A little car trouble

 It gets very cold in Chicago in the winter. And as most things contract in the cold, every winter my tire pressure alert light goes on. I take the car to our local car repair shop where they check the tires, which are always fine, and I go on my way. Except this year, the alert button stayed on after my visit to the air pump.

The young mechanic who checked my tires and said they were just fine also told me it might take a little time before the light went out. Some cars, he said, you would need to drive for 10 miles or so before it would go off. Ok, fine. 

I drove about 18 miles one day and over 50 miles the next day and the light is still on! 

The nice young mechanic had also mentioned that sometimes the sensor gets stuck and needs to be reset. So I now have an appointment on Tuesday to take my car in and get things back to normal.

In the larger scheme of things, it's a small blip. A little Slice of Life.

A little (almost) daily yoga

 A few months ago my husband said, "Why do you do yoga?" I answered, "I makes me feel good."

It does make me feel good in a way that other exercise doesn't. I started going to yoga classes years ago and continued very sporadically at different studios with a variety of teaching styles. Then I injured my spine, or I should say, my spine decided to pop a disk. Friends said, "what were you doing?" as if to determine the cause. What was I doing? Stepping out of the shower. 

It was a long journey back. I was relieved to be able to do most things again, but I can no longer run, jump, or twist my spine without bringing on a painful attack. So now I walk and I do the parts of yoga that I can. 

It's hard to explain what my half hour of yoga does. I bend, stretch, stand on one foot, and bring my feet up in the air. I try to extend myself a little each day. I end with shavasana, lying still with a quiet mind. 

I get up, refreshed, ready to meet the day.

Community Music

 I am a musician. I started piano lessons at age 7, began playing trumpet in 6th grade, and switched to French horn in high school. I went to music school but eventually my life led me to elementary education and I became a community musician. I have gotten to play great music with fine musicians both as a young professional and later as a community player.

At the time the pandemic shut everything down, I was playing with three groups: a band, an orchestra, and a horn choir made up of French horn players. All three of these ceased rehearsals and cancelled performances. Now, though, all three have started back up again, with covid protocols in place. 

My band, the North Suburban Wind Ensemble, based in Libertyville, Illinois, is having its first post-shutdown concert on Sunday. We are reduced in number as some of our members need to take care of other things at this time. We have three horn players instead of the standard 4 (or more). (Note: those of us who play the French horn just call it the horn - it is not actually French and the rest of the world calls it the horn. It can be confusing because other instrumentalists also refer to their trumpets, saxes, etc. as "horns," but we persevere.) 

But it is so wonderful to be together again, to play together. Our conductor has chosen music for this concert that is a mixture of pieces most of us already know and entertaining short pieces that are new to most of us. A medley from West Side Story, Northwestern University's official march, the classic band piece Second Suite in F by Gustav Holst, and several more. (You may know Gustav Holst's most famous composition, The Planets.)

Besides the camaraderie and the pleasure of playing wonderful music, having a group and an upcoming performance create the need to practice! Motivation is suddenly not a problem. 

Onward to Sunday and concert time!

NaNoWriMo

 I retired from teaching in June 2021. Retiring in the midst of a pandemic is a different experience than what I had expected. However, one of the goals I had for retirement was to participate in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. 

I'm sure many of you already know about this challenge, but in brief, the goal is to write a 50,000 word DRAFT of a novel in the month of November. The website, https://nanowrimo.org/, has helpful information, encouragement, and a daily word counter. It's a friendly, supportive online community.

I have written all kinds of things - articles, poems, short stories -- but never anything as huge as a novel. I had an idea, though, that I liked a lot. The NaNoWriMo website had lots of helpful things for planning, developing characters, plotting, etc. I used some of them.

Then November 1 came and I started actually writing. At first things went fairly smoothly. The NaNoWriMo folks stress that this is a DRAFT you're writing, editing will come later, the goal now is to get words down on virtual paper. Don't reread at this point.

It's very hard to stop the internal critic. It's hard to write 1,667 words each day. I stopped. My total for the month was 8,022. I don't consider this a failure. I learned a lot, about various aspects of writing. My novel idea was a time-travel historical fiction about musicians. I realized I needed to do a LOT of research about what life was like in the late 1700s in Europe, and more about the people I wanted to include in the story. I also realized I needed more plot! And more conflict and more development of my characters! 

So, I have been reading historical fiction I am working on strengthening my writing habit. And here I in #SOL22! Best wishes to everyone! I look forward to reading many SOL posts. 

