Day Sixty One

This may be wordy. I'm extremely stir crazy. I've been in the house trying to get better as fast as possible since Christmas Eve. 

I'm watching Family Matters. I never saw the last episode of this TGIF favorite. I can tell I'm getting close to the end of the series because urkle looks 30 and there's some random second actress playing harriet. I read that she only was on for something like 7 episodes. I guess it's kind of sad but watching older shows like this gives me that warm tingly nostalgia. I'm fondly recalling sleepovers at my Aunt Kim's house. Being so harshly removed from my deep sofa bed sleep by my cousin Olivia pulling my eyelids apart. Like if I could just manage to keep my eyes shut, maybe she'd think I hadn't woken up yet and she'd go back to sleep too. Guess I wasn't the smartest kid, but I was tired, and hopeful.

So, I mentioned I've been sick. I'm getting better, but because I've been cooped up, I haven't gotten any good pictures. So I'm cheating and pulling out an older one. 

This is from the week before finals in 2006. Um... Connecticut somewhere. I forget how I wound up on Maria's back. I wanted to post this picture because in my cross PA drive last week, I got to thinking about my first day back in 2006. I was so anxious when I pulled up to Ridgefield Park that I didn't even want to get out of the car. I wanted to turn around and throw up in the movie theater. There (of course) had been a ton of gossip and ridiculous stories told about me and I wasn't sure what I was walking back into. But when I walked over to the pit for the first time, before I even got there, Dan ran over and gave me a huge hug and told me how happy he was that I was there. I think that was what set the stage for what turned out to be a great season. People weren't really sure what to think about me. Dan only knew me from a few weeks in 2000 (when I was still afraid to talk to anyone), and from marching with my sister in 99, but still he was there backing me up. It was very sweet, and I was, and still am, very grateful :)

And, as you can see, we all wound up having a blast with each other. I miss those guys...

Day Sixty

Seriously, how cute is this dog? Eli is sad that his human quarterback counterpart lost today. As did the Cowboys. To the Eagles. BY 38 POINTS. Also, I'm feeling much better. And I just noticed that Michael from Lost also played the very feminine Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Today was pretty damn good :)

Day Fifty Nine

Mom's creepy foggy front yard. Today's picture was going to be of the drugs I'm taking but this is cooler. I woke up feeling pretty bad today after feeling under the weather for a few days. I was sick to my stomach around 5am then could barely swallow when I woke up again at 8. I get throat infections a lot but this one is pretty bad. We called the doctor and she said it sounds like strep or mono. I'm taking anti-biotics for now and if that clears it up, then it's strep. If not, it's mono. Wengert says, "Ok, so... if it's strep then maybe I'll get to see you in a few days? If it's mono... I won't see you for a few months. Great."

Com'oooooon strep! 

Day Fifty Eight

mmm Mom made cookies :)

Day Fifty Seven

Merry Christmas! I made a mint chocolate chip cheesecake :) And it wasn't crap! It tasted like a thin-mint cheese cake. SO good! 

Day Fifty Six

Merry Christmas from Wengert and Eli :) Wish I was there, babe.

Day Fifty Five

The big light up seal is tossing the salad of the big light up polar bear. Santa pretends not to notice. I laugh uncontrollably while stopped at a red light.

Day Fifty Four

Abby gives a disapproving sniff. I saw a dog limping down the street today. A very old chihuahua. I thought he'd been hit so, even though old small dogs are known for their poor temperament, I chased this old fuck down and tried to check his tags. He had no tags. So, since he was shaking and freaking out, I wrapped him up in my perc jacked and drove to a few houses to try to find his home. I was about to give up and take him to a vet when I found his home. The owner said he was limping because he has arthritis. Little guy's back home and safe. My jacket smells like a fuzzy old man and Abby was not pleased.

Day Fifty Three

We have a visitor. Meet Haley. I think she's a lakeland terrier. She's Gus 3 and Betty Lane's dog, all three are here visiting. Her and Abby have had their differences. I don't think Haley knows how tiny she is, and that this isn't her house to defend. haha. She tried to start some shit with Abby and Abby was not having it. Held her cute little ass down and growled at her until I pulled them apart. Poor abby. She sat on my bed after rubbing her head on me and whining, like, "What the hell was that?! Why am I in trouble?!" Poor dog. They're all fine now. She's going nuts from being mostly in my room today but they're heading back to Virginia tomorrow. Most importantly, I am not in Indiana. 

:)

Day Fifty Two

Most of Johnstown (from what I've seen) looks like this. Random flat stuff at the bottom of hills. Or mountains. It's western PA. Who cares. For those interested, Johnstown is home to the world's steepest vehicular inclined plane.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Inclined_Plane

Cool, eh? Not really.

Day Fifty One

Can you see the bunny? It was hanging out next to the front steps today. 

Day Fifty

Hey! The pan cases came in!

Day Forty Nine

Amy put this on her facebook page about 20 minutes ago. This picture is from her going away party in, I'm thinking, 95? Alanna wore that crack man outfit, then let me wear it and dubbed me crack baby. A title I cherished for years. Note that I'm wearing the iron on labrador t-shirt that I no doubt got at the boardwalk a few weeks earlier. Had to represent Emma! Although this was before the brown lab craze so they only had black lab iron ons. 

It's so funny to see these pictures that Amy is putting up. In my mind none of those people have changed at all. I see these pictures that are 10-15 years old, and I can tell they're 'old pictures', but I've kept them in my head that way for as long as I've known them, which is as far back as I can remember. Literally, I don't remember a time in my life when Amy's friends weren't in the house. 

Anyway. Yeah. It's bittersweet seeing these. I hate the term but it is quite literally heart warming to see these pictures, but also sad to acknowledge that that's not how it is anymore.

Oh boo hoo. There's fun stuff now too. I get so sappy.

Day Forty Eight

Look how big he's getting!

Day Forty Seven

Sarah uploaded this picture to facebook the other day and I wanted to put it here too. This is me and Dave DiAntonio at Sarah (my sister)'s wedding last October. Dave's been a friend of the family since we dated in 2000 and is still one of my favorite people. And awwww, aren't we adorable? By the way, all the groomsmen were in kilts, he didn't just show up like that. Though he's got the balls to do something like that and I wouldn't put it past him.

Day Forty Six

Champagne from last night's celebration. You can't tell, but we were watching "my big redneck wedding." An entertaining night, indeed. Tonight? More movies. Tomorrow? I start my mission to clean our filthy basement. Wish me luck...

Day Forty Five

Jambalaya. :)

My poor neglected blog. I apologize. This past week was finals week. There were no interesting pictures to take and there was no time to write about them. My finals went well and I am thankful that week is OVER! My jury wasn't my best one but it was a little out of my hands. However, I'll put on my grown up hat and not complain about it in a public blog...

Jambalaya was delicious and wonderful. We watched Wall-e which, from what I could tell from the cover, is a love story about Johnny Number 5 and a butt plug. I watched about half of it then joined the crew in the kitchen for some stories. We found out that Sally did not pass her swim test because she had to use the bathroom in the middle of the test. I'll be discrete and just say that the Kingans are a family worthy of a reality show and their stories are hilarious. 

I showed Dr. Kingan the picture Wengert sent me of his jambalaya (which oddly enough, his Mom suggested he make on the same night we were having ours), and Kingan sent Wengert a picture of the empty tray. I guess i'm a bit of an agist but people over 40 sending texts amuses the hell out of me.

Day Forty Four

Tiff had her recital tonight! Yay! Congrats!!!

Day Forty Three

This counts for Sunday. I found egon passed out like this in the wee morning hours Sunday am. Hope ya don't mind buddy! Aw, college.

Day Forty Two

I hate Indiana. I spent an hour stuck in this exact spot looking at this exact scene on Saturday. 

It started to snow just before I left Johnstown but the roads weren't that bad until I hit Indiana... shocking. I'm surprised that a town with nothing else but snow and bad weather can still be so inept when it comes to managing the effects of the weather. I got onto Sixth street which is a lot of hills and curves. I realized how bad the roads were when I came up behind a minivan that was going about 10mph slower than the rest of traffic and I narrowly avoided rear ending them. I tried to break but we were going downhill and nothing had been salted or plowed yet (genius, indiana township, fucking genius). I swerved into the oncoming traffic lane at the last possible second when that became the only safe option. The cars behind me, who were also unable to stop, followed after me then we all got back in the correct lane. 

Then I got to the top of a hill. I looked down and saw traffic stopped at the bottom of the hill, some cars stopped at an intersection, and a sideways salt truck. Ok, wtf? I was about two miles from home and I didn't want to stop but I played it safe and stopped behind the other three cars. The cars behind me stopped too. I sat there for about 5 minutes, watched the other cars go, and wondered what the hell was going on. Why are all these townies in their front yards, wearing their orange hunting gear, carrying their rifles? After about 10 minutes I gave up hope that the car in front of me was trying to move, so I tried to go around it. Not happening. I very nearly had to buy some townies a new mailbox. I was stuck at the bottom of a snow coated hill. Staring at a salt truck. That was not moving at all. 

After I'd been stuck for about 15 minutes without seeing any change, I called 911. They patched me through to a jerk off state police officer. The call kind of went like this.

Me: Hi, Me and a few other cars are stuck on sixth street. We can't move because nothing's been plowed or salted yet.

Jerk Off State Policeman: Ok, then you've got the same problem as everyone else right now.

Me: Uh... I can see a salt truck but it's not moving.

JOSP: That's because it was involved in an accident. We're doing everything we can. *click*

Well thanks, cock sucker. 

Long story short, I was sitting at the bottom of that hill hating this town for an hour before anything happened. And what did happen? There was no accident to clear. All that happened was the salt truck, which had been stopped sideways in the middle of the road, backed up and salted the road we were all stuck on, then we all drove home.

So, Indiana, what the hell? Why are you the only town on the planet that doesn't understand snow? PUT THE SALT DOWN BEFORE IT STARTS SNOWING. THEN MAYBE YOUR SALT TRUCKS WON'T GET IN ACCIDENTS. Seriously. They'll salt the roads here maybe once, after its already started snowing, and I believe I've seen plow trucks do their thing twice in my three years here. Dear indiana tight wads, you are dumb and I hate you. How is it you have the man power to make sure that no car can spend an hour over parked on a meter without getting a ticket but there's nothing wrong with leaving residents to fend for themselves when the roads are not drivable? I know you have money for salt. All you do is ring these college students dry. 

I will become rich. And when this happens, I will build a massive free parking garage. I will pay people to salt the roads. I will walk the streets with quarters in my hands making sure the town never receives money from parking tickets ever again. I will happily watch this economy collapse. 

And buy a few marimbas for the studio. Seriously. 

Day Forty One

Ok, I figured out where I messed up my days. Damn it. I'll go back and fix it during break. 

Anyway, tonight was Batman and Doug's recital and they did great! Yay! Sorry you probably can't read any of it. Also, I played Momento this morning for my final and nailed it! Not a bad day at all :)

Day Forty

Pretty sunset leaving the music building. This picture doesn't do it much justice. In between weeks of awful weather sometimes Indiana will throw you a bone.

Day Thirty Nine

Ok blogspot, I'm pretty annoyed. Even though I saved this picture right side up, it's posting sideways. This is irritating. Anyway, the orchestra concert was last night. I played timpani on the don giovanni overture. At the top of my part it said "in D.A." because those are the only two notes in the entire overture. There were three pieces on the concert. Mine was about two minutes long. The other two made the program run until about 9:30 (we started at 8). Yeah. So I played on the first piece of the first half then hung out back stage for there rest of it. Back stage meaning actually on stage just behind some wooden dividers they have. It was kind of dull but Chep let us follow along in his score (he doesn't use them when he conducts so they were backstage with us). So that helped. Anyway, boredom took over and Sara noticed this should be added to my part...

