An excellent weekend

So we spent an AMAZING weekend at the Sunshine State Acosutic Music Camp in St. Pete this weekend, stuffing a gargantuan amount of knowledge into our heads and hoping to retain some of it. I spent several hours in mandolin class with teacher Dennis Devine from San Antonio, Fla., who was quite patient with us, mostly, although I think by the end of Sunday he was maybe a teensy bit exasperated with some of us slow learners. Luckily there were even slower learners than me in the group (not many! Ed, you know who you are!). But overall the group was not blasting along at lightning speed, so even what I wasn't quite getting in terms of execution I was understanding. Also took two hours of singing, a music theory hour, sat in on harmonica to no avail -- they'd already moved on. I did pick up some handouts for Mom.
Anyway, for $129 it was a major positive investment. I hope to not be too tired to even pick up the mando tonight. My fingers are sore but not as bad as I had feared. And we played a lot.
The campground was interesting -- the event is held at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, which sad to report is right by a 4-lane street and too close to I-275 to be quiet. But beautiful big oaks and palms. No hookups, so it was tent camping or trailers w/o electricity. We camped next to a brother and sister in their Aliner (I WANT one!). She was from Tampa, he from Tucson. Nice people in their 60s.
It was hotter than hell, of course, this being Florida and October being no reason to think it might cool off. Easily 90 during the day, easily 80 overnight, and humid! My god. I slept barely at all Friday night, and then unfortunately on Saturday night had a gall bladder attack that might have sent us either home or to an air-conditioned motel if not for the reiki healing powers of Suz Chapman, who laid hands on me, gave me an acupressure point to use, and chastized me for eating fried chicken. Well, I knew that! But it'd been 9 months or so since my last attack and I kinda... forgot. But fortunately with a cool shower, Suz's reiki and then me doing the acupressure point on my hand, plus deep yoga breathing, I was able to get some relief and slept pretty well that night. Back on the Chinese herbs Martha gave me.
We just learned an amazing amount. Steve did fingerpick and flatpick guitar, blues, singing, mountain dulcimer and I don't know what-all. I taped some of my mando stuff which is probably worthless to listen to but hopefully will trigger one thing or another. I do wish Dennis had had some handouts maybe just as reminder sheets, but I guess he has to sort of work within what the students' abilities are and you can't know that before you get there. I was v. impressed with learning "Wabash Cannonball" in EVERY KEY! Plus a little run of notes to embellish it, in EVERY KEY! So I look forward to practicing that, since I could understand what do do even if the fingers were weak at that point.
I did get some stuff right early on, so that was good, and didn't get my fingers slapped for any bad habits, which is also good. And while some people had better mandos than mine, some did not!!!!! One guy had a v. pretty blond Bean Blossom F-style that he paid $375 for -- mine was two hundred LESS than that -- and he thought mine was better. Yay Elderly Instruments!
I do covet an f-style. But must earn one! There was a 1918 Gibson for sale for $850 that had the most gorgeous mellow tone. Not in my price range, sadly.
This week is shaping up to be ugly at work. Reading Festival tab bearing down on me like a freight train. So will be v. busy the rest of the week.