Welcome to the life of an alto player in a treble/bass world!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

My Life the Last Month or So - Part 2

So as I'm sitting here now watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, (See what happens when you watch one, then you want to watch another:) I will continue my crazy long post from yesterday.

So. September 28- Finished up the almost last minute packing, and then got ready for over-nighter guests! The day before we moved :-). Thank you to the B family for extra linens! A family from our parent-church in CA were in the process of moving to Tucson, so we had told them many weeks before that they could stay at our house that night on the way to Tucson. So we had all three upstairs bedrooms, which were just about empty, covered with several air mattresses, as they have 7 great kids.

They got to our nearly empty house at about 7pm, we had a Costco take-n-bake pizza,(YUM!) salad, and those yummy tropical sherbet thingies in the 'real fruit shells,' picnic on the floor, and the adults were able to snag a couch or futon:) Their oldest is 11, and youngest 7weeks, so it was a lot of fun having younger kiddos in our house! We all went to bed and my sister and I slept downstairs in our living room on the futon. I slept really well considering I was excited about moving and sleeping in a different place.

The next morning we all got up, ate some bagels and cream cheese, grapes and strawberries for breakfast. While Mr. H loaded up their van, I took most of the children to the park for a few minutes, hoping to get some of their energy out before another several hour day on the road. Meanwhile Tata, (my step dad) and my brothers went to the new place to put in wood flooring in the master bedroom with hopes of being done by noon. then we were to get the truck, pick up a two pairs of biceps, and move in the afternoon.

After the H. family left, us girls got to work packing up the very last minute stuff, tearing down beds, throwing dirty linens in bags, moving more things downstairs, and condensing lots of little things into more and more boxes. Because we didn't have nearly enough, we went to Wal-Mart to get more, yes more, packing tape, and kept ourselves busy. Tata called around noon, and said that they were only about 1/2 done. So. What do we do now? We decided to head down to the condo with a load of stuff, and unpack it, and my sister and I could work on unpacking our room. So we headed down to the condo, me with fish bowl in my lap, and stopped at a QT to get Tata and one of his friends a soda.

While we were unpacking in our (the girls') room, the Mrs. B., D1 and D2 came by so we chatted and chatted some more for an hour or so. The floor was finished about 4:30ish, so Tata and the B boys went and got the truck, we loaded up the fridge that was at our condo, and then the truck headed up to Anthem. Mom went home in our van, and Mrs. B, my sister, and I got in the B's van and headed up to Anthem, Mr. B would meet us there, because it was now about 6ish and he was finished at work. Mrs. B and us girls stopped at the Del Taco right near our Anthem house, and went in. We happily noticed that there was pretty much no one there.

"Hello ladies, what can I get for you today?" She's probably thinking were going to order 5 things.

"Uh, well, we'd like 45 soft chicken tacos, and..."
"Wait just a second, I'm going to go let them know to get those started."
"Sure..."
"Hey guys, I need 45 chicken soft tacos!"
We didn't fail to notice the one chef guy, "I hope we have enough chicken." Heehee:)
"Okay what else can I get for you?"
"Okay, 5 macho fries, and 5 extra large drinks." (we shared)

We went to get our drinks while we waited for our 1 million tacos (seriously, why do guys have to eat so much? Oh, maybe it's cause they're guys.) and I called Tata to ask him what he and the bicep pairs wanted to drink.

"Hey, can you ask D1 and D2 what they want to drink?"
"Sure, they're playing at the park, on the slides I'll go down and ask them."

You'll know I was already very tired, and it was only 6:30pm, because I took him seriously.

"Why are they at the park when there's a whole truck to load?"

"I'm just joking, we're not even at the house yet..."

I will stop for the night, yeah, again, and continue this Lauren's Moving Saga tomorrow:-)
Lauren~

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

My Life the Last Month or So.

I've been kind of busy the last couple of weeks, so now hopefully I'll get a grip on blogging:) So as I'm sitting here watching Indiana Jones, The Last Crusade, ("Everybody's lost but me!") I'll tell you what I've been up too.

September 10.
My sister and I had a busy, musical day. During our 10 minute break at our Mozart Requiem for 9/11 dress rehearsal I went and talked to our quartet 1st violinist , Miss J. for the wedding we were playing at later that day, for directions to the ceremony location, and order of the songs we were playing. After talking to Miss. J, I called my Mom to give her the directions to the hotel.
"Hi Mom, it's me. I just talked to Miss J, and it's a Sheraton Hotel on the I-17 right across from the Castles and Coasters. Oh, and I need you to come in when you come pick us up, so you can sign the photo release form so I can perform tomorrow."

