I know I have a blog, and the point of a blog is to write things or post pictures or do something with it. I’ve been terribly relaxed for weeks. But right now I’m sitting on the terrace watching the rain and enjoying free time, so why not check in?
I’ve said it before, I don’t know how I had time to work. It seems like I keep myself busy every day and never get to the end of my “to do” list. But I don’t set my alarm clock in the morning and often enjoy lying down for a while before getting out of bed. I don’t work much in the evenings. I don’t carefully schedule every hour of every day like I used to when I was working. I am now retired and enjoying the benefits.
The band always keeps me busy, and this week has been busier than usual. Our drummer is in Florida with her mom sick with her and we’re pretty worried about her and him. They both had the flu and he’s better, but she doesn’t seem to be getting better. She can’t leave her alone there in this condition, so there’s no way of knowing when she’ll be back. We consulted with our venue owner and it was decided that we would play as a duo for the foreseeable future.
It’s not a big deal, is it? Turn on the drum machine and go. We also have midi files that we can use as a backup, but which songs will we use? Who is going to execute what? How can we be sure that we are all starting at the same time when we are working with a midi file that may or may not have a count? How it ends? We need to connect these drums to the mixer and have the appropriate speakers. We need to make sure that one song isn’t too high and the next one is too low. What is that background instrument that sounds like a strangled goose? But if we use the drum machine, it does the exact same thing until we hit the stop button, no pause, no switching for different parts of the song, not a shred of humanity. But some songs are simple and this works well.
This is what we’ve been working on all week and today the dress rehearsal finally went well. We’ll do it again tomorrow and then we should be ready to take it out. Thank God our neighbors don’t mind the music. They have listened to the same 30 songs every day since Tuesday! Unless you’re a musician, when you go to listen to music, you have no idea of all the work and preparation that goes on behind the scenes. And we’re only doing it on a small scale in a bar, not a huge venue with tons of people and equipment to make it all happen. And these are all songs we already know well.
It is rainy season and it seems like we have been raining every day, sometimes very heavy downpours. I don’t mind the rain and the plants are sure to be happy. Everything is growing and the weeds are having a great time. I like to work in the garden in the late afternoon when it’s cooler, but that doesn’t work if it’s raining. So, excuse the weeds in my garden. I’ll get to them eventually.
And, I decided to paint the house. It was yellow, but the landlord had the fence and wall painted this really nice soft mango or peach or coral color which I like much better. We painted part of the house a few years ago, and the rest that you can’t see from the street was done who knows how long ago, so a fresh coat of paint is a big improvement. But this is morning’s work. My idea is to work until noon or 1 pm until it gets too hot outside. The paint can then dry before the rains arrive later in the day and the sweating that occurs at night. Yes, I said sweating. When it cools down at night, the metal roof sweats and water runs down the outer walls. weird huh? Every once in a while, when I’m really sweating, I can hear the raindrops hitting the top of our drop ceilings. Such is life in the tropics and the land of high humidity.
Sometimes there are also sad moments. I learned today that an old friend died, someone I have known for at least 50 years. We were close friends in college and lived just a few blocks from each other in New York. We spent a lot of time together and we got through a lot of ups and downs in each other’s lives. We grew apart when I left town, but we always kept in touch and met up on my visits when he was in town. None of us make it out of here alive, and as we get older, we’re likely to lose more friends. Live for today and appreciate the people in your life today because you never know what tomorrow will bring.
So that’s what’s going on here. We will be heading to the Boston area soon to visit my sister at her new retirement home and she is looking forward to sharing much of what the area has to offer and it will be fun spending time together.
