Tales of an Unpracticed Violinist

A few months ago the summer Hollywood Bowl schedule was released and I found one night I wanted to go to more than any of the rest. Joshua Bell was playing Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole with the LA Philharmonic. I've had the opportunity to see Joshua Bell perform before, also at the Bowl, on a laid-back night called "Joshua Bell with Friends" a few years ago. He interacted with the audience a lot that night, and it was such a delight to see his personality alongside his professional persona. I admire how laid-back he appears to be, rather than the cliched uptight classical musician aura that many in his craft give off. And that he was to be playing this beautiful song- one that I have played part of and can consider it the highest level song I've ever mastered in my violin playing prime in college- that sealed it- I wanted to be at that concert. I needed to be there. But I let life, or the idea of life, get in the way and never purchased tickets (8pm in Hollywood on a work night, Harrison's bedtime, paying for parking, sitting in traffic, what have you.)

Thankfully life had different plans. On my way to work one morning last week, I was listening to the local classical music station, KUSC (my usual morning drive routine), and I heard a quick ad for a contest called "#MyFavoriteMistake." The prize for this contest was tickets to the very concert I wanted to attend, along with a signed CD, and an illustrated children's book based on Joshua Bell's favorite mistake. The grand prize also included a meet and greet with Mr. Bell himself (spoiler alert- I didn't win the grand prize.) To enter, I needed to write about my favorite mistake. I could have done so on social media (hence the hashtag in the contest name), but I was boring and submitted it through the KUSC website. Here is my submission:

In middle school and high school it was always a big deal every year to audition for county and state orchestras and have the opportunity to play with musicians from other schools in the area. The auditions were blind auditions, so the judge's backs were to you the whole time.

One year, I was in the middle of my sight-reading audition (and so already a bundle of nerves- who enjoys being scored on sight reading?), and I somehow dropped my bow in the middle of the exercise.

Inwardly, my mind started racing, I got more nervous, and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't get any direction from the judges since they weren't allowed to look at me.

I kept my cool on the outside, walked over to pick up my bow, and continued playing as if nothing had happened.

As it turns out, my orchestra teacher was one of the judges in the room during my audition. Later that day when I lamented to her my thoughts that I ruined the audition, given my mistake, she told me that all the judges were actually very impressed with the way I collected myself and kept playing. A week later I found out that even with dropping my bow, my scores were high enough that year to sit in the first violin section.

This memory is always a special one to look back on; it shows me that the way you react to a mistake leaves far more of an impression than the mistake itself. A consideration worth remembering in every part of my life!

So, fast forward to Sunday evening and I found out I was one of the winners! No grand prize meeting Joshua Bell, but I got to go to the concert and be inspired by his musicianship while hearing him play one of my favorite songs with the LA Phil, and the LA Phil bookended the Lalo piece with Stravinsky's Fireworks and Petrushka.

Sure, I drove to Hollywood in traffic, I parked at one of the most annoying tourist attractions in LA (Hollywood and Highland, blah), missed Harrison's bedtime for the very first time in his 16 months of life, and got less sleep than I should have for a work night- but of course none of those details ended up mattering. I had a lovely evening out with my good friend Emily and spent two hours immersing my senses into beautiful music.

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The idea that I think I at one point had the first movement of Symphonie Espagnole "mastered" is almost laughable after last night. Sure, I could hit all the notes, I played it at a decent tempo, and as with all my playing I played it with great passion, but I couldn't ever touch the musicality and precision and sheer ease of how I saw it performed last night. And of course not. He's Joshua Bell. I'm ... well, not no one, but I never have been and never will be in that playing field. A self-fulfilled prophecy, sure, but one that I am more than happy with, as my "professional musician" aspirations ended as quickly as they started. It's truly not the world for me, but I love to watch others who are a part of it. And engaging in that world as a spectator always washes me in a wave of inspiration, bringing forth memories of playing my violin and getting lost in the emotions of any particular piece of music, feeling connected to my Creator as a creator, playing my violin and feeling beauty in those moments. And you can bet I will be taking my violin out again more often in the coming weeks (maybe another episode of "Playing out of tune with a toddler and a cat?")

