mundungus42 | Entries tagged with work

After a somewhat hairy end to the week, I'm relieved to report that things are looking up.

Of course, that's sometimes when a passing bird poops in your eye, but I'm trying not to think about that.

Friday was the Annual Endowed Lecture (not to be confused with the Big Lecture Series, which is next month), and the on-campus part of it went well, but our poor speaker (who was wonderful) has a spouse in the hospital, so everything with her travel was very last-minute, and I ended up having to change her flight late on Friday night because she emailed my work email instead of notifying me on my cell the way I asked her to. I got that taken care of, mostly, but was up until midnight doing so.

I was so exhausted from the long and stressful week that I slept in so late that I was nearly late for my 2pm call for the Master Chorale Honor Choir concert (because walkies and figuring out what to wear and oh yeah feeding myself).There was also a text from Mom that COVID had done a number on poor Pop and he'd been unable to clear his lungs despite all the coughing, so they scheduled a bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage for Sunday morning, which meant I wasn't in the most calm or focused headspace for the concert. However, I didn't do terribly, the concert was mostly lovely, I loved all but one of the pieces we sang, and the kids did a fantastic job, but I was still dragging. No surprise, since I've been feeling on the edge of coming down with Mr. 42's cold since Thursday evening, though thankfully, I had just enough voice to make it through the weekend, and I've been extra-punctilious about masking.

When I got home from the concert, there was an email from MG saying that the Cathedral was experiencing power outages with no immediate fix in sight and wanted to warn us that it might affect how we do Evensong on Sunday. He warned the tablet users to download all the music beforehand because the wifi was out, but he'd have hard copies of music and book lights for everyone else, since we would probably be doing Evensong by candlelight. What he didn't say was anything about the organ, which is powered by electric blowers, but I figured we could also switch to a cappella rep if needed. I was absolutely brain dead after the interminable Friday and spending what little bandwidth I had singing the Master Chorale concert, so I gave myself permission to skip prepping Evensong music and watch The Force Awakens with Mr. 42 before hitting the hay.

Note: I hate this time change with the utmost loathing. Daylight Saving Time sucks, benefits nobody, is terrible for us, and should be abolished.

Shockingly, I was dragging less than expected on Sunday morning. My voice was not the absolute best it could be but more than up to the magnificent repertoire we sang for our morning service. I got to duet with A-M a bit at the end of the Kyrie of Stephanie Martin's Requiem for All Souls (which RV commissioned for us in the before times), we did my absolute favorite anthem for offertory: Purcell's Hear My Prayer, O Lord, and the gents did themselves proud on Howell's yummy Like as the Hart Desireth the Waterbrooks (we made people cry! I saw!). We stuck around after the service for a short rehearsal on some of the upcoming music, and I confess, my voice was getting a bit tired and crunchy, so I thought I might skip calling home between services to save voice, especially since I still had music to learn.

Fortunately, MG saved me the trouble by cancelling Evensong due to the continued power outage. While it's definitely a bummer for MG and the Cathedral, I confess, I was not sorry have my Sunday afternoon free, especially since Mom texted with good news: Pop's lavage was a huge success, he was awake, sitting up, and futzing with the TV so he could watch basketball. So after walking the dogs, I called Mom and we had a nice chat, after which I sat down and wrote a bit, and when Mr. 42 got back from teaching, we walked the dogs, changed into fancier duds, and went down to St. James by-the-Sea in La Jolla to hear the wonderful British chamber choir Tenebrae, whose final tour stop was in San Diego.

My friends: I have never heard a choir of that caliber live before and they were mind-blowingly fabulous, with beautifully shaped phrases, transparent diction, precisely wrought textures, impeccable balance, and a warm, supple sound that filled the space at every dynamic level. And the rep was both sumptuous and elegant. I think I cried about three times, the first that got me was Lotti's Crucifixus (new to me), and I had nonstop goosebumps during Allegri's Miserere (theirs is my favorite modern performance of it on YouTube). They just sang the heck of one choral banger after another and ended with Harris's glorious double-choir motet Faire is the Heaven.. And their repertoire was right up my alley, too. I think we got three encores out of them, too, which was delightful. I was also delighted to run into Cathedral suborganist GA and his partner DL (with whom I had lunch just last week!) at the concert, and we sat with them and my friend KN and just vibed on gorgeous choral music. So clearly I wasn't the only one not wholly sad to have a more relaxed Sunday afternoon and evening!

Mr. 42 and I went out for ramen afterwards, which was lovely and filling and warm, with toothsome yakitori and avocado tempura, and then went to bed pretty much immediately after getting home. Unfortunately, I woke in the middle of the night to find that my voice and I weren't just tired: the cold is here.

Thus, after working a had-to-be-here day, I'm taking tomorrow and Wednesday as sick days (the most I can take is 2 without a doctor's note, which could be a pain to get). I still have so much crap to do before I can go home, but I'm really looking forward to taking some time to heal and not having any rehearsals until Thursday of this week.

A nice thing: the doves nesting in our patio bougainvillea have chicks now! It's so nice to see them when we come and go (the patio separates the house from the garage) and say hi.

Sending love and hugs,

Lib
Mun42

Current Location: campus office
Current Music: Martin (Stephanie) Requiem for All Souls

So last night, I did indeed submit the final bit of the musical script to all and sundry, which marks THE END of my contribution for theatre camp, though I will still of course be answering the emails of any students with questions about shooting their solo bits or who need cheerleading....

THOUGH FROM THE GLORIOUS SIERRA NEVADAS, PEOPLE! WOOOOO!

Work was slightly annoying because I had to send a third email asking Person to do Thing, because if Person doesn't do Thing, What He Wants to Happen can't actually happen.

BUT! When I took the dogs on midday walkies and got the mail, I noticed there was a manila envelope from theatre camp, which made me say "Huh." It wasn't a check envelope, so I was pretty sure it wasn't the generous check I had been promised. So after walkies and lunch, I opened it. And what should be inside but a gift card that comrpised 20% of the promsed pay with a really sweet note from the theatre camp administrator, thanking me for going above and beyond with my contribution, as an unofficial bonus. I strongly suspect composer and director also got these bonuses, too.

So because I am me, I spent the equivalent of the bonus on a REI on stuff for vacation. And also because I am me, I totally forgot to use the gift card when I checked out. But there will be plenty of opportunities to spend it, and spend it I shall. And I am not regretting the REI purchase in the least because I'd been putting off buying a number of things, and I finally had an excuse to do so. I shall enjoy my purchases the whole summer, I suspect.

Right. Happy weekend. I hafta record church tomorrow morning annoyingly early. But then there is Sunday and then Monday and then vacation. Yaaay.

Sweet dreams, y'all.

