Oh WOW! I’ll never do that again!

What you might ask???

Yesterday, I dished out the last of some cottage cheese onto my plate for lunch. There were a few curds and milk still in the container.

I enjoy watching Jesse’s problem solving tactics, so I gave him the container knowing full well that I might end up cleaning a mess from the kitchen floor. I didn’t, Jesse almost immediately turned the container on its side then held it still with one paw while he licked the sides and bottom of the container.

I was amused but somewhat disappointed that he figured the puzzle out so quickly. I guess his time on the streets taught him a few tricks.

The problem came after lunch. One hour after lunch to be exact.

Jesse got the nastiest paint pealing farts ever! OMG! He was lying on the floor in front of me then let loose with a silent but deadly…

He had the audacity to look at me as if I was responsible. I told him, “No that wasn’t me.” He sniffed his butt and the heartbreak of the truth was written all over his face. He gathered what dignity he had left and walked out onto the deck.

The farts followed him and really harshed his buzz.

On his afternoon walk 4 hours later he was still laying eye watering gas attacks. At this point we could fly to Israel and volunteer to clear tunnels.

Honestly, I could feed him a tub of cottage cheese and just let him stand at the entrance to Hamas tunnels. They’d clear out in minutes.

I suppose that would be against the Geneva convention. Isn’t there some prohibition against gas and / or biological attacks?

Thank goodness we don’t have wallpaper in the house. It would have been pealing.

He was okay, but no dairy for him, other than occasional yogurt licks.

On the one hand I felt a bit sorry for him. His poos were solid so his stomach wasn’t upset or anything. He’s just had really nasty gas.

I discovered that It’s hard for me to tell him I love him when I’m gagging from another silent but deadly attack.

I hope your day was better than ours.

Wow! The other half had a lot of musical scores in digital format.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have much of a filing system for either Paper or Digital scores.

Screenshot 2023 09 30 at 7 29 50 AM

I’ve been trying to collect up all the music (Digital and Paper), and sort it with the intention of making sure that it got to the people that could use it and who would appreciate the effort.

I’m using a 32GB thumb drive now and unlike previous attempts will hopefully not run out of space.

I’ve also been finding a lot of duplications. I suspect that is in part due to the lack of a filing system and in part it might be further evidence that he’d been “off” for a while and was doing a damn fine job of hiding that fact from me.

No, I’m not angry about it. I’m just a little sad. He did his life, his way, as do I. We called “Shotgun” on each other’s journey through life and rode together for a long time. It’s cool, even if I am a little sad about the way things went from time to time.

As an aside, I have no clue how music is supposed to be catalogued, or indexed, or anything else.

I’m just doing what seems “Right” with the music much the same way I’ve done with every other curveball that’s come my way over the past 10 months.

In addition to the actual musical scores, some of which are only identifiable by opening them. (I’m fixing that slowly but surely.) I’ve also run into actual recordings where he was playing and recording into GarageBand either via a MIDI connection or he was using a microphone. Hearing him play has been somewhat jarring because I recognize his style and technique. It’s okay, but I’m still prone to crying over stuff like that, because the memories of him practicing a particular piece come flooding back. 

I’ll be a little sad over not being annoyed and hiding out in the office as he played the same measure over and over again trying to get it just right. In a way it was like RAP with Classical music!

I hate RAP!

As I typed that, I was smiling through misty eyes.

I’m sorting the music as best I can. If something has Hebrew characters in it, then it’s obviously going into the Jewish music folder. If it’s written in Russian It’s probably a fair bet that too is going to be Jewish Music. That is also true of German and Spanish.

I’m so out of my depth!

I’ve been looking for keywords in the scores. If I find anything that is recognizably Hebrew or Yiddish I know where to file it.

Christian music is a little easier because there I only have to scan for “Jesus” or Holy Ghost or Father, Son and Holy Spirt. You don’t find those kinds of references in Jewish Music.

Things start to get dicy when there are no lyrics, only the musical notation. If the title isn’t obvious, then I’m in a bit of trouble. 

If I can sound it out and recognize the roots or the rhythm of the piece  then I’ve got a shot at getting it in the right place. Some music is instantly recognizable as Jewish when you hear it.

I recognize the names of many classical pieces, or at least the composer so those scores go into the Classical Folder.

But wait! There’s more…

The harp music, the organ music, the piano, harpsichord, and even accordion music is all in one big assed digital pile.

For him, this presented no problem. He’d open an arrangement and know exactly what instrument it was for just by looking. Hell, I think sometimes he didn’t care what the score said the instrument was supposed to be. I think he’d just figure it out on the fly. That’s what a classically trained musician can do. It’s a skill built up over a lifetime and it’s amazing to watch in action.

I’ve been trying to sort the Harp and keyboard music into separate folders. Some of the folks that will be looking at this are classically trained musicians, but others aren’t.  Some of the amateur choir members can carry a tune and read music, but I know the other half curated very carefully what he gave to the choir.

