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<3

Happy Armistace Day!


Dad with the artist and his portrait

Its been a while since I've last written.
Yes, I twitter a lot, but its so much more easier and accesible.
I can tweet about the shows I am doing and where I am at

I've been busy with this and that, that I haven't had time to
sit and write.

OH how I miss that.

Much of my October, which was a slow month of 3 shows for me,
was devoted to helping my artist friend Jeanine Hill-Soldner's new
painting project called "Portrait of American Veterans, A Visual Dialouge"

We hit a few bumps in the road but "it came together like a plan"
My mom's favorite saying from the "A-Team"

I re-vitalized my graphic designing skills with working on layouts for
four of the completed veterans and the programs for the un-veling.

My father is one of the four veterans to pose for Jeanine.


Jeanine took her previous project about her family and father's
experiences of being a veteran to another level.

She is collaboratng with veterans from different
generations with unique stories to tell with a
portriat she painting, a Visual Dialouge. As she
has penned it.

Back in March, I received an email from Jeanine
about a project she working on for a grant, and she
asked if my father would be interested in having his
portrait painted.

I told mom right away and she thought it was fantastic
and would be great for dad. He agreed right away.

A couple of months past, and I forgot about it due
to mom not being well. Then I thought about it a
couple of months ago and asked Jeanine about it.

She was going ahead with the project and get it
ready for a show in November to coincide with
Veteran's Day.

She asked again if dad would be interested in
sitting for a portrait. He said yes.

The result is an intimate portrait of the veteran with their
own story with the painting that shares a dialouge
visually.

The reception was held on Friday evening with 150 people
attending. It was fantastic. I performed and did a presentation.

It was an emotional journey for both Jeanine and I.

I have some photos to share with you and video I will put up soon.
(Actually a lot of video) but I will put up photos from Friday evening
and a photo from my concert on Sunday in Barlett. Which I will
write about later.

Check out the article and Video about Jeanine in the Northwest Herald
and the Daily Herald also:

Daily Herald

LINK: http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=333699

Northwest Herald

VIDEO LINK: http://ssm.nwherald.com/northwest-herald/video/20091108VetArtProject/vet-art-project/
LINK: http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2009/11/06/60882692/
Today Article LINK: http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2009/11/07/r_gzg_lh_nrayhyepk0fx_rg/index.xml


MORE PHOTOS:


With dad and Eric


Dad with our Magician/Historian Tom Holbrook

with our friend H. Rick who is Lead Photographer of the Herald and an old
magic family friend. His step-mom is Uncle Jay (Marshall's) sister. Taken
at the Victory Centere Concert in Barlett.




I have a photo taken of me performing at the Raue from last night, but
I can't find the card adapter to take it off my cell-phone..

NEXT TIME! WITH VIDEOS TOO

I PROMISE.


Enjoy!


PHOTOS TAGS: http://pics.livejournal.com/mai_ling/tags/veteran+art+project/

I'm thinking of selling my RD-500 Keyboard and my VS-880ex 8 track recorder and CD-RW burner.

I don't use my keyboard except for recording projects, which I admit
I haven't done lately and I would rather pare down and use my RS-9.

(I will start doing again soon)

Grant it ... I adore the 500 and it was my first keyboard I bought in
1996 for just under $2000.

And I would almost rather pare down my project studio to a pocket studio
with the option to transfer everything to my computer to master via
SD card or USB.

Kelly got a Tascam Pocket Studio a few weeks back and I checked it out.
It even has onboard microphones for live recordings too.

It's very clever, and she loves it.

So those are my options.

I'm not sure If I will do flea market, ebay, craigslist or what.

I have the original boxes for both items, so if comes down to shipping
that's not a problem, except I am not sure how much shipping would be
for such heavy items.

The keyboard is great for practising so for beginners or just to tinker
its a great keyboard. It's been used so there is one weight completely broken
and was taken out and its the highest Bflat that is rarely ever used.

If you think you or someone you know might be interested, contact me
direct via email:

notyoursinger AT mai-ling DOT net


time to get ready to play a concert this afternoon.

o/o

today while driving around, i had my phone's
music player on random and the first song was

"fuck was I'

and the second song was

"sure as shit"

oh what a day that could mean.

:)
heah.

I have a show this afternoon but I do plan to catch up with photos
and videos of previous and past shows...

pictures also including the wedding pictures that we had taken and
received from others who were there. And hopefully a video
(*crosses fingers*)

I need to find software that rips the DVD into mpeg tho.
The software I used was an older copy and used it on my
averatec that run XP. Which I probably can do if the OS
doesn't crap out.

yeesh.

