relaxing day


The doctor added hydrochlorothiazide (a water pill) to my daily dose of valsartan. I was expecting a switch to a different class of drugs but maybe this will work. He said should show evidence of working within a week. Of course my BP readings were a bit lower today.

He also assured me (when asked) that I have not been diagnosed with cardio vascular disease. That’s nice. I have an enlarged heart (have known this for years) but  in addition I have some thickening of the heart muscle which indicates the heart is working too hard. Hence the  need to keep the BP down.

My conversation with Jordan yesterday was fun. We were both a bit distracted to play so we just did a lot of shop talk. He showed me a piece he is writing. Before that we discussed the question what makes a “good” melody. I showed him some church musician resources which talk about melody in terms of hymn tunes. It’s kind of goofy but I have found these ideas helpful. I showed him the “mysterious ways” hymn tune from this past Sunday as an example of a weirdly (and hence harder to sing) hymn tune.

Then I showed him the elegant tune HYFRYDOL which consists of five notes until the final phrase where it ascends once to a sixth higher note and then quickly comes to a conclusion. It is an amazing melody to me since it uses such slight materials and can create a magnificent effect when sung by a congregation.

After Jordan and I had lunch at the pub, he took off and I went over to see Mom. I was gratified to see her sitting at the Bride Show in the Gathering Room of the place she lives. She still is fighting the depression. But she is fighting and in what seems to me in a bit of a heroic way.

She told me later the Bride Show consisted in elderly women (probably mostly widows) showing off their wedding dresses and presumably sharing wedding stories. There is something poignant about this to me.  It’s probably therapeutic for the participants. At least I hope it is.

I did manage to get some organ practice in yesterday. I snuck it in early before the weekly Eucharist and then got back later for a bit more. As I was reading a new piece by David Hurd, a parishioner came over and starting listening and then asked questions about it when I stopped. Before we were through I was explaining the metrical index to him in the Hymnal. I like chatting like that.

I had my weekly meeting with my boss yesterday. I think we both look forward to this meeting. (At the end of yesterday she told me that she had had fun in our talk once again.) I think what is happening that is fun for both of us is to sort of talk shop (like I do in music with Jordan) about church and church music.

We decided to continue course in our discussions this summer about the music program with the children’s choir director. I am to prepare another series of quotes and questions to spark further conversation at our next meeting. This meeting will cover ferreting out each of our professional motivations in our work at Grace. I have some ideas about how to make this tool. I only hope that it will be constructive and helpful.

Right after the meeting, Eileen came home from work and we walked down and I had a second meal at the local faux Irish pub. It was a lovely windy summer evening. Very very relaxing.

My niece and her fiancee were arriving later that night so we left the door open for them and made sure there were clean sheets on their bed.

Pretty relaxing day. Probably makes a bit of a boring post, but there you are.

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