Enough, already!

We've gotten twelve inches of rain just since Friday, with more on the way! According to this morning's paper, our little town (now a suburb of the big city) had 15 houses condemned due to flood damage. The area as a whole has gotten an average of 13 inches of rain since Friday; we usually get 39" of rain all year. That means we've gotten roughly 4 months' worth of rain in 4 days. We're setting rainfall records all over the place; this is far and away the most rain the area's ever gotten without the aid of a hurricane or tropical depression.

Methinks the drought may be over...

Rain, rain, please back off!

We don't want it to go away entirely, as we were headed into a serious drought a week ago, but it sure would be nice if we could get all this rain spaced out a bit more. We've had perhaps 10 inches of rain since Friday night, with more on the way! Really messed up the morning commute for a lot of people today (the Chief's usual 30-minute commute took over 2 hours!), what with all the road closures and train cancellations due to flooding and even a mudslide! Power outages closed some buildings, and of course there were more than the usual number of accidents, despite all the folks who stayed home because getting to work would have taken more time and aggravation than it was worth. No to mention the ones who stayed home to deal w/ flooded basements and defunct sump pumps. We were lucky; we only lost power for about 20 or 30 minutes last night, and the water in the basement was minimal.

Anyone got Noah's e-mail address?

We're under roof!

Chief & I went out to the cabin this weekend and were pleasantly surprised to find it's under roof! No doors on the entryway yet, just heavy plastic, and nothing but framing inside, but it's under roof. Nice, big windows on 3 corners (the 4th corner is the bathroom) and an entryway with plenty of room to remove muddy or wet things before coming into the cabin proper. Chief & I took a marker and signed our names and the date on the inside of one of the exterior panels. I hope that will be covered by drywall (maybe even painted drywall!) the next time we get out there, but I took pictures of our signatures, and it'll be fun knowing they're there.

We spent most of the weekend at (one of the 2 big home improvement centers/HICs; they don't get named unless they pay me for the endorsement!). We stopped at HIC #1 on the way out Friday night to get dimensions for the pedestal sink going into the new bathroom. Our contractor came by Saturday morning, answered some questions, and gave us some "homework". As soon as we got a bite to it, it wasback to HIC #2 (different store, same franchise) to look for the sink (no luck), arrange for a vanity & top for the rehab of the back bathroom, check that the flooring we'd liked in our local HIC store was also available out there, and similar errands. Got most of the rest of our errands done, then back to HIC #1 to get the sink, which they had. We also ended up getting a medicine cabinet to go above it; darker than I'd have chosen, but we liked the style. The Chief found some lights for the new basement but the few on the shelf were not exactly in pristine condition, so we just scribbled down the item info and left. Sunday we went back to HIC #2 for the errands we'd forgotten on Saturday; getting the info on both floorings ("slate" for the entryway and engineered hardwood for the bedroom), deciding whether we wanted flat or textured ceiling paint, and picking paint colors for the 2 colors for which we had paint chips from other stores (now our contractor or the painter can get all the paint in one place). We also found that this store had 3 of the lights Chief wanted for the basement, and we also picked up a ceiling light for the utility room and pairs of "sconces" to go either side of the mirrors in both bathrooms.

Before we left the cabin yesterday, I wrote out notes for the contractor (item & model numbers for the flooring, paint colors with names & color numbers for the new & rehabbed rooms, number & placement of electrical outlets & light switches, etc.) while the Chief took everything we've bought to date (lights, door handles and locks, exhaust fans, the medicine cabinet & pedestal sink, ceiling fan...) and piled them according to room, with each box tagged. Unfortunately, in the process, we realized that one of the sconces didn't match the others! We had to go back to our local HIC anyway (paperwork for a rotted window at home that desperately needs replacing), so Chief grabbed the offending sconce and the relevant receipt and was able to exchange it last night. And as if he hadn't seen enough of the inside of this HIC, he stopped by on the way home from work tonight to pick up brochures for storm doors for the cabin. That's six trips to three different stores of the same HIC franchise in only 4 days! =:o

*$%^#@!*%^! asthma!

After 2 weeks of perfect weather, our luck finally ran out. Sunday was hot and hazy; summer weather. Monday was a Code Orange day ("moderately unhealthy" air quality) and yesterday was Code Yellow ("moderately unhealthy for sensitive groups", such as those of us w/ asthma). I'd been off my maintenance inhalers for so very long that I was out of the habit of using them, so I spent yesterday feeling that all-too-familiar chest tightness. I managed OK at work, but by the time I got home, I was tired and a bit crabby from the effort. As I pulled up, a neighbor's daughter was cutting the grass for her elderly dad. I'd've gone over to say hi, but knew the grass "fumes" would only make my asthma worse, so I had to restrict myself to waving and going straight into the house. What really ticked me off was that I was supposed to go w/ the Chief to his parish council end-of-year picnic but because they'd probably be eating outside, I had to stay home. Poor Chief - he listened patiently (or maybe just pretended to) while I griped about having to limit what I do and miss out on stuff just because of the wretched asthma. I shouldn't have to choose between fun and breathing!

Today was another Code Yellow and the cumulative effect has been no fun at all. Wheezing and coughing, and wouldn't you know, I had to give a short briefing at a big-deal meeting. As we were going in, my boss asked if I wanted a cough drop or some water; when I told him it was the asthma acting up, he knew enough to stop. (Some people have some pretty curious ideas about what might help an asthmatic.) However, my asthma did ease up enough that I was able to get through my presentation without coughing. Thank heaven for small favors, I suppose.

Everybody sing: "I hate New York"

Chief and I were in the NYC area to visit his family. I found myself, yet again, thinking that I'd hate to have to live there - the traffic, the crowding, the concrete, the grime & trash, the crazy drivers (even worse than here! =:o), and the way you have to drive for what seems like hours to get away from all that. Even the Chief says he wouldn't want to move back to the area. And the prices! Gas there was running $3.4x/gallon, vice $2.8x in NJ. Yes, there's lots to do and see, but not enough to entice me to live there.

Antiquing we will go...

If you like browsing antique stores & second-hand shops, it's great to be married to someone who's similarly inclined. I sometimes find myself saying yes when the Chief asks if I feel like hitting an antiques mall (e.g., when we were in Cape May) rather than having to persuade him to go with me. This weekend we were in NYC to visit his family (we were relieved to see his brother looking well just 2 weeks after surgery for kidney stones) and swung by the neighborhood second-hand store. I've previously found a large-ish cameo brooch at a very reasonable price, which will come in handy should I ever need it for a costume. (That's what I mean when I refer to "costume jewelry".) I've also found a few nice, soft handkerchiefs for a dollar each. However, yesterday was the most productive trip to date: the Chief spotted this charming Victorian chair in excellent condition for less than half what a "real" antique store would ask. The carving is well defined, with no bits broken off or even split. The upholstery is recent but inoffensive, and the construction is quite solid - barely creaks at all when you sit on it. This latest acquisition will probably end up in the bedroom we're adding out at the cabin, as it's a perfect height to sit on when donning or doffing shoes & socks.

Fun with English pronunciations

One of the listserves I subscribe to, Savoynet, includes anglophones from several different countries, so the subject of pronunciations recurs often/frequently. The latest iteration of that thread has been mentioning English-language names with pronunciations that aren't exactly what one might expect. One contributor refered us to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_in_English_with_non-intuitive_pronunciations - fun stuff! One thing makes me a little nervous, though - you can edit this page. I can't help but wonder if there's someone at Wikipedia who edits the edits for accuracy.

That was fun, if too short

We have a small, informal chorus at work that I sing with when my schedule permits. Today they had a SummerFest and asked us to sing. We did a 20-minute program of patriotic favorites, ending w/ all four verses of the Star-Spangled Banner. (Take a look and you'll see why verses 2 thru 4 are almost never done - doggerel!) We were crammed onto a stage barely big enough for us all to stand, and it had a canopy low enough that folks standing more than a few yards away probably couldn't hear much, but it was fun.

Theater weekend

Ushered opening night on Friday. I doubt I'll ever become a fan of Princess Ida but the company did a great job - wonderful choral sound and very funny in all the right places. The costumes were lovely, the set worked well, and lots of interesting stage movement in the big numbers. I thought the female principals as a body were stronger than the men, but the men were hardly bad singers; I just liked many of the women's voices more.

Sunday I went to see another local company's How to Succeed in Business... Boy, is that a dated show! All the women, and I mean every single one in the show, are secretaries, and all the men are executives. The female lead's big number is "Happy to keep his dinner warm" - definitely very much a product of its time. Not an A-list musical, but the company did a great job, as I've come to expect from them: good voices, good costume design, and the thing that keeps me coming back - the production numbers! Only a couple of them in this show, but they were great; the company gets some real dancers (as opposed to singers or actors who move really well or dance a little) so the choreographers can do some really impressive stuff - lifts, tosses, backflips, all kinds of stuff that is impressive on tv but really impressive when it happens 20 rows away from you.

Back to working on my 06-07 season spreadsheet...

It's officially summer.

For all that we've been able to turn off the a/c and leave the windows open all week (most unusual for the first week of June - we're enjoying this special treat!), I know it's summer - I saw my first firefly last night.

It's the little things

Finally finished (I think) sewing for this show. Today's project was a small one - headgear for the 3 women dressed as maids in Act I. I used an oval relish dish as a template to cut out 3 ovals, attached white lace around each to create almost a pillbox-hat effect, then used the last little bit of lace to make a rosette for each little hat. Worn far enough forward on the head that the front lace hangs over the forehead, they should be quite fetching. I wasn't too sure about the rosettes so I only attached one, but when I delivered the finished products to the Costume Goddess and "modeled" the one hat w/ the rosette, she seemed delighted with the result. From her, that's high praise!