Just tease photo of a little this & that.


photo credit ed varga

i'm getting married.
i can't sleep.
i'm wired.

i knew i shouldn't have had 'bucks pikes place coffee.

bad frances


yeesh.

3 days until the wedding...
today is our 1 year anniversary.

it doesn't even feel festive without momma.

just in case you missed yesterday entry...
our wedding website is:
www.mai-ling.net/wedding

there are more philipino grocery stores and markets in the 'burbies than you wouldn't believe.

you'd think i could find one...just one...chinese market in the 'burbs.

but noooo...

i don't want to drive down to Chinatown in Chicago...

As promised a re-cap of the last couple of months...
should i say the summer.

Some photos too

( The Big Summer of 2009 Re-cap )

Now we are in September....

I performed a concert at the Drury Lane Theatre which I'll write more about
and its Wedding Countdown


Four more days!

More detais soonl.
In the meantime visit our wedding site at

www.mai-ling.net/wedding


PHOTO TAGS: http://pics.livejournal.com/mai_ling/tags/summer+2009+recap/



ps. This entry actually took me almost 2 weeks to write...yeesh!

picture of being.





My yearly after birthday post was delayed two weeks.
August has been a busy concert month.
And to sit down and take the photos off the camera and cell phone to adjust
and then write an entry just hasn't seen a time that i can do it all at once.
So its been a little here and there...

Thank you for the emails, tweets, and comments on watermelon day and birthday
on August 9th & 10th.

Its been a difficult time.
Since loosing mom, I didn't greive as I did the last 11 years during the time dad
had his massive stroke. I'm usually in a wonky mind frame. Instead that has been
replaced with greiving and mourning my mom. Which is more difficult to deal with
more than my father's stroke. At least I had my mom around during the time and
she always took my mind off the time frame with other activities.

Now that certain times of the year I will be hurting that I never did before because
no one can replace her, I do have my wonderful signicant other and husband to be
with me to deal with all the feelings I'm going to be dealt with. Along with my father.

In which I'm lucky.

This is the first birthday in all 34 years I did not receive a red envelope.
It is the one thing I miss. It was a ritual and legacy that happened not just on my
birthday but for many different occassions. Especially the origin of the Chinese
New Year. My mom was always on top of that.

It is something I miss. And actually looked for when I woke up on Monday morning.
Thinking she'd tucked one away somewhere as she was always ready ahead of time.

So what did I do on my birthday...well we had a lot of things to do.
But we didn't go out to eat because Eric's birthday is exactly 7 days later. We decided to
celebrated our days together yesterday at the Golden Corral after I finished performing yesterday.
Dad enjoyed the baked fish and I enjoyed the steak. I can't cook steak like that.

Otherwise, we were doing car repairs on a 2004 Chevrolet Aveo that Eric and I bought
the previous Saturday before we went to the Kellogg's Keebler corporate picnic.

I dealed down on the car because you know when you purchase a used vehicle (whether
from a private seller or dealer) you have repairs on it even if you don't think so.

We purchased the vehicle from Libertyville Mitsubishi in trade for Eric's Ford Windstar van
he got in April after trading in a 1997 Ford F-150 and 2 caveliers. The truck was nice but
being it was stick shift and alignment off we got an almost even trade ($300) for the van.

The van worked perfectly when he got it four months ago. It was comfortable, automatic,
roomy and working perfectly for when I did a couple of shows and the collector's weekend.
Plus carrying materials from Home Depot/Menards for the garage.

It was comfortabble for mom and pretty easy for her to get in.

But since she passed the van had been acting up. The battery was draining and I don't think
it was the Alternator, I think there was short somewhere. Because the battery was draining
even though it was sitting there. We bought a new battery and so we knew it wasn't a
battery issue.

Since it was hassle he was driving my subie to work and we looked for a different gas saving vehicle.
We could not trade it in for the CARS because you have to own the vehicle for at least a year.

So we found this Aveo and it was a good deal for what it was but we had to do a complete
brake job, add coolant, replace spark plugs & wires plus the battery was so bad.
It must of froze and that is why it bulged that any continuous charging would make it explode.
That is why the battery kept dying. We were lucky it didn't eplode while on the road.
The only thing we have to look into is a alignment (which we probably can do ourselves)
and a new horn relay.

On my birthday we planned to drive the van down to the dealership since they gave us a
trade-in quote blindly. But that didn't work because the van wouldn't start. It started the
other day but of all days, not that day. So we had to think about how to get around that
in which we figure they could have paid for a tow to Libertyville. But they wouldn't so luckily
my car insurance was willing to tow the vehicle which worked out well.

So after cleaning the van and taking the battery we paid for out (the GM said we could do so)
we said good-bye to it. And Eric worked on the car for a bit then we all went together to
Mundelien Target where he worked a couple of hours. Dad and I sat at 'bucks where he
watched a Criss Angel DVD and I thought about all the tasks before me to think about.
While drinking a coffee...

Then we shopped and went home where I cooked Lemon/Lime Chicken.

We relaxed the rest of the day...

I am working on a re-cap of the last couple of months of the goings on.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from that day.
(You can see how stressed I am in my face.)

Enjoy!








more photos
TAGS: http://pics.livejournal.com/mai_ling/gallery/000801ch

today we got our license.

its something we have been planning to get for the last
few weeks but his work got in the way.

we actually had multiple tasks today.

got my silver subie plate sticker.

I met up with my cousin Cathy in Woodstock at the
courthouse to get afidavid papers for small estate
stuff.

Just to get in the building took the longest and all
we needed were papers and nothing to file there.

We were done in like 20 mins.

then eric and i went to get our license.
It was a busy day for it appearantly.
as soon as we walked in the guy knew why we were there.
and when we walked in the office the lady knew too.
appearantly they needed to print more up or something.
BTW in Illinois its $30 not $25.
$5 is donated to a domestic woman's fund.

When the lady asked about my Mom and her maiden
name and her current living address, saying deceased...
I started to get sad.

after that i stopped by the recorders office and had
my mom's death certificate recorded. It costs $40.
I figure the lawyer could do but I was bythere, I might
as well get it done.

then we met up in fox lake to get an estate account
opened just in case i get more estate accounts.

That took a long time too.

All this was emotionally draining on me.

And to make things more difficult, I realized that 3 months
ago today was the last time I spoke briefly with mom before
she was vented.

My lack of journaling here at the good 'ole LJ
has good reason.

I've been dealing with mom's estate stuff
and planning my wedding which is a month
from now.

typically I do an entry after my birthday.
i'm still working on that and a re-cap
of things for the past couple of months.

i'll get to it, i promise.

really.

time to set aside as to when i can.

xoxo

tomorrow is going to be either a decent day or a devastingly horrible day.

its a double whammy.


1. it will be two months ago tomorrow that my mom passed away.

2. it will be 11 years ago my dad had his massive hemmoraghic stroke.

i think tomorrow i will have to keep myself busy either tidying up around the house
or going out to do errands.

something.

on a good note.

i did get a call that the creamatory finally received my mom's corrected death certificates.
I think between the cremation place and the fact I called my state rep last week probably
helped get things moved along.

They were sitting in Springfield waiting to be processed.

if nothing were to happen in the next week or so I did plan to call the lawyer a friend
referred me to. They do pro bono work.

which mean we finally can move forward in getting things taken care of so we can get
see where we are at and not have to let things go into 2010.

...all that tax stuff...

if everythign works right hopefully this time around my dad can get the Aid & Attendance.

I am still thinking about calling the lawyer to see what can be done with the shit the
doctor did leading up to everything.

as the lady from the crematory said on the phone said "way to much heartache."

So we'll see.

I will update with what else is happening in the course of the last month soon.

I just need to get through tomorrow and the next couple of days after that...

Its still good days and bad days.
but mainly not so good days.

With yesterday being Canada Day...
Joe from the CBC posted this...
couldn't help but post it here too.

makes me want some tim horton donuts,
mother parker coffee, watch some due
south and use my candian tire money,
visit knob hill (oh that's no longer there).

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

my canadian friends...


Listening to the most current release by Neil Young and Kathleen Edwards today!

exactly a month ago today i woke up knowing i only had so many hours with mom before we had to let her go.

...


if you get MAGIC magazine, you would have saw the photo of mom and dad
and a small write up about Mom in the milestones section.



I chose this picture to send because this was one of my mom favorites photos.
Not only are they doing the Chicken Vanish but even though you can't see me,
I was there too...She was expecting me at that time.

You can read my longer rememberence in the special section at Magic Magazine here:
http://www.magicmagazine.com/remembrances/remembrance-arlene.html







in ref: http://www.livejournal.com/users/mai_ling/380516.html