Road Trip 2010, Day 1
With a month of all-bills-paid free time, four new tires, and too many vacation options to choose just one, I've begun a three-week road trip up and down the eastern US. Thanks especially to the two dear friends who are cat-, plant-, and house-sitting for me over the next three weeks!
Yesterday morning, while fielding umpteen last-minute phone calls from my mother, I packed up my car and headed toward Little Rock, arriving just before dinner. My friend there, Joe the viola player, swept me immediately into his car (with his little dog, Truffles) to go to the World's Fanciest House for a dinner party. Seriously, this house belongs to two surgeons. They have like $30,000 worth of wine in their custom-built cellar.
Anyway, dinner was excellent. The wine was like nothing I've tasted before. And after dinner was over, the two surgeons REMOVED A WART from the back of the hand of one of the guests. Seriously! They just laid out sterile pads and single-use instruments and everything, and just sliced him open in front of all the guests! Ten stitches, and the removal of a wart that was like an iceberg under the surface of this guy's skin.
After dinner, Joe and I did a whirlwind driving tour of Little Rock, featuring the Clinton Library (and Clinton's "Bridge to the Future,") the Governor's Mansion, and Central High School, where integration began. Joe's dad went to Central High. His first day of freshman year was the day the National Guard came to escort the school's first black students onto campus.
Then we came home and took turns playing Bach for each other (cello suites for him, Chaconne and the g minor Fugue for me), then ran through some duets together, culminating in Handel-Halvorssen.
The especially cool thing about playing chamber music at Joe's place is: Joe is a luthier, living and working in a HUGE converted garage (like an auto-body shop, not like "place you park the car and store the tools") in downtown Little Rock, across from EMOBA, the Black Arkansans Museum. Beautiful, historic neighborhood. Huge, concrete and brick space with a workshop and a stage. It was like playing music in an industrial castle!
Joe and me at the Clinton Library, in front of the Bridge to the Future.
Little Rock Central High School
Me, with Truffles the Demon Dog in front of the Clinton Library
,
Yesterday morning, while fielding umpteen last-minute phone calls from my mother, I packed up my car and headed toward Little Rock, arriving just before dinner. My friend there, Joe the viola player, swept me immediately into his car (with his little dog, Truffles) to go to the World's Fanciest House for a dinner party. Seriously, this house belongs to two surgeons. They have like $30,000 worth of wine in their custom-built cellar.
Anyway, dinner was excellent. The wine was like nothing I've tasted before. And after dinner was over, the two surgeons REMOVED A WART from the back of the hand of one of the guests. Seriously! They just laid out sterile pads and single-use instruments and everything, and just sliced him open in front of all the guests! Ten stitches, and the removal of a wart that was like an iceberg under the surface of this guy's skin.
After dinner, Joe and I did a whirlwind driving tour of Little Rock, featuring the Clinton Library (and Clinton's "Bridge to the Future,") the Governor's Mansion, and Central High School, where integration began. Joe's dad went to Central High. His first day of freshman year was the day the National Guard came to escort the school's first black students onto campus.
Then we came home and took turns playing Bach for each other (cello suites for him, Chaconne and the g minor Fugue for me), then ran through some duets together, culminating in Handel-Halvorssen.
The especially cool thing about playing chamber music at Joe's place is: Joe is a luthier, living and working in a HUGE converted garage (like an auto-body shop, not like "place you park the car and store the tools") in downtown Little Rock, across from EMOBA, the Black Arkansans Museum. Beautiful, historic neighborhood. Huge, concrete and brick space with a workshop and a stage. It was like playing music in an industrial castle!
Joe and me at the Clinton Library, in front of the Bridge to the Future.
Little Rock Central High School
Me, with Truffles the Demon Dog in front of the Clinton Library
,