Fall cometh, sax vs. bass clarinet, biceps and a new iMac
Well, it’s now September. Every September 1, I have a ritual of listening to David Sylvian’s “September.”
It was neat to see in the comments on that video that I’m not the only one who does that every September 1, and furthermore, I’m not the only one who also posts it onto Facebook.
We’re an odd bunch, us David Sylvian fans, I guess. But in a good way.
Speaking of music, I’m now into my second month of renting the bass clarinet. And I debated just buying it, but I still think I’ll be able to get a better deal next year when I’ve moved to the United States.
Plus the one I’m renting has some wobbly keys and also I do find assembling the clarinet awkward, especially because it’s a Yamaha that uses rubber O-rings at the bottom and middle joint, which probably makes for better sealing against leaks but then I’m always worried that I might break something because it’s difficult to assemble and take apart.
So I think I’d rather buy a different model.
And this one would set me back a couple grand, even though it’s a used one.
Here’s the thing: while I do love the sound of a bass clarinet, I also like the sound of an alto or tenor saxophone. And those can be had much cheaper. In fact, I can get one of each on eBay for less than I’d pay for this bass clarinet, with money to spare. I might have to use up that spare money on getting the saxes serviced, but still.
So I’ve added a shitload of listings to my eBay watch list. And I’ve already received some special offers from a couple sellers on alto saxes.
Hmm… I’m tempted to hold onto the bass clarinet over the winter anyway, but then again, might as well return it now.
I might even go do that this afternoon, actually.
It’ll be a rainy drive, but I kinda like driving in the rain. The weather has changed, which has lit a fire under my brother’s butt about applying for his temporary residency in Mexico this winter, but I don’t mind it. Makes for good scented candle-burning ambiance.
I’ve started walking earlier in the day again instead of having to wait for dusk and hoping the temperature would have come down enough that I wouldn’t be miserable even then. I’ve even started adding some of the hillier routes in again, which I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do in the July heat.
Hills of course will blast my ass and thighs more than just walking on the flat areas. Today was my first-Saturday-of-the-month weigh-in and measurement taking, and while I only dropped a half-pound this month, I lost at least a quarter of an inch on every measurement except for my calves, which stayed the same. And I lost a whopping 3/4″ on my biceps, which is shocking since I normally do 1/8″ or maybe 1/4″ and usually nothing.
I guess being more diligent with lifting weights made an impact in at least one spot!
What else… the giant pile of mulch has finally been removed from my driveway. Not because I had anything to do with it, though: I was going to leave it there til October since shovelling sucks and shovelling in warm weather really sucks. However, my dad got sick of looking at it and one afternoon came over and moved the whole thing into two piles on the back patio, all in the space of about an hour and a half.
See, it would have taken me several evenings of an hour and a half each.
I will still have to do some shovelling come October, when I will spread it into some of the back flowerbeds.
Speaking of October, I tend to consider September to be October Eve, which means I have started the main Halloween decorating. First up, the Lemax displays, but I wrote a post about that yesterday that you can check out.
Here’s just one taste:
In the course of digging out all the Lemax boxes, I went through and did an initial purge of other Halloween decorations to drop off at Value Village in Victoria. When I go through and pull everything out and actually set the rest of the stuff up, I’m sure I’ll find a lot more that I won’t want to be hauling to the US next year.
Ditto when I haul out the Christmas crap come November.
What else… I think I might have mentioned last week that I planned to get a new iMac for the purposes of livestreaming. I fetched that on Tuesday and am blogging from that now, with the iMac set up under the skylight in the master bedroom. It works pretty well, other than I have it set up on my vanity so I have to move it to dig through and fetch makeup, but hey, I tend to be lazy and not wear any.
Also, I’ll have to haul up a higher chair from downstairs as the vanity bench is a little low for typing.
Still, my posture is I’m sure better than being hunched over my laptop at my desk downstairs… which I also still do a lot of out of habit and so I don’t just live my whole life in my bedroom.
Anyway, I guess I have a bass clarinet to return before Long & McQuade closes, so let’s wrap this up with a few pics from the garden, now with bonus rain:
