Beff's semester finishes today, and she is due home after dark tonight. Tomorrow night we take Big Mike out for Chinese buffet

But other than the weather -- boy, did it make everybody crabby, or stuffed up, or stuffed with crab, or generally moist -- what is most notable about this last week is its eventfulness. I already laid down the law in this space about how many pieces I was having performed and I could only make it to one of them (meanwhile, I have received several nice comments about E-Machines in NY from people I trust except for not having names of five letters). So after my three-day teaching week, I up and drove to Vermont to hear my new piano trio. But more about that later.

I did my standard teaching, with an extra independent study, on Monday and Wednesday (students in Fundamentals continued to stress over intervals, students in theory wanted to know how to get better than "ok" on their counterpoint exercises (MWA ha ha!), and Syrinx is a nice little piece to use as a model. On Tuesday I had a lunch scheduled with the director of The Bacchae, and was stood up. Standed up? Aufgesteht? After a delay, I got a guilty e-mail and tried to milk it a little. But just a little. And meanwhile, there was much, much counterpoint to correct, probably over 300 exercises. I hate it when the hardass in me comes out. After my teaching on Wednesday, I stopped at BJ's, decided that it was not a good thing that my color inkjet was no longer able to print onto photo paper, and I got a new HP all-in-one (my new exclusive printer supplier), some more Inko's (yes, they go fast), some fire logs, some tomatoes, a lo-o-o-o-ot of toilet paper, and other stuff I forget. I spent Wednesday afternoon and evening going through yet more applications.

So on Thursday morning, after a brief stop at Brand-x to drop off the application box, I up and drove up to Vermont. Norwich. Texas Tea. Y'all come back now. And was early enough that I met my players in a rehearsal and said hi, walked around downtown Norwich (it takes 57 seconds), and drove across the Connecticut River to Hanover, saw theDartmouth campus, parked at a CVS and walked around Hanover (it takes 3 minutes and 57 seconds) --- the best imitation I've ever seen of Williamstown or Annapolis, or a small Princeton. There I ate at Molly's, had Buffalo wings and salad, was obsequioused to, and drove down Route 10 to see where it would take me. Mostly, nowheresville, and then suddenly I was on Interstate 89 going back to Norwich. Cool.

After which I unpacked a bit and found my assigned bedroom. The performance was to be in the Congregational Church on the town green, and the house right next to it was vacant and made available. I got the kids room, with a bassinet and two single beds pressed up against a wall that sloped because of the roof (number of times I hit my head hard on the sloping wall/ceiling: 3. Number of times I hit my head hard: 3). I decided not to sleep in the bassinet. And meantime I cruised Norwich again, this time with more detail. And I got some chips and cherry tomatoes for snacking, and snack I did. By 4:45 I was ready for my 5:00 rehearsal (I always have little trouble with deadlines), and rehearse they did. It was coming together nicely and, as usual, I scratched my head in "what the heck was I thinkin'?" mode regularly. Then we went back to change, and went to a funder's house for dinner with funders. Which was a wild and crazeee event. I even met one of the amateurs from the Composers Conference/Chamber Music Center, who shared stories of doing the Wellesley thing. Then there was the drive back, and the sleep.

On Friday I had plenty of time to kill, so I got breakfast stuff, walked around downtown again (cumulative total: 2 minutes 51 seconds). After that was another rehearsal (it started to kick butt), after which I drove to the area of commerce in southern Lebanon (New Hampshire). There I visited Staples, BJs, Price Chopper, Borders, and who knows what else, and there I discovered a Seven Barrels Brew Pub. Where I had some of the house red, and Buffalo wings. These wings were way better than Molly's, and I felt fortunate to have shared a little of their existence with myself. And then I drove back and napped a little bit. Dinner had been scheduled with Galen and his significant other Christine back in Hanover, and I got there about 45 minutes early to scope out the town again. (Galen was an undergrad at Brandeis, took composition with me, and wrote the only Theory 1 minuet with thrown bows -- so far) During this time, it started to deluge, and we did --- Molly's. Christine got the Buffalo wings, I got the avacado chicken sandwich, and Galen got a CBC. We talked over old and new times, tried to pretend that he didn't look weird wearing a tie, took a few pictures, and off and went to theconcert in yet more bucketsful of rain.