And so I'll play in my world- not that of a professional musician, but that of an unpracticed violinist, trained classically and playing with my own form of laid-back strength, not precise, but simple and emotive. My brand of playing over the years has turned in to part classical, part fiddle, part gypsy magic (if I may?) I don't really follow rules when I play anymore, and I'll just keep being me.

Thanks, Joshua Bell, for giving me these realizations to mull over, and the inspiration to play some more. Thanks KUSC for the opportunity to engage in the professional music world when I failed to give myself the opportunity. Let's do it again next week, haha. Let's keep the inspiration coming!

Pesto on Everything

On today's issue of "homemade everything," one of my favorite ways to eat leafy greens and enjoy them. I'm not very good at eating greens unless I hide them, so pesto is a great way to incorporate a lot of fresh, raw greens into my day. It's also very convenient, as I'll make a large batch on Sunday and have it to include with my meals for the rest of the week.

Store bought pesto typically has questionable ingredients in it like canola or soybean oil, natural flavors, sugar, yeast extract (a form of msg), and sulfites. I'd rather eat real food, and none of that qualifies for me.

If you google "homemade pesto," you'll find many recipes that call for pine nuts and basil. Delicious, delicious, delicious. But I'm frugal and pine nuts are not in my budget. Basil is hard to come by at certain times of the year. And why leave it at just one herb anyway?

Pesto can be made out of so much. For me, it's typically walnuts, a variety of greens that are mostly fresh herbs, a small amount of fresh garlic, fresh lemon juice, a swirl of olive oil, and salt and pepper.

I love using fresh herbs in all of my cooking; they taste delicious and are incredibly beneficial to your health. Parsley and cilantro both have amazing health benefits- they are full of essential vitamins and cilantro is even chelating- it effectively removes heavy metals from your system (something most of us have an unfortunate overload of.) I've lucked out that my favorite grocery store, Sprouts, has these herbs in generously sized portions for only $1.00 each. I'd rarely cooked with fresh herbs before discovering this, because spending money on tiny little packages has never made sense to me, and growing my own has been out of the question due to my black thumb. These days, a trip to Sprouts involves buying at least a pound of herbs that Jer, Harrison, and I eat throughout the week- in pesto, smoothies, salads, homemade salsa, etc.

Here's my method-

Ingredients
-a handful of walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pinenuts, sunflower seeds, or etc
-2-3 small cloves of garlic
-2 parts parsley (typically weighing about 1/2 pound), the ends of the stems cut off
-1 part cilantro, stems cut off
-1 part spinach/kale/chard
-sometimes 1 part basil
-juice of 1 lemon
-olive oil
-salt and pepper to taste

Put the walnuts (or etc) in a food processor and pulse a few times to break them down. Roughly chop the garlic and add to the food processor, run it until everything is combined and crumbly. Add the greens a handful at a time, incorporating the lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste, and olive oil to get the consistency you want. Easy and done.

Mix it up! Find the combo of greens that suits you best. Use cashews or nutritional yeast to give it a hint of cheesy flavor, or throw in some shredded Parmesan cheese. Add sweet or spicy peppers, dried tomatoes, or other seasonings to taste.

Serve over pasta, or mix it in tomato sauce first, eat on crackers or bread, mix into scrambled eggs, put it on pizza, toss it with veggies or garbanzo beans, use it as a sandwich spread, or my favorite: spread it on a savory chickpea flour pancake, warm off the skillet, and top with halved cherry tomatoes or sundried tomatoes and/or sharp cheddar cheese.

Cat Family

We have three cats, no surprise there. I've been an animal lover my whole life; there were always a number of pets at my parent's house growing up and I took horseback riding lessons from a young age. Throughout my teenage years my parents started adding farm animals to the mix. I grew up with a respect for all living things and a love for allllll the furry ones. Moving to my own place a year after college meant not having any default pets hanging around. My roommate in Lexington had a cat and that held me over, and the family I worked for had four(!) but once I was in LA there were no fluffy cuddles to be had. 

