Blatherings

So my grand, ambitious plans for Saturday evaporated as dew from grass. Largely because, as when dew quickly evaporates from grass, it was hot as blazes on Saturday, and Chez 42 is not air conditioned. The smallish heat wave that was predicted for the weekend has turned out to be a larger and probably more protracted heat wave than expected, and much of the state is affected by soaring temperatures, miserable humidity, and rolling blackouts. Fortunately, we're in that blessed <10 miles from the coast zone that means our heat index was in the upper 90Fs on Saturday and not in triple digits like much of the county and state.

So I observed the heat wave by doing very little (dishes... laundry... ). I didn't attempt to record, which involves shutting off all the fans and closing all the windows, because that would have been miserable. But I did sit down at the piano to figure out how to play "Too Darn Hot," which is much easier than I thought it would be, after which dug out my Beethoven sontata book and played through the first movement of Pathétique. I have lost much of the muscle memory (I had the movement nearly memorized at one point), but a lot of it is still there, and it was fun to revisit!

The weather was so gross the dogs didn't even complain too much about getting short walks. Although there was a mishap on a bonus walk that Hildy punked me into giving them, which was at least partially my fault, that led to two of my fingers on my dominant hand getting a bit shredded by Hildy's extendable leash (I was untangling said leashes when Hildy lunged at Friendly Neighborhood Cat, I grabbed the leash, and she kept trying to give chase, and she is STRONG), so that sucked and will take some time to heal. In retrospect, I'm quite glad I decided to practice Beethoven just before the accident, since it may be a couple of weeks before the fingers are up to attempting it again.

Thankfully, Sunday was nearly ten degrees cooler and pleasantly breezy. Our friend ML came by to drop off some beer I'd asked her to order from The Bruery for me, which led to us hanging out inside (masked and distanced), taking a walk, and hanging out under the trees out front, which was wonderful. After that, I put on my big girl pants and got the audio for Master Chorale's virtual choir project recorded. Woo hoo! The best part? The main section of the tune ends on a big ol' sustained fortissimo Bb5, and while I had to record it like six times before I got one I was happy with, not only did all the takes feel and sound decent (one had the best Ab, one had the best Bb, and I spliced them together), I felt great afterwards and not at all vocally tired. So double woo hoo for healthy vocal production!

Mr. 42 and I celebrated by taking the dogs to Fiesta Island, and while the dog park was weekend-normal-busy, the rest of the island was SLAMMED. It was cars and RVs and trailers parked practically bumper to bumper nearly the whole perimeter of the island. There were so many boats and personal watercraft buzzing about that we saw something like four different harbor police craft assisting or pulling over other boats and towing jetskis whose engines had flooded. And even worse, when the sun went down, everybody who'd been hanging out all day decided to leave, and the one-way road around the island was so backed up that it took us 20 minutes to get back to the mainland. Fortunately, the dogs had a lovely time running around and making doggy friends (C was quite taken with a Neopolitan Mastiff, which is unusual; her usual M.O. is barking off larger dogs) and were content to snooze on our laps on the longer-than-usual trip home.

When we got home, I had a shower, Mr. 42 made fajitas for dinner and squeezed me a lime and a half for a large and delicious margarita (shredded fingers = no citrus squeezing for me until the wounds scab over), and after dinner, we watched a couple of episodes of Legend of Korra, and I enjoyed one of the lovely beers ML procured for me. I had a vague notion that I might record the video portion of the virtual choir piece last night, but the humidity meant that my wet hair didn't dry in time, so it was nice of the universe to give me permission to relax.

Today is suppose to be quite hot, but thankfully, we've got some cloud cover keeping things cool for the nonce. I've put on makeup in anticipation of recording the video today and starting on my video editing journey (heaven help me...) to replace the video's audio with my prerecorded track. However, I can't do anything just yet because I'm supposed to wear my choir uniform top, and it's in a bedroom closet that's currently blocked by the old mattress, so I need to wait until Mr. 42 is up and about to get his help moving things. Fortunately, I have until 11pm on Tuesday to submit my video for the virtual choir.

