Oops! Thursday

Thought of another Oops! while listening to Michael Crawford sing "Memory" from Cats on Pandora.

Back in my Loudoun County, Mormon days, I played for a musical revue at our church. One of my friends, who was a dancer in a former life, was going to perform a modern dance to one of the pieces from Cats, and the person arranging the show wanted me to play "Memory" as a lead-in to my friend's dance.

The agreement was that I would play my arrangement of "Memory" and the dancer would enter the stage at a certain point in my performance. I was not to stop until she was on the stage. We estimated I would play three verses of the song, with her entering on the third iteration of the chorus.

So I started, playing beautifully, and got to the end of the third time through. No dancer. Modulate and play it again. Still no dancer. Modulate again. By now, about five minutes have passed; I'm bored and I'm sure the audience is bored! Finally she enters, takes her position, and I find a stopping point.

After the show was over, I asked her what happened—where was she and why didn't she come in? She replied, "I was waiting for you to stop."

Oops!

Moral of the story: Follow your instinct. Dead air is preferable to boredom!

Ideal Listens

I'm going to run down to the mountains of Western North Carolina tomorrow afternoon, and return on Saturday afternoon. Yes, that means I'll be there about 36 hours. But my older brother is hospitalized again and cannot join Mother and my other brother and sister-in-law for the 4th in the mountains, so I need to fill in the gap. I need to help take Mother's mind off Jerry's heart problems.

In preparation for that trip, I'm trying to find audio books to take my mind off the drive. That exercise got me thinking about the perfect read/listen for a long drive.

For my daily drive, the best book is something that doesn't require a ton of concentration. Chick Lit, romance novels, humor (David Sedaris rules!); these are all good choices. A 20-hour book is fine for one-hour chunks.

But for two 10-hour drives, like I'll be doing tomorrow and Saturday, I want something that's self-contained within that drive time. I want to reach the end of the book before I reach my destination. My other criterion for choosing books for this trip was cost: I've used up all my credits for the year, and have to spend actual money for books until August, when my Audible.com membership renews.

For this trip, I have chosen Robert Harris's "The Ghost" (member price $19.58) and Mary McGarry Morris's "The Lost Mother" (member price $14.68), which was on the Oprah Book List. When I went back onto Audible to grab the links for this post, a window popped up offering a for-that-visit-only $4.95 special, so I added Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" to my library.

I'll let you know what I think when I return. And, by the way, I don't expect to have Internet access while in NC except on the iPhone, so don't be surprised if there are no blog posts for a few days.

What are you reading over the 4th of July?

Reluctant Memories

I cannot let today pass without paying tribute to John Russell Ross, who died eleven years ago today. The Blossom Festival Chorus rehearsals for the July 5 concert are especially precious to me for two reasons:

1. We're performing Aaron Copland's "Simple Gifts", which JoEllen Dutton sang at our wedding on March 16, 2006, and at J.R.'s memorial service.


2. We're performing Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess". J.R. and I sang this with The Washington Chorus long before we started dating, and I sang "Lawd, I'm On My Way" to him in the ambulance on our way to hospice, just moments before his death.

I was most fortunate to share a life of music and love with him. He is a part of my thoughts and memories with each day that passes.

I didn't have time this morning to scan in a photo to post here. I went to the Washington Chorus website to grab the photo they have had posted there for eleven years, promoting donations to his memorial fund. Alas, they have removed all references to the memorial fund, along with the photo. Time marches on.

Living His Dream

One of my dearest friends from elementary and high school has just begun employment as a forest ranger in Yosemite National Park. You can imagine what the competition is for a position in that location. Dave is thrilled to have won the position and will be keeping a blog. I thought you'd enjoy reading his blog and seeing his fabulous photography.

Lightning Strikes

Okay, I couldn't resist. When I learned some of Gov. Sanford's e-mails to his mistress had been published, I had to find and read a bit. He's obviously smart, well-written, and a romantic. Or knows how to say/write what a girl wants to hear.

I've written many times about "lightning striking the table" when I met Mr. Match. I've moaned since the death of that relationship about the desire for and inability to find lightning strikes.

Gov. Sanford wrote "How in the world this lightening (sic) strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure."

Wouldn't I love to find a[n unmarried] man to have those feelings with, to say those lovely words to me.

Many have written that we as Americans spend too much time obsessing about monogamy. Many were appalled at the firestorm of words and threats that the Monica-gate affair invoked. Many have said that, basically, what goes on behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors.

And yet, what has become of personal integrity? When someone has the discipline to run and endure a political campaign, he or she should have the personal integrity to honor commitments made or vows repeated. With Gov. Sanford, there's not only the issue that he lied to, misled, or duped his wife (so we are led to believe). There's the bigger issue that he had a legal obligation to hand over the leadership of the state anytime he left the country. And he did not do so.

He misbehaved in, basically, every area of his life. It is right and good that he has resigned from the leadership of the Republican Governors Association. If I were a voter in the state of South Carolina, I would insist that he resign from the governorship. I feel for his wife and, especially, for his four young sons.

Men: Have integrity! Be a role model! Stop thinking with your appendages!!

Is It Thursday Already?