Hugs,

Mun42

Current Mood: peased
Current Location: ohm suite ohm
Current Music: nil

This has been an unexpectedly stressful week. The stress is at least partially self-inflicted through procrastination, which is compounded by poor sleep due to guilt/stress over unfinished stuff and staying up too late because Mr. 42's working later so we eat dinner much later. Thankfully, I persevered and have begun the process of figuring out our new financial system at work in earnest. I even processed a transaction in it yesterday! No idea if I did it correctly, but I managed to make a transaction that hung together consistently and didn't flout any of the many rules baked into it, so here's hoping. There are just many more opportunities to make mistakes and fewer eyes double-checking one's work. So yeah, I've got a few more transactions to get through today and tomorrow, and all of my colleagues are offering to be extra eyes on one anothers' transactions.

In other news, tonight I am hoping to finish AT LONG LAST the middle scene script for the musical. The composer and I had some pushback from one of the kids who didn't like her song but thought the script was good if the song can't be changed. She wanted a ballad, and the words I wrote for it weeks ago were matched to an early song draft that was, unbeknownst to me, rejected by the kid. Unfortunately, there's already a ballad in the quartet of scenes she's in (and the other kid asked for that type of song from the start), so the composer compromised by slowing the tempo down, but keeping the scene, lyrics, and music the same. I'm waiting to hear (or not hear) from the last two kids, whose songs and scenes were sent to them yesterday. One of the songs awaiting approval is the one I wrote (!), so I hope the kid doesn't hate it. I don't think she's been super communicative about the music, so she might be fine doing whatever (that's my hope, anyway, as my song has some whatever moments). The other kid seemed to really like the composer's draft of his piece, so I'm hopeful he won't raise artistic objections. The only potential sticky wickets are that her scene involves another person, so she either has to recruit a family member or get one of us to read it with her, and his scene is set at the beach or near the ocean, and I don't know if he has access to that right now. So we'll see! I'm just SO EXCITED to ALMOST FINALLY have the whole freaking thing done! *flops with an exhausted woooooooooooooo*

In other news, Fiesta Island reopened this week to vehicle traffic, which means we have practical access to the fenced-in off-leash area on the far side of the island once more! So yesterday evening, I took the Long Low Ladies to their favorite place for the first time since mid-March, and they had an absolute blast: running, splashing, digging, ball chasing--all manner of doggy fun. There were actually fewer people there than I expected, but I also made the decision not to go the first day, to try a weeknight instead of the weekend, and closer to sunset than the end of the work day, and we took not-usual paths for extra distance. More folks were masked than not, and I only spotted a few who didn't seem to have masks handy. Nobody crowded us or made us feel uncomortable or unsafe, and I was able to stay far away from those very few who seemed clueless, so we'll definintely go back, though probably not until Monday.

Monday's trip to Fiesta will be especially needful for wearing-out the girls, because the next day, Mr. 42 and I will be taking them on a seven-hour drive to the mountains, where his parents have a lovely condo. We have all been staying home with limited contact with others, so we will be forming a ten-day vacation bubble, and I'm really, really looking forward to being off work and being done, for now, with all the singing stuff! Tomorrow would have been the first day of my annual writer's retreat had the pandemic not happened, so I'm extra-grateful that I still have some relaxing time off to look forward to.

Right! Gonna go take the doggos for their midday walk, get some lunch on board, process some more transactions, do one last read-through of the script, and hope nothing bonkers arrives in my inbox.

Smooches to All,

Mun42

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: ohm suite office
Current Music: nil

I'm so grateful this ended up not being a bonkers week at work, because a bonkers week at work plus ALL THE PROCHOIR RECORDINGS, plus technical issues with this week's hymn file for my church gig, plus having 2 days to write the first huge scene of the theatre camp musical, plus two 2-hour camp meetings, plus 1 day to integrate suggested edits into the musical, would have added upt to WAAAAY TOO MUCH. As it is, it was was only "too much," but I made it, limping over the finish line though I may be.

Mr. 42 is on his way home from work and is picking up delectable comestibles from the pub on the way, the dogs and I had a lovely and lengthy neighborhood ramble that wasn't too hot and sunny because the June Gloom never really burned off for long, and my goal for this evening is to relax (but not too much) so I can be a good participant in filming this week's church service tomorrow morning. No idea if any of the theatre campers are going to take advantage of my and the other counselors' offer to help them write stuff for their individual/small group projects (due Monday), the content of which will determine how the final scene of the show will go. They are smart and creative, but it all depends on how much creation they're comfortable doing. I was also strongly encouraged by the powers that be to let another counselor who has written the show in previous years have a more active role in making the rest of the show (I pretty much created the concept and characters and wrote the whole opening scene by myself), which is 10000000% fine by me. I found out this week what they're paying me to be part of this camp, and I'm pretty freaking stoked. It's the most I've ever made on anything one thing I've written, at least up front. Still, the hours involved are not insignificant, especially over the space of a month, but at least it's all hours I can do from the comfort of my home. The distance of the host church to my home/work and the usual schedule of their theatre camp would otherwise preclude my in-person participation, so this is hay I shall make while the sun shines (or the June glooms).

In other news, I had a fun idea-bouncing session with my writer friend SS, whose work I've edited in the past and whom I like an awful lot. She's working on a sword-and-sorcery fantasy novel, and the two of us share a somewhat twisted creative sensibility, so I'm excited she's come to me for idea bouncing. And even moreso that she's writing again, after a work-enforced hiatus! I will probably ask her to return the favor once I'm out of musical-making camp and I can get back to working on turning my incomplete novel draft into something resembling an actual novel. And she did offer, so it's not like I'm being presumptuous!

Right. Mr. 42 is due home soon and I want to be there with beer in hand to thank him for grabbing the food. Funny thing--his paychecks have been way up because instead of only getting tips from working in the gift shop, his employer FINALLY implemented his suggestion to pool tips with the tasting room. So between that and the possible second stimulus check, we're having a good month. I'm boring, so I'll probably end up saving it for a rainy day (or if the leaky en suite bathroom finally requires immediate renovation...), but I'm deeply aware of our good fortune, and I'm grateful for it.

Here's wishing my gentle countrypersons a thoughtful commemmoration of Juneteenth, and sending love to all!

Mun42

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: ohm suite office
Current Music: nil

I thought it would be impossible to over-schedule myself working from home at a time that live choral singing can't happen.

HA.

Guess who's managed it?

This week, I get to...

Start re-drafting the musical script based on the cast list that will be set in the next couple of days

Audiorecord myself singing the sop part of Commissioned Choral Work A (I don't think there's a video component?)

