Parties & People & Other Stuff

Busy, busy week.

Several houseguests (F has been here for two weeks, and B is arriving tonight).

Last Friday we had a lab party at our house--I'm not sure what the head count was, as B and I arrived late from ballet class, but we're thinking 35-ish.

Saturday was the Voci retreat, held at the scenic Marin Headlands. While I was off singing, B and M had their usual Saturday activities, B went to a birthday party at 2:00, and DH & M went to another party at 5:00. I arrived home around 6:30, heated up some leftovers for F and myself, then took off at 7:00 to pick up B and take her to see the musical at the local high school (The Wizard of Oz)

Sunday was calm: laundry, groceries, catching up on stuff, actually reading the Sunday paper before midnight.

Today we spent a lot of time at the bank. Our kids have both had their own accounts for 5-6 years, so they can save up their allowances and birthday/Christmas gifts. After years of no fees, BofA suddenly started charging them each $12/month, which is a little ridiculous when you consider how much they get as an allowance! After much time at the bank, we were able to get their money transferred to new student accounts, which should be sufficient for their needs.

While I was at S&P rehearsal tonight, I got a long string of e-mails. B's best friend L has a birthday tomorrow, and no one remembered until tonight to organize a "shanghai"! Fortunately, another friend's mom was more on the ball than me, so we now have morning plans. I called B during my break to work out what time she wanted to get up tomorrow morning (since she would already be asleep by the time I got home tonight). Normally, DH does the early morning runs, but since he's off picking up someone at the airport right now, we agreed I would do the morning wake-up call. (Neither of us knew it would be an extra-early call when we made this agreement!)

Off to bed now, in hopes of getting some sleep between now and 6:20 am...

En Garde!

Today M competed in his first fencing tournament. Yes, I know he's been taking classes for the last seven years, but until this year he wasn't interested in competing. Over the last couple of years, he's been participating at the in-house tournaments at his fencing school, and enjoying them, so he decided to try out a "real" competition.

DH and I both got up bright and early in order to get to San Francisco by 7:45 am (naturally, M's division was the first of the day, at 8:30). The tournament went pretty well. M achieved his goal of not finishing last: in his pool he lost three bouts and won two, then lost in the direct elimination. The silver lining to losing in the first round is that you get to go home early, instead of having to spend even more time sitting on a folding chair. Like any event of this type, there's a lot of time spent sitting around and waiting, punctuated by brief bursts of competition.

Only At ACDA

I spent four days last week attending the American Choral Directors Association National Convention in Chicago. Lots of good music, too much to do in a short time, so I'm just posting a couple of random thoughts instead of a properly written post :-)

• Only at ACDA does the Chicago Symphony Chorus get applause just for walking onto the stage. The applause continued until all 150 or so singers were in their seats, which made for very tired arms. At the end of the program, the chorus and chorusmaster got as much, if not more applause than the soloists.
• For some reason, Sweelinck was the most popular composer this year--it seemed like every concert program (with four to five groups performing) had at least one of his pieces.
• Choral directors are a tough audience to perform for, but extremely well behaved. No one clapped until the conductor dropped his/her arms, coughing was kept to a minimum, and no one tried to enter or leave the hall in the middle of a piece.
• You have to love a worship service where they print the hymns in the program, indicating which verses are sung in unison and which in harmony, and the entire "congregation" sings in perfect four-part harmony where indicated. Also, there was a note during "O Come All Ye Faithful" indicating that all sopranos were welcome to sing the Willcocks descant (NOT printed in the program), and many of them did!
• The conference ended on Saturday night, with Daylight Savings Time starting the following morning. Everyone was extremely concerned that no one miss their flights on Sunday morning: they started announcing it at the concert programs on Thursday, the hotel sent someone around to reprogram all of the alarm clocks, and the hotel also slipped a letter under the door giving instructions for an extra wakeup call. (For the record, my iPhone made the change without any trouble, and woke me up at the correct time the next morning.)
• It's funny how your standards change at an event like this. Obviously, some choirs were better than others, but it's hard to remember that even the less-good ones are phenomenal groups that I would be happy to hear anywhere else.

That's all for today!

Electrical Mysteries

We purchased our Honda Odyssey in 2003, and it's been an extremely reliable car. It has had a few electrical quirks, which I understand are fairly common. About five years ago, the clock on the dashboard stopped lighting up. The clock kept time, but I couldn't read it at night. When we asked the dealership about it, we decided it wasn't worth the time and effort to removed the dashboard and investigage.

About a year ago, the clock suddenly lit up again! At the same time, the right-hand climate control knob (the one that controls the rear heat/AC) stopped lighting up, so we joked that there wasn't enough electricity to turn everything on at the same time.

