There is no joy in Mudville
8:46 a.m.
And now, always having those images at the back of my mind, I will try to capture my Boxing Day in words to record for the edification of future generations. There�s not much to tell. My daughter was glued to the G3 all day playing with her new scanner; my son was either glued to the G5 we are babysitting playing his various games or glued to the television watching his various DVDs. Hubby alternated between composing and playing guitar, heading to the office at one point to photocopy parts for a piece that Musica N0va is doing in February, while I had a long bath, read poetry, kept checking in on the G4 laptop to see who was online (no one) and did laundry. There are some constants in the universe.
Eventually we headed out to the house of a couple of musicians we know, whom I would call friends except that I�m never quite sure if the husband likes me or not. He�s an oboist whose day job is anaesthetizing people on the operating table and she�s a clarinettist who is at present working on a doctorate in performance at McGiII University. I sang at their wedding, as a matter of fact. They have a huge house in Sh�brooke�s old north, where all the turn-of-the-century mansions are (they can afford it) and we arrived just as the husband�s parents were leaving. The purpose of the visit was for Hubby to drop off the parts he had just photocopied and to pick up a package of CDs on which one of his compositions is recorded (the couple�s wind quintet having just recorded a CDful of Canadian contemporary works for various combinations and permutations of that ensemble), and as we came in the front door and Monsieur and Madame were on their way out, our oboist friend handed him the package as though he expected us to be on our merry way without even taking off our coats. His wife is better bred, and invited us in for a cup of tea.
We stayed for an hour, drinking tea and discussing performance-related things. They have two cats to which I am allergic (as I am to all cats) and after 45 minutes or so my eyes started to itch and my contact lenses felt as though they no longer fit properly. It was a good time to start with the goodbyes. Upon our arrival home, the sight of Buddy Boy preparing supper greeted our glad eyes, a meal which I only had to augment with some cooked frozen corn since my son is not big in the vegetable department, and we drank a toast to Hubby�s new CD (his piece is the shortest thing on it with the longest name), and he and I had our first real fight in several days, which must be some kind of record.
After that we sat around in the living room, going through the jazz book, singing some of the songs we�ve already learned and sight-reading a couple more. Little Princess was back on the G3, Buddy Boy on the G5, and eventually I logged into the G4 to get my fix. Then I crawled into bed between clean sheets (I also changed the bed and mattress pad and turned the mattress) and fell blissfully asleep.
But upon waking and getting the morning paper, I discovered that there is no balm in Gilead.
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