Day Thirty Eight

Out here the schools have off for the first day of deer hunting season. Seriously. As I left for class today, I saw my neighbor hosing off what looked like the floormats of his truck. When I got back from the gym today, I saw this pile of dead deer in his garage. Wtf are you going to do with this many dead deer, frightening neighbor? This was as close as I was willing to get. I'm not too bummed out that the clarity of my dead animals picture is not high.

Orchestra concert tonight. Playing finals thursday and friday. Last week of classes. There's a cocktail waiting for me in two weeks.

Day Thirty Seven

The Indiana post office would like you to use the other stairs.

Day Thirty Six

I'm curious how I am on my thirty fifth day and have 40 posts on this blog. Hm. Anyway, today's a cop out because I forgot to take a picture. So here's a new one of Eli :)

Day Thirty Five

I drove back to IUP today. Oscar got a haircut today.

Day Thirty Four

We had thanksgiving again tonight at my Grandmom's. Good times. My Mom supervised my making her dinner rolls and they came out great. I also did this green bean recipe that my sister gave to me. I think next time I'll steam them a little before I bake them. Olivia brought her cute little self taught guitar playing boyfriend over. They were adorable together and she was the happiest I've ever seen her. After it all, Abby was very happy to have me home again. She was looking at the camera just before I took this picture, then turned at the last minute and licked my face. 

Waking up early tomorrow and heading back to western Pa to teach indoor. Ho hum.

Day Thirty Three

Today was a very log day and Thanksgiving has made me tired. Last night my meatball sandwich was number 27 :) Second time that's ever happened.

Day Thirty Two

(backdated from 11/26/2008)

I'm not in indiana :)

Day Thirty One

I left Indiana today to go home for Thanksgiving. This was the drive for the first two hours or so. The more east I drove the less snow there was. Thankfully. This picture is blurry because the melted snow kept kicking up and soaking my windshield. Probably not the best time to take a cell phone picture. The drive wasn't so bad. I get so bored and stir crazy though. Lots of quiet reflection and bad music.

Day Thirty

We had Thanksgiving-lite at our house tonight. I wanted to can the smell and send it to my Mom and my sisters. They would have been proud :) I made my mom's dinner rolls, my aunt ruth's macaroni and cheese (from scratch), and this chicken with potatoes. This was the before picture. Then doug got to it and...

Here's the after! Lightning fast ninja hands!

Day Twenty Nine

 Eli on game day

Already a master of the "give me everything I want" face

cuddling

Meet the newest member of the Wengert clan, Eli. Yes, named after Eli Manning. Although judging from how cute he is, I think he should have been named Payton...

Day Twenty Eight

It snowed again. This is about the most we've gotten all year. Still not a fan... though I do prefer this to the cold rain and wind that we had all day today. Boo hoo. (backdated from 11.21.08)

And happy birthday to my lovely sister Sarah :) She is 28. And this is my 28th post. How about that.

Day Twenty Seven

two-seven

                 

                                   rules.

Day Twenty Six

This is one of my mallets for Vespertine Formations. The piece is hard. I hope someday I get to perform it since I've put a lot of work in. 

ps- in case you couldn't tell from the fine craftsmanship, you have to make these mallets yourself.

Day Twenty Five

I have fallen very far behind! Ignore the dates. Sorry!

Since I've been gone, we had excerpt night. During the day. Weird. I played magic flute and kiji and almost had a heart attack in the middle of the two. Damn nerves. But I did alright. After excerpts, David's weird head ache had gotten worse and his face started to go numb. So after a lot of prodding by our studio (and Dr. Kingan), I took him to the emergency room. I showed off my profit like skills by guessing that he had Bell's Palsy and I was right. Poor guy. He's dealing with it pretty well but for now is rocking the harvey dent look. Hopefully it goes away soon!