In other happy singing news, I'm "on" this week for church, which means I get to record two of the hymns in person with RV on organ and me standing 20 feet away at the choir desk. So that'll be happening tomorrow or Wednesday, and I need to practice the hymns (and, okay, learn one of them...) so we can try to get the hymns in as few takes as possible. It's going to be AMAZING to sing in an acoustically live place again, and with actual live organ accompaniment? Joy!!

ETA1: Mattress moved and choir uniform top achieved! And we were finally able to put away our luggage after our vacation! (Yeah, the mattress has been there for a while...)

ETA2: I have just done something very smart: I loaded the reliable tenor + accompaniment track into Audacity and lined up my recorded audio to match up EXACTLY with it. I had some concerns about the soprano + accompaniment track, especially in the break-it-down section at the end, so I matched my track to JR instead, which is never a bad idea. Plus, it also gave me something good to record the video with. Time to fire up OpenShot and see if I can get the audio lined up and see how good/bad I am at lip synching!

ETA3: I have learned that OpenShot gets grumpy when you fiddle excessively trying to line up video/audio tracks that start at different times, but I made it work, successfully synched my prerecorded track to the video I shot, and have submitted it. It's not perfect, but it'll certainly do! Wooo!!! And I got an instant reward, too: the new blackout office curtains have arrived! Aaaaand they fit the windows and actaully close all the way (YAY!), and they're already doing an awesome job of blocking both light and heat. Okay, walkies calls. But I'm so pleased!

ETA4: All this industry has inspired Mr. 42 to hit up Home Despot for window screen to replace one of the dog-shredded ones in the bedroom, so we now can have BOTH sliding glass doors open without getting invaded by mosquitos. Wooooo!!! BRING ON THE CROSS BREEZE!

Smooches to All!

Mun42

Happy Monday to all who observe!

It wasn't a particularly restful weekend, but there were some pleasant things. On Friday, a book I ordered arrived, and I ended up getting sucked into it and finishing it in a couple of days. It was a gripping, brutal read (necessitated by the subject matter), but it was brilliantly conceived and written.

( Colson_Whitehead's_"The Underground_Railroad" )

in other news, I participated in filming Sunday's church service live on Saturday instead of just prerecording my musical contribution. Fr. P gave a very sweet Mother's Day sermon, and one of the other participants pinged other choir members to ask if we all got medals this week for not ugly sobbing during the sermon, which, yeah, talk about hazard pay. Mr. 42 and I did Zoom happy hour that night with our friend JS and we shared silly and/or awesome and/or deceptive music with one another. Though my favorite aspect of that service was that (married) Fr. J and Mtr. T each held one of their infant twins for most of the service. I know it's probably because they were fussy and not having a great day, but it was so sweet to see our clergy holding the babies they made for the Mother's Day service. I also finally put together an overdue real-name author blog post on pandemic reality, which was needful, since I hadn't updated since early March, which was all about my appendectomy in February. It's not brilliant, but it'll do.

On Sunday, I got up early to watch RV's church-sponsored forum on how we're doing church music in the pandemic and how it compares to other church music interruptions (like Oliver Cromwell, enemy of beauty!), which was interesting. He was asked to speculate on when it'll be safe to do singing again in person, and he expressed more optimism than I possess in the wake of last week's NATS/ACDA webinar. I honestly do hope he's right. And in the interim, we shall continue do to a shit-ton of chant and contribute what we can! A hymn sing may be in the offing, as is a new anthem by Sarah MacDonald, whom we like quite a bit, who wrote a piece to be performed via Zoom. I haven't received the score yet, but the preview from RV indicates that the text is lines from psalms arranged in an acrosting that spells QUARANTINE. So that looks like good fun for this week!

After I dutifully participated in the Facebook Live broadcast of the service we'd recorded Saturday (plus the other section leaders' musical contributions), I had a nice chat with my folks and wished my mom a Happy Mothers' Day, and took a good, long walk with the girls and enjoyed the fact that it was overcast and cooler than Saturday. When Mr. 42 got home from lessons, he brought with him a feast. Our local pub has been doing special, multi-course Sunday dinners in lieu of the beer dinners they held once or twice a month, and their Mothers' Day meal sounded really awesome to us. So we dined on strawberries with honey goats cheese whip and manchego cheese, farfalle with parma rosa sauce and grilled shrimp, and Mexican chocolate mousse with cajeta caramel, sea salt, and pecans, all with a bottle of bubbly to go with it. And it was every bit as good as it sounds!

