so full of Indian food goodness

First of all, a reminder to Fork that I still expect that response as to why photoradar is an invasion of privacy....

I went for an Indian food buffet tonight with a friend from school. It was good not only because of the food, but cause I haven't seen him all summer and it was good to catch up.

This morning I played a church service. I could get used to this kind of work - not in the sense that I want to work for a church.. cause we all know how I felt about that the first time... Rather, I quite enjoyed the aspect of walking in there 15 minutes before the service, looking over the hymns to play, then starting the service and then leaving. The service was only about an hour long and as I was leaving, I was thanked by many of the little old ladies and other people of the congregation who value the musical element of the service. The work pays very well and isn't all that taxing whatsoever. When I was playing at one specific church and that was my job, I put effort into learning preludes and postludes. Today I simply improvised the preludes and the postlude, and the hymns didn't involve the kind of practice I used to put into learning them for the organ. It's so appealing because I'm getting paid well by the hour for the time that I put in....
In terms of accompanying singers or instrumentalists, they pay you for the time you spend with them and then the performance, but what about the time you have to spend learning the music and rehearsing it on your own, before the other person enters the picture. To do this job dilligently, one might spend 8 hours of their own time and only be paid for maybe just 2 hours that the singer uses you for. As you become a better pianist and gain experience as an accompanist, or even having previosuly learned a piece, the amount of time you need to spend to prepare yourself for the rehearsals and performance decreases - therefore your time becomes more valuable as the years go by.
I'd like to think that this is the stage I have come to in terms of accompanying church services, where it takes me far less time to prepare than it did previously.

Hmm, what else did I do today.... Oh yes, I knit a hat. I'm very impressed with how it turned out and I might wear it as part of my back to school fashion outfit (HA!). Hmm, that reminds me that I should get some new clothes for back to school. Not that it should be time specific, but it is a justifiable time to buy new stuff for meself. Time for Value Village!! Oh and while I was knitting, fiona was eating chocolate and reading excerpts of Cosmo to me! what a life! that magazine is so funny and as if some of the articles aren't risqué enough, but Fi reading them takes them that extra little level of dirty.

Before we knit, Fi and I went to Wallymart to buy a birthday card. I ran into someone who I thought I might never have seen again, and it brightened my day to no end! His name is Regent, and I can easily say that he was the most influential part of my mid-late teenage years. In high school and for a bit after, I worked at a local pharmacy every weekend and a few evenings a week and Regent was one of our regulars. Every saturday and sunday morning all through high school, I would see and talk to Regent. In the summers, I would sometimes see him everyday. He was old, blunt, opionated, stubborn, smelly, funny, knowledgable, and certainly inappropriate at the best of times. As a retired man, he rarely had anything pressing going on so he would always spend sometimes upwards of an hour visiting the staff and customers. While many of the girls I worked with didn't enjoy his company, I always found something enjoyable about crazy ol Regent. I think my favorite quote that I heard so many times, and he probably still says, was "I'm the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and I'll beat the shit out of anyone who says different" or something like that. Anyway, he was an endless source of stories and lessons - even when they repeated themselves over again - during that time in my life. He taught me so much about life and it was great to run into him and chit chat for a very short time.

Hmm, tomorrow it's back to musical theatre! Unfortunately, this sightreading won't be as relaxing as the hymns, but I look forward to the challenge.