We spent last weekend in Southern California, sweltering through a heat wave at Disneyland, being tourists in Hollywood, and attending the world premiere of Wall-E at the Greek Theatre. Getting to go was Susan’s privilege as a lead on the film and I got to tag along and pretend to be famous. Although not your A-list Hollywood event, there was still a red carpet scrum which we were mostly tangential to. Susan claims her foot is visible somewhere in a publicity photo next to some Disney Channel starlet, while I as usual am the invisible, not even implied presence. We did play spot the celebrity and at the after party, we hovered for a moment, one mere foot away from Sigourney Weaver (she’s the voice of the ship’s computer in Wall-E) - alas we were too awestruck to introduce ourselves.

That wasn’t the first time I’ve seen the film; that would be the end of last month at the Wall-E wrap party. A lovely event, made more so by an especially touching thanks from the director to the crew. As for the movie itself, I’ve sat through it three times now and it holds up well. It is truly unlike anything we’ve ever done and works brilliantly.

In other news, CSUEB orchestra is done for the school year. This term our cello section was reduced to three (yours truly as principal this time around), but we padded out the rest of the strings with more professionals and we sounded excellent at the concert. We have come a long way since last September. The program this term was the Marriage of Figaro Overture, Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, KV. 488. The last was weird: the first concerto I ever played with orchestra back when I was ten. Two decades later and I’m on the other side of the piano playing cello. No real regrets, just a small irony. Cello’s not in storage for the summer. I’ve been dragooned into playing the bass part for some Slayer noodling at work. An honest to goodness bass amp has been ordered and is on its way. More on this furious acoustic metal assault soon.

As of last weekend, Susan and I are now finally engaged! Here’s the proposal story:

Saturday May 3rd was the fifth year anniversary of our first date - the Finding Nemo wrap party - and I decided that was going to be the big day. I had the diamond since a little before Christmas (hidden in a box of Lego around the house, which was pretty much the last place Susan was going to look), but decided to wait until Susan had finished up on Wall-E before popping the question. Susan and I also hadn’t celebrated that particular anniversary before, so there was also a nice element of surprise to the date. I had the ring set last month, which involved subterfuge (and some fibbing - sorry Susan) on two consecutive weekends. The last step was to work up the courage to call her parents the week before. Mr and Mrs. Fisher were very nice but they also said they were going to pop a prompt congratulatory card in the mail. That card arrived on Monday - talk about not leaving any room for chickening out!

The plan was dinner at Masa’s Restaurant in San Francisco - fancy French food in a romantic setting. This was actually my second choice, but I couldn’t get reservations at Gary Danko. Since I could only get a 9 pm reservation, I decided to also book a room at the attached hotel (the Executive Vintage Court) as driving back across the Bay Bridge late at night didn’t seem like a great end to the occasion.

So, on Friday night I made a nonchalant suggestion of going out for a dinner on Saturday. Impending minor catastrophe: Susan wasn’t keen on a late dinner, and suggested Sunday. When I shrugged, she said something to the effect of “well, at least I now know it wasn’t a proposal dinner”. I am proud that I didn’t give it away right then and there. I did spend part of that night sleepless in bed staring at the ceiling fretting about the weekend plans.

Saturday morning I presented Susan with an anniversary card and strongly suggested that it would be really nice if we could go out for dinner that night, since I’d actually made reservations to celebrate our anniversary. Fortunately this went over much better than the night before. I spent most of the day in Marin at a chamber music workshop with the rest of the piano trio. Got home, got dressed in a jacket and tie (Masa’s is fancy!), and drove into the city with Susan. When we parked at the garage, and handed Susan a pair of tennis shoes, she knew something was up. I’d furtively packed in secret on Friday and Saturday and had left our overnight things in the trunk, remembering almost everything we needed for the hotel. I’d actually planned ahead, even ensuring Kaylee got walked on Sunday morning when we weren’t home.

Dinner was amazing, although when we looked down at our plates at the first course of the tasting menu - I think I had one solitary octopus tentacle on my plate nestled amongst a few greens - we thought, “wow, we might have to fill up on bread today”. (Actually, what we thought was: my mom is right about French food.) However, six delicious courses and three hours later we were actually full! I lacked the courage to propose during dinner, but when we got back to our hotel room, after a few minutes of puttering and working up the nerve, I said “I have one more thing..” and pulled out the ring box from my jacket. I got down on my knees and asked Susan to marry me. Then I handed her the box. Oops. This was apparently the glitch of the evening that we will be talking about at the wedding. I didn’t know about the entire sliding the ring on the finger part of the procedure. Thankfully she teared up and said yes.

That’s the proposal story. Sorry, it was a bit traditional and didn’t involve something crazy like Lego minifigs (not that I didn’t think about it.) We spent the following day in San Francisco shopping for Susan’s Wall-E wrap party dress and dropped off her ring to get sized. She had to live without it for a few days (we did substitute a Lego piece attached to the tension clasp that the diamond came with), but now it’s permanently attached to her finger as she freaks out about planning weddings in Northern California.

So there’s that orchestra thing I do, every Wednesday I lug my cello to Cal State East Bay in Hayward, dump fourteen quarters into a parking meter, and practice for a couple of hours. Our spring end of quarter concert is coming up next Wednesday, March 5th. We’re playing Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn, and Gluck’s Overture to Iphigénie en Aulide. 7:30 in the Music Building Recital Hall. Request your ticket online!.

A few comments about orchestra these last two months. Everyone else in the cello section who was around last quarter is gone. I was the sole cellist for the first three practices, then a ringer from the SF symphony and a high school student showed up. Ringer is gone, but I think he’ll be back for the concert. Meanwhile, it’s been me and the student, who is now the principal of the section. Roz probably thinks I’m annoyed at this, but she showed up and, while sight reading, played the music on the spot better than I after having practiced for three weeks, so .. yeah, she deserves to be there, I don’t.

Susan told me that I’m a cocky cellist based on the amount of practicing I’ve been doing (i.e: none). While I’m probably over confident in some areas, piano probably among them, I don’t think that’s true of cello. I feel like I’m slogging uphill, every step of the way. The Brahms Variations with its five flats in some sections proves that I’m still intonation challenged when it comes to any flats. G flat? Forget it. F sharp? Sure, no problem. Yes, I know it’s the same note, but put the G flat next to an A flat and suddenly I’m the guy playing sour notes in the lower strings. The one area I’ve realised some progress on: while I rarely pencil in bowings (there’s that cockiness again..), that’s partially because I can actually come up with sensible bowings on the spot, or at least remember them from week to week. I’m not at the level of deciding how to bow a phrase based on musical merits - don’t ask me how to bow the Bach Suites, please - but at least I understand that bar beginnings and sforzandos should be down bows, certain staccato phrases are probably easier up bow, and that the string sections should be more or less consistent.

Somewhere I picked up the habit of pencilling stars into my music. I wonder who I got THAT from, and how many stars of hers I ignored over the years.

I’ve been neglecting blog lately. Fifty hour work weeks, chamber music activities for the last three weekends (playing piano, not cello, even though two weekends were devoted to cello sonatas), plus family in town and the last thing I’ve been wanting to do is bang out a screed on the keyboard. Nonetheless here’s one to round out the second month of the year.

The majority of my friends and peers have always been older than I am, so carping about my new status as a trigenarian garners little to no sympathy. I seek solace instead in a poem by one of my favorite authors, Lewis Carroll, from Alice in Wonderland: “Father William”.

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head–
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,
“I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door–
Pray, what is the reason of that?”

“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,
“I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment — one shilling the box –
Allow me to sell you a couple?”

“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak–
Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose–
What made you so awfully clever?”

“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”
Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I’ll kick you down-stairs!”

It’s one of those times in my life where I have too much going on. Came down with a cold, but mostly recovered in time to spend last week in Vancouver with family; Dad included, first time in seven years. Dad gave me a Leica M6 camera and lens, and I’m now faced with the daunting proposition of learning to shoot film after using point-and-shoot digital exclusively. I have a chamber music workshop this upcoming weekend, playing piano both days: two Brahms piano quartets to prepare. We’ve been training Kaylee, working with a dog trainer every Saturday for an hour and working on her D-O-W-Ns during the rest of the week. And then there’s a silly Lego minifig customization project I’ve been working on, involving everything from Krylon Fusion paint, boiling Sculpey, drawing in Illustrator, and printing water slide decals.

