This weekend kicked my butt. By the time Sunday afternoon arrived I was exhausted. I’m not exactly sure why. I did have a wedding on Saturday afternoon. I made cornbread that morning as well. In between, I went and bought a phone. I had one on order but discovered that Verizon had back ordered it and it wasn’t going to be sent out for a couple weeks. I canceled that order and walked through the door at my favorite locally owned Verizon franchise store (much better than the idiot company stores). I had a phone by noon.
My trio played yesterday and it went well. In between our regular Sunday morning stream of the Liturgy of the Word and the outside Eucharist, weather permitting, the trio sits outside and plays. I schedule a piece and put the title in the bulletin (online pdf), but that’s not enough. So yesterday I asked my string players to bring the Episcopal hymnal, Wonder, Love, and Praise out with them. I have an extra accompaniment edition for the cellist. I had them play a few hymns and interspersed improvised piano stuff in between.
I think my trumpet/organ piece is essentially finished and in the hands of the performers. This is a freeing feeling.
On Saturday my old friend, Bob Hobby, called me up. Bob and I were good friends in Grad School. But after that, we drifted apart as people do. It was flattering that he thought of calling me and we had a lovely chat.
This morning I managed to get a contractor to look at our garage situation. His assessment was a bit startling. He said the original installation was so bad that we could consider a lawsuit. He said it was unsafe the day it was installed. What was installed was a garage opener anyone could buy at Menards (the contractor’s words). But, my little garage was not exactly set up for it and the installer had cut away at the main beam to make room for it. This had weakened to the point, the opener quit working. The contractor pointed out numerous badly done parts of the installation. He recommended a garage door installer to come do the work.
He’s coming tomorrow morning to assess the situation. The guy today said it’s likely that our typical little Western Michigan garage (again, his words) might be too small for an automatic door opener. The installer coming should be able to not only decide that, but re-do the beams that the old installer ruined.
Apparently we were very lucky that the original installation hadn’t come crashing down and hurt someone.
Lucky again.
I went over to church today and picked out a prelude and postlude for Sunday. I am doing two gorgeous pieces by Buxtehude: Vater unser im Himmelreich BuxWV 220 and Von Gott will ich nicht lassen BuXWV 330. They sound excellent on my Pasi and are not too much work. I have already filled in the bulletin for this Sunday. So that’s done.
Oddly, we had a Trump person come to our door this weekend as well. She was an elderly white lady lady with no mask. I went to the door and she said that she could see what our politics were from all the signs, but were there any people in the house that might not be of that ilk. I was cordial. Apparently, she wanted to interview people she agree with. I wished her luck.
There was an article in this weekend’s Sunday New York Times called “What Does It Mean to Love a Country?” by Marilyn Robinson. Independently of that, I ran across a nice passage by Ursula K. Leguin along the same lines. Serendipity.
“How does one hate a country, or love one? …. I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all of that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love one’s country’ is it hate of one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That’s a good thing, but one mustn’t make a virtue of it, or a profession…. Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary line of hate.” from The Left Hand of Darkness by Urusla K. LeGuin