I actually practiced last night. It went surprisingly well. I feel like I've not practiced for a month. One thing that generally happens when I don't practice for a while is an awful thing called "double buzz". It seems to be caused by the lips themselves being in poor condition from not playing. But a few days ago I'd decided to get into the habit of rubbing my lips against each other, side to side, periodically through the day as I think about it. At the lip level this is almost as good as playing, and there was no double-buzz.
I had my coffee etc. and finished off the 19 packages I had to do. I'm amazed; I got it done in exactly an hour. I headed out to the post office to drop 'em off, and of course the chute jammed after the first 3 so I put them in USPS tubs and put them on the counter. I bet they hate that chute.
Coming back from the post office, there were too many cars for me to simply cross the street so I rode up the sidewalk to use the crosswalk at the corner, but Lo and behold, I noticed the grassy area there was covered with very happy looking purslane. So I picked enough for a good salad.
The trip back yielded packing materials, an onion with a big crack through the middle (sometimes they're dropped hard enough they crack like that) but good sides, a tired looking tomato, and what I think is a "jicama".
When I got back I was going to make a salad, then in the process of looking around in the fridge found the tuna I'd put in the veggie drawer to thaw, so I ended up making a purslane and onion salad with oil/vinegar/Kewpie mayo/seasonings dressing, with sauteed tuna on top. It was pretty good. A dish like that would probably cost $25 in one of the fancy restaurants around here.
Between dinner, spending too much time on YouTube and Reddit, washing dishes, etc. it ended up being almost 1AM when I was getting ready for some practice. I heard a car door shut right out front and checked the camera - two "lovely" local characters, Crazy Chrissie and Renee, are out doing a meth-head car paint job right in front here, because the light's good here. I wish I had control over that light but I don't.
Crazy Chrissie fancies herself an autobody expert, specializing in shitty paint jobs as well as The Eternal Bondo Job. This time they've got a shitty red car with shitty clear plastic that's kind of over the windows because meth-heads aren't good at things like tape. She's spraying the thing with a spray can of red paint, then apparently drying it by going over it with a blow torch. If the yellow gas canister on the blow torch is any indication, she's using MAPP gas which burns a lot hotter than propane. It's probably whatever she could steal.
So they fucked around with the paint and the shitty car and their torch, and even through the Crappycam(tm) I could tell it looked awful. She wasn't even using a flame spreader on the torch and it's pretty easy to make one out of a tin can or anything. Eventually they packed it all up and while they were doing this wonderful paint job, I got 20 Ebay items together so when they took off I felt I could list the items but not practice, or practice and do the items tomorrow which is a packing day but there's hardly anything to pack so far.
So I practiced. It went ... not as well, because one of the things lost from non-practice is endurance. The most powerful "technique" I've discovered is regular practice. I wasn't able to do the exercises as well, but I did lots of this one that I think is designed to teach relaxation, and played a few songs too and got in an honest hour.
2/3rds of the way though, I took a break and put on my outside clothes and walked out to the lunch truck and got an egg and sausage sandwich, on a bagel because somehow the nice lady thinks "You like this, right?" I didn't say yay or nay, but I guess I like bagels... actually it was tons better than the average coffee shop bagel and was soft and doughy. It was the usual half and half deal where I save half for the birds and eat half, so the sandwich is an open-face sandwich. I wrapped the sandwich in some bubble wrap and got the rest of my hour of trumpet done, then ate it.
I am eager to keep with the regular practice because earlier today I went on Amazon and bought a shofar. I'm hoping it's a decent one because they can be very variable. One thing I learned is, you can't play bugle calls on a shofar. I thought it would be pretty cool to play "Mess Call" before the oneg, which is the food (and bread and wine) after the service at the local temple. But the harmonics come out wrong. Well, these days I can't just waltz into the gift shop there and toot on shofars, and I was undecided between the longer and easier to play Yemenite kind, which are kudu horn, or the shorter, actual ram horn kind which are harder to play but easier to carry. The one I've ordered is, I hope, on the long side for ram's horn kind, so will be a nice medium between the two. They all blow differently, but I'm hoping with my knowledge of trumpet mouthpieces that if the blowing end isn't that great I can round the edges a bit or something and turn it from a so-so shofar to a good one.
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