The biggest time commitment that I signed up for: I’m again a cellist in a real de facto orchestra! Classical this time, not punk rock. I auditioned for the orchestra at California State University two weeks ago, which meant buying new strings, actually practicing the cello, and dusting off the default audition piece: Prelude from Bach’s D Minor Suite No. 2. Amusingly, I recognized the sight reading immediately: the 3rd movement from Beethoven’s Fifth. Honestly hadn’t played it, but I knew very well how it was supposed to sound.

I got in, which may have had something to do with the orchestra being hard up for strings. I discovered just how hard up last night at first rehearsal: strings consisting of one first and two second violins, three violas, and three cellos. Fortunately we have a full wind and brass section, and they are very good. They consist mostly of students - as I understand it, due to budget cutbacks CSUEB had terminated their orchestra program a few years ago, resulting in the mass departure of the string students. The winds and brass programs remained intact though. As for us strings, currently it’s a mix of community members and students, and I anticipate any expansion will have to come from the community in the next few weeks.

Oddity I can’t get over: people think I have a nice cello. I don’t, really; it’s a crappy “Stradivarius copy” with wooden tone - although it’s much improved with a new set of Pirastro Obligatos - but some of the other musicians play school rental instruments. Not trying to sound like a snob, but I’m surprised that at the university level, people still play rentals. I guess I was spoiled while I was at the Academy. (Or just spoiled in general.)

We plowed through Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night Dream overture and made a hash of it, but started hitting our stride with Beethoven’s first symphony. As we played it, I started grinning as I found and reactivated long-unused neurons that had actually played the fairly challenging cello part over fifteen years ago while in the Delta Youth Orchestra. Rounding out our current repertoire is some interminable Bach, and Copland’s Quiet City (cello solo, treble clef - gack). Quite ambitious! Our first concert is the first week of December. Before then, I have some cello calluses to develop, and some major intonation issues involving C sharps on the G string to work out. Should be fun.

We drove up to Ashland this past Friday to attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, since we both needed the R&R away from our computers for a weekend. I’d driven through Ashland before on my way from Seattle to Oakland, and thought it to be one of those quaint towns where we could spend a day browsing art galleries and crafty stores, ala Port Angeles or Carmel. Turns out in Ashland, “The play’s the thing” - that, and eating; we had an excellent dinner at the Winchester Inn and there were plenty of nice restaurants in town to choose from. But besides dinner and a show, there’s not that much to do: the art galleries are spread out, not terribly inviting, and there weren’t any particularly interesting quaint stores.

Which isn’t to say the Ashland theatrical experience wasn’t worth it. We went on the backstage tour Saturday morning given by a local playwright/dresser. The acting company is obviously passionate about their work, and it shows in just how much work goes into it, not just from the actors but the vast number of support staff - set dressers, light, sound, costume, and even video designers. As the tour wound its way around the three theatres we were able to see first hand the stagehands all working to switch from “Taming of the Shrew” to “Tempest” in one theatre, “Distracted” to “Tartouffe” in another. Our guides anecdotes were amusing and informative, including the requisite stories about near disasters, last minute understudy replacements, and women masquerading as male swashbucklers in “Cyrano de Bergarac” who had to be repeatedly warned to not upstage the rest of the crew.

We only had time for “The Tempest” in the outdoor Elizabethan theatre Saturday night. It was well done, mostly in period costume and not strangely altered (apparently this year’s “Romeo and Juliet” was controversially modernized in both costume and dialogue - you don’t mess with the Bard’s words, man). Slightly marred by Gonzalo played by an understudy who was reading off a script, but I guess something must have happened to the main actor to justify it. Alas, The Tempest is still not high on my list of preferred Shakespeare; I’d hoped seeing it live would change my opinion, but it didn’t. Prospero has some really good lines, but I still just don’t get the play. Too much magic, perhaps, or Prospero just doesn’t seem like a believable character to me - not vengeful enough? Actually, just not entirely convincing, especially in his change of heart. And Caliban’s role is almost too pathetic to be either sympathetic or villainous, although the actor who portrayed him did an excellent job.