Audiorecord myself singing 12 shortish alietoric passages for Commissioned Choral Work B

Audiorecord myself singing a longer, assigned notated passage for Commissioned Choral Work B

Videorecord five 30-second videos of myself (with the help of Mr. 42 and ellienihon) for Commissioned Choral Work B

Learn overtone singing (can now do on command!) and lip vibrato (fun!!) for A Cappella Arrangement

Audiorecord myself singing the sop part of A Cappella Arrangement for a video ~~I will not appear in because both of my cars are old (I'm not particularly butthurt over it, you'll understand why when the project is revealed~~ Scratch that, add...

Shoot a video for A Cappella Arrangement by getting up early on Saturday and hoping for the best. Note to self: also wash car and make the bits that are falling off not look like they're falling off.

Oh yeah and work 40 hours, including some training. At least it's exam week, so I will probably not have to do much else and might end up poaching some work time for something other than social media-ing... doot doo doo....

All of the recordings are for ProChoir, which was awarded Payroll Protection funds to pay us all (yay!). BUT they have to spend it by the 15th, and everyone in charge of preparing music for us apparently waited 'til the last minute to get it to us, which is why we have just over a week to prepare and record everything. Ah well. It's going to cure me of alas-alack-a-day-ing over not getting to sing for a while. Of course, it'd be way easier to rehearse and prepare all of this in person, but such is life. Bless RV for giving me this week and next off of churching. I'm hopeful that my next "on" week will involve getting to prepare and record something fun for him, too.

Speaking of something fun, someone on a Facebook group of nice nerds posted a meme about commonly-confused homophones in fanfic, which led to someone I didn't know posting a link to the wonderful

mctabby, long since decamped to DW alas, who brought us the joys of Summary Executions, in which she would round up the worst Harry Potter fic summaries she could find. Here is her best-of Summary Executions post from 2005, and it's still every bit as hilarious now as it was then. Enjoy!

Also, it would be remiss of me to talk about past HP fandom glory days without acknowledging the shittiness of JKR's indisputably transphobic Tweets from this weekend. I contemplated unfollowing her on social media when she previously engaged with transphobic hashtags and liked the transphobic tweets of others, but this weekend's malarkey (and attempting to minimize it) was beyond the pale, so I unfollowed her. My relationship with my gender identity isn't threatened by or cheapened in any way by the existence of transgender women, and I find it very sad that she believes hers is and that she continues to reduce the spectrum of human biological sex and gender expression to an immutable and exclusive binary. I'm tired of her willful stupidity on the issue, and I'm tired of waiting for her to catch up. I will not be giving her another dime, if I can avoid it, until she brings her platform and enormous fortune to the right side of history.

Right! The doggos are asking for a walk, and I owe them a slightly better one than yesterday's. It would have been an acceptable evening walk in the pre-covid-19 era, but they are spoiled now. Plus, I need the exercise. Mr. 42 is teaching until late tonight, so I'm planning to take a crack at laying down some tracks for ProChoir and/or working on the music. I'm hoping I can find some happier fundamentals for overtone singing, because it's pretty vocally taxing at this point. Staying up too late last night drinking cocktails and Zooming with university marching band friends likely wont have done wonders for today's efforts, but I'm hoping I get something today. Besides the new mattress that Mr. 42 bought with a goodly chunk of our stimulus checks, which is the first new mattress we have ever bought and was shipped to us in a miraculously tiny box! I am glad we read the instructions to place it on our sleeping surface before cutting the plastic vacuum packing, because not since those sponge toy capsules has watching an inanimate object grow to its proper size been that entertaining. May it bring us many years of good sleep!

Smooches to All!

Mun42

Current Mood: only slightly panicked
Current Location: ohm suite office
Current Music: new wave fun

So I was supposed to have the draft of the first song for our Zoom musical for theatre camp done on Friday. As of Friday, I had two lines. As of Saturday, I had three lines, and I wasn't sold on the third line. I finally got the lead-in and the first verses posted to the share on Sunday. I'd feel worse about this, but it is now done, I like it, and I finally figured out why I wasn't making any progress.

Waaaay back in 2014 when I was doing the Insane Writing Project, I would usually mock up the day's effort in prose (a sentence or two per stanza) and then translate it to verse and enjoy the alchemy of restraint, which occurs when you come across an absolutely magnificent rhyme or a yummy synonym that transforms the piece into something surprising. But what allows that is having set a course to begin with. If you're not on a clear path, there's no way you can know when to step off it.

So why, I ask myself, did I think I could just come up with a song with a dramatic purpose and motivation without bothering to write out what was supposed to be at the core of the song? Because I was a silly, silly past-me, that's why. So on Sunday, I sat down and wrote the core of not just the song, but the purpose of the whole freaking musical. I tightened it as much as I could and tried to make every sentence carry a lot of weight. And lo and behold: the lyrics decided to be a rection to the core statement, along with direction and development. Boom.

The group is meeting tomorrow night, and I'm so pleased I managed to fulfill what I promised to do. And I am looking forward to getting the kids involved, though I don't know how active I'm going to be able to be since I suspect most camp activities are going to be during the workday when I'm, y'know, working. Though working from home does allow me a bit more flexibility than I used to have. We shall see!

Let's see. A fair amount is going on this week. Tomorrow begins my first big in-depth training on the new [university] systems. I've taken several introductory courses that ranged from helpful to useless, so hopefully the in-depth training will be more consistently effective. Tonight, RV has called a section leader meeting for to go over this weekend's Pentecost musical offerings and also to touch on what's happening after this week. According to the schedule, Heavenly Choir will be on summer hiatus after this weekend. However, since we're doing virtual church until the diocese puts forth safety guidelines for in-person worship, I don't know if there's going to be any desire to keep having the section leaders continue chanting bits and/or leading hymns. If so, I'm happy to help. If not, I will enjoy having a bit more time to work on other stuff. Such as the four varied and incipient projects ProChoir surveyed us about. I can do all of them, but I'm sure we'll be divvied up by project, and I'm curious which, if any, I'll be called upon to do. They all have their attractions, and mostly, it'll just be wonderful to do make more music happen and have more cool stuff to share.

And speaking of music, our household desktop comptuer has two functioning speakers for the first time since... ? Let's just say the old speakers were attached to the computer Mr. 42 had at university. They both worked for a good long while, but one of them has been nonfunctional for pretty much the whole time I've been working from home, and unfortunately, they run in serial, and it's the one with the power input that that doesn't work, and it makes this deeply annoying low-grade buzzing sound. It is SO NICE to have stereo again and to have banished the buzzing! I've been listening to Bach and Handel by some of my favorite interpreters, and it's just wonderful. So thank you, Logitech, for making exactly what I needed. Also for the built-in headphone jack so I don't have to pull the CPU out of its nook to access the audio output on the back every time I switch to headphones. Squee!

