We had a busy Friday. I have to admit that I am a little intimidated by really busy days as a musician. We played a nursing home which we play once every month, or is it every other month? It is in Burien, and interestingly enough we play mostly my songs which the residents there now recognize, and we even had a request for one of my songs from a resident. She is a woman who I know nothing about except that she always used to wear mouse ears from the "Mickey Mouse Club" which gave me the impression that she was perhaps developmentally disabled, or she could be a stroke victim but that is all conjecture on my part. She always tells us she loves us which is sweet. I have a difficult time sleeping late these days. If I manage to sleep until 8 am I feel lucky. I believe I was out of bed around 7 am yesterday, which meant that I was going to have somewhat of a long day.
I wake up thinking about the day's activities, what we need to do, what we will bring with us, what our schedule is. Kristi sleeps, or at least pretends to sleep at least an hour longer than me. She got up around 8 am, early for her. I like to bring an audio book with me when we are going on a long drive, and so spent the morning looking at what audio books I have on my hard drive and transferring them to my mp3 player.
Our other booking was at the Conway Muse in Conway, Washington. That is just outside of Mt. Vernon. I think it's about 4 miles south of Mt. Vernon. It is one of those really small places. The last time we were there we visited their local tropical fish market. It is a pretty big store with a lot of different fish and it was fun to look around there. This time we got on the road after playing the nursing home in Burien. I drove the first leg of the trip. I got sleepy though and Kristi had to take over the wheel from me just before we got into Everett.
Of course I tried to sleep. I believe I did drift off for a moment or two, but we were listening to an audio book and that kept me from having any significant sleep. When we got to the turn off to Conway it was about a 1/2 hour before The Muse would be opening so we drove out to Lake McMurray. I grew up in Arlington which is on Highway 9. Highway 9 is the artery that has Lake McMurray on it as well. When I was young, probably about 13 my mother took me fishing with her. We went with Albert Bundt, a local school teacher and we fished for crappie. At the time I didn't even know there was such a fish, but we caught quite a few as I recall and I got a lesson in how to filet a fish. I didn't really know it at the time but I know now that I was a chaperone for the two. Making the trip over there reminded me of that day.
We stopped at a little store at a 90 degree turn in the road above the lake. I used their port a potty and we went in the store and impulsively bought some candy. I bought "Lifesavers", which I don't recall having bought in many many years. I also bought a Kit Kat bar. Kristi wanted jawbreakers, but they didn't have them individually wrapped as penny candy like she wanted them so she was forced to forgo the pleasure. We were just killing time, and shortly after we left the store we turned around and drove back to Conway. It was very pleasant driving through the countryside. I know that there are housing developments just off of the road, and I don't know how long there will even be any countryside to drive through. I considered mentally what it would be like to live there. I know that in my day to day life I would enjoy the quiet, and the green. As I write this I see the trees on the hillsides and the houses with their large yards, and gardens that we drove by. I see the stone pillar with the sign pointed to a place that is "private" and I know that it is simply a housing development, maybe with a gate and a guard a little further up the road. It is not the same place where I grew up.
I didn't take a camera with me, or at least I didn't take a camera that I intended to use. I had our video camera which I half had it in mind to record our performance with but decided that it was too much trouble to do that. We were playing a gig with another duo. They are songwriters as well and we had met them in Tacoma last year at Dickens Festival where they were playing, and we were almost playing. I was providing PA for them at that time. They are called the Ginger Ups. They are Jennifer Spector, and David Tieman. I think they are a very good and saavy duo. We didn't really know what to expect except that my sister told me she was bringing a bunch of people, which she did. She brought one of my other sisters, Mary, and Mary's partner Linda and friends from Arlington.
I should say that the Conway Muse fed all of us from a buffet in the back room. It was simple fare, pasta, sauce and salad. It did take the hunger off though, and of course, I had already consumed a Kit Kat bar and a bunch of lifesavers. We discussed what the format would be. Jennifer thought that we would each play a set, which wasn't how I understood it would go. We talked to the booker who explained that we would trade of playing songs. I wonder even now how that came off as we are radically different kinds of songwriters. Jennifer and David have somewhat of a jazz approach to music. He is a very fine jazz guitarist, and she a fine vocalist. Actually both of them are accomplished singers but Jennifer does all the lead singing. David adds harmony to most of the songs. Jennifer often just holds a guitar in her lap while David does all the accompaniment and once in awhile she plays guitar . . . does more when David plays bass guitar.
My sister took the picture at the top with her phone. There were only a couple of people who were in the room who weren't with my sister's party. It's a very nice thing she did as it would have been a monumentally lonely night at the Conway Muse without her help. The sound guy got his channels mixed up and kept implying that I didn't have my guitar turned on or that it wasn't working, which I felt was very unlikely, but I went along with him and checked my battery, plugged my guitar into Kristi's amp and it worked quite well. I should be empathetic as I have made mistakes like that. As a matter of fact, I recently made a mistake like that when it was only Kristi and I setting up for a dance gig. It took about fifteen minutes for him to straighten it out. I guess that means we played less than we were booked to play.
All in all it was a good night and I really got to listen to the Ginger Ups. They gave us a copy of their CD which we played in the car today. We traded a copy of "Tandem" for their CD. We spent the night with my sister in Anacortes. She fed us breakfast this morning, and we had a long talk with her. We'll be going there for Thanksgiving this year. We have a gig to play in Bellevue on the way. I told David of the Ginger Ups that being a musician at this point in my life is a serious part of who I am. For better or for worse.
