My first grand piano!

I did it! Today I bought myself a baby grand. It's a beautiful new Kawai. It's "petite" for a baby grand, only five feet long, but it will be the right piano for these next three years in Minnesota. It fits my space and needs and my budget, too.

I'm over the moon, just so happy.

Soon as it gets delivered (next Saturday), I will put up a photo for everyone to see. I got the satin ebony finish, so it's black but not the glossy, shiny black finish. The satin finish is more subtle and very beautiful.

The salesman treated me like a concert pianist today. Truly. At one point he referred to me as a professional. That made me feel really good. Well, if I'm a professional, it's about time I had a grand piano. Geez!

I know, when I was a piano teacher I always told people that it's silly to buy a baby grand, because the sound isn't as big and rich as you can get from a good quality studio upright. But you know, I really wanted this grand, and it suits me, and I'm happy.

The resale value will be very good, and the piano store has offered to buy it back from me when I get ready to move to California in 2008, if I want to sell it then.

Thinking of how my dad would love this piano. Mom, too. Oh, she'd be so thrilled! It has a warm, rich tone and is quite mellow, but plenty deep. I can't wait for it to arrive here so that I can really get to know my piano.

(Will I ever want to leave the apartment?! I think no!)

Words for today:

brilliance

buzzing

shellac

sparkle

freshet

willowy

verdant

precise

riches

lavish

adoring

contemplative

pleasurable

brook

quicksilver

Can you put them all together in a paragraph?! A reader just did that with my previous set of words. What a sweet gesture. The way to a woman's heart? (for me, it's not food!)

Dumpster-Diving, Brina-style,
or
Did I really just DO that?!

I live in a luxury apartment building, on the top floor. We have a "utilities room" down the hall from us which is also known as the "trash room." Upon entering, you approach a little door in the wall which leads into a trash chute. The chute goes four floors down to the underground parking garage trash dumpster. This is how you dispose of your garbage. Kind of like a laundry chute in an old house.

Every time I take my garbage bag to the trash room, I have my keys in hand. And every time I go through this process, I think about how awful it would be if I...

dropped my apartment keys down the chute along with my garbage...

which I did tonight!

Yup.

OOOPS!

The situation was further complicated by the fact that I had locked my apartment door behind me when I left, and A.J. was with his dad, and I did not have my cell phone on me, and there was a pork roast in the oven...

Did I panic? Did I freak?

NO! I took the dog and we went down in the elevator to the garage. I RAN to the trash room down there and assessed the situation. The dumpster had been emptied earlier today, so there was hardly anything in it. I found two bricks in there and piled them atop each other, stood on them, and peered over the edge of the big dumpster. I could clearly see my bag of garbage and my keys right on top of the bag, but they were far below me.

I couldn't quite reach the keys. I didn't freak out, no, not me! I got another brick and made a little stepping-stone staircase for myself, climbed up carefully, then I used all of my wonderful long yoga-arm extension and reached way down deep into the dumpster and gracefully grasped my keys without falling in head-first!

And that's the Brina dumpster-dive story. With happy ending.

Are you proud of me for not freaking out?!

(I am.)

Words I love today

rain

home

turquoise

honey

cozy

amethyst

harmony

silken

billowing

forest

shimmery

lacy

caress

lapping




Ok, now it's your turn!

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrufffffffffff!

I picked up the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, a remastered CD version, at Pam's garage sale yesterday, also the soundtrack from Camelot, just because...so this morning after our walk and breakfast, I sat down to do some writing and put on the Beach Boys. And Polly? She's barking at it! Looking right at the speakers and barking! It's the weirdest thing! The only time I can remember her barking at music before was when I was playing my keyboard in the "harpsichord" mode. She hates that too.

Look, Polly, if you're going to be a California dog, you are going to have to learn to like the Beach Boys!

A gorgeous night of Russian music: a review!

I spent last night downtown at Orchestra Hall, listening to the Minnesota Orchestra in concert. My friend Karen invited me to join her for the Thursday night performance.

Whenever I go to Orchestra Hall, I have so many emotions. I worked there for the first two years of our life in Minnesota, many ages ago: 1980-1982, in the marketing department, so Orchestra Hall isn't just a concert hall to me, but my old office. And Karen was one of my bosses back then. I was so young then, only 22 when I started working there. Sometimes when I go to the Hall now, I will get that nervous excitement I used to feel going to work.

