Get on board!

Patrick took the train tonight to go back to the Greek Embassy in San Francisco.  He is a seasoned train-taker, just not in the US. And I have to say, waiting for the train was kind of scary. And the idea of walking back to my car without Patrick was kind of scary. He suggested I go while he could watch me leave, but there were two old ladies waiting for the train, too. And it turned out that only one of them was taking the train--the other had come to wait with her because it is a little sketchy there at night. (They were taking the 9:30 PM train.)

So they suggested that the leaving old lady (not taking the train) and this old lady (me) could be leaving buddies. And we felt like we needed that, because there was a guy walking around there behaving oddly.

The train pulled up, and Patrick and the other old lady boarded. And just then, two emergency vehicles pulled up, an ambulance and a fire truck. So we had public safety officers there to observe that we got safely into our cars, while they went to check out the oddly behaving man.

Did I mention that one of the old ladies told us she gets spooked there because her friend's daughter was murdered very close to that spot a few years ago? Thanks! That made me feel better...

Patrick is safely on board, and I hope that he has a safe journey.

Live Music in the Music Library

I have not posted for a long time, but tonight I will change that by posting! We had a library event, mostly planned for and promoted for incoming freshmen, that included escape rooms, a post-it note mural, virtual reality, and live music in the library.

When they asked me if I could plan live music for the event, I was so astounded that I could hardly think what to do. I SHOULD have thought--oh, Hymn Sing! We could have done a half hour of hymn singing around the piano right out in our lobby area, and promote that event for other months of the year. But I just was so astounded that they came to me asking for live music, when for 17 years we have asked to have live music and been told no. So! One of our students, Adam, took the ball and ran with it, and found all the talent and he was just excellent at getting people involved and handing out the coupons that they got as a reward for coming, redeemable for cheese and crackers or brownie bites.

Here are our acts:

Dallin Baldwin on organ. Dallin is a master's student in choral conducting, having already graduated in organ performance.

Adam Garrett on viola and Cassidy (Erickson) Wake on violin. (Cassidy is the  grand-daughter of Randy Erickson and Ardith Litchfield, which means something to my siblings, but not to my children.)

This quartet had a last-minute change, so I don't know who the cellist is. Cassidy and Adam are joined by Hana Giaque on viola.

Nick Newbold on piano (playing his own compositions.)

Ethan playing acoustic guitar

Cassidy and Adam playing the Mirror duets--one person starts at the front and one at the back of the same music.

Jazz combo without a name, Amaya and the Boys perhaps.

Adam and Hana finishing off the evening

Important fact: our string players were sight reading! And when it was a string trio when Cassidy had to leave for a study session, Hana was sight reading the violin part. Which means she was reading treble clef when she is used to reading alto clef because she is a violist.) Those kids have mad skillz.