And now, the story of today's walkies in case you are under the impression that my life is all about successfully being creative and finding ways to make music. We ran out of dog food last week, so I emergency-bought dog food and treats at Local Pet Store, BUT I forgot to restock on poo bags. So this weekend, we ran out of those. Thankfully, we retain poo-appropriate plastic bags from produce and other food items, so we have enough to hold us over until the fancy biodegradable bags Mr. 42 ordered arrive. However, I forgot to bring one on mid-day walkies, and I found myself watching Clara doing her business and realizing I had no bag for it. Thankfully, Clara's chosen spot was right at the edge of our condo complex, which borders a vacant lot beneath high-tension power lines. I lpoked around in the nearby bushes and managed to find a broken piece of board and a sturdy stick, so I used the stick to roll the poo on to the board and fling it over the bushes into the vacant lot. It took three flings of varying vigor, but I did manage to get it all somewhere that nobody should step in it (it's fenced off on all sides but ours, where it is hedged off). I then hurried the dogs to the other side of the complex where there's a poo bag dispenser to stock up in case Hildy felt compelled to make an offering of her own, but there turned out to be no need. At least now I have a bag already tied to the leash handle for evening walkies!

And in silly things that

solarwind sent me, here is Leo, a Canterbury Cathedral cat, disappearing under the Dean's cassock during a recording of morning prayers. And here are some astoundingly bad (and rude-looking) logos that have been made less so by a graphic designer.

And one last bit of wonderful news: if America's Got Talent is a thing you can tolerate, I advise you to watch tonight's season premiere, as an organization I love and support, Voices of Our City Choir, will be appearing. VoOCC's singers are unsheltered folks living in San Diego, and they (until COVID-19) meet weekly for lunch and rehearsal. Through singing, community, and connecting homeless singers with available resources, VoOCC has helped get dozens of folks get off the streets and into housing, and they are amazing. This is the biggest stage they've ever been on (and they sang with the San Diego Symphony last summer!), and they're also doing a membership drive right now, so I threw some bucks their way. I'm so proud of them and hope they do well!

Right. 30 more minutes of answering work emails and then possibly moving books around and keeping the doggos from barking out the window until it's time for evening walkies.

Smooches to All!

Mun42

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: ohm suite office
Current Music: Dixit Dominus

I was in a positively foul mood pretty much all day yesterday, so you're welcome for not posting then.

The reason for the foul mood started with an infuriating episode on morning walkies.

( Bah. )
I just don't even know what I could have done to actually keep the dunderheads 6' away from me. Said calmly, "You're getting too close, please move away?" When? They didn't even slow down from their brisk pace and I was trying to ensure the dogs were under control. Yell profanity at them? Tempting. Try to physically intimidate them as I yell at them? Also tempting.

I never had these issues with neighborhood joggers before stay-at-home orders. And to be fair, the majority of joggers ARE good about avoiding slower pedestrians by crossing the street, diverting into the street, wearing masks, and otherwise not being total douchecanoes. I'm convinced a goodly number of the shitgibbons spewing droplets heedlessly are a subset of gym people grudgingly forced to make do. Either way, that was a miserable way to start the day and I am stll angry about it (though no longer incandescent with rage, so yay progress?).

It didn't help that the news and coverage thereof had me in a rage-anxiety-despair cycle for most of my work day. I had a pleasant lunchtime respite watching a Cartoon Voices virtual panel that Mark Evanier, who always hosts that panel at SDCC, put together. One of the artists has some technical issues for the first 20 minutes or so, but it was still fun, even though it's of course hard to read the room when there isn't a room. However, it kept getting interrupted by real life (and my anxiety-fuelled need to keep up on social media, apparently), so I actually found myself actually feeling worse when it was over. After doing some work emails, I took a guitar break, which kinda-sorta helped in a cathartic way (I choked up singing The Indigo Girls' Close to Fine, particularly the sing-along shouted line "stand up for the lookout"). After an excellent canyon walk with the girls, I had a snack and warmed up for Heavenly Choir zoom with a some music practice, which also helped.

Unfortunately, not even Heavenly Choir could keep my foul mood at bay (we gathered last night to rehearse the Zoom anthem we're recording on Thursday, which was written to be performed sequentially). Unfortunately, when it was my turn to contribute, I got distracted by how the director wanted to do the muting (apparently I have to approve of having the host turn on my mic, that was new to me), which resulted in like five people "helping" me find the pitch I already had, and I finally said "I know the pitch" in an attempt to get them to be quiet so I could sing, but they kept humming it and singing my part (and in one particularly annoying case, playing it on a wind instrument), which brought my foul mood roaring back. I know, this is why we rehearse. But oh man, I had to unload some grump afterwards. Bless Mr. 42 for letting me vent and being sympathetic.

So yeah, I eventually lowered my level of dudgeon by settling down with a glass of lovely schwartzbier and watching the first half of Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker on Disney+. I had some small things spoiled for me, but I'm mostly enjoying it, even though I'm keenly aware of how a character I like was deliberately sidelined and some fairly important stuff from the last film that I really liked have sort of been retconned. But in spite of the existence of the putrid prequel trilogy, watching this iteration of Star Wars feels like coming home, and I am enjoying it. Hopefully Mr. 42 and I will be able to watch the second half tonight after tonight's Zoom meeting, in which I'm helping a friend write a Zoom musical for his church's summer music camp. I have ideas.

Speaking of which, yesterday's high dudgeon also kept me from doing some things I said I would, so today is for catching up on those things and hoping to get in a creative mindset. *nods firmly* Maybe I can reward myself for taking another stultifyingly bad video e-course for work with fiddling with words?

Oh thank goodness, a friend posted a terrible book ad on Facebook and the comments made me laugh 'til I cried. I needed that.

Love you all and hope you're well!

Mun42

Current Mood: better
Current Location: ohm suite office
Current Music: nil

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

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: ohm suite office
Current Music: nil

Happy Monday to all who observe weekdays, and a good day to all of those who no longer bother!

Today begins new [university] systems training and various other distractions at work, which is welcome after a week of what felt like treading water. I still need to poke some people via email, but at least I have more to do, which is nice for the most part. Including a rather dull kick-off webinar, but hey, whatever gets one through the day!

It was a nice weekend for the most part--lovely weather, got caught up on sleep, finished a cool fantasy trilogy (more on that below), continued watching Picard, enjoyed Mr. 42's company, had some lovely walkies, and last night, we ordered out from our favorite burger place, and it was a succulent treat.

Online church kinda wrecked me this week, and I don't think I'm alone in that. My contribution was tiny, half of a chant recorded in Zoom, finished on Tuesday. But we did a favorite hymn, the chant was wonderful, and the sermon was raw and honest and kind and compassionate, and then RV played piano while A-M sang My Shepherd Will Supply My Need, one of the most beautiful, comforting, simple, lovely pieces of sacred music ever written, and one I dearly miss singing with my church choir. I knew I was going to cry, but once I started, it turned into sobbing. I didn't know I needed that, but apparently I did. After I collected the shattered bits of my heart from the ground, I had a nice phone chat with my folks and a sunny walk with the doggos, both of which were joyful, affirming activities.

