International Jazz Day

 

Eugenia Leon Band. Playa del Carmen Jazz Festival. November 2010. Credit: Mzuriana.

 April 30 is International Jazz Day. 

Oh, how lucky I have been to experience jazz on my travels around the world, whether physically or in spirit! A playlist here.

2010: Playa del Carmen: Homework, Massage, and All That Jazz

2011: Nazret, Ethiopia: Introduction and a Brush With Fame (Spoiler alert: Mahmoud Ahmed, super famous Ethiopian jazz musician ... and a scream at the end)

2011: Caucasus Georgia: Nino Katamadze

2015: Lafayette, Louisiana: Blackpot Festival: Djoukil, a gypsy jazz band from France here: 

2016: Washington D.C. Jazz Festival

DC Jazz Festival. June 2016. Credit: Mzuriana.

2016: Ethiopian jazz at Twins in Washington, D.C. 

 2016: Toronto Jazz Festival here (swing versus street) and here (KC and the Sunshine Band) and here (Jamison Ross) and here (Toronto Mass Choir) and here (Dione Taylor) and here (Jane Bunnet and Hilario Duran).

Dione Taylor and the Backsliderz, Toronto Jazz Festival. June 2016. Credit: Mzuriana.

2016: El Paso: Jazz at Sunset

2017: St. Louis: Early Days Jazz on a Sunday Afternoon

2018: St. Louis: Duke 'n Jazz

Duke Ellington tribute, Christopher Parrish Octet 3. St. Louis, MO. April 2018. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

2019: Las Cruces, New Mexico: Here and here and here. 

 

Jazz at Mom's Coffee in Las, Cruces, NM. February 2019. Credit: Mzuriana.

2019: Tucson: International Day of Jazz

2019: The Sunday jazz jams at Brother John's in Tucson, with an example here: 

Portable: A One-Pot Place

 

My hostess making borscht. Rustavi, Caucasus Georgia. August 2011. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

I've only got one pot, one skillet, and a broiler pan set-up for cooking. No microwave. 

Most times, this presents no problem. 

On rare occasion, as was the case this morning, it did present a problem. 

I laughed when I realized my pickle. 

Yesterday, I made chicken soup (another rare event) after I'd roasted, then de-boned two whole chickens in the oven. 

I placed the pot of chicken soup in the refrigerator, as I would heat it for lunch today. 

This morning, when I went to prepare oatmeal, I wondered, "where is my pot"? 

Oh, right. 

Would that all problems be so easily resolved! I pulled out my one large salad bowl, poured the cold chicken soup into that, then made my oatmeal. 

Upon the achievement of my breakfast mission, I poured the soup back into the pot.

In an environment of a pandemic that won't go home, war, and retrogressive laws being promulgated in a panic to protect the institutionalization of racism and withdraw women's rights of self-determination ..... what a delightfully frivolous problem for me to resolve today. 

And it made me laugh to do so.

 

10 Years Ago: The Earring

 Original April 2012 post here: The Earring (Rustavi, Caucasus Georgia)

Monday, April 16, 2012

Georgia: The Earring

My earring.

I got together with a group of TLG colleagues in Tbilisi awhile back.

We vented about living with host families, school problems, poor customer service, sex discrimination, the winter cold, the dearth of showering opportunities ... the usual expat bitching.

On my way home to Rustavi, I climbed aboard a packed marshrutka, lucking into the very last space. It was a pull-down seat almost smack against the sliding door. As I squished my backpack into the space between me and the seat in front of me, I heard a tinkling metallic sound to my right. Something had fallen. Within my tight quarters, I did a body and pack check --  keys? coins? what? Oh, I thought, as I put my hand to my right ear, an earring fell off.

It had fallen onto the running board alongside the marshrutka's sliding passenger door. I could barely see it if I carefully looked down on my right, as if peering into a narrow crevasse. Damn it.

As I contemplated retrieval strategies, a man behind me called out gamicheret, indicating the driver should stop the marshrutka. I slid open the door and prepared to stand up, close my jumpseat, then step out of the van to allow room for the man to get off the vehicle. But he motioned to me to stay put.

While 20 cramped humans waited in silence, the man reached down, picked up my earring, and handed it to me.

And we took off again for Rustavi.

Georgia.  So exasperating at times, and so charming.

A lagniappe: Tales of other earrings

• May 2019: Tbilisi, Caucasus Georgia: Dry Bridge and Dining
  
• April 2018: Missouri: Creative Life: Jewelry
• September 2016: El Paso: Celebration of the Desert