Yet another fun evening

Reporting in after the first performance, still unscathed, having maintained full consciousness throughout, and having managed to be where I was supposed to be every time, I’m ready for another go. There were wondrous photo ops, but I didn’t want to take pictures during the actual performance, so here are a few from backstage. That is where the real fun is. The rest is serious business.

Above are Marina, Alvaro, and little Cecilia, looking all Renaissance and angelic, and below are Corinna, Maria, and I looking all Renaissance and monastic.

A Lucky Day

Today was a day when I thought I had very little to do before the big events of the evening. Just some errands to run. When I began deciding on my errand plan of action, I realized that the two most important items – getting gas for the car, and going to the library – were in opposite directions. Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate to drive, and that I do it as little as possible. I walk or take the bus whenever I can, and when I can’t, I carefully think out my routes so as to minimize the whole thing, and am grumpy when family members suggest little side trips. So what to do? Except for grocery shopping, I didn’t really need either of my paramount my tasks to be done today, I just needed to do them soon. So which to do? If I went for gas, I could return my almost overdue library books at another branch, and would just have to pick up my books in waiting later. This seemed like the best plan. When I got to my favorite gas station, Hilltop, probably the last remaining full service gas station in the Northern Hemisphere, the young service attendant asked, “Did you know that you have a flat tire?” Whoa! No, of course I didn’t! I got out and looked at it, and it was indeed flat. Almost down to the rim! “We can fix it,” he said. “It will take about 15 minutes.” I was thinking – what if I had decided to go to the library instead of the gas station!!!! Disaster would have ensued.

The dress rehearsal for Great Music was disaster free as well, except that I nearly passed out during the long Baroque piece. I had been so busy with my errands, Family Kitchen, and then the actual performance, that I had forgotten to drink anything since about lunch time. Knowing that consciousness is waning is a pretty horrible feeling, especially in front of about 800 people. I made it to the end of the piece, and as things were getting seriously fuzzy and lights were changing, was able to sit down. After a few minutes, I staggered to the sacristy, drank about a quart of water, and was almost fully recovered. Another lucky near miss.

Two more surreptitiously taken photos from the Wednesday rehearsal. The top is my friend Barbara showing the Jubilate! girls their moves, and the bottom one is Jim showing everyone their moves - both from The Play of Daniel portion of the program.

Another fun evening

Happily, the Great Music for Great Cathedrals dress rehearsal for the dress rehearsal seemed to go quite smoothly. I managed not to go astray, or attract attention in any way whatever – egregious or otherwise – and this is one of my primary goals at these events. Tempers flared several times, but not mine, and never in my direction. In fact, I was unaware of these little contretemps, and only heard about them later. This is a good thing, because I am wimpy, get inwardly tense even being in the presence of other folks’ angry outbursts.

The music was wonderful, of course. We always perform one Baroque piece in which the choir is divided up into four little choirs stationed around the Cathedral. As you can imagine, this is a bit unnerving, since the four choirs have to stay together, but one can’t even see the others, let alone hear them. I always fear lest the music will fall apart, but it never does. This year the multi-choir number is by Heindrich Schutz. It is longish, and had seemed a tad on the boring side when we practiced it, but it was exquisitely beautiful when fully fitted out with the brass band, and sung in the wonderful acoustics of St. James.


These photos were taken surreptitiously during the rehearsal, and do not at all give you an idea of the beauty and wonder of it all.

The actual performances will be on Friday and Saturday, February 12 and 13. This is a musical event well worth your time (and money, of course.) Tickets and more information are available here.

A very exciting evening

Tonight begins a marathon of slightly S&M events. I am sure it isn’t a painful experience for everyone, but it has that potential for me. This evening is the dress rehearsal for the dress rehearsal for the final Great Music for Great Cathedrals extravaganza. This fabulous spectacle of music, song, dance, and light has been an almost annual St. James tradition for twenty-five years. Over four hundred people, mostly volunteers, are involved. More than a hundred musicians will be taking part. It is truly a wonderful, all-encompassing experience. Most of the time. At other times it is slightly torturous. The mountain of work involved, while not torturous, is definitely tortuous. In years past, I have been involved in preparing props, sewing costumes, and the like. This year, my only role, other than being in the choir, is helping bring treats and sustenance for the stage crew. Learning the music is nothing, compared with learning where to go, what to do when, what one should be wearing when one does it, and then keeping one’s mind on the business at hand at all times. And once one has firmly grasped all this, there is the standing around, being quiet (not my norm), nervously awaiting one’s next entrance, and hoping against hope that one doesn’t go to the wrong spot, or in any way make a spectacle of one’s self. One year, I had my cues all memorized, knew the order of everything, but in the excitement, forgot about one piece. I was stumbling about in the dark getting ready to sing Rachmaninoff, when Jim the director, also feeling his way about in the dark, said, “What are you doing here?” in a rather horrified voice. “Getting ready to sing Rachmaninoff,” I confidently answered. “NO!” he said. “You’re a ped*!” Appalled, I scuttled off to join my fellows Schola ladies and be a ground bass. I hope and pray that nothing like this happens tonight.