It wasn’t about him disrespecting them, it was about not wanting to frustrate them with super busy scores. Sometimes he’d sit down and manually do choir only notation as a new file that he’d print here. Then we’d assemble the choir books if he wanted or needed my help.

I was probably next to useless because I didn’t read music. But I could follow instructions, run the printer, punch holes in pages, and we’d be spending the time together.

I know I could just hand all of the over to “Real” musicians instead of a hack like me. One reason that I don’t is because also mixed in this big pile of musical scores are receipts, and medical evaluations, and all the usual documents that one accumulates. So I have to be the one that filters all of this stuff out. 

Some of the pieces of music where he’s actually playing are in Apple only formats. Not a problem for me… But the Synagogue and Church are Windows based. So I’m letting my super fast computer handle processing the music into something universally playable. That takes time. Not much in the way of computer time, but time listening to the various edits and editions to determine which one is most likely to be the “Final” version that he’d want distributed.

Perhaps I’m doing all of this as much for me, and the other half, as I am for the Synagogue and Church.

It’s tedious, and time consuming. But I’m hoping to construct something that he’d be proud of. 

I always wanted to attend Burning Man

Over the years I’ve had friends tell me about their experiences on the mesa.

Burning Man is one of those things that is very unlike me. I’m a control freak (more or less). I like order instead of chaos, and I’m not someone who indulges in recreational drugs.

My friends descriptions of the Burning Man festival paint descriptions of a beautiful chaos. Some of my friends said flatly they spent the festival naked, high, and having sex at random with other people who were just as naked, high, and out of control.

Yes, this would seem to be something that is 180° counter to my nature. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always found the idea of attending the festival attractive. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to just completely let go.

What would it feel like to shed all the conditioning of society and embrace the wildness for a few days? Could I even do that, or are my controls locked down so tight I can’t be wild as the wind? In my youth I could easily shed society’s rules, my clothes, and inhibitions, now, I’m not so sure I could.

The art pieces that get assembled are often spectacular, I’ve been told that the pictures don’t do them justice because you lose the scale of the piece. I’d imagine they’re really spectacular if you’re seriously fucked up!

I’ve never been able to attend. In my 30s and 40s it was always about working and no matter how many months in advance I asked for vacation time, it was always denied.

I was shocked and surprised, while working at a military contracting company, when I asked for a week of vacation and it was granted.

That was literally the first time and perhaps the only time in my 40+ years of employment when I was granted my earned vacation time with no hassle or questions asked. I scrambled to secure all the reservations after the vacation approval. Since I’d always had vacation requests denied, I hadn’t pre-reserved my spot because some of the reservation was non-refundable.

I was leaving the country, so I had to notify the security folks. They were nice, they educated me about clearances and leaving the country. They hooked me up with a training class with about 20 other folks. Then off I went. Scuba Diving in a foreign country. It was great fun!

I think the military contractor might have raised their eyebrows if I’d gone to Burning Man. But probably not too much, as long as I didn’t come back to work on Tuesday morning still loaded.

Burning Man has always seemed to me to be an opportunity to step into a Mad Max movie. Generally speaking that’s not something I’d do without being heavily armed. Burning Man might be thought of as Mad Max without the gunfire.

One friend suggested that with my skin type, I’d probably need to build a suit out of a space blanket, or perhaps a still-suit from Dune. He laughingly said that he didn’t think there was enough sunscreen on the planet to protect me from being fried. He did point out that the space blanket suit could be a sellable item, or at least a great art piece.

This led me to rethink going to Burning Man. After all it’s the art piece that is supposed to burn, not the overly fair skinned attendees.

I thought perhaps I could enjoy the festival by adopting a Vampire schedule. But being in a tent on a desert mesa trying to sleep during the day would be problematic.

If I had to run around all day long in a reflective encounter suit like I was on another planet, and couldn’t enjoy dancing naked in the sun with the other festival goers then what was the point?


I briefly considered going to Burning Man this year.

2023 has been a rough year and mentally checking out for four or five days sounded attractive. There wasn’t enough time and a few too many moving pieces to allow me to go, once I thought of it.

How much SPF Ten Billion could I lay my hands on, was one hurdle. I’ve seen photos of people dressed literally in mud. That would work as long as the mud wasn’t flaking off every 2 minutes.

As luck would have it, had I gone this year I’d have had an abundance of mud. I just read there were 73,000 campers are stranded on the mesa due to heavy rain that has turned the desert into mud. Apparently officials are telling campers to conserve food and water because it’s going to take some time for the area to be dry enough to be navigable.

I’m glad I didn’t go.

It’s one thing to tic something off your bucket list and have fun doing it. It’s quite another to want to tick something off the bucket list and be totally miserable doing it.

Besides I’d have been alone, and I’d have had muddy equipment, a muddy me, and a muddy dog to pack into my muddy vehicle. I’d have “Burning Man Mud” in my vehicle forever.

Experiences are supposed to change and enhance you. But I don’t want to be reminded of an experience, (good or bad) every time I drive somewhere.

Maybe next year…