new socks!

I'm very happy with my new running socks. I hope they work well for me tomorrow! I am currently enjoying one of the perks of this job: days in mazatlan, enjoying the sun and the fresh air. Sometimes I think that I am crazy for wanting to leave this job... am I? I can't tell. I'm too excited about my socks.

Bug on Fire

I walked home from the theater this evening around 10pm. A few minutes later, I took chico outside for a walk, but we were surprised to find an old VW bug on fire about 100m from our apartment! I couldn't resist loitering with the rest of the neighbors, but I began to get worried when the fire started "bursting" and "exploding". Was something going to shoot out and hit my eye? Yikes!

Chico was especially nervous. There were so many people and cars and motorcycles and babies and people pointing and taking pictures that he just couldn't handle it. He bolted for the apartment and hid in the dark bedroom.

No one knew how or why the car was on fire, but they sure loved it!

Never a dull moment in Culiacan.

reeds for sale!

I sent off my latest order of 5 reeds to GDL today. I was hoping to send them yesterday but i ran out of time. I really like making reeds for customers. What a satisfying way to do something for my fellow oboists!

Anyone else want some reeds??

oboe or die trying

the last few days have been quite an emotional roller coaster! Recently I have been feeling motivated to make the last year of my master's degree, which starts in january, worthwhile, but I hit yet another wall this week. I suppose it is all part of the artistic process, but it really sucks! Yesterday's frustrations culminated in throwing 4 reeds across the room. When one refused to break, it was systematically shoved into the brick wall. Ah, the release! the drama! the satisfaction!

Sadly, one reed was actually pretty decent.

Alas! I was able to burn off some of that rage (me!!? rage??) dring my evening 5 mile run. I started out very very VERY slowly, but sprinted for about the last fill mile. It was exhilerating.

Today started out with a long walk to pay the internet bill. Slava, Chico and I were all panting by the time we got home. It's already 90 degrees outside. Afterstumbling into the AC paradise of the apartment, we made fresh grapefruit juice and mixed it with a little cranberry juice. We had last week off from work, and this week's program only requires one oboe, so it's another week of the "artistic process" i suppose.

Now i'm considering wandering over to my reed table to assess the physical and emotional damage of yesterday.

A long time without writing

That is, without writing HERE. I have been writing on my other blog, though.

Yesterday was chico's birthday! He is now 1 year and 1 day old. Tomorrow we are going to have a dog birthday party for him. Yes, i know. We are crazy. Igor will be chico's favorite guest, i'm sure.

In other news, I'm headed back to Los Angeles in January to finish up my pesky master's degree. I'm excited for the change, but i will miss Slava terribly while i'm there. He probably isn't going to be able to go with me because of the INS (grrrrr....).

I have decided to do 2 things in the next few months: 1) Train for and run the Los Angeles Marathon on March 2, 2008. and 2) Practice my ass off on the oboe and become super-bad. If i'm going to play that thing, i'm finally going to play it right. And then after I finish the degree, I am serisouly considering picking up my baroque oboe getting another master's or working on a DMA in Early Music. Yes, yes, i know. I really am insane.

killer bees?

Our season ended without a climax last week: We arrived in Guasave to play our final concert (Holst's Planets), but when we got to the hall we found the interior air thick from a recent fumigation. A security guard had opened the hall earlier for us, and found a swarm of african killer bees had infested the entire building! Bizarre, indeed, but the worst part is that guard was actually attacked by them, and died later at the hospital. We did not play that concert. Instead, we waited around for an hour for them to bring us our customary "box lunch" (stewed pork, beans, warm tortillas) and then we got back on the buses and drove the 2 hours back to Culiacan.

We said our goodbyes to people, and the season was over! Everyone was thankful for the concert being cancelled, but my heart goes out to that officer's family. I wonder what it was like to find those bees. Did he know what they were? Did the operators of the theater know they were there? Did the bees suddenly smell fresh meat entering through the back door, and then instantly swarmed and attacked him before he could leave? It's a really strange scene to imagine. I would hate to think it was due to lack of preparation/communication that he went there unprepared. Later in the week, an officer here in Culiacan apparently was attacked and killed by similar bees in the shade of a tree. He died later as well.

Remind me to stay indoors today. Anyway, tomorrow we go to Queretaro for C and I's wedding. After that, it's off to Seattle!

sistahs!

Yeah, we are awesome. Just beYOND awesome. Unstoppable. Amazing.

It's been a while

My great-uncle Carl, age 98, is feeling better. He recently moved into a nursing home (he was living alone until january) and he had a stroke, but apparently he has been doing better and better since my trip to see him in April.

I played oboe for Carl and others in his nursing home, and I think it was some of the most important playing I've ever done. Simple church hymn melodies, unaccompanied. A rented student oboe, a store-bought reed. Nothing about how I usually approach playing oboe, and yet somehow extremeley satisfying. Between the oboe and the reed, I knew I would sound ridiculous and nothing like the professional I think I am. I had to keep telling myself, "this is not for you, Kristin. This is for Carl. He doesn't know the difference."

Although I always suspected as much, the point of music is not always simply to get "better" at your instrument, or to find new and different and amazing ways to play the repertoire. There is more than simply doing your best, reaching a new level of performance, or not making mistakes. It's not about newspaper critics, exams, recitals, and teachers' approval. Obviously, without these things and, admittedly, without years and years of intense work and dedication, music would be worthless. It doesn't matter how much you "feel" when you play; if you don't know where to put your fingers or how to make a good sound, no one will get your message.

So, where do I fit in? I can judge and critique as much as anyone, and yet I have a deep understanding of the need for the masses of musicians who play at some level other than world-class. Church musicians, community orchestras, and music teachers of all levels are valuable! I feel somehow trapped between two worlds; the desire to play with and mingle among the best of the best, and not settle for mediocre is one world. The other is the fantasy land where my parents, grandparents, and friends at church, who have watched me play for them since the day I began oboe, are warmed from the inside out by the love I show for them by taking time out of my day for them. The deep, unconditional appreciation I feel radiating from those people makes me believe in the goodness of human nature! This other set of people, this set of people who are not judging my intonation or my technical facility, are experiencing music in a pure way which I think gets lost in the world I mentioned before.

Does one cancel the other out? I know this question can be asked about pretty much any walk of life which involves some hobby, activity, or work in which one can either be good or great. Is one more important than the other? Is it worth it to sacrifice one because the other seems easier, or more fulfilling? Or because one involves more money? Or fame? Is it possible to have both??

New Directions in Anger Management

I can be moody, annoyed, whiny, and sad just like everyone else, but I know I'm not imagining it when I think that I am basically a happy, optimistic, and forgiving person. I am so darn nice that it has gotten me into trouble a few times! I don't set enough boundaries, and I let people take advantage of me. I want to believe in the basic good of humanity, or at least of the person standing in front of me, and it takes a lot to get me to distrust someone.

But I have been pushed to the limit. One too many times have I been judged. One too many times scoffed at, and too many times have I been brushed aside. Actually, i don't think I have ever been this close to a person who treats others this way, and maybe that's why it is so hurtful. I guess I didn't think that MY friends, family, or colleagues really act like that! Alas, one person does. And I just don't know how to deal anymore.

I think I am officially being bitchy towards that person. At least I am being a bit passive and cold. It's my first time acting like this. It's weird. I hope i don't regret it one day. Sigh. I am not as strong as I thought I was.

new lessons from my kitchen

some things i learned this week:

1. red wine reductions are neat.
2. don't "toss" the avacado slices too much or you will just have guac.
2. frosting a cake is really hard.
3. buttercream frosting has a LOT of butter in it.
4. lighter frostings melt very easily.
5. white chocolate doesn't melt twice very well.
6. leaving a cake in the fridge uncovered overnight leaves you with a cake which tastes like whatever else you have in your fridge.
7. assembling a cake with a little syrup makes life easier and more moist!
8. baking is a very rewarding activity.

fake sushi, foot injury

I only ran 7 of 10 miles today due to some kind of stress injury/inflammation in my right foot. i hope i am able to do the imala run on nexy sunday!!! arrrggh!