*In some early music, the ground bass is called the “ped,” or “foot.” Or maybe the people singing it are the peds. Not really sure about that. The peds sing the same few measures over and over, and the melodic parts happen above this. It can be very beautiful.

The photos are taken by Maria Laughlin during GMGC's of yore.

An Up and Down day

In January, Rebecca and I decided to knit the Elizabeth Zimmerman Green Sweater, which I found quite attractive, in addition to having such an interesting history. For those of my readers who don’t know, Elizabeth Zimmerman is the Julia Child of Knitting. When Rebecca was a baby, Dennis and I watched Julia every week, and she taught me to cook. We also watched Elizabeth, and she taught us to knit. The first week, she showed us the basics, and told us what to purchase for the sweaters we were going to make. This was a natural sheep colored white (in our case, anyway) raglan sweater knitted from the bottom up. We started out with the plain stockinet, and added the more complicated ribbing once we had mastered the middle. When we went to purchase our supplies, the knitting store lady was totally incredulous about this construction method. However, we persevered, knitting a new section each week with Elizabeth showing us what to do in the upcoming week. Finally, we both had nice matching sweaters. We loved Elizabeth – she was warm, witty, and as enthusiastic about knitting as Julia was about cooking. She did as much to change the rigid face of American knitting as Julia did to change the uninteresting face of American cooking.
Anyhow, Rebecca and I got our kits with the pattern and yarn similar to the original from Schoolhouse Press, run by Elizabeth’s daughter Meg who carries on the family tradition. I was gung-ho, and had the body nearly knitted up to the shoulders. I had made swatches from the suggested range of needles, and selected size 4.0mm as the one which worked best for me. Somehow, my sweater was not looking as nice as my swatch had. The stitches were oddly uneven – even more uneven than my usual. “Well, it will improve when I block it,” I thought. Suddenly, after having stared at the needles for quite a number of hours, I noticed that one end of my circular needle ends looked bigger than the other. I checked them with my needle gauge, and indeed, one was 4.0mm and the other 4.5mm. I could not believe that I could have made such a dumb mistake. Well, it was easy, since my kit of circular needles with interchangeable ends had three 4.5mm’s and only one 4.0mm. So now my sweater looks like the third picture. Well, actually, I have started again and it is about two inches long. I can’t believe it!!!!

A pleasant evening with Dakki

My refrigerator was full of rogue vegetables, either left over from some earlier meal preparation, or purchased for a meal that never happened. I decided to make a big soup to use them up. While gathering my ingredients, and delving into my potato bin, I made a horrifying discovery – something large, black, slimy, and totally unidentifiable. I suspect it of having been the remains of a bag of potatoes. Blech. Double blech. Rebecca was present when I made this awful find, and was delighted witness such a signal housekeeping lapse, and to give me a lecture on the storage of potatoes. I think age (the potatoes' age, not mine) was more of a factor here, rather than improper storage technique, but there was that too, I must admit. Fortunately, there were some healthy specimens left, as my mental recipe wanted potatoes. The soup turned out very well, and I have included a recipe.

In addition to many slightly aged vegetables, I had two heavy cream containers, one half full, and left over from Christmas!!! I had been too lazy to either use it or toss it out. The other was from a more recent dessert that never materialized. I decided to make ice cream. The usually blasé Rachael said, “You mean you are going to whip up some ice cream, just like that? In minutes?” She seemed incredulous. But so it was. I examined the Christmas carton, and was surprised to find that it still looked okay. I daringly tasted it. Once again, it seemed to be in pretty good shape. I had Dakki taste it. She agreed, so I used those, and some yogurt to bring the total amount up to 2 cups. I added a cup of frozen blueberries and a third cup of sugar, whirred the whole thing in my blender, and then made ice cream in my handy Donvier ice cream maker. An impressive dessert in minutes.