Weekend walkies were a bit of an adventure, partially by choice, and partially by the choices of others. Friday night, I drove to the end of Unexpectedly Long Street, where we discovered canyon access last week on our 2 hour ramble. The Long Low Ladies ADORE exploring, so they went right down into the canyon and promptly took off in opposite directions (a trickly thing on leash). I eventually forced consnsus, after which we walked a goodly distance between two major streets and encountered a number of people riding their bikes, running, and walking the canyon, which, thankfully, the paths were generally wide enough to accommodate safely, since not everyone was wearing masks. The only bad thing was that among the beautiful spreading live oaks along the stream, there was SO MUCH POISON OAK, and I couldn't keep the dogs out of it, despite my best efforts. I texted Mr. 42, "Can dogs get poison oak?" "No," he replied, "but they can get it on you." "That's what I thought," I said. "Baths. For the dogs, I mean." Fortunately, between my (current) insensitivity to urushiol (the irritant in poison oak/ivy/sumac) and thorough scrubbing of the doggos, neither Mr. 42 nor I suffered ill effects.

The next evening, the LLL, Mr. 42 and I braved another arm of the canyon, and thankfully encountered no poison oak, but unfortunately, encountered many more people, most of whom were not wearing face masks or being particularly careful about staying 6' apart because the paths were relatively narrow. So we popped up to the next street access and walked a new-to-us stretch of the neighborhood, which was good fun, with some entertaining 70s architecture, window kitties, and waaay fewer people walking. Mr. 42 seemed to enjoy himself on our exploration, and the doggos had such a good time that they didn't even try too hard to get us to detour through the park when we passed it on the way home. Sunday walkies were delayed until sundown (by the aforementioned burger repast), so we stuck to a known neighborhood ramble, which was relatively free of other people and a thoroughly pleasant time. However, as we were walking back, I saw a large vehicle coming down the street towards us.

"Is that the blue bus?" I asked, referring to the converted school bus that lives near a neighbor. "Wrong bus," said Mr. 42, frowning.

It was a party limo bus. Full of people. And there was a "Happy Birthday" sign strung the length of the bus that I could make out through the tinted windows as it rumbled by. What the actual fuck?" I wondered aloud. Mr. 42 concurred. What kind of hubris does it take to demand to be driven around in an enclosed space with a bunch of people in the middle of a pandemic? The kind that leads to spreading events, that's what. So yeah, that was deeply disappointing to see, though unsurprising. I wish I'd taken a picture and reported the company, because there is absolutely nothing I can think of that could be considered an essential use for a limo bus. Certainly not a freaking birthday party. I'm also pretty sure my neighbors across the way had people over for the kid's birthday on Saturday, which is also not a choice I would make, but certainly a more understandable one. But it's really frustrating to see people behaving like this when the place your husband works is considered essential and he has to serve these people when they come into the place of business and ignore the signs that say "FACE COVERING REQUIRED" or "PLEASE DO NOT SERVE YOURSELF."

So poo on selfish, thoughtless people. I hope that they, their households, the businesses they patronize, and our heroic healthcare workers don't have cause to regret their foolishness.

In happier news, I'm contemplating submitting a video to Eric Whitacre's next Virtual Choir thing. It's a piece he just wrote to be about isolation and missing singing together, so it's definitely apt and will be welcome when it comes out. He sent out the music on Saturday and I'm working it up with hopes of recording it some evening or another this week. Likely not tonight, since Master Chorale will be eating up a block of tonight and I still have to walk the doggos. But I'm officially off work now and gonna go not stare at a screen for a while. Woooo.

Smooches to All,

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

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: office
Current Music: mental Mozart

This morning, Mr. 42 and I liberated the sedan from the shop, so we are a two-car household once more, a thing I appreciate all the more after not having access to a car for the past four days. Fortunately, AL, one of my fellow sops in master chorale, lives in the same complex we do, so I've been able to catch rides home with her after rehearsal every night this week. She was also able to serve as a go-between to donate an appliance I don't use to a migrant camp in Tijuana, which is excellent on several levels.

Alas, yesterday's Mercury-Retrograde fun did not end with having to do last-minute social media-ing due to the Julian calendar.

( moaning )

Fortunately, things got much better once I started singing, and while it wasn't a perfect dress rehearsal, it was definitely a good one. And we were released at 8:30 pm instead of 9:30 pm, which was WONDERFUL! And AL and I had a fun conversation about lawyers (she is one) on the way home from rehearsal. She is really neat, in addition to having a kick-ass singing voice.

Today, I have reimbursements and a faculty lunch meeting to take care of. One thing that has not yet gone to crap this week (though the day is young) is final exam-related stuff. I got to help a colleague figure out how to do something with our Scantron software that I've never done before, and even though it took me longer than it might have on a less crazy week, the fact that I figured out a way to do it was cool. Especially since that colleague is out sick today and I had to re-grade it because the professor discovered an error in the answer key. :D Still convinced that no knowledge should be considered a waste, even if it's not being used when or the way we think it should.

Righty ho. Off to go clean up after the aforementioned lunch and try to accomplish a few more Travel reimbursements today. Now that I have a car again (and have a later call time) I actually have time to go home, walk the dogs, eat, and put on make-up before our first Puccini performance tonight. Here's hoping for good music-making and a restful Saturday of sleeeep and probably also laundry.

Smooches to All!

Mun42

Current Mood: looking up
Current Location: office
Current Music: mental Puccini

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

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: office
Current Music: mental Puccini

I ended up doing a bonus shift distributing exams whilst covering for an ill colleague. Good thing my colleague didn't attempt that shift because I set a personal record for most number of students helped (147) in two hours, and loads of those students were picking up more than one exam. Alas, that did suck up a goodly amount of time that I'd planned to spend working on reimbursements and Big Lecture Series tasks. At least I got a bit of both done afterwards AND formatted survey feedback from my second of two surveys. I will need to check the results again tomorrow and add comments from the Johnny-come-latelys, and then actually be present and take minutes for what is likely to be a Long Meeting of Long. Note to self: order coffee. Lots of coffee.

Tired. At least there is lovely singing tonight with Heavenly Choir. And I had a very large and delicious burrito for lunch.

