Humbling but eye-opening

Yesterday afternoon I auditioned for Character Development, a performance class I'm interested in taking in the fall.  The instructor really picked apart how I did my monologue; basically, I wasn't living it, I was performing it.  I was having trouble embodying the changes she was suggesting, so no telling whether I'll get into the class.

I was pretty demoralized after that, but today, after sleeping on it, I've realized something important.  All those years in community theater may have done me a disservice.  As with all my years and years of choral experience, no one ever told me I was doing it wrong or tried to give me any advice, so I kept doing the same things, year after year.  Now I've got a coupla decades' worth of bad habits that I need to unlearn.  (This realization is SO apropos of my Alexander Technique class!)  Now that I know that it needs to happen, though, it can happen.  (Because of course I can't fix a problem I don't know about.)

If I don't get into the class, I have a few excellent training options in town.  If I do get into it, I can look forward to a semester of being taken apart and, hopefully, being put back together again but better.  If my voice lesson experience is any indication, it'll be excruciating at times and there will almost certainly be tears of frustration, but this professor has SO much to teach that it would be well worth it.

Getting ready for more music learning...

This afternoon I met with the head of the Voice department at school, who answered all but my admin questions about becoming a Voice major or minor.  She also recommended taking piano, so that's what I'm gonna do.  It's always been on my "things to do once I retire" list, so on the way home, I stopped by a local music school and signed myself up for piano lessons!

I'm taking it slow:  just 6 weeks of 30-minute lessons, but it'll include ear training and theory, so I'll have lots to keep my brain as well as my fingers busy this summer!  I start 2 weeks from yesterday - can't wait!  I'll never get to Mom's level - I'm starting MUCH too late - but if I can learn to play well enough to learn new songs and maybe even accompany myself a little, I'll be delighted.

They asked if I want to participate in the end-of-session recital.  After just 6 weeks of lessons, in my whole life, ever?  No way!  As I told them, I don't want to subject the audience to my baby rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb or Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

This was NOT on my To Do list when I left the house this morning, so I'm still getting used to the idea that I'm actually, finally gonna be taking piano lessons.  When I told the Chief when I got home, he was happy that I'll finally be learning to play the electronic keyboard I bought several years ago and which has essentially been a very large, very expensive pitchpipe and metronome.  We'll see how happy he is once I start practicing scales and fingerings and my Piano 001 arrangement of Mary Had a Little Lamb or what-have-you. :D

I can't help thinking of Mom.  I'm sure she'd be delighted that I'm doing this.  And she won't have to listen to my halting scales.  The Chief will, poor guy - pray for his sanity! :D

Missing Mom

This is the time of year I used to call Mom most often, with updates on the latest signs of spring in the neighborhood - first the early bulbs, then the bradford pears, forsythia, etc.  And of course telling her about my latest purchases for the garden - which flowers I was planting where, how they were doing.

This year's purchases include the "obligatory" red flowers - a geranium for one of the railing planters and a new guinea impatiens as one of the flowers for the front bed (which is getting an assortment this year).

Playing in the dirt

Sunday I finally got around to doing some gardening!  Spent a few hours buying plants and accoutrements, even a few "experiments" - a strawberry plant and a cherry tomato plant for the deck and some squash as a placeholder (boxwood died, peony bush to go in that spot come fall).  I also got 3 angel-wing begonias to put on the front steps but the pots I thought we had on hand are long gone so the begonias are still in their starter pots.  I got almost everything in before the rains started; a perfect, soaker rain that watered everything for me.  I love it when the timing works out like that.

This year I have red impatiens by the front downspout but portulaca in the bed under the mailbox instead of the impatiens I've planted there for years.  How well the portulaca does will determine whether I go back for more next year or go back to impatiens in that spot.  I also planted portulaca in the beds TW built last year on either side of the lower front steps.  I put a few marigolds in the south corner bed and in my herb planter, along with sweet basil and rosemary.  I put boxwood basil and dill in the ground, and my railing planters have verbena, a red geranium, lobelia, million bells, and a yellow-and-white lantana.  This year's red-for-Mom flowers are the impatiens, geranium & millionbells.