Tonight S and I went out for dinner at the new-ish "sushi" place here in chapule. it's cute and has couches (!). We ordered the "auklan" roll and chicken on noodles in a beer sauce.

The thing you have to know about sushi culichi-style is that, well, it isn't sushi. Although "sushi" is perhaps the city's favorite restaurant food, I would like to change the name to "faux crab-rice-cream cheese-stuff." All sushi places invariable sell a long list of rolls, which are divided into 3 categories: normal, fried, and capped. (fairly self-explanatory) They all have 4 things in common: rice, fake crab salad, avacado, and philadelphia cream cheese. These ingredients are all rolled up into a neat little california-roll type of dish and served on a wooden plate. The variations on this basic roll are endless: cooked chicken, beef, seafood, or pork can be added into the roll or on top, and the roll can be doused with something resembling teriyaki sauce. Served with the roll are soy sauce, green onions, shredded carrots, hot peppers, and enough mayonnaise to swim in.

We like this new place because their roll had less cream cheese than other places, and S's chicken in beer sauce tasted remarkable like the pad thai which you can make from a thai kitchen brand mix. Although a far cry from either sushi or thai food, my tummy is full and happy and we really liked the couch.

spewing trash into the world

In Culiacan, it is socially acceptable, or even encouraged, to litter. I refuse to partake. Even if my Topo-Chico water bottles and my Kinder Chocolate wrappers are a very small percentage of the trash in this city, and even if throwing them in the few-and-far-between trash cans won't make this city any cleaner, I will NOT throw them into the streets or onto to the grass.

It pains me to throw those little gatorade cups or water bags into the street during road races. They don't put out trash cans, and i THINK that someone comes by and cleans up a bit later, but even still, i really hate to do it.

On one group training run to Imala, I was stashing my emtpy water bags into the waistband of my running shorts, waiting to throw them into the water truck or a random trash can. One other person was doing the same, while a thrid person was thoughtlessly tossing his plastic baggies onto the side of the country road. Evidence of his and other runners' actions could be seen all along the run, sadly. The road was still beautiful, quiet, populated by cows, and surrounded by small farms, even though the disgusting Culichi (Sinaloense? Mexicano?) behavior was obvious. We bugged that runner the entire 14 miles until he finally kept one bag in his shorts as well. I'm sure those plastic bits he threw down, though, will be there for many generations of runners after I escape from this place. It makes me sad.

this is also a city of really really REALLY dirty exhaust. the black and filthy air left by the buses is slowly turning everything here black, including my lungs. in a basically small and quiet city of less than 1 million residents, i see people wearing surgical masks in the street regularly. I refuse to participate in this environmental tragedy as well. i don't drive a car here.

Maybe my lack of car and my tight fists don't make any difference to the earth, but these are two ways in which i don't spew trash into the world.

Dear Mariachi Vargas,

Dear Mariachi Vargas,

Oh my GOD! You guys totally ROCK!!! I totally didn't know that mari-whatchya call it was SO cool. I mean way awesome. I loved your outfits... but don't you think you should get some new pants? they all looked too small. Then again, tight pants on guys is way in right now. That concert was even better than watching Speedy Gonzales on tv. By the way, can you guys play the speedy gonzales song? that would be so cool.

