I'm finally home, after 3 weeks away. I've visited 5 states and traveled through several more; attended FGC Gathering, 2 local singings and two all-day singings; and done lots of sight seeing in the Twin Cities and Chicago. All of this was by train: Coast Starlight, Empire Builder, California Zephyr, Carl Sandburg, and the Wolverine. With few exceptions, I encountered lovely weather and lovelier people.
The cat was relatively sane when I arrived home: she meowed plaintively, but she didn't hiss at me once. Now she meows rather frantically if I leave the room for more than five minutes, but other than that, she's back to normal. She has managed to cover the entire house with her fur.
On the positive side, my mountain of mail included a birthday present of homemade cards from my Aunt; a card from Anna, a young friend from Gathering; a postcard from Catherine L., whom I just missed in the Twin Cities; and the knitting needles that I lent Kendra at Gathering (she wanted a pair so that she could teach her son how to knit on the train ride back).
I'm pretty tired, and not entirely ready to be back to the everyday joys of paying bills, working for a living, washing dishes and cleaning the house. I was definitely ready to not be in motion for a while, so being awakened by the 4 point something earthquake at 4:40 this morning seemed rather unwelcoming. The cat was not amused, either. Clearly, I'm not in the Midwest anymore.
I have grandiose plans for a series of posts about my travels. We'll see how that goes.
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3 comments:
Linda: Welcome back! I noticed some of your photos on the flickr sidebar of QuakerQuaker, including photos of the "Heart of the Beast" rehearsal and performance at FGC Gathering. Thanks for putting those up there.
I was also amazed to see Ginny Landgraf in your shape note photos -- including one playing her famous khaen! We knew each other in college and DJ'ed at the campus radio station. We crossed paths in NYC once after she came back from the Peace Corps, where she learned to play the khaen. She was playing on my doorstep when a Laotian guy walked by and did a double-take at the white woman playing the instrument! So he invited her over for dinner, and I got to go too when I got home from work. Yummy sticky rice!
-- Chris
-- Chris M.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for letting me know my pictures were on QuakerQuaker. I uploaded them to Flickr and didn't even know they were on QuakerQuaker. Cool. I think I should get extra points since I am on DIALUP and uploading anything takes a lot of patience.
I consider getting to know Ginny one of the unexpected pleasures of my midwest odyssey, about which I intend to blog if I get my act together.
Thanks for stopping by.
What a wild coincidence! When Gerry & I went to the Midwest convention in 2006, we got on the bus to Hyde Park in the Loop and a woman who turned out to be Ginny got on, too, with her khaen in a black case. We had no idea who she was, but each had a strong feeling she was a Sacred Harp kind of singer, but the musical instument case threw us off and made us less sure.
Sure enough, she got off the bus with us and we followed her to Ida Noyes Hall. And then hearing her play the instrument during the dinner- WOW!. Sometimes it feels to me that singing Sacred Harp is like standing inside a pipe organ, which is exactly what hearing the khaen sounds like, too.
I'm glad you made it home safely, Linda. It was wonderful to have you here for a day, and to sing with you all week at the Gathering, of course. 1
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