After letting that amazing meal settle, I continued futzing with a poem for San Diego Arts + Culture's challenge, Poetry Together. Shockingly, it's not a sonnet, nor does it rhyme. But I've had an image stuck in my head for a couple of weeks, and that's usually a sign that I need to exorcise it somehow, and if you squint, it kind of suits this week's poetry prompt ("What are your Dreams like in these times?"). It may suck. It may be just what they're looking for. I have no idea. They'll be sorting through the submitted poems this week and publishing a selection of them on the Arts + Culture website next Sunday, when the next prompt is released. If I don't have any sticky or fizzy ideas for the next prompt, the poems don't have to be new, and I have a few (hundred) sonnets on different subjects to choose from so...

As for today, I slept rather poorly last night, but at least with crappy sleep came the opportunity to think about my book, so while I was lying awake in the wee hours, I decided to cut one of the twee-er aspects of one of the meet-cutes and came up with a possible solution for the MacGuffin Microbe Conundrum. And it's consistent with one semi-explored aspect of the species that cultivate it, so that's pretty awesome. I feel like I'm nearing where I need to be to start turning this long-ass incomplete draft into a story. This is very, very good.

This morning, I took a pretty terrible introductory training on one of the new [university] systems. It was just so incompetently produced. Not only was there insufficient time to read everything on each slide before the video advanced, the figure resolution was so poor that the fields one is supposed to fill in weren't even legible. So we only have to fill in the boxes outlined in red, but we have no idea what those boxes are supposed to contian. SO HELPFUL. At least this was only meant to familiarize us with the bare bones of how things are going to work. I hope we have a different trainer for advanced topics in this system, because yeesh. I feel 0% prepared by that.

Tonight, is Master Chorale's weekly get together, which involves warming up together (nice), running through a couple of pieces (not hugely useful to those of us who know them already, but fun at least) and chatting while everyone arrives, which is probably my favorite part. At some point between walking the dogs and SDMC, I shall hie me to my costume closet to see what calls to me. None of them have seen my Xena Warrior Princess costume, but I don't currently own the right kind of wig for it, so perhaps that'll debut another day. Alice is always an option, ditto Mary Poppins. Or I could pull out a gown and bling, though I will probably save that for Heavenly Choir Zoom check-in on Thursday. Anyway, the options are a-plenty, so I'm looking forward to seeing what inspiration strikes Well poo. Never got an email with a Zoom link for Master Chorale, so I guess there's no official word about what our plan is moving forward. I guess I'll wait and see like everyone else.

Oooo, the fancy caramels I ordered arrived! I know what I can use to motivate myself to continue doing things today!

Wishing you wellness and fancy caramels,

Mun42

It's Davide Penitente production week, y'all!

Have I talked about this piece at all? So Mozart wrote what is now referred to as his Great Mass in C minor for his wife, but he never finished it (it's missing the end of the Credo and the Agnus Dei). However, even incomplete, it's one of his most famous choral works, up there in popularity with his (also fragmentary) Requiem. Our very first concert with the Mainly Mozart festival was the Great Mass in C minor five years ago, and it was an amazing thing to be part of.

Why do I bring up the C minor Mass? Because Mozart was later commissioned by a schmancy music society in Vienna to write a choral-orchestral work, so Mozart pulled out the incomplete C minor Mass, removed the Latin mass text, added Saverio Mattei's Italian psalm translations, wrote a couple of new arias and a cadenza for the final movement, and BOOM: we have Davide Penitente, a 45-minute cantata with Italian text and oodles of drama. For reasons likely related to the weirdness of singing psalm-inspired Italian, it's an unusually underperformed bit of Mozart's oeuvre, so it's extra-cool that Mainly Mozart hired us to sing it this year.

