and now i can rest.

ok.. its monday night, 11:20pm. i don't know why this blog posts my time wrong all the time, i'll have to figure that out.

anyway... i have been awake and on the go since 5:45am this morning.

my rehearsal was long, but good. our group will go on hiatus soon... and then we wont meet again until we have a concert in july, and wont start actual practice again until next september.

i'm always glad for the holiday, but also miss all the people, the practices and the performances.

the end of the year party is at my house this year :P so..... that gives me a definate date to have this house completely put together.

yes i moved in here in november, and no.. i'm not totally unpacked and haven't even hung one picture on the wall yet.

but, to my defense i should say... the house has been under going renovations for the better part of the last 5 months.

anyway, i need to call a pool company to come and open up swimming pool, and figure out a nice design for my back garden.

the family that lived here before us didn't have anything planted... i suppose the good thing about that is i mostly have a clean slate to start from.

JUNE 4th is the party.. its a monday. actually we are doing it here because i'm the photographer for the group.. and we need a new set of publicity photos to use for the next concert season. if i have everyone over here i can set up my studio and make sure all my lights are properly positioned and metered before anyone arrives. it saves me from having to haul everything to some random location and set up under time constraints.

besides all that.... its the first time i'll actually have my friends over to my new house :)

tonight i was hired to play at a big cathedral in downtown detroit. i had no idea what the event was before i got there.. its not my own church.

i was told to bring my flute and a lot of classic music... handel, bach, telemann, shubert, mozart..

when i arrived at 5:45 .. i started to realize what a big event this was. it turns out that the episcopal church was installing a new biship and some new canons.. (i apologize for not knowing exactly who they are... but there were obviously very important people in the episcopal church)

there were over 4000 clergy from around the world.. and photographers, and tv cameras.. and lots and lots of formalities. the service was to start at 7pm so they had me begin playing at 6:45. since its a proper cathedral.. it made it impossible for me to see the congregation from where i was playing.. after i played the prelude, and was able to peek around the massive organ i saw the crowd.

i had no idea this event was such a HUGE ordeal.

anyway.. i also played during communion.... at my church communion takes about 7 minutes.... tonight, it took nearly 40 minutes to complete communion :| i played at least something from every single book of music i took there. it felt like a marathon.

the music minister at this church sure had a lot of confidence in me, to just have me show up and basically play 40 minutes of unrehearsed music. (i've played for him once before, so at least he had heard me before) this is when the last 25 years of practicing comes in handy :D

the service lasted 2:40 minutes :|

i'm thankful that i'm presbyterian, and not episcopalian :P

it would have felt really funny to take payment for tonights job... so i didn't. i'm so honored that i was asked to play. besides.. now i have more than 4000 people who know where to get a flute player if they need one for a wedding or something :) you can't even buy better advertising than that. what? you maybe thought i was totally altruistic????? ;)

it turned out to be a good day.. bill made it to chicago alright, and when i arrived home after not seeing the kids all day... everyone was still alive and even fed themselves. i suppose there is hope for this family yet :)

didn't get a chance to call my dad for his bday today :( he goes to bed so early that by the time i was able to call.. i knew i'd wake him up. i sent him an email, and hopefully he got the cards we mailed last week. i'll call him tomorrow to apologize. he is now 71.

now.... off to bed for my beauty sleep!