Home stretch
I'm pleased to report that my back felt much better by the end of the day yesterday, and last night's sleep made it no worse. There's still a ghost of a knot there that I may ask Mr. 42 to apply thumbs to later this evening, but it's nice to be able to breathe deeply without it hitching and me whining pathetically.
Yesterday was bonkers at work, but I left almost on time, grabbed a chicken quesadilla with guacamole from the cafeteria on my way out, which I know is not in the spirit of Ash Wednesday, but manual laborers are exempt from fasting, and organs have manuals, right? Really, I needed energy and all my wits about me to sing polyphony after a crazy Wednesday. And we sang beautifully! RV has decided to start calling the section leaders, choral scholars, and selected volunteers who sing special services like Ash Wednesday "the Schola." So that means I'm now part of two Scholas (home church, cathedral), which makes me feel twice as cool. Or twice as nerdy, since I am nearing mastery of BOTH plainsong and Anglican chant. :D
We gathered in the choir room in the evening dews and damps to work on the anthems a bit, and RV posited that Byrd's Miserere > Allegri's Miserere. ("C'mon, the Allegri is just a verse anthem with chant verses! Fight me!"). "Why do people even _like_ the Allegri?" someone asked. "Because there are high notes," I said. There was sort of a collective, ohhh yeah. In truth, there is also a really great story about the Allegri, which helps (The Vatican jealously guarded the music, but young Mozart heard it performed there, copied it out, and brought it Prometheus-like to the wide world.) So in addition to the most excellent Byrd, we also did Ferrant's Call to Remembrance, which is rapidly becoming a fave of mine. It has a great hook and the text is awesome, and luckily, we'll be doing it with the full choir later in Lent. Yay Lent!
Also, AM works at a Catholic school, so she came to call with ashes already on her forehead, and Fr. J ribbed her about being an overachiever. *giggles*
When I got home from the service, our home-stay singer M was making mac and cheese and chatting with Mr. 42, and I fixed myself a Manhattan while we chatted about all manner of nice thing until we all started getting sleepy at once. M had to go work on memorizing her music for this weekend, and Mr. 42 and I retired upstairs with our respective books (he's enjoying Naomi Novik's "Uprooted," and I'm reading a new book of my Facebook friend TS's lyric poetry (he's written lyrics for some pretty awesome composers, including Dan Forrest, Erik Esenwalds, Ola Gjeilo, and Eric Whitacre). So that was nice, and we managed to get the dogs out for a walk when it wasn't raining, though their bellies were pretty wet by the time we got home.
I actually started drafting my first Christmas carol on the bus today. KM is apprently up for a children's hymn that posits that angels must look like sheep. But thanks to graycardinal, I have a way to develop into something slightly less silly, if not downright nice. So yes. Rhyming sheep with sleep and the like. And I'm using the phrase "awesome dread" because all children should know at least two meanings of "awesome!" And I know that it'll make at least one smart alec kid start singing "Everything is Awesome" whilst rehearsing it, and I am 100% for that. Also, it is really nice to be writing something (ANYTHING) again! Here's hoping this will be the first of many subsequent productive days.
I am so relieved to be in the home stretch for this crazy week. Endowed lecture is tomorrow and I think everything is in place, save one thing which I will be buying from the student center today (and drop off my Amazon returns at the same time! EFFICIENCY!). I need to wrangle a schedule, forward some emails, make room reservations, and process a bunch of reimbursements, but between the tastiest latte I've had in quite some time (also my first of this week) and my ToastyToes heated footrest, I feel like I could accomplish a goodly amount of things.
Tonight it's cloudy with a chance of Howells and Palestrina at Heavenly Choir. I am glad this will be my last 10+ hour day (of three) this week.*flops* Looking forward to seeing my dogs after work and also eventually my spouse after rehearsal. Yay!
Smooches to All!
Mun42