She also told me that, after seeing M in his sash, the lighting guys dubbed him "the French Ambassador". :D

I'm ushering the show tomorrow, Opening Night. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole thing straight through, as well as seeing how my home-made accessories look from the back row. Those little touches can make a big difference. And if the two hems I did in a hurry last night aren't perfect, well, as long as they aren't as wildly uneven as they were before I redid them, I won't worry about it.

Bragging on myself

Yes, I know it's a tiny thing, but indulge me. I made a wide sash for one of the principals - 2" strips of red, white and blue sewn together to make a 6-inch-wide sash. I fitted it on M the other night to get the proper angle at the shoulder, see how it needed to cross at the hip, and check the length. Yesterday I sewed the fringe on the ends and made a rosette to be sewn onto the hip, then got everything fitted on M last night (rosette placement, tacking the sash where the front & back cross to make sure they hang well). I was very pleased with the result; the sash and rosette "read" very well, at least from halfway back in the audience, the trailing ribbons on the rosette lie exactly in line with the ends of the sash (pure serendipity but I'm not complaining!), the decision to double up on the fringe was a good one, the sash doesn't shift around or ride up on M's suitcoat - much more rewarding than straight hems or solidly-sewn fastenings that no one will ever see.

Someone else's Hell Week

Yesterday, despite interference from the universe (broken sewing machine needle and both local sewing shops closed, for starters), I got my costuming "homework" mostly finished and delivered to the theater last night. I also stayed long enough to finish the tenor's Act I jacket (hem the lining, attach a lapel carnation, and sew on too many buttons) and collect more homework for today. The Costume Goddess and her second-in-command have planned things well and been very successful in recruiting slaves, um, acolytes to do their costume bidding. The first dress rehearsal is tonight and all the major pieces are finished. (In shows where, as in this one, a majority of the costumes are new rather than from stock, people often don't have their costumes until the final dress, or even opening night!) Now it's down to tweaking; dressing the ladies' Act I hats, securing hems and fastenings, etc.

While I really miss being part of a show, I don't miss having to make the nightly Tech Week rehearsals, which tend to be exhaustingly long and tedious as the cast adjusts to working on the set instead of in a rehearsal hall. As a costume flunkey, I can come and go as I please and the costumers are grateful for my contribution to the cause. But after seeing some of the ladies' dresses, I do wish I were in this one. That's one of the things I love about community theater - playing dress-up! :D

Anagrams

Quote of the day (on the subject of anagrams), from wordsmith.org: "If you torture words enough, they confess to anything." To play with anagrams, go to http://wordsmith.org/anagram/ and have fun.

That was fun!

Last night we went to see a community theater production of The Wizard of Oz which was based heavily on the movie. The cast was enormous - 40 children, and a total of 52 castmembers! It was also very much a community theater production: several siblings among the children, and many of their parents either on stage or backstage. In some respects it resembled a recital by the local school/dance studio, but in general it worked quite well.

It's been a long time since I saw the movie; I had forgotten how very much music there is in it, so the music director certainly had his work cut out for him. There were one or two slightly ragged places, but given the amount of music the cast had to learn, I thought they did an excellent job. This production even added at least one bit (The Jitterbug) that was cut from the movie and another number the director wrote to cover a costume/make-up change during Dorothy's return to Kansas. That extra number worked quite well and I'm sure was helped by the littlest singer, who repeated the refrain several times (surprisingly big voice for such a tiny child!) while the others exited.

The audience was full of families with small (perhaps 10 and younger) children, which was good to see, as community theater audiences, at least at the shows I attend, seem to have an ever-increasing median age. The director had the actors make several entrances and exits through the house, not just the wings, which both involved the audience members more and solved what had to be some pretty hairy traffic problems backstage, with all those cast members.

The music sounded good, the "crowd scenes" on stage generally worked very well, and the costumes for the principals were quite good. I was particularly impressed with those for the Tinman, Scarecrow and Lion. The Lion's suit looked quite good (in that small house, you can't get away with too many shortcuts), moved well, and allowed the Lion to move well. The Tinman's suit was an impressive reproduction of the movie version, and I was amazed at how much the poor guy inside was able to move (though he seemed to do more kneeling than anyone else, which had to be difficult in that suit).

The hall has new mikes, which have a wire that comes around the side of the face. I found them a visual distraction and unnecessary. Unless the quality of their sound reproduction was extraordinary, I didn't hear anything that sounded like it was being picked up on a mike. (The performing space is a concert hall, not a theater, so I'm assuming it's designed for optimal unmiked acoustics of what's on stage.)

All in all, a fun show full of laughs; just what I needed after the past couple of weeks. (Friend2 needs a mastectomy, but the Chief's brother had his surgery and is home recuperating.)

The prayer list is growing by leaps and bounds

Where to start? Let's see:

• Friend1's husband had reconstructive foot surgery back in March. Friend is helping husband relearn how to walk while still working full time.
• Friend2, stationed overseas, had to return to the States for needle biopsies about a week ago after a suspicious mammogram. Scheduled for surgery next week, type of surgery to be determined by the biopsy results. Her family, of course, is still overseas because they couldn't afford that many plane tickets.
• Neighbor's daughter (also a friend of ours) just moved in w/ our neighbor because of his failing health. However, she won't be there for the next couple of weeks, as she's having major abdominal surgery next week and will be recuperating someplace where she won't have to deal with steps.
• Friend3 had facial reconstructive surgery which turned out to be much more painful than she was prepared for. Couldn't sleep because everything was so tender, and the swelling and bruising were also much worse than expected.
• Friend4's 90-ish mother fell, went into the hospital, had a heart attack while there. Was finally moved to a nursing home over the weekend.
• Friend 5's mother died unexpectedly last Thursday.
• Chief's mother called the other night to say his brother was in the hospital with kidney stones. This is day 3 and we're still waiting to hear the test results, and whether he'll have to have surgery or they'll be able to zap the stones w/ sound waves.

Today was the capper. We were all herded to together for a "mandatory" meeting. Turns out someone who had been working in another section of the office (I didn't know him) was found yesterday, had apparently died over the weekend of gunshot wounds that appeared to be self-inflicted.

I'd really like to hear some good news for a change. Please? Pretty please? Or at least no more traumatic news for the rest of the year; I've already had my fill!

Now that we have the permits

... things have started to move out at the cabin. When we got out there this weekend, we found the cement-block foundation in place and the basement floor poured and curing. No rain predicted for the next few days, so the concrete should be cured by now. Next step will be laying the floor joists for the addition and tying them into the existing structure. They could have the whole thing under roof by the end of June, and the whole thing ready for furniture and decorating perhaps as early as the end of July!

But of course we had to throw a wrench into the works. Part of the project includes rehabbing the downstairs bathroom to replace the 30-year-old harvest-gold tub/shower combo, which not only puts the UGH in "ugly" but is starting to crack and leak. Oh, and of course the only way to get at the plumbing for it involves removing a kitchen cabinet on the other side of the wall. (Whose "brilliant" design idea was that?!?) In discussing ways to install a shower stall while leaving room for proper plumbing access, the Chief suggested swapping the bathroom w/ the utility room across the hall. Out came the measuring tape and we decided that was the way to go - the utility room is a few feet longer and a foot wider, so that will be the new bathroom and the current bathroom will become the utility room. Because of course nearly everything currently stored in said utility room can be moved to the basement of the addition. There you are, out of your difficulty at once. But of course it remains to be seen how much we've just added to the price tag of this "little" venture...

We've got avian tenants at the cabin.

A pair of sparrow-sized birds have decided to build a nest above the kitchen window out at the cabin. This must be a recent move for them, as we noticed them several times collecting bits of dried grass and such. (Once I noticed one of them trying to pick up several such bits. Birds' beaks not being designed for such maneuvers, it was rather interesting to watch it try to figure out how to keep one bit of grass in its beak when it tried to pick up another.) Although, come to think of it, the nest as a whole didn't look all that new. Maybe they're just remodelling.

I have no idea what kind of birds they are, and of course they would never hold still when I ran for the bird book. They're also apparently very camera-shy, as they were nowhere to be seen when I had a camera in hand. (Or maybe they're just being uncooperative.) At any rate, they're about the size and color of sparrows, though one (the male?) is black-capped or -headed. The dark coloring seems to come down to perhaps its neck, so I don't think it's a chickadee. I'll have to try to get some pictures the next time we're out there.

Somebody's got a big new toy!

The Chief stayed home from work this morning to await delivery of a table saw, a purchase he's been researching and dreaming about for at least the past year. He ordered it online a week or two ago, and today was the big day. There's now a huge box near the kitchen door, waiting for him to open it up and tear into it (and figure out how the heck he's gonna get that big, heavy thing down the basement stairs!). Not sure what he's going to pick as the maiden venture for this thing, but I do know he's gonna have a lot of fun with it.

My toys are smaller; the biggest one is an electronic keyboard, which probably doesn't weigh much more than the dolly needed to transport the new table saw. But that's OK. If he's happily building stuff with all his power tools, maybe he won't notice when I go off to rehearsal. ;)

Lots of sewing and gardening lately

I've finished my 3 dresses for the show and was very proud of myself for figuring out the costumer's sleeve variation on the blue dress without benefit of written instructions and only a sketchy phone explanation. The Costume Goddess was having another costume-sewing party today so I took the blue dress with me. I ended up not doing much - sewed up a pair of elastic-waist pants and pinned a hem - because they have a four-footed feline allergen. However, I did leave w/ some "homework" so I'm hardly slacking off.

On the way home, I stopped to get some flowers for the flower boxes we bought last night to hang from the deck railings. Because the deck actually gets some sun most of the day, I got to buy sun-loving plants - geraniums, alyssum and lobelia. The plastic stake in the lobelia claims they like part to full shade but the info I find on line tells me they like full sun. So I planted most of the lobelia in the flower boxes but two in the driveway (dappled sun to full shade) and we'll see which spot makes them happier.

