AWOL

Once again, I've been AWOL from my blog for a while. In this case, it was a combination of me having a lot of duties to perform at a recent UofPortland alumni choir concert (and a dinner cabaret the same weekend) where I did pretty much everything that could have been done in front of an audience - sing, accompany on piano, emcee, read program notes, and quite a bit of organization on the side as well.

Just when I thought it was safe to think I had a life again, along came the Fourth of July and my mother's mobility took a turn for the worse. My sister and I have spent the past week helping her any time she needed to move from point A to point B (including the bathroom, shower, everything), as well as getting her ready to move to assisted living (which happens tomorrow). My sister has done the heavy lifting, staying every night at my mother's apartment and getting her to the bathroom multiple times in the middle of the night. I would have been a wreck after three days, she's done it for nearly two weeks. And she's over 60.

Toss in a gig this Saturday (the day after we move Mom), complete with a different drummer as our drummer hurt his back as well as tearing the meniscus in his kick drum knee. That's showbiz, and we've had extra rehearsals to get the drummer who is sitting in (and doing a fine job of it, much better than I'd have done sitting in on keys). So I'm a crispy critter at this point.

The good news is that, assuming all goes well and it never does, that I have no big projects the rest of the year. I'll still have an increased role in Mom's life, as I'll be over there nearly every day, but I've decided to give up on the goal of biking down to Eugene in late August (just not even close to enough training time, between the crappy weather here and too many irons in the fire). Of course, something will explode. It always does. But for now, I can bask in at least the concept of once again having free time to do some gaming. I will have a lot of catching up to do...