Friday, July 02, 2010

Harmonious Dissonance, Time, and Other Concepts

Happy Fourth of July weekend, Happy Canada Day, and Happy everything else that has to do with sunshine, the beach, and grilling stuff. Charlie and Seamus are doing the Happy Dance...




We've had some reasons to celebrate lately. Greg's name is up in lights again, so to speak. Remember my post about "The Ugly Quintet"? Well, 5 Variations on Ongiara finally was released in two tracks on the recording "Harmonious Dissonance" on the Navona label. It's available on iTunes, Amazon, and Naxos Direct as a CD or as the individual MP3 tracks. The cover art is pretty nice, too:


Now we're just waiting for the Sax Quartets to be released, probably also on Navona.

As for me, I'm just so happy to have a week off (albeit unpaid) that I'd be cheerful even if the weather weren't gorgeous, and if I hadn't just celebrated the end of my 3 years on the Board of the national club. I did enjoy being Corresponding Secretary -- at least most of the time. I'm just happy to have shed one more volunteer job. I expect to be working half-time for a while at my next assignment, and if I need to find additional work to add to the household bottom line, I won't have space in the budget for more unpaid work. I'm also delighted beyond description to be shipping off piles of boxes containing club newsletters, rosters, brochures, forms, and so on -- and gaining back half the square footage of my office in the process.

Living with the Gang of Four has redefined luxury for me. Back in the days with a houseful of old dogs, I sometimes got to sleep in until nearly noon on weekends. Nowadays, with roosters for neighbors and the Chowhounds of the Baskervilles whining for breakfast by sunrise, it's a good day when I can sleep until 8:30. Today the height of decadence was achieved when I slept till (gasp!) 9 AM.

Sunday is the twins' birthday, which means that we run errands such as beer-buying tomorrow, and then the Long Friggin' Pilgrimage down and back on Sunday -- but I don't have to work on Monday or Tuesday. Every weekend -- long or short -- starts with the best of intentions and a to-do list long enough to reach halfway across the Atlantic. We'll see how many of those list items manage to get done -- but it's just plain nice to have time.

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