Some local varmint is gonna end up in a soup pot if it isn't careful - at least 3 times this week the same pot of impatiens has ended up tipped over. The pot's plastic, so it won't break, but getting knocked sideways and its dirt scattered has got to be traumatic for that poor impatiens. Short of installing surveillance cameras, I don't expect we'll ever learn the identity of the culprit or culprits, let alone catch it or them, but I sure do wish the neighborhood critters would leave my flowers alone!

Planning for my next theater fix

I fully expect that by fall the Chief will revert to being a Theater Widower. After doing no theater at all for a year, I'm compiling a spreadsheet of which local theater companies are doing what this season, which shows are musicals, who's directing, and audition & performance dates, trying to determine what shows I can do when and how many I can cram into the season. Though the Chief may have to deploy at the end of the year, in which case I'll probably only do one fall show in order to be able to spend time with him before he has to leave.

The 04-05 season was my record - 4 shows. This number is quite low compared to one friend of mine, who always seems to have one show in performance as she starts (or continues) rehearsals for another. And yes, she also has a full-time day job. When does she sleep? You'd have to ask her.

Today's word

is terpsichorean. (Sorry, Maryland fans, I don't believe it's etymologically related to your beloved 'terps.)

terpsichorean (turp-si-kuh-REE-uhn, turp-si-KOR-ee-uhn, -KORE-)
adjective: Of or relating to dancing.
noun: A dancer.[From Terpsichore, the Muse of dancing and choral song in Greek mythology.]

The word Terpsichore [turp-SI-kuh-ree) is the feminine form of terpsichoros (delighting in the dance), a combination of Greek terpein (to delight) and khoros (dance), which is ultimately from Indo-European root gher- (to grasp or to enclose) that's also the source of chorus, carol, choir, garth, court, and garden.]

So I guess Terpsichore would be my muse - though I'm not much of a dancer, I do enjoy it, and I've loved "singing choruses in public" since I was introduced to the choral arts in grade school. Interestingly, if this site is to be believed, it seems that of the 9 Muses, only Urania and Clio had little or nothing to do with the arts. The others are all described as singing or supporters of poetry or some such.

Sigh; it's always something.

We've begun the long ordeal of adding a bedroom & bathroom to our weekend place ("the cabin"). The permit requests were submitted in January or February; they finally came through about 3 weeks ago. Tonight we got a call from the contractor telling us that the septic tank has obviously not been cleaned out in several years. How odd; I know we paid to have that done when we bought the place 4 1/2 years ago. So now we have to pay, again, to have the darn thing cleaned out so the contractor can dig it up and replace it with a larger one. (The current tank isn't rated for the larger bathroom total we'll have once all this is finished.)

But the good news is that the section of deck where the addition will go has already been removed and the footers for the addition are already in place. Our contractor will try to have someone clean the septic tank tomorrow so he can get moving with all this. The Chief may go out on Saturday to check on things and take some pictures.

Theater envy

Went to the board meeting last night for a community theater company I've worked with for several years. Five of the 8 of us are in rehearsal for the company's June show or something else. I'm so jealous; it's been nearly a year since I did Mikado, and I haven't even auditioned for anything because of my work schedule. The withdrawal has been hard. I've gotten over the DTs, but I still crave my fix.

Since my schedule didn't normalize in time for me to do the June show, I'm sewing costumes for it. Or at least I'm supposed to be; I'm still hunting for one or two bits & pieces for my sewing machine, like the box w/ the zipper foot in it. The Chief straightened up the basement while I was on the road, you see; I was lucky I could find the sewing machine!

But I enjoy sewing costumes, and am looking forward to seeing them on people. The dresses are full length and full-skirted, in a fabric that will flow beautifully (at least the 3 I have to work on). They'll eventually have "drapy bits" and some sorta spiffy trim; can't wait to see them "in action". I've already arranged to have Tech Week off from work so I can sew in the green room during rehearsals, making last-minute adjustments, putting on finishing touches, and the like. Best of all, our costume designer is a real pro - learned the ropes in the costume workshops of NYC, has designed patterns for a major pattern company for years, and even has her own line of costume patterns. I call her the Costume Goddess and feel privileged to work with her.

Ah, that's better.

We now have pots of very cheery impatiens on our front steps, torenia filling the holes in the pansy bed and in a few test patches on the north side of the house, and my 4 mazus reptans in the driveway.

I'm impatient; I want the mazus to start spreading, or at least show signs of spreading, right now! However, we got some rain Sunday night and drizzle much of yesterday; maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but at least 1 or 2 of the mazus look like they're a bit, oh, fluffier or something.

Today's horticultural vocabulary word

... is torenia. I'll have to check the little plastic spike w/ the full name, but this might prove to be the ideal flower for the north side of the house, which gets no direct sunlight once the trees get their leaves. It reportedly likes part sun to full shade, spreads to about 12", tolerates less-than-ideal soil - all conditions that pertain on the north side of our house. I planted 16 (4 each of 4 colors) of the little darlings this afternoon, half of them in a patch near the side of the house, the rest along the fence. If they turn out to like that spot, I'll definitely be buying more. The flowers look to me like something between a snapdragon and a viola, so I used a few to fill a few holes in the pansy bed, too. Check this space in a month or two to see how they're doing.

Getting psyched for tomorrow

Stopped by the deluxe nursery (not the neighborhood one) after work today. Probably spent too much, and they didn't have pansies or osteospermum, but I came home w/ lots of impatiens to go into the pots on the front steps, some more to fill the gaps in the pansy bed, and 4 plants of mazus reptans to test in the center of the driveway. As the Chief helped me get everything out of the car, he asked "only 4?" I explained that, at $7 a plant, I was going to start w/ four and see how they do. If they die, I may well just go with cuttings from the vinca on the side of the house. But if the mazus does well, I'll go back next year and get more.

Tomorrow the Chief plans to dig up the center driveway strip and fill it with proper dirt, after which those mazus plants go in. If they do what we want, they'll thrive and spread, keep the dirt in place, and be a heckuva lot better looking than the weedy junk dirt that's there now.

What was I saying about that new toy?

After a couple of weeks, we decided the new phones weren't working out - the signal strength needed a major dose of Geritol! So last night we went back to the Verizon store and traded our LGs for Motorolas. We won't get a good test of the signal strength until our next trip to the cabin; here's hoping it's better, 'cause we only get one trade-in on the phones.

Grandiose gardening dreams

I'm probably biting off more than I can chew, but I've been searching for groundcovers to plant in the strip down the middle of the driveway; something esthetic that will tolerate a lot of shade and will keep the dirt in place. Found a wonderful gardening site in my electronic explorations: . "Paggers" has some very nice photos of the incredible variety of plants in her garden, their names, research she's done into them (she seems to be very conscientious about getting the names right), and descriptions. As an amateur who's got a heckuva lotta gardening to learn about, I find the articles helpful without being too technical, nor do they talk down to those of us with little knowledge in these things.

As a result of finding her site and some others, my shopping list for the nursery now includes:
- mazus reptans or creeping veronica (veronica umbrosa) to fill in the patch of dirt down the center of the driveway
- the spider variety of osteospermum (just a few to go into pots on the front steps)
- a few impatiens to go into pots alternating w/ the osteospermum pots
- pansies and violas to fill the gaps in my pansy bed

With any luck, I'll be able to find everything in one place and the plants won't die on me. If whatever I put in the driveway dies on me, I can always fall back on cuttings from the vinca and pachysandra we already have.

Some days ya just can't win

Woke up w/ a migraine (actually, it was probably gearing up last night around bedtime); meds and caffeine took care of it after an hour or two, but then it came back this afternoon, requiring more meds and caffeine. My stomach didn't love that.

Today's pollen count is close to 800 for trees. Wouldn't ya know, the Allegra refill I ordered last week still hasn't arrived, and I took the last one Saturday night. I got a 3-day stopgap supply Monday, but finished that off this morning, so I had to make yet another trip to the pharmacy, this time for a 2-week supply. That refill had better show up soon!

Between allergies and migraines taking all my energy and wind, I was forced to punt choir practice. Not fun; because of all that traveling, tonight's would have been the first practice I'd managed to make since, oh, November or so. I had to cancel this week's voice lesson, too. As a result, I'm going thru some major singing withdrawal; sure hope the pollen count is low enough by Sunday that I can sing rather than croak.

Thank God I'm married to a wonderful husband; I called him this afternoon while waiting for the meds to work on the 2nd migraine and asked him to put the turkey (parts, not a whole birtd) in the oven when he got home. When I got home from work and he saw the state I was in, he didn't just put the turkey in the oven, he fixed the whole dinner.

Must be Monday

My last day off before heading back to the work routine. When I went out to my car to start my round of errands, I turned the key and nothing happened. Nothing. Not even that "you left your lights on, fool!" click. Back into the house I went to call AAA; couldn't find my card without a great deal of searching, and then it was the old one, that expired last year. So after I called for a jump, I had to call a different number to request new cards.

When I finally had a running car again, I went over to the local nursery to inspect their annuals. Nice impatiens, but not much variety in their pansies, and they didn't have any of the "spider" variety of osteospermum that we'd seen in Cape May and wanted to try.

I had planned to do my grocery shopping at the commissary but haven't found the paint scraper to remove the expired stickers and replace them w/ the new ones. With the trees pollinating their little heads off right now, I may have to have the Chief do that for me.