Maestro Francis arrived at last night's rehearsal as JR was warming us up on the final (blisteringly fast) chorus. He took the podium with a smile and said, "That sounded jolly good! Almost like you've sung this piece before! Though I think your Latin has got worse."

*giggles*

He gave us a talking-to about how necessary it is to bring the drama to this piece. We are collectively King David, repentant after finding out God is kinda annoyed with him for getting Bathsheba, a married woman, up the duff, and then deliberately getting her husband Uriah killed at war. So there's lots of wailing and moaning and wearing musical sackcloth, but also moments of hope and joy. And then we sang. And it was good.

One of the big things Maestro did was dial back our vibrato. Some is good, because Italian. But so much of the drama in the music comes from suspensions and resolutions thereof, and semitone disonances don't really come through when both parts are wobbling liek whoa. So swaths of the slow movement and the final movement are almost entirely senza vibrato (aka straight tone, wot the Anglicans love). This is, of course, right up my vocal alley. However, I've been practicing it with vibrats for almost a month, so I'm glad we have 2 more rehearsals of getting used to that laser straight tone on the disonances.

THIS IS GONNA BE SOOO GOOD Y'ALL!

Maestro Francis seemed pretty pleased with our level of preparation, and really, so am I. And I'm relieved all the tempi seem to be in the ballpark that we rehearsed them, so there were no EEEEEK moments. Apart from our final entrance, which most of us missed because we weren't sure what bar we were starting at, but that just means we'll be counting like crazy to make sure we don't trip on the final hurdle.

In other news... well that's about all. I got home, I watched a little bit of a new home remodeling show on HGTV, then went to bed, read bits of the New Yorker, and slept. Although I did wake up this morning with a wet spot under my arm because a certain doggo decided to curl up next to me before cleaning her paws for fifteen minutes. At least she was gentle enough not to wake me up until she hopped off the bed, so thanks for that, Clara, I guess?

Today, I ran for and successfully caught the bus, which is a particular triumph because the bus schedule has changed so that it no longer comes as frequently (thanks, finals week and summer session). I am working on my modest to-do lists and waiting for more exam print jobs to hit my inbox. I need to finish out my to-do pile by the end of the week and do a couple of things to make sure food and coffee appear at the faculty meeting while I'm out on Friday.

Tonight is for cleaning. I hope to swim beforehand, but if the pool is clogged with recalcitrant recreational swimmers who don't want to give up the pool to the lap swimmers, as was the case last night (or so I noticed on walkies prior to rehearsal), I might not bother. Although I am stubborn enough to insist on being able to lap swim if I have the energy to swim in addition to, dust, vacuum, and clean bathrooms and possibly also laundry and cooking. I have a few errandy things to do prior to my family's visit, but mostly I am just bouncing with anticipation. The last time I saw all of them together was an all-too-short weekend in Chicago last summer, and this will be another all-too-short weekend on my home turf, but I suspect taking it easy, eating tasty food, and playing in the ocean (plus my concert on Saturday, squee!) will be on the agenda. Nobody has to do fancy entertaining or cook a huge meal, unlike most holidays. And as long as the guest room has clean sheets and towels, the bathrooms aren't actively disgusting, and the house doesn't look like a tornado went through it, I don't think my brother and his GF will be offended.

OK. Gonna get some more scheduling done and maybe obtain some lunch. Unforutnately, it's one of the three months in 2019 wherein the mortgage payment departs my checking account before my biweekly paycheck hits it, and as a result I'm rawther low on funds until my paycheck hits tomorrow. At least I had a check from the cathedral to silence the account balance alerts. Doot doot dee doo.

Rigth. Food. Work. Perhaps research the blog post I've been procrastinating.

Could use a nap. Won't get one. Alas. At least the fog blowing in from the ocean is pretty, even though it requires me to wear a coat until I walk the 150 feet or so to get into the sunshine. San Diego = Microclimates R' Us.

Smooches to All!

Mun42

Hump day and day 3/6 of Puccini Boot Camp.

*weaves a bit, collapses in a heap*

I woke with my alarm mid REM-cycle feeling like slightly warmed over poo.