On Wednesday night, as I was driving to Voci rehearsal, the car started to warm up, then about 1.5 miles from my house, the heater fan simply stopped. I tried turning everything off and back on, without any success. I turned the whole thing off, parked it for three hours while I was at rehearsal: still no fan. Now, since I live in California, I can get by without heat or AC most of the year, but I discovered the following night that the defroster was considerably more important: I spent a cold & rainy night driving with my window open so the windshield wouldn't keep fogging up.

Today we got the fan fixed (there's some power transmitter that often goes out). Lo and behold, everything on the dashboard now lights up properly!

Tra La La

S&P concerts this weekend went well! I was a little nervous coming into this set: I have not done much solo work in the past, preferring to hide in a quartet when I did sing. I ended up singing in three of the seven small groups that performed this set (probably because I was the only loooooow alto that auditioned, and Renaissance music was written for male altos), with some very exposed lines. I'm happy to report that the performances went well, and several fellow singers complimented me on my solos. Even better, a total stranger came up to me afterwards and told me how much she liked my voice! (Which one of you fans of SuperAlto paid her?)

I think I'll have to try out for a few more solos in the future. The hardest part is finding ones that suit my range, since most "alto" solos have too many high notes for me to sing comfortably.

A Very Weird Day

First, there was the weather. After we dropped the kids off to school, we headed to work. Within a mile of our house, we encountered bright sunshine, blue skies, pouring rain, and a hailstorm, all within a few minutes.

Next, Poppy managed to break through the back fence and let herself out again. She was picked up twice by kind strangers. The first put her back in our yard and left a message on our home phone. (Since there was a huge hole in the back fence, she very naturally went right back out.) The second kind stranger held onto her until he was able to reach us by cell phone, then brought her home.

Last (but certainly not least!), after I picked the kids up from school, I sat down at the dining table to have a quick snack before going out to repair the back fence. A fire engine drove past, lights and siren going. I wondered what was going on, and went back to my snack. A second fire engine went by, which made me curious enough to get up. By the time I got my shoes on, I found a police car at the end of our driveway, a horrible burning rubber smell outside, and flashing lights everywhere. Just past our house is a little cul-de-sac, and the house at the end had smoke pouring out of the garage. I counted FOUR fire engines (three big and one small), a fire-department SUV, and five police vehicles.

The fire appears to have been confined to the garage, and it looks like it started in an antique car. (DH came home and saw them towing it away.)

Girls' Night Out

B is a little annoyed that M is "stealing her dad" for the weekend (after a nearly two-week trip, she saw him for about an hour last night), so after sending the boys off on their Boy Scout ski trip, she and I had a fun evening together. I picked her up from musical rehearsal at 5:45, drove her friend home, and headed out to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. After dinner, we wandered through the Gap (didn't find any clothes she liked), Barnes and Noble (she bought three books and a new sketchbook), and Crate and Barrel (that stop was for me--picked up a new gravy boat). Last stop of the night was Loard's Ice Cream, our local ice cream place.

She already has tomorrow night's restaurant picked out :-)

Back in the Swing

After a relaxing January, February is off to a rather hectic start. DH has been gone for nearly two weeks (one of the longer trips he's taken). Tomorrow, the kids will be home for exactly an hour after school, and they each have a thirty-minute piano lesson during that time, with the other thirty minutes spent getting ready for fencing/ballet. (They usually have lessons on Tuesday, but their teacher had a conflict this week.) About the time we take off to pick up T for fencing, DH should be landing at SFO. The plan is to take B to ballet, drop M & T off at the fencing school, have DH take the BART to the station nearest the fencing school, pick him up there, and drive him home so that he can attend the Boy Scout parent meeting at 7:30 while I pick up B from ballet.

A good chunk of today was spent trying to organize the weekend. M signed up for the Boy Scout ski trip, but I didn't have it on my calendar. When I realized that it was this weekend, and that the scouts who don't ski well (M has never skiied before) need to have an adult with them, I convinced DH that he should go on the trip. The poor guy will be home for less than twenty-four hours! Once we sorted out who was going, I rented skis for them online, and will be making a trip tomorrow to pick up the gear we don't have (ski gloves for one of them, ski pants for M). Oh, and I have a choir retreat all day on Saturday, so B is going to have to miss her pre-ballet class assisting this week, as I don't have time to drive her home during the middle of my retreat. (For some reason she wasn't very excited by the idea of spending the entire day sitting in a church listening to us rehearse...)

Tomorrow is also Chinese New Year, but we're putting off our celebration until Sunday evening. Kung Hsi Fa Tsai!

January is the Cruelest Month

I remember reading somewhere that January is the month with the highest death rate. In the last week or two, I've found out about two members of my choir losing a mother-in-law and a father respectively, and two online friends I've known for 14+ years losing a mother and mother-in-law. Plus, an online friend that I've known since 1995 passed away last week (this wasn't a great surprise, as we knew she had metastatic cancer and only a few months left, but it was still unpleasant news).

