why they say it so suavely, in such a disguised way as to really dig. Their comments are like little spiders - you don't necessarily feel it when you're bitten, but the bite makes you feel horrible later. They also are ambiguous enough that if called on it, the digger can hide behind the comment, feigning cluelessness and just saying, "oh, I didn't know that you liked the very thing that I was just ragging on or cutting down!" - even if you were just talking about it in that same conversation, or you know damn well that that person knows that you represent in some way the very thing she's cutting down.

Which is what makes it difficult to call these diggers on it when they throw their negativity around. What can you say? "Excuse me, but what the hell did you just mean by that?" "Would you care to translate that to tell me exactly what you wanted me to hear or feel from that comment?"

I just looked up a book on Amazon.com that is called Coping with Difficult People by Robert M. Bramson. I might just have to buy it.

Ross reminded me that these people who want to make you feel bad are insecure, and might not even know that they want to bring you down because they feel so crappy. I know this intellectually, but at the same time I don't want to just be a punching bag for these people.

One thing I want to do is to tell these people who think that I'm just going to give them the benefit of the doubt, who think I'm going to just keep letting them make their little digs, that I'm onto them. I know their game and I am not going to let them play it. I need to know how to better confront and intercept these snipers in the middle of an attack so they stop it. Either that or I'm just going to severely limit my time with them.

That's going to be hard for me since I'm used to staying everyone's happy ray of sunshine, even in the face of abuse and adversity. But that's all about to change.

WWXD? (What Would Xena Do?)

The steadfast pursuit of wellness

Had a rough week with chocolate this week, but I figured out what it was about. (Mindless eating is almost always more about what's eating you than what you're eating.) In the past I would have beaten myself up, given up on ever trying to get healthy, and then self-medicated with sweets and carbs to feel better. Lovely viscious cycle, isn't it? And I can't be alone in this...

But even though my progress has been sketchy these past few weeks, that does not predetermine the future. And if I can learn from my struggles and experiences, they almost ensure future success. I'm trying to be more compassionate toward myself. This is not an easy task, since I am a die-hard perfectionist, and I want to continue striving for excellence. But if you're always hyper-critical of yourself, then it's going to impede your progress.

I read a fabulous article in Yoga Journal recently about food and mindful eating, which is a very yogic philosophy. I couldn't find it published online but here were some of the highlights that I found to be fascinating, informative, and helpful:

• "We're a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily...Americans take a scientific view of food, not a pleasure view," says Michael Pollan, science writer and author of the forthcoming Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.

• New York Univ. nutrition professor Marion Nestle, who wrote Food Politics, believes that food manufacturers - just like companies that sell cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, or any other commodity - routinely place profit over public health. "Food companies...will make and market any product that sells, regardless of its nutritional value or its effect on health." And they want to sell us as much of it as possible, which may be one reason government officials often hesitate to encourage Americans to eat less of any foods - even those like meat and full-fat dairy products, which are clearly harmful when eaten in large quantities.

• "The government will never promote a message of 'Eat Less'", Pollan says. "It's trying to protect the public health while at the same time advance the mission of agriculture - an irreconcilable contradiction."

• Jane Hirschman, the co-author of Overcoming Overeating [I've read this - it's fabulous!]and When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies, says, "The food industry would be half out of business if we ate only what our bodies required."

• The food industry has tailored its products to be an antidote to emotional frustrations. Dietitian and diabetes educator Robin Edelman notes food marketers have capitalized on our innate sweet tooth by adding sugars to nearly ever type of prepared food we buy - from vegetable soups to bottled waters - making it easy to consume up to 20 teaspoons a day. And the more sugar we eat, the more we want. When we eat a piece of cake, for instance, the sweet taste triggers the brain to produce opioids, chemical messengers that identify the taste as desireable. At the same time, according to Elisabetta Politi, nutrition manager at the Duke University Diet and Fitness Center, the sweetness triggers the brain to produce dopamine, another chemical messenger that works with memory to urge us to pursue this rewarding taste in the future.

• The U.S. weight loss market was worth $46.3 billion last year, according to Marketdata, a market research firm that tracks the weight-loss industry. But Americans remain chunkier than ever, with a 75% increase in adult obesity since 1991.

