I really should clean the fishtank.
"There's a dark, thin, winding stairway without any banister that we'll throw him down and feed him on cockroaches served in a canister..." -an excellent example of the values the Westerly Chorus will help program into our community's children. That line is from a song in "Oliver", by the way. Just so y'all know. Yup, had rehearsal tonight, just got back about 20 minutes ago. For the song "Ol Man River", we have this soloist who'll be singing for us. Or at least, what I believe is singing. Something was coming out of his mouth but singing may not quite be the right word. See, he seems to suffer from an unfortunate case of what I call OAVS...OverActive Vibrato Syndrome. It's when a singer's vibrato is so heavy it's impossible to determine what note he/she is singing. It's especially difficult when there is more than one note in a measure, which is very common in music. I've found it to be quite common amongst soloists and elderly chorus members who try to be soloists. So he had that going against him. He also suffered from another ailment I call SSIS...Soloist Self Inflating Syndrome. This is when soloists are overly self-confident to the point where they believe that they have no need for good diction or vowels, nor do they need to stick to what's written on the page, resulting in a thoroughly confused chorus. Because he had both of these fictional syndromes, I'm not sure if he was actually singing or merely burping in rhythm. God, I HATE soloists! (No offense, Jeff.) I'm having t-shirt issues too. But that's irrelevant. Yesterday was the Summer Solstice and Kidz 'n the Kitchen had a booth downtown selling strawberry angel-cake parfaits. The day before me, Sarah and Teresa prepped the strawberries. I believe in my away message I said we would be doing 6 pounds. Sorry, my bad. I meant 17. Yeah, and those were only the fresh ones we had to slice, we also had 4 buckets of frozen strawberries in syrup. If I see one more damn strawberry I'm gonna puke. But we had fun doing the booth. I saw a guy I hadn't seen in years! His name is Marshall, I used to be in the bagpipe band with him!! GOD, he's hott...I don't think he actually remembered me, though. Oh, well. Didn't really have time to talk to him, I was to busy scooping strawberries. (Gag me.) He was with the community police. Now that the Westerly Police Reserves are practically extinct, I'm hoping he'll be patrolling the Summer Pops too, so I can have a little more time to catch up, you know? Plus, the Mystic Highland Band always plays in the preshow, so if he's not policing, hopefully he'll be bagpiping. Already sounds like he's got an interesting life. Took Leo to the beach today, he made lots of friends as usual, lots of peeing as usual, lots of pooing as usual. Looks like the horseshoe crabs are starting to disappate and the hermit crabs are making their appearance. Leo actually was brave enough to get his precious little paws wet and waded in the water with me for a bit. He was playing too, so things are looking good for getting him to swim eventually. He's such a baby, though. OMG, we had this huge thunderstorm the other night...lightening struck wicked close to the house, we saw this bright blue flash right outside the window and heard this deafening "pop" that scared the living hell out of me. Woke poor Jen up from a sound sleep. She had an exam the next morning, too. And Leo, poor Leo. It was his first major thunderstorm and he was shaking in his furry boots. He was so scared, he kept trying to crawl under me, which didn't really work. I don't blame him, though, especially after that lightning strike, I was terrified. I usually love thunderstorms but this one was just crazy. I looked outside and there were lightning bolts streaking across the sky every few seconds. And the thunder shook the house. It was insane. I like thunderstorms when they're exhilarating, not terrifying. My dad and I were watching the Last Comic Standing right before that lightning struck, and I TOLD him, "Dad, maybe we should turn off the TV" because you know how if lightning strikes it can come out of a TV or computer or something...I don't know exactly how it works or what happens, I just know it's not good. I TOLD him. Hmph. Well, sorry for the novel, it's just been crazy. Tty'all lata, miss u sjc peoples!!