Here we are 25 years later!

The concert had just three works: "A Night on Bald Mountain" by Mussorgsky was the opener. Very exciting, and eye-opening. I thought I "knew" the piece, but I really didn't, because I only knew the version by Rimsky-Korsakov which is used in Disney's "Fantasia" movie. The original by Mussorgsky is quite different and had me on the edge of my seat. Well, maybe not literally. We were, after all, in the front row of Tier One, and if I'd been much edgier, I'd have fallen out of the tier! Now that would have been a really embarrassing and dangerous way to start the orchestra season, huh?

The orchestra personnel has changed a lot since I worked there in the '80s, but there are still many players I knew. It's not like I haven't attended any MO concerts in the intervening decades, but it was especially poignant to be there with Karen. I could ask her little questions about the orchestra musicians and she knows everyone, that was fun.

The highlight of the concert for me was the young Chinese pianist Jie Chen's performance of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the orchestra. Chen has the face of an angel. She wore a startlingly blue sleeveless gown with a bustle or bow effect in the back. She's got the rather slight build of many Asian women and yet she used her whole body to play the Rachmaninoff: at many times she came right up off the bench at the end of some big phrases. When I was a piano teacher, I often told my students that we need to involve our ENTIRE body in playing. She is only nineteen. She won the big International Piano e-Competition last year and apparently the Rach. Second was her big piece then. Clearly she has inhabited the music and it came across.

I particularly loved watching her interact with the orchestra and conductor. Not only is she a good listener, but she is intimately involved with the orchestral part. She really shines in the more lyrical, espressivo passages; her more precise, virtuosic parts are perhaps not as precise as they could be, which is my only criticism of her performance. But she really played beautifully and conveyed the Rachmaninoff spirit throughout. She had a way of pulling you into the whole piece, not just the piano part, which is really quite magical. Osmo Vanska, the conductor, seemed to have a great rapport with Chen. The audience response was huge: a standing ovation, many "bravo"s and hollering for the soloist, many curtain calls, just a fabulous performance and really one of my favorite young pianists I've heard in ages. I will definitely follow her career.

After intermission the orchestra played Stravinsky's "Petrushka" which is one of those pieces I like to give to people who say they don't care for classical music. It's bold and brilliant and rhythmical and constantly changing, and it stays in your ear forever once you've heard it. Last night they did the 1947 revision, which is not the ballet version so often heard. In this revision, the piano part takes more of a major role. Karen explained to me that the piano position in the orchestra is still open but that Susan Billmeyer (hope I got her name right) has won the job of interim pianist. In any case, Susan applied herself to the Stravinsky and did a very good job of a very difficult score. I've played piano in orchestral music and it is hard to get the timing and articulation just right; it's very different from playing solo.

All evening, the solo parts from Burt Hara, the principal clarinet of the orchestra, were just gorgeous. There was a section in the slow movement of the Rachmaninoff where he and the pianist traded phrases...so beautiful I was crying. I've heard Burt play for years but I think he was at his very best last night. Interestingly, Mike Anthony, the music reviewer for the Tribune, mentions Burt in his review of last night, too, so I guess I am not alone in noticing this. (Karen noticed this, too.)

The orchestra is playing this same program again tonight and it will be broadcast live on MN Public Radio.

And oh, as I was waiting for the elevator in the parking ramp, there was just this huge crowd of people waiting and some of us got restless and decided to walk inside the ramp to our cars. In particular, this nice gentleman and his wife and I made this decision; it was Walter and Joan Mondale. I've seen them pretty often around the cities and at church and concerts, and I always feel I "should" say something profound to him, but instead it seems that we just make small talk and that seems right, too. I do admire them both very much and have been praying for their daughter, Eleanor, who is dealing with a brain tumor.

So there you have my review. I will definitely write about Springsteen when I go to hear him in October, and any other good concerts I am able to catch along the way.

I should say, too, that it was fun to dress up a bit and suspend reality for a couple of hours in order to be washed in the Russian music. Like going to the movies only better, because it's live music, for God's sake, by these incredible musicians!

Why am I driving in a tornado?!