"Um, okay. So we just got some big news..."
Just then, my orchestra conductor starts announcing something about something, so I start listening to him. And as I'm listening to him, (I'm still on the phone) I hear Mom, "So, were moving to condo. In three weeks."

"Sorry Mom, what'd you say?"

"Uh, were moving to the condo in three weeks. Someone just stopped by the house and they want to move in on October 1st."

"Um, Uh, okay, well we'll talk later, we have to start rehearsing again."

"Okay, love you, Bye."

"Bye."

So then after I got off the phone I kind of forgot that my Mom had said we were moving. As soon as dress rehearsal was over I jumped into 'playing at a wedding for the first time with little information about what was really going on stress' mode. Mom got there, Miss J, Marcie, one of the two most awesomest, coolest cello players, and my sister all jumped in the car, and headed toward the hotel.

We finally got there, went inside, found out it wasn't the right hotel, it was at a different one, across the freeway, we went to that one, got there, we asked the wedding coordinator where she wanted us to start playing, and she was like, "Um, well, I guess you could just set up here, next to the aisle, and use those outdoor picnic chairs..." (It was an outdoor wedding) And we told her, "Uh, no we can't use chairs with arms." She said, "Oh, okay, we'll get you some banquet chairs then." Marcie's poor mom was there with us, and she asked the lady, "There not folding chairs right?" (Cello players can't use folding chairs, or they will collapse, because cello players have to sit on the very edge of chair.) She answered, "no, there banquet chairs." And I'm thinking, "really?"

So we finally were able to start playing our beautiful, but oh so fun pieces while guests were being seated. I only had two pages during "All I Ask of You" and "Unchained Melody" blow away while I was playing, and I never really realized before, but I'm pretty good at making up things while playing. Of course, afterwards, I'm thinking, "I've got 20 pounds of bobby pins in my hair, surely I could have spared one and and used it to clip my music to the stand" Anyway, I know for next time. Then we got to play the most awesome Kanon (yes, it really is Kanon, and not Canon) in D. Then the Bridal March. "Just something to let all you brides know. It's really hard to play with you, while your cantering down the aisle, and then slowing way down to a slower than a turtle's pace. Just thought I'd let you know."

So now I'm done complaining about unprepared people, including myself, and on to the next day's concerts.

September 11-
10 years ago today, I was 5 years old. I was in Montana on vacation with my Dad's family. I remember waking up and everyone was crying and a little on the grumpy side. They sat in front of the news all. day. long. That's all I remember. My Dad said that they told me what happened, but I didn't really understand. Then, at about 6pm, i went and stood in front of the TV, and said, "Can't we turn this off and do something!!" In an annoyed voice. We all went for a long walk after that. I don't remember any of that either. I just remember, it wasn't a good day.

So back to 2011. Went and played our first Mozart Requiem performance in Glendale at 1pm. Went very well. With the firefighter honor guard, and the bagpipes playing Amazing Grace and America the Beautiful, it was truly something I'm glad I was part of.

I absolutely love pulling off my concert black pumps, and putting on my pink converse, right after the concert is over, and running around in my black, floor length concert dress. And pink converse. Mr. Beam laughs at me:-)

After that concert, Mom drove my sister and I out to Scottsdale. We went to a Coco's for dinner, and then just beat the huge dust storm rolling in to our next concert location. Got there for the orchestra call, and then went and hung out in the official, "orchestra hanging out/goofing around" room. Then we got to preform again. And it was just as much fun as the first one. My Dad's family and a church family came to this one. Afterwards my 10 yo. brother comes up to me, and says. "Hey Lauren, I want to play bagpipes." I'm thinking, "You already play piano and trombone, you want to play bagpipes? Okay, well. That will sound wonderful. A beginner bagpipe player" :)

Then over the next couple of weeks, we started packing packing packing! The last week before we moved my sister and I got rid of our trundle bed, (we were planning on getting a bunk bed for our new room at our condo) so we slept on air mattresses. We were also supposed to start studying again during one of these weeks, but we got kinda busy. So that didn't happen. (Gotta love home education!)

Okay, I'm getting a little tired, so I will continue this tomorrow.

Lauren