My favorite song was El Pastor. What does that mean in english? I don't speak mexican. I mean spanish. Wait. Huh? Anyway, when what's-his-name started singing that song, i thought it was totally cool. I couldn't understand the words because you were singing in some other language or something. Well, at first i thought he was a woman. but then i realized that's just how you guys sing and that's way cool. Anyway, my favorite instrument was the little harpy-thing. It was so cute, like a toy! Can i have one? I also liked the big fat guitar thing. What's it called? The guitar-one? Whatever, it was just so BIG. i mean really BIG. You have really big.... hands... if you can play that. All you guys are So hot. Well, some of you are a little old, i guess, but that's cool because you're rich and famous and mariachi is just way cooler than i knew. Anyway, it's way cooler than banda. although the banda guys we played with... what's their name? Banda Recorder? Well, they seem pretty hot and rich, too, so, i guess it's a tough call. But their pants aren't as tight.

Well, from the oboe section, everything sounded really awesome. I will totally play oboe for you anytime. I came home after the concert and listened to your CD for like 2 hours. Let's hang out. I bet you like tacos. Oh my god!!! Can i have your autographs? Can i have your babies??

Later, guys! Have fun! See you next time in Mazatlan,

xoxoxo

How To Bring a Dog into a Hotel

1. Have the dog arrive with someone else at 1:30am. This way, there is guaranteed to be drunken guests in the lobby taking the attention of the front desk people. If there are no drunken guests, hire someone to pretend to be drunk, or at least dumb.

2. Put your dog into a bag. If he tries to jump out near the front desk and a drunken guest sees him and almost blows your cover, justpush the dog back into the bag and give the evil eye to the drunken guest.

3. Do your research: where is the nearest emergency exit? This will be your dog's potty. Use at least 2 people when sneaking to the potty. Distract maids, security people, and drunken guests with one person.

4. To exit the hotel via the front desk, insert dog back into bag. If he barks while near the desk, make a funny face and bark again yourself, so the employees will think you are inasane. Extra benefit: if the dog barks while in the hotel room, the security guy will think it's you playing your bizarre night games.

5. Lie if someone sees the dog. You're not a guest, you'll only be inside for 5 minutes, you're babysitting the dog, you're disriminating against my son for being "different." Anything. Lie lie lie.

my computer was in the shop

my computer was in the (only) mac store all week, and then we went to mazatlan to play a concert with patron. I have my computer back! yaaaay! And we are going to mazatlan again tomorrow! yaaay!

Chico is HUGE and hairy and a little sad, but I guess we will leave him with T again this time. She loves him, although Chico has been strangely subdued since we picked him up on saturday.

Sunday we took Chico to Igor's birthday party. Yes, a dog birthday party. Chico, Igor, and Pakwa all wore brithday hats and Igor got to eat a hamburger. The day was hilarious! I love my dog!

humping and pooping

yes, my dog humps and eats poop.

he likes to hump my arms. I know he's in the mood because he starts biting and growling. Then he gets a crazed look in his eyes and sticks his lower jaw and teeth out, keeping his mouth open. then he tries to hug my arms with both of his front legs and mount me. I am usually able to shake him off fairly easily.

besides that lovely development, i am also trying to figure out what to feed the guy. We have him on science diet, and he eats it, but I am being worried by all the info out there saying that dog food sucks and real food is better. but who knows for sure! they can't talk, so i don't know what he wants. so how often? how much? when is he just begging, and when is he really hungry? he seems to like a little yogurt on his kibbles, and i have read a few sources that say it's good for dogs. hm.

friends vs. roomies

Some people are just better as friends than as roommates. That's just the way it is. It doesn't mean that one person is bad or that anyone has even done anything wrong. Some people jsut aren't compatible!!
I've had my share of roomates in my life, and only once has the situation ended on a bad note (and I swear it wasn't my fault!!). Sometimes you just have to take care of yourself, no matter what. At some point, there is no way to make anyone understand you or like you, and if it comes to the point of leaving a living situation to protect your mental (or physical) health, you just have to do it. Too bad if someone's feelings get hurt.

After glendale, i said that i would never have a roomate again (living with 4 female musicians AND a samba band under bed was enough for me, although i dearly love all of them.). And yet, i find myself working through the same bs as i thought i never would see again. It seems like every time i say "never" in my life, something happens which makes me go back on that word and learn more about myself.

