So What Interesting Thing Are You Doing Now?

Today was the informal recital where we saw the first appearance of a harp, the first appearance of belly dancers and the current record for most violins (five, I think), and at one point four of the violinists got together to play Pachelbel's Canon. I tried to learn that on my recorder once, but the cat kept biting my elbow during the highest note which, obviously, I couldn't quite do pleasingly.

I learned that although I thought I could only play quietly, sound had no trouble traveling while I was playing there. The room has hard tile floors, whereas I had been practicing in the bedroom with soft covers and carpeted floors and clothing hanging in the closet. Next time I'm going to practice in the kitchen a few times so it's less disconcerting when I play at the recital.

I apparently didn't learn my lesson last time about how relaxing and not worrying helps me play better. That's probably because I didn't quite know my song as well this time. That's because I changed the pattern I was doing on my guitar yesterday. Note to self: never do this. I got sewing machine leg just sitting in the chair.

I got a couple of compliments anyway and two people asked me who did the song, as if they want to look it up later. It was Richard Shindell's "Last Fare of the Day."

Most of the performances were quite awesome and all of them had something great about them. There was a lot of classical music like "Ave Maria" and "Fugue in G Minor." Also classics like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

Afterwards we went into regular party mode. That's when I heard one person ask another, "So, what interesting thing are you doing now?" A good life goal would be to always have an answer to that question. I don't remember how the person in this conversation responded, but the person who asked the question is going on a walking tour of England and has ideas for writing a book. She says she can milk the latter for a long time--it can take years to write a book.

I also heard theorizing about the proper way to have a midlife crisis. Do you really need a car and, if so, what kind? (There was disagreement on whether the Prius qualified.)

One person recommended low-risk changes. But what changes? If you don't know, should you just try things at random? One guy thinks it might be fun to take math classes again, since it's been so long. But it might also be fun to taking something totally different like social work classes. There's actually a version of What Color is Your Parachute? for figuring out what to do after retirement.

People also talked about moving, long- or short-term, to places like England, Switzerland, Seattle, Denver, and Las Cruces.

See another perspective on the party from Grieve.