Not the musical Staff...Infection

Ouchie Ouchie Ouchie!
So Friday I scratched my leg. Like I scratched a bug bite too hard. It opened my skin just a little bit. Nothing too grotesque. Saturday it started to hurt. It got hot and red. By Sunday I put neosporin on it and put a bandage over. It was getting bigger and more painful. Sunday evening Alex almost took me to the hospital. My lymph nodes were incredibly tender. The pain felt like I was branded. Not the throbbing heart beat in the wound kind of pain. Like hot iron on my skin kind of pain. I got feverish. The wound looked like I was mauled by Kudjo the rabid dog. It looked like there was a golf ball under my skin too. We called the doc. She said to take a hot hot hot bath and apply aloe vera from the plant on it and try to wait till morning to go to urgent care. So today I woke up and I couldn't walk. I hopped my way out of the house and to urgent care. They took a culture. Gave me a tetanus shot. Put me on antibiotics and gave me a medicated cream. They are testing it for MRCA (the drug resistant staff infection). And they are treating me instantly as if that is what I have to not take any chances. But it HURTS! I'm not supposed to baby it. They want me moving around to get that antibiotics flowing to the injury. I wasn't even in the ocean recently! Ahh living in the tropics! I'm supposed to stay calm and de stress myself since my immune system is down. So as I'm trying to patiently find my happy place at the pharmacy waiting FOREVER to get my medication a big local guy next to me says "You know, you could DIE from that". I just looked at him, smiled, and said "Thanks man". And went back to my happy calm place. That guy was 400 pounds easy. My chances look pretty good at beating this! I'll keep you posted!

Look what Miracle Grow grew!

It's just a typical Thursday night. Nothing exciting to report on. This week I got a call from our local theatre needing a page turner for the famous pianist Leon Fleisher. But I've already expressed to the theatre countless times about my aversion to so much pressure. What if I turn the page too late? What if 2 pages stick together? What if I space out because I'm mesmerized by the music and forget to turn the page altogether? It's just too much pressure!! It would have been an honor to turn pages for Leon. But I told the theatre I need to "train up". Maybe get some itunes Rachmaninov or Shostakovich piano downloads and follow along with sheet music for a few months...
Today in school I taught the children about the French composer Camille Saint Saens "Carnival of the Animals". I let the little ones march around the classroom like lions, flap their wings and peck at imaginary grain like hens and roosters, and glide across the floor like graceful swans. But did you know! Saint Saens (pronounced San Sons) was afraid his suite would be too childish and lighthearted and could possibly ruin his reputation of being a serious studious composer. So he had a clause that the suite was not to be published OR performed until after his death. So once he died, his suite was published and performed and was an instant success!

Hotmail Hiatus

Aloha Family and Friends,
So apparently there IS an elusive hotmail customer support that provides incredibly prompt e-mail help! I was so afraid I lost all my old e-mails and contacts. I will continue to maintain both e-mail accounts and I am able to check my yahoo e-mail on my phone.
Here is the most important picture from my hotmail account. The e-mail I received when I was inquiring about a litter of puppies born in 2002. It has a picture of Moki's mother and his 2 sisters and 1 brother. Alex says he was surprised I didn't show up at our house in Bellingham with 4 little bear cubs tucked under my arms instead of just 1!
I'm glad my e-mail is all cleared up. I am now an expert with hotmail customer support with some very important links if any of you have this experience as well!

HOTMAIL S.O.S

Oh no! I am sending out an S.O.S to all my readers.
I have had the same e-mail address and password for YEARS. And yesterday when I went to hotmail.com to log on like I do a million times every day, it suddenly tells me "Invalid address or password". There is no live person to talk to for hotmail.com and people have been telling me for YEARS to switch to gmail or mac.com. And I always defended hotmail but now I am ANGRY at this archaic outdated system.
So here is my request my devoted readers.
Please e-mail me at salernostrings@yahoo.com so I can put your e-mail address in my new contacts list. If I've ever sent you a mass e-mail listed many other e-mail addresses, please forward that as well so I can add those contacts as well.
Thank you. I always want to be in contact with my family and friends!

Kamuela Philharmonic

This past weekend required 18 hours of violin playing with the symphony. This philharmonic has really grown over the past 5 seasons. It started with just 14 players 5 years ago, me being one of them! And this Sunday's concert had 61 players. We performed Strauss Die Fledermaus, Smetana's Vaterworld, and a Rachmoninoff piano concert. Unfortunately my camera died shortly after Alex started the video. But it gives you a little snippet. I'm the third stand on the outside.
Also this past week, I had a student running late. My phone rings. I answer thinking it's my student. And I hear "Hi Jessie! This is Erica Close (from high school)." I'm silent on the other end. I don't understand. This is so out of the blue. Am I dreaming? What's going on? I finally stammer "Hi Erica! Oh my gosh you're in Hawaii!" I was just so shocked from the wonderfully unexpected phone call that it took me awhile to regain focus! So I invited her and her whole family over for dinner. I saw her mom at Tanya's wedding in June. Her mom pulled me aside during dinner and said "I TOLD Erica "She doesn't want us ALL here!" and I replied "EH! I'm Italian! Da Family comes along ya know?!" Erica is 7 months pregnant with their first child. She looked beautiful. In Canada they won't tell you the gender of the baby so it's a surprise.
Last but not least, school resumes from winter break this week. Nothing too eventful on the calendar this month. But I'll keep blogging away!

From Sea to Shining SNOW

Hey! I didn't realize that my last entry post was my 100TH POST since I started this blog in March! I can't believe I've found 100 things to write about in 10 months.

Yesterday was family fun in the snow day. For 5 years now I have wanted to go play in the Mauna Kea snow. And yesterday my dream finally came true! It felt like we went to Mt. Baker for the day and came back to Hawaii. Like a time warp! Only in Hawaii can you go snowboarding in the snow and then surfing at the hot beach. Moki hasn't seen snow since he was a tiny puppy. And he used to get so excited. Being at 9,000 foot elevation made Moki act a little funny. But once we opened the car door he was just as excited as he was 6 years ago! People can get altitude sickness at that level. But it sure was funny seeing all the local people boogie boarding down snowy hills.

Party like it's 2-0-0-9

So our little family has figured out a fantastic way to watch movie at night. Alex and I have had the same clunky toaster box TV that I bought in college. The sound fades in and out. No blue ray plasma high def whatchamacallit kind of way to watch a movie in our bedroom. So we took a white sheet and tacked it along the living room wall and set up the projector to our surround sound. With the lights dimmed it feels like the movies. Which is great because the closest movie theatre is 1 hour away both North and South. Well, if there is no movie in the computer to project, it just shines a blue light against the screen. Making it a fun backdrop for dancing shadows for a dance party. There is an itunes or ipod commercial where all you see is a dancing black shadow with the trademark white ear phones. Here is our New Years Eve dance party. We stayed up till midnight and company left and we were asleep in bed by 12:05am. Today or tomorrow we plan to go play in Mauna Kea snow. So stay tuned!