Don't know what today's pollen count is, but it's gotta be in 4 figures; every time I've opened the front door, I've been seized with another sneezing fit and my eyes start burning worse. Poor Chief; he's giving the crabgrass its first haircut of the year and will have to take all his clothes straight to the laundry room and himself straight to the showers to get all that poiso-, uh, pollen off. Otherwise, I'll have one miserable night ahead of me. I love spring, but OH, how I hate pollen!

On the road again...

First it was work, then it was pleasure.

Last weekend I got to the cabin for the first time in months! I went out Thursday to get things in some semblance of order, the Chief joined me Friday afternoon, and my parents arrived that evening for the weekend. They loved it, of course, and are already talking about coming out in the fall to see the addition (assuming it's done by then - the construction and sanitary permits, applied for in January or February, were only granted last Friday).

This weekend the Chief & I went to Cape May, NJ, for a long weekend. The (very gusty!) breezes off the ocean seemed to blow the worst of the pollen inland; I was merely sneezy, not incapacitated, despite all the time we spent outside walking around looking at the beautifully restored buildings and some lovely gardens. Oh, and listening to the ocean and watching the whitecaps. We drove up to the Wildwoods one day and strolled along the nearly-deserted boardwalk. The few things open seemed to be getting their pre-season fix-ups; nobody seemed to be open for business, or perhaps we were just too early in the day.

We also walked thru a model home on a lark. Four stories, 3 houses from the beach (although, as tightly packed as those places were, it might have been only 1 or at most 2 houses from the beach in a "normal" neighborhood), 3300 sq. ft., 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, huge kitchen, hardwood floors throughout, and even an elevator! The sales office was closed (good thing - no "vultures" wanting to get our names & address), but someone we ran into who was also having a look said he'd heard those places were going for "1.8 to 2.2". I guess he couldn't bear to utter the word "million" in there. The Chief enjoyed himself greatly by calling my folks and telling them about this little townhouse we'd looked at, as if we could actually buy the thing!

The next weekend is gonna be spent at home for a change. After seeing all those Cape May gardens, many of them every bit as shady as ours, we've got lots of plans for our yard...

You know you've been doing too much travelling...

...when you don't think to check the date on the milk before pouring. My morning coffee ritual consists of pouring my mug at least half full of milk, adding a bit of sugar, nuking it, and only then topping up w/ coffee. I definitely wasn't awake this morning because it wasn't until I got to that last step that I noticed the consistency of my skim milk was more that of buttermilk. Bleah!!! Thank goodness I'd just bought a fresh gallon of milk, so I still had milk for coffee.

Not the news I wanted...

... but not unexpected, either. Once again I'm not getting promoted to the next GS grade. Sigh. The demographics are absolutely killing me; those of us stuck in the bottleneck have to do at least twice as much as anyone at other grades to break outta that logjam. Frustrating, discouraging, demoralizing (fill in other adjectives here)... I can't help but think of what the Red Queen told Alice (chapter 2, Through the Looking Glass): "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

At least this year all of my managers seemed concerned about helping me break out of the logjam for next year. My first-line manager has a pretty specific plan and the next level up offered to help me work on my package to play up the things I've done that make me stand out. This is the first year I've ever gotten any feedback that would actually be helpful, though of course I won't know just how helpful until we go through this exercise again next year.

OK, enough whining. Now I can quit wondering "is this the year?" and get back to work.

Something to look forward to...

Got some new DVDs today: Galaxy Quest and, as a splurge, the entire first season of The Muppet Show! Now the hard part - deciding which to pop into the machine first...

Dreading my performance "feedback" session tomorrow.

The dreaded moment comes tomorrow - I get the "feedback" on my annual exercise in futility; um, I meant, my performance review. For those of us paid on the government's General Schedule, "promotion" refers to getting raised to the next GS level w/ a concomitant salary increase. (The paltry annual "cost of living" increases don't keep up w/ inflation and pale in comparison to what Congress votes themselves every year.) At my agency, promo money has been very tight for the past several years; our chief of staff professed herself "delighted" that of the 71 people at my GS level in my organization, they would be promoting 7 or maybe even 8! At this point my number of years in grade exceeds my grade, hence my reference to the annual exercise in futility. Nothing quite so demoralizing as being told "sorry, we wanted to promote you but ran out of money before we got to your name." Not very helpful, either; "work on your proofreading" or "you need to work a bit faster" I can control, but I can't do squat about how much money Congress allots our agency for personnel and how the higher-ups then divvy it up among the organizations.

So after all this time, I'm looking forward to getting tomorrow's session over with. No matter what they tell me, they aren't gonna like my reaction. If they didn't put me in, they'd better make sure there are no sharp or heavy objects within reach! If they did but I got weeded out along the way, well, I won't be happy. And even if the news is good, it's been too long in coming. I'll have to try to look pleased while thinking, very loudly, "it's bloody well about time!!!!"

Not whining about this new toy

Will wonders never cease - got new cellphones for the Chief and me and am not complaining about having to learn how it works. (See November comments on figuring out how to make my iPod and digital camera do their tricks.) Yes, I admit it did take me several minutes to figure out how to enter names into the Contacts list, since the user's guide doesn't tell you the trick to getting past the first letter assigned to each number on the keypad, but the rest of it really has been pretty easy. Once I got the letter thing down, I got my entire family's phone numbers entered in about 10 or 15 minutes, have already changed the ringer (the default setting was really, really obnoxious!), gave the Chief's phone a test call, and changed the wallpaper so we can differentiate our otherwise-identical phones at a glance.

Lesson learned - forget the Verizon Wireless store! I went there first, waited 45 minutes, then had to leave before seeing a salesperson because I had to be somewhere else. After that other business was taken care of, I went to the Verizon "kiosk" at the Circuit City about 2 blocks north. What a difference! Far more ambient noise and visual clutter, but the helpful and pleasant Carla was able to take care of me right away. I was able to settle on a model, get the new contracts (another 2 years!) signed, the new phones programmed, and get on to my next errand in less time than I wasted in the Verizon store.

"We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog..."

Did you miss me? ;)

With any luck at all, work will now get back to normal - no more intensive (and intense) traveling and something resembling a more normal schedule and workload. (8-hour days and 5-day weeks would be lovely!) To celebrate what I fervently hope is my last business trip for a very long time, I'm taking off the whole rest of the month. I'll probably spend a lot of it getting caught up on things like laundry and maybe even doing some baking, partly to mark the return to normalcy; I will definitely be making my annual pilgrimage to the local nursery for annuals.

Last year's "stop-gap" pansies faked me out; all but 2 of them not only survived the winter but thrived. I haven't the heart to rip them out when they're so bushy, bright and flourishing, so I'll probably only get a couple of impatiens plants to replace the pansies that didn't make it. (Unless someone would like to suggest another colorful gap-filler that's compatible w/ pansies?) The apartment complex behind us finally took out the enormous, 4-story-tall tulip tree that was so rotted it had become a major hazard. It'll be interesting to see how the additional sun affects how the dogwoods and other trees do this year. All those crocuses I planted last fall bloomed and faded while I was on the road, but the Chief got pictures for me. The new daffs seem to be doing well so far; I think it's still too early for the allium to make their appearance.

The ground has settled very unevenly in the wake of last year's plumbing excavation, so it looks like we'll soon be buying a lot of dirt and filling in all the uneven places. Much of the grass seed didn't come up, so that'll have to be taken care of, too; neither one of us much likes seeing all that bare orange clay. Ugh!

Enough procrastinating; time to start unpacking...

Another technological baby step

I had a nice bit of birthday money to spend so I actually bought an iPod today. Not the Nano; I wanted the additional storage. 30 GB is probably overkill, but given how much I want to load, I doubt it would take me long at all fill up the 2 or 4 GB available on a Nano. As for why I shelled out all that money, I figured it was a much more efficient way to take my music on the road with me than my Walkman, travel speakers, and a stack of audiocassettes. (Yes, I admit it - I even own LPs that I bought new, not from a thrift store.)

Now to figure out how to get this thing working. I'm impatient - I want to know how to use my new toys (the iPod, my digital camera, etc.) without having to go through the learning process. Not that I resent the owner's manual, I just resent the time it takes to figure out how to make my new toy do its tricks. Ah well, enough whining. As a former supervisor used to say, "Suck it up and drive on."

Thanksgiving in Florida

... just feels weird. 80 degrees and gorgeous on Thanksgiving Day? No, it's supposed to be cloudy, dreary, and maybe in the 40s. Actually, the weather was perfect just about the whole week we were there for Thanksgiving w/ my snowbird parents. The only hard part, of course, is leaving those balmy 80-degree temps to return to a clime easily 50 degrees colder! Brrrrrrr!

I'd been so preoccupied with other things that I'd never considered the possibility of seeing hurricane damage. My first reality check was as our plane was landing and I spotted an entire housing development with bright blue roofs. "How interesting and what a pretty, tropical color," I though to myself. This is Florida, after all, where the houses are often painted in bright colors - why should the roofs be any different? Then I noticed other onesie-twosie blue roofs, and the penny dropped fully when I saw partial blue roofs. In other words, I was seeing tarps covering damaged or destroyed roofs.

Once we landed, we hardly saw a single tree that hadn't lost at least some of its foliage; some had been stripped entirely, though not as many had been snapped off as I'd have thought, given all the wind damage. Broken or missing signs, piles of storm debris, boarded windows in many of the buildings, hand-lettered "Yes, we're open!" signs on otherwise empty-looking buildings - Wilma left not a block untouched, though a few buildings apparently survived relatively unscathed. What also surprised us was how long people had to wait to get power restored; waits of as long as 2 weeks weren't unusual!

All in all, it makes me realize just how very lucky we were to survive Hurricane Isabel a few years ago with only a 2-day power outage and some demolished bushes. It could have been much, much worse!

Domestic is all well and good but...

