It's been so frigging hot here in LA. Actually hit 110 yesterday. It's quite miserable in my little house during the day, and even doesn't cool down too much at night. I remember going to bed and then waking up hot....yikes.

Wasn't actually expecting to get paid fo H&G but ML surprised us with checks today. Needless to say, we were all very grateful. Wasn't a lot of money, but more than enough to cover our expenses with some to spare. Of course I'm quite excited by the fact that I'm getting paid to SING! Now I just have canyon house this weekend and Traviata next friday. After that I am looking forward to a break.

that bastard tivo has been rebooting itself rather often lately. I am most definitely not thrilled about it. Hopefully it's not a hard disk problem.

Drama at the opera

Pag was strangely undramatic, so I was a little surprised at how much drama has transpired so far during H&G. Apparently the producer told ML that the only reason she has such a great chorus is because all the kids are scared of her. Now I don't actually believe that the kids are afraid of her, perhaps a couple of them are and that's where this is coming from. And apparently someone told our conductor N that they couldn't understand why she couldn't get the orchestra and chorus to be together when R (our young MALE assistant conductor) could do it. Well, all I have to say in response to that is...it was our first day on the theatre stage, so give everyone a break, especially if you're not a musician yourself. Then we had a set problem that led to little Alexi falling down. Thankfully she wasn't hurt and was able to continue. And then during our dress rehearsal one of the violinists ran onto the stage with her instrument and cell phone and started babbling incoherently. The paremedics were called and she had to be taken to the hospital. Later I heard that she was mentally ill and had gone off her meds. On top of that, us adult ringers felt that we were treated like the bitches for the performance. Apart from babysitting the kids when we are not on stage (though that part we signed up for and were aware), we had to do a scene change in Act I, and then they wanted us to do all the call times. Lisa was firm and said we couldn't do any of jobs, which pissed off the stage manager I think, but none of us gave a crap. We just felt taken advantage during this production to do all the jobs that no one else wanted to do. They should have hired someone to do the calls and the scene changes and not ask all the performers to do that. For a while the costumer even wanted us to make the costumes! What kind of crack is she smoking!!!!!!

I sang a solid high F today......yeah!!!!!!!!!!! Me not knowing what notes I'm singing definitely makes it easier. But I'm still working on accessing the flageolet register, it's a little tricky, but Kathleen is helping me along. I'm just thinking of all the fabulous coloratura arias that I might be able to tackle. whoopee!

Next week I'm going to interview at Oxy for a possible teaching position. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Fleas are gone from the cats. Phew. That was gross for a while.

The advantage arrived yesterday. Thank goodness! It seems to be working so far. Atticus is scratching himself less and I didn't find any fleas after combing them today.

The hat box trio is finally coming along I think. Will get to put it together with Virginia on saturday, and the duet with Jahna before running off to H&G staging and run thru. And then I go to Corona Del Mar for Veronica's farewell party. Whew! Beth's aria is good, and we got the music for the finale from Candide today. Not too hard, I'll just have to plonk out the notes on the piano (don't read well enough).

My box from Knitpicks also arrived. I got 6 balls of yarn and a set of dpn needles all for under $20! Definitely a great value! Of course given my current state of finances I really shouldn't be spending any money other than rent, utilities, food, gas and voice lessons. Tsk tsk tsk. Better find a job soon.

H&G and fleas

We had our first Hansel and Gretel staging rehearsal on saturday. During these things I am always reminded of how challenging it is to have to remember to move and sing beautifully at the same time. Often I would forget to sing, or forget to move. After a few tries I feel that I have finally gotten the hang of it, but it is definitely tough. On top of that we have to sing with emotion and relate to the audience. The kids are doing pretty well, I certainly didn't have the attention span they have when I was that age. Elan's mom approached me about how ML told her he might not be able to sing. Of course I already knew about that, and I felt really bad for his mom, but little Elan just wasn't getting the music. I emailed her copies of the text and the music, and told her that he would need to do some work with someone who reads music (his dad does) if he wants to sing. Today he sounded like he was doing better, so we'll see. I think it sucks to have to tell a parent that their kid isn't good enough to perform, I certainly don't envy ML's job. Tomorrow--another H&G music rehearsal and Traviata.