• Michelle Stacey, the author of Consumed: Why Americans Love, Hate, and Fear Food, advises moderating intake and being less judgmental about food, which is key to changing eating habits. Her prescription for healthier eating is something she calls enlightened hedonism: eating satisfying food in smaller portions, without demonizing any food or food group. Her approach dispenses with the calculation of guilt, sacrifice, and indulgence so many of us fall prey to, silencing the voice that says, "I skipped breakfast, so I deserve this ice cream."

• The kinder you are to yourself, the easier it will be, says Lisa Holtby, the author of Healing Yoga for People Living with Cancer. "Yoga calls us to practice compassion toward ourselves and others," she says, "so when I overeat, I've learned to say, 'What's up with the eating?' rather than beat myself up about it."

• If you decide that no food is off limits, you can adopt a more relaxed and social approach toward eating. You're likely to find yourself enjoying the journey instead of focusing on the destination, just as yoga teaches, says Timothy McCall, the author of the forthcoming Yoga as Medicine. "Rather than saying, 'I'm going to lose 20 pounds by spring,' say, 'I'm going to become more mindful of my eating.'"

[That's incisive and wise advice - for instance, when I started www.ediets.com with the intent of losing weight, I didn't put any time or weight amount constraints on myself and lost weight every week. The minute I started saying, "I want to lose a certain amount of weight by x date" I got anxious when it didn't happen as I'd planned, and was tempted to give up trying to eat well because I thought I had failed.]

I thought this article was so brilliant and very empowering. If you're interested, it's in the February 2006 edition of Yoga Journal.

I've been doing yoga most every day this week, really enjoying it and wanting to try new poses. I downloaded some new ones from the pose finder at www.yogajournal.com, such as Camel, Warrior 3, and Half Moon. They are all pretty hard. I'm going to have to figure out props (cushions, blankets, yoga blocks, etc.) so that I can do them.

But I am confident that some day I will - this morning I tried a new pose called Hero Pose, which involves sitting on your haunches with your calves and feet perfectly aligned under your hamstrings. Sound easy? Not if you have tight knees and hamstrings, it isn't! I had to modify the pose by putting a folded blanket under my knees and sitting on both my Zafu cushion and a large yoga brick. But once I was there, it felt luscious - I felt my knees and quads starting to release all kinds of tension and my back felt like it was being drawn up by a string to the ceiling, the alignment was so delicious.

Favorite yoga poses: Spider, Half Lord of the Fishes, Cat/Dog, Downward Dog, Tree, Locust, Cobra, Triangle, Warrior 1 and 2, Table, Chair, Plank, and Mountain.

Oops, gotta run - David's calling me to dinner. Bye!

Concerts, books, and CDs

Hey there, fellow blog monkeys! (I just had to say that.) Long time no post, sorry about that. The thing is, I've been meaning to upload some more pictures, but I haven't had the time. Life happens, after all!

This week we have some really fun concerts. We're doing Young People's Concerts at work, and we're doing Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries (I'm convinced I was a Valkyrie in a former life), the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra, and the three loud brassy movements from The Planets (Uranus, Mars, and Jupiter). I'm sure it's the brasshole in me, but man, I just adore playing that loud stuff, taking deep breaths and then feeling my body connecting with the horn. It's a really, really good orchestra I play with. It's a lot of fun to play in it.

Last week was actually kind of slow; we were doing a bunch of pieces I didn't play on (Mozart Violin Concerto, Hummel Trumpet Concerto, and Strauss's Capriccio for Strings), and the Shostakovitch symphony we played didn't really have a lot for the horns to do. It was his first Symphony, which he wrote when he was 19 while he was still successful and nothing bad had happened to him yet. I suppose that's why I wasn't as into it as I am his other Symphonies (5, 9, and 10 are my favorites so far). I love him when he's at his darkest and most morbid. :)

A funny story - we did an encore called "Tahiti Trot" that Shostakovitch penned shortly after the premiere of the 1st Symphony. Apparently it was a challenge by one of the conductors to see if he could orchestrate "Tea For Two" before the concert that night so the orchestra could play it as an encore. Not only did Shostakovitch do it, but the report is that he did it in an hour! So the conductor is telling us this in rehearsal, and Bill Cowart, who plays 2nd horn, mutters under his breath, "Wasted a perfectly good hour...." I about died. Classic horn section humor.