Can't wait until things at work settle down so I can get back to auditioning, rehearsing and performing. As it is, all I have time for are domestic pursuits - playing in the mud, planting bulbs and pansies, making the occasional pot of soup, baking, and too little reading. I enjoy all these things, but they don't get me out of the house and connecting with others (sorry, giving the cashier my grocery coupons doesn't count). And while the larder's full and the laundry's getting done (and even folded!) fairly regularly, I've been feeling kinda boring. After all, no one cares that I'm caught up with laundry & grocery shopping, and most folks aren't really all that interested in my little spurts of gardening - it's not like I'm breeding rare, priceless orchids or anything else out of the ordinary.

More color

There's something to be said for waiting. The nursery had end-of-season pansies for only $1 each. I bought 10, all different, and planted them as soon as I got home, while there was still a little bit of rapidly-fading light. They're now occupying the bed Chief worked up on Sunday. Since the dirt was already enriched and worked over, it only took about 10 minutes to get all my pansies planted. Can't wait to see how they look in daylight...

Spring color, part 2 of 2

Well, I ran out of bulb-planting time last week - only got the allium bulbs in. Today was absolutely gorgeous - sunny and in the 7os! Chief & I took advantage of the superlative weather to spend several hours out in the yard.

When I wasn't helping him with his projects, I dug holes - LOTS of them! - and finished planting all my bulbs. All 50 daffodils and all 90 crocuses! If you're fortunate enough to live somewhere with real dirt (black or brown, loamy, full of earthworms), this may not sound like so very much work. However, in our area that means digging all those holes in clay and working in some proper dirt and probably some bulb food, for insurance. I think most, if not all, of the Eastern Seaboard must sit on this red-orange clay. Makes great bricks, I suppose, but not something you want in your garden. You really have to put your back into it to dig up your garden and you absolutely have to work in some peat moss, humus, sand, real dirt, or other soil enricher (usually over at least 2 or 3 successive years), then hope for the best.

A few hours into it, I looked at how very many bulbs I still had to plant and thought "I'll have to finish this another time". But when I started planting on the side of the yard where we had the plumbing excavation back in August and realized the clay wasn't nearly as dense there, I started digging broader holes and putting several bulbs in them (one hole got at least a dozen crocus bulbs). So while I planted 140 bulbs, I did not dig 140 holes! However, I did expressly tell the Chief, "If I ever want to buy this many bulbs again, stop me!"

For his part, he dug up a flower bed, sifted the top few inches of dirt through a box filter he'd made himself to get rid of the rocks, roots, and other trash, then dumped the dirt back into the bed and worked in a 20-lb. bag of enriched dirt. This to get it ready for me to plant some color, so I'm off to the nursery later this week to get some pansies as stop-gap color. Come spring, though, that bed's earmarked for impatiens.

He also raked up nearly all of the last of the straw the excavators put down after the plumbing "adventure", bagged up the straw for the lawn trash pick-up, dug up a lot of the dirt and redistributed it (it's been settling very unevenly), put down lots of grass seed, and watered the lot.

Now we're joking about filling the tub with Ben-Gay and marinating our overworked muscles in it. Wonder just how stiff I'll be tomorrow...

Medical maintenance

What a week this has been. In addition to yesterday's mammogram retakes, I went in Monday for a blood test, which came back normal for everything they were looking at (cholesterol, blood sugar - the usual suspects), and this afternoon it was back to the dentist for some fillings. Never my favorite thing, this was worse than usual because he was working on wisdom teeth, so I had to keep my jaw open so wide I thought my jaw would separate. Maybe by tomorrow it'll feel normal again. And I'd forgotten how the anesthesia travels to weird places, like my ear and the bone under my eye on that side.

I guess it's true: after 40 it's all patch, patch, patch.

HUGE sigh of relief!

Got my retakes done today. OUCH! Today I learned that "do over" mammograms involve a smaller plate (i.e., stretching and flattening only part of the breast) and greater pressure. Or at least that's what it felt like. They did both the diagonal and horizontal takes, but the radiologist was able to see enough from those two that I didn't have to do the sonogram. If I'd had a vote, I'd've had the sono first, in hopes of being able to skip the mammo! But the news is good - just fibrocystic tissue, which made for a slightly anomalous initial mammogram, but nothing worse. Nothing serious, nothing scary - we're going out to dinner to celebrate, and I'm hoping the restaurant has champagne!

"It certainly entertained the gapers."

Well, the furnace guy collected a new story this afternoon. We told him we needed someone to go into the crawl space under the house and check the ductwork because we know we've got a hole or break or something there from the raccoon. We told him the story and at first he just laughed in disbelief. "Raccoon?!?"

You see, a year ago August we had gone to bed w/ the kitchen skylight open. In the middle of the night, a juvenile raccoon, presumably smelling whatever we'd had for dinner that night, came walking across our roof toward the source of the aroma and fell into our kitchen because the skylight screen wasn't designed to hold any weight. "Then up on the roof there arose such a clatter, we sprang from our bed to see what was the matter." As we ran from the bedroom into the kitchen, the raccoon ran from the kitchen into the bedroom. We immediately shut the door and called Animal Control. I gotta hand it to them, we had an Animal Control officer there at 4 a.m., probably called from a sound sleep, no more than 45 minutes after the arrival of our unwelcome guest. We told him how said guest had made his entrance, whereupon our officer carefully slipped into the bedroom with his cage at the ready. Guess what? NO visitor! AC officer and Chief moved the bed (and all the shoes and sweater boxes stashed under same) to find the little rotter had pried up a floor vent and crawled into our ductwork! We never did smell it, so we know it didn't die in there. Chief noticed the next time he did yard work that a slatted ventilation grill in the crawl space had a section broken out. Given that and other evidence, we assume our probably rabid little friend took advantage of a join in the ductwork to make a break for freedom and eventually make its way into the crawlspace and thence into the neighborhood at large.

The next couple of times we had the system checked, I tried to get the tech to check for a break in the ductwork but they never did. I think this 3rd time was the charm; Chief even showed the tech where he'd nailed mesh over the grill to keep the critters out, because they've pulled down some of the insulation under the house for nesting or other, more nefarious purposes. Someone's supposed to call us tomorrow to arrange to repair the ductwork. Good thing - with all the gloom-and-doom forecasts about how heating prices are going to shoot up this winter, we DON'T want to be heating the neighborhood, or even the crawlspace!

Spring color, coming right up!

Well, not literally, at least not yet. I took today off work to take care of various business; getting the furnace checked out, running errands and - drum roll, please - planting lots and lots of spring bulbs. How many is "lots"? 175! I've got 35 Allium bulbs - new flower for me; can't wait to see how they work out - 50 assorted daffodils, and 90 assorted crocus bulbs! I absolutely love crocuses - they're my "hang in there, spring is coming!" flower.

I had planted about 200 assorted bulbs (snowdrops, anemones, grape hyacinths, miniature daffs, and crocuses, of course) across the little slope in the front yard several years ago, but most of them quit coming up. Don't know whether disease or insects got them, but now I get to spend a happy couple of hours digging holes and planting what I know will be a wash of color come spring. And because the package tells me the allium comes up in late spring, I'll be getting color for a while - first the crocuses, then the daffs, then the allium. Or maybe the daffs & allium will come in together. I don't care - it'll be fun to see what happens, and what colors and varieties I get.

Maybe it's not so bad after all.

I talked to my doctor this afternoon about the results of my first mammogram. She said it showed some thickening of the tissue, and a "questionable masslike area" but no calcifications, which is a good thing. There was also some "blurring", which is part of why they want to do another, magnified mammo, with a sonogram for independent confirmation, I suppose.

After talking to my breast cancer-survivor mom last night and learning this today, I'm feeling much less worried about the whole business, although I'm still not exactly looking forward to getting another mammogram so soon.

Ladies, do your self exams!

Pray for me!

Been catching up on a lot of medical "routine maintenance" lately - dentist, allergist, mammogram, annual "date w/ the stirrups". No fun, but some things ya just gotta do. Most of the follow-up has been merely tedious (e.g., flu shot, 2 cavities to be filled).

However. I had my mammogram last week and learned today from my HMO that they want to "re-image" my left breast and do a sonogram of it, just for good measure. My mom had breast cancer several years ago, so the implications of "re-imaging" are scarier than I care to dwell on.

I'm scheduled to go back for more pictures next Wednesday. That means a full week of fearing the worst. I'll happily take all the prayers and good wishes you can spare!

Festivals

Reading back, I see I wrote that the fall festival "always seems to get good weather". Not true this year! It was raining steadily when we woke up Friday morning and didn't stop for good until late Sunday morning. The festival parking is in a field, so when Chief asked about going later in the day or even waiting until Saturday, I insisted on going as soon as possible, before the mud got axle deep in the lot entrances. (Trust me, dislodging a car mired axle-deep in mud is not quick, not easy, and definitely not cheap!)

Unfortunately, the weather definitely affected attendance by both visitors and vendors; the crowds were even lighter than we expected, and there were a number of empty vendors' spaces. A shame; this is definitely one of the better shows. It's large enough to be interesting but small enough to be manageable (not like some that cram hundreds of vendors into the county fairgrounds, for instance), and because it's juried, you can be sure that all the vendors make all their own things. No dishtowels reconstituted into a different shape or anything. And what I enjoy almost as much as seeing all the lovely, well-made things is getting the chance to talk to the makers about materials, techniques, what got them interested in (woodcarving, weaving, ironwork...), and so on. Several of the vendors are also re-enactors and wear their period clothing and are happy to explain the old techniques of barrel-making, why they use this particular breed of sheep for the wool in their sweaters, or where they managed to find the tools to make their instruments. Because the people are invariably emotionally involved in their craft, they always tell a wonderful story about it. That was one advantage to Friday's rain - because the crowds were so light, I think the vendors were happy to have someone interested in their work. The woman doing the Swedish weaving (basketweave throws with multi-colored embroidery) was good enough to show me how she did the patterns on the throws, the woodcarver answered my husband's questions about which woods were easier or harder to work with, the woman with the braided rugs was quite proud of the fact that in the past 5 or 6 years she's completed 160 rugs (her goal was 125!) and the cooper shifted easily from telling us the history of the "barn stars" he makes to the barrels he also makes. Well worth the price of admission!