It's a good thing I'm not superstitious, because if I was, I'd be out buying good-luck charms and whatever else is out there. I suspect that this statistical blip is related to the fact that I'm now old enough for my friends and I to have elderly parents. Still, that's quite enough for one month.

Surprising Ancestry

This is Poppy, the mutt we adopted about two years ago. What kind of dog do YOU think she is?

Our guess was a Doberman/German shepherd mix. The vet thought she might have some Lab in her, and someone else mentioned Rottweiler (mostly because of the coloring).

We got a doggie DNA testing kit for Christmas this year, and the results came back today. We were quite surprised, and I'll bet you will be, too.

[drumroll] And the results are:
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• 20–36% Siberian Husky

• 10–19% Boxer
• 10–19% German Shepherd
• 10–19% Lhasa Apso

• <10% Chihuahua
• <10% Chow Chow

!!!

A Slightly Smaller Black Hole

M found his PE clothes today. In French class. Still no sign of B's T-shirt, so I ordered her a new one.

Do We Have a Black Hole?

Both B and M brought their PE clothes home to be laundered at the beginning of break, two weeks ago. (Or so they say!) We arrived home from our vacation on Saturday night, and I promptly started work on the mountains of laundry that had accumulated. B's sweatshirt and shorts were in the hamper, but no T-shirt, and M's PE clothes were nowhere to be found. He remembers bringing them into the house, in a plastic bag, and I have a vague memory of seeing him bring a plastic bag in (although my memory is not always reliable for stuff like this). Nonetheless, we searched everywhere we could think of yesterday, and no PE clothes were to be found.

Both kids were sent off to school this morning with something to wear for PE (so they don't lose points), and instructions to check the lost and found plus every classroom they went to after PE. (PE clothes are emblazoned with their last names, since everyone at the school has an identical set.)  Once they've looked at school, I guess it's time to order new clothes. And search for the black hole that has taken up residence at our house.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

I went to Christmas Eve services with the in-laws tonight, and it seems that years of singing Handel's Messiah have left me unable to hear certain bible verses without the accompanying music showing up in my head. "Good wi-i-ill too-wards men!"

Crisis Averted

On Wednesday morning, I woke up, checked my e-mail, and discovered a disaster in progress: the church hosting the Voci concert scheduled for Saturday afternoon had booked a wedding for the same day, and the concert was now without a home! We have been advertising our concert, selling tickets, and our commissioned composer is flying in with his entire family to hear the new piece he wrote for us. Our poor administrator (T) found this out late Tuesday night, and spent the night having anxiety dreams about our homeless choir. (I often check my e-mail fairly late at night, but was tired enough on Tuesday to go to bed early, which saved ME from a sleepless night.)

The women of Voci are very impressive. We are all busy people, with full-time jobs, kids, etc., but we leapt into action. Calls were made to churches, pleas were sent out by e-mail, and by lunchtime we had two churches that were willing and able to host us for a concert three days later. Church A is a place I'd sung before; a friend from another choir called the church on our behalf (she's a member there) and verified that they were free on Saturday, all within twenty minutes of my initial e-mail plea. They were not available for us to rehearse that night (our previously scheduled rehearsal night), but could accommodate us on Thursday evening instead. Church B had an office administrator that said the space was free, but we had to get the permission of the music director to use the organ & piano.

All day, T had been leaving frantic messages for our music director, J. By 3:30 pm, we had not heard back from either J or the MD of Church B, so T made the executive decision that we would hold rehearsal at our usual time and place, while continuing to research our performance venue. At 4:45, the board president and I met at Church A to tour the space. It looked perfect for our needs, and their administrator (a choir director herself) was extremely sympathetic and helpful. In the meantime, J finally checked his messages (he had been giving exams all day), and confirmed with T that Church A would be workable. Problem solved!

Traffic Karma

I must have used up all my good traffic karma on Sunday. Today I picked up DH at the airport, and what should have been a 45-60 minute trip took us 1 hour and 49 minutes. Add to that the hour his flight was late, the 15 minutes for customs (reasonable) and the 45 minutes it took for his luggage to appear on the carousel (not so reasonable).

KLM's website refused to tell me what time his flight was actually scheduled to arrive: all it said was "in flight." If I had known it would be an hour late, there were a number of things I could have done with that hour: run some errands, read the Sunday paper (yes, I'm a little behind this week), etc.

Warp-Speed Laundry

Dear B,

I'm very grateful that unlike your brother, you actually remember to bring your P.E. clothes home to wash every now and then. However, in the future, I recommend that you present them to me a little earlier than 8:15 am on Monday morning, as neither our washer nor dryer have a warp-speed setting.

Love,
Mom

Traffic, Concerts, Chores, Etc.

The traffic gods smiled upon me today. On Friday and Saturday, traffic going to my evening concerts was awful, and I was late for call despite allowing 45 minutes for the drive. Today was the day with a quick turnaround--I finished one concert in Oakland at 6:00, and had to be in San Francisco for another one by 7:30. It only took me 35 minutes--no traffic at all until I reached SF, and only a little slowdown there.

Four concerts and one Nutcracker (co-stage manager) this weekend, and DH is off enjoying the cold and dark in Sweden. The kids did almost all of the chores I requested today, but they have some interesting blind spots. M took out the trash that was in the kitchen trash can, and even put in a new bag, but somehow never saw the three bags of extra trash sitting in front of the can. Both kids emptied the dishwasher (mostly--they left the coffeepot and filter, because those weren't assigned to one kid or another), but putting their dirty dishes into the empty dishwasher never occurred to them. I arrived home this evening to a counter full of dirty dishes, and complaints all around that they were running out of clean underwear. (Gee, I wonder why mom hasn't had time to do the laundry this weekend?)

Onward to Nutcracker: this week I'm working three outreach performances, 1.5 dress rehearsals, and one regular performance, plus I have a ticket to see B dance in one of the shows. Oh, and if you didn't make it to any of my FOUR concerts this weekend, you have one more chance next Saturday!

Volunteers

This year, I'm in charge of scheduling the backstage crew (stage managers & runners) for the Nutcracker at B's ballet school. It's mostly straightforward--contacting the people who have volunteered (all parents are required to help with something), and trying to find the best arrangement of people & times. I just have one question for a certain parent: why on earth would you sign up for backstage crew if you have to work the first show weekend and will be out of the country for the second?

Friends, Family, Gluttony, and a Little Excitement

If it's possible to eat too much good food, I think I've done it. Last night's Thanksgiving dinner was fun: as usual, we provided the basics, and our assorted guests brought dishes to share. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, dressing, mac & cheese, scalloped onions, green bean casserole, Tofurkey, squash soup, three kinds of cranberry sauce (two canned and one made by B), pumpkin pie, and apple crisp.

Today, Mom, Dad, my sister E, B, and I went on our usual Black Friday expedition. We don't believe in getting up early to hunt for bargains (if I really want to shop for bargains, I do it online). We meet in the late morning at an upscale shopping area (Union Square in San Francisco, Fashion Valley when we lived in San Diego, Eastview Mall in Rochester), and shop for a couple of things while enjoying the people and the stores. Today, E bought a pair of black pants, Mom got a lovely leather coat, B got a gold belt to go with her new dress (that was the hardest to find, since she's so skinny), and B also got some clothes. For lunch, we made our usual stop at the food court, where I always get the Korean BBQ spare ribs. (The second large meal of the holiday.)

The afternoon was a little more exciting than usual. As we were descending on the curved escalator to the first floor, we heard thumping noises behind us. All of us immediately assumed someone was falling down the escalator, and we all did the same thing: stepped to the side and grabbed the handrail with both hands (so we wouldn't be pushed over). Lo and behold, it was a purse snatcher, shoving people out of the way in his mad descent down the escalator, followed closely by a woman yelling "stop him!" At the bottom of the escalator, a male shopper tackled him, and when we left, the thief was being held down by two or three men, presumably awaiting mall security!

For dinner, DH and M joined us at Ton Kiang, our favorite Chinese restaurant in SF. We had another feast: scallion pancakes & potstickers to start with, Peking duck, Mongolian beef, Szechuan shrimp, Singapore noodles, spareribs in sweet orange sauce, asparagus sauteéd with garlic, and sesame balls for dessert. I was so full that I gave half of my sesame ball (one of my favorites) to B!

Movie Night & Mom's Taxi Service

The family went out last night to see the new Harry Potter movie. Good movie, overall, but definitely part one of two. Can't wait for part two! B invited several of her friends to go along, but since we couldn't go to any of the early showings (B doesn't return from ballet class until 8:00 on Fridays), her friends' moms all decided the 9:00 show was too late for their daughters.

Today DH and I are running our usual Saturday taxi service. M was out the door at 8:15 to join the Scouts in Scouting for Food. B left with DH at 9:15 for her pre-ballet teaching assistant gig, and returned a little before 11:00. M was dropped off at our house around 11:30 (one fewer trip for me!), then B and I took off at 11:40 to get her to Nutcracker rehearsal. (Poor kid has a six-hour rehearsal today, in which she'll probably dance for about five minutes.) The rest of us are at home having a quick lunch, then we're off at 1:00 to take M to fencing. We'll be home around 4:00, need to pick up wreaths to sell for the Scout fundraiser, then B has to be retrieved at 6:00. Oh, and today's the Big Game at Cal, so dropping B off at the ballet school was entertaining. Hello, Stanford fans who were walking down the street in front of my car, have you ever heard of a sidewalk? Or at least moving to the side when a car comes up behind you?