Horn of Too-Much-Plenty?

Here's something you don't hear every day: I think I'm allergic to my own saxophone case at the moment.

I should give you some backstory: We had a gig with the evening combo last night--a private reception for someone running for city council in one of our local municipalities. The reception was held in a beautifully-renovated older house that looked brand-new; whoever was in charge of the renovation had done a bang-up job. (I could also tell, by glancing through the large picture windows out back, that they had some cool stuff; even the TV in the kids' playroom put mine to shame.)

We had been told we'd be playing in a "breezeway," which turned out to be the size of my living room. Said breezeway opened onto a porch with a spectacular view of the nearby golf course, and in the middle of that porch was a circular fire pit; seeing as how the temperature was dropping all night, that pit was in use, so the sweet smell of what I would later find out was pinyon wood was wafting through the area for the duration of our performance.

We played along a side wall of the breezeway, facing the main part of the house, and the horn section stood right in front of a woodpile. Some of us even stored our cases right next to it, but we were never in the way of our host whenever he needed to refresh the fire a bit.

I noticed as we were leaving that my clothes had the distinct aroma of firewood, so I changed right after I got home. But I was quite surprised this morning, while teaching my two lessons (yes, Kev works holidays if someone wants to learn), that the same eau de pinyon wood was also emanating from my alto case over twelve hours after the gig.

The issue here is that, of all the things I'm allergic to, trees, weeds and grasses top the list. I actually found myself sneezing quite a bit during both lessons. So if I'm really temporarily allergic to my horn case today, it's a good thing it's a holiday. I guess I'll air out the case for the rest of the day and limit any further playing to the tenor.

Another blessing of technology: Your iPod can save your life! Or at least it did for this soldier.

Funnies of the day: Murphy's Lesser-Known Laws, by Neal Boortz. (And let's not forget Murphy's Law of Auto Mechanics, as conjured up by my ownself.)