Deming, NM

I'm paralleling the same route that we took 15 years ago in the Citabria. Right after I left the Navy, we piled into the little two seater and flew, pretty much at highway speed, east to my Mom's place in West Palm Beach. Right out of the California hills, we hit a bit of turbulence, which may have given Janet, or at least her tummy, second thoughts. But at an Arizona FBO, we met up with the couple who ran the place. While the husband showed me his biplane he was working on, his wife plied Janet with ginger candy. Airsickness disappeared immediately. Janet was in love. With the candy, and I suppose with me, too, or she wouldn't have made it that far.

Come evening, we landed in Deming, NM, where I'm writing this. The cabbie who took us into town told us it was the land of clean water and fast ducks. The town is set on a spring, and every year, they have a duck race. Later, we'd discover they used plastic floaty ducks, much to Janet's disappointment. She always did like ducks, maintaining that the best part of the Disneyland Jungle Boat tour was seeing real ducks nesting on fake crocodiles.

That evening, we found ourselves watching Sesame Street. Hey, it's better than most of the other stuff on TV! And I remember this song coming on:


We waltzed around the room, singing "Batty batty bat bat bat bat" until we got tired and went to sleep. Or something like that.

I won't be somber, but just before she passed, I held her up and we waltzed as best as we could to that song, then finished with an Arbeau pavane. But in deference to M. Arbeau, I think Janet liked the bats better.

Bat bat bat bat bat...

Beethoven Bear

Janet's teddy from when she was six. She thought he had the same scowl as old LVB. Flower was a gift from a student, although I'm afraid I can't remember which one.

Tunes

For the last couple of weeks, I've been busy tracking down some of Janet's old performances. Josef Kucera, the recording engineer UCSD (among a few thousand other hats) retrieved the recordings done at university performances and mastered them for me. So I've got four CDs of her music now, as well as a DVD of her Master's recital from 1994. I've put most of the last up on YouTube now, as well as all of the Apparatus and Goliard CDs.

With those and the UCSD recordings, there should be enough to put together a decent amount of her work up on a memorial site. In the meantime, if you want to watch and listen, they're over at http://www.youtube.com/user/DPW1889

Perhaps it's the early musician in me, but this is my favorite, a pair of 14th century madrigals she performed with Kristin Korb. This is how I like to remember Janet, in full on performance mode, the life shining through her.

And cute ears. They always seemed to poke through her hair like she was some sort of Tolkien elf. But don't let that distract you from the music.




And wickedness prompts me to tease her about the ever present kleenex she'd wad up and leave in her pants/skirt pocket. At least she didn't drop it on the stage.