I'm in the middle of a very busy three-week period where—three days each week—I have my normal morning 60-mile drive (just over an hour) from Youngstown to Akron, followed after work by a 30-mile drive (usually about 45 minutes) to the east side of Cleveland for Blossom Festival Chorus rehearsal. Then at 10:00 p.m. I drive 65 miles (about an hour-and-fifteen minutes) back to Youngstown. This morning I left the house at 6:30 to be at the office around 7:30 so I could leave at 4:30 to make a 5:30 neighborhood meeting in Youngstown. All this adds up to three weeks where I'm sleep-deprived and constantly pushing myself to keep going.

And yet, when I get to rehearsal, I love every single minute of the time. The voices around me are all excellent. There are rarely missed notes or ignored rests. People listen to the director; people cut off when they're supposed to cut off; people pay attention. People care about the music. They're not just there because it's their regular social evening. It's first and foremost about the music. And I love that. It fits me perfectly.

But all that said, during these mini-hell-weeks, I don't feel much inspiration about this blog. On Thursdays—"Oops! Thursday"—I normally write about something I've done that I wish I hadn't done and share the lesson I learned. I think the past six weeks or so of Thursday revelations has pretty much depleted my reservoir of oopsy stories.

This blog began three years ago on July 5th, and I have written 1,235 posts. I can't even imagine what the corresponding word count would be. What I do know is that the blog has been invaluable in my life. It has been a regular and methodical writing exercise, that has pushed me to consider words and phrases and grammar, that has turned me—in my opinion—into a far better and more disciplined writer than I was three years ago. It also has served as therapy-without-the-therapist. I've dug into myself, pulled out issues and feelings, and turned them over and around, examining them from many perspectives. I've learned more about myself; I've grown up some more; I've learned—I hope—to take myself less seriously.

Even the Oops! Thursday exercises have taught me a life lesson: stop holding onto things for so long. Look at them and let them go.

So I think the series of Oops! Thursdays has pretty much concluded. And once all these BFC rehearsals and performances are done, I'll get back to more regularly posting.

Oh, if you're in the Cuyahoga Valley area on July 5 or July 12, I'm going to be performing in some pretty fabulous concerts at Blossom Music Festival. On the 12th, it's Copland, Gershwin (Porgy & Bess), and the Dragon arrangement of America the Beautiful. Yum! On the 12th, the Bravo Broadway concert will be lots of Rodgers and Hammerstein, sung in lush arrangements while standing behind the "Best Band in the Land", the Cleveland Orchestra. A beautiful outdoor venue with beautiful music! You can get tickets at ClevelandOrchestra.com.

The Last Music

I have subscribed to NPR's Song of the Day daily e-mail. Today's featured song is "The '59 Sound", from the group The Gaslight Anthem. I haven't figured out how to listen to the song on my iPhone yet, and all NPR sites are blocked at my office, so I have to content myself with the description:

[I]t's really a song about the last music each of us gets to hear in our lives.

That, of course, sent my mind whirling on a high-speed merry-go-round.

In the Blossom Festival Chorus rehearsals this week and next, we're preparing Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" for a July 5 performance. The closing song in that work is "Oh Lawd, I'm on my way". That was the last song John heard in his life. We had performed the work together a couple of years earlier while singing with the Oratorio Society of Washington. As we rode in the ambulance to Hospice of Washington, ten minutes before his death, I was singing it to him, trying to get his mind off the incredible, horrific pain he was experiencing. In retrospect, eleven years later, I can only hope it helped somewhat.

What would I like to hear as the last piece of music in my life? There's so much to choose from! Maybe the Russian Easter movement of the Rachmaninoff piano duet that PianoLady and I played together 40 years ago. Maybe the final movement of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony. The Bach Double Violin Concert in D minor. Or the jazz transcription of Ravel's Aprés Un Rêve that Regina Carter performs on her Paganini: After a Dream album. It's a difficult choice, and probably something over which I will have no control. But the question makes you stop and think, doesn't it?

What would you like to be the last music you hear?

Favorite Memories

This photo sits, in a unique handcrafted frame, on my dresser. Every morning I glance at it and smile.

The picture was taken twelve years ago today. Our dear Oratorio Society of Washington friend, Bill Elcome, had offered to take us on a Chesapeake Bay cruise for our birthdays. J.R.'s birthday was June 20th, and mine is June 22nd. We always celebrated on the 21st and reveled in the synchronicity.

I've blogged about Bill Elcome before. He was such a sensitive, compassionate friend to both John and me during John's battle with prostate cancer. And this two-day trip on his sloop was a real treat.

This is a particularly hard time of year for me. John turned 60 on the 20th, and then died on the 30th. I relive each day of that period every year. I was so lucky, so honored, to share ten years of my life with him, and 21 months of that time as his wife. I often say that I had two-and-a-half years of happiness, and many people don't even get that much.

Back to the picture: taken in a little cove near Annapolis where we anchored for the night with Bill and his then-lady, Patti. It was an incredibly hot, humid night, but the morning dawned with beautiful weather. Bill had brought a little grill on board, and cooked an excellent breakfast for us.

It was truly a trip with memories to last a lifetime.