And the concert was well-attended, my piece was quite well-received (damned if I know why), I put war paint on my face (not really -- I was just trying to see if you were still paying attention), there was a nice little reception in the back of the church, and after all of that, Curt and Judy et al made yet another meal, which I had to be polite and eat some of. It was over at 12:30, which was a good bed time, except that earlier would have been more appropriate. Judy is, of course, the great Judy Sherman, and Curt is the great Curt Macomber -- for the record, the other players in my piece were Jeanne Kierman and Norm Fischer, and boy did they have to learn a lot of notes. What thinkin' was I?

The deluge continued for my drive home on Saturday morning, but I was surprised near Lowell by a brief glimpse of solarity peeking through the overcast. When I got home, the sump pump was going off every half hour, it was kind of cold, the cats were glad to see me, and Beff also arrived just a little later, from Maine. Two days worth of mail was waterlogged (luckily most of it was junk), and Sam Nichols's dissertation had arrived and was flat on the front porch, quite waterlogged (it's currently drying with the hope of being readable within the next few days). The newer laceless sneakers in which I have been teaching had been left, by me, in thecomputer room, and while I was gone, the cats fished both of the insoles out ("fished" is a mild word -- the insoles were glued into the shoes) and laid them to rest several feet (pun intended) away. After some cleaning (all of it by Beff), we recreated, while it STILL RAINED. The roof, by the way, kept the attic very dry. And we probably eventually watched something on TV, after I made delicious and wholesome chicken sandwiches. Possibly the most delicious and wholesome in the history of the earth.

Meanwhile, Curt and Norm (see Vermont Musica Viva, above) seemed to salivate over the fact that I actually had a violin and cello duo -- it was written for choreography for Dinosaur Annex, and the dancer took off a hat and blouse in the performance. On purpose. And did some of that writhing stuff (not the way yeast writhes or the sun writheses every morning). And I had only gotten a VHS tape of the performance. A few years ago, Eric Chafe nicely converted it to DVD for me, and I needed a way to get the sound off the DVD. I had done it once, but that file died with the old HP (note: HP is printer supplier, not necessarily computer supplier. Except that it is), so I tried capturing the sound with a shareware program. Which had apparently expired, because I got a minute of white noise per five seconds of actual sound. So I paid the modest shareware fee for it, noticed that the same company had a video grabber, too, paid for that, and started taking little QuickTime movies of things I had only on DVD -- including a bit of "Boy in the Dark". And the Sibling Revelrys. (yesterday I captured a bit of Singin' in the Rain to use in Fundamentals -- but I am both ahead of and behind myself because I exist in more than four dimensions) Around all of that activity, both Beff and I did a LOT of grading and correcting -- and I gave my first "good" on a second species exercise. To which I later added a green star. And in the late morning we took a walk, the long way, into Maynard, where we noticed that the old covered up railroad tracks in back of the new luxury condos have been turned into a walking path, and possibly a future bike path. To celebrate, we took other old tracks on the way back, and the twain met yet again (Beff says I'm in my twain phase, and I wish I had a joke using "choo choo" to put here). While in town, I got new insoles at CVS (I've never done that before) and cut them up to fit when I got home (I've also never done that before). I got blue gel cushioned ones. I've never done that before.

Speaking of weather (which I was way before all these other paragraphs intervened), the fall foliage is very late this year. Most of our trees are still green or just very slightly turned, and by this date last year I was raking, raking, raking, raking ... up to 101.5 barrels. The big wind of yesterday and today has loosened quite a lot of pine needles, but so many of the leaves are on the trees that ... oh well, you make up your own joke here. So raking has to wait, and that means, dear readers, that you should make plans beginning a week from now to help out. And not just by singing "99 barrels of leaves on the trees, 99 barrels of leaves .. and when the wind blows, down one barrel goes, 98 barrels of leaves on the trees ..." because it's my song, and what it is, too. And we have set a new record for latest in the season to turn the heat on for the first time. Normally I try to hold off until October 15, but last year did so in late September. In Maryland, we made that date November 1 (and didn't always make it), and in Maine September 30 (made it easily this year). So far, the heat has yet to be turned on either by me or Beff. Which is probably fine, because the AA battery that moves the time cylinder in the thermostat got used up. It had been there for four years, so it was certainly cost-effective. As a big duh, I replaced it.