I am half-deliberately giving some space to a couple of friends who are going through some stressful times because they have recently used me as a scratching post. While I am normally supportive of stressed-out friends, even those who lash out, I don't have the badwidth to do that right now. I'm already losing sleep to my lengthy work and not-work to-do lists, and frankly, I value my mental and physical well-being over theirs right now. Two other good friends are also going through deeply stressful times, and I'd rather give what few fucks remain in my nearly-empty supply to people who aren't being jerks to me right now. I'll forgive and forget when I'm better rested and get more things off my to-do list. Such are friendships of long standing. *snort*

In shameless self-promotion, I was delighted to see that our local NPR station exended the deadline for nominating books for One Book One San Diego to tomorrow (the library website says March 8th), so I miiiight have encouraged friends who live in San Diego zip codes to nominate my book for it. There is absolutely zero chance of it being selected, as it doesn't quite meet all of this year's criteria per KPBS (it meets the library's required criteria so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ), but getting my book under the eyes of more librarians and book lovers is by no means a bad thing. Plus, maybe enough glowing nominations (in addition to my solid pro reviews) might get me on the short list, which for a self-published book, would be a dream come true, TBH. Of course, I also nominated my own book, because who wants to leave such things to chance? And nobody will consider my book if they don't know it exists, right?

In other whining, I may have to wait more than a month before I get my next review or hear anything from any of the outsanding book awards I submitted the book to. Such is life. I have written half of a Christmas carol in the interim, so there is that to keep working on. Ditto Evensong music and Puccini, because I was too tired when I got home from work last night to do much apart from loving on the dogs and watching Chef's Table with Mr. 42.

Right! Gonna go catch the bus home and try not to suck at rehearsal last night. Auspices are good, as I sort of know most of the stuff we're working on.

Smooches to All!

Mun42

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: office
Current Music: nil

Now that the on-the-ground search support is done, it's time to move on to making surveys (blech) and compiling results (double-blech). At least the responses that aren't N/A are somewhat interesting, but it's hard to muster much enthusiasm for copy-pasting stuff from cheap-as-free survey software and formatting it in a word processing program. Still, gotta be done, and if it makes future discussion more streamlined and/or less contentious, then I helped and yay. At least the other search's survey is powered by a much nicer, university-account survey software. Though there are enough fiddly options that it may take me some time to figure out how to export the data and format it for the search committee.

Distributed exams today and the place was hopping. No surprise, given that final exams are next week and there's no time like the last minute.

Last night was lovely, even though I got home from work quite late. But we had a delicious dinner at Purple Mint with CS, stopped by Donut Panic next door for dessert, and then swung by Benchmark Brewing for a few yumscious beverages. It was a lovely evening, and it's always a treat hanging out with CS!

Work today has been bonkers. I knew it wasn't going to be a relaxing day today, but things have exceeded my expectations in terms of ALL THE THINGS. And my to-do list ain't gettin' no shorter. *meeps again*

At least tonight is for relaxing at home and music prep. I still have (not-too-hard) Evensong music to learn and Puccini to review and make sure I don't screw up, but it doesn't involve driving in rush hour to get anywhere, which is always nice. Though I should learn both soprano and alto parts for Evensong because we're backing up the choristers, and they might not need help on the treble line. Hashtag bisectionality.

Ugh. I'd best get back into worky things. I'm behind on so much stuff it boggles my poor little mind. And it's making me antsy and impatient about other things, which is annoying.

At least I had an excellent read on the bus today: book one of March by John Lewis, Andrewy Aydin, and illustrated/lettered by Nate Powell. It's pretty darned awesome.

Smooches to All,

Mun42

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: office
Current Music: nil

That's the only explanation I can come up with.

So I have this schmancy battery-powered alarm clock that synchs to the atomic clock in Boulder, CO. Or at least, it's supposed to. Sometimes, the radio signal doesn't penetrate our walls, so on time changes it simply doesn't change the time. Sometimes I re-set it myself at time changes and it changes an additional hour. Well, this time, I decided to let it do its thing, but also changed the time on Mr. 42's alarm clock myself and set it for the desired time so I wouldn't be late to singing on Sunday morning. To my pleasant surprise, my clock re-set itself and all was well, and we sang Purcell and Cardoso and it was glorious.

Just before light's out last night, I half-jokingly asked Mr. 42 if our alarm clocks showed the same time (my contacts were out so I couldn't see all that well), and he confirmed that they did. So I let myself relax into sleep.

MORE THE FOOL ME.

When I checked my clock in the morning, it was a few minutes before my alarm was to go off at 6:05 am, so I gave Clara some love. "Odd," I thought as I cuddled the pup, "I figured it'd be darker at this new 6am." So I went downstairs to grab my phone and lo, all the clocks and my phone confirmed that it was actually 7:05 am, and my freaking alarm clock had REVERTED to standard time in the night.

WTAF, CLOCK?

So no shower for me. Boo, greasy head. Thankfully, Mr. 42 offered to take morning walkies so I was only a bit late to work, even after opting to drive. But then I couldn't get my blasted temporary parking permit to print at home, so I had to sneak into the receiving dock at work, print my permit, and then go find parking, and thankfully there were still spaces, but that's just one more delay.

As if that wasn't enough, that was when I realized I'd forgotten my wallet at home (it was still in my beach bag from a Saturday trip to Fiesta Island with the doggos). Thankfully, I'd ordered breakfasty refreshments for the seminar and I had a gift card I could use for lunch, so I have not gone hungry today, but BOY I feel not smart.

And then there was a frozen lock in one of the labs that I had to WD-40, so I was a bit late getting over to the seminar room, but thankfully L the vidographer was there and already set up, and catering arrived in due course.

But then my breakfast host FINALLY delivered my seminar speaker a mere five minutes before his talk was supposed to begin (I asked him to get the speaker there 30-15 minutes early), soL and I sprang into action, got the seminar's laptop hooked up in record time, and we started only five minutes late. Go us!

Nothing has broken irreparably, but it's exhausting to be in git-er-done mode from the moment you wake up.

I'm glad I had some time to relax this weekend, though of course not everything went according to plan.

Despite being tired, I did end up going to the Fronteras/Common Ground Voices concert on Friday night, which was pretty awesome. It started off with some fun from my favorite nonprofit after-school program circus, Fern Street Circus, some spoken word poetry, and finally, the performance by F/CGV, a cross-border choir put together specifically for these performances, featuring singers from all over the US and Mexico, performing music on border themes, and it was freaking incredible. They performed their whole set attaca, with interstitial music and readings, there was interesting staging, and they performed several new pieces by members of the choir, that included everything from throat singing to found text. The whole thing created this remarkable emotional tension that was truly special. And it ended with a sing-along, dance-along of Guantanamera, which was a joy. MC, who was the singer from Texas who stayed with us, did a glorious job, and we were so proud of her! I'm so happy I went, especially since my passport isn't current, so I couldn't have attended the second concert in Tijuana on Saturday night.

