11/1/2010 @ 7:55:32 am by creatingbuttons.com
TWO MUSIC JAM
Once a month, lots of musicians in the Tampa Bay area get together to pay Irish music, at a – what else? – an Irish Pub! In this case , it’s Four Green Fields, down in Hyde Park. There are “leaders” of the group, but people come from all over, sit in a circle and play for hours, starting around 4:30. There’s a group of people who get up and do some Irish dancing, and some children from the Irish dancing schools often come and dance as well. If you have an instrument, but have never come, come try it – if you just like to listen, do that! The Pub has some really nice food at decent prices, and of course Guiness! Come and join the crowd! This time I took Maria with me, she made friends with some new people and had a good time. Here’s her picture and her new friend.
 Maria and friend  Circle of players
This weekend, I also played at Ellen’s house. She had a Halloween jam, and as always, served some great food. Wild rice and spinach soup, which was amazingly good, and some Day of the Dead bread. There were other goodies as well, cheeses and crackers, greek olives – that kind of thing. We also enjoyed seeing her garden, a new addition to her activities, as well as some pottery – she’s now taking a class, and gave me a perfect little bowl that will be good for all kinds of things. Very nice afternoon, but we had to leave to hand out candy to the trick and treaters. I showed Ellen my music buttons, which she thought were clever – I borrowed some of the sayings off the internet. It’s not always me being clever. I need a place to sell these. 4 Green Fields is not really a good place. Any ideas?
Tags: Accordion, Activities in Tampa, Buttons, Food, Friends, Music, …
My daughter moved from one big trailer to a small one, and prior to the big one had been in a house. She had a huge shed full of “stuff” and finally decided it was time to have a garage sale. She has to work (grooming dogs) all of the time so I was the one who unpacked all of the boxes, after lugging them from the shed to the yard, setting up tables, and dying of the heat. The most boxes were full of pigs, which Deb has been collecting since 4th grade (she’s 52 yrs old now), so needless to say there were hundreds of pigs, each one separately wrapped. On Friday, Cindy came and helped, we finished emptying the boxes, adding Cindy’s stuff and putting up signs. However, hardly anyone came. Saturday I went fencing, but I understand both Saturday and Sunday were as bad as Friday. Someone else wrapped everything back up and it is now in the shed again. Boo….I wish I had taken pictures of the pigs. I can’t believe I didn’t.
I couldn’t have had a worse weekend. Saturday morning I got lost and was too late to fence in the Women’s Foil, but was allowed to fence later in the Vets at the end of the day. In the meantime Debbie asked me to referee and I did that all day long until time to fence. It’s much more exhausting than fencing, and I had spent the two days before lugging boxes and unpacking for my daughter’s garage sale. When I finally fenced I was as bad as I could possibly be – there were only 4 women, I got 1 point total on all 3 of them. In my DE I did a little better, got 3 points. Whoopee. And then I only sold 9 buttons for the day. So I went back on Sunday, found the venue this time, fenced in Women’s epee and sabre, but simultaneously and had to switch in and out of jackets and body cords. Again I couldn’t have fenced worse. Thinking I would just leave – it was only 11-ish, Deb again got me, and I ended up staying their until 5 refereeing. I know the word is “No” – but too many people say that, so I try to be nice. I did end up selling about 30 buttons, so that helped, but it has taken me two days to get back on my feet. I missed Sunday yoga and dancing. I was glad to make it home. I didn’t even take pictures of me getting my two unearned medals. Will there be a next time? Maybe not.
March 5 and 6, 2011. Formerly part of Gasparilla activities and happening in February, it has now changed to March, and is held at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park (having moved a couple of times). This arts festival is known as the best in the Southeast and in the top 25 in the nation. This was the 41st annual Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, with 13 diverse disciplines, and huge awards totaling $74,500 this year. It includes not only art, but children’s activities including the second year of the Art Collectors in Training program, and of course, lots of food and live music! Artists are selected via a jury system, and there is also an Emerging Artist Program for emerging artists – this year there were eight. In the regular artists, over 1000 artists apply, 300 are accepted. This year an eco-friendly addition helped with re-cycling, etc.
