A June Update

A lot of things have happened in the past several weeks. Above you can watch Carla play second flute in the recital of a Masters student on June 14 at the Danish Royal Conservatory. (This is just the third movement.) Carla provides a particularly wonderful pedal point in this piece which is on my favorite note.

Then the World Cup in futbol has begun! Above Carla reacts to a goal by the Netherlands against Denmark.

At work, I have had several camera-ready (final) papers due to conferences, submitted to others, am awaiting word on my December submission to a journal, and have begun the semester end exams. I have been incredibly busy updating my research blog as well.

Currently I am home alone, as Carla is enjoying Hawa'ii with her mom! Before she left we both had a cooking day where we made a big pot of chili for me to have during the week. On Thursday I made Carla's famous spaghetti sauce , AND I cooked the noodles too. It all turned out edible, but the ingredient it was missing was Carla. Now I am making some bread.

Today (Saturday) I woke at 7 and walked to two big "flea markets", which are more like garage or yard sales sans garages or yards. I found two old accordions, none of which I wanted to take home. Then around noon I walked to the Strøget, which is the touristy street for shopping, and took out my accordion and squeezed out about 25 minutes of tunes, while con artists were playing "hide the lady" (the shell game) with shills and muscle and all. In that time I earned 7 DKK (about $1.25), from three young children --- my biggest fans even though they are too young to really appreciate the subtle differences between when I play forlorn or with longing. Maybe I just resemble a Teletubbie. The adults of course avoid eye contact with me --- as do I. (You look, you pay.) Then a fellow sat down next to me and said, "Hey man. I am going to play guitar right over there, and I have an amp and everything. So do you mind, you know ... " "Getting lost?" I said. "Yeah. Thanks. And next time you should sit more in the walkway and not behind the hotdog cart."

Good advice from a professional, except I would have prefaced it with, "Can I be frank?"

When Carla returns, we will start gearing up to move to our new apartment, and then visiting Paris and Porto for 10 days --- when we get to see Katie and Ollie and bébé Iris and Sacha and those other floor warmers, and we get to surf in Porto, and where I will deliver a seminar on my research! (That is my kind of vacation: surfing and research presentations.)