I believe I drove in a tornado last night. It was one of the most frightening experiences I've ever had. We have a lot of severe weather here in Minnesota and also back in Vermont where I grew up. Usually I can take it in stride and I feel proud of myself once I've made it home, but last night was really scary.

On Wednesdays, I sometimes don't get to see A.J. at all because he stays at his dad's midweek. If I can, I like to schedule things so that I can pick him up from soccer or basketball or school and spend a bit of time with him on the way to dropping him at his dad's house. That was the plan yesterday. Very straightforward. Looking back at it today, I can see that the reason I found myself driving in a tornado wearing dark glasses last night was motherly love. Ok. That's my reason. That makes perfect sense to anyone who is a mother, I'm sure!

We had a very hot day on Wednesday. It was 89 degrees when I picked up A.J., and there was something on the radio about a tornado watch for Stearns County, which is not our county. I figured we were in for a storm, 'cause there's a cool front coming and you just expect that when it hits the 89 degree front, there will be a storm.

A.J. and I finally left his school at around 6:20 and I got him to his dad's at 6:40. By then, the sky had started to grow really dark. Now here's the problem: I was wearing my prescription sunglasses. I had left my regular glasses at home. And it was getting really dark out...and I can't see to drive with no glasses at all. So I rushed A.J. on into his dad's house and hit the road for my place. There is so much road construction right now that one of the main roads I need to get home is closed at parts, so I took a self-imposed detour, driving a big loop to head toward my neighborhood. It should take me about 20 minutes to get from point A to point B, but it could be more like a half hour using this detour. I was worrying about how dark the sky was getting and I was having some trouble seeing well because I had to keep those dark glasses on.

Of course the storm hit suddenly and hard, while I was driving. Heavy rain and hail, and horribly strong winds. The reports today are that the winds where I was driving were about 60-70 mph. I believe it. There were things blowing across the road! I tried to keep going in my little Volkswagen Golf. I tried not to look at the sky too much, but when I did, I saw some strange shapes up there. At one point there were three vertical sections coming down from the sky...funnel clouds? I don't know. There were reports of a funnel seen in Brooklyn Park, and I was near there at the time.

The driving was really scary. I started to shake really hard. Slowed down, of course, then I had bigger vehicles passing me constantly (what else is new?) and I just drove very carefully. When I got to my town of Plymouth, the sirens were sounding. Spooky. It got so that I couldn't see a thing. By feel more than by sight, I pulled over into a parking lot of a business on the street just before my hill. The office building there was closed, but I sat in my car trying to get the courage to finish the drive home. My dog was home alone and I knew she'd be scared, and frankly I didn't feel so safe in my car. The sirens were LOUD! I pulled it together and drove up the hill and into my neighborhood, made it to the underground parking garage, and got myself parked and climbed out of the car. That's when I realized how hard I was shaking.

A neighbor had just arrived home at the garage too and she and I comforted each other. We were both petrified from having driven in that storm. We talked for a bit and then (dumbly, out of habit) got into the elevator to go up to our floor. Dumbly because we could very well have had a power failure from the storm and found ourselves stuck in that elevator! But we were both anxious to get into our apartments and check on our dogs. As we got into the elevator, there was a young woman getting out, headed to her car. We warned her not to go out into the storm (it's hard to realize the intensity of a storm like that when you're safely inside; I think she had no clue what was going on outside, really. She didn't listen to us.)

We made it upstairs safely and oh, I was never so glad to be home.

Polly was frightened, but mostly she comforted me. We plopped ourselves down on the floor and cuddled and watched the reports come in on the tv. Tornado. Straight-line winds. Flash flooding. A man dead! (a tree fell on him in the street in front of his house in north Minneapolis, striking him in the head and killing him, kind of near the part of town where I was driving actually). Power outages. Shingle Creek up over its banks. Sirens. Roofs blown off.

Scary. But then, comparing it to hurricane Katrina and now Rita, it's not so serious. Still, when you're in it? It's terrifying. Of course I called A.J. to see how they were faring (they were fine, riding out the storm inside their big old house). The storm continued for a couple of hours.

At one point, the winds and hail were so intense that I got scared about staying in the apartment. We are a top floor corner unit and have so many windows; also there is a large electrical tower quite near to our building and I was a bit afraid of that (as my mom always said, "I don't trust electricity", no, that's not right, Mom would say, "I don't trust that outlet" about specific electrical outlets in her home. I guess I am my mother's daughter, after all...see also the new wig postings...my mom was ALWAYS playing around with her hair color!). It seemed like a good idea to go to a safer area in the building, so Polly and I took refuge in the stairwell for a while. She seemed to like it there. It was a long night.