Yesterday TW went out to buy paint and other spring items, with portulaca on the list.  (I didn't buy quite enough.)  What he came home with, though, was a small hanging planter with purslane in it.  The tag was pretty clear, but he was misled by the fact that someone had written "portulaca" on the side of the planter.  Strange.  But it looks pretty happy after last night's rain, so I'll find a spot for it someplace.  It's an annual, so if we don't like it, we just won't replace it next year.

What's in your garden?

My sentiments exactly!

First this: http://xkcd.com/931/ (given how Mom went, 6 months after a clean bill of health from her oncologist)

followed by this: http://xkcd.com/933/

"Mom moment"

The Chief was out mowing the weeds today while I was doing some photo organizing for insurance purposes. Suddenly I hear him tap-tap-tapping on the front door - there was a hummingbird in the impatiens bed! I grabbed my camera and started clicking away. I'd need a much better camera with a very fast shutter to keep up with that little hummer, but I did get one or two pics that weren't too bad.

This one was a different breed than the ones we've seen at the cabin - smaller, with a long beak or proboscis or whatever, and mostly browns. At least, that's what color the blur was. (I ended up deleting nearly half the pictures because they were too blurry to see anything but smears of color.) Given its size, color and shape, the little bird looked more like a large hornet or something similar.

It kept zipping from one flower to another, concentrating on the pink ones. It considered & rejected one of the purple ones and seemed to ignore the red ones entirely. It also zipped away several times, stopping briefly to check out the Chief's trouser leg, the can of WD40, or the reel of bright-orange extension cord (it's an electric mower) before returning to the pink impatiens. I wonder if it'll tell the rest of the family about the buffet...

Mom loved hummingbirds, always had at least one or two feeders stocked. I wish I could call her up & tell her about our little visitor. I've been planting impatiens in that bed for 10 years at least and this is the first time we've ever seen a hummingbird anywhere near them. I hope they make this a regular haunt.

Now open your hymnals to page...

My siblings and I all get our love of puns & wordplay from Mom. She would've loved this little gem a friend forwarded to me today:

The Workman's Hymnal

Dentist's Hymn: "Crown Him with Many Crowns"

Contractor's Hymn: "The Church's One Foundation"

Baker's Hymn: "I Need Thee Every Hour"

Weatherman's Hymn: "There Shall Be Showers of Blessings"

Ophthalmologist's Hymn: "Open My Eyes That I Might See"

Tailor's Hymn: "Holy, Holy, Holy"

IRS Hymn: "All to Thee"

Shopper's Hymn: "By and By"

Teacher's Hymn: "Be Still and Know"

-- Author Unknown

Survived Mother's Day

First Mother's Day since Mom died wasn't as bad as I'd feared. A few tears in church (especially as the prayer for mothers who'd lost a child was immediately followed by one for mothers who'd died), and in the dressing room as people came in saying "Happy Mother's Day", but having the show to distract me was a big help.

Called Dad, who sounded OK. He'd gone with K and family to the middle son's college to have lunch there, which he enjoyed. I need to call him tonight, too, as it's Mom's birthday.

Sure wish I could tell Mom about Wednesday's audition (sang well enough, but sight-read poorly; oh well), my garden, the remodeling progress...

Passed on from Dubheach on LJ

So the idea is, comment here and I will give you a color. Then, in your blog, list ten things you love that are that color. Dubheach gave me red, "For your passion when performing."

1. red hair (especially on small children)
2. the red geraniums, impatiens and million bells I bought for this year's garden
3. steak cooked the way I prefer it
4. Mom's hat, which my sisters decided looks (and fits) best on me
5. tomato-based pasta sauces
6. my favorite soup, with its tomato-based stock
7. the cashmere shawl the Chief bought me while he was deployed
8. cardinals and pileated woodpeckers
9. most of our Persian carpets
10. jonathan apples

Red flowers for Mom

I finally got to the nursery yesterday to get impatiens for the front flower bed. I also bought two 6-packs of ground cover for the driveway, some geraniums and million bells for the flower boxes on the deck railing, 3 phlox plants to fill some holes, and one itty bitty tomato plant that I hope to persuade to grow in a pot on the deck. (And hope the squirrels don't do all the harvesting!)

This year I bought impatiens in red (for Mom, who has had red impatiens for years), a dark coral, and a couple of pinks (with one little purple one that snuck into the nursery pack).

