Going Solo

Mood: Relaxed
What's on: Food Network Challenge - Halloween Cake
Units of Caffeine: 8

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity. I haven’t had much of a life in the past ten days or so, nor have I seen much of K.

I sing with a group in Seattle, and we just had a concert this past weekend, which means that this past week was chock full of lengthy dress rehearsals. (This, of course is on top of my already busy schedule at the theatre.) K is busy rehearsing for a musical she is in, and almost every day this past week, I would come home at some ungodly hour, not too long before or after K came home, and we would both be any combination of: hungry, tired, exhausted, and/or emotional. A couple of the days that sucked were when all of those things would happen at once. Ugh!

So, Friday morning rolls around and I wake up with a killer headache and an extremely raw throat. I called in to work, if only for the morning – after a few mugs of herbal lemon tea and a couple doses of Advil. By about 12:30, my throat wasn’t any better, but my head was okay, so I thought I was ready to face the world, (in a very silent kind of way.) I was really beginning to worry that I wouldn’t be able to sing in the concert. I am not one to throw in the towel, and I didn’t want to cause any undue panic, so I planned to wait until later in the afternoon to make my decision and call the director, if I had to. So, I went into work with a bag of Halls, whispered a slightly painful “Good Morning” to my supervisor, and started about my day’s business.

About an hour or so and several mugs of herbal tea later, the pain in my throat dulled from a raw, scratchy feeling to just a closed, tight feeling. I thought that the worst was over. I figured that, if I just “faked” some of the music and didn’t push it, I would be okay for the concert. But, around 2:30 in the afternoon, I got a phone call for the director telling me that the group’s resident tenor soloist was very sick and completely lost his voice. The director asked me to do one of his solos. This is where I really began to panic. You see, it would be one thing if the music were somewhat familiar, like “Panis Angelicus” or “Bist du Bei Mir” or some other commonly known tenor solo. (This isn’t to say that it would be a stress-free situation if this were the case.) However, the music we were performing was a) know well known, b) difficult, both rhythmically and musically, and c) in Irish. And yes, keep in mind that my throat was still not in perfect shape. Above all else, the language was the biggest problem. Some of the lyrics of the solo included the following:

Ó’s óró mo bháidín
Ó’s óró mo churachín ó

Fira na farraige, fira na moina
Hin barra bin ó hin bó
Fira na talamha, fira na feirme
Hin barra bin ó hin bó

Crochfa mé seolta is gabhfa mé siar
Hin barra bin ó hin bó
‘S óró mo churachín ó
Hin barra bin ó hin bó ar í ó

Major kudos to those who can read that sans difficulty. Irish doesn’t sound a whole lot like it looks. Example: the word “siar” is pronounced, “sheer”. Learning this song is further complicated by the fact that it is sung as almost a quick patter.

My supervisor overheard my conversation and, when I got off the phone, she said, “You need to go home right now and start working on this!” I think this is one of the perks of working for a performing arts organization: they completely understand situations like this. So, I went home and just started working my ass off: learning notes, learning rhythms, and most importantly, learning the language.

About five hours later, I was singing the solo in front of an audience of about 500 people, and I somehow made it all work. I can’t say that it sounded as good as the tenor soloist I replaced, but it did not sound like I only worked on it for a few hours. Huzzah! The soloist was not feeling any better on the second night of the performance, so I performed it on the second night as well. I guess the only thing I had a problem with is that the director did not acknowledge that I was a replacement for the soloist listed in the program on either night of the performance. Perhaps it’s my ego, but I don’t quite understand why this piece of information wasn’t noted. Oh well, it’s done; I got my solo; and now I have (a little) more free time on my hands.

Green Lobster

Mood: Okay
Song: N/A
Units of Caffeine: 1

I’m beginning to realize how much it sucks to not have a credit or debit card or at least a few checks. Because of our little car break-in last Thursday, K and I had to close our bank accounts and open new ones. Right now, we’re in a 5 to 10-day period of time in which our finances are in limbo, and we don’t have any access to any of our cash. Thankfully, my brother and his partner have given us a bit of cash to help out during this period, but there are some things that we just can’t take care of with cash without being a HUGE pain in the ass. Bills are an issue – you can’t just stuff some cash in an envelope and send it on its way. (Well, you can, but there aren’t any guarantees that it will be applied to your account, if received at all.) Laundry is another issue – the washing and drying machines in our building work by way of a card that you can recharge. However, you need a credit/debit card in order to recharge it. No cash accepted. Yes, I could go to some laundry place, but I really don’t want to load up all of my laundry, and spend a few hours sitting around, waiting. I’d rather do that in my own apartment.

But, it’s only for a few days, and what better way to keep me from spending money, right? The good news is that we did get to do some special things for my 6-year anniversary with K, albeit with a story or two. (Since when has my life ever been boring?)

