Sometimes....

You feel like a blog, sometimes you don’t. Today I don’t.... This in spite of the fact there are a million things you could do this weekend (first Friday in Leonardtown, Christmas walk on the Solomons, Healthshare House Tour, Hospice Festival of Trees, Family Plantation Christmas at Sotterley, Jazz Concert at SMCM). Pick something. We’re doing numbers one, two, and three.


Spent a good portion of yesterday wrestling with the annual struggle to put the outdoors lights in the tree. Not original with me, but how do the strings of lights you so carefully put in the box last year result in a pile of spaghetti this year. Want one string? Sorry, you get them all. Managed to get two strings up yesterday and will shortly go out again for the remainder. At least it isn’t in a driving snowstorm.

Last night I journeyed down to St. Mary’s College to hear that chamber music concert with Brian Ganz, Jose Cueto, and Suzanne Orban. Lately I’ve been to a lot of Brian’s events with solo piano, so it was nice to hear some other instruments. The first selection was just Suzanne on the cello and Brian playing a sonata piece by Samuel Barber. Mr. Barber is a relatively modern composer (1910 – 1981) and when the music first started, I thought “Uh Oh” because it had that dissonance that I associate with “modern music”, but it turned out to be an intriguing piece. It sort of alternated between that kind of passage with very sweet and delicate phrases (my musical friends are probably tearing their hair out at my descriptions). It was also interesting to hear the phrases go back and forth between piano and cello. The second (and last) selection was Beethoven’s Trio in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3, which added Jose on the violin. Before they began, Brian shared a little story that Beethoven wrote the piece in his early 20’s one of his first. He was under the tutelage of Franz Joesph Haydn, and “papa Haydn” advised Ludwig to not have it performed because it was “too wild” for current tastes.. Upon hearing it, “too wild” didn’t exactly come to mind. It had its “crashy” parts, but also wonderful runs, and interplay between the three instruments. Anyway, it was an enjoyable evening, and for once there was quite a large audience, not only us “regulars” but a whole lot of students. Maybe better than being on a cold cruise ship (did I say that??)

Okay, enough. Oh we did have a pleasant dinner at the Dry Dock on Wednesday, I had a very nice plate of fried oysters. Just fine.  After doing First Friday stuff tonight, we're dining at Cafe Des Artistes...

Have a nice weekend however you choose to use it.. and don’t forget to

DFW(hatever you do!)

PS:  today's Weekend section of the Enterprise has a nice write up on St. Maries Musica, and a pretty good description of the Westlawn Inn, which is on my "to do" list.   Sometime...