So have you read any good books lately? I have! I finished David Sedaris's Naked last week, which I didn't like as much as Me Talk Pretty One Day - I was hoping it would be as sidesplitting as the latter; it was more serious, but it was still quite good. Then I decided it was time for something completely different, and picked up James Patterson's Honeymoon. Man, if you are looking for a complete escapist page-turner thriller, you need to go out and buy this book, like yesterday. It was so fantastic that I couldn't put it down; I finished it in less than 3 days! I've been a huge fan of Patterson's since I read 1st to Die and 2nd Chance, and now I'm going to start reading 3rd Degree, which is the next book in that series. I love finding an author who can give you that thrill and escape.

Speaking of fun, have you bought any good CD's lately? I have! I had asked my sister-in-law, Anne, for Mariah's new album The Emancipation of Mimi which has the classic diva singing her R&B soul out. Anne gave it to me for Christmas and I love it! I also bought Dead Can Dance's Best Of album called Memento and it's great; I love how they combine older renaissance music with ultra-cool techno effects. On a whim, I got Ryan Cabrera's new album, You Stand Watching. His lyrics are a little bit trite and predictable, but his voice is quite lovely and so are his instrumentals. I love the track "Fall Baby Fall".

But by far the best album I have recently purchased is Gwen Stefani's Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Oh. My. God. This album is SO HOT!! I literally can't stop listening to it. Gwen Stefani, if you don't know much about her, is a huge fashion pioneer whose style is sort of punk meets Marilyn Monroe. It's sort of the classic beauty with an edge. Anyway, this is her first solo album ever (following her huge career as the lead singer for No Doubt) and it's just fantastic!! You have to listen to my favorite tracks: Rich Girl, Hollaback Girl, Luxurious (it has the same harmony as Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa" but with GOOD SINGING instead of gangstah rapping! Imagine that!), and Harajuku Girls. She blends her fabulous voice with fun boppy 80's style disco beats and a modern, edgy twist. It's really an impressive hybrid of sounds. I LOVE it!

Here's a picture of Gwen with the Harajuku Girls. I just adore her edgy fashion daringness!

It's so strange, isn't it, that me, a 35 year old and a professional classical musician no less, is so totally into pop culture? I mean, you would not peg me as the kind of person who would be downloading Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Mandy Moore songs on MusicMatch.com (Dell's music jukebox program), or going out and buying Avril Lavigne albums, would you? I suppose the allure is that it is so radically different from what I do that it really is so refreshing.

As far as the new years resolutions are concerned, the health kick is kicking me back and I'm feeling like I need some major motivation again. I have been having the weirdest sweet cravings lately, and for some reason I've been indulging them and sabotaging my weight loss efforts in the process. Krispy Kreme donuts taste so good, but damn, the ones I like (of course) are the creme filled ones which are 350 calories a piece and each has a whopping 20 grams of fat. (For those of you who aren't diet monkeys, that's 33% of your daily fat intake for the day. In ONE donut.)

I'm not giving up, though. I'm still doing www.ediets.com, which is keeping me accountable (before I wouldn't have cared about the donuts or even known about my weight gain). I'm also going to listen to my Tony Robbins CDs again. He really helps me get an edge on my life and recharges me with lots of energy and focus. It's all about knowing what your values are, and man, does he help me get in touch with what they are.

That's all for now. Have a great week!

Meet Kaori, another beloved blue Honda!

Well, the time finally came for me to retire my 1994 4-door Honda Civic DX. I know it seems silly to get all sentimental over a car, but it represents a very monumental segment of my life: 1997 through 2005.

During that time period, this little beloved car, fondly named "LBC" (Little Blue Car), saw me through the following milestones (not necessarily in chronological order):

• winning the Canton Symphony Orchestra Principal Horn job
• going to Carnegie Hall to perform the Britten War Requiem with the Cincinnati Symphony exactly one month after 9/11
• performing for the first time with the Cleveland Orchestra, a huge lifelong dream
• my re-entry into the world of dating men after, shall we say, a 10 year "hiatus" from them :D (those of you who know me better will know exactly what this really means)
• meeting my fabulous David and becoming engaged and then married over one of the most blissful weekends of my life (largely because the entire weekend was shared with family and friends like you!)
• winning my first full time orchestra job and moving to Milwaukee after having lived in Cleveland for 10 years
• buying and moving into my first ever home

So you can see why I would be attached to it, if only for its symbolism of an era. 8 years! Wow.

I took pictures for sentimental remembrance value. :) I think I will miss my bumper stickers the most, especially my Buddha fish (don't you love how it's fat, like the Buddha?). ;)




Look at how cute it is, even in its old age!

You can see how "well loved" this car got. The scrape marks were from the garage at our previous Milwaukee home on Cumberland, which had a strangely shaped driveway that made it difficult to get straight entry into the space.

The rust spots are not nearly as unattractive as the duct tape the idiots at Jimbo's Car Wash on Capitol made me put on them so that I could go through their facility without damage liability. I never went there again. I mean, just look at this! The duct tape removed more paint than the rust ever would have. And don't you just love the white waffle adhesive look? Grrr. Poor little car.

But, the days of duct tape, 6 figure odometers, rust, rolling down the driver's side window to get out of the car are finally over. This past Friday night, I drove home my brand new 2006 Honda CRV 2WD LX! When we first got into it at the dealership, it had 5 miles on the odometer. FIVE. I gawked incredulously, as a single-digit odometer is something I haven't ever considered possible, let alone seen before.

{drum roll, please....} Meet Kaori, my new CRV!! Kaori is a Japanese name meaning strong. Given the uber-reliability and longevity of Hondas and Japanese cars in general, I figured this was a perfect name for a new Japanese car!

I think it will be a while before I put any bumper stickers on Kaori! She's just too pristine and perfect right now. (I really, really miss my Buddha fish, though.)

I have to tell you it's been quite an adjustment, driving Kaori. She's significantly bigger than anything I've ever driven before, and I'm much higher up off the ground.

What's interesting is that I can see SO much more now! It's like I went from being a crawling baby to the vantage point of an ambulatory person. When trucks go by, I notice them immediately. I can see SO much more going on arond me. My awareness is definitely heightened!

Isn't Kaori pretty? :) She's bigger, but she still qualifies as cute, I think!

A jeep drove past me on our way home from the dealership, and I exclaimed joyfully, "I'm as tall as you now!!"

Being able to see so much better now makes me wonder what the hell I've been missing all these years belly-crawling around on the roads in my Civic! My awareness is definitely and acutely heightened!

Everyone I've talked to says that SUV drivers have an inflated sense of invincibility, but I am driving with extreme caution! I'm very cognisant of having a higher center of gravity and I brake much more slowly and gradually now.

I just adore this car. She's going to be a perfect family vehicle for us eventually, and I can't tell you what a joy it is to drive it. I'm finding myself coming up with reasons to leave the house just so I can drive it!

Oh, by the way, David and I sold LBC to this guy who auctions cars on the side. We learned of him, and the car auctioning possibilities, from one of my symphony colleagues. We got $300 cash for it, which is a heck of a lot more than we would have ever gotten on a trade-in or a tax deduction.

Southern Ohio (Cinci & Waverly) part of Holiday Travels: 12/25-12/28

Hey everyone. Well, I have learned some things since viewing my first post (the one on the NE Ohio portion of our holiday traveling). I am going to make the pictures bigger!

Here's a helpful tip, if even this font size isn't big enough for you: I know that you can go to the "VIEW" menu at the top of your screen, select "Text Size" and then select "Largest".

David has always wanted to meet my Great Uncle John and Aunt Fran Hamlin, who are my dad's aunt & uncle on his father's side. (Uncle John is my late Grandpa Cy's brother.) He is a brilliant theologian with a Ph.D. who has written several books on Christian theology. In fact he has a blog of his own! As soon as I find that link I'll add it to this blog so you can check it out.

Anyway, David requested that the four of us (my parents and David and I) make a trip out to Waverly, Ohio, to visit Uncle John & Aunt Fran. The drive out was uneventful (we weren't so lucky on the drive back, but more on that later!) and we just had a lovely time visiting with them.

There aren't any pictures with Aunt Fran because these days she likes to keep to herself, which we of course respected. She did join us for a very festive dinner at Ponderosa and enjoyed a very hearty meal with all of us, and she enjoyed it very much. I sat across the table from her and it was so nice to see her and Uncle John again.

Oh, I forgot to add that Uncle John & Aunt Fran were missionaries in Thailand and other areas of the far east, and have accumulated quite an impressive collection of eastern artwork for their new apartment walls. Uncle John gave us the tour: they have gorgeous paintings, etchings, and tapestries from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, China, and Tibet (and probably some I'm forgetting!).

Here's Uncle John with my parents, in their apartment. You can see one of the many pieces of fabulous original artwork behind them:

Uncle John and Aunt Fran have lived in this lovely retirement community in Waverly, Ohio, which is mostly east and a little bit south of Cincinnati, for several years. They recently moved from a single house in this community to a fantastic living arrangement, still in the same area but providing even more amenities and community access. They now have a newer, well-equipped apartment with all the independence of a private first floor entrance from the parking lot, yet its also connected by a neat walkway to an entire retirement community! There was an aviary with brightly colored finches and birds, a greenhouse, a dining hall, a library, a room with tables to play games and cards, and even a computer internet access station! We were duly impressed and so happy for them that they had found such a "best of both worlds" living arrangement for themselves.

Here's Uncle John with me and David:

Now, the ride home from Waverly back to Cincinnati in my parents' van involved both good and bad news. The bad news was that a deer walked in front of my dad's van when he was going 65 mph. on the west-bound route. The damage was extensive: one of the headlights was completely trashed, and the metal between the hood and the bumper was dented in severely.

Miraculously, no one in the car was hurt. Even more miraculously, the car (an Oldsmobile Silhouette van) still drove without problems, all the gauges reading normally, handling just fine.

I had not heard of accidents involving deer that harmed the people in the cars affected. I think if I had heard of these stories prior to this happening, I would have reacted less emotionally.

The thing is, I saw the whole thing happen. I saw the deer's face, heard and felt the impact. I just cried and cried for the deer. This really made my mom mad because my first reaction wasn't to be grateful that we weren't hurt (which of course I was). It's just that I had never seen anything like that happen and it made me really sad to have witnessed the killing (accidental and unintentional though it was) of a living being.

My dad and David, who was in the front seat and who weren't mad at me for my reaction, reassured me that the deer was hit at such a high speed so directly that it never knew what hit it and it didn't suffer. That made me feel better and I was able to then be more overtly thankful that we had not been harmed.

More good news! My dad's insurance said that this is covered under comprehensive, for which he had no deductible, so it's all completely covered. The damage was extensive and will take about a week to complete. I think it's in the shop now. If the deer had leapt in front of us, it would have gone through the windshield and things would have been incredibly bad. Also, if the deer had hit one of the airbag sensors in the front bumper, the airbags would have been deployed, opening huge accident possibilities with other vehicles and incurring much more expensive repairs.

On to more pleasant subjects! The day that David and I were to leave to travel back from Cincinnati to Milwaukee, we went to Skyline upon my request. For those of you non-Cincinnatians who don't know what Skyline chili is, it's Cincinnati-style chili. The chili is mild, sweet, and thin in consistency, and tops cheese coneys (small hot dogs with mustard, onions and chili crowned with loads of finely shredded cheddar cheese) and "chili spaghetti", otherwise known as a "3-way", "4-way" or "5-way", depending on what you get on it.

Want to see if there's a Skyline near you? Check out their website here: www.skylinechili.com.

David and me enjoying our cheese coneys:

Here's Dana, my sister, with Tim Bates. Dana, in the capacity of Tim's nanny, helped to raise him since he was an infant. He's now 7, and Dana makes sure that she continues to spend time with him even though she stopped nannying due to her own family obligations.

Here's David with my mom:

Shortly thereafter, we left to head west and north back to Milwaukee. On the way one of David's tires blew out, which ultimately only set us back a few hours (we were really lucky with AAA and the tire people we found!). Again, we were very thankful for our safety, physical well being, and of course our cell phones! :)

Ciao for now!