The Mystery of the Missing Shoe

 I wear sandals as soon as the weather warms up in the spring and I keep wearing them even when I need to wear socks with them. I love my sandals. It takes me awhile to get used to confining my feet in shoes when the weather gets cold. And it does get very cold in Chicago in the winter.

My favorite sandals are a pair of Tevas. I'm on my second pair of these. They are perfect - comfortable, no toe separator, waterproof, and durable. I got black - they go with everything. 

I have been wearing them everyday this summer. A few nights ago I took them off and dropped them in my closet, like always. In the morning I went to put them on and only one was there. Must have gotten shoved to the back of the closet, right? Or kicked under the bed. Or maybe I took them off over by the dresser and left one over there.

The missing sandal was not in the closet, under the bed, or anywhere else in the bedroom. Even though I knew that I had not been walking around with one sandal on, I looked in the other rooms upstairs, then in the living room, dining room, family room, and laundry room. Nothing. I also checked the garbage, which was out by the curb awaiting the garbage truck.

I told my husband about it. He suggested all the places I had already looked. He also said it had to be somewhere. I guess that's true.

Then I had the idea that since the sandals have quite a bit of Velcro on them that maybe the sandal stuck to something and got carried away. I checked the laundry basket and rechecked all the places I had checked before, except the garbage, which was now gone. Nothing.

It has to be somewhere, right?

As I moaned about how much I loved these sandals, that they were my second pair since I had worn out the first, my husband said, "You know you like these and you're going to buy another pair after this one, why not order another pair now? You're going to use it."

So, after another day without the sandal reappearing, I ordered a new pair. 

That single sandal must be somewhere, though. Right?

Music-making in the time of COVID-19

I am a 4th grade teacher, but I am also a musician, specifically a French horn players, or as we refer to ourselves, hornists. Before the pandemic, I was playing in three community groups regularly and subbing in another. Yes, this was really too many for someone with a full-time teaching job, but I do love playing. Once precautions were put into place to prevent virus spread, all of my groups stopped rehearsals and cancelled concerts.

Horn players are resourceful, though. The International Horn Society created an event, Hornists for Heroes, to recognize, support, and honor all the health care workers and essential workers who are continuing to work, often under incredibly stressful conditions. They commissioned a short piece from composer James Naigus that can be played by one, two, or more hornists, and asked horn players around the world to go outside and play it at 7:05 on June 22 in honor of those workers.

My horn group (a group made up of only French horn players) immediately made plans. We ended up with two groups because our membership comes from a wide area of the north, northwest, and west suburbs of Chicago. I was in the north group. Four of gathered in a small gazebo sandwiched between two busy streets in Mundelein. We brought our own stands and chairs and set them up 6 feet apart. We ran through the piece once, and then played our "official" performance at 7:05. The only audience was my husband and the wife of one of the other players. We followed up by playing some horn quartets for fun.

It was meaningful to honor those important healthcare workers. Groups and soloists from all over the world posted their videos on Facebook. It was amazing to see single players, groups of players, and even one person playing an Alpine horn (a very long horn made from wood)!

My little group had such a good time playing, that we agreed to get together about once a week in a backyard to play quartets for fun.

To be with friends, to play some music -- it's a great feeling!

Pandemic Hair

At the start of our shelter-at-home adventure, my husband stopped shaving. I think it began with an extended lazy weekend kind of vibe that just continued. Eventually he had an actual beard. He had never tried to grow a beard before, but this one just happened while we were sitting around the house.

Beards need attention, just like the rest of our hair, or they just look bushy. Which is fine, if that's the look you're going for. My husband did not want that look, so he went online to look at beard trimmers. Apparently millions of American men grew pandemic beards, because there are no beard trimmers to be had. Beard trimmers have joined toilet paper, kleenex, and paper towels as a scarce commodity. Fortunately, scissors also work! The beard looks good.

For myself, I last had a real hair appointment in December. My son got married in February and I went for a styling for the wedding. No cut and no color since December. Even though the salons are open again and are taking precautions, it's still not a good choice for me. And, I made the decision to stop coloring my hair. It's growing in, looks like silver mostly at this point. I'm lucky because my colored hair is light already, so there's no dramatic line dividing the dyed from the natural.

When people ask why, well, there's the expense and the time sitting around with awful smelling goop on your head. I didn't feel it was a healthy choice to keep coloring. And I have decided that it's okay to look my age.