The Big Reveal!

Before we get to what we have all been waiting for, let me tell you about our concert last night.

It went amazingly well. Giora played beautifully and the crowd cheered and applauded for what had to have been at least 5 min, which led Giora to play an encore. He played a Serenade in Bb by Bach; there were many tearing eyes in the crowd. The rest of the concert went great and the crowd gave us another standing ovation which we all appreciated. If there is one thing I can say about Fairbanks it would be that they love their classical music.

Now for the baby. First of all we got this brochure from the imaging place giving Beth step by step instructions for the day. She had to relieve her bladder at 11:30; check. One thing that Beth is good at is going. She constantly has to go to the bathroom (even before she was pregnant). Which made the next part of the instructions seemingly impossible. Drink 32oz of water over the next hour without relieving her bladder; she needed a full bladder for the ultrasound (apparently this forces the baby's head out of the birth canal).

So Beth comes to my school to pick me up, she is holding my Nalgene water-bottle and wearing a painful expression, kind of like a wince. We eventually made it to the waiting room, Beth sweating and walking like a penguin, trying to hold back the flood waters with all her might; and succeeding! We got there at 12:30, the appointment was for 1:00. For half of an hour Beth tried all the tricks in the book to hold it in. Pacing, crossing her legs, tapping her foot, cursing....the works.

1:00 finally roles around and Beth is starting to get angry. Sweat is dripping down her face and she is ready to cry. At this point she isn't even sure if she could make it to the bathroom. The nurse finally called our name at 1:10 and let is into a room, Beth laid down, got a belly-full of lube, and relished quietly in her success.

The actual ultrasound went great. Helga (not her real name but it fits her well) the technician went to work and ignored all the questions we asked her. The baby never stopped moving while we were taking a peak; a real performer. We got about 11 or 12 print-outs showing us the head, arms and legs, feet, a creepy face shot, and hands with beautiful long fingers. Well I guess you can't really say beautiful because it was like looking at a tiny skeleton hand, but baby parts are generally pretty cute.

Beth used the bathroom three times before we left the exam room (impressive), and headed to Denny's for a quick bite before I had to be back to work.

Oh yeah...its a boy. I have the pictures to prove it, but I don't think pictures of his junk should end up on the Internet before he's even out of the womb...it just seems wrong.

Concert Tonight!

We have a Fairbanks Symphony concert tonight featuring Giora Schmidt at 4pm at Davis Concert Hall. It's a Brahms concert, so we're playing the Violin Concerto (Giora's cadenza in the first movement is impressive to say the least) and Brahms' first symphony. It is going to be a great concert.

I have a lesson with Minna today before the concert which is a hard thing. Instead of preparing for the concert I have been getting some difficult passages of the Saint-Saens Concerto up to speed. In all honesty, I would rather be working the concerto anyway.

On an entirely different note, the weather during the last week has been amazing. During the day it has been above freezing almost every this last week. The cold temps are supposed to come back soon but hopefully I'll be in Mexico on my cruise by then. I can not wait. I have never been on a warm beach before, or on a real vacation for that matter, and after this winter I think I'll want to stay there.

(Tomorrow is the big day. The sex of the baby is to be determined. Any guesses?)

Cello, Baby, Names, and Lessons

One week from today Beth and I get to find out the sex of our baby. Until then, we remain in limbo and Beth remains unable to buy everything the baby could ever need (and more) in the appropriate color combinations.

As of right now, we have decided that the baby will sleep upstairs in our loft with us instead of the spare room. The spare room is currently my practice room, our craft room, and our library. Beth informed me that she is thinking about taking my room from me and giving it to the baby. I don't think so. It's very nice to be able to close the door to that room and work out all of the difficult passages on my own without having to worry about offending people's ears. I can play as bad, or as slow, as need be. Plus, I have no idea where our book cases, desk, sewing machine, etc. would go.

Cello is going well as of late. Minna has been traveling back and forth from New York preparing for a recital of her own which has resulted in the canceling of basiclly everyother lesson. This has been ok with me since my practice time has been limited by long hours at work. I feel that Minna expects a lot from me since I have a degree in performance, and I have been trying to live up to those expectations to no avail. Although I think I am gaining ground. At my last lesson she told me that "lessons were going very well," I'll take that for now. The good thing about taking private lessons is that you get to work one-on-one with a great artist who sees all of your faults and helps you to correct them. This in turn leads you to focus on what you do wrong and ignore the things you are doing right. So its always nice to get a compliment from someone who knows.

By the way, we're looking for a few good boy names. We have two girls names (Piper and Maya) and only one boys name (Owen). If you have any ideas, please leave it in a comment or shoot me an email.

My Snowball

Here is a recording of the Allemande from Bach's first suite. I haven't played this piece in 2 years so ignore the wrong notes. This is just a test for the Snowball mic that I got for christmas from my Father-in-law. Pretty good sound.

Touching is Good!

Nintendo said it best when talking about the DS, "Touching is Good." And it was good...and is good. I love my DS and still play it (when time allows (stupid full-time job)). So naturally when the iPod Touch came out I knew I had to get one. An ample supply of Amazon Gift Cards made the purchase possible and the Touch is currently on its long journey to Alaska...I think.