Thankfully, the feeling-like-poo part has dissipated, having eaten breakfast and consumed a quite-decent-for-the-cafeteria latte (with staff discount, lattes are a buck cheaper than the coffee cart, plus closer to my office, plus there's cheap other breakfast food at nearby stations). I was a bit worried that I might be catching Mr. 42's cold, and while that is still a danger, at least I know that getting to bed at a reasonable hour will help. Unfortunately, I did not heed that bit of knowledge last night because I was wired from our first orchestra rehearsal.

( Puccini_yammering )

Today it's work and Puccini, like every other day this week. Wheeeeeee.

Also Zicam. *nods*

Mr. 42 and I got some great news about the car, namely that the radiator is not in its death throes: the rusty coolant leak was caused by a popped hose, which will be replaced along with the gunked-up heater core (YAY! WE WILL HAVE HEAT AGAIN!), plus they're flushing the coolant. And while the repairs are expensive, it's still WAY less than last time, so we will hopefully not have to replace the car anytime soon. Still, I did broach the topic of replacing the car with Mr. 42, so when the sedan does reach the end of the line, I know he's well open to the idea of a hybrid, which is good to know. And maybe we can start exploring renovation options for our various home projects now that we aren't reeling from this round of car repairs. *rubs hands together*

In less happy news, campus is on edge because someone left some seriously fucked up graffiti in several bathrooms: "XChurch part 2 - coming to a lecture near you."  I want to shake the little shit that did it. Hard. Campus police have deemed it not to be a credible threat, but have stepped up surveillance and advise all to be vigilant during exams this week, but a student already tried to use it as an excuse not to take her final. Funnily, she decided to take it in the lecture hall after all when the prof offered to let her take it in his lab. *rolls eyes* Times are scary, but at least college students are still college students.

Right. Gonna go see about scratching some things off my to-do list before heading to the exam center.

Smooches to All!

Mun42

It never ceases to amaze me how making music with friends lifts my mood.

Yesterday was pretty much spend in git-er-done mode, which, while useful for getting necessary things taken care and rolling with the punches, is wearying, to say the least. And the punches kept coming, so I ended up leaving work super late, which left me very little time to walk the doggos, feed doggos and myself, and get to rehearsal. Thaknfully (?) it was raining, so the girls didn't want much of a walk. I had just enough time to make myself fancy oatmeal and hit the road.

To my great surprise, I made it to rehearsal on time, and JR gave us a nice, long warm-up, and then we Puccini'd for two and a half hours. It wasn't perfect. There were still places where everybody, including myself, was singing things incorrectly. There are still people doing their ts wrong for Italian music, and Puccini honest to goodness wrote accents on the wrong syllables in places. I have a lot of work to do this week to not embarass myself for Maestro(a?) Scappucci. Still. Breathing together. Making beautiful lines together. Unifying our consonants. Mastering an annoying passage. Catching our accompanist's eye and grinning when he plays a musical joke at a cut-off.  Anticipating a correction before we even get it because, yeah, we know what we messed up. Just having a room full of 90 people all working to make a thing, and occasionally succeeding. And it's awesome. I mean, I love singing and playing guitar and piano on my own, but there really is nothing like singing in a choir.

Plus yay, JR let us out 15 minutes early for good behavior. Also because we're singing just about every night next week. Again, there's lots to do before we perform, but I'm looking forward to it.

I beat Mr. 42 home, since he stopped at the pub for dinner after his last lesson. He had a burger with birthday bacon and truffle-oil guacomle which sounds like heaven. He won points for bringing home a growler of AleSmith's wonderful new beer (out this week!), HI Hoaloah, an absolutely superb pale ale with sake rice and fruity Galaxy hops, which we enjoyed whilst watching an episode and a half of Chef's Table.

As of this morning, the poor doggos have had three rainy walks in a row, but it's supposed to get progressively nicer all week, which will be lovely. After a rainy night and morning, the skies have cleared and I can see the ocean from my office window again.

Tonight, we're having dinner and possibly games with CS, which will be delightful.

OK, gotta go set up for the chalk talk and hope the rest of this visit goes according to plan. I have to wrangle survey responses and set up a second survey.

