Hot weather sucks. That's pretty much all there is to say about summer in the city. And, me being me, and therefore a complete idiot, I pick June to start running again for the first time in six years. Bright, eh? However, I'm determined to FINALLY get in shape again, and since I already lost all that weight last year I'm ready to tone up what's left - at least, that's the plan. Running has got to be one of the most body-punishing, mind-numbingly dull activities around, but hey, it's also totally cheap, and I have a nice big pond to go run around, so running it is. Just for variety, I threw in a 7-mile, 5-hour hike up and down a whole lot of rocks and in the absolute pouring rain last month - lemme tell ya, "water-resistant" has its limitations. I think the only way I could have gotten wetter would be to jump in the water.
I'm in summer session with my teaching schedule now, and most of the kids are continuing lessons, at least while they're in town. Thank goodness - nothing sucks quite like making a kid repeat stuff they've forgotten. Just to make things really exciting on the first day though, the family who have very kindly allowed me the use of their basement playroom to teach in forgot I'd be coming and set the house alarm - to which I didn't have the code. Key, yes - code, no. Fun and cops - luckily, the first student (and his parents) are close friends with family whose house we were at, and there was no permanent damage done (except maybe to my nerves...).
Playing, yes, still doing plenty of that, mostly duos again while we try to resurrect the bigger combos, but I think we're back to at least a trio next week (Lino, Kate and myself) and then we try to coordinate schedules with the other violinist and do more quartets. Can't wait... Oh yeah, and my garden is actually growing pretty well! Once the %$#*&@ squirrels stopped eating my plants, that is. I lost a lily and a couple of alyssum (alyssa? Is that a Latin word? Should I pluralize that way?) but it's apparently exceedingly difficult to kill impatiens and my weird purple daisies are on their second blooming; so's my primrose. Come on, I'm a violist, you knew there'd be a primrose in there somewhere. :-)