Had my first lesson with Kathleen since her return. She said I sounded a little breathy, which was odd, since she never noticed that before. I was definitely oh so out of practice. And I need to have the hat box trio memorized by next saturday. Yikes! That is a lot of very difficult music, and since I can't seem to find a recording it's going to be a little hairy. Jahna also wants to meet up to go over Beth and Jo's duet. Things are really moving quickly now.

Le toad has left for NYC. Rather odd, having the place to myself. I figured after I do some seriously cleaning I will rearrange some stuff, move my laptop and printer, keyboard, bookcase into his room. And then I might once again have a dining table. I have way too much crap. Right now I have three computers...am thinking of converting that old G3 powerbook into a web server. Might pose some interesting challenges. We'll see. Qiang thinks it is possible.

Had dinner with Lizzy after my H&G music rehearsal today (yeah operas are extremely demanding). We made wontons and had a great time. I'm really lame about catching up and getting together with other people. She's on outpatient at the moment so she has plenty of free time. Once she goes back to wards she will have to go back to 30hr shifts again. We agreed that the next time we'll go to Korean or Brazilian BBQ....hee hee

Nasty discovery today....Atticus and Momo have fleas! I had noticed him scratching quite a bit more than usual lately and my suspicions were confirmed. Eew!!! I ordered some advantage, which will probably arrive sometime in the next week, and today I went and got myself a flea comb. Removed quite a few fleas from Atticus, and some, thankfully less, from Momo. As my babies are indoor cats I wonder how they get fleas. But wawa goes out all the time, and I do have my windows open a lot, and apparently fleas can easily hitch a ride on my shoes. Gross, I hate insects.

Replacement nano on the way!

After many many frustrating conversations with apple, they are finally going to send me a replacement nano for the one that got lost on its way via fedex. Apparently those bastards are fedex were insisting that the item was delivered, and saying since there was a signature dispute it was going to take longer to resolve the whole thing. So I had to go to Mike at the mail room where he kindly provided me with a copy of his shipping manifest for the day that the item was supposedly delivered. Then I faxed it to apple and a couple of days later they agreed to ship me a new one. What a pain the the ass I tell you! Apparently the way to deal with people who like to avoid taking the responsibility is to hound them constantly. They just hope that you would simply give up and then they win. No such pleasure from me. Hah!

RSS

I just discovered the whole RSS thing this last week thanks to Qiang. Yes I am a little behind in the technology department. So now I can get updates of my friends' blogs without having to visit the individual sites all the time. Way cool!

Had dinner with Roger, Ferran, Carla and Macarena tonight. I was pleasantly surprised to see Maca. I don't think I have seen her since Mariu's farewell party. She has graduated from the Art Center and showed me some of her portfolio. She's done some really neat stuff, a lot of which she used photoshop. Whoa, I can barely do basic stuff like rotate and scale, let alone painting. I have never met Carla before and she was very nice, I was just glad to be able to catch her before she and Ferran return to England tomorrow.

My plan for July 4th?
Getting my life in order in the morning, and go to a BBQ at Eric's house in the afternoon. It's been blistering hot here so I'll probably bring my swimsuit and maybe cool off in the pool.

In the meantime I am stll trying to sort out the whole thing with the lost ipod nano. Those bastards at Fedex are now saying that there's a signature dispute. Which part of you lost my package did they not understand? I faxed a copy of the shipping manifest to Apple friday so hopefully they will sort all this crap out soon. In the meantime I just make myself a pain in the ass and call them constantly. Fucking idiots.

Photos

It's a small world... 

Eric on California Screaming. I don't go on roller coasters so I take photos instead. 

At California Adventure 

Opera gala 6/06 Royce Hall