No more ladders, please...

So, well, Laura Ingall's taught us that it is important to make hay whilst the sun shines.  That means Firewood Man was unable to come over yesterday.  That means I had to go up that bloody ladder again if I wanted the airing porch painting finished this year.  SIGH.

It is not that I do not want the cover board for the lower porch fascia to hide the bolts and stuff.  But, with little chance of any further painting days this year, I did not want to look at raw wood until next year.  So, I went ahead and used the poorly matched red paint that I have been using as an undercoat to cover the wood for now.   The difference in color is irksome, but I would rather have only the railing left raw.

It was doubly hard to go up the ladder again.  Only the thought of the color matching and being DONE up there made me take that first step.  Those Little Giant ladders are nothing like I ever saw in its commercials back when I had cable and HGTV.  Nothing!

I had to work to open it and then lie it down.  I huffed and puffed and rested.  Then, I opened the holders and extended one side.  I huffed and puffed and rested.  Then, I opened the holders and extended the other side.  I huffed and puffed and rested.  Then, starting at the end that would be the top, I picked it up and then moved underneath it and lifted it up as I walked forward.  I huffed and puffed and rested.

Then, I climbed up the thing, terrified again, and finished the job.
DONE!

Well, actually, I lay huffing and puffing on the ground, dreading pulling down the ladder and closing it back up when I decided to paint the fascia.  I didn't even clean the brush. I just switched cans.  What could it really hurt??

I was so knackered.  And then the alarm went off on my phone.  An unexpected alarm.  You see, last night was the first of the four chamber performances of the symphony.  I fed Amos and then sat with him in the rocking chair on the back porch ... just ... doing nothing for an hour or so.

Then, I dragged myself upstairs and cleaned up and dressed up and left.
Am I ever so glad that I did!

The performances of the Freimann Series are held at both the Fort Wayne Historical Society and the performance hall at IPFW.  For the life of me, I cannot figure out why anyone would not want to go to the first venue.  It is ever so beautiful.

The music.  Oh, my!

The first of three pieces a wind quintet playing Franz Danzi's Quintet in F Major OP, 68, No. 3.  It was utterly delightful.  If you walked into that room in the foulest mood of your life, I guaranteed all that upsettedness or ire or whatever would have melted away before the first movement was over.  I thoroughly enjoyed the piece.

Then.  Oh, my goodness!  Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Opus 110 is the most hauntingly spectacular music I have ever heard.  It was so beautiful that I started weeping.  I cannot even tell you why.  It was just amazing, darkness that was not frightening or terrifying, darkness that was exquisite beauty.

I brought my Kindle, as I do with the Masterworks Series, but not merely to read during the intermission.  I used to love listening to classical music when I read.  So, I thought, with the casual atmosphere, I could unobtrusively read if I sat in the back.  Which I did ... when I wasn't weeping.

After Shostakovich we had an intermission and then finished with Mozart's String Quartet in C Major, K. 515.  All three pieces were so utterly different and yet were like the perfect three-course meal.  Mozart's piece was so rich, like a dessert.  It was deep and moving, almost as if a satisfied acceptance of the darkness of Shostakovich.

Whoever put the performance together is bloody brilliant.  The price of the series tickets was paid back to me many times over with just the first performance.  In fact, $15 was a mere pittance to pay for such a gift as that, to sit and have such magnificent music swirl around you, filling both the room and your being.

It wasn't that music, but I had a thought, today, about music.  One of the things that has stuck in my head is how Mary's husband said he enjoyed singing hymns in a full house, being the pastor of a small church.  A day or so later, I was reading about folk holding hands in prayer.  Mainline evangelical folk.  And it struck me: Is the fellowship of holding hands in prayer in the mainline evangelical world (which I miss more than words can explain) akin to the fellowship of Lutherans singing hymns together?  

Were that the case, a few of the confusing puzzle pieces rattling about my head, would fall into place.  I've never understood the passion of folk speaking of Lutheran hymnody nor the almost ... antagonist response to the idea of holding hands whilst praying.  I mean, not really any of the Lutheran folk I've ever met pray outside of church and home, home being in private, personal, mostly by yourself or with family.  Maybe singing the hymns is akin to praying, and thus the fellowship.  I don't know.

I do know that I miss praying with others, as I've said.
Miss it so much it hurts.
Hurts beyond words.