Last Friday night, K and I went to our favorite restaurant in Seattle, the Dahlia Lounge. It’s one of Tom Douglas’s restaurants and, although has a few other great restaurants in Seattle, we just can’t seem to get ourselves to venture outside of the Dahlia. (Note to anyone visiting Seattle – Tom Douglas is a bit of a local celebrity. If nothing else, make damn sure you go to one of his restaurants! You will be glad you did.) So, an evening at the Dahlia isn’t just “going out to dinner,” it’s an experience. It’s relaxing. It’s high-end. The waiters are attentive, but not over-bearing or pretentious. It’s just great! Every time we’ve been there, we’ve gone all out and just ordered things on the menu that we wouldn’t otherwise order – really obscure, adventurous dishes, and I have never been disappointed. But this time around, I ordered a rib-eye with braised kale and a sweet-potato dumpling. The kale and the dumpling were by far the best items on the plate, but the rib-eye was unimpressive: it was rather tough and had too much of a charred flavor to it. I only ate about half of it and politely indicated to the waitress that I wasn’t as impressed with it as other things that I have had in the past. She was extremely apologetic and even went so far as to remove the steak from our bill. (I really wasn’t expecting that, especially since it was the most expensive item on the menu.) But this wasn’t to say that we didn’t drop a lot of money at the Dahlia, and it isn’t to say that it is no longer our favorite spot in Seattle. In fact, this experience is just another reason why we love it so much.

The following night, October 13^th, was our actual anniversary, so I decided to make something special for dinner: stuffed lobster. I’ve made this dish many times in the past, and it’s a keeper! While K was at hear Saturday rehearsal fro Seussical, I went out grocery shopping with some cash borrowed from my brother and his partner. Everything looked great: fresh ingredients, and a couple of live, kicking lobsters! (They were certainly kicking when I put them into the steamer basket, that’s for damn sure!) So, you can imagine my surprise when I cut into one of them and found the meat to be a disturbing, sickly green color. Having made lobster several times, I know the reasons for using live critters: as soon as they die, their bodies immediately begin to decompose and spoil. Although, it’s not color that indicates spoilage, but rather the smell of ammonia. So, I was quite surprised when the offending lobster was NOT dead, nor did it smell of ammonia – but there was no way that I was going to serve this thing; there was definitely something wrong with it, so I threw it away. God, was I pissed. Not only did we now only have half a lobster each, but at $15 per pound, I basically threw away $30 with the 2 lb. lobster. GAH! As it turned out, I had plenty of food, (especially with some seared scallop chowder I bought from Pike Place Chowder and my home made chocolate mousse for dessert), but still – when I make very little money as a theatre artisan AND I have no access to cash due to some asshole who felt the need to take shit, I was (and am) really freaking pissed about the whole thing. Of course, I kept a smile on my face and my moth shut – nothing spoils a romantic, candle-lit anniversary dinner more than a husband yelling, “MOTHERFUCKER!”

Catching Up

Mood: Busy
Song: Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Units of Caffeine: 3

Okay, so I would like to try to write in this thing more than just a few times a year. I would like to say that I’ve been busy, but that excuse just doesn’t work for me. I mean, not too long ago, I was working a full-time job, taking graduate-level classes, working on my thesis, and stage managing a show – and I still found time to blog. Now, my job combines all of that into one convenient package and I work in a theatre. So, it would seem that I would have more time to write, right? Uh… not so much. I wish I could say what a typical week is like, but I don’t have a typical week – it really all depends on what is going on in the course of the week. But here is what last week was like:

Monday:
Got into work at 7:30. Because K had the day off, I left work at 12:30 to spend the afternoon with her.

Tuesday:
Got into work at 7:30. Left at 7:00 only to go to a rehearsal from 7 to 9:30.

Wednesday:
Got into work at 7:00. Had a late meeting that went until 7, after witch the artistic director of the theatre invited me to go to a tech rehearsal of the opera with him. I wasn’t about to say no. I got home around 10.

Thursday:
It was opening night. I got in a 7:30 and didn’t get home until about 2:30 in the morning.

Friday:
At 7:00 a.m., I wake up to K shouting at me – our car had been broken into the night before. With very little sleep and a hangover, this is how I started my Friday.

Yes, there are some special circumstances that took place this past week, but there are special circumstances EVERY week. And yes, I did take half a day off on Monday, but that isn’t normal, either. I guess the hardest thing from a schedule like this is finding time to do those things that just need to be done, like grocery shopping or laundry. K, of course, helps when she can, but she just got into a show that rehearses every evening except Fridays and Sundays. It’s because of this that I’ve been having a hard time with my in-laws.

