Some good stuff

 I got my practice in, and it's interesting - I did OK an octave up as well as the notes as written on the "tone exercise" but when I got to the next few pieces past "The Stoat" I had trouble playing them an octave up. No problem playing them as written though. In fact, playing as written I should say I'm doing really well. And since the book says nothing about practicing everything as written and then an octave up, that being my idea, I guess I'm coming along fine. 

I'm not sure if it's my lips drying out, myself tiring out, or what. More practice is probably the answer. I might be just getting tired and while flute playing is very different from trumpet playing, that may be exactly it, that it's different and uses different muscles somehow even if it's a lot less pressure. 

But I got my hour or a bit more in, and that's good. Also I've long noted that playing actual pieces is actually easier than playing drills out of a book, which are intended to make you work a bit. 

I went to bed at something past 8AM and woke up at 3. Ken called and said he's coming by after work. I replied that that's great and I kind of figured he was, anyway. He's bringing by some "Good stuff, you'll see!" so ... I guess I'll see. 

This means I'll do a plan, which is to finish clearing off a shelf that's hard to get into, taking off what's left on there that's for sale or ought to be sold, and load it up with stuff that's sitting around here that's not for sale, and taking up space for-sale items can go on. That will enable me to make room for the "good stuff". 

In other news, I don't think I'll be communicating with my rich and evil aunt any more. Originally, I only wanted to get into contact with her to find out some family history. I found that out and that's really all I intended at first. The root of this was, How in hell do you get people as brown as my mom was, out of a Northern country like Lithuania? 

Originally I thought this was a slam-dunk. Obviously, Mom's side of the family must be Lithuanian Jews. Besides the DNA test I took, I wanted what verbal history I could glean from the Evil Aunt. I figured, if I knew I was Jewish even a year or two before the coming fascist regime does, it would give me a leg-up on getting out of here. To Israel, presumably. 

The DNA test told me I'm 0.0% Jewish, and Evil Aunt was very evasive about our not being 100% white, as can be expected from someone whose formative years were the 1940s. In fact the DNA test has me white enough to join the (new) SS, although of course I don't appear it. But at least the fascists won't have me first on their menu for "racial impurity".

I could still go to Israel if I wanted to convert, but I decided I'm not really interested. It means signing on to silly beliefs in a sky daddy who sounds like a real asshole, and also signing on to a seemingly eternal war with both Islam and Christianity although the latter is muted for now. Plus you have to learn a weird language and it routinely gets up to 120 degrees in summer in Tel Aviv. The place will be unlivable long before Hawaii does. 

So I got what I wanted and perhaps needed from the Evil Aunt, and had long decided that I never want to visit her again in person, as it requires drinking a *lot* of alcohol. 

But the latest exchange of emails is the last straw. She told me one of my sisters had done some great noble heroic thing for my mom when Mom was in a nursing home, but then never said what this thing was. And got all offended and tried to crudely evade the question when asked. So I told her off and that's that. 

When I'm back in Hawaii I really hope my older sister and I can be friends again but I think I should be realistic. Like almost every American, she was shallow, money-driven, and judges people as a scalar quantity: If you have much money, you are Good, and if you have not much money, you are Bad. 

I can't let someone like that ruin Oahu for me. Not someone who's scared to death to even go to most places on the island.