Sausalito

Last week my friend Joe drove me over to the Golden Gate Bridge to a beautiful little town right by the water called Sausalito.



 

The view from the shore of Sausalito:



An adorable little dress shop in Sausalito where I bought a very beautiful concert dress for only nine dollars (it needs a new zipper): 


 

More shoreside views:


Joe was wondering why I was taking pictures of the seagulls... but I thought it was pretty sitting there.

improvisation

(Dec. 22 2010 update: read a follow-up to this post here!)

My improvisation skills are gradually getting better and better on the piano.  It is actually starting to become enjoyable for me to 'make something up'...where not very long ago it used to be pure torture.  Last night I got into it and was making stuff up and improvising until one in the morning.   Most of what I do is not sounding 'good'...but I think it will be in not tooooo much longer.  I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!   Then I am going to sing and play and play and sing and write and... yes, it will be fun!   I've been working on some songs of my own that I want to record, as soon as I can afford to get my laptop fixed.  Its hard-drive crashed this summer before I came to the conservatory, so right now I can only use the conservatory computers, which don't allow me to upload anything.   :-S  But all good things to those who wait, right?     !!!!!!

Two stories of Unwanted Roommates

I was sitting on my bed the other night, and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something move beside my backpack sitting on the floor. I looked and saw nothing, but I heard a little rustle as if something had just run from my view.  I suspected it had been a mouse.  I walked around see if it was hiding somewhere, but I couldn't find anything.

I wasn't sure if I had actually seen anything or if I had just been imagining, but just to be certain I thought I would do a test.  I left 10 almonds on the floor, gathered up all my sheets and blankets away from the edges of the bed (I didn't want any creatures to be able to climb up them), and went to sleep.  In the morning I checked the almonds and there were only nine.  I wondered if I had counted correctly the night before...It seemed strange to me that a hungry animal would only bother taking one almond.  However just to be safe I went and told the man (his name is Bob) at the desk downstairs that I thought maybe I had seen a mouse - he didn't act at all surprised, and told me he would make a note of my room for the pest control.  Then I talked to a boy who lives across the hall from me (a composer named Sunny), and told him I thought I had seen a mouse in my room.  "Oh yeah!" he said. "You have to stick socks in the holes in the walls so they can't get in."   I laughed, "Are you serious?"  "Yeah," he said, and he showed me the mouse entrance into his room at the base of the floor... So I went back to my room and I noticed a gap between my sink and the wall where I thought maybe a mouse could go in or out, so I took out some duct tape and taped over the space.

Later that night I was sitting on my bed again reading, and in my peripheral vision I saw something moving across the room. I looked up and a mouse jumped and tried to hide behind my trash bag, but he knew I had seen him so he jumped out again and darted toward me and past me so fast that I couldn't see where it went.  I looked around the room and picked up a few things I'd left on the floor, and looked around again to see if I could find any other holes. I thought maybe I had actually trapped the mouse in my room, taping up his doorway by the sink the night before.  I decided the only thing I could do was lie down and rest, and see if I heard anything.  I wasn't laying there very long when I heard a rattling coming from near my head. I sat up quickly and turned on the light, but once again saw nothing. I have a bunch of cords plugged in right next to my bed's headboard (for my phone, reading lamp, camera charger, etc.), that I thought maybe the mouse had been climbing up or chewing on. I gathered them all up and unplugged a few to get them as far away from the floor as possible.  As I was doing this (I was making quite a bit of noise), the mouse darted out from behind my bed and into my closet.  So I followed him to the closet and started moving my stuff around to get him to come out again. He darted out again, and this time ran behind the mini fridge.  So I went and pulled out the mini fridge and found a hole in the wall, where he must have gone into.  Once again I got out my duct tape and taped up the hole. I felt a little sorry for the guy though and stuck a couple of almonds in the hole before I closed it up.

Later that night I had a nightmare that a giant mangy rat was crawling on me and trying to sleep on my bed with me. In my dream I eventually got him pinned under my head as I was laying there, but when I woke up I was very relieved to realize that the only thing under my head was my pillow.

I haven't heard or seen anything since I taped over the hole... However last night I decided to put one almond on the floor across the room from me. And I left a few almonds on my table and a few on top of my refrigerator.   When I woke up this morning, the almond on the floor was gone, but the almonds on the table and fridge were all still there.  So I think the mouse is still getting in somewhere (I checked the holes I taped over and they are still covered). However I am glad to see that the mouse apparently isn't currently able to climb my furniture.

I have dealt with rats before (big nasty mean ones) in an apartment I lived in in Texas when I was going to school there, and this tiny mouse is considerably less alarming.  The rats in Texas could climb up high, and they made a lot of noise.  For quite a while I actually had thought my apartment was haunted, because every time I turned the lights off I would start hearing noises -  rattling and rustling and falling things - and sometimes my CD player (which was on the floor) would randomly start playing on its own.  However one day I was sitting there playing my electric keyboard and I saw something on the floor beside me, and it was a big fat rat looking straight at me.  "Ooooh," I said.  "So it's you!" and then I chased him into my bedroom and caught him under a laundry basket.  I tell you what - he was MAD. He was squeaking and squawking and baring his teeth and trying to chew (very rapidly), through the rungs of the laundry basket.  I had to keep hitting his nose with a shoe to keep him from being able to chew through it.  I called my friend Chris who came over right away. We slid a big piece of cardboard under the laundry basket and carried the whole parcel to the car, where I actually held it on my lap and continued bopping the rat's nose every two seconds as he tried to escape from his makeshift cage.  We drove to a field far away next to a highway, and let the rat go there.

