I had my regular check up with the radiation oncologist last week. He was concerned that my PSA numbers are not going down. This is anomalous in his experience, so he thinks we should remain vigilant. They are tending to hover around 1, plus or minus a tenth or so. This time it was 1.13.
The urologist last time thought that leveling off was ok, so this was a little disturbing.
Monday, October 27, 2008
New Voices
There was a concert yesterday for the Monterey County Composers Forum called "New Voices." It was basically a choral concert featuring Voci, which is a professional subset of I Cantori di Carmel. They did a wonderful job singing my setting of William Blake's "The Tyger," but even more gratifying was the performance by 7 string players from Pacific Grove Middle School of my Gloria Passamezzo Moderno! The concert started with it, and the kids played their hearts out. Absolutely a wonderful moment!
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Normality, and the lack thereof
I've been busy with the substitute teaching - hardly a moment to breathe. It is very satisfying work.
All of my musical groups are back in session, so I am out almost every night of the week with one rehearsal or another. Mondays is the professional caroling group, Tuesdays Camerata, Wednesdays the Lutherans, Thursdays St. Mary's, and one Friday a month is the madrigal group. On top of that there are the church services every Sunday morning.
Viola da gamba lessons are my newest adventure. I meet with Tracy Achtman nominally once a week (though for practical purposes it has been about once a fortnight), and I am making progress. She is an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, she spends part of the year in Germany. She has been giving me facsimiles from the early 15th century to play, and it has been like a mini course in notation (or musical paleography, as Sofia's course was titled in Padova last year).
It is very confusing, but I am gradually getting the hang of it. She likes my willingness to read original clefs and notation, and I am having a blast doing it.
Next week is going to be stressful. Our building has to be fumigated, so we have to be out Monday morning by 8 am and can't return until Wednesday after 5 pm. Being the landlords, it is our responsibility to put our tenants up for those two nights at a local inn. Being a tourist area, that is pretty expensive. One of our tenants is going to stay with family, so we are giving him a discount on his rent instead, which is quite a bit less money for us. In the meantime, we have to double bag all of our ingestibles in special plastic receptacles provided by the fumigator. Not fun.
The week after, though, we go to Ashland to participate in our friend Pat's wedding. It will be a Jewish one, and I will wear a yarmulke for the first time in my life. Gotta get pictures of that!
All of my musical groups are back in session, so I am out almost every night of the week with one rehearsal or another. Mondays is the professional caroling group, Tuesdays Camerata, Wednesdays the Lutherans, Thursdays St. Mary's, and one Friday a month is the madrigal group. On top of that there are the church services every Sunday morning. Viola da gamba lessons are my newest adventure. I meet with Tracy Achtman nominally once a week (though for practical purposes it has been about once a fortnight), and I am making progress. She is an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, she spends part of the year in Germany. She has been giving me facsimiles from the early 15th century to play, and it has been like a mini course in notation (or musical paleography, as Sofia's course was titled in Padova last year).
It is very confusing, but I am gradually getting the hang of it. She likes my willingness to read original clefs and notation, and I am having a blast doing it.
Next week is going to be stressful. Our building has to be fumigated, so we have to be out Monday morning by 8 am and can't return until Wednesday after 5 pm. Being the landlords, it is our responsibility to put our tenants up for those two nights at a local inn. Being a tourist area, that is pretty expensive. One of our tenants is going to stay with family, so we are giving him a discount on his rent instead, which is quite a bit less money for us. In the meantime, we have to double bag all of our ingestibles in special plastic receptacles provided by the fumigator. Not fun.
The week after, though, we go to Ashland to participate in our friend Pat's wedding. It will be a Jewish one, and I will wear a yarmulke for the first time in my life. Gotta get pictures of that!
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