Today I’m playing in the orchestra for the Christmas show “Joy” that First Presbyterian Church has every year. It’s a very fun highlight I get to participate in almost every Christmas season. My sister Cyndi and Dad play this most years (not the year our niece got married on the same day as the performances) and it’s great to be able to share music with them and the other amazing musicians of the philharmonic. The show includes Celtic dancers and musicians, the Pikes Peak Ringers (an internationally known bell choir), the Children’s Chorale, guest singers, and the 200+ member choir of the church and the fantastic professional orchestra.

Pierce is coming over soon for us to plan music for an upcoming Christmas gig we have playing violin and viola together. It reminds me of the holiday gigs I played last year in December. My sister Cyndi does the number of gigs in one week that I do in one year. Or something like that. Or maybe the talent she has in her pinkie…. However that goes. Anyway, one of those gigs was nothing like I expected.

This Week in History was an eventful one for us back in 1992. My preterm labor started and put me on bedrest that would last the rest of my pregnancy, and my insurance tried to dump me.

A French engineer and inventor from the late 1800s, Clément Ader, is known mostly for his advancements in aviation. He also tinkered to improve Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone (not sure if I should call it “tinkering” for something that huge in history). On this day in 1881 Ader patented the first stereo system. If you Google “first stereo” you don’t see his name, but you get a lot of people who came after him who built on his ideas. But he was the fellow who got the ball (and other dances) rolling.

The Battle of Stalingrad was the pivotal battle in 1942 of World War II when the Soviet forces finally curtailed the seemingly unstoppable advance of the Axis troops. Once Stalingrad held out, the war began to turn for the Allies. After seven months and approximately two million deaths, the Germans were overcome, surrendered in the city, and were marched off to horrible death and work camps in the Russian wintry wastelands. Though Stalingrad was reduced to rubble, unbelievably, the iconic Barmaley Fountain was somehow still standing in the midst of the ruins—joyful children holding hands while singing and dancing in a circle—while the city burned to ash behind them.

On August 17, 1862, the Uprising began when a few raucous teens made a really bad decision which then escalated until there was full out war. After years of oppression and failed promises, outright theft and violence against the Dakota Natives by the U.S. government, Indian Agents, and a flood of ignorant (and some not so ignorant) settlers, the proverbial straw came crashing down and all hell let loose. 

On this day in 1982, Diet Coke was introduced. The stuff kept me standing when I worked nights in Chicago for four years. I didn’t like coffee then (sadly I had not ​yet discovered the glorious truth of Juan Valdez and his dark roast) so my drink of choice was a cold, sweating can of Diet Coke every night. At least once.

July 25, 1978, Louise Brown, the first successful IVF baby, was born in England. My kids were numbers 5,345–5,349 of IVF babies born. But not in England. And not really. I made up those numbers. I don’t know for ​

​This week in history was an eventful time for us in 1992. This was the week we found out we had four babies on the way. I was as nauseated as all get out, making us suspicious that we might have two babies in there ​