Still recovering

This was a heavy cold!  I missed yesterday's show, to be on the safe side.  But I hope I can make it tomorrow. (Several other people have been absent.

Monday afternoon I made it to the memoir slam.  Instead of writing about "November," I took it on myself to write an independent piece under the subject "Bereavement." They thought it was quite good.  The other subject was "How smart am I?" and I think I managed to be pretty funny.

Monday evening I also made choir practice.  Our new piece was the famous Welsh folk song "The Ash Grove." When we sang "So Long, Farewell," I pointed out that when the women sing "I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne," they should be saying "Yes?" before we say "No!" (For some reason, the score had them saying "No?") I'd watched a clip of the number from the movie version to confirm this.

Tuesday I went to the chorus rehearsal for the gala concert.  We're singing the Champagne Song from Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus (in English, so it's pretty easy) and the Anvil Chorus from Verdi's Il Trovatore.

I finished my grapefruit, but thankfully Moira bought a new batch!

The Friday crossword puzzle from The New York Times was tougher than usual.  Or maybe I'm just less patient.

Under the weather

"What country would you like to fly to?" "Wyoming?"--Dog Day Afternoon

Monday was Family Day, so both the memoir slam and choir practice were cancelled.  I did go out to see Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon at the Event Screen with the Movie Meetup group. (I'd seen it three times before, but never on the big screen.) With Al Pacino at his best, it seems to get even better with time.  I shared my popcorn and half of it got spilled, but I was in such a good mood that I didn't care!

During hell week I was joking about how it would be nice to get sick for the next weeks, and on Tuesday I did get sick and had to miss the second-week opera performances.  Be careful what you wish for, even in jest.  That night I went to the gala rehearsal and found out it was just for soloists. (The chorus starts rehearsing next week.) But I got the chance to tell Beatrice in person that I'd have to miss some performances, and she was understanding.  This is why I don't have soloist ambitions:  too much riding on you.  I remember the year when Jay Lambie was lead tenor in all twelve of our shows--imagine if he'd got sick!

I took my last sleeping pill and Wednesday I was in bed till 16:00!  I bought some nice big grapefruit.  Father's diet forbids them, but for someone in my condition they're the perfect food.  The best way to eat them is by skinning the sections and just eating the pulp, which removes most of the bitter taste.

I've been watching some episodes of the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie on Youtube, a guilty pleasure from my childhood.  Sure, it's a chauvinist male fantasy, but Barbara Eden had a flair for sexy comedy.  I haven't been up to reading more of Our Mutual Friend, but I finished Shigeru Mizuki's manga about fighting in World War II.  Looking forward to the third volume, about his making ends meet with one arm in postwar Japan.

Hell week

Hell week is finally over.  Six performances in six days!  There's always one point where I start wondering, "Why can't I just get sick for the next three weeks?" (I imagine that's a common feeling.) Of course, for me the hardest part isn't performing onstage but waiting in the wings.

At the Don Giovanni dress rehearsal Tuesday, at the point where the devils come out onstage to drag DG down, nobody came out!  The people in front were indecisive, and the ones behind got stuck.  (Some of us were late coming up from downstairs--including me!-- because this year the stage manager didn't have an assistant to remind us.) But we got it right in the later shows.

In the first scene of Masked Ball, there's a moment when we hand our scrolls to Ricardo, but we kept doing it late!  I eventually realized that was because we were supposed to hand them over while he was still singing, so we had to overcome the chorister's instinct not to get into a soloist's space while he's performing his number.

I bought the second volume of Shigeru Mizuki's history of Japan at the time of World War II. (This volume is about the period from 1939 to 1944.) I was reading it downstairs on Saturday's Don Giovanni, and it was so fascinating that I was late coming up and missed the "Che Piacere" number!  Nobody died.  Mostly, I've been reading Our Mutual Friend backstage.

Moira and Puitak came to yesterday's Masked Ball show.  She says it's one of our best productions.  They were late opening the place, so some of us had to wait outside in unusually cold weather! (I was only a few minutes early.)

When the legend becomes fact...

"You know M.R.F. [my respected father], but not as well as I do.  If you knew him as well as I do, he would amuse you"--Our Mutual Friend

Sunday was the ROLT event "When the Legend Becomes Fact..." with folklore as the topic.  I read the Grimm Brothers stories "The Poor Boy in His Grave" and "The Goose Girl at the Well," and the penultimate chapter of T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone, where he pulls it out.  I was also going to read Hans Christian Andersen's "What the Old Man Does Is Always Right," but someone else volunteered to read it.  Jane read a First Nations story of the creation of the world, and someone else read the first paragraphs in the Ghormengast trilogy.

Thursday was my 53rd birthday.  We bought a strawberry shortcake and ordered Chinese food.  That night I saw a PBS documentary about the Amish.

At choir practice last night we did "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound of Music. (I remember seeing the number in the movie when I was little and feeling embarrassed for these kids having to sing in front of all those people.) Don, who drove me to the subway after practice, died of a heart attack last week!  Beatrice mentioned the death of someone called Don last week, yet I somehow didn't realize it was the same Don.  Now Giovanni will be giving me a lift.

Hell Week starts tonight at the opera.  Two dress rehearsals and four performances in six days!  I'll be bringing my black pants and sweater to wear under my cloak when we're devils dragging Don Giovanni to the bottomless pit.

New computer

My new computer arrived yesterday!  It's fairly similar to the old one, but a new gadget is always fun.  I've already started writing a translation of a Portuguese pamphlet in the "lives of saints" series, focusing on Catholics martyred in Japan four centuries ago.  Once again, I prefer my old-fashioned wired mouse.

Monday there was a lot of snow.  Both Selia and Ernie missed the memoir slam, so I took charge. (The subjects were your favourite swimming hole and a sense of home.) There were nine people there, a figure I reported to the librarian as Selia usually does.  That night choir practice was cancelled again because of the weather, but I hadn't checked my email and only figured it out when I arrived there.

Yesterday Malabar delivered the new costumes for the opera and I helped unpack them as usual.  My Don Giovanni costume includes a habitant-like cap!  We wore the costumes for dress rehearsals of A Masked Ball last night, and Don Giovanni tonight. (Don Giovanni is a long opera, yet it never seems long!)

On Youtube I've found playthroughs of the King's Quest games, including number seven which I mastered years ago (with help from online cheats).  I've also found Cinema Sins, which features videos listing off all the things wrong with movies like Titanic (e.g. 20 minutes of false suspense over whether Rose will live, when we know she'll live because she's telling the story!) or telling us "How to make a Brad Pitt movie"!