A Rainy Danish Day

Tonight I got to speak to my good friend Bue! He's living in Copenhagen, studying at the conservatory there. Well, he's doing wonderfully, taking auditions, getting some gigs subbing for really good orchestras..but today it seems he had a near-death experience. He was in the conservatory building, going up the staircase from the basement. The staircase goes up for five flights, and it's open; it's possible to see from top to bottom as you are walking up the stairs. Well, today, as he was on the landing for the ground floor, he heard a yell coming from the fifth floor--a split second later a metal music stand crashed no more than two feet away from him! Now, Bue has been known to take some risks in his life, but what bad karma to have been hit by a music stand while simply trying to practice!

Fortunately, no Danes were harmed in the unfolding of the above story. Only music stands and staircases sustained permanent injuries.

As for me, I am currently living in a monsoon. Yes, Wales is quite drizzly, so I generally carry an umbrella and therefore am never caught completely off-guard. However, tonight as I was walking back home with Gemma after practicing, the drizzle turned into a steady rain, so I got out my umbrella and shared it with Gem. Then the steady rain turned into chilly horizontal rain in a howling wind storm. Predictably, the umbrella was turned inside out, and was therefore no use to us for much of our 20 minute walk.

By the time we got home our entire frontsides were soaked. The good thing about Britain is that whatever happens, there is always hot tea awaiting you when you arrive home. :-)

Tomorrow I have my second clarinet lesson of the term. For the clarinetists out there, I'm playing the Muczynski Time Pieces, and I have to play the first two movements next Friday in masterclass (yikes!). Now that the weather has changed, my reeds will be nice and warped tomorrow, and as there is still no sandpaper to be found in Cardiff, my chances of finding a good reed are slim. But, we will worry about tomorrow's obstacles as they come. For now I am curling up in my Indiana sweatshirt with a cup of hot tea to watch a DVD rerun with Jordan Catalano. *shout-out to my facebook group members, and to my wonderful sis, Linds-Pinds, who agrees with us*

Goodnight, gentle readers.

ps-i thought of something else that makes me happy: student tickets to the Welsh National Opera! We're going to see The Merry Widow on Friday for a mere 5 pounds!