Smooches to all,

Mun42

...I probably shouldn't have mentally framed this as a light week because I don't have multiple performances this weekend. Because it isn't, not by any stretch, and it's not looking like I'm going to have much in the way of R&R this weekend, apart from my determined lie-in on Saturday morning. Because:

Monday: Day 1 of candidate visit at work, Master Chorale rehearsal
Tuesday: Day 2 of candidate visit at work, music prep + house cleaning
Wednesday: Promote next week's candidate seminar/endowed lecture prep, sang an Ash Wednesday service
Thursday: Make/distribute candidate schedule/endowed lecture prep, Heavenly Choir rehearsal
Friday: Endowed lecture at work, only opportunity to hear a performance I really want to hear
Saturday: SLEEEEP, quality time with doggos, work on Puccini and Sunday service music, evening ???
Sunday: EFFING TIME CHANGE, singing for morning service, work on Puccini/Handel, clean for Tuesday guest, maybe watch things???
Monday: Day 1 of candidate visit, Master Chorale rehearsal...
etc. etc. etc.

So yeah, no rest for the whatsit.

At least next week's candidate is the last one until we get our second visits scheduled OR late April, whichever happens first. So it'll be nice to have some time to catch up on all the stuff that's piling up on my desk. If I can captialize on that time I'll have instead of being exhausted and mopey. Fingers crossed! LOL and now I have been gently nudged to start on stuff Big Lecure Series in May. On the day of Endowed Lecture. *laughs slightly hysterically*

Per my composer friend's request for Christmas carol lyrics, I've assembled a couple of stanzas of a children's song and am working on the third. I've also reached out to the Canon at the Cathedral to see if he can help me find a progressive hymn text that I only vaguely remember. I shall keep plugging away at words and doing research.

OK, off to go start moving things around and setting up.

Smooches to All,

Mun42

Got an email from the Pro Choir manager this morning with updated concert/rehearsal dates/times so I can keep my tentative dates with them current.

It was signed "Miss you!!"

Aw.

I confess, I cried a little bit.

Writers, let us always remember how much kind words can mean to someone who needs them. Hell, People, let us always remember that.

Today is my fourteenth wedding anniversary, although Mr. 42 and I have been together for even longer (twenty-one years in May!). Though we saw it coming, I don't think either of us are going the gift route, though I've written him a bit of a fourteen-line poem (y'all are shocked, I know), but it's both silly and thoughtful, so it suits. Though the final couplet kinda sucks, so I'm letting that percolate and will fix it on the bus ride home. He's teaching lessons while I'm home between work and rehearsal, so I won't see him until nearly 10pm tonight. At least I got to wish him happy anniversary before I left for work!

The weekend was a mixed bag. I was up bright and early on Saturday for the Master Chorale retreat and was more than a bit grumpy about it. My mood was not helped by a bit of residual green-eyed monster, since being the obsessive I am, I went through the French Baroque roster that I'm not on (and still somewhat nettled about it) and looked up the member profiles of the new (and new-ish) sopranos I didn't know. This enabled me to be privately judge-y when one of them lamented to me that she'd been out til' 4am the night before and was sooo tired. This was before rehearsing Brahms for 3.5 hours, followed by another long rehearsal of sight-reading French Baroque music for those on the roster. Dude. I can't even muster any schadenfreude for that. Something tells me they didn't have the most efficient or artistically fulfilling rehearsal. On the bright side, I discovered one of the basses has mad kitchen skills and brought home-made whisky truffles for treats. And JR brought his unspeakably adorable 4-year old son to the retreat, and he was wearing a superhero cape and issued hilarious commentary for the first hour or so of rehearsal. Props to JR for awesome parenting, since there were They Might Be Giants references.