Susan’s been out of the hospital for over a week now, and things are slowly settling back down to some semblance of a normal routine. She spent six bedridden days in the transplant recovery ward at UCSF waiting for her digestive tract to be stable enough to take medicines orally. Somewhere in the middle of those days was Valentine’s Day, marked by a high glucose reading/rejection scare and a late night ultrasound test (fortunately, all good); and the day after, my birthday, marked by Kaylee getting attacked by a homicidal German Shepherd during our morning walk (fortunately, no blood drawn). Not the best occurrences of those two annual events.

Now she’s at home and adjusting to a new, insulin-free routine: close monitoring of health readings, medicine regimen, and weekly trips to the hospital; plus twice weekly blood draws to help watch for any signs of rejection. So far not quite the blood chemistry isn’t quite perfect, but hopefully that’ll be sorted out with adjustments in medicine dosages in the next few weeks - knock on wood!

Otherwise, she’s mostly just bored, spending a lot of time on the couch as she waits for her abdominal muscles to strengthen. Meanwhile, we’re all very familiar with disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizers - all of us except the dog, that is, who is her usual obliviously unsanitary self. The two of us couldn’t have made it through this without the help of her mom and dad, who while I’m at work are at home entertaining the patient, walking the dog, and housekeeping. What would we do without parents?

We spent most of Thursday waiting in uncertainty for Susan’s pancreas transplant surgery. The bad weather here (rain storm) delayed organ transport, and they still needed to verify the organs once they arrived. Then there was some issue about separating the organs. Finally, Susan was wheeled in for her surgery at 11 pm last night. The surgeon came out at 2:40 am this morning and declared it a success! The transplant went as smoothly as could be hoped and the organ when delivered was in excellent condition. Susan’s parents flew in this afternoon and we visited her in the intensive care unit, she’s doing well. (UCSF puts transplant patients in the ICU as a matter of routine.) Lots of drugs delivered via lots of tubes. She’s sleeping most of the time, nauseous due to painkillers and the strong anti-rejection meds, but able to carry on a conversation when she’s woken up (although she falls back asleep easily). She’s already off insulin as hoped. Her blood glucose is still a little high but the doctors expect it to come down as her new organ adjusts after being on ice for so long. Since she seems to be doing well - blood pressure and heart rate are good - we’re hoping she can be out of the ICU sooner than expected and into the recovery ward for the next week.

Those of you who read my better half’s blog may know that for the last few months, she’s been on the transplant list for a new pancreas. She got THE CALL today.. we dropped everything, hightailed it over to UCSF, waited around for over three hours, and then found out the donor’s family had changed their mind at the last moment, wanted to give him or her another two days to wake up. So we might go through all this again in the next few, or if not, still sounds like it’ll be soon. Fingers crossed!

3:09 am: It’s a go again - Susan’s admitted,  done some pre-op prep, and assuming the organ is viable she’ll be in surgery in late morning or early afternoon. She’s hopefully  asleep. Going to catch a few Zs myself, back at the hospital in five hours.

In 2006, I:

• sold my house in Seattle and moved in with Susan in Oakland;
• went to my first geek convention;
• went on a fantastic vacation in Turkey;
• was sick for a month;
• joined an orchestra as a cellist, then watched it slowly collapse;
• finally found people to play chamber music with, and learned two entire piano trios;
• didn’t climb a single rock;
• took golf lessons - and avoided cruel punishment for it;
• went home to Vancouver once and ate enough dim sum for a year;
• reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen for a combined total of twenty four years;
• read four five of Patrick O’Brian Aubrey-Maturin seagoing novels - only sixteen more to go;
• went to three college football games and one NHL game;
• saw ten movies in theatres, watched too much reality television;
• bought my first new car, sold my old one on eBay;
• temporarily betrayed my main toy squeeze and bought way too many Transformers;
• started allergy shots - and had anaphylaxis three times as a result of a shot;
• got a dog;
• saw another Pixar movie released;
• somehow got my name on another published paper;
• got a patent with my name on it granted;
• learned too much about assembly, multithreading, and in general worked too hard;
• went to two American states I’ve never been to before;
• wrote 7980 words in 23 blog entries (not including this one).

So much for 2006. Bring on 2007!