Beff and I both got BMI checks to cover international performances and radio play. I was fortunate that an internet broadcast of "Close Enough for Jazz" brought in a whole penny (I'm betting they rounded up). The other stuff kept the amount from being embarrassing. I got some Netherlands play. Beff got play in several places, some of which I forget. And I got no royalties for the Art of the States stuff, and I don't think I am supposed to.

Review this morning in the NY Times of the Powerhouse Pianists concert from last Saturday. As there were ten composers represented, I got the usual sentence. The reviewer astutely figured out that there are repeated notes in E-Machines.

W's approval rating hits yet another all-time low. It's about time the rest of the country got to be as smart as me 'n' Beff.

Since it was an eventful week, there are plenty of new little movies to look at, and I've kept the cat movies of the last two weeks up here. In yellow text on the left, note the two existing cat movies, a sped-up movie of me driving Route 89 in New Hampshire, a sped-up movie of the clouds moving on Sunday morning, the current torrent going over the Ben Smith dam (compare to the trickle exposing the walls of the dam scant weeks ago), the torrent going under Main Street in Maynard, and a little movie of a toy I got in Hanover that will be a prize for the championship of some species yet to be determined. In the ten pictures below, we have the venue for the concert, the inside as seen from the balcony, the trio getting ready to rehearse (left to right: Curt, not Curt, not Curt), Galen and Christine at dinner (note Buffalo wing sauce on fingers), the brew pub, a page from the cello part of my piece, the dam Sunday morning, the new path, a view from a window in the church, and the older train path. Gonzo.

OCTOBER 25. Breakfast this morning was Boca meatless sausages, orange juice, and coffee. Dinner was a Freschetta pizza. Lunch was Buffalo wings and a sour pickle. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK 32.2 and 66.2. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Thinking of You" by Kalmer and Ruby. LARGE EXPENSES this last week are a few things at Amazon, amount not remembered. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: My parents kept a cute little notebook of funny things I said when I was very young. From this notebook, we learn that my brother's name for me was "Dready", though in the book it is spelled "Dreddy". We had a crabapple tree on the side of the house, and I used to like to pick and eat them -- the sour thing, dontcha know. According to the book, once I was told not to pick them, picked them anyway, and covered my tracks by saying that I was only picking the leaves. Of course I have no memory of any of this. COMPANIES WHO HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY THIS WEEK are none. COMPANIES WHO HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY are none. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Are there any more puns I haven't heard on "leave" and "leaf"? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: snop. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF this week is the word "Nor'easter" on weather maps. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Real (tm) Pickles, red beer of various sorts, jalapeno stuffed olives, Buffalo wings. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK the changes to "Over the Rainbow". THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 6, but don't quite me on that. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: Just this page. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK are a few small insects. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK: 5. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 22 out of 47. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: certain suspensions of the laws of space and time. THIS WEEK'S FEATURED FAKE SENDER NAME IN A SPAM: gepnwgub@mundoanimal.com. SUBJECT OF THAT SPAM: Hello ! FBvb AgwVpmP. FEATURED FIONA APPLE LYRIC: Please please please. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.49 a gallon. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a half-diminished seventh chord without resolution, a third species counterpointe exercise, a dripping faucet, a poster for the 1960s run of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown".

Might as well talk about the weather some more. On Friday morning on the weather widget's radar for the area, there was a spot of white precipitation (snow to you and me) and some pink (sleet or mixed) that seemed to go right over us before changing to rain. There had been no prediction of same, but there sure was one that morning -- a little behind the eight ball this time. There actually wasn't any such precip, but I see from our temperature extremes that we got close to a temperature where that would be possible. Dreary weather continues this week, and as I type this, a "major Nor'easter" is forming just off the coast (I can't wait to see a Nor'easter that isn't major), and it will combine some forces with Wilma and Alpha. So far what we get is rain, rain, and some occasional big winds.