I received conformation of a ship date with an estimated date of arrival for Feb. 1. They (Amazon) allow you to track the package through them, and the carrier, USPS, does as well. Amazon tells me my package has been picked up in Kentucky, while the USPS says they tried to deliver it but couldn't so they left a notice. The problem with this is that I have a P.O. Box...mail is not delivered to my house. So where did it get delivered to? Usually when a package comes there is a notice left in my mail box, which means I have to wait in a line for 20min to get some gum-chewing lady with a mustache to roll her eyes at me and eventually fetch my package. However if that was the case why does it say that they will try to deliver it one more time then it goes back to the sender?

I guess there is only one way to find out...check my box. That would be awesome if it was here, but I doubt it. Nothing is ever quick or easy at the post office.

Internet Frustrations! (rant-tastic)

It has now been one month since the Internet guys over at Acetekk said they would come out and hook us up...they still haven't. We were told they would definitely be in our neighborhood on Friday. They better be hooking us up while in my neighborhood.

The weather gods have turned their smiles into frowns. +30 degrees last week, -26 degrees today. The temperature changes here are more than extreme here...I can't take this anymore. Two more summers to go, then I'm out of here.

On a different note, we have an ACO (Arctic Chamber Orchestra) concert Saturday at 8. I'll be happy for it to be over simply for the fact that there are just too many rehearsals packed into 2 weeks. I'm ready to get back to one a week with the FSO (Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra) next week. We have Giora Schmidt coming up for our next FSO concert. If you don't know who he is check out the video of him playing the Kreisler Recitative and Scherzo for solo violin on You-Tube. Come to the concert. He'll be playing the Brahms Concerto in D.

The ACO concert will be good as well, we have Massimo Mercelli who came all the way from Italy to play the flute with us.

On yet a different note, we had our first ultrasound last week and everything looked great. There is only one baby in there (**few**) and it is very active. It wouldn't stop moving the whole time the doctor was probing. Less than a month until we get to find out if its a boy or a girl. I'll keep you updated.

Get me outta here!

Hell.

Hot or cold?

I believe that hell is personalized for the displeasure of each individual guest. That is why it is no surprise that 40 degrees below zero, the current temperature, is my own personal hell.

Why would I say something like that?

Glad you asked!

Earlier this winter I noticed a draft coming underneath our back door. I taped it up with good old red duct tape, which stopped the draft. This red duct tape is now covered in ice crystals. Yes, there are ice crystals forming inside my house; and not just there either. Our mentally challenged handyman has an incredibly poor work ethic and has been asked to fix our window…over four months ago. I understand that he has brain issues and his mother is most likely his sister, which probably caused his…umm…current mental state, but now the window is coming open from the end that is supposed to be attached to the wall and more, yes, MORE ice crystals are getting into my house. Our heater is holding up thus far, but heating fuel costs big bucks and I don’t want to use more than I have to.

Yesterday Beth’s father and I changed the transmission fluid because the cold made it really hard to shift gears in our manual transmission SUV. Earlier in the year we attached a battery heater and an oil-pan heater to make sure that our car would start even in the dead of winter. This morning our car would not start. All bets are off at 40 below. I am told now that it would have started if we had a block heater in it the car would have started. How the hell am I supposed to know that? Cars don’t need to be plugged in where I come from.

Let’s keep the fun going!

More than 20 below, or should I say less than 20 below…if its colder than 20 degrees below zero, the kindergartners do not get to go outside for lunch recess. Part of my job is to carry lunchboxes, open milks and ketchup packets, zip-up jackets, put on mittens, and supervise the small ones while they eat and then play outside. This becomes a problem when we can’t go outside. You would think that, since this probably happens every winter, they would have some sort of indoor playground the wild animals could play on when it got too cold. Not at my school. During an indoor kinder lunch recess I am forced to play games like Red light/Green light, Duck-duck-goose, and Simon-says (all fun) in the dance studio, and do a little kid exercise video in THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAY. There isn’t a class where I can hide my embarrassment from all of the other adults and judging preteens. There I am, in the hall, dancing with 20 kids and a cartoon koala.

Yes, a cartoon koala.

Why me?

It’s so cold that the Internet is not currently working. The Internet is actually frozen. I didn’t think this was possible. But in a 40 degree below zero hell…anything can happen.

(Written at 9:00am Alaska time, on Word in the midst of extreme boredom)

New Subtraction, New Addition.

Subtraction first. Christmas break means a subtraction from the amount of hours that I will have to spend at work. Two weeks of R and R in Washington, with a little cello thrown in there. I am fortunate enough to be able to take a couple lessons from my college professor and my childhood teacher; but that means traveling with my cello.

Now Addition...well new addition...as in a new addition. That's right, Beth and I are now expecting. Beth is, according to the nurse, about 2 months pregnant. By the time we get back from Yakima in January we should be able to find out what sex it is. We are really excited and ready for this step. Well, as ready as you can be.

Beth's father informed us that on her mother's side twins are somewhat prevalent. Having twins would be the best and worst case scenario. We get more kids out of the way at once but we also have to go through all of the normal baby issues times two. The good thing is that I would have the makings of my piano trio. No need to worry yet.