Late post today because I got a bit sidetracked. I finished my draft, which was exciting enough to block out everything else. Then I decided to celebrate by going out to lunch. There was a chamber music concert at the Shakespeare theater downtown, which I’d been planning to go to, and I decided I could go downtown early and have lunch before the concert. I had just enough time to get dressed and get things together. Then I was halfway to downtown before I remembered that I should have made a blog post.

But the book is done and I had a Grand Day Out. I had a bowl of soup at a little cafe I’ve passed by a number of times and frequently planned to stop at, but it never seemed to be open. Today, I caught it open, and it was really cute. It turns out that it closes at 2, so it’s just a breakfast and lunch place, and I’m more likely to be downtown in the afternoon. I had a little time to kill before the concert, so I did some window shopping and spotted a dress I fell instantly in love with in the window of a vintage shop. I decided to go back and look at it after the concert.

The concert was incredible. In the summers, they have a music institute here in which young string players from all over the world spend the summer getting coaching and training. Part of it is that they’re put into string quartets and have to work on pieces, then they do free afternoon concerts to practice performing for an audience. They have to introduce the piece and give notes on it, and they’ve clearly been trained in the protocol of entering and leaving the stage, taking bows, etc. This summer, they did the concerts at the American Shakespeare Center, which, for some odd reason, is in this little town. They built a replica of the Blackfriars Theatre — the indoor theater Shakespeare’s company moved to when he moved up in the world and the company had a charter from the king. The theater is designed for acoustic performance. They don’t use microphones, which means the theater is made to carry sound, and it’s an excellent chamber music venue. You feel like you’re inside the instruments. Today I snagged one of the box seats that’s practically on the stage, so I could really see the nonverbal communication among the musicians. Today’s performance was two Schubert string quartets, and though these were young musicians (teens and 20s), they were outstanding.

On the way home, I stopped back by the vintage shop, and the dress didn’t seem to be my size, but since it’s vintage, it’s hard to tell, and when I tried it on it fit beautifully. The price on the tag was low enough that it was a steal, but it turned out to be on sale, and it’s tax-free weekend for back-to-school shopping, so I really got a deal. I’m not sure what vintage it is. It’s got a 50s vibe, but I suspect it’s newer than that. It’s classic enough that I can’t tell how old it is.

Then it started raining as I walked home, but I had an umbrella, and it was a light enough rain to make it not an unpleasant walk. Now it’s cool and drizzly, and I had made a pot of tea and put it in a thermos before I went out, so I’m going to enjoy an afternoon of drinking tea and reading so my brain can recover.

Of course, while I was at the concert I came up with an idea for a future book, including the main character and her first name (the name of one of the musicians sparked the idea), but I’m not going to start working on it yet.