Mid July Musings, and other stuff from Valina

Here we are, in the middle of July, 2020.  We miss you!  We miss being out in public places and seeing your smiling faces.  How did we get here?  In some ways, it feels as though it's still early March, because all of the spring events were cancelled.  Those events have become so ingrained in our professional lives, that if there isn't a recent memory from one of those events, that time has not yet passed.  On the other hand, time has been flying, and it's really hot outside!  We are  trying to find a safe and health conscious way to bring live music to you.

We look forward to Thursday evenings at the Sauer Kraut Grill in Richmond every week.  It's a wonderful little place, has a great client base, and brings us back to a little bit of normalcy when we get to see friends and fans eating, drinking, and enjoying music as it's played.  In fact, the first day we were able to go play live music for a live audience, I cried when I heard laughter and applause for the first time in months.  A real live crowd enjoying the music and letting the outside world melt away for a few moments!   Saturday evenings, we broadcast our online shows on facebook, which for the past few weeks, we've had the pleasure of featuring friends and fans!  They've shared pictures and videos for us to include in the shows, and we've enjoyed seeing them.  It helps us to know they, and you, are out there!

As time goes by, and the virus is still doing what it does, we are beginning to hear about our fall events getting cancelled.  It's making a hard year even harder for everyone involved.  So many people depend on festivals and events for their income; our friends with food trucks, vendors with home made and import items who do not have a store-front or online presence, student groups who gather donations for their extracurricular activities - German language, music and folk dance. 

We're working hard to rehearse to keep the old songs that have been in our set lists for years going well, Ross has been working on a few ideas he's had.  I've been playing through the songs I've written, and am hoping to get Ross in on them soon.  Weeks go in to each song we learn together before we can put it on the stage, so we're just working on practicing. 

Mostly, we're thankful - we may complain that things are not what we'd hoped they'd be, but we are thankful for the way things are anyway.  We're healthy for now, our families are healthy for now.  There's food in the fridge, and enough in the pantry in case of a storm.  There's gas in the van ready to go on the road as soon as there's an opportunity to do so.  You're out there listening to our music, supporting our efforts, reading our ramblings, and we're thankful for you!

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