All posts for my This 'n' That category
I confess, I have often fallen prey to the “It can’t happen here” syndrome. When I hear about someone else’s health problems, my response is quite frequently ” Oh, well, I don’t eat (Fill in the blank: meat, milk, MacDonalds, etc.)”, or “I don’t have those genetic factors”, or “I don’t do dangerous things (not physically dangerous ones, anyway)” or whatever…. so this doesn’t apply to me. Bad things happen to other folks, in a distant galaxy far far away. And I don’t believe I’m alone in this response. (You know who you are!) I sport this mindset, even though I have just recently received a memorable (You would think!) lesson in how I, too, can be knocked around by a good, stiff, wind. I, too, can be the victim of a bad surprise.
In fact, I was doing it again on our latest foray into the rest of the world besides where we live. I was running one early Big Island, Hawaii morning. I love running there. It’s summertime and the actual temperature is pretty warm, but the Trade Winds blow non-stop, making the temperature feel a lot cooler on your skin. A 30-minute run thus feels like it takes about 30 seconds, because the weather feels so pleasant, because there’s so much beauty to look at, so many new and interesting birds and flowers to notice. It’s just nice. So I’m running this circular path I have found, and thinking self-congratulatorily about how much healthier I was than the average American human of my circumstances.
And comparing myself to my husband, since he’s the closest. My poor husband, loves to travel, but usually gets so stressed that one day of the trip will be spent in bed. I don’t know why this is; I just know it happens on most of the trips we take. And I have often thought, I’m distressed to admit, that if he’d just eat the foods I eat, and not eat the ones I don’t, if he’d exercise the same exercises I do, if he’d just do what I tell him to, he’d be so much healthier.
When suddenly…………I remembered our impromptu trip to the emergency room this past February, the second one in the past 2 years. Not to mention that back injury that slowed me down significantly for about 3 months about three years ago. And I remembered turning to him on this occasion and saying, “If I’m so much healthier than you are, how come I’m the one that keeps ending up in the emergency room?”
Well…..another arrogant human bites the dust, I guess. Anything can happen anytime. Someone to whom I expressed my outrage said, “You have to remember that it’s ‘risk abatement’ not ‘risk avoidance’. I think she’s right. I like to think I’ll remember it in the future, but I probably won’t.
Thank goodness for cell phones with cameras. What did we ever do before we had them?
This afternoon the Texas Chapter of the Nation Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (the Grammy people) gathered together some of the original architects of the music scene here in Austin, the radio personalities, recording engineers and builders of recording studios who started it all. Including my husband Andy Murphy.
Andy currently works as the Chief Recording Engineer of the Butler Music School at the University of Texas and Chief Recording Engineer for the Austin Symphony Orchestra. But in his past is a role as singer and songwriter for the band Wheatstraw, and leader of a jazz band, Minor Miracle , which included Julie Christianson (who later went on to sing with Leonard Cohen) and Carmen Bradford (who went on to sing with Count Basie). Andy has also done some singing for Disney. He transferred his attentions to the recording process in the 1970s, and helped to build some of the major recording studios here in Austin, notably the studio built by Willis Alan Ramsey (best known for the song “Muskrat Love”). He was a prime mover in building the music community in Austin and in Texas, involving city and state government in the growing of the music industry, and promoting a music-friendly environment.
Maybe you can tell I’m pretty proud of my association with him.
Also on the panel were CJ Eiriksson, producer/engineer/mixer; Chet Himes, producer/engineer; David Hough, audio director of “Austin City Limits”; Jay Aaron Podolnick, CEO of Villa Muse; and Chris “Frenchie” Smith, producer/engineer. Moderated by producer/musician Craig Hillis, panelists shared stories of how they began their career journey within the Austin music scene.
Panelists and NARAS Texas Chapter Board members
Two months ago, I had a ’92 Honda Accord Stationwagon that I’d been driving for 16 years. It was probably the best car I’d ever owned up to that point. It never left me stranded anywhere, was big enough for all my musical equipment no matter what the gig needed, and was comfortable to drive for a person of my small stature. I drove it from Austin to New York several times, to California twice, to Utah, and to Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota each a couple of times. And lots of places in between. It got great mileage.
Late in 2007, I was going to the airport to pick up my husband, Andy, and the brakes went out just as I got to the Arrivals door. Fortunately, I had my hand on the handbrake when it happened, and all was well, but we waited for 4 hours at the airport for the wrecker to come and pick up my poor beast. After that, it was hard to feel safe and secure in my car, and though I drove it to Dallas once (200 miles), I just couldn’t bring myself to put it on the road for any real distance. So I stopped touring and started thinking about “my new car”, a total pipedream at that point, because what I wanted was a $23,000 Toyota Prius, and who had that kind of money?!
I inherited some money about a year later, in a variety of market funds, and I thought, when it got to a certain point, I would take some money out and pay cash for my Prius. Then the bottom fell out of the economy and my Prius receded into the distance. The first month of economic trouble, I lost exactly $23,000!
So now it’s two years later, and if I went on the road, it was in our truck (20 miles to the gallon) or in a rented car (22 miles to the gallon, it turned out). And one day I was driving in Austin, when my car got hit in an intersection by someone who was distracted and not paying enough attention. Since the car was so old, their insurance company decided to declare it a total loss, and gave me enough money to make a down-payment on a used Prius – the car of my dreams – which I got (after some searching) for $17,000. It was in perfect shape (I had it checked by professionals) and it was blue (my favorite color) and it was love at first sight.
One month after that, it was parked on a wide boulevard, and I was inside a house teaching piano to one of my students. I heard a bang at one point, but I thought it was a door slamming inside the house, and since I’m in other people’s houses, I have trained myself to ignore stuff like that. A few minutes later, I happened to look out the glass door, and I said to my student, “Margaret, does it look like I have a flat tire?” to which she replied, “When did you get that dent?”
Out the door I flew, and sure enough the rear side above the tire of my beautiful blue Prius was bashed in. And no sign of the driver that did it.
Turned out, both Margaret’s dad and one of the neighbors gave chase when the culprit left the scene. The neighbor caught up with him. Thanks, Mark, I am forever grateful. Police were called, much drama ensued, I was totally bummed. I’d had my car exactly one month that day. But the guy was insured, and I took the neighbor a bottle of wine, and my car went to the shop.
(While I was in the rental car waiting to get mine back, by the way, a woman backed into me in a parking lot. Small damage – paint scrape mostly. I’ll let you imagine how I felt!)
I got my Prius back last Thursday. I can’t detect any trace of the damage, and it even drives exactly like it did before it got hit. And the insurance company told me if I did notice anything to just give them a call, and they’d take care of it.
(Insert sigh of relief here)
I can’t wait to get back on the road!
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