Day Twenty Four

Just like the commercials! 

Today was our first legit snow. No fun. We had a move because today was also the last bands concert of the semester. I sat with Kevin Haile in the audience which was nice. I'm excited for him to go off his TB medication and for Bono to come home. I miss hanging out with those guys a lot. Wind ensemble played some weird stuff today. It made me miss Wengert a lot. And his timpani face. We got some Romeo's after the concert. It's weird, I've been mentally running through the debauchery that will take place when everyone gets back into town and by default, i've been picturing it happening above romeo's. Good times had there. It's so weird to acknowledge the sad reality that all these people have moved on. 

Well shit that's a bummer. Here's a bunny.

Day Twenty Three

Johnstown reminds me a lot of Phoenixville. Just the area. The drive, especially. Windy back roads through the woods. Except here they have mountains, too. The towns are very similar. Though I hesitate to say anything about it because they aren't the most flattering similarities. Teaching is going well. It's cool seeing Piffle again. I wish we'd had this opportunity sooner though. Teaching with andrew guz and wengert may be the most fun I'd ever have. Maybe someday :)

Day Twenty Two

Haha. Tim Adams's stool. Hahahaha. Taken by David at Heinz Hall.

Day Twenty One

Taught my first night at Johnstown last night. This pile used to be the frame to a yamaha acoustalon. To avoid it's inevitable destruction, I decided to undo the faulty duct tape job and see if I couldn't put it back together. I'd like to take a moment to thank the Bushwackers for the detailed education I gained during my years there on how to rebuild any and everything with duct tape. However, mid repair, all the slats fell off, causing what you see above. I told the kids I'd take a picture and show it to them at finals. I'll call it "Our First Day."

Day Twenty

I'm a little behind. My phone screen died at Heinz Hall on Monday. Soooooo day 20 isn't exactly ON the 20th day of this, but lets pretend.

David moved into his new place last week, but was without a bed. So we helped him get his new bed/sofa into his new apartment. I should mention that I drive a PT cruiser. And yeah, this is how we did it. All of the seats were put down, David was squashed into the back, and tiff rode, like superman (check out the top picture) on top of the box. The walmart folks probably thought we were nuts. 

On an unrelated note, Heinz Hall went really well! We rocked the Levitranny (after Dr. Stamp came back and picked out some new mallets for me). Ha, after deciding on a pair of encores he told me "This was nice, Jess, I feel like we bonded!" So yeah, everyone played really well. My Dad drove up from Delaware to see me play. Definitely cool. I wish we'd gotten more time to hang out with studio people though. As I've mentioned before, I feel like I've got this whole secret life out here, I want my family to know about it. I wanted him to meet Dr. Stamp and Dr. Kingan but everyone had a million things to do. I've got a recital in the spring, I'll show my family around then :)

Ha, and I should say, I'm glad that throughout the stress of performing at Heinz Hall, everyone managed to stay totally calm and reasonable throughout the entire process. No blowing up over unimportant small things, no uncalled for attitudes, definitely a relief!!

Not. 

But whatever, we had fun :)

Day Nineteen

This is what Cogswell hall looks like on a Saturday night. Dark. And deserted. I believe I saw two people the entire three hours I was there. I had a productive night practicing though. Tonight, however, was not. We had a logistical run through for our performance tomorrow night (at Heinz Hall!), then spent what felt like way too long practicing setting up... then packed everything up. Tomorrow we're loading the truck at 8am, then I'm scampering about Indiana trying to get everything done before my Dad gets here. He's driving all the way out from Dover (Delaware, not Jersey) to see me play. I'm pretty excited. But our house is a shitting mess... Oh well, he knows me. I've always been a slob. Hence his nickname, "Jessica Messica." Either way, I'm pretty excited. Tomorrow will be long. Unloading the truck will not be fun. But... it never is. So yeah.