I just really hope this doesn't end in disaster.

swollen eyeballs and fat ears

chico, my poor boy! he really DOES take after his mommy!

The other day he got his rabies shot from a "vet" here, and a few hours later, around 8pm, his eyes swelled shut and his ears were as thick as pancakes!! Those growing ears, whihc are normally carried high and proud on his little head, were laying down down down along his face, as if they had never perked at the sound of the doorbell or a squeaky toy.

Well, i didn't have swollen eyes and fat ears after my rabies shot, but.. well.. i sure do have a lot of allergies, and i jsut knew exactly how he felt. It was awful.

We took him to another "vet" who, after he was finished watchin tv with his kids and sorting bills right, took chico in his huge hands, plopped him onto the front counter, and jammed a needle full of bendryl into his soft puppy bum. A yelp, and it was over. His swelling went down in about an hour and his ears returned to his niormal size. We also gave him a 1/2 doggy predisone twice.

Ah, parenthood.

How to ditch your opponents

At about 6 or 7km, some dude started pacing me and he wouldn't stop talking to me in his thick culiichi accent. I couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying, but nothing was too out of the ordinary: where am i from, why am i here, how old am i, what? you look so much younger than that, blah blah blah. at first it was no big deal, and sometimes having something else to think about besides the running helps a little. Then we passed some discount seafood huts on the side of the highway (not my normal choice for dining) and he started trying to ask me out to breakfast after the race! I easily got out of that one, though... "oh no! i cna't eat saefood in the morning! no thanks!" He was persistent, though, and i guess he figured that if i don't like discount highway saefood, i must like grilled and fried meat instead! At this point, i just sort of shrugged and changed the subject.

By about 13 or 14 km, he was really getting annoying. I could feel my evil side coming out. I took out my stashed power gel, raspberry flavor (the most heinous), and started slurping, leaving just enough goopy goodness for my new running buddy to try. Now knowing what it was, he gulped down the last bit without a water chaser, immediately gagging and coughing. What IS this stuff!!?? How do you eat this!!??

Well, moments later he was long gone, clutching his tummy and telling me to go ahead. I saw a honey bucket along the way, i wonder if he took advantage of that....

mission accomplished. I ran the rest of the 21km in peace.

yawn

I'm feeling sleepy and unenthusiastic.

It wasn't my idea, but somehow i got roped into running another 1/2 marathon here in culiacan... and i just don't really want to. but the start line is in an hour, so here i go. Actually, i have a fairly good excuse to not run today: my allergies have taken over my entire immune system and i feel like a walking snot ball.

anyway, i'm sure i'll feel "better" after i run, so i guess i should just suck it up. Sigh. I don't really want to do this, which is strange. It's the first time i have felt like this about a race or run since I began running with these guys last year. I really hope it's just my allergies talking and not a new trend.

I really hope my next post included stats from the race, instead of more whining and excuses.

chico has a hot date

the vet recognized chico as a griffon right away, and was very happy to tell us of another griffon living nearby, a female, and would we like to meet her and make some puppies? This was his first question for us. Well, although chico OBVIOUSLY has figured out how to do that (yes, our dog is quite advanced), apparently he can't actually procreate for another 8 months or so.

Chico will get his next shots on monday, by the way.

calidad mexicano...

Slava and I are about to take chico to his first vet appointment. he is due for shots. i hope this place has running water and electricity!

Slava found out about this place by asking some other orchestra members, and it sounds nicer than either of the two vet places on obregon (which may not have either of the two luxuries mentioned above.)

I was arrested

I was arrested in my dream last night, but i don't know what i was arrested for. I wasn't a kid, but i was sent to some kind of juvie place, but it was more like boarding school or a college dorm or something. I think my parents had to drop me off there, and i was a little nervousd scared and even embarrassed about being there, but "they" showed me what to do. I was supposed to choose a bunk and then put my "stuff" there, but it wasn't really my stuff. Instead, there was a shelf or a bookcase nearby with stuff, and we were supposed to take whatever we wanted, but it was mostly sanrio toys or something like that.

