Month: April 2015 (Page 1 of 2)

For some reason, we didn’t take any at Nathan and Amy’s. Sorry, guys.

Here are a few from the alligator adventure at Kylene and Justin’s.Then there are pictures of Kylene’s house, for the rest of you who have not seen it.

I’ll post more good pictures later, but this is what we arrived home to find.

Five rocks were thrown at the house. Amidst the grass seed, you can see a couple of the rocks on the ground – they were of good size. One window was broken, but at least it didn’t rain and leak into the house. Believe me, this was no accident. I filed a police report.

This will be my last chance to post before we leave tomorrow morning. Practice for the Roselawn program went very well this a.m., so that should go well tonight, too. The dogs are headed to doggie camp in Shakopee this evening, then we just have to finish the packing. I’ve got the laundry going and I’m running to the bank to get cash next, so things are well under control. See you all soon.

Would you believe that the piano, the newly refurbished Steinway, had a problem that needed to be fixed before the concert? About 10 minutes before the concert, I checked and they said it was fixed and they just had to put the piano back together. 5 minutes later, I checked again and they still seemed to be trying to get the same pieces together. 4 minutes later – same thing. I was getting worried… Then the director started the choir walking in, because she didn’t know they were not finished. They were still on the floor as the risers were filling up. They played all the keys to make sure they worked as the front row was walking in, and gathered their stuff and walked off stage just as the last people walked on. Talk about cutting it close! The piano worked fine, though! (And they got rousing applause from the audience as they walked off stage!)

The concert was fantastic. The Carmina Burana selections were particularly well-received and we got a standing ovation!

I don’t know what the rest of the country is like, but the weather couldn’t be any better in April in Wisconsin than it is today! It is in the 60’s, sunny, not windy. And the flowers are starting to coming up and the bushes, like lilacs, are starting to bud. It is the kind of day that the dogs like to plop down on the sidewalk in the sun and just stay outside.

I’m practicing at Roselawn three times today, plus leading my one class at work and meeting with people, etc. Then there is the big concert tonight, but I’m not really very nervous. I play for one song, which is actually rather hard, then I sit for two accapella songs, then play another, rather easy one, then another is done accapella. Then it is intermission. The second half we have two pianos and 5 percussionists, playing very loudly. I have the easier piano part, so I’m not worried about that, even if they actually could hear me, which they usually cant! My biggest worry is coming in at the right time, what with fast page turns between movements.

Contest went well. I played for 18 Class A events and it looks like 8 are going on to state. I didn’t wait for the results of the last two, but I don’t think either of them made it. Considering how pressed for time I felt and how much too difficult many of the pieces were for the students who chose them (and some of the judges agreed), that is a good number. David Bognar was my only piano student and he got a 1* again. No surprise there.

So, down to only two events before our trip – the Red Cedar Choir concert Monday and the Roselawn concert Thursday. A week from today we’ll be at Nathan and Amy’s! Boy, do I ever need this vacation! And, hopefully, by the time I return, things should have calmed down a bit at the Center, too.

The Cameron program was this afternoon and it went well. It is never nearly as polished and professional as the Roselawn concert, but Dolly is hard to compete with!

Tomorrow it’s up to Rice Lake for solo/ensemble. I’m playing for 18 events, and they are arranged according to accompanist, so it is a fairly easy schedule. A lot of hard pieces to play, however, so it will still be a somewhat stressful day.  I don’t know why there are so many Baroque pieces this year, with crazy accompaniments.

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with the distinct message that it was time for me to forgive the people who wrote those things. So I did.

And I feel much better.

I’ve also felt a real leading that what I’m supposed to do is just act like I always did with everybody and people will realize how foolish the claims about me were.  So my plan is to “kill them with kindness.” Nothing wrong with that. (Well, actually not kill them – that is just an expression, and it just now occurs to me it is a rather weird one.) 🙂

24 hours after feeling totally devastated and wanting to leave town for good, I can say that I’m feeling very supported. The ladies coming in for class today each came up to me and gave me a hug and said they were so sorry about what had been said about me. The city finally got the people served the papers saying they are barred from the Center for at least 60 days. A mediation team has started hearing both sides (and believe me, there are a lot of people ready to speak to them on my behalf), and I got a chance to express to an impartial person my take on the whole thing. I thought it went well. At least now they can see why we have been unable to resolve this in normal ways – because the other side has no understanding of how things are supposed to work and have unrealistic expectations of what their rights are.

Of course, it is far from over, but at least I feel like I can survive today.

The Chetek Alert had 6 letters to the editor slamming me this week. It is more than I can take. I’m seriously considering resigning and we’ll just move to Rice Lake and try to make a new start. I may look into suing for defamation of character, because a large percentage of what was written was lies and can easily be proved so. But I just don’t think I can even continue to live here after all that has been printed about me. Even before this, I didn’t like to be out in the open or in crowds here, because I don’t know what total strangers think about me. But when the same lies are written by multiple people, the public is bound to believe them. There really isn’t anything I can do about it, either. I’ve written my one letter to the editor, which was in last week, but this week’s letters pretty much nullify any good that letter might have done. I just don’t understand why a paper will print lies.