As soon as I came home though, I heard squeaking and crying coming from behind my sink!!   I surmised that I had caught the mother rat who had a nest somewhere in the wall behind my kitchen sink...   I went and bought some rat poison and set it out places.  I couldn't stand to sleep in my apartment that night and stayed with a friend (even though I had already been staying there for weeks with the rats - just unaware!). A few days later I encountered a baby rat...which I also caught under a laundry basket this time with my friend Russel's help, and then we also took it out to the countryside.  Fortunately, I was leaving for Thanksgiving vacation to go back to Montana very shortly, so I didn't have to stay there more than a day or two after that. When I came back the rat poison was all eaten,  and I didn't have any problems with rats (or hauntings) after that.

So those are my two stories of "The Unwanted Roommates".

(Story #1 to be continued....)

At the Palace/Art museum for an Organ Concert

Last week on Sunday I tried to go to an organ concert of a lady I met at a funeral I sang for. Some people from my church took me there. 
We ended up missing the concert (we weren't sure where it was and found it right as it was finishing), but we saw some very beautiful scenery in the meanwhile.


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Chamber Music Class

Every week on Thursday I go to Chamber Music Class in the concert hall. All of the different chamber music groups take turns performing the different chamber music works they are working on, and they (or we) receive comments from the teachers and students. We all sit on stage for the class.  The girl sitting next to me is my friend Hannah, a wonderful violist.

Stunning San Francisco - after church at Ocean Beach Sunday

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Success!

Yaaaay!  I just sang at a concert tonight for the Baroque Ensemble at the San Francisco Conservatory. It went really well - I sang 23 verses of the ballad of "Barbara Allen" acapella!   As soon as the school gets the recording in the library maybe I can post it up here for you to hear it.   I also sang one other song, called "If my Complaints Could Passions Move" by John Dowland.  I'm so happy and relieved that it all went well tonight.  I got lots of positive feedback from people - a few people told me that "Barbara Allen" made them cry.  So, happy day! :-)

Almond Brain

The night before last as I was leaving the school after a long day of classes and practicing, I began chatting with a man who works the night shift for security at the front desk of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music - He is very nice (his name is Jim), and he was asking me about my goals in music.  I don't know what nationality he is but I think he might be from India...  He asked me what I think of my musical abilities and I kind of laughed and said, "I dunno."  
"No!" he responded. "You must say: 'I am the best!' You must always say this."
I sort of chuckled again, "Okay."  He continued,
"Why not? Why shouldn't you be the best?  Why should anybody else be better than you? We are all made the same way, right?  Does somebody else have golden fingers? Or golden eyes? What makes anybody better?"
"Well sometimes they are smarter," I said.
"But it is still the same mind!" he said. "Other people's brains are no bigger than yours. Perhaps they are even smaller. We can use them the same. You can be the best.  What matters is time - you have to work hard. You can choose to go hang out at clubs, or you can say, 'No, I have a goal, and I need to work toward it'"  He proceeded to tell me that he believes that in ten years my name will be everywhere (and then he asked my name) - I laughed again and said, "How do you know?"  He said, "Because I see you work very hard. You are always here working. You will make it, but you have to have the goal, and you have to believe it."
"Alright, I do," I said.
Then he asked me,
"What do you think your strengths and weaknesses are as a musician? Are you a good performer?"
"Yes, I think I am a very good performer," I said.
"This is very important," he said, "And a very difficult thing. Many people cannot even speak to an audience, they are so frightened."
"Yes," I said. "But I feel my weakness is in my ability to learn music quickly enough, and to memorize it solidly...It seems like I always have some little slips in performances, and it causes me trouble in competitions."

"Ah!!" he said, "Then I tell you what you must do.  Go to Trader Joe's, and buy yourself a big bag of almonds.  Every night, put fifteen of them in water, and soak them overnight.  In the morning, take the skins off the almonds with your fingers, and eat them. Do this before you eat anything else. And if they taste too bitter, you can dip them in sugar."
"Why take the skins off?" I said.
"Because the skins have a different effect. In one month you will see the results, I promise you.  You will see your memory will become very fast, and you will have a lot of energy and feel very good. Try it for one month. You will see."
"Okay" I said. "I will."
He continued, "Back home we put the almonds outside overnight to get the dew on them, and that has a different effect... But you can also just do it in the kitchen."

So yesterday I went to Trader Joe's, got a big bag of raw almonds for 4.95 (I can't believe how cheap almonds are in California! :-) and followed his directions.  This morning I ate my first dose.  The soaked almonds actually tasted a lot better to me than regular almonds, they get a little softer and taste sweeter and fresher.  I was a little worried about the process of 'skinning' them, but the skins actually come off really easily when you just squeeze them. I think I could see that the ends of the almonds were actually just beginning to sprout... I could grow an almond tree!

Anyway, I am going to continue with the almond experiment (along with as much practicing as I can bear...) and I will let you know how it goes.  :-)