Curtain Call

I am having an awesome time performing in the Nuptials show with Eric. I just feel joy well up inside of me every time I see him on stage with me. :-) This afternoon's matinee is the closing performance.

It did not go well

LOT audition for Elixir.... was today...

2 weeks ago, I fully expected that I would make callbacks.
1 week ago, I started to doubt.
Yesterday, I decided I'd have to be lucky to make callbacks.
Today, I knew they'd have to be deaf to call me back.

It did not go well. By some standards, it didn't go horribly, but in my book, it really did not go well. I didn't need to make callbacks, I just needed to give a performance I could be proud of - one that would reflect my decades of training and weeks of preparation. But I didn't. The good news is that it's behind me now, so I can go on with my life and start rehearsing something other than the audition music I've been hammering for the last three weeks. I'm frustrated, though. Unfortunately, times like this take a huge chunk out of my self-esteem, no matter how supportive my friends or the directors (also friends!) are.

I do take some comfort in my husband's love, though. He was so affirming today (my love language!), and while it didn't make me feel tons better about myself, it did make me feel incredibly lucky to have such a supportive and loving partner in life. If I had to choose between the career or the husband, I'd choose the husband any day.

Great Accomplishments in Texting

Do you remember the commercials from last year or so where they talked about breaking the record for the most texts sent in such and such a time? One of them showed a girl brushing her teeth with one hand and texting with the other. It was an advertising gimmick, not for real.

I think I met her real-life equivalent yesterday. I'm teaching a voice lesson, leading my high-school sophomore through warmups, and she stops me with this big grin on her face and tells me that in choir that day while she was singing, she had her phone behind her back, texting her mother a reminder to take her to her voice lesson after school... "and I looked later, and I had only made one typo in the whole message!" Wow.

There's a generation gap here.

A Funny Thing...

... Happened On The Way To The Nuptials

http://denver.yourhub.com/Golden/Events/Theater/Event~518581.aspx

A comedic musical revue by Confluence, a Golden community choir.

I joined this group this month. I saw this show when they did it last year. It's cheesy, but it's supposed to be. Now I'm taking the role that was left open when someone left the group. Oddly enough, they also lost a tenor who only had one singing part, which they reassigned to an alto, but for the whole wedding thing to work out, they still needed another guy. Where could we find another guy?

Yep! Eric is doing the show with me! We haven't performed together since I Pagliacci with the Colorado Opera Troupe in 2001 when he played the walk-on roles of the priest and the policeman. (And played them marvelously!) So, I'm looking forward to bringing him back into my world for a little while. The show is next weekend, 9/27 @ 7pm & 9/28 @ 3pm. Details at the link above!

Hurricane Ike hits Ohio

Wow... geocachers all over central Ohio are scrambling to see if their caches are intact... okay, that might not be their first priority. I talked to Dad this morning. He lives about 30 miles east of Columbus. He has power, phone, etc., no problems there, and no major damage to the house - a couple slats of siding came loose, but otherwise pretty good. His gazebo was decimated, though... look at the picture below, and keep in mind that thing was bolted to the deck and was covering the table once upon a time.

So, we're grateful that he was spared major damage and praying for those in areas hit much harder, particularly those down south. Also hoping the one unaccounted-for cat comes strolling home soon. This particular kitty has a habit of disappearing for days at a time, so we're not panicking yet. I guess one out of eleven isn't bad, but still...

Cat nap

When we got home today, we found all four cats curled up together on one corner of the bed. :-)

Visiting Eric's great-grandparents

Today we did some geocaching at a nearby cemetery. I remembered hearing at some point that my husband's great-grandparents were buried in this cemetery. These would be the parents of his still-living 101-year-old grandmother. So, before we went, I contacted the cemetery to find out exactly where they are buried, so we were able to visit their graves while we were there. Eric's mother has never been there to see them. They both died many years before she was born. We may be the first visitors they've had in over 75 years! It was neat to be there, and I think it was particularly special for Eric, though one can never tell with men, you know. We'll take his parents there sometime when they're in town.

Identity theft is child's play?

A blogger friend of mine sent me a link to this article: "How I Stole Someone's Identity"

It's kind of scary. A lot of people are fanatical about NOT posting information about themselves on the web. What I think this article really stresses, however, is to be careful how you set your security questions in all your online accounts and to remember that your identity is only as safe as your least secure online account or email address.

The other scary thing is, I wonder how many amateurs are reading this article and trying it for themselves. :-(

Sea Organs

A choir-friend of mine, who happens to be a very avid world traveller, is presently touring eastern Europe, and he periodically sends his friends back in the States updates on his adventures. (He really ought to have a blog! It's excellent reading.) There was something in his latest email that I thought was especially interesting, so I figured my blog readers would find it interesting, too.

Quote:

One feature most cities developed in the 19th century and continued to modify is the riva, or coastal promenade. The one at Zadar is similar to others in that it is a long, sweeping walkway along the sea with palm trees and benches, particularly employed by locals and tourists for strolling and greeting on warm evenings. Zadar recently added something unique that brings people out at all hours: a sea organ. What’s that, you ask? It is actually a series of organ-type pipes under the concrete walkway laid at such angles so that the shifting water of the sea creates air pressure to make them sound. They worked it out so that no matter what the tide level is or what the wave or winds are, some pipes will be sounding and others will be silent. Like an auditory kaleidoscope, it is always doing something but never the exact same twice. I found it very interesting and rather hypnotic. It almost makes the inanimate sea come alive.

Isn't that fascinating?