Which is finally blowing some leaves off of these trees. Two weeks late, the trees lining the driveway are turning salt and pepper green and yellow, and not a pretty shade, either. The driveway is officially leaf-covered, but it is still quite a while before the place is rakable. Too many leaves on the trees makes for repeat work. Though I am prepared to give a running tally of barrels of leaves raked and put away: one. On Saturday morning, before yet another storm emptied out upon us, we brought in the picnic table and chairs and the hammock (the Adirondack chairs are still out there in vain hopes of another Indian summer -- that and the electricians still have to plaster some of the ceiling on the porch where we store them in the winter), and did the yearly ritual of raking down and mowing the hostas that line the front walk. The ritual is always the same: I huff and puff something about my masculinity, Beff gets a rake (this year she counted how many we have: 5), rakes the hostas flat, I mow them down, and Beff rakes up the detritus. This year the detritus filled a barrel, Beff transferred it to the barrel, I brought it to the discard area, after which I tore down a whole mess of vines in preparation for another 70 or 80 barrels making their way there. I marveled that 5 years ago the discard area -- which was not a discard area at the time -- was overgrown with ailanthuses of various sizes, and now it's just a big ... discard area, framed by neighboring yards and a year's worth of big fallen limbs. Or maybe two years worth. Actually, they're not all fallen -- I did a major trim in April of some cedar branches encroaching into the back back yard. Why do I bother when we never actually use the yard except to mow its grass? Dunno.

Our only other actual exercise for the week was a walk downtown, at which I discovered a new yuppie earth-healthy art artifacts store. Here there was available for purchase various classic vinyl albums that had been reshaped into platters, serving dishes, etc.For twenny-six bucks, we got a copy of Stevie Wonder's Talking Book that had been refashioned into an olive serving tray. Boy, now they'll see that I'm really serious about my earth-smart geegaws conversation pieces.

The other exercise of the week, for me, was installing the storm window in the attic (successfully) and all the other storm windows except for two in the master bedroom. I can never do that without getting at least one thumb bleed, and this year was no exception.

Meantime. Theory, composition, and fundamentals chug along. Fundamentals had a quiz yesterday which, despite my not having finished grading them all, I can report they seem mostly to have aced. And I got to play a funny scene from Singin' in the Rain where Lena Lamont lip syncs to Kathy Selden singing the tune, and asks for the key of A-flat. Of course, it's actually in E-flat in the movie. So they had to transpose the sucker to both keys. Soon I will be playing them part of the Wizard of Oz in order to introduce the 32-bar song form, lead sheet, and figured bass. Figured bass for Somewhere Over the Rainbow looks pretty funny, actually. Especially the V7 chord over the pedal tonic in the bridge. In theory, we are about to zoom through third species and finally get to my fave -- uh, fourth. In composition, they are writing solo flute pieces and do not know yet that next Thursday Eric Chasalow is going to read through them in class.

In Fundamentals, I decided to waste some precious teaching time by showing them examples of my exotic (cheap) percussion instrument collection, and Monday was the vibraslap. I played a few Brand New Heavies excerpts and pointed to the vibraslap usage, and one student knew what it was -- she said she had to play it because she was in a group that did a "cake song". Confusion wracked my brain. In 1989, Sean Varah showed up as a composition student in my office at Stanford and said he wanted help writing a "bicycle tune", which was a concept unfamiliar to me then as it still is now. But a cake song? There's AWB's "Cut the Cake" and Happy Birthday, of course, but otherwise it was a genre unfamiliar to me. It took input from Big Mike and Carolyn (double ka-ching) to convince me that "Cake" is the name of a band (iTunes confirms that) and that a "cake song" has a parallel function to, say, a "Madonna song" or a "Fountains of Wayne song". And I voted for them for Best New Artist.

Which reminds me -- the Grammy ballot is in. Yet another strange time-consuming task. And Weather Bug chirped at me, letting me know, as it often does, that an advisory posted long ago is still in effect (a day and a half ago, flood watch and wind advisory were posted, and every once in a while, the NWS likes to remind me that they haven't forgotten about their precious little advisories).