When my husband was with the City of Tampa, he was had huge responsibility for this activity (it is co-sponsored by the City of Tampa) along with hundreds of volunteers, which made for some great personal stuff – such as parties for the judges, and a poster of the event. Our house in Hyde Park was full of these posters, and when I moved, I reluctantly sold them all. My next house is much too small. However, it was a wonderful era, and I still go to all the shows, this year’s being equal if not better to all the past shows.
May 22, 2010. Yes, there’s a city (if you can call it that) called Frostproof in Florida. And my friends Caroline and Gary live there. They have built a dance studio on their second floor and often have little gatherings. Although I had to miss bookclub, yoga and a performance by Dylan, Andy and I went and weren’t disappointed. 22 people showed up to dance (sometimes it’s like only 5), starting at 2:00. We stopped for a covered dish dinner at 6, continued dancing afterwards. Dancers came from Melbourne, Orlando, Sarasota and Tampa. It was like a mini fling, and my entire board was there, so we took care of some business as well. Great day!!!!
My Yoga teacher, Dale (the best in the city) told us he was teaching on a Sunday at Curtis Hixon Park at 6:00. Naturally I went to see what was up. Turns out, there has been Yoga in the Park for almost a year, I just didn’t know about it. And it’s FREE! There must have been about 100 of us, tucked into the tiers of the park, and it was great! I’ve been to one other since, but didn’t go this Sunday as I was tired from fencing and it was HOT outside! But I plan on doing it as often as possible. It turns out there is also activities there on Wednesdays, including Yoga, which I did last week. There is also kick-boxing, tai chi and boot camp. Mick and I were going this Wednesday but we got rained out. I’m anxious to go next week. If you didn’t know about it – come!
March19, 2010. Lynn and I went to the Largo Cultural Center to see the Eight O’clock Theatre’s (www.eightoclocktheatre.com) version of Bye Bye Birdie and we weren’t disappointed. The choreography was excellent, most of the voices were good. One of my favorite songs (that I use when I write shows) Got a Lot of Livin’ To Do – great! Also remember Put on a Happy Face? This oldie moldie rom the 60’s hasn’t lost it’s charm and Center is a really nice venue (largoarts.com). Coffee afterwards finished a lovely evening!
Memorial Day Weekend 2010. I haven’t been to a tournament in a long time, so entered the Divisionals that took place in Dunedin. I only entered the Women’s Foil and Epee (there was no saber) as I didn’t feel lilke spending more money on the “Opens”. I did pretty good! I took 3rd in both events! I fenced pretty well for a change, saw some old friends I haven’t seen in a while, and sold about 25 buttons! On the way home on Saturday, I stopped at the Goodwill and got a couple of skirts for my upcoming trip to India, and on Sunday, happened upon a Freedom Fest in Oldsmar, where I bummed around the booths, ate pizza and popcorn (the kind you get at these things, my mind has gone blank) – one of my favorites. Not a bad two days. Here’s a pic of us with our medals for foil..
 June 1 2010. There’s a small group of us that play music 2 times a month, taking place at one of our houses. There’s a couple of fiddlers, fluteists, guitars and me on accordion. We mostly play Irish music, as one of our goals is to be good enough to play with the “big guys” on the first Sunday of the month at the Four Green Fields restaurant/bar, where many many musicians get together for a GREAT jam! None of us are very good, but we have a wonderful time. Because of this I made a line of “music” buttons, and now and then take to the pub, but it’s not a good place to sell. I tried a couple of music stores, but the “boss” wasn’t in and I didn’t get back to them. I’m not a good sales person. Nor am I a good accordionist! Oh well!
(May 7, 2011) Because our Greater Seder group did The Wizard of Schnozz, Lynn and I (both Judy Garland fans) went to a local production by the Salerno Theatare Company called “Judy Garland Beyond the Rainbow – a tribute concert event (Salernotheatre.com). 3 gals and a guy paid tribute, some JG songs, some just of her era. One gal was terrific (brought in from NY), one really good, and one good and bad – when she was on – she was fine, when not, ouch! But the concept of old videos, interviews from friends and relatives (on film – is that what you call it these days?) and the live part – very nicely done. And excellent choreography.
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