Jeremy and I held off on pets when we first got married. We were living over an hour away from our jobs and spent a good 12 hours out of our little bungalow every weekday, so it was not a good situation for caring for an animal. 

When we moved closer to work, we searched and searched for an apartment that allowed animals, solely for future aspirations, but we came up empty (or found ones that required an extra $300 per month in rent, per animal. What?) I sadly expanded our search to apartments that did not specify the allowance of pets, and then all of Los Angeles was suddenly available to me. We found a place that we love/hate (mostly love. It's rent controlled) and have been there for almost three and a half years. 

And we have cats! Three of them! How??

Well let's just say that our apartment manager likes us, and he only specifically knows about one cat. We intend to keep it that way. 

Side note, why does it seem like EVERYONE in LA is always out walking their dog, but when you're apartment hunting, every place says No Pets (Or at least No Dogs)?

So ... three cats. Three cats, four eyes, two tails. What? Our cats are healthy and happy as can be, but are cosmetically a bit ... unique. Here are their stories.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar was our first foray into including a pet in our family. I took to Craigslist to find a cat, given that anytime I've walked into a shelter I walked out crying. I had occasionally seen animals on Craigslist whose elderly owners passed away, and that is what I sought out looking for. As I perused Craigslist ads, I found a post titled "One-eyed, tail-less cat needs a friend." I think I knew right then I found our cat, but reached out to that ad and to one other. Both responded, and for a hot minute I debated bringing two cats home, but first asked if anyone else had inquired about them. My one-eyed, tail-less cat had no potential friends asking about him, while the other cat had quite a few. I was sold without question. The lady who posted him, Kristy, had rescued him from the Orange County animal shelter the day before he was scheduled to be put down (on Christmas Eve!) Kristy has a side "hobby," if you will, of rescuing animals, rehabilitating them as needed, and adopting them out to safe forever homes.

The details are unclear as to how the shelter got Oscar, but his tail was broken and bloodied when he arrived, which led them to amputate it. He came down with an upper respiratory infection soon after, which was the cause for him to be put on the euthanize list.

Thankfully Kristy swept in and rescued him. His eyes were runny and he needed a lot of care to heal from his sickness. After the infection wore off, one of his eyes was still very weepy. A trip to the vet determined that he had a deformed eyelid, and the best course of action was to remove the whole eye. So Kristy had him all fixed up, and it was only after that part of Oscar's story that Jeremy and I met him. Kristy brought him to our apartment the day we adopted him, and he strutted out of the carrier into the living room with an immediate presence like he owned the place. He knew he belonged, and none of us have ever looked back.

Oscar's first day with us

Oscar is one of those cats that even non-cat people tend to like. He is very social and is always in the middle of the action. He is beyond quirky. One of his favorite things is to eat while I sit next to him, which is often part of our morning routine. He has jumped in the shower with me on a handful of occasions, or sits on top of the toilet next to the shower, meowing until I pet him with wet hands. He can be a bit ... intense (read: aggressive) and most of his intensity was focused on me when we first adopted him; still these days he will occasionally come out of nowhere and bite my ankles, or chase me around the house with his claws out- and not because he is being playful. He's been part of the family for over two years, but spent the early part of his life in who knows what situations, so I try to give him some grace and accept him where he is at. He was my first "baby" and I love him so. Oscar already had his name when we adopted him, and we thought it suited him too well to consider a change.

Emmylou

After a few months with Oscar, we talked about adding second cat to our family due to his craziness and intensity. He needed a companion animal to settle down. Around the same time, Kristy was helping a friend, Beth, with some cats that were living in a junkyard in Sunland. They were a large mix of cats, some friendly, others almost feral. Beth looked out for them, making sure they always had food and water, and determining when medical care was necessary, including trap, neuter, release (which is why Emmy's right ear has the tip cut off). Emmy (originally called Jackie) was caught and taken to the vet due to an infection in her eye- upon further inspection, it needed to be removed. While they had her, it was determined at some point she had likely lived in a home; she wasn't quite as skittish as a completely feral cat would have acted. So they sought out a home for her instead of releasing her back into the junkyard.