After the show, I popped by a brewery that was right around the corner and enjoyed a taster flight. A number of the performers arrived shortly after I did, so congratulations were delivered and scritches were given to their fuzzy lil' canine mascot, who belonged to one of the basses. However, when I finished my flight and attempted to go home, my car wouldn't start. So I let Mr. 42 know where I was, called AAA, and waited for the very nice young man to come give my battery a jump. It took a while for the charge to take, but I drove home without an issue.

I slept disgracefully late on Saturday morning, got up, breakfasted, did some cleaning, and tried to take the Long Low Ladies to Fiesta Island, but the battery was dead again. So I took the dogs for a longish walk around the neighborhood and called AAA again, this time to get the battery replaced. Thankfully, it was sitll under warranty, so it only set me back $30 in labor. Yay! So I celebrated successful adulting with a ramen lunch, did some more cleaning until the dogs made it VERY clear that they still wanted their trip to Fiesta Island. So we had a lovely sunset meander around Fiesta. Mr. 42 arrived home from work shortly after we did, and MC arrived no long after from a long day of border shenanigans and their performance in Tijuana. So we relaxed and cahtted, and all manner of thing was lovely.

Sunday was fun. After singing beautifully at church, I walked the girls, and Mr. 42 and I went to see Captain Marvel, which was loads of fun. It had a great deal of fun unpacking sexist expectations and "dark" superhero tropes in ways that ranged from funny to poignant. The cast is absolutely superb, too. I was reasonably impressed with the de-aging done on Samuel L Jackson and Clark Gregg, too. And there was excellent use of cat.

This week is not-quite-so-busy-as-last week, thank goodness.

Monday: Day 1 of candidate 11/11, Master Chorale rehearsal (Puccini)
Tuesday: Day 2 of candidate 11/11, dinner and hangings out with CS
Wednesday: catch up on ALL THE WORK, FREEEE evening (work on Puccini and Evensong music)
Thursday: more catch up, Heavenly Choir rehearsal
Friday: section business meeting, FREEEEE evening (possibly more Puccini and Evensong)
Saturday: FREEE day, seeing Angels in America part 1 at the Cygnet (squee!)
Sunday: morning service, Evensong

And then we're in Puccini production week, heaven help us. At least after Tuesday we can revert to our usual level of slovinliness at home, since we won't be having company for a while. Poor Rosie the Roomba will end up choking on carpet fiber bunnies, but being able to flop fully in one's own home is awfully nice.

Yay.

*waves*

Off!

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

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: office
Current Music: nil

I may be fast approaching the age where the time one is most likely to get injured is whilst sleeping. Or I could already be there.

Although I do blame the dogs, who in their affectionate desire to be close to me, forced me into some bizarre contortions while I slept, which left me with a big ol' knot to the left of my spine and ooh does it ache. It aches when I slouch, it aches when I sit upright, and it hurts when I breathe deeply. I have stretched and will be doing so periodically throughout the day, hoping it'll pop loudly and stop hurting. Heh, my exam distribution shift is gonna be fun. And by "fun," I mean "will involve making amusing old lady sounds whenever I bend over to get an exam or push a drawer closed."

I stayed at work waaay too late last night because I needed to do a Thing for Chair involving a new-to-me survey platform, plus a last-minute exam copy request came in, so I had to babysit the photocopier for a bit and drop the exam off with Instructor on my way out. I got home pretty much at the same time Mr. 42 did and set to various tasks, including working on music for tonight and running through my aria for the recital a few times. RV switched me to alto on the Byrd, which means I get to pull out my low F#, but I should make it through without too much damage to myself or the piece.

After a delicious meal of enchiladas (tortillas are flat, so it was sort of like observing pancake day/shrove Tuesday), we watched Incredibles 2, which is finally on Netflix. I liked it better than I was expecting to, given the criticism I'd heard of some of the Mr. Mom-type humor. It was nice to see more ladies in that world with agency. But Bob was pretty terrible at putting a brave face on things. I'm grateful it didn't seem to faze Helen. And while the movie was super fun, my favorite part may have been the end of the credits, where we got to hear the absolutely delightful vintage-sounding theme songs for Elastigirl, Frozone, and Mr. Incredible, with words by Brad Bird and music by the wonderful Michael Giacchino. Mr. 42 and I laughed and laughed!

We also got some excellent snuggles with the girls.

Right now, I am futzing about with a bizzare airfare request and have kicked the conversation up above my paygrade, where it belongs.

So much tail-chasing today. I hate tail-chasing days, but betwen final exams, recruitment, and endowed lecture, it's kind of inevitable. I may not be able to change the number of annoying, redundant, and/or completely unnecessary things people ask of me today, but I can at least not bite anybody's head off via email and swear loudly/sputter incoherently in the relative privacy of my office, to my office-mate's amusement.

Composer friend KM has asked me to write text for a Christmas carol, so I am mulling. The only idea that I've had thus far is waaaay too silly for this project (i.e., that angels must look like giant sheep because when they appeared to the shepherds, there was only mention of the shepherds being afraid (because whoops we kinda ate baby angels). I have attempted to open up a discussion of progressive aspects of the nativity on The Social Media Site That Must Not Be Named and used the flight into Egypt informing immigration policy as an example, but thus far all I've gotten is sarcastic and/or cynical replies from lapsed Christians, which pretty much means that anybody who might actually have thoughts on the subject is probably not going to comment for fear of being harassed by my other friends. So helpful. *rolls eyes* Maybe I'll get lucky and I'll get a thoughtful response via private message.

Right. Off to go try to not be snappish and not FU anything BAR today, including but not limited to tonight's Ash Wednesday service, so happy Butt Dust Day ("You are but dust, and to dust you shall return.") to all, and smooches to them as needs 'em.

Mun42

Current Mood: meh
Current Location: meh
Current Music: meh

Happy Fat/Shrove Tuesday to all who observe such things!

The church where I sing is having a pancake supper and flapjack-flipping relay race that I sadly cannot attend because it starts too early. But I'm hopeful that BF's team of singers takes home the golden frying pan this year!

I might do crepes. Or go out for crepes with the boy, because book club has been postponed since their usual room at the wine bar is being taken over for trivia night. Which might be kinda fun, but mostly I'm just chuffed to have an evening to spend with Mr. 42, and also the dogs, and my huge to-learn pile of music.

Last night's Master Chorale rehearsal was of the tedious but necessary sort that involved count singing and note pounding. Part of me wants to flounce huffily that people should learn their music at home, but as I was one of the people who benefited from said count singing and note pounding because I only really worked on most of the (not insubstantial) Gloria last week, I shall refrain from huffy flouncing. Though I might whine that fugues are haaaard for a bit before sitting doing and doing the work tonight. Wheee. And I really need to contact MS about a coaching session before the section leader recital next month, because I wanna kick butt on this aria. And maybe pick RV's brain about a fun duet. We shall see!

