It's not about making sense

So, selecting music for the beginning of the choir season-- much in need of pieces that will work for a reduced group as end of summer vacations happen.

Find a delightful little piece in my slush pile-- perfect!

Discover that we don't own it; it's a sample copy.

Search the internet and find one place that still has it for sale; order my dozen copies.

Get an apologetic note back that in fact it's out of stock and out of print.

Post on a Facebook group looking for copies that someone might be willing to sell.

Get a message from the composer(!)-- he has reached out to the publisher, persuaded them to make it print on demand, and will personally expedite my order next week!

One of my eight year old students figured out the concept of a key signature by herself.

Elsewhere on social media I responded to a post by a church musician, asking for a clean copy of a hymn he posted. He responded promptly, and commented that based on my profile we're pretty much local. One more exchange, and he asked what church I'm serving. After I answered, his next email says "NO KIDDING! Where Kyle is the Pastor? I went to seminary with his dad! "

Small world!

In the past week....

our microwave has twice quit, and then revived after poking and cussing
ordered a replacement microwave, which proved to be wired incorrectly
two GFI outlets in the kitchen (different circuit) tripped, and couldn't be reset, until 2 hours later when they could
Instant Pot overflowed the little drip cup and slopped broth all over the counter
I've spilled a 22 oz drink on carpet
I've spilled a small cup of sangria-- into my crochet bag
I broke a dulcimer string
my choir folder went walkabout, 24 hours before conducting a very complicated choir anthem (it's still missing)
Also I've got a Situation with a choir member.
Finally (I hope!) today it turned out that a fairly simple car repair will take two days, causing lots of complications because we're currently 3 people with 2 cars.

All this shortly before Christmas (and I have a wedding the Saturday after Christmas, and probably a funeral the next week)... I'm pretty much out of cope. But I picked hubby up from the car dealership, then took myself out for a comfort food lunch, and spent 4 hours at church catching up on things. Kid and I cooked a lovely dinner together (despite the unfortunate sangria), and now we're watching the new Benoit Blanc movie.

Thursday night at choir I was trying to fix a spot where the choir's tone was harsh. Sopranos and altos were in unison, quite low (dipping below middle C). I repeatedly asked the sopranos to take it easy and let the altos carry it, but one kept booming out... and I repeated myself, making clear I meant her. I absolutely shouldn't have (actually I should have just asked the sopranos not to sing that line), and apologized within minutes, and again by email.

The singer wrote back that she accepted my apology, but there were some other things she'd like to discuss, maybe next week. This was all so much like the beginning of my hellish last year at my previous job that I was exploding with PTSD. I emailed my pastor to tell him what had happened, and was at least sure that if things got ugly he wouldn't be as spineless as my previous pastor.

As it turns out, the singer came to church early on Sunday to make peace-- a considerable effort, as she's my chronically late person. The other thing she brought up was easily resolved. What a relief!

Unfortunately, she also asked to sing a solo next week, a song I would much rather bury forever, but I can't really say no just now. I did tell her I'd consult pastor, and have tossed it to him, but I suspect I'll have to hold my nose and do it.

Started the day with Morning Prayer, more ethereal music. Plenary address from the person I shared Italian ice with last night :D

A workshop with music for which "ethereal" doesn't say enough. At one point the leader taught us a melody, said "now make up parts," and we sang for nearly 10 minutes while circulating around the room, creating little groups of two or three and then moving on.

Lunch and then my presentation. There are so many sectional options each hour that my in-person audience was small, but I understand there were a lot of folk on Zoom. The smaller audience did mean that I really wasn't nervous at all, and it was fun to play a concert grand! I think it was well received; there were some good questions, and one person talked to me extensively afterwards.

Tonight's activity included a banquet for which the dietary options were useless for me, followed by a hymn festival off site. I'm ready for some down time, so I ate in my room and am live streaming the festival and crocheting. It's at a black church, and it's fun to listen to the leaders try to teach all the white folk to sing in their style. They were wise enough to write most of it out rather than try to truly teach improvisational singing in one evening!

If you are old enough, you may remember a series of biographies for children-- distinctive two-tone books, biographies that leaned heavily on the childhood of each person but also summed up their notable achievements. I found those in 3rd or 4th grade, and read all of them that I could find, in both school and public libraries.

One of them was on Eleanor Roosevelt. It focused on her work with the United Nations late in her life. I remember reading about her horror at learning that there were children, babies, who were not citizens of any country. In many cases their parents were refugees after World War II, and their babies were legally neither citizens of the countries the parents had left, nor of the countries where the babies were born. Roosevelt was horrified; ultimately under her leadership the Universal Declaration of Human Rights addressed this situation (Article 15).

Roosevelt's horror became my horror; it's probably the first political idea I ever adopted. I was (obviously) deeply moved by this story, and deeply proud that that didn't happen in MY country; any baby born in America is American, we don't cause babies without a country.

Now powerful people in my country are trying to take this away. My anger runs so deep, and I will do all in my power to oppose any such change, and to get these people (who have not made even a single compassionate exception to their hate-filled policies) out of power.

Drawing with any black medium on white paper utterly triggers my perfectionism to a paralyzing degree.

Sepia ink on brown paper? Fun!

(Can't take a gazillion markers with me when I travel so working to come up with something more portable but still satisfying. Four sepia markers seems to fit the bill.)

At Saturday's rally, the kid and I got quite close to the speaker's pavillion. I saw a small entourage arrive and head to it, led by a white guy in a very fine trench coat and a tall black man in an athletic jacket.

I couldn't figure out who the white guy was... and then realized that the black man was our lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado. (The white guy was a staff member.)

I finally had my long-awaited conversation with the other expert on Thomas Commuck, and honestly it couldn't have gone much better. He's difficult on a social level but completely accepting and encouraging towards me as a fellow scholar. He generally admired my work, appreciated a couple of key points I made, and gave me some suggestions for improvement. ]

Now my timeline is coming into focus. On April 2 I share my draft with the Brothertown Book Club, and hope to get more helpful comments there. On May 4 I'll present the entire program publicly at my church (so publicity needs to start right after Easter). My materials to distribute ahead of the Hymn Society conference are due June 1. Presentation in Detroit is on July 13!