When Jeremy and I learned of her and saw that she too would be missing an eye, we figured she was the cat for us. Kristi and Beth brought Emmy to our apartment for a visit before she had her operation, and Oscar was ECSTATIC that there was another cat around. Emmy was not quite so excited, and spent most of the visit hiding from us or running away if we tried to get to her. Oscar followed he everywhere she went.

The first time they met, Oscar was so happy and intrigued

Shortly after her eye was removed, Emmy came to join our family. She took her time warming up to us and to Oscar. I wrote an extensive blog post about her acclimation to living with us after spending a few years in the junk yard, you can read it here. Oscar continued to follow her everywhere and I credit his personality for Emmy coming out of her shyness.

These days Emmy is almost as social as Oscar. Whenever we come home she runs to greet us at the door, and she often hangs out in plain sight, fully comfortable in her surroundings. She is very playful and loves to take her toys out of the basket we keep them in. She loves shoes, and rolls around on them and sleeps with her face in them- whenever we have company, it is guaranteed that Emmy will take over a new pair. When it's cold in the apartment, Emmy's favorite places to be are either directly in front of the heater, or curled up against our legs in bed at night. She loves to sleep on blankets, towels, and clean laundry, and she enjoys tearing packing paper into tiny pieces. Now that I'm cooking chicken again, Emmy hangs out under my feet whenever I'm in the kitchen, or she is under the table when we are eating, begging for us to share our food. I've joked with Jer over the past two years that maybe Emmy will go all the way and become a lap cat ... and I honestly don't think we are too far from that becoming a reality. She has become quite the sweetheart and loves to be loved.

Toni Wonder

Little Toni-cat was our "oops" cat. We had Oscar and Emmy for a few months, I was newly pregnant and my full-time job unexpectedly ended, and we were trying to sort out what life and finances were going to look like during my pregnancy and once our baby was born. I was teaching a preschool class for a homeschool co-op that met once a week at a church, and I pulled in to the parking lot one morning to find a tiny (3 pounds!) tortoiseshell kitten sitting out in the open. I approached her, and she nuzzled into my hands and let me pet her and love on her. Her purrs were loud and striking. I had to leave her there right then since I had preschool to get to, and it broke my heart; I thought about that kitten for the next three hours, and immediately looked for her during our break for lunch, but she was nowhere to be found. A few hours later when I was done with my day, I wandered around the parking lot for a while and resigned myself to the kitten being gone. But as I headed to my car, I heard one of the kids excitedly point out a cat, and just like that there she was again. She let me pick her up and she just purred and purred and purred. So of course I then took the most logical course of action- I tried to put her in my car. I failed the first time, but apparently didn't scare her away, and managed to get her in the car on my second attempt. As I drove home, she hid under the front passenger's side seat, and I called Jeremy to tell him "you married a crazy person."

Often Toni's purrs on my pregnant belly would make Harrison move around

I didn't fully expect to keep her, but I figured that living in the parking lot was not going to work out well for her. It was just one of those moments of acting first and thinking later. My initial thoughts were to find her a safe home with friends or friends of friends. But when Jer got home that day and she snuggled up on his lap and was so contented, he was the first to suggest we keep her. A few days later when we introduced her to Oscar and Emmy, everything just made sense and we knew she had to stay. We named her Toni so that we have an almost EGOT of cats. 

Since she was so friendly and accepting of me when I found her in the parking lot, I assumed that Toni would be our friendliest cat, wandering from person to person when we had guests, making herself known and snuggling and purring in their arms ... but she decided to save her adorable behavior for just Jeremy and me, and she hides in the closet whenever anyone so much as knocks on our door. When it's just me, Jer, and Harrison in the apartment, Toni's love knows no bounds. She is our lap cat, our constant talker, and the one who wakes us up in the middle of the night playing with our toes. You can hear her purr from the other side of the room. She is so patient with Harrison and has napped with him on many occasions. She found us and she claimed us, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

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I'm sure someday we'll get our EGOT; Grammy will join our family by happenstance and we'll know that he or she belongs with us, but for now we're very happy with three cats. If you're in Los Angeles and ever interested in adopting an animal who needs a loving family, please reach out; I'd be happy to point you in the right direction!