On Thursday night my mom invited me to a master class that my cousin (well, my dad's cousin's son) was playing in, so imagine my surprise when I arrived at the concert hall (a good ten minutes late) and found out that it was jam-packed because it wasn't a master class at all. It was a full blown concert for some visiting faculty of percussion. My mom was pretty surprised by it as well.
Even though I was a little underdressed for a concert of that calibre, it was fun to get to go. And even though I didn't quite communicate to my mom that Rachel was coming with me she graciously allowed Rachel to sit on her lap for the whole concert...well, at least for the half we stayed for.
We left during intermission because (a) it wasn't exactly what we had been expecting to attend and (b) it was a school night so sticking around for the second half of the concert wasn't exactly feasible.
When we got outside it was cold, dark, and rainy. I don't like driving in the rain, but I can do it. And I don't like driving in the dark, but I can do it. Driving in dark while it's raining is, quite possibly the worst (except maybe for snow...dunno about that one...yet). To further increase my anxiety, I was in Andrew's car—his mom's old car—which I'm not as used to driving as our van (though I did originally learn to drive in it).
So, we're driving along and things are going just fine, despite my white knuckles, and we're almost home when I spy an entire trail of eyes on the side of the road. It's a family of raccoons looking to cross the street. I slowed down and one of the raccoons ran across the road but the rest stayed exactly where they were.
I had a car coming up behind me pretty quickly and since the raccoons weren't moving I figured I should probably just go. So I did. I brought my car up to speed and...then that one raccoon that had ran across the road turned around and darted right in front of me!
Ka-thunk-a-crunch!
"Moooooooom!" Rachel wailed from the backseat.
There was really very little that I could do at that point. It was dark and rainy and there was a car behind me and a car in the other lane—I wasn't about to swerve to miss a raccoon!
Rachel and I were a little shaken up (though probably not as badly as that poor raccoon family) but Andrew was rather enthralled with our tale of woe.
"What?" he said when I pointed out his morbid curiosity. "I've never killed anything with a car before!"
That much is true. He has never killed anything with a car. He did, however, run over a neighbour's dog once. "But I didn't kill it," he objected. "I just broke its legs."
Because merely maiming something is sooooooo different from flat out killing something (no pun intended).
Pretty sure the crunchy-munchy sensation is about the same. He just happened to be driving down a residential road (with a much lower speed limit) and I was on a rural road (with a much higher speed limit), which very likely saved that dog's life.
The next morning he drove that route to work so that he could see if our dead raccoon was there (it was). And I got to see it when I went to the doctor and when I came home. And then again when I drove home from BYU later on Friday evening because...
I took both Rachel and Miriam to another concert at BYU. This time it was a viola concert, honouring Alan de Veritch, a pupil of William Primrose of the Primrose International Viola Archive, which is housed in the Harold B. Lee Library in the Music and Dance Library where my mom works. She's been pretty heavily invested in the viola world since she began working for BYU and...thus, so have I.
My first trip to Europe was with my mom. She was going to the International Viola Congress in Frankfurt, Germany...and I tagged along. I got to hobnob with a bunch of famous violists (or at least semi-famous ones) and even played on stage with my very rudimentary skills in the group play...thingy.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that I know far more about the viola world than any non-violist should probably ever know. And my mom invited me and Rachel and Miriam to attend last night's concert, which was really quite fun. Here's a YouTube video of one of the pieces we listened to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYhiDCOuJuA
Although it was still rather cold and dark when we got out of the concert (we stayed through intermission and the second half of the concert this time so it was even later than Thursday night), it at least wasn't raining and we made it home without hitting anything!
Even though I was a little underdressed for a concert of that calibre, it was fun to get to go. And even though I didn't quite communicate to my mom that Rachel was coming with me she graciously allowed Rachel to sit on her lap for the whole concert...well, at least for the half we stayed for.
We left during intermission because (a) it wasn't exactly what we had been expecting to attend and (b) it was a school night so sticking around for the second half of the concert wasn't exactly feasible.
When we got outside it was cold, dark, and rainy. I don't like driving in the rain, but I can do it. And I don't like driving in the dark, but I can do it. Driving in dark while it's raining is, quite possibly the worst (except maybe for snow...dunno about that one...yet). To further increase my anxiety, I was in Andrew's car—his mom's old car—which I'm not as used to driving as our van (though I did originally learn to drive in it).
So, we're driving along and things are going just fine, despite my white knuckles, and we're almost home when I spy an entire trail of eyes on the side of the road. It's a family of raccoons looking to cross the street. I slowed down and one of the raccoons ran across the road but the rest stayed exactly where they were.
I had a car coming up behind me pretty quickly and since the raccoons weren't moving I figured I should probably just go. So I did. I brought my car up to speed and...then that one raccoon that had ran across the road turned around and darted right in front of me!
Ka-thunk-a-crunch!
"Moooooooom!" Rachel wailed from the backseat.
There was really very little that I could do at that point. It was dark and rainy and there was a car behind me and a car in the other lane—I wasn't about to swerve to miss a raccoon!
Rachel and I were a little shaken up (though probably not as badly as that poor raccoon family) but Andrew was rather enthralled with our tale of woe.
"What?" he said when I pointed out his morbid curiosity. "I've never killed anything with a car before!"
That much is true. He has never killed anything with a car. He did, however, run over a neighbour's dog once. "But I didn't kill it," he objected. "I just broke its legs."
Because merely maiming something is sooooooo different from flat out killing something (no pun intended).
Pretty sure the crunchy-munchy sensation is about the same. He just happened to be driving down a residential road (with a much lower speed limit) and I was on a rural road (with a much higher speed limit), which very likely saved that dog's life.
The next morning he drove that route to work so that he could see if our dead raccoon was there (it was). And I got to see it when I went to the doctor and when I came home. And then again when I drove home from BYU later on Friday evening because...
I took both Rachel and Miriam to another concert at BYU. This time it was a viola concert, honouring Alan de Veritch, a pupil of William Primrose of the Primrose International Viola Archive, which is housed in the Harold B. Lee Library in the Music and Dance Library where my mom works. She's been pretty heavily invested in the viola world since she began working for BYU and...thus, so have I.
My first trip to Europe was with my mom. She was going to the International Viola Congress in Frankfurt, Germany...and I tagged along. I got to hobnob with a bunch of famous violists (or at least semi-famous ones) and even played on stage with my very rudimentary skills in the group play...thingy.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that I know far more about the viola world than any non-violist should probably ever know. And my mom invited me and Rachel and Miriam to attend last night's concert, which was really quite fun. Here's a YouTube video of one of the pieces we listened to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYhiDCOuJuA
Although it was still rather cold and dark when we got out of the concert (we stayed through intermission and the second half of the concert this time so it was even later than Thursday night), it at least wasn't raining and we made it home without hitting anything!
I ran over a cat (I think) a few months ago driving in the dark in my husband's car. What an awful sensation. Shudder. I felt horrible and just prayed it was a stray cat without an owner to be sad about its death. :(
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