36 Years Ago

36 Years Ago, Vienna 1971—A Student Journal

Day 034: Anjali's mom comes to Vienna

36yearsago.com

Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing & friends.


Anjali last couple of days

SPECIAL NOTE [2007]

HOUSTON, we have a problem...”

“We have a computer down; I repeat, a computer is down...”

“Mayday, mayday...”

“911 operator: Is there a pulse? Are there any life signs? Is it dead?...”

“Scotty, I need that computer online, now! Are there any spare dilithium crystals around?...Captain, the damn thing is dead. I’ll rip out the ion lithium batteries out of my iPod and see if that can start her up. It’s the best I can do.”

Such drama. Truth be told, my computer’s hard drive freaked about 5 days ago and I’ve just been able to complete the backups, buy a new external hard drive, reinstall applications and data, and get the computer back up today. I apologize for any inconvenience to the readers. All five of you.

That means that I am five days behind on the blog. I will be posting and catching up over the next few days. I will be backdating the posting dates to coincide with the actual calendar dates to keep the chronology of the calendar accurate. I apologize once again.

Back to the journal.


Day 34 — Anjali’s mom comes to Vienna
05-September-1971 (Sun.)


TRANSCRIPT

Not a busy day.

Went with Anjali to meet her mother at the train station. They were staying for 3 days. I had apprehensions about going—I would be imposing. Her mother was very pleasant and, as I expected, I felt out of place and imposing by my mere presence.

From here on, it was (naturally) different. We tried to make plans to meet again, but could not plan anything definite. I hope we will meet.

Practicing [horn]. Sometimes good, sometimes not.

Not fully satisfied with playing and embouchure. I’m not sure whether I’ve changed my smiling [horn embouchure]) still does not look right, but I can’t seem to change.

I just noticed that I’ve been writing this month as August.


REFLECTIONS

Meet the parents. Anjali’s mom is in town, to meet her daughter in Vienna, do a bit of sightseeing, and then wisk Anjali away to Paris—never to be seen again.

I remember liking her mom but it was certainly somewhat awkward and different. Our private time was over. I don’t know if her mom knew about me (probably did) and there was nothing that she did to cause me to feel weird. It was just different, naturally. Not quite as hilarious as
Meet the Parents but in the same vein. Well, the job of mommy is to protect the kids. I can certainly understand that.

Back to reality. I went back to practicing the horn later, still dissatisfied with my embouchure (lip position) when playing.

Feelings are inside us. It is interesting that I don’t write about what I was feeling—about how I would feel when Anjali would be gone. You can bet, that I was thinking about it all the time. What am I going to do?

All you can do is make the best of any situation. In other words, you can’t do much.

John

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