December 9, 2014

I must admit that I am somewhat pleased at the harassment I have received for being late with the blog post. On the other hand, y'all don't pay me for these publications - just sayin'.  ;)

I have been eating a lot of fried ham lately (not "friend ham" as my computer tried to write) and also Geoff Nuttall came for a masterclass and concert. He's always so entertaining to watch and listen to. In the masterclass he was wearing red hiking boots and Maddy expressed a strong desire for same. I passed out of the next music history course and have registered for the third and final course instead. I had some great dreams including one super awesome one in video game style where Mary and I completed missions, found portals in the ocean, stole lemonade from a witch, freed three captive children, met a girl made out of mist and a dog who looked like Idefix (from the Asterix comics) and with whom I had a telepathic connection. On Saturday night I went busking with colleagues for some much-needed cash and saw a guy wearing only a Santa hat, red lace stockings and a red cloth tied around his....you know. On Sunday the quartet practiced at Paul's house again. We threw orange peels off the deck and Paul made some remark along the lines of "Yon sandwich hath a mean and unsavory look".

Are you sorry you asked yet?

Here are pictures from this week's expedition to GGP. We found a carousel and a garage sale.

This wasn't for sale but I took a picture anyways.

Maddy saw this and yelled out, "MILK DOCTOR!!!"

We watched this snail for awhile

My ride

M's ride

It's REAL horsehair, can I use it for my bow?

I'm defs riding THIS guy next time.

Moss grows on sidewalks?

What is this?

Is this what it says it is?

I've always wanted an electronic yogurt maker!

That's it. Now stop bothering me.

- Antisocial Violinist

December 1, 2014

I went down to Southern California for three days this week to celebrate Yankee Thanksgiving with my relatives. It was so nice to spend some time in the warm sunshine. On Wednesday I went to Laguna Beach with my great-aunt. The sun was making huge pulsing stars on the ocean's wrinkled surface and we walked through the dusty desert plants and squinted at the solid blocks of sunshine stacked on the blue. After Thanksgiving dinner we all walked to the Ritz to see the gingerbread sculpture.

All ready to go

My second cousins

The gingerbread sculpture - how did they make those waves?

Cali sunsets

Gor-geous....

On Friday I turned nineteen and we went to the Mission San Juan Capistrano. This mission is one of twenty-one Spanish Missions along the coast of California. The buildings are all made of adobe bricks, weathered and worn by sun and rain. I liked the compound very much. Fun to go exploring and find out about the ruins and the bells and the artifacts. The day got very hot and I was glad for the water-lilied fountains with huge koi in their depths.

Someone's got a sense of humour.

The new basilica

Such shiny

This weekend the "Terrible Triumvirate" (as Paul refers to Maddy, Nick and I) made some trips up to Marin City for rehearsals at Paul's house/studio. He lives in the middle of the woods, and the fresh damp foliage smells almost like Canada. He told us that sometimes wild turkeys show up in the woods. M and I decided to mount a separate expedition to search for the wild turkeys.

- Antisocial Violinist

November 23, 2014

On Monday I went on a long walk, through Crissy Fields, along the deep vibrant blue ocean and past the verdant emerald carpets of grass to the GGB.

Here's something you don't see in Calgary.

Sentinel over the marsh

The sentinel

This guy was busy taking a picture of the water, so I took a picture of his bike.

The old air field

From the GGB

Fort Point

The rest of this week was somewhat grey and dismal. I did go to the Mission yesterday and saw some of the countless murals.

Too funny. Sorry I couldn't get a better picture. I really wanted to see the price.

This morning I had a church gig in Forest Hill. I got up early and took the train to Forest Hill station. I went to look for a cache in a small park adjacent to the church. It was supposed to be a fake rock under a shrub, so I was bending down and looking under the shrubs but I did not want to kneel down and get my black pants wet and dirty before the performance. The morning light got in my eyes and made it hard to see. The shadows were still very long. I could not find the cache, so I went to the church, rehearsed with the others and performed for the service. There were cookies and orange juice afterward and I was given a piece of paper for deposit with the memo "Play Violin in String Quarat Sunday". I also took home a bulletin from the church because their Weekly Schedule for Thursday says "DAMN group meeting". I went to look for two more caches and found them, then came back to the one in the park. Now I could kneel down and get my pants wet. I finally spotted the fake rock next to a real one. Fake rocks have a distinctive texture. There were a bunch of very small flat brown crawling creatures on the cache, which stopped crawling as soon as they were exposed to sunlight. I shook off the creatures and opened the cache. There was a fake spider in it which freaked me out, and a lot of mud, but the log sheet was fine. I signed the log and went home.

The cache was under the second shrub on the left.

Long shadows

- Antisocial Violinist