However, between the influx of sugar and vocally exhausting rehearsal, I went home aftewards and took a badly-needed nap. The girls woke me up at 4pm, after which I had a light lunch and took them for a meander at Fiesta Island. Unfortunately, our usual parking area was fenced off and full of trucks and RV trailers, since there were power boat races going on all weekend on Mission Bay. Thus, I had to park in an unusual place and herd the dogs into the fenced-in area, since I foolishly didn't have leashes with me. Thankfully, neither of them wandered into the road, so we had a lovely walk, albeit in the opposite direction we usually walk. The weather was gorgeous, what few other dogs were there were all nice, and Clara even did a little bit of gentle playing with a sweet little curly-coated terrier mix. D'aww!

Unsurprisingly, given my general energy levels, I didn't feel up to doing much on Saturday night, so Mr. 42 and I had dinner at the pub, where they were having their local wet hops beer festival, and we enjoyed a couple of flights' worth of local fresh hop beer, many of which were superb, though one or two were not yet ready for prime time. This is the adventure of brewing with fresh hops! When we got home, we discovered to our delight that the 2005 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is now on Netflix, so we watched the first half until my eyelids started drooping. Unfortunately, the dogs were restless and kept jumping off the bed to look out the windows, which meant that sleep was not great. Fortunately, there was enough of it that I wasn't it terrible shape for the morning service. In fact, I sang pretty decently. However, I was still pretty tired, so I had another nap between lunch and call for Evensong. It took my brain a bit of time to come back online after the nap, but physically, I felt pretty good. Evensong went largely well, though someone new is making the bulletins, and a mistake in that led to a minor SNAFU, but other than that, we sounded pretty good. But I think RV was feeling kind of low, too, since he didn't really even conduct us on the final hymn, despite having JMM assisting on organ. Thankfully, there was a festive reception with port, sherry, and shortbread afterwards, which was a nice way to finish things. Plus RV told me a fun Evensong story, which made me laugh.

Our friend DL is in town and invited us for a beer tasting yesterday evening, but it was exactly during Evensong, so Mr. 42 went in our stead. Thus, after Evensong, I went home and treated myself to leftover spaghetti, a couple glasses of rosé, and watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens. After that, I took the girls for a walk, and was fast asleep by 10pm. Clearly, brain and body were clearly in need of some serious sleep. But I must say, getting to bed that early has made for delightfully present brain today, which is something I hadn't realized how much I'd missed. And while writing an anniversary poem isn't the same as writing the story I've neglected for the past week, darn it, I opened my damned word processor and wrote something. A needful step, that.

Perhaps all it took was getting caught up on sleep. Or having some me-time to recover from this absolutely bonkers summer. But whatever it is, I'm feeling more on an even keel than I have for some time, and it feels really good.

OK, gonna get some editing done on the Recruitment Document of Doom. It's another "Justify Your Existence To Chair" document, but at least I was able to lift the form and a number of sections from the previous one, which was Justify Your Existence To Chair: The Big Lecture Series Edition. And my boss has been so impressed with these documents that she's asked me to integrate comments from the other chair's assistants so we can all use this checklist for the upcoming recruitment cycle, both so the people in charge have a clue as to what it is we do to support recruitment and so everybody knows what's expected when. Not a bad goal, though of course, during recruitment, everything can and will go pear-shaped at least once or twice. Bracing for that particular impact. One more week 'til the official start of this academic year. Don't wanna, but also *shrugs* I do work at a university. You'd think I'd be used to this by now...

Smooches to All,

Mun42

So Friday night, Mr. 42 and I went out to steak night at the pub. Herb butter made with arugula and hops is my new favorite thing. It was good to see pub friends and eat delicious food and drink amazing beer!

Guess what I did on Saturday?

NOTHING.

Okay, so I slept in, took the dogs to the beach, had an excellent shower, read a bit of the New Yorker, and opened my story file at least twice. I think I also ate some things and goofed off with Mr. 42. But mostly, nothing. This was the first nothing day I've had in months, and hoo boy, it was nice.

Especially since Sunday was pretty busy. I woke up early and tossed and turned until my alarm went off at 7am, I made it to church in time to gather my things, vest, and get my music in order before we started rehearsing. Everybody was so happy to see one another after summer hiatus, despite the early hour. Fr. J even came over and joked at us, "What's with all the levity?" We sang a lovely service (Prayer of St. Richchard of Chichester at offertory, Stephanie Martin's O Sacrum Convivium at communion), then I drove a carpool of choristers over to Liberty Station, where one met family for lunch, one bought fancy stationary and joined us for coffee, and LP and I grabbed coffee and lobster rolls (om and nom).