Today at work has gone much better than yesterday, which is a low but satisfying bar to clear. I'm off to go clean up after the chalk talk and see what other stuff needs to be put in place for this Friday's endowed lecture and next week's candidate. The end may not yet be in sight, but a slight break in the madness is, and by gum, I'll take it!

Smooches to All!

Mun42

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: office
Current Music: nil

Welp. It's Monday all right.

Day one of antepenultimate candidate. Two smallish errors I made have not had terrible consequences, but they annoy me and I hate them.

( work_whinging )

Sunday was a nice day of rest. Slightly more rest than I should have had (I started nodding off during music prep and had a nap), but it was all right. In addition to chatting with my folks, I managed to connect with singer homestay, and her car's staying at our place until she gets back from the start of the cross-border choir event on Wednesday, and then she's with us 'til Sunday. And I'm pleased to report that Sunday morning's service went far better than last Sunday's, both anthems went well, there were no catastrophic wine spills during communion, and we had the freaking adorable junior choristers charming the socks off of everybody. Mr. 42 didn't get home from work until 10pm, but I'd had some good puppy cuddles and delicious Lebanese food by then, so we shared a very potent cinnamon stout, watched an episode of Chef's Table, and toddled off to bed.

This week is, surprise surprise, on the busy side. Puccini rehearsal tonight for which I feel under-prepared, but will try to forgive myself, since Master Chorale is generally paced for singers who don't have time to work on stuff at home. I am just impatient to be good at the repertoire. Mr. 42 may be going to a concert tonight from which he will be back late, once again testing my resolve to get enough sleep. But I will do my best. Tuesday night, I am attending Singing!Friend's book club, my first time since she started it a year ago, because this is actually a day that I can make it AND I've read the book (Michelle Obama's "Becoming")! I have never done a book club before, but I like that this one meets at a wine bar. Whee! I have an Ash Wednesday service to sing on Wednesday, Heavenly Choir rehearsal on Thursday, and then three potential nights off in a row, but there are a bunch of performances I want to see, so heaven knows if any of those free nights are really free or not. Especially since we'll have the aforementioned singer home-stay Wed-Sun.

OK. Off to make photocopies, email video links, and write a blurb for penultimate candidate.

Aaaaand get all ducks in rows for the endowed lecture on Friday. Gah.

Smooches to All,

Mun42

Current Mood: frazzled
Current Location: office
Current Music: nil

So you know how I had that great idea to encourage me and Mr. 42 to get to bed earlier? Well, that sorta went out the window when he rolled in from vacation with the girls around 11pm last night. So I helped him bring stuff in from the car and we walked the girls together, who were running around with spectacular wags, so happy to be catching up on a week's worth of sniffs. But we did get to sleep soon after walkies, and I slept slightly better than I have the rest of the week, despite wiggly, burrowing dogs and spousal snoring when his CPAP mask slipped. Still. SO GREAT to have them home! Mr. 42 and I were both up at the same time today becuse he has inventory at work, but at least he'll be off a bit early and can come console the girls, who have gotten used to getting love from three adults on vacation and have been abandoned for work. Poor puppies.

Last night's rehearsal was wonderful. So much Tallis and Purcell and Ferrant and Hurd and all manner of wonderful music. SN also announced that she is organizing another section leader/choral scholar fundraiser recital, this time an all-Handel recital that benefits the church's capital campaign. I think it's an absolutely splendid idea, and have already call dibs on "Let the Bright Seraphim," which I had to learn for a wedding last year and quite enjoy singing. I might see if I can sneak in a coaching sesion with MS before the recital in mid-April, because I want to wow people, including my fellow musicians, with it. I might also chat with AM about ornamentatoin, since it's a da capo aria and ornaments are expected on the recapitulation. And improvising ornaments is not currently a skill I possess. I can try to steal ideas from recordings, but many are not exactly tasteful, era-appropriate, or in my range. Listening to Dame Kiri now and hoping for the best. Although there is already scooping. *sigh* Off to look for historically informed performances.

But! Tonight Mr. 42 and I have a symphony concert, and it's a doozie: Edo de Waart, whom I adore, is conducting Mahler 4! The first half includes Delius and Barber, and I'm so stoked! Maestro de Waart was recently named our symphony's principal guest conductor, a role created, I suspect, specifically because we love him so much but he doesn't want to be traveling all the freaking time (he is 77, after all). I've only sung for him once (Beethoven 9), and the experience exceeded even my stratopherically high expectations. I know he's going to make Mahler 4 as vital as it is beautiful, all with exquisite balance. SO STOKED!

And speaking of stoked, the Eric Hoffer Awards, to which I submitted mah book, has announced their awards schedule for this year. The first finalists (da Vinci Eye for cover design, Montaigne Medal for thought-provoking works) will be announced next Monday. The next sets of finalists (First Horizon Award for first book of any type) will be announced on April 2nd (probably good that it's not on April Fool's Day), and the winners for those categories will be announced later that month.

The whole shebang shortlist for the Eric Hoffer Awards will be announced at the end of the month, and the whole shebang winner will be announced in early May, including press and category distinctions/finalists. While I did submit my book to the Publisher's Weekly BookLife Prize, which seemed to be focused on skimming mainstream-appropriate work out of the indie publishing pool, the Eric Hoffer Awards seem to be actually be about delving into the diversity of indie, small, and independent presses, which gives me hope. My book is a truly weird little duck, and while I adore it, it was not a good fit for the Booklife Prize. Here's hoping it's a good fit for this contest!

Every writer who puts their work out there craves acknowledgement of some sort, and I'm certainly no different. I'm trying not to put all my hopes in one basket, and the Hoffer Awards is only one of five active contests I submitted the book to, ranging from local to international candidate pools (Eric Hoffer Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Independent Publisher Books Awards, San Diego Book Awards, IndieReader Discovery Awards). So I'm not gonna put the kibbosh on daydreaming, because what fun would that be? Someone's gotta win, and I wrote a unique and fun book. So here's hoping for something, even being a finalist who doesn't win. It gets slightly easier to convince people they should read a book like mine when I can demonstrate that people who don't know me still found it noteworthy. So here's hoping for good news before my first Book-i-versary on April 23rd. Though I certainly don't mind good news after then, too!

OK. Office-mate is out sick again, and I've got a huge-ass pile of reimbursements. Time to put on some Baroque or Renaissance jams and get some of that off my desk. Also send out the final schedule. Which hasn't broken... AGAIN... yet.

Smooches to All,

Mun42

PS AM just posted this video on FB and I can't stop laughing. It's just such a beautiful slice of life. And the title "Ron Sneezes and Scares Deer" is just so pure...
PPS NICE, RAHN.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: office
Current Music: nil

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