By contrast, the apple butter festival was a disappointment. I think it suffered by being visited so soon after the other. This festival may not be juried. It was certainly more eclectic, with a lot of vendors the Chief described as "aging hippies"; my term was "New Age". As with the other, the rain hurt them; we saw a lot of empty vendor spaces, though we couldn't tell whether they hadn't shown up, or had merely decided to cut their losses and go home early.

And with all the rain, I didn't even pull out my old camera, let alone my new one. Maybe the next time we're out at the cabin...

"Spam" is a 4-letter word.

I really, really didn't want to do this, but may yet be forced to. Lately, nearly all the comments to my blog have been from spammers. This is really irritating; my blog is NOT intended as a place for some anonymous scam artist or self-promoter to make a fast buck. Not to mention that my ego is a little dented; the 2 or 3 readers I have aren't commenting, while the spammers have no qualms whatsover about butting in and making irrelevant, self-aggrandizing sales pitches disguised as comments. I suppose I should be grateful that at least they've been clean. So far.

Please, don't make me use word verification.

New toy!

My digital camera arrived today! Three guesses how I'll be spending the rest of the evening (well, after I bake an apple cake and deliver some "neighbor debt payments"). This is good timing because the Chief & I will be going out to an autumn foliage festival Friday and an apple butter festival on Sunday.

The Friday fest always seems to get good weather, perfect for driving around and looking at the scarlet of the sugar maple farms. I just hope they got enough rain this year to make the leaves turn bright colors before they turn brown and drop off. The festival has lots of crafts workers, furniture makers and the like, and draws large enough crowds that it inspires the neighbors to have little stands of their own for quilts, home-made baked goods, produce, and the like. The apple butter festival is smaller, but equally fun - I want pictures of the HUGE kettles they make the apple butter in. They often let little kids stir the stuff, but have to put them on a stool so they can reach, because the kettles are big enough to hold 3 or 4 toddlers.

I'm hoping the "Gourmet Termite" will be there again, too. The first time I went to the apple butter festival was while the Chief was deployed overseas. Among all the watercolorists, other artists, goodie sellers, and the like was an older gentleman with an old van he'd converted into a mobile woodshop! Calling himself The Gourmet Termite, he made custom signs while you waited. I had him make a sign for our cabin, selecting a sign template from among the many he offered, giving him the text and letting him know the local emergency crews mandated house numbers at least 4" high. While he worked on it, I nosed around the van, which was a marvel of ingenuity. Ship's cabins are marvels of efficient use of space, but this van easily rivalled them for efficiency. He had a shallow set of shelves in the back end of the van that stored what looked like various types and sizes of drill bits, while the body of the van housed his sign templates, paint, varnishes, and other supplies. The Chief would really love seeing the van and talking to the man when he's not busy. Although, come to think of it, I'd have a hard time tearing him away - he might want to sign up as an apprentice! :D

Locks of Love

Many of you have probably heard of Locks of Love, a charity which provides human-hair wigs for "financially disadvantaged children 18 years and younger suffering from long-term medical hair loss." They accept monetary donations, of course, but also donations of hair (at least 10" long). Go to the website, check out the before & after pictures, read the letters from some of the kids who've benefitted, and tell me this isn't a worthy cause!

I've known a few friends who've donated (I went to a wedding a few years ago where a friend and one of the groom's cousins were comparing notes on their donation experiences), so I've been thinking about this for a few years. Well, I finally took the plunge - this afternoon I had the hairdresser whack off 12" of my hair, which I'll mail off in the morning. How much difference does 12" make? This morning my hair fell to about my hipline; now it barely covers my shoulders, partly because, with so much less weight, my hair's natural wave can pull my hair up more.

And boy, is this going to take some getting used to! My hair has been waist-length or longer for 15 or 20 years; now, while I can still get it into a (much smaller) bun, I have all kinds of little ends to corral. It's much easier to french-braid; a ponytail now falls barely to my shoulders instead of to my waist. Maybe I'll be able to do a french twist now, too; before, all that hair weighed so much, it wouldn't stay put. And the first time I wash this much-shorter hair is gonna feel very strange indeed - it stops a lot sooner than I'm used to, weighs a lot less, and will thus need less shampoo & conditioner and dry much more quickly.

The Chief has only known me with long hair; he's been having a lot of fun getting oh, so melodramatic, clutching his breast, putting his hand to his forehead, and pretending to swoon at the mere thought of my cutting my hair. When I got home this afternoon, he made a big show of opening the door s-l-o-w-l-y, with one hand over his eyes, peeking between his fingers. What a ham! So far, he hasn't really said much, but I can tell by the way he looks at my hair that this is going to be an adjustment for him.

Can you say "price gouging"?

Noticed yesterday that a local gas station, a no-name chain, had jumped the price for regular unleaded from $2.89 in the morning to $3.29 that evening!!! A 40-cents-a-gallon jump! This makes them 20 cents a gallon more expensive than the Exxon just down the road, and the no-name station doesn't even take credit cards!

Now out on DVD...

Finally got my Mikado DVD last night, watched it tonight. The Act I disc is a mess; about 1/3 of the way through the sound gets out of synch with the picture and never gets back on track. I'll have to find out if anyone else had this problem. The Act II disc is better; no synching problems! I ordered copies for my parents and a couple of out-of-town friends; I'll have to check those copies to see whether they have problems, or if it's just that one disc.

After watching through the show once, I've decided two things about my vocal performance - I'd better continue my voice lessons, and my voice is better suited to Katisha than to Pitti-Sing. But I'm still glad I pushed for Pitti - I may never get that chance again! Dramatically, I'm not at all unhappy with how I did. Considering how painful it can be to watch oneself on video, that's pretty darn good!

It's nice to have a record of our Ko-Ko's lovely lyric baritone, our other principals' comic turns, the lush costumes, pretty stage pictures, and all the other things that made this fun to do. It's also nice to be able to hear how the ensemble numbers sounded - it's impossible to tell when you're in the ensemble how it comes across to the audience. The sound balance was such that I could usually hear myself and Yum-Yum in the full-ensemble numbers, thanks to our mics. I don't know that anyone else would notice, particularly, but it's an odd feeling to be watching this DVD and be able to pick out my own voice.

Also on DVD... My sister K's company has been putting on an arts festival every June for the past several years and this year they did a cut-down version of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, in which she played Lucy. Being partial, I was pleased and proud to see that she was the best thing on that stage both vocally and dramatically.

When the Chief & I were in town for the christening last weekend, K let me sing with her when she cantored at church. I enjoyed singing harmony to her melody on the Mass parts; I only wish the hymns had included some for which I knew harmonies. A pity we live so far apart; I'd love to sing with her more often.

The moral of the story is...

Read the online merchant reviews before ordering! I ordered a digital camera two weeks ago from WaWaDigital. I suppose the name should have sent me to the reviews, but no, I was a cheapskate and their price was the lowest. And I never got an e-mail order confirmation, which is highly unusual for an online merchant these days. But they did call me the next day to confirm my order, to be shipped in 7-10 working days, so I wasn't really concerned.

However, two weeks later my camera has yet to arrive, so I called earlier today to check on my order. The man on the phone told me it was "completely sold out for 3 weeks". Never mind that the website claimed at the time of my order and still claims that the item is in stock. Never mind that when the company called to confirm my mailing address (apparently just a thinly veiled attempt to get me to buy accessories in addition to the camera), they never said anything about its being sold out. Oh, and I notice that the website price today is $55 higher than when I ordered. Not that it matters, if the thing is unavailable, of course.

The reviews I read this morning included several people accusing them of bait-and-switch tactics - items that never arrived, pressure to buy additional items, etc. So I found it interesting that when I called today to check on my camera and they apologetically told me it wouldn't be available for at least 3 weeks and I asked to cancel my order, the man on the phone just said "yes, ma'am, we'll cancel that for you" and hung up. Didn't ask my name, address, or any other info that might help him identify the order I wanted to cancel, which makes me suspect it was never placed to begin with, perhaps because I politely declined to order anything but the camera.

Do you smell fish? I sure do!

Do you feel safer now?

One of the nice things about work is that sometimes they offer classes that, while not directly work-related, are generically useful and we actually get to go take them. I spent today in a sort of emergency/trauma first aid class (post-9/11 mentality driving the curriculum, I suppose). We did not cover CPR - that's a separate class, which I have yet to manage to get into. Instead we covered some basics, including definitions of terms like "communicable disease" and what they classed as "directional terms" (anterior/posterior, midclavicular line, proximal/distal, etc.), in case the real medical folks use those terms when they respond to the 911 call. We also learned about the signs of shock and what to do for someone suffering from same, dressing wounds, splinting and otherwise immobilizing broken bones, and how to treat burns.

Then things got interesting when the instructors trotted out some military-issue first aid kits (both are former military who now work for an emergency preparedness training company). They had us do dressings, pressure bandages, and even tourniquets on each other, practice a couple of two-person carries (out of several one- and two-person carries they showed us), and even do a little litter-bearing. God grant we never need the information, but given that I know at least one person who helped load people into medevac helicopters on September 11th, well, it never hurts to know how to make yourself useful.