Today things are very much cooler, the ground is sopping wet, and I'm sure there are trees down all through the area.

I hope tornado season is over. Fall begins today, at least by the calendar. Hope hope hope. And I know this is all SO trivial compared to hurricanes. It sure makes me understand why people have to evacuate those areas. We really are at the mercy of weather, and it is so much more powerful than we realize.

I always wanted to have long straight hair with bangs! I felt so different when I put this wig on. What fun! Here's a shot that shows the whole length of it. Definitely gives one the Cher feel, from the "Sonny and Cher" days...

Fun with my new wig or "I Feel Pretty"... episode one:

A Heart to Hang Onto

Really loved Rachel's webcast today on WHO-TV; she and her old friend Mikey, a guitarist/songwriter, just set up and spent a couple of hours in front of the camera at a small studio there in London. Pete T. arrived partway through the adventure and added to the conversation and music. Rachel was just as fresh and funny as she is in her blog (rachelfuller.blogspot.com), and the webcast was like having them in my living room.

Pete explained that the way the WHO-TV webcast works, only about 75 people can hook into it at any one time, so once I was there, I just left my laptop going and stayed connected. It was great fun and I loved hearing their stories and the songs. Aside from being a beautiful musician, that girl has quite the fashion sense! Her black boots were nice, but she also had these great "socks" which I would call thigh-highs, black with big bows at the top. She took off her boots right away and showed off her "socks" the rest of the time, they really were intriguing and now I want a pair...Of course, stockings are one of my weaknesses, so I'm sure I'll find a way to purchase some like these, very fetching!

Toward the end, Pete played "A Heart to Hang Onto" ("give me a heart to hang onto, give me a soul that's tailored new"), just Pete singing and playing guitar, it was really moving. Actually each of the songs got to me. One of the songs Rachel and Mike played (and wrote), "You," made me cry hard. That's a good thing, not a criticism. Crying is good sometimes.

I felt lonely last night, for about a half hour. That's the first time in a long time. Mostly I love the way I have structured my life. I have always craved alone time, and it's good for the soul and for the musical and writing part of me. But I'm also quite social and love to be with people in conversation, so there has to be a balance, always. Last night, I came home to the dog. She's a good dog, the best dog!, but she doesn't talk back to me.

Somebody really ought to post in response to my blog. I know someone is reading it. Don't be shy. Make up a screen name if you're privacy-conscious.

I'll see if I can post some more weird photos for your entertainment pleasure.

Looking ahead,
I'm excited about getting to hear Bruce (that would be Springsteen, of course) on the 12th of October in a solo acoustic show here. I am famously lucky at ticket purchasing. I simply went online about an hour after the tickets went on sale today, plugged in the numbers, and came up with two good seats. Of course, it's expensive, but that's ok. He rarely plays these kinds of shows, and it's going to be a special concert, I am sure of it.

My first time seeing Bruce live was back when I was at Eastman. Bruce and the E Street Band played the Rochester Auditorium right around the corner from our dorm. I remember distinctly that I went to the little box office there that same day and purchased the last two tickets available, and then I spent the rest of the day trying to find someone who would go with me. I was surrounded by these amazingly talented classical and jazz musicians, and nobody had heard of Springsteen?! Egads!

Finally I asked my violinist Bob Sender (who was kind of a boyfriend) if he'd like to go. Bob was from Philly and he was pretty crazy about me. I believe he would have gone anywhere I'd suggested. So we went to the show. Our seats were in the back row, but it was such an intimate space that it felt like we were onstage with the band. At one point, Bruce hopped off the stage and ran up the center aisle, coming all the way to our row and singing right at us! The energy was visible. I've never forgotten that night!

Since then, I've seen Bruce only one other time, on "The Rising" tour after September 11th, and that was astonishing.

I'm excited. Another Bruce experience!

I'm also quite the Patti Scialfa fan and wish more people knew her work. She is a good songwriter, you have to believe me. (Of course, I say the same thing about Yoko, and friends laugh me out of the room, so maybe you need to take my opinion with a grain of salt! I do love Yoko.)

