Weekend in Review

A gooder, I think, all in all...

Helped WH with recording a student recital (nice to hear a genuINE alto, for once) at MHU on Friday night. And by help, I mean arrived after he had set everything up, sat with him in the booth during the recital, put away three things after the recital, and then put my coat on in a meaningful manner... USEFUL! Popped over to the home of some dear friends afterwards to have a glass of wine and get caught up. Much amused by their little boy, who has discovered the little suction cup toys that you press down and then wait to see them shoot up into the air when the suction cup releases. No matter how many times he played, he took great joy in the whole process every time, right up to the peals of giggling at the end. Great joy.

Saturday, we had a very productive Chamber Choir retreat in preparation for a very large project being done in partnership with another chamber choir in the province. We have officially turned the corner with the music, so that feels great! Then back over to the home of the same dear friends to present the little boy with his birthday present. (He's FOUR! Already! Hard to believe I held him when he was only 12 hours old.) Then WH off to record another student recital and me off to grocery shop.

The Sunday morning service at MHU was one of those services where eight things go wrong but in the end, you go home satisfied anyway. There was reading confusion, and psalm confusion, and confusion in the mind of the intercessor about where last weeks' mining accident had occurred (West Virginia... Kentucky... whatev). But we got a smoker of a sermon from our Hon. Ass't that felt pointedly directed at ME (because it's all about ME), so there was much to reflect on that made the rest of the morning's oopsies seem irrelevant.

And then last night, another student recital, one that I'll list among the very best of the (many) that I've heard. Tough repertoire, maturely delivered, demonstrating the most incredible ability to be both restrained and LOOKATMYBIGVOICE that you could possibly imagine.

So a good weekend leading into another long week.

How are you?

Augenblick Update

Surgery went well and recovery is proceeding apace.

I'm a little bit ... bored, I guess, but the fact that the surgically repaired eye is not yet working together with the good eye means that I can't read, I can't really spend any more than 15 minutes on the internet at one time, I can't play any of the games that usually occupy my free time... I can watch TV, however, so that's what I've been doing. And napping.

Tomorrow, I hope to get out for a walk with WH to get some fresh air. Maybe if I'm feeling really ambitious, I'll do laundry!

Speaking of WH, he's been entirely lovely in the TLC department, fetching things to and fro and keeping me laughing and cheerful at every turn. He has also been totally non-judgmental when, to the question of what I want to eat, I have responded with, "Chips. And spring rolls. And tater tots."

Well, my 15 minutes is up...

Augenblick

Some of you may recall this post about about my cataract problem from last April.

Well, tomorrow the cataract is coming out! I have some anxieties about the surgery itself, but nothing serious, and I'm looking forward to having the week that follows off to rest. And I'm very much looking forward to the results, which I understand from others to be pretty much instantaneous. In the meantime, I'm figuring out the pre and post-operative eye drop schedule, which a person almost needs an excel spreadsheet to track. Is there an app for that??

Wish me luck!

Our cat.

Definitely, OUR cat.

Submission to the Parish Newsletter

It’s a very difficult thing to try and communicate a relationship with music in only a few words. But I’ll try.

When my mother was appointed rector at Most Holy and Undivided, I didn’t immediately make the transition to the new parish. Rather, I professed a desire to stay at Little Cottage Church. I believe that my intention to stay at LCC came largely from a desire to define a relationship with the church that wasn’t simply that of PK.

That said, and despite my declarations of loyalty to LCC, I stopped attending services there. I didn’t attend LCC; I didn’t attend MHU. My push for an independent attachment to the church had resulted in no attachment at all. I was, in effect, without church.

I happened to be at MHU for a Sunday morning service in December 2003 and through a variety of circumstances, found myself the subject of choral hounding at coffee hour by then-Music Director KW.

So I joined the choir.

And by the grace of God, and thanks to William Byrd and Anglican chant, my rupture from the church began to heal. And the more I sang, the more I understood that the relationship with the church and with God that I had abandoned was a relationship communicated through music. Music, to me, was prayer.

It was helpful, of course, that I thought the choir’s conductor was a handsome and nifty fellow. In my case, not only did the choir’s music prove to be a healing force, so too did the musician.

So here I am again, ten years later, at another crossroads in complicated relationship between me and church. My mother’s retirement, while a joyful event that she has very much earned, has incited in me moments of panic as I try to imagine what it means to be a parishioner at a church not led by her. I know that this feeling, too, shall pass.

Because I’ll just keep singing.

Friday Five: Winter Olympic Edition

We loves the Winter Olympics, yes we do. To the Friday Five, then!

1) Which of the Winter Olympic sports is your favorite to watch?

Oh, I like watching them all, but I do get very nervous watching any of the sports where a Canadian is vying for a win. The women's bobsled the other night almost killed me. I've been known to leave the room when it gets really exciting and WH always says, "You have to watch!" And I always say, "You can't make me!"

2)Some of the uniforms have attracted attention this year, such as the US Snowboarders' pseudo-flannel shirts and the Norwegian Curling team's -- ahem -- pants. Who do you think had the best-looking uniforms?

I'll take anything in red and white! With a maple leaf on it, that is. The Swiss red and white is all wrong.

3)And Curling. Really? What's up with that?

What is up with curling is that it is awesome. And, truthfully, one of the best televised sports in the world. The cameras can get very close, you can see every shot, and the competitors talk strategy so you know what's going on all the time! Seriously, check it out!

4) Define Nordic Combined. Don't look it up. Take a guess if you must.

Oh pooh... I think that cross-country skiing is involved, but I can never remember what it's combined with. I know that it's not shooting because that's biathlon. (Sidebar... can you imagine participating in a sport in which your competitors all had loaded weapons? That's motivation, for ya.)

Ok, confession time. I looked it up. And CR was right! It is ski jumping!

5) If you could be a Winter Olympics Champion just by wishing for it, which sport would you choose for winning your Gold Medal?

In this country, it would have to be hockey. Or curling. Hmmmm... if it was curling, I'd get to do more shouting, so let's go with that!

More cookery...

Yesterday was a smashing success. Our little freezer is packed full of delicious food (we had some taste tests) and more even that, the three of us had a wonderful time together, laughing and teasing and enjoying each other's company.

Tonight I'm making myself a cornish game hen. If I like this recipe, I'll make it again after WH gets back. I did make hens once before with mixed success so I thought it was time to try again. I've stuff the cavity with orange and rosemary and will make a sauce out of white wine, garlic and chicken stock. Here's the recipe, by the way.

The theme in the kitchen for 2010 is based on three principles: adventure, good planning and making use out of what we have. So we have been working on a project to develop a series of week-long meal plans that balance new recipes with old favourites, that allow us to cook new things about once a week and that involve a weekly survey of the food that is in our fridge, freezer and pantry and how we can incorporate those. Almost two months in, things are working out really well!

Except that the power just went out. If electricity ruins my game hen... I'm gonna be ticked.

Update - long power outage, but the food survived!