Take me back to Tulsa...

Yes, once again I have to admit it – I think we like being in a routine. The first two and a half weeks (Sept. 5-23) in Tulsa were amazingly productive for both of us. Musically, William has continued learning vast amounts of guitar music and has made a lot of technical progress as well. I was fortunate enough to be able to perform on piano twice; once by myself, for the Piano Study Club, and once playing a duet with my former teacher, Gloria Johnson, for the Wednesday Morning Musicale. Both of these groups have been in existence since (at least) the 1920s...! I was also able to have a lesson with another former teacher, Aldo Mancinelli from Millikin University, which was unbelievably helpful as I am currently working on a set of pieces by Charles Griffes called Roman Sketches and Mr. M is one of the few people to have recorded his music. Castlerock also got a chance to perform; I had contacted Tulsa folk guru Scott Aycock a while back and he kindly invited us to open for Austin band MilkDrive at a House Concerts Unlimited event in the Brady Heights neighborhood north of downtown. BEAUTIFUL houses...

I continued swimming and running, this time at the St. Francis Health Zone near our house, although the pool was closed for a week for maintenance so I didn't get in as much swimming as I wanted to. We've explored our neighborhood a bit – it rained off and on for almost 2 weeks so we stayed indoors more than we really wanted to. William and my dad have both been cooking up a storm and of course we've been to a few restaurants – I'm happy to report that Tulsa finally has a few good vegetarian places. Be Le Vegetarian is very good, featuring standard Chinese style dishes with fake meat, and the Palace Cafe (nouveau American) is excellent; they just came out with an entirely separate vegetarian menu for dinner so that everyone can be happy with the choices. There's also Chimi's for good basic Mexican with lots of options and the India Palace lunch buffet is just as good as anything we could find in California. And, of course, Double Shot coffee, which is superb.

Museums: the exhibits at Philbrook right now are okay, but not fascinating. I did re-discover a painting that I've always liked and hadn't seen in a while and I'm now trying to track down reproductions of Alexander Hogue paintings...without much success, I might add. Gilcrease, on the other hand, had two temporary exhibitions that we found to be extremely interesting: one is an overview of the Cherokee Nation delegation to England in 1762, while the Cherokees were still living in Georgia, and the other is an exhibit of Thomas Gilcrease's extensive collection of paintings and documents, including a letter from Christopher Columbus' son Diego. We both like the museums here but Gilcrease's permanent collection – all Western art – is unusual and exceptional when compared with the standard museum offerings and we've enjoyed ourselves very much every time we've been there.

We did make one short trip here that we weren't really planning on: William discovered that there's a little-known classical guitar builder who lives in Bartlesville, and we drove up to see him on Monday the 21^st. We weren't really in the mood to go but I wanted to get out of Tulsa for a few hours so we went...and drove along happily right up until the southern edge of Bartlesville, when it started pouring. Then it started hailing. We decided to get to the house in the hopes that there would be a tree to park under, and there was, so we took a few deep breaths and ran up to the porch. Johnny Walker is kind, patient, and easygoing, and we were in his shop for about an hour so William could try his guitars and look at the wood he had available. When we got back into the car, it had stopped raining so we figured the storm had blown over – and it had, but it had thoughtfully blown due south and we got to drive home through torrential rain. We made it fine...after all, it was just a normal Oklahoma sprinkle...but I was VERY glad to pull into the garage when it was over.

I suppose the last two months have really been the opposite of traveling, but it's been wonderful to be able to spend time with our families for a few weeks instead of trying to pack everything into a few days. The most unusual thing that I've noticed about all of this is that since we don't have a 'home' to go back to, we're not missing our normal daily routine and we're not worrying about pets/plants/etc. that someone else is taking care of. On the other hand, I've spent more time than I really should have trying to design a garden for a place I've never seen...