And this weekend Dan Stepner gave the Irving Fine concert, including a performance of my solo violin piece When the Bow Breaks. Some very serious people asked me about the significance of the title (I said there was none), and sensible people ignored me entirely. So on Saturday after our hosta-thon, we both drove to Brandeis for Dan's dress rehearsal, I made a few comments about phrasing, and we drove, new 30-dollar Staples coupon in hand, toward Route 2A. We got a bunch of exotic stuff -- including "five pepper" stuffed olives -- mostly beers we'd never seen before. Beff, meanwhile, started having sneezing fits, and I made sure to get lemons at Trader Joe's for what we call "remedy" -- lemon and honey in hot water. I got other stuff at Trader Joe's, including some Beffstuff for Bangor, and when we got home, it was an afternoon and evening night with a fire in the fireplace with us on the couch. I had a lot of homework to grade, of course, and Beff was reading a book. After which we continued our Veronica Marsathon -- ten episodes aired over the whole weekend. I've decided I like the show, though I get a Twin Peaksish feeling about what they're going to do once the big murder case is solved. Plus, Veronica's dad is played by a guy who was in Just Shoot Me, and Galaxy Quest, and occasionally we repeat his lines in the funny alien voice he used in the latter movie. And Veronica Mars's acting reminds me of Buffy, though Beff claims she has a broader range. I swear. Alas, I read in a story in Entertainment Weekly who the killer is, so now it's just filling in the blanks in between.

There was very low-level home improvement stuff over the weekend, and that involves a wrench and a screwdriver. Both doorbells send a wireless signal that is picked up by a receiver up in the hall upstairs, and they had stopped working. So I had to make a special Ace Hardware trip to get the special batteries -- they are marked "SECURITY" on them -- for the two doorbells, and the receiver itself takes C batteries. We use them so little that the package said "use by January 2004" -- they still work. And meanwhile, on Wednesday morning I got no flow from the showerhead. This has happened on both faucets, where normally I unscrew the filter element and blow through it so the mineral deposits go away. I didn't have time for any real plumbing, so I washed my hair in the sink, went to school, told Beff she'd have to deal with it when she got in, but when I got back from work on Wednesday, I asked about some special solution for soaking out mineral deposits, and was directed to a big container of CLR (calcium, lime, rust). While there, I drooled over the showerhead selection, and also bought one that has a valve for variable flow. Then, the actual plumbing part -- taking off the old shower head and putting on the new one -- took exactly three minutes. Of which two minutes twenty-seven seconds was finding the good wrench. So I'm clean, I'm clean!

Or, in the words of Dorothy Gale, we must be over the rainbow.

And I started reading Sam Nichols's dissertation, which dried out enough for me to do so. So far, not a lot of markings except questions as to what consonance and dissonance means in George Benjamin's music, but it's a dense read. As well it might be.

As I type this Tuesday morning, I have still not graded all of my 36 quizzes and 20 homeworks and who knows how many species counterpoints. And I am supposed to have lunch with Eric Hill today and do a panel for the Brandeis Festival of the Arts. Meanwhile, it's downright ugly out there, and I feel very slightly that I might be getting what Beff had -- right now for some reason the contact lenses are a litte more painful than they usually are, and I am tearing (rhymes with fearing) somewhat.

So THIS weekend is my time to go to Bangor, just because Beff has so much stuff that she can't get to Maynard for the weekend. I have to get back by 11 on Saturday morning, as that is when Maynard Door and Window is coming by to look at the flashing on the mud room roof, the window we want to replace in the computer room, and a strategy for putting a fan in the bathroom. So much stuff. And then on Sunday finally we have our first search committee meeting. I hate it when that happens. Meanwhile, the week after, I do a colloquium at Boston Conservatory, and you don't. And Carolyn (ka-ching) is talking about a leaf-raking party for the first weekend of November. Now we're a-talkin'. Hopefully, on Thursday and Friday of that week the big rewiring will finally be finished.

Among other little tasks was to assemble an html catalog of stuff I've put in my webspace. Not for web publication, just for my own amusement. Plus, I planned the rest of the semester's composition class, and dreamed trampoline dreams. Beff decided to do a cat video piece with instruments and we found the big Christopher Smart cat poem from Jubilate Agno, which we played with somewhat. So I transferred the full-quality versions of all our cat movies to Beff's working hard disk, and took some more movies -- evidence of same in the yellow text on the left.