Then I think someone showed me where to eat or gave me a tour of the place, and i started meeting other "inmates," and among them were people i used to know from calarts! All the familiar faces seemed happy to see me and didn't think it was bad at all to be in "jail'." I started to feel better, until i realized that this incarceration would follow me for my whole life, and i started to get worried. Most of all, i worried about that fact that i'm supposed to marry slava this summer, and how could i if i was in jail!???

more puppy business

i guess chico doesn't quite get it yet.

today he managed to eat a whole poop. I mean, when i went to check on him, his poop was gone and he smelled like.. well.. poop.

So he got another bath, and he looked silly again. (see previous post).

He also decided to poop outside of his box for some reason. Is he trying to frustrate us? twice today he pooped near the box, but not in the box...i don't get it! Other than that, he is behaving well. Slava is trying to teach him how to fetch but he doesn't quite understand yet, but i think he will be running back and forth for his rat or his octopus any day now.

In other news, we reheased the harbison again, and i feel very OK about it. I tried to listen to a few parts, and just seeing how "into" it M and A are makes me more excited. If only a certain other personality would chill and just enjoy working on it. I can't stand the neagtivity! argh!

Speaking of negativity, there seems to be a cloud of it in my house these days... I hope IT goes away...

do i have to like harbison?

I think my years at calarts made me delusional.

Apparently, there are (many) musicians in this world who don't care for experimentation and i don't understand why. I'll admit that when i went to calarts, i was nervous because i knew the school was known for the avant-garde (ooo, how daring) and that my soon to be oboe teacher was a baroque nut (how boring). Big surprise, i graduated 4 years later, totally in love with everything baroque and having participated in (almost) every kind of performance art you can think of, including nudity.

I left with such a desire to create something new (playing baroque and other early music well counts as new, by the way) that I detested my master's degree experience and all those "mainstream" music geeks at USC and i ran away to mexico before I finished.

I never really had the opportunity last year to figure out if anyone here cared for the types of things i left calarts with: to do new and different things on stage, to challenge the audience, to make people scratch their heads sometimes. also to strive for something like period authenticity in baroque music performance, even though it may be impossible to attain. I yearn for the time when I can return to practicing my eichentopf oboe replica regularly. my dream career would basically include playing first oboe (modern or baroque... or both) in a mainly baroque orchestra (i like mozart too), and gigging in the performance-artsy-experimental-modern stuff as well.

ok what i meant to say is, I guess i always thought that everyone in this world is exactly like me, post-cal-arts. And i am finding out that they aren't! How can it be!!?? We have come to the time in this orchestra's season when we play chamber music. the schedule is f-ed up, though, and my quintet only gets to play part of one concert... don’t even get me started on how i feel about that. Anyway, i guess we are going to play 3 movements from the harbison quintet and although even I take a while to warm up to a piece sometimes, it really bothers me to hear people talk about how awful and weird all music is after about 1930. I just don't understand. Yes, i agree that most music has gone downhill in one way or another since Bach, but c'mon... there were riots at the premier of the right of spring, gosh darnnit! Why are so many people unwilling to even try new music? And because I find myself always being the defender, I can't even say what i really think... which is... i don't know if i like the harbison quintet. ok? so shoot me.

hmmm

I don't think this is a good start to my blogging career: 50% of my posts so far mention poop. There must be some sort of freudian analysis for my problem... some answer within the shpere of abnormal psychology.

OR i'm just obsessed with my puppy. I think that is the answer. I will try not to mention poop for the next few minutes.

Chico woke up this morning and didn't want to eat his breakfast, which confused me. He has never lost his appetite before, and I was a little worried. Did he pick up some horrible disease? Have we taken him for too many walks before he has had all of his shots? is he going to DIE!??

Since he seems to be happy, i figure he just isn't hungry, but there are two other possible solutions: either he was freaking out because i had to give a little of the ol' bitch slap to the man last night (no slapping was involved), or the fact that he was chewing on raw garlic, which he found on the floor somewhere, all night and morning, and it took away his desire to eat dogfood.

Bitch Slap? Wait, hold it.. what? Well, at 1am, after i was already trying to sleep, it seemed like the entire neighborhood arrived in the living room. S, S, P, and L were all here speaking russian at normal volume, all at the same time. There was laughing, violin plucking, singing of melody line's of brandenburg 4, playing with the morse code thingy... i thought my head was going to explode. Anyway, when they finally left after about a 1/2 hour of block party, i had to scold Slava for not kicking them out, or at least herding them into another room outside of my earshot. Then a few narco-hummers pulled up right outside the building, shooting banda directly into my nerve endings for a while. It was lovely. Needless to say, my half-sleepy-whiny-PMS-2am voice was a bit shocking for our little puppy (and for slava). I don't blame him for losing his appetite! Both aforementioned parties are feeling better, but i kind of want a nap.

eating poop

to my dismay, chico started eating his poop yesterday. I guess it woulnd't be such a big deal if he had a big yard to play in, thus cleaning off his feet and face in the wet grass all the time (as he did in edmonds). Now, though, all he has is the tile courtyard and his litterbox, which means i have to run after him and smell his face, and maybe even give him a bath, which makes him look silly. What fun! Actually, i think he is trying to be helpful; he always sees me pick up his leavings and throw them away as soon as he gifts them to us, and maybe he thinks we are training him to move them himself...i wouldn't put it past him. Anyway, today I tried distracting him by brining him back inside after he did his business, and rewarding him before the poop was removed. This accomplished two things: 1) chico seems to only need to sniff his poop now, albeit extensively, and 2) when you forget about his pee there for several hours, it clumps to the litter much better and i can pick it all up in one clean scoop. If you ever need kitty litter in mexico, i reommend "econo-litter" in the yellow bag from wal-mart. it costs about $1 for 3kg of clumping goodness.

rainy morning in mexico

Chico was so good this morning. I didn't want to get up when he awoke, so i let him play by himself for about an hour and he didn't destroy anything yipeee! Then Igor came over to play for a while, which was hilarious because he ran into the bedroom and jumped on top of sleeping slava, who suddenly woke up to igor's giant alien eyes staring straight into his soul.

Savva is Chico's new favorite toy... he just can't get enough of that guy! Luckily S seems to enjoy the attention more or less, even though he doesn't like Chico's docked tail.

The air is cool and clean from a light rain all morning. What a delight! Although the laundry is all over the living room now, i love this breath of fresh air.

And now spending some time arguing with Slava over interpretations of the outer movements of brandenburg 4... the swiss baroque soloists play quite fast, i like it even if it is a little frantic. very exciting. i love this music... i guess i will stick to my Goebel recording. it's a nice balance. yay bach!

to be a puppy mom

I feel like i have grown a new brain, or a new set of eyes. At least an extra ear which i leave in the other room, but it is still connected to me. I have a 7th sense: I can feel the movements of this dog's bladder and intestines from the next room (is that weird?).... I just KNOW when he needs to be taken out and given some encouragement to "go potty." I'm so proud of his little accomplishments, and can't help but brag to my friends about how chico learned to sit.

Is this a little of what it's like to have kids?

When do i get to find out??

second try

the last time i tried to have a blog, i lasted about 3 days. then i abandoned it and promptly forgot the password and username and everything else, and try as i might, i can't figure out a way to open it again. i know the html address, but that doesn't help me much because i can't log into it. oh well.

why do i want a blog?

i don't think i write particularly well... nor am i always funny or clever. i don't have a strong opinion about anything current (or if i do, i don't know enough to write about it.)

But i have always kept a journal and i just kind of like putting my thoughts somewhere.

I suppose that's enough reason, right? And i never asked myself permission to have a journal before, so why worry about it now?