We only had an hour and fifteen minutes for lunch, but we used our time well and got back to church a few minutes before downbeat on our non-retreat retreat, which was basically a three hour rehearsal during which we sight-read a bunch of really pretty music and then did a complete run-through of the Faure Requiem, which we'll be singing in early November. Most of us have sung it before, which helps. But it was funny--we did it last, and the final movement is "In Paradisum," which is vocally challenging for the sopranos, as it's an extended soli section during which one must maintain absolutely pure tone and beautiful phrasing. And if I may say so, we nailed it, even at the end of five hours of singing. It helps that the last time I sang that movement was with a quartet with the Catholics, so I know it quite well. For all that it was five hours of singing and I felt pretty limp with exhaustion at the end of it, I felt so relaxed and happy and looking forward to spending the evening with Mr. 42. It's been a while since I've sung that much for a while. I mean, I've had tons of rehearsals and singing engagements this summer, but most were fairly short singing-wise (the 2-hour super-Evensong excepted) and long on waiting around.

I got home at about 4pm and collapsed for a short amount of time. Mr. 42 walked the girls and said, "We should head out soon if we're planning to eat in Old Town before the play tonight at 7."

"Wait," I said. "How did you know I wanted to have dinner in Old Town tonight?"

He sort of shrugged. "That's just what I thought we should do."

I laughed. "I even made a mental note to tell you I wanted to go to Casa Guadalajara for dinner when I got home but completely forgot. That'll be okay, right?"

And it was. Even though it meant I had to cut short a conversation with my folks (sorry, folks!).

We ate early enough that we didn't even have to wait for a table, which is unheard of because Casa Guadalajara is VERY popular with tourists, as it's huge and has wandering mariachis and brightly-colored paper flags hanging from the ceiling and servers in Mexican costumes of dubious authenticity. But it serves as a reminder that some tourist stuff is popular because it's really fun and good, and we had a super meals, huge margaritas, and enjoyed some delightful live music (including a mariachi version of "Despacito") and meandered over to the Cygnet Theatre to see the marvelous Ro Boddie in Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man, audience-interactive show about a man describing how he dealt with his mother's suicide attempts when he was a kid, listing every brilliant thing he can think of to give her reasons to live. It was sweet, but the opening featured the protagonist losing his childhood dog, and I couldn't stop the tears, which kept flowing thorughout laughter, music, joy, wonder, heartbreak, and various other brilliant things. I had my doubts about audience participation, but it was well done and made the audience part of the story in ways that invited the audience to be part of the "confessional," and not put them uncomfortably on the spot. Roddie was a magnificent leader in this story, and while I'm still processing what I saw last night, I was deeply moved by it.

Today is a fairly busy week. Brahms rehearsal tonight. Game of Thrones Live tomorrow. Church choir rehearsal Thursday. Master Chorale retreat (i.e. long-ass rehearsal) on Saturday. Morning service and Evensong on Sunday. I still have a midweek evening free, so it's not BUSY busy. I'm also hoping to hear this week whether or not I'm on the roster for French Baroque chamber concert that I really really really really want to be in, since the first rehearsal for it is during the retreat. So fingers crossed on that. I'm also hoping to get some research on my sshg_giftfest story done so I can break out of my current ennui. I have an idea for this slightly complicated thing I'm in-world building, but I want it to be both funnier and more profound, if that makes sense. I have ideas.They just need to be more organized so the thing can manifest in different ways throughout the story and possibly be tied to this other slightly complicated other worldbuilding thing. GOALS. I HAZ DEM.

OK. Off to accomplish a few things. I do neet to notify my faculty that I'll be out of the office tomorrow afternoon (but not necessarily that it's for my other job. La!). I've obtained parking passes for tomorrow and have a pretty good idea of where I'm going, which will hopefully help. Hopefully I won't get lost and be late for the thing I'm taking attendance for. (Again. La!)

Smooches to All!

Mun42