Today is Valentine's Day; but Kay and I celebrated our 7th one yesterday, we have been married for 3 years and lived together before I got my head together and proposed. We each surprised the other with cards and gifts; I thought it was time to bring her a bouquet of roses, which I actually found and bought Saturday afternoon. She bought me a pair of earrings and a nightie. Thank you Love!!!

We do a lot of quilting and yesterday we began the day with a quilting lesson at our favorite shop and picked up a large bag of white scraps, we finished the morning with lunch with a friend at 'Three Crazy Bakers". They always have great things to eat and we are always hungry after the morning's lesson. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for the Valentine's Day dance held at the Unitarian Church and co-sponsored by PFLAG. Lots of food but few people to share; we danced a little and ate a lot before we were off to the last event for the day.

The Universities Symphony is in their 20 season and last's night's performance was just to wonderful, and beautiful. Our symphony has gotten smaller and there have been some personnel changes, but that only make the sound of the group more together and musical. The first piece was Mozart's "Le Nozze de Figaro" which was a great piece to begin the evening.

The guest soloist Robert McDuffie playing Tchaikowsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 35 for the second selection of the evening. McDuffie was incredible; intense fire and blaze of fingers dripping with physical and emotional angst mixed with extreme emotional expressive playing. The orchestra finished the evening with Tchaiksky's Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 35. This is one of my favorite pieces but I have never hear it played live. Wow! Kay and I were enthralled with the 3rd movement; the Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato. Simply engrossing to watch the strings plucking their strings; that sound is very different than when the instruments are bowed. Our favorite person in the orchestra to watch is the principal percussionist, ever thing he plays is always with intense emotion and physical involvement. His cymbal playing really does have a lot of flourish and makes his precision and musicianship impeccable, always adding to the percussion's musical oomph for the overall orchestral sound and performance.

Yesterday was I day I will cherish in my heart. I love you Kay!!!