Happy 2006! & NE Ohio (Wooster & Cleveland) Holiday Pictures: 12/22-12/25

I think that New Year's is my favorite holiday, followed closely by Thanksgiving. A new year, full of promise - a blank slate. As my great grandmother Nona Amerio would say, "turn the page." I love that!

New Year's Resolutions? To continue losing weight, get my fabulous brass quintet into full swing, get really into arranging music for the quintet. I also want to make more time for reading, yoga, and exercise.

Last night David and I had a low key celebration of our own. We ate shrimp coctail and had a festive champagne toast with our wedding crystal. Because we're an hour behind Times Square, none of the local stations were airing a countdown, so instead we watched one of the latin channels airing from Acapulco, which is apparently in the same time zone (?). We didn't understand a word they were saying, which was kind of nice. They sure were happy and energized, salsa bands pumping out great latin music and mariachi guys gyrating and flailing to beat the band. Feliz 2006, indeed!

I thought I would add some pictures to this post of our wonderful trip back East to Ohio to visit our families! First, we traveled to Ohio to see David's family who lives in Wooster. (Anne, David's sister, doesn't live in Wooster, but she'd flown in from Florida to visit.)

Here's the Lewellen's living room. Notice their festively decorated tree!

Mimi, David's mom, had decided that it would be a lot of fun to host an "open house" party (open house, I only recently learned, means you can come and go as you please within the time frame given) for the Lewellen Family! Even though I choose not to be a Lewellen by name, I am definitely a Lewellen in spirit through my marriage to my sweet David. It was the Friday before Christmas (the 23rd) from 4-7pm.

Here are some pictures from the open house. This is the spread of goodies on their dining room table:

Here's Mimi, my fun and fabulous mother in law, busy at work in her kitchen!

The open house party was a LOT of fun. I hadn't met a lot of these people, friends of David's parents or people David had gone to high school with who now of course have their own families. I was enjoying interacting with so many new people (and valiantly trying to remember all the new names!) that I didn't take more pictures that night. But the one I did manage to get was an adorable one of Pamela, David's sister in law, reading to the children present that evening:

Now this next one requires a bit of explanation. David's Dad, Dick Lewellen of Lewellen Design, is an industrial designer. So he's always inventing these really neat things, like this window suet bird feeder. You just fill old tuna fish cans with suet and this feeder holds them in place for the birds, which flock to their window from the woods that surround their beautiful home (which, I might add, Dick also designed and had built!). I think the nice little roof and perch were kindly ergonomic for the birds, don't you?

Mimi requests that Dick remove the tuna fish can labels before he puts them in the feeder. I would agree with her aesthetics here. :)

I caught this fun picture of a little titmouse sitting on the feeder happily munching suet:

Here's a really cool action shot I managed to snap accidentally as this little titmouse flew away from the feeder:

I really want Dick to build us one! Can you imagine how entertained our cats would be?!! Here's the kitchen area where that picture window is located:

On Christmas Eve, I took David's car up to Cleveland to visit my best friend Karin! She and I have been friends since 1993 - 13 years of hugs, tears, shopping, sidesplitting laughter, and all of the other countless facets of our friendship. I think this picture of us, taken by her beloved hubby Paul (also an Oberlin grad!) may well be my favorite picture taken on this trip!

Everyone who sees pictures of us together always asks if we're sisters. I think that's a compliment to both of us! {*modest smile*}

I got to see Karin & Paul on Christmas Eve, which was a huge treat for me. They shared an early Christmas Eve dinner of this incredibly delicious pumpkin casserole, which was sweet and cakey like a pumpkin pie, as well as apples, clementines, and sparkling water. It was so yummy! Best of all, we all talked and talked for hours. It was so great!

Paul & Karin are blissfully married and will celebrate their 3rd wedding anniversary next August. Here's an adorable picture I took of them by their tree, which looks just spectacular from their bay window outside of their Chester Parkway apartment in Cleveland:

This concludes the Northeast Ohio (Wooster and Cleveland) picture tour! I'll add some more posts that will include the Southwest Ohio (Cincinnati and Waverly) portion of our trip.