For the 3 flower boxes, I bought one geranium and one million bells for each - a purple million bells with a 2-toned pink geranium, a red million bells with a white geranium, and a peachy-orange million bells with a red geranium. Like the red impatiens, the red geranium is a flower I'll always associate with Mom - Dad gave her red geraniums for Mother's Day for years, until the trees in the yard got big enough to make it too shady for geraniums. That's when her red flower of choice became impatiens.

I wonder how my flowerbox choices will look with the purple-and-yellow violas that not only came back from last year but seem to have propagated just a bit. Maybe I'll try to divide them so I have at least one in each flowerbox.

Successful culinary experiment

I wanted to dress up some frozen tilapia, so I brushed the thawed fillets with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkled w/ cumin & tarragon, and baked for about 10 minutes (less would have been better). I picked the spices by opening bottles and sniffing to see what might go well together - the Chief & I both like this combination. Definitely a keeper! (Wish I could share it with Mom.)

Mom moments

The cough with this cold was particularly rough - one of those that scratches all the way down. Triggered the asthma too, enough that the doc ended up giving me a nebulizer treatment and putting me on a short course of (shudder) prednisone. Which made me remember how Mom could always hear in my voice when I was on the stuff. Once I'd been off it for at least a week, but sure enough, when I called, Mom asked if I'd had to take it.

This afternoon I was putting some things away in the kitchen and spotted Mom's big old turkey roaster up on top of the kitchen cabinets. (It's too tall to fit into any of them.) All those years she pulled that thing out for one of the Christmas turkeys, the other being sent off to my uncle for smoking on his grill. When she eventually went to a different pan, I got the old veteran. I haven't used it much, but every time I see it, I think of her. When the Chief & I were there for Christmas the last two years, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with her, prepping dinner, serving it, cleaning up after. When the Chief and I went to leave, Mom said she'd miss her "kitchen buddy". Me too, Mom.

Updates

I e-mailed the company doing Merry Widow to thank them for considering me but that I'd be unable to do the show after all. Sigh.

Also e-mailed the producer & director of the show I'll be costuming (am I crazy? if not, I think I soon will be!) about a costuming meeting so I can start thinking about what we'll need for that.

Finished a skirt for a fellow Ruddigore castmember. Our costumer had distributed a few "kits" at an earlier rehearsal. I finally got to mine this afternoon and knocked it out in only a coupla hours. Good thing I've gathered skirts onto waistbands before, though, as the directions left out a vital instruction - how to line up the waistband to the skirt base.

Went out this afternoon and bought a space heater for the kitchen so that I could stand to sew there. The back end of the kitchen is always cold in the winter because the seal on the french doors is no longer all that tight. With the arctic cold front we've been dealing with (today's high might have topped the freezing mark, but I'm not sure), the kitchen has been averaging around 60 degrees, and it's just too hard to sew when you're fingers are half numb. I also have all those curtains I want to sew for the cabin (2 foyer doors & sidelights, the bedroom door, and six bedroom windows) before TW gets home, so warm fingers are important! Bought the heater at one of those bedding/housewares chains and also bought the curtain rods and such while I was at it.

So now I'm ready - next time I go to the cabin, I have "cellular shades" and curtain rods to put up out there, and should have at least the sheers (foyer & bedroom doors) ready as well. With luck, I might even have a lined curtain or two finished by then, but I'm not holding my breath. After all, I've never done lined curtains before, so at least the first one or two will go particularly slowly while I figure out the measurements, layout and such.

Had a nice night at the theater last night - went to see a friend in "Anton in Show Business". Some heavy stuff, but mostly quite funny, and the 3 principal characters (of which my friend was one) worked so well together it would have been hard to single one out for special notice. This one was very much an ensemble show and, at least from my seat in the audience, the ensemble worked beautifully together. Bravi, tutti!

Mom had a bone marrow sample drawn last week, gets another CAT and PET scans this week, then goes to the oncologist for the results of everything on the 16th. Keep praying that the chemo did the trick!

The biggest thing to be thankful for!

Mom got her detailed scan results on Tuesday. Everything is getting better, chemo is definitely working, but the biggest and best news is that the tumor is a little less than half the size it was when they first discovered it back in September!!! So instead of taking November off and doing 3 weeks of radiation in December, Mom will be doing another 3 rounds of chemo (round 4 was last week). She's pleased because she's been tolerating the chemo pretty well, and relieved because the radiation carried a risk of liver and kidney damage. Yes, we have a lot to be thankful for!