All about the love:
Interesting little moment today with the mother/daughter team who clean at our apartment building. They are really into Polly. They always give her attention, get down on her level, and Polly gives them dog kisses. Very sweet.

The daughter is finishing up her work here and won't be doing cleaning at our building after tomorrow. She was saying her goodbyes to Polly today and she told me, "I was thinking about it, and Polly is the thing I'll miss most about working here."

Isn't that amazing? How animals give and receive love, and how they change the feeling of the people around them...it's awesome.

I feel so horrible for the people affected by Hurricane Katrina who had to leave their pets behind. Can you imagine being torn away from your dog? It really is like leaving your child behind. I'm not at all sure I could stand it, and yet I've already had "the worst" happen in my life, losing Ethan, right? Still, if I had to leave Polly behind in a tragedy? It would be devastating.

She's also very funny, and smart, and stubborn (like me!).

She's a great dog. I'm lucky to have her. I adopted her last year on September 17th. Moved in here on the 15th and had her with me by that Friday. I am so glad I chose her, of all the dogs needing homes. She's my girl!

Happy Polly! Riding in the elevator, rolling in the grass. She's my happy girl.

I got some pretty amazing birthday cards this year. I felt that my friends and family were marking not only my birthday but also the beginning of this new phase of my life, post-divorce, beginning grad. school, with my old name back, all these changes of late.

A.J. wrote me a birthday card as if writing me a letter. It is one of the most moving letters I have ever received. I will share just one sentence of it here. He wrote:

Thanks for everything you do for me, and thanks for accepting me and all my friends, because to me, they're family too.


Wow. Could he have said that better? It makes me remember exactly what it was like to be his age, and I know that my mom, for all of her difficulties, taught me this acceptance. She was the mom who would always welcome our friends, who would always listen to them and to us, and who the cute guys I liked secretly had crushes on. I think that I am a much different mom than she was, but I also know that I learned some very good lessons from her example.

A.J. just reminded me of that.

I have a lot of work to do for my two grad. school classes, but I'm really loving it. I feel as though I am swimming in the deep end some of the time. It's not the most comfortable place to be but I really want to be there. I came down with a very sore throat overnight and will get myself tested for strep, just in case. I refuse to miss class, so I have to be healthier by Tuesday night!

I don't think that my little musical link is working. I wish someone would try it and let me know.

Really enjoying Rachel Fuller's music and her blog, which is at:
www.rachelfuller.blogspot.com for those of you who might like to visit and soak up Rachel's music, good heart, and humor. Discovering her music has been a joy for me this month.

(A.J. likes some of her songs, too, said one was "hard as hell" and that it sounded like metal, and that was a compliment.)

What I like about her music is that she bridges all kinds of styles and she is able to incorporate her classical piano training with rock and pop in a unique way. I love her demos which are up on her site, some I love even better than her more produced recordings on her CD "Cigarettes and Housework." Give her a listen, please!

Going to go nurse this sore throat a bit more, and then it's time for my chiropractic appointment. I had hoped to go piano shopping again today, but as my friend Joe would say: "It's not happening!"

I'm going to try to link you to a musical excerpt. If it works, you'll be listening to Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor, played by me in our Sarabande concert, August 2003. I hope this works!
http://s48.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=14Y9DNKBUL7D0118H85TBC5JHH

There seem to be a number of ways to make this happen. If I'm doing this right, you should be able to click on the link and download the Chopin Nocturne. It does seem to only stay available for seven days, but it's a start, and in the meantime I can learn how to do this for real.

If you were successful, please post here so I know it worked for you.

Crossing my fingers.

A rather odd self-portrait--but there's nothing so wrong with looking like a chipmunk, now, is there?!

I don't really mind this photo. I like the way my hair shines, and my eyebrows are pretty, and it's rare for me to have a photo taken without my glasses on, so it's, um, unique. That's it. Unique.

I'm not too happy about the way my smile looks, but I have a valid explanation for my slightly awkward smile. I'm in the midst of the dental implant process and as a result I have a sort of retainer for my two front teeth. It looks a bit fake, I think, but it's only temporary. By January of the New Year, I'll be completely done with the process and will be able to smile, eat, and bite happily again. I have really missed biting. (seriously!)

