An "interesting" week all round (in both the good and bad sense!) .
The good:
The not-so-good:
The good:
- A great trip up to NYC to do some work on coming projects - the performance schedule is spaced more favourably for me to book some lessons and coachings, and I'm taking advantage of it during this period when I can (for my non-singer readers yes, it is "normal" for professionals to keep taking lessons throughout the career - kind of like an athlete, you are NEVER "done" with training)
- Getting ready for a short concert gig away this coming weekend. Concerts are about the best "bang per buck" in this business as the gigs are typically a few days rather than the several weeks of an opera run and usually a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to this one enormously.
A terrific day out with the family yesterday, in part just to go do something fun, and in part for me to take some pictures (I admit it - it's my new obsession!). Turns out that about 45 minutes from home there's a historic waterfront community complete with an early 19th-century lighthouse, so we went in search, got completely caught in a storm and had an absolute whale of a time!
The not-so-good:
- While working on our front porch (in preparation for repainting) I got a small splash of sodium hydroxide paint stripper IN my eye. Fortunately, the damage is minimal and recovering nicely but please, take my word on this and DON'T trust sunglasses as eye-protection when working with chemicals! Take the time to wear goggles - I know I will be from now on!
- My daughter's flute was tampered with by another child at school last week and broken - WHILE I was in NY. The resulting furore both at home and at school was a classic example of how difficult it is for working parents (both moms and dads, although I think there is still a societal tendency for people to approach "mom" first when there's a crisis). Standing at Columbus Circle, powerless to help, trying to hear over the traffic and piece together the tale of woe from a hysterical 10-year-old and distraught grandmother was definitely one of the bigger parenting challenges of my year! Despite several "wrong turns" in the story before it was resolved, the complexities were eventually sorted out and, thankfully, we will not be liable for the damage. Kudos to the school: we were impressed both how the children were handled throughout, and also with the excellent communication between the school and us as parents.
- The torrential rains appear to have breached something in our kitchen and we have a small leak. As yet, we're not clear where or what is causing it (that's this morning's job - up on the roof to check!) but that's an unfortunate addition to our "to do" list for the month.
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