Whatchya Been Do-win? 35

Let’s see, aside from curing incurable diseases and fighting world hunger one meal at a time, which I like to do in my spare time, I’ve been working, recording, attending parties and other very important schtuff.

I can see the ~~handwriting on the wall~~ – er, typing on the screen, this is going to be a Ketchup Blog. Yep, ladies and gents, here we go…

When last we met our heroine (that’s me, btw, not the drug) she was engaged in yet another bout of Human Tetris. For any of you uninitiated out there, that means I was doing the ticketing for 2 concerts. 1 venue, 2 days, 1440 eager parents to seat. That’s Human Tetris. I’m happy to report that we only had one singer topple over during the first performance of 4, but she was ok. Let this be a lesson to anyone that has to sing an 8 minute song under hot lights. You must eat more than a glazed doughnut before going on stage. I carry magic apple juice for a sugar boost for just this reason, but you are only rewarded with the juice if you have either fallen or you sat down in the middle of a song. Either way, I don’t think the juice makes up for the wooziness and embarrassment of going THUD in the middle of rapturous music.

Luckily, we made it through the rest of the performances without any event other than leaving thousands of flower petals in our wake when the smallest members of our chorus delivered blooms to audience members during ” May Day Carol”.

Our middle group took a trip into DC, a place we don’t perform very often, and worked with a group called WomenSing from the San Francisco Bay Area. It was really nice to have an event for this group and they all did very well. We sang a piece called “Wit and Fright”, a poem written by a 10 year old that was later adapted into song.

After two more performances and no more singers dropping, we had a small break before a group of our oldest singers recorded a piece with Peabody Wind Ensemble called, Symphony # 3, “Planet Earth”, by Johan de Meij. The chorus doesn’t start singing until 6:30 or so, and our group had a different sound, since it came from children, but they did a fantastic job. Can’t wait to get a copy of that CD.

And now that we’ve finished THAT, it’s time for progress reports and vocal checks and… what am I forgetting… oh yeah, ITALY in 35 days.

That is a huge YIKES right there! I have over 800 T-shirts to sort this weekend and deliver next week at our first rehearsal. If I could just get a good technical itinerary, I’d be a happy camper. Then I could dissect it and give the stuff the chaperons need to them and let the others who are “shadowing” our tour know a bit more of when they’ll be seeing what!

In the middle of all of this, and certainly not to diminish it in any way, my daughter (#4) graduated from COLLEGE!! Cum Laude, btw.

I know, I know, you aren’t the only way thinking that you remember the blogs I had written when she went away and started working at the beach that first year, and if not, explain to me why you haven’t read back through the archives and gotten to that yet. I’ll be here waiting for you when you finish… lol Hubby and I are so proud of her. She’s worked hard and deserves all the kudos she’s gotten.

And how do you celebrate college graduation? You go to a place called Dead Freddies and have lunch and follow that up with a rousing game of mini golf and then go get some ice cream.

And all of that you follow up with a cook out so that all your friends can help celebrate how proud you are of her.

So, now that you’ve been relatively caught up on what’s been going on, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Two of my grandchildren will be coming next week! Yep! W and H are back with me for their yearly visit. I’m excited to see them. I’ll bet they’ve grown so much. I should start wrapping my head around what we can go do this year.