Meanwhile, I have to keep a sense of humor about my appearance. I am trying. What do you think about this photo?

I am turning 48 in two more days. Is this what 48 looks like? Who knows?

Sarabande! That's us!
Here's a photo of Cindy and me taken just before our concert in Vermont, August 2nd.
This was our fourth summer performing together as Sarabande. We have finally found our favorite performance space, the lovely Community Room at the Richmond Free Library, just the right size for us and the most beautiful, rich, warm Kawai grand ever. The seats for the audience? Folding chairs with leather seats and backs--yes, leather! There are also a few very comfy leather couches and big chairs in the back of the room. It's just a perfect space for us and we enjoyed this year's concert more than any of the previous summers' efforts.

One thing we discovered this year that helped us, too, is that we don't have to stress ourselves out. True, it's classical music and yes, there is a certain amount of technical difficulty to what we choose to play, but if we just relax and enjoy every moment--from choosing the repertoire, rehearsing, planning, writing the program notes, rehearsing, more rehearsing, and finally performing--we have such a good time. That's how we did it this year and it showed in our music.

I hope to be able to link you to our new website soon (it's still under construction). We'll have soundbytes and such there, maybe here too (I have to ask Cindy's permission first!).

Oh, for those of you who don't know us, Sarabande is a chamber music duo made up of Cindy (left, in the photo) and me. We were little girls growing up together in the '60s and older (wilder!) girls being teenagers together in the '70s in Vermont, and now we're friends all these years later. Cindy plays both flute and piano (but not both at the same time, giggle) and I'm a pianist.

Hope the photo shows up ok. We look fairly relaxed, huh?

On our last day in Vermont,
A.J. and I took this photo of ourselves in front of the cabin. Sometimes it still amazes me that my kid is nearly an adult. He'll be 16 in another couple of months; he's taller than me (this photo is deceptive, I think I'm standing uphill from him, because A.J. is already six-foot-two and I'm only five-seven!). A.J. knows who he is, what he thinks, what music he likes (he really got into the Doors while we were in Vermont this summer), what he likes about his friends, where his boundaries are (this is a big lesson for me, and believe me, I'm working on it)...he's a great person. I learn from him every day, just as I did when he was little.

No surprises there.
Sometimes I think that parents have it backwards. There is so much for us to learn from our kids if we can slow down our lives enough to actually experience them. I had the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom, working only part-time for A.J.'s entire childhood, and that has always made good sense to me: my first job is as Mom. My other jobs and passions have their place, but the Mom part never shuts down. As a result, I really know my kid. I don't just love him. I like him, too.

The other photo is of A.J. playing bass at our apartment. Usually he and his band practice at Sam's house, where there's actual studio equipment, but they were having fun goofing around here that day. Photographic evidence reveals that they even got my lap dulcimer into the mix!

Speaking of making music, I'm almost sure that I'm going to buy myself a grand piano this weekend. To think that I've never owned a grand, it's quite pathetic really. I've been a pianist since I was very young, and I always perform on these amazing grand pianos and wonder why I can't have one myself. Now I live in a 1200-square-foot apartment, yet I've got a whole area set aside for music. It's what the floor plan calls my solarium, and currently my upright Yamaha piano, electric keyboard, A.J.'s cello, and my lap dulcimer live there. The room is an odd shape and has windows all around and a wood floor. It's well insulated, so I don't worry about the old adage about keeping pianos away from windows. And there are shades, of course. Once I've got a grand in there, albeit a baby grand, I'll have to move the other instruments around or even into other spaces, but oh, it's going to be so good for my soul.

The ceilings are quite high, too, and the sound is gorgeous in there. When you are seated in our dining or living room, you can see the solarium, so I imagine that we'll have some times when A.J. would rather I not play piano...but we'll work it out.

Anyway, the piano shops have Labor Day sales, and I'm ready to make the purchase. I'm not shopping for the piano of my dreams; in fact, I would like NOT to buy the piano of my dreams this weekend, because I am moving in the summer of 2008 and will not be able to move a piano cross-country to California. I plan to sell this piano before my move and get a different instrument once I've settled out there. So, this piano needs to be wonderful but not my ultimate favorite piano on the planet. (There's a Schimmel grand which has totally captured my heart, but I can't see spending that much money...maybe someday.)