I think I've finally learned how to find a radial pulse (I've never had trouble finding the carotid pulse but the radial one, in the wrist, always eluded me) and a brachial pulse (the one that runs under your arm). I also feel a little more confident that I could splint a broken bone without doing my "patient" an injury. Do you feel safer around me now? ;)

Hail to the Chief!

Since I'll be sitting out this theater season, thereby reprieving my husband from Theater Widower status for the time being, I've been trying to think of a new nickname for him. He retired from the military as a Chief Master Sergeant, so maybe I'll refer to him as Chief, especially as I occasionally call him that anyway...

The down side of vacation homes

After spending 10 or 11 days straight out at the cabin, I've realized there's a down side to a vacation place:
- no maid service to change the sheets, do the laundry, scrub bathrooms or chase the cobwebs;
- you gotta do your own grocery shopping
- no room service or restaurant to cook meals and do the dishes
- no maintenance workers to keep things running

However, we had gorgeous weather the entire time we were there. Having the windows open to the breezes and birdsong and being able to see nothing but trees (and a fawn that was snacking on the bushes just a few feet from our door one afternoon) was still good for the soul.

Ah, the marvels of the Internet!

J called us the same evening they got a christening date for our newest niece, the soon-to-be-former pagan baby, so I immediately jumped on the computer (it was cooperating for a change, hallelujah!) and was able to get us non-stop flights both directions, and a rental car for the weekend, for less than I thought we'd have to pay for the plane tix alone! Heck, even with airport parking the whole transportation bill won't come to $400, considerably less than I thought we'd have to spend, especially given fuel prices! =:o

Cooperative computer, Southwest's lowest fares still available on the dates we needed, airfares not yet reflecting near-European fuel prices, decent rental car rates - God obviously wants us to attend this christening!

The reviews are in.

Hey, it's my blog, started because people wanted to know how I felt about performing my first lead. (And no, I won't tell you who they are or where they live.) This is still new enough to me that the novelty has yet to wear off. A few folks who "reviewed" the Summer Sing I attended had this to say about my performance (extracted from their comments on the day as a whole):

"I finally had the chance to listen to Maureen, as a well-meaning Melissa with a round and mellow voice."

"Maureen as Melissa (with gilded toy axe!) deftly managed her mood shift in 'Death to the Invader/PleaseYou, Do Not Hurt Us' "

"I thought you did a great job with Melissa all the way! I especially loved the way you handled my favorite part, the "please, sir, do not hurt us" section, into that transition for the reprise of Death to the Invader. And good on you, as the Aussies say, for going for the high G--it was solid and sounded great!!"

I'm particularly chuffed, as the British might say, about that comment about my high G; nice to know the note I was so worried about came off so well.

Let's see, where was I...

Ah yes, singing G&S with a roomful of G&S fans. Did I mention yet how much fun it was? Our hostess did an impressive job - even had binders for each of us with copies of the individual choruses and finales from the shows we weren't singing in toto, so that no one had to schlep a dozen vocal scores. She even let us keep them. A also had nametags, a "program" listing who was singing the principal lines for the various shows and excerpts, a separate listing of participants, their points of origin, even their home company or companies where applicable (e.g., WS Gilbert, London, The Savoy Company). A. really did a bang-up job of organizing the whole thing; I hope I can do half as well when I manage to try putting one of these together!

Anyway, back to the singing: After Princess Ida we sang the Act I and II finales from HMS Pinafore, then our next full show: Trial by Jury. Trial was a great deal of fun, in large part due to the unabashed mugging of the Learned Judge, who flirted with any female within range, and the way V literally threw herself into the role of the Plaintiff, flinging herself quite literally at the Defendant, clinging to his leg as he dragged her across the floor in his attempts to escape her importuning. Oh, and everyone sang well, too. :)

We sang two more Act I finales, from Yeomen of the Guard and Iolanthe. More exhilarating Sullivan choruses to sing, though I was disappointed in myself at how much I'd forgotten since doing these shows. ("Ah, but recently?" "Oh no, years and years ago.") Guess I'll just have to get into more of these productions to remind myself of the music. ;)

On to our last "full" show (all the music but none of the dialogue) of the day: Utopia, Ltd., the 13th of Gilbert & Sullivan's 14 collaborations. I've done a cut-and-doctored production of this show about 5 years ago. While I feel it's deservedly obscure, it does have its moments. In this case, some of those moments came from the performers. Most of the soloists had done solo turns earlier in the day, a few were reprising roles they'd performed when Savoynet put together a production of Utopia for the Int'l G&S Festival in England a few years ago. But far and away the delightful surprise of the day for me was the young lady singing Nekaya (w/ the newly-returned-from-Buxton R as her twin sister Kalyba). S is a 10-year-old with a beautifully clear soprano who's going to be a show-stopper when her voice develops. She was also a charming performer, working beautifully with her "sister" R on their duets. Their bits of "business" were largely ad-libbed and almost completely stage-worthy.

We closed, an hour late (but is it really possible to have too much music?), with the Act II finale from The Gondoliers. We were all fading by then, 8 hours after the first note, but the day still managed to "leave [us] with feelings of pleasure".

Seeing familiar faces and meeting new folks are as important a part of these events as the singing, and I was glad of the opportunity to match faces with names I knew only from Savoynet (http://www.cris.com/~oakapple/savoynet/), to hear them sing and watch them perform at last, and in some cases to work with them. These events seem to be proliferating - I think there have been 7 or 8 up and down the East Coast (from Maine to Florida) this year - so if this sounds like your idea of fun, keep an eye on Savoynet for the announcement of the next one. I know there's one on Nantucket the weekend after Labor Day, though I don't know whether it's full.

It's a girl!

I've been waiting and worrying for several months about my sister's first little one. J was safely delivered of a beautiful baby girl last Tuesday. It was a C-section, so no conehead baby, but mother & daughter are both doing well. Little Girl is our parents' 9th surviving grandchild but a first grandbaby for her daddy's parents, who I'm told are absolutely over the moon about their new status as grandparents.

My oldest niece is thrilled to have another girl cousin and apparently also delighted to learn that she & her new cousin share a middle name.

Thanks to modern electronics, we already have at least a dozen photos of the newest addition to the family. Now to start lobbying my other siblings for current pictures of the rest of my nieces & nephews for the multi-photo frame I have at work...

All but perfection

Ah yes, spending a day singing Sullivan's gratifying music with about 70 like-minded individuals - what could be better? Well, if TW were similarly inclined, and therefore willing to go with me, that would have been better. As it was, he stayed home and puttered - house cleaning, second-coating the front door, etc. It also would have been better if I'd had more time to go over the choruses; I found far too many places I didn't remember. Ah well, I still got to sing myself silly, which is why I went.

We were gathered in an empty office space. The low acoustic ceiling and commercial carpet weren't great for the acoustics, but there was plenty of room for all of us, our semi-circle of chairs, tables at one end for food and drink, and a space in the semi-circle for the keyboard and soloists, who were occasionally rather numerous (as many as 7 or 8).

"And how did the singing go?" I'm glad you asked! (Relax: I won't attempt a full review because this entry would be three times as long as it already is and, more importantly, I'd be sure to overlook someone.) We opened with 2 choruses from The Mikado: "If you want to know who we are" and "Comes a train of little ladies". Having just done Mikado, these were very easy and a great way to dive into the day's vast, inviting pool of G&S.

We then went on to the double chorus "In a doleful train" from Patience. "What's a double chorus?" That's when Gilbert has the men's and women's choruses singing different things - in this case, the women mooning about over a romantic poet and the men upset at being neglected by their onetime ladyfriends - and Sullivan sets the texts to different melodies and - here's what makes these so difficult and rewarding to sing - at different tempos or meters (in this case, the women are singing solemn half notes while the men are expostulating in outraged eighth notes). You know you're in a room of folks experienced in G&S when you can run through such a number without rehearsal and the group as a whole manages to finish together without a train wreck or even a near miss.

Perhaps in tribute to Savoynet's August 9th production of Iolanthe at the International G&S festival, our gracious hostess then let us all sing the March of the Peers (women could sing along if we behaved ourselves and sang in the men's register; easy for the altos & mezzos, not really an option for the sopranos, poor things). I've always loved that one - another exhilarating Sullivan chorus! (The man really wrote some of the most gratifying-to-the-singer choruses it's ever been my pleasure to sing.)

Next up: the first full (musically - no dialogue) work of the day - The Pirates of Penzance. This one has long been one of my favorites, and my friend D (she & her husband were my traveling companions for the weekend) was singing Kate. She was nervous, not having attended these things before nor sung the role before, but she did just fine. Being familiar with the show, she was also able to do a bit of acting. D and I became friends while singing together in the alto section of many a chorus, so I'm just a bit biased, but I thought she did a fine job. Also in Pirates, I got to hear W's lovely, lyric mezzo as Ruth. I knew her only from Savoynet, so I was glad of the chance to hear her in person, as well as to see her in action. E was a delightfully over-the-top Mabel, mugging fit to beat the band and popping out shamelessly high cadenzas with wild abandon. Her interplay with the tenor playing Frederic was great fun to watch, and they were both obviously having a great deal of fun. Yet they were completely capable of being serious; their "Ah, leave me not to pine" was probably the most moving piece of the day, all the more remarkable for the fact that they'd never laid eyes on each other before that morning. The Sergeant of Police was a true bass, with wonderfully rumbly low notes; the first time he hit one, Mabel abandoned Fred and fluttered at the Sergeant! :) My only problem w/ Pirates was that, in my eagerness, I had foolishly oversung and my throat was already feeling the strain. Not at all good, given that Princess Ida, up next after the lunch break, was the one with "my" music in it, and of course there was still plenty and plenty of singing to follow that!

