It's My Bag(s)

You guys! I was going to start out this post with a disclaimer about our kitchen linoleum. (It's from the "So Old We're Calling It Retro" line of floor coverings.)

BUT! Meghan had her baby!

Do not call me out on overuse of exclamation points. Just do not. Because this is SO EXCITING! I happen to be a person who thinks the British royal family is all kinds of fascinating, and I prefer to ignore the moments when they are stupid or thoughtless or wear silly hats. I do not go to the extreme of forgiving of  actual Nazi sympathizers (looking at you, Edward VIII), but how can you not love Queen Elizabeth, especially if you have watched The Crown? And how can you not love royal babies?!

And there is a new one! Oh, I know that Harry has been something of a pill in the past (see also: wearing of Nazi uniforms as costumes), but he said just exactly the right things in just exactly the right tone of amazement and delight when he announced the birth.

But I digress. A few weeks ago I was looking at the distinctly un-royal corner of the kitchen where I dump carefully store my work gear. As a full-fledged member of the gig economy I have found that I not only wear a lot of hats, I carry a lot of bags.

Most of them are full of music: There's my accompanying-the-high-school-band-soloists bag, and my accompanying-the-college-music-majors bag, as well as my playing-for-funerals-and-church-services bag.

Some are what I call busy bags, because I whine and demand attention when I'm bored. These include the grand jury bag (which holds a knitting project and my special grand jury coffee cup), and the big bag that holds middle school choir music, my laptop (for freelance projects and blogging), and my lunch.

And there are the specialized bags, which in this picture include the bag of order forms and delivery cards for my women's group's annual flower sales.

Spring happens to be busy season for all of these gigs, but as they wrap up and we head into summer the bags also take a summer break. In the past two weeks we've had state music contest (yay, for all the participants and congratulations to I rating recipients!), college juries (reminding me why I was not a music major), the April grand jury session, and the delivery of thousands of plants. Those bags have been emptied and put back into storage. In a couple of days we'll have the final middle school concert of the year and summer break will be officially underway, so that bag can be on hiatus as well.

Wrapping up all of these responsibilities feels good, even as I know I'll miss them because did I mention I'm really enjoying all the gigs I have right now?

But if I had all my bandwidth on actual productivity, I wouldn't have had time this morning to shriek out loud at the IT'S A BOY! news or to obsess over possible names. (I'm on Team Philip; one of the Boys is named after his two grandfathers so I have a special place in my heart for this possibility.)

Congratulations, Sussexes. May all your bags hold diapers.