They moved up here last Spring and are pretty much fully retired. But because they are retired, they have a lot more time on their hands. Time in which to bother their daughter and son in-law. I am very happy that they want to have an active role in our lives – and no, I’m not just saying this. My parents are the polar opposite of my in-laws: I haven’t seen my father in over a year, I haven’t seen my mother in over a year and a half, and I only talk to them on the phone a few times a year. Given these two extremes, I prefer my in-laws. I can’t tell you how many times my parents have hurt me with their ambivalence, and they don’t even care. Once my in-laws moved up here, we promptly went back to the weekly Sunday family dinner. I think this may be a traditional Italian thing. It’s nice and all, but takes a rather lengthy chunk of time out of the day. And, since they’ve retired, it’s easy for them to lose track of time. Whereas, if they were at my house for dinner and they were working, they would leave between 8 and 8:30. Now that they are retired, there has been one or two instances in which they left closer to 10:00. When this happens, all I can do is look at the clock and think about all the things that I need to do before I go to bed.

Thankfully, I think K & I have gotten them to agree to do the Sunday dinner thing every other week. (In my perfect little world, I would like to narrow it down to once a month, but what we have obtained is a small step toward a greater goal, so I am perfectly happy with it, for now.)

So, this past week has been hectic. (I feel that all of them are hectic, but since I haven’t blogged in a while, I have to begin somewhere.) I was caught off guard on Wednesday when the artistic director asked me to go to the opera with him. You see, although I work about ten feet from his office and see him every day, I had not yet gotten the chance to have a real conversation with him. It’s always been a quick “Hi” there and a “How are you doing?” there, but nothing more than skin deep. So, I thought he was joking a little. My supervisor quickly assessed the situation and whispered, “The a.d. just asked you to the opera, right?” (I nod my head in affirmation) “Do you have plans tonight?” (I shake my head “no”) “Then your answer is YES!”

So, that evening, we head off to the final rehearsal of this opera, which I find is being directed by one of the a.d.’s friends. This director regularly directs for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC and is an instructor at Juilliard. While driving to the opera house, the a.d. asks me the typical questions: what theatre have you done? Where did you meet your wife? Etc… I tell him about NY and TX and The Rocky Horror Show, and ask him the same questions. And, through this conversation I find out that he has worked with Tony Kushner, among others. Which brings me to one of the perks about this job - - I may not make a lot of money, but in the short period of time in which I have worked at this theatre, I have met some pretty well-known theatre folks. Every once in a while, I will be sitting in my office, doing my thing, and then someone like John Aylward will come in and ask me where the production manager is or something. Just a few weeks ago, I had a really nice conversation with Steven Dietz and his wife. Of course, when these moments happen, I feel like I regress back into high school, and feel like I’m the nerd who has somehow found my way to the “cool kids” table in the school cafeteria, and don’t know what to say. This is how I felt all night at the opera. I’m actually quite thankful it was an opera and not something like dinner, in which I would have to be “on” for conversation. This is something that I really need to work on! Anyone have an recommendations on how to become a little less introverted and a little more social???

Thursday night, my theatre opened the biggest show it had done in years. It was so big that it took over four years to complete. So, Thursday night was a HUGE deal. I helped with the pre-show reception and after-show cast party. I always like doing these things because, although it’s a lot of work and it goes really late into the night, it’s a lot of fun – (and the only part of any job I’ve had where you can let your hair down and have a few drinks.) The only thing that sucked was that the party went so late into the night that the bus route to my apartment stopped running and I had to take a cab – (WAY to freaking expensive!)

This brings me to Friday morning: with only a few hours of sleep and a nasty hangover, I had to deal with a crisis: my car had been broken into. Thankfully, there was no damage done to the car and it didn’t appear that anything was stolen. However, K and I realized that we had quite a bit of sensitive information in the car, (i.e. account numbers, social security numbers, etc.) So, we spent the entire morning on the phone with banks, credit bureaus, fraud protection agencies, etc. It was hell! And since I had done this just two years ago when our house was broken into, I knew the REAL pain in the ass to come out of this: We wouldn’t have any access to any of our money for 5 to 10 business days while our money is in limbo between accounts. I real bummer as this weekend is my 6-year anniversary with my wife. Thankfully, K and I found a few ways of getting our hands on some cash, so as not to affect our plans. But, quite a few of my bills are going to be late this month, as I have no access to on-line bill pay and no checks. And all this because some ass-hat decided to break into my car. Oh well, at least it wasn’t like the aforementioned situation in which our house was broken into – that REALLY sucked; we lost quite a bit in that robbery, and it cost us a lot of money. This is only really costing us time. But, like I said, time is something that I don’t have a lot of as of late.

Well, today is laundry day. (I haven’t done any since before I went to Boston early last month.) Gah!! So, with this blog, I again start a new day, in which to being writing more regularly.

Cheers!