Damn good!

The online game I have become seriously addicted to was on the computer screen when my husband came upstairs after playing tennis. I was looking at a wiki page that described spleen damage incurred from different aspects of the game and my husband saw it and said, “It’s very interesting you should be looking up spleen damage right now.” It turns out that one of the older guys he plays tennis doubles with has an enlarged spleen. Then he told me that another of the guys he used to play with, an older man he didn’t really like that much because he was always full of criticism and advice on the playing of tennis, died in Florida just a little while ago. How sad, I thought, for the other guys who have been playing with him for years.

Then the last thing he said was, “You must really resent me playing tennis and guitar.” It turns out that as he was delivering a killing backhand stroke, his right thumbnail got caught underneath his wedding band and ripped right across. For a guitar player, this is disaster. Fortunately, he saved the nail and was able to reattach it using a special glue he’d purchased from a company catering to guitarists. I don’t really resent him playing either guitar or tennis. After all, if he didn’t spend so much time doing those things, I wouldn’t have the time I do for playing on the internet.

Ms. Piano and I were planning on having a run through of our programme this afternoon, but she arrived at the university late and in tears. She’d had a fight with her boyfriend, a guy whom she thinks could be the one, but he did something rather stupid, as guys tend to do. She spent all morning accompanying the choir she works with in town, then another hour or so playing for a cellist at the collège, and was anticipating another couple of hours playing for me in the afternoon. Her shoulder was beginning to get a bit sore, so she called the restaurant where she plays on Saturday nights and told them she couldn’t come in since she doesn’t want to risk injuring herself before our concert tomorrow.

Having the evening suddenly free, she called her boyfriend, with whom she hardly ever gets to socialize, especially on a Saturday because she works as aforesaid, and asked if they could spend it together. It turns out he had made an arrangement that afternoon to watch the hockey game with one of his friends. He asked Ms. Piano if she wanted to join them. Ms. Piano did not.

You see, the friend is an ex of Ms. Piano’s, and she would have been willing to sit and watch the hockey game with her boyfriend and anyone else, but not with an ex. She has a thing about socializing with exes, especially when she wanted to have an evening with the man she loves. He thought she was being unreasonable. She thought he was being selfish and insensitive. Hence her arrival at the university in tears.

We ended up spending a lot of time discussing this with our flutist, who happens to be a guy, and he understood but still agreed that the boyfriend was being insensitive. So we shall see. Anyway, we spent a lot of time on the piece that the flutist is playing in (Lucia’s Mad Scene) and after he left we just ran through the things we felt needed the most attention. We both feel a little let down, that we were really meant to do the recital last week and we are over prepared now.

The flutist is a very nice young man who gives great hugs. I commented that he smelled good, like cumin and turmeric, and he said, “I’m Armenian! I have to cook with spices.” I asked him if I’d at least identified them correctly, and he said, “Yes, you’re good!”

And I am.

|

<~~~ * ~~~>