I recently wrote about watching Lassie Come Home a number of years ago, and my embarrassing experience at the theater. I decided that I needed to see it again, so after dinner, Dakki and I watched it. It’s one of my favorite movies, and in my case at any rate, a real tear jerker. The fountains begin to flow about five minutes into the movie. I don’t know what it is about it. I have seen much sadder movies, and been unmoved. But this one always gets me. I loved the book when I was young, and it is one of the very few that I actually remember reading. I mean to say that there are many books that I remember having read, and remember what happened in them, and what I thought about it, but this one I remember where I was (outside in a lawn chair in the shade on a very hot day,) what I was wearing (blue shorts and a white blouse), and what I was eating as I read (Kool-Aid popsicles.) Another book about which I remember the particulars of my reading experience is Josie and Joe by Ruth Gipson Plowhead. I know, you’ve never heard of it. It was another of my favorites (and Rebecca’s, as well), and the only book I ever dropped into the bathtub while reading there. Which, of course, is why I remember the particulars of that one.

Zesty Squash Soup (made in the pressure cooker)

3 medium onions, cut up
1 head of garlic, peeled and sliced,
2 cups or more of cubed butternut squash,
2 cups diced potatoes,
2 chopped sweet red peppers
1 chopped apple,
1 piece of ginger the size of a fat man’s thumb, chopped into small dice
1 cup of chopped celery,
1 carrot diced (would have used more, but that’s all there was)
6 cups vegetarian broth
1 lemon, juiced
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Freshly ground black pepper,
and salt (if needed)

Sauté the onions until they are translucent. Add the garlic and give it a few more stirs. Add the remaining ingredients up to the lemon, and cook at high pressure for five minutes. I made this without the lemon, and it was a little dull. So I added more salt and the juice of a lemon, and then threw in the entire lemon as well. I cooked it for a bit longer and it was perfect. The lemon seemed to disappear into the soup, and perked it up quite a bit. If I were making it again, I would add the lemon at the outset. When it is cooked and seasoned to your taste, whirl it with an immersion blender till it is fairly pureed, but still has some lumps to give it a nice texture. Add the cilantro and serve. Yum.

A surprising day

I constantly plead to have my work schedule be three days in a row rather than one on, one off, which is my usual lot. I frequently get so knackered in by working, that I spend the next day recovering till deep into the afternoon. If I work every other day, then I am always either working or recovering. Not ideal! I had thought this was a sign of my advancing age, but the youth of the day (at least those of them who are my co-workers) say it is the same for them. This was a comfort. As I said, I plead for three in a row, but it never seems to happen. This week, I had my week planned out, with nearly every hour dedicated to something. Some of the hours were dedicated to recovering, of course. On one of my recovery days, my aunt called to schedule a trip to the sewing store. I had been recovering all morning, and was trying to swing into aliveness. As we talked, I was looking at the upcoming work schedule so I could find a suitable day, and was horror struck. “O my God,” I said. “Is today the 27th?” She said it was. “I have to be at work in an hour!” I said a bad word, hung up the phone, and flung myself into action. I had copied my schedule onto the calendar, but had put five weeks down instead of the actual four for the last schedule, and so hadn’t realized the new schedule had started. For once, I had gotten my preferred schedule and hadn’t even noticed. This turned out to be a great boon. Usually, if I am working that evening, I stare at the clock all morning and brood about the coming evening’s work. Actually, I love my job (most of the time), but none the less, I brood. Today, unaware that I was going to be working, I neglected my brooding, and had a very pleasant recovery morning, alternately reading and house cleaning. So, now the house was clean, and I had a day off later in the week. I even managed to get to work on time. Hurrah!

The next day, I visited my friend Suzanne and recovered at her house. She lived in Japan for years, and her house filled with beautiful Asian things, as well as interesting and delightful treasures from the rest of the world. Here is a model Samurai warrior which she gave to her husband for Christmas. He (the Samurai, not her husband,) seems to have a part missing, as they haven’t been able to assemble him completely, but he is impressive none the less. Suzanne has bravely left her Christmas decorations up, as she isn’t tired of them yet. I am too wimpy to do this. I am sorrowful every time I take them down, but I succumb to peer pressure. Query to self: Why?
As Suzanne lives across the water, we had to cross one of Seattle’s floating bridges and I took the above picture of the afternoon sky over the lake. It looked much more impressive in real life.