Apparently the lunch break was sufficiently restful, as I wasn't noticing any vocal problems when we resumed. My first, very brief solo line as Melissa ("Pray, what authors should she read who in classics would succeed?" - that's the whole thing) may have been a bit shaky from nerves, and the fact that the personwho was supposed to sing Psyche, who was supposed to answer my sung question, wasn't there. F jumped in to cover Psyche, which helped immensely thereafter, as Psyche has a lot of music to sing. F either knows Ida well or is an excellent sightreader, as this seemed to give her no trouble. My next set involved a quintet and a duet back to back. The quintet, which A had warned me about because it was so easy to accelerate during the refrain, went well. A told me later that the 3 of us originally scheduled to be singing it did a good job of "anchoring" it for F and one of the men, who were last-minute substitutions and therefore hadn't had time to prepare. At any rate, while I had my nose in my score far more than I would have liked, I was able to interact with the men on either side of me when I wasn't singing, which was fun. I had taken my hair out of its ponytail for Ida (long hair just seemed to suit Melissa) and J, who was singing Melissa's mother, Lady Blanche, decided to let down her own, which is about as long, to heighten the "family" resemblance. The funny thing about that is that "my mother" is only a year older than I am. The duet, which I'd had fun singing w/ K in my voice lessons, went well, though both of us agreed later that we wished we'd had time to practice a bit together. The one piece I was worried about was "Death to the invader". The chorus sings, then Melissa has a verse (with chorus response), then the chorus finishes. Melissa's verse is written with both a high and a low option. I wanted to take the high road, so to speak, but having oversung by lunchtime, I was not exactly optimistic. However. By the time we got to that song, I was re-warmed up after lunch, and by the end of the verse I had enough of a running start that I decided to go for it. Never underestimate the power of adrenaline! :) It felt good, not screechy or strained, and I'm told it sounded "great"! This was the one number I knew well enough to do without my score (I'd sung it in the chorus several times), so I was able to "perform" it, not just sing it. At the end of my last voice lesson, K had dug thru her props collection and come up with a squishy plastic battleaxe, which I used to (I hope) good effect. If nothing else, it helped me with the switch when Melissa shifts from "Death to the invader!" to "Please you, do not hurt us!" Along with F singing Psyche on the fly, special kudos to R, barely off the plane from the Int'l G&S festival in England, where she'd sung Phyllis in Savoynet's Iolanthe less than 48 hours before, who sang the eponymous Princess Ida, and did it beautifully - wonderful voice, excellent emotion, not a trace of jetlag!

And K's battleaxe saw more action than I'd expected. I almost didn't pack it, thinking it silly to pack it for one number, but I'm glad I put it back in the suitcase. When Ruth and the Pirate King were trying to threaten Frederic empty-handed, I handed the weapon to Ruth. In Ida, one of Ida's three brothers used it for one or two of their songs, and of course I used it for "Death to the invader". Thanks, K!

To be continued...

"Adventures in Babysitting"

From one of the blogs I follow: http://www.livejournal.com/users/thirdbase/

Before you go to the link, you need to know that the children's parents are both theatrical people, as is the babysitter. I'd've paid good money to see that show!

Bad news travels in packs.

Last night wasn't one of the better ones. I got home from a wonderful time singing myself silly in NJ and started checking e-mail, from which I learned that:

• R's mom had been moved into the ICU because her breathing problems were getting worse;
• L wouldn't be able to have lunch w/ TW after all because he had to make an emergency trip to NJ to take care of an elderly aunt who'd had a bad fall.

But wait, there's more. Called my parents and Dad noted that his back (on which he had two major corrective surgeries last year) was hurting like (expletive deleted) and he was thinking about having the doc up his pain meds. Dad has a very high pain threshold, so he must really have been hurting!

Then TW talked to his brother and learned that he thinks their mom might be having some mini-strokes, as she seemed to think she was back teaching again, so P was going to take her to the doctor today. When we talked to her later last night she sounded OK, but I'll feel better when we know what the doctor said.

The dust has settled.

Or perhaps I should say the trench has been filled back in, the daylilies replanted (not where they were before, but no matter), and grass seed laid down and covered with a generous bed of straw. I had to water the stuff Friday so it wouldn't completely dry out in the summer heat, but we've had enough rain since then that I haven't needed to water it again. They warned us it could take upwards of four months for the dirt to settle back in, so we probably won't replace that torn-up section of walk until spring. TW's already talking about going with paving stones instead of concrete, which sounds good to me.

I should be packing. My friends are coming to collect me around 2 p.m. tomorrow to head off to to NJ to spend most of Saturday singing to our hearts' content. I just pulled a double batch of brownies out of the oven; that's going as my "contribution to the cause". It won't feed all of us, but it'll add to the festive air. (Hershey's Triple Chocolate brownie mix, bought at Sam's - awesome stuff, much better than the Ghirardelli's brownie mix, which I found rather disappointing.) My scores are already in my suitcase, along with my Savoynet T-shirt, but I still have to pack the boring stuff - toiletries, PJs, etc. I also need to set aside the provisions for the drive: a bottle of wine for tomorrow night, bottles of water, munchies, etc.

This is going to be fun. I always enjoy singing Sullivan's music, and I love singing in groups, the bigger the better. Singing G&S with 70 or 80 people is going to be quite a thrill! We'll get to cut up, renew old acquaintances and make new ones, wish our gracious hostess a happy birthday - this is gonna be one heck of an all-day party!

It could have been worse...

Yesterday was a bad news/good news day with the plumber. The bad news: the estimate did not include the cost (think 3 or 4 car payments) of replacing the original, galvanized-steel water service pipe from the house out to the street. The good news: they were able to do everything from outside. In other words, they didn't have to break up any of the concrete basement floor, so no concrete dust all over the house - hooray!

I got lots of pictures of the trench. Interestingly, they dug up the two huge clumps of daylilies that were in the line of fire and placed them out of harm's way and also were careful to pile up the dirt so it didn't engulf one of the little boxwoods in the front yard. I had offered some of the daylilies to our next-door neighbor because that double clump has so very many, but admitted that I didn't know what time of year you're supposed to separate them. When we were talking this evening, we joked that "well, I guess we're separating 'em now!" Another side benefit of all this trenching is that the stump of the tree the daylilies surrounded is now history, as is the stump of another, smaller tree we had to cut down last year.

The guys were very careful about the daylilies but those impatiens I planted back in June are a lost cause. The guys who installed the neighbors' fence didn't exactly work around them, and the plumbing work pretty much finished them off. This was obviously not the year to plant anything in that bed!

After two days' work, the job is nearly done. All that remains is to cement the hole through the foundation where the pipes leave the house, have the inspectors give their approval, and fill in the trench. Oh, and pay for the whole mess. Which didn't quite come to 5 figures, but still would have paid for a very nice vacation indeed!

Starting to get excited...

When I mentioned to my voice teacher at my lesson yesterday that I'd decided not to audition for Company, along with the reasons, she commented that it was very "self-aware" of me to make such a decision, "And I mean that in a good way, of course." :) And since I'm not prepping audition pieces, we were able to spend the whole lesson working on my music for A's Summer Sing in NJ just 11 days from now.

I'm really starting to get excited about the Summer Sing. The other day I pulled out all the vocal scores I'll need to take with me. Although we're doing the complete music from only 4 G&S shows, we're also doing selections from 7 others. I had thought I'd just xerox the excerpts and put them into a single binder, but when I realized how much that would end up costing and how long it would take (the Iolanthe Act I finale alone runs 55 pages!), I decided lugging the scores around wouldn't be so bad after all. We'll be singing from late morning until evening, after which many of us will descend on a local eatery and likely subject the unsuspecting staff and customers to a bit more singing. Boy, will we be warmed up by then!

This will be only the third one of these I've ever attended; the last was 5 or 6 years ago. It will also be my first solo outing at such an event. I tried singing Pitti-Sing (IIRC) at the first one I attended, 8 years ago, but not being much of a sightreader, that didn't really work too well. This time will be better: I've now worked "my" music in 3 lessons, and have several years of voice lessons under my belt, so I'm in much better vocal shape now.

In such informal settings, it's perfectly OK for the women to sing along w/ the men's chorus and vice versa, to make all the punny, silly or smart-alecky comments you could never get away with in a performance situation, to mug and make melodramatic gestures; in short, to have a grand time in a room full of people of a similar bent. This is gonna be so much fun!

I'll be traveling with a fellow mezzo & her husband and won't be the least bit surprised if she and I end up singing all the way up, reviewing our respective solo turns and reminding each other of the alto lines in the choruses. Good thing her husband likes to sing along; that'll make it easier for him to put up with the two of us. TW, on the other hand, is completely and utterly not interested in any of these proceedings, so he'll be spending that weekend at the cabin, or working on the shed, or perhaps drooling over his woodworking books and magazines, designing and redesigning the workshop of his dreams.

The trial is almost upon us

This is the week the plumbers come to dig up our original sewer line and replace it with a new one, one that isn't corroded and which has the correct slope. I'm taking off work today and tomorrow, TW is taking Thursday & Friday. Naturally, the company called to say they didn't think they'd need all four days, so they won't start until tomorrow. Since I was already scheduled to be off work, I'm using the time for "fun" stuff like grocery shopping and laundry. Especially laundry, since we need to get the clean stuff out of the laundry "room". After all, that's where the sewer main comes into the house and therefore where they'll have to break up the concrete basement floor to replace it. I've experienced the "joys" of concrete dust before, when my parents added a bathroom basement (there's nothing quite like being awakened early on a Saturday morning by the sound of a saw ripping through 6" of concrete!) - I'm not looking forward to this.

Two small mercies: they won't be showing up until 8 tomorrow so I'll have time to sleep in a little and still finish breakfast before they start tearing things up, and they assured me they'll be turning the water back on after they finish each day's work, so we will be able to do dishes and take care of personal hygiene between Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon.