I Should Be Sleeping ~

. . . but here I yam in the office, playing back the CD of this evening's Three Jolly Coachmen concert in the Williamsburg Library's "Dewey Decibel Series," held in the initimate, acoustically-delicious 260-seat auditorium. Which, ahem, we sold out.
The bottom line is, it was a wonderful evening with a red-hot responsive audience that favoured us with a sustained double standing ovation, after the last song and again after the encore. The blend was good and the overt gaffes few.
The rest of the story is, had a little trouble getting my strumming up to speed for the first couple fast numbers, which is amazingly non-apparent on the recording. As is the real problemo I had, which were troubling hand cramps in my chording hand for about the first third of the second set. I knew I was at risk over the intermission but thought I'd make it through okay; imagine my surprise when my last two fingers locked up in the first chords of the first song of the second set. Not good, I thought. I staggered thru it and then furiously bent my fingers back between numbers and stuck in a repeat of Peter's "Scotch & Soda" (in which I don't play) since his mike had gone dead the first time he did it. It loosened up and got close to normal by the end -- at which time my strumming hand started acting up.
The culprits are age, insufficient practice, and mostly, my failure to hydrate and load up on potasium. I shoulda spent the day drinking Gatorade and downing bananas like a crazed chimpanzee.
Anyway, the show went very well and my stage chatter was really "on," which is always nice. We got to pump our Grand Illumination and First Night shows. The comments afterwards were most gracious. It doesn't get any sweeter. It's such a blessing to get to do it.
Last night we went to the Club for dinner and wound up sharing a table with Ted and Zandra Cornell; he's the fabulously talented and unfailingly gracious and humble director of music at the Chapel. They were just back Billy Graham's 90th birthday celebration; he says Dr Graham is wheelchair-bound and partially deaf and blind, but his spirit remains strong. What a heavenly welcome party is in store for HIM.
The Rew called about 11:45pm and we chatted for almost an hour, which is always a treat. And Caroline had called yesterday afternoon for a good catch-up. And Tuesday morn we'll roll for Brentwood for Thanksgiving. Woo hoo!
A good day for the pigskins; I hear OSU walloped Michigan and Wm & Mary came back from a 20-0 deficit at halftime to take the Univ of Richmond into overtime; they lost by a field goal but did themselves proud to come back like that.
Well, the concert is over. Better get to bed.