A lot feels like it’s happened in the past week or so, with me physically doing very little. Ha. That momentum is hard to break. The world whirls on and I refresh a game. A FORCE of semi-professionals work on the house and I listen to the noise. We raced up to New England and back and play three shows, and I’m in the passenger seat.
Not that I’m complaining about that last bit. Heather drives. And for this we are all thankful because she’s a beast when it comes to low-grade band teleportation.
No, I’m not complaining about any of it, but in a week where we had two gig cancelations due to the weather, I’ve had a lot more free time than I’d expected, but not in a way that’s felt particularly useful.
But I’m burying the lede.
In a week in which the temperatures have hovered just under a hundred degrees and unsettled weather has smacked us with hours of variable “will it or won’t it” Schrödinger Thunderstorms, Joel Landsman and his family biz has put the finishing touches on installing a 3-ton heat pump in our house.
And after months of bangings and mild swearing, sheet metal thunder and sawing, comedic but not-if-you-Live-it delays, whirring and scraping and thumping, they flicked the switch and cool air began to flow and… it is amazing. After years of summers filled with the immense, mind-numbing white noise of window unit air conditioning, there is a distant hum and the whoosh of air, and it is beautiful.
We will see how it works through its first winter. I understand that’s when it’s truly put to the test and when most people point out the gotcha of the heat pump…
In any case, this is my first Sunday morning where I can write about a beautiful, slow, quiet morning without thinking “well, until it’s too hot and I have to click that air conditioner on”. Birds chirping, Life moving.
The quiet will be sundered by a band practice later today so loud that I’ll be bringing ear plugs. We’re joining forces with Mark Rooney’s taiko group and that’s a WHOLE lot of sonic pressure for an indoor show.
I have a list of questions which I hope to figure out today. I have a bag full of cables. I have sunglasses. I now have earplugs. We have a little more than half a dozen outdoor shows betwixt now and the end of the month. I wonder how many of them we’ll play.
