Lost

I got some bad news on Sunday night. It appears that the practice rooms at my undergrad, Ithaca College, were vandalized. At the time 60 pianos and some percussion equipment were thought to be destroyed. This on the eve of the beginning of juries, the “final exam” for the playing portion of a musician’s studies in higher education. In the end, though ¾ of the pianos available in the practice rooms were overturned or had parts ripped out, most were in “playable” condition after some intensive work by the piano technicians. The police are investigating, and no one has been caught, nor is there any indication of why this was done.

I’m still in shock, mostly because I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would do this. I keep thinking of the sheer amount of time and strength it would have taken. When could this have happened? You cannot be in the music building during any of its open hours find yourself alone in the building. It’s generally open from 7AM to 1AM, and I have heard that often you can stay later than that. This 6 hour period of lockdown is really only to force music students to get some sleep. Could it have been a music student? More than one? This at least, does not seem true to me. A normal music student would never consider this kind of damage to a musical instrument. And they would not do it on the eve of juries. While this seems like the “best” time to do damage, and it’s true that the practice rooms get a lot of use at this time, the reality is that the practicing that needs to be done has already been done, and most people avoid the practice rooms entirely after juries are over which means that about Wednesday things get really quiet. The school has a lot of time to repair the pianos, get replacements, clean up, and generally put things to right again before school starts up. A more disruptive time would have been the first day of the new semester.

And still I do not understand. This shock goes around and around in my head and my heart, never reaching any kind of destination, open-ended and searching. Why?

This may seem trivial to a non-musician. The damage was, after all, pretty minimal in the end. But it’s the violation that is the shock. Consider a few points.

1. The music building is more a home than many musicians’ dorms or apartments. We often spend more hours a day in the music building than we do anywhere else between classes and practicing and attending concerts.

2. The music building at IC has always been open to anyone. Many music buildings I have visited over the years require key cards to get in, have extremely limited hours, or extremely limited space. The practice rooms are invariably in the basement, but IC’s rooms have windows to the outside (a real treat) and more grand pianos available to students than any other school I have ever visited. It’s this openness and the sense of home that seems most violated.

3. And then there’s the instruments themselves. Pianists and percussionist do not have the luxury of portable instruments. Even in the best of circumstances, the sheer cost of a grand piano or a marimba means that most of these students can only hope of owning one someday, after years and years of saving pennies. They cannot afford their own instruments, and that is why there are so many available in music schools, and why the pianists and percussionists spend so much time in the music building.

4. Lastly, I have to mention the personal relationship that a musician feels with his or her instrument. Each instrument has a personality, little things that it likes or doesn’t like, things it does effortlessly and things you need to coax it to do. Each instrument has its own voice. A music student often spends more hours a day with their instrument than any person in their lives. Consider that. A student was quoted as saying that he considers this act like a murder. He’s not far wrong in sentiment if not in actual fact.

I can’t help but think of the steps that IC will have to take to protect its students and its instruments, and another little part of me is sad. Hindsight is 20/20 and I have only been able to accurately value what Ithaca has given me in relation to the kinds of experiences I have had since. Ithaca is a truly unique place and offers an incredibly thorough and diverse musical education. I cannot picture how it will change with locks on its doors.

I've been sick this week. It's been so long since I've been really sick - stay home from work sick - that I've completely forgotten how miserable it can be. Not just the sneezing and the headaches, sore throats and excessive Kleenex usage, but the boredom of it all! I think I watched about 6 of those Lifetime Christmas movies the past week, started sewing a dress (which will not be finished because of fitting issues), made a monster, started a new sweater, and made these mittens. They are based on a vintage pattern I picked up a few years back. I have no idea what decade the pattern is from - it's a Patons' pattern and judging from the color scheme of the original (yellow and burnt orange) I'd guess it's from the 70s. The original is for children, but I loved the criss-cross and tassel detail so much that I decided to translate them for adults.

Pattern: My own
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Italian Plum (I think?) and Classic Elite Wings (discontinued, and leftover from my Cardigan for Arwen) in a lavender.
Needles: US 4 and a crochet hook in size F

The mittens themselves were super quick to knit, even while basically making up a new pattern. It took a bit longer to get the proportions right on the length of the crocheted chain versus the number and spacing of the criss-crosses. I adore them, but they are a tad small for me. I seem to make this mistake a lot in my crafts for myself. Anyway, if they fit a certain friend of mine, she will be getting them as a Christmas gift. These are really great for last minute gifts. If there's intrest, I can write up the pattern quickly and offer it for free through Ravelry for last minute gifting.

Presenting!

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that the pattern for my Double Time Vest is now up in my Ravelry store. I can't believe that I've actually done it! It's been a while in coming (most of the fall, actually) but it's here and it's ready for you to enjoy. I'd like to thank all the people over at the Vestvember group who really encouraged me with all their kind comments on my vest. I'm sure that this vest has a place in nearly every wardrobe - I've worn it more than a few times myself recently. Should you have any questions or comments, need clarification, or find errata, please contact me as soon as possible.

Meet Jann

Have I told you about Jann? I worked with Jann in the Aspen Music Festival Box Office the past two years. She fun and loud and a great person to work with. Since she's a local, she knows just about everything that's going on around town, and since she's worked in the hospitality industry, she also knows a lot of the concierges. I think I mentioned before, but aside from the first rush of the morning and right before a concert, there's not a lot to do in the box office when the phone is not ringing. I spent a lot of time browsing around Ravelry and Flickr and the like, and I showed Jann a picture of Tuppy Von Monster. She fell in love and insisted that I make a picture of him the background of the computer I regularly used, so even when I wasn't there, she could see him. She was so excited about him that she kept calling him Tuffy not Tuppy, and I could never correct her. I promised that I would make him for her, and I got her address. She probably thinks that I have forgotten about my promise, but I haven't.

Pattern: Tuppy Von Monster by Elli Stubenrauch
Yarn: The main color is Paton's Classic Wool in Winter White, the contrast colors are bits from the stash.
Needles: US 4
Mods: Just a few things to make my life easier - I didn't have any extra heavy stabilizer, so the teeth are made from white felt and the wings are very lightly stuffed with polyfill. I accidentally bought 12mm eyes instead of 15mm eyes, so those went on instead. I also mixed it up with the colors - instead of using B and C for the horns, I used what I liked instead.

"Tuffy" was pretty fun to make, and he's ever so cute. The body on mine seems to be more oblong than pear shaped like in the pattern, and his legs are decidedly splayed. He doesn't stand on his own, as it appears the pattern model does, but his sweet little smile makes up for it. I'll be sending him out tomorrow with a jar of raspberry jam and wishing Jann the very merriest of holidays, up there in America's winter wonderland.

Before :: After

Do my fingers look a little white-knuckled around that cookie? I knew when I snatched up this teaching job for today that it was going to be a challenge - 2nd grade, and I've never done a whole day with kids so young. I called home last night to have a mini freak out over it. My dad set my head back on my shoulders and I scooped House at Pooh Corner and a book of Native American myths into my bag and tripped happily along my way.

If I had known that it was this 2nd grade, I would have just stayed home. I survived, but ended up sending two boys to the office for the 2nd half of the day and received concerned looks from just about every teacher I passed in the hall all day. I must have looked a bit shell-shocked. Needless to say, these kids were not going to be sitting still for House at Pooh Corner. I spend the whole day in a cold sweat, trying to keep kids on task.

Upon arriving home, I headed straight for the yoga pants on my Owls sweater. I was popping a couple of ibprofen and stirring honey into my Lady Grey tea when there was a knock on the door.

A package for me! I chose to spend my birthday money severely dessimating my Amazon wishlist, and I'm so glad I did, especially since it came today of all days! (That's right, as of last Friday another year older, another year... wiser....?) Now I have too many awesome stress relievers and I can't decide! Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Kungfu Panda? Smutty romance novel? New music? I'm going to opt against doing them all at once, since I've been subjected to a dull roar all day, and I think my head might explode....

And, oh, tonight is Creative Night, a semi-regular thing I have going with some girls I know. We just get together and, well, I'm sure it's no surprise that we mostly eat and chat more than actually create. I'm hoping to get a good start on the neck for my Plain and Simple Vest. Just 7 inches of ribbing on size 1 needles to go. Good food, good friends, and snuggles from a dog named Odo (you know, from Deep Space Nine. He's a shapeshifter.) The best antidote to a crappy day that I know of. Dudes, I earned my pittance today.

Snapshot

Let me explain the picture. Today I managed to score a sweet gig subbing for an elementary school librarian. I was pretty excited about it because I'm considering the pros and cons of getting a Masters of Library Science degree, and although being a school librarian is a different certification program, I was looking forward to finding out about what it is that a school librarian does first hand. Not to mention that when I got to the school, it was clear that it was going to be an easy day.

And then one of the 4th grade teachers had to leave suddenly, and I got reassigned to be in her classroom for basically the whole day. I was pretty bummed, and everything got kind of thrown together at the last minute, and oh, did they forget to tell me that the kids were going on a field trip to see a play at the high school? Well, I managed, and I had a good time too. Younger kids seem to like me a lot, which I find kind of funny. I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. I just try and make sure that everyone has all their body parts at the end of the day, which come to think of it is probably why they like me. Their real teacher needs to accomplish substantially more than that.

Anyway, I'm off for the holiday. I hope that you all have just the kind of holiday that you most need!

Thoughts from a Sunday Afternoon

Here I sit, procrastinating about writing up the pattern for my Double Time Vest. I was thinking that I was going to go to the local coffee house, flirt a bit with the cute guys who work there, get a pumpkin latte, and sit for the afternoon to knock out the math on the pattern. Since I'm not in school anymore, I've completely lost perspective on Sunday afternoon being prime homework and studying time, and there wasn't a table to be found in the place. So I'm back home, giant mug of Earl Grey by my side, thinking about maybe at some point soon-ish getting to the pattern writing. After having had two auditions in two weeks, I've finished auditioning for the forseeable future, and it's kind of like school's out. I have all this extra time. What do I do now?

Danielle and I hiked about 9 miles yesterday, which was great. I get really cranky when I can't get outside, and with it getting so dark in the evenings, I've had to take my run to the treadmill, which is not my favorite thing. I felt so much better after being outside and chatting for a few hours.

I've been thinking about the holidays this year. I'm trying to let go of my need to have every little thing turn into a tradition. Life goes on and changes. Love stays the same, no matter what. I put up my Christmas lights around the living room. I just love Christmas lights. I think that they are a very important part of this time of year. It is just so dark, and the lights make everything cheerful. I feel calm when I see them. I'm also thinking about these little trees. I love that they are not really holiday specific - you could use them for the whole winter if you wanted. They're plain but interesting and in groupings they are just so cute.

I bought this skirt recently after hearing recommendations for it from two different people in a week. It's kind of the winter counterpart to my favorite summer skirt. It's incredibly comfy and easy to wear. It's more money than I would typically spend on a single piece, but I can tell that it's going to be worth it. I may even have to get another closer to spring! I've been so obsessed with skirts lately... my day feels better from the get-go when I'm wearing a skirt.

Stephanie is coming over for dinner tonight. She'll have finished up the opera, and I know she'll need to decompress. We're having these little chilli pepper things from Jamie Oliver for salad/appetizer, Quinoa Stuffed Acorn Squash, Carmelized Cauliflower, and Stephanie's bringing dessert. I'm excited.

The picture at the top is being reused from a recent posting on M&S. We're taking a little break for the holiday weekend, but we'll be back after that. We're having a great time, and we'd love to have you stop by!