Calzones at Grants

Another Choir Concert

Another thing I'd never thought I'd do again

I'm on my way to a choir concert. The Symphony Chorus fall concert. In a dress I altered with safety pins a few hours ago. Size 12. (I'm a 4) And it belongs to someone who intends to use it again, so I'm not allowed to alter it to fit me. Fair enough. The hem is horrible, but at least it isn't dragging on the floor. I am in the front row, though, so someone is bound to notice. If I weren't worried about stickies I would have used duct tape. Works better than safety pins. Ah well.

I have a solo this evening. I used to be a soli but the sopranos didn't know it so Dr. P auditioned for it. Well not really. He asked who knew it, panicked when he thought no one did, asked his section leader to learn it, showed up to the last rehearsal, she found out that I had known it, and told Dr. P I would be singing it instead. Not much of an audition. But still a solo. In Hebrew. Which is a great language for singing. Lots of consonants and ornamentation. Anyway. I'll let you know how it goes.

Charlotte's Advice

"It may perhaps be pleasant," replied Charlotte, "to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to bleieve the world equally in the dark."
~Jane Austen

A Passing

Teri Peterson's mom died yesterday. Teri's flying in from Egypt. Everyone keep her and her family in your prayers.

The highlight

And the highlight of my Halloween Party was:

Having run short of time to invent a costume for myself, I drew on last year's standby and made a quick pregnancy pouch to throw under a jumper. It worked. I was a very cute petite pregnant woman.

At the party Matt and Kris received word that Jackson's was having a costume contest, so I drove them there. And as I was standing there, someone called my name, and there at a table was half a dozen members of my graudating class. Sean Gilbert was there as David Severn. Then he asked, "so what's your costume."

The rumors should be abounding at my ten year reunion.

Have you ever

Funny you should ask...

So the music leader at my church asks me, "So, have you ever played keyboard in a rock band before?"

Officially Fall

Officially Fall

Today is the first really fall day. Last night it was below freezing, and today hasn't gotten much above it. It's wonderful. My emergency pepsi was 39 degrees at noon today. There's nothing better than almost frozen pop.

Weird Day

Weird Day

Not the day itself. Although we got a shipment of clothes in, and Nancy and I weren't feeling in a customer-ish mood today, so we opted to hang the new stuff up. And amazingly - we processed an entire load in one day. It would take, and I am not kidding, a week or two for our employees to do the same amount of work. And we weren't booking it, either. Just moseying, for us.

And it was a good thing that we hid in the back, because today was Weird Day. What strange people. I came back from teaching and a lady was back in our sorting area going through bags and clothes on the racks. I assumed it was some eccentric friend of Nancy's, so I didn't say anything. Nancy was sorting clothes chatting to her. I'd hang things on our "to-be-put-out" rack and she'd take them off, try them on, wander around with them. At one point she grabbed a man's blazer off the guys side and went on and on about how lovely it was, and is it too big for me, and oh, did it come with a skirt? I told her that it came out of the guys' bag and if it had two pieces probably came with men's slacks. She was crestfallen and wouldn't believe me. I don't know if she ended up buying it or not, but she found two more pieces from formerly two piece sets and held them up for us to get a look at and made us PROMISE that we would CALL HER if the matching pieces came in. We promised. I hope she doesn't have her hopes up. We have several single shoes waiting for their mates to appear as well.

And everybody was like that! I would turn around to hang somethings on the rack, and there was someone going through it. And while I tried to keep my glaring at a subtle minimum, I also endeavored to send off some "you shouldn't be back here" vibes. And NO-body got it.

Well, I must cut this short and run. I have an original Adam West batman costume to finish before Lost comes on. Nancy and my Wednesday night girls night in. Huzzah.

Mr. Darcy's Daughters

Mr. Darcy's Daughters

I just finished reading a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Normally I'm wary of any book that tries to copy an author's style in a sequel. There is a book out at Inklings that immediately follows the wedding, and as much as I can tell from the chapter I perused in the bookstore, it's just about them having a lot of sex. Ruined my pristine viewing and reading experience.

In Mr. Darcy's Daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy don't even appear. They have been called on a diplomatic mission to Turkey. Elizabeth accompanies her husband, and the five Darcy daughters go to stay with Colonel Fitzwilliam and his wife Fanny to spend a year in Town for the Season. Sometimes the writing came dangerously close to be a rehash of the original book. Daughter number one is the beauty. In personality she is more like Mary than Jane, at first merely concerned for appearances and decency, but later she becomes an evangelical and spends most of her time at meetings and handing out tracts. Daughter number two is not a beauty, but has dark hair and "fine eyes." The majority of the narrative focuses around her time in London. She is almost engaged to a Sir Sydney, but upon being enlightened about his extracurricular hobbies she puts an end to it, causing plenty of gossip. Daughters three and four are twins, with characters similar to their Aunt Lydia (who also makes several appearances). Their fates are similar in the end, though not so dramatic, with Uncle Gardiner again having to rescue his neices. Daughter number five is a musician under the care of a governness whose attentions are more focused on her writing than her ward.

Several original Pride and Prejudice characters appear or are referenced. Lady Warren (formerly Caroline Bingley) sends her son on a mission to bring the Darcy girls down a peg. Mr. and Mrs. Gardener, whose fortunes have risen and removed the from Cheapside, are co-guardians with the Fitzwilliams. Mr. Bennet is taking care of the Darcy sons at Pemberly. Lydia, formerly Wickham, has been widowed and remarried, and now runs a rather dodgy salon in her home. The Bingley's reside primarily in the country.

All in all it was an interesting read. Elizabeth Aston does a good balance of introducing the flavor of Jane Austen without trying to copy her style of writing. Some of the subjectmatter is a little modern, but it was handled well. The only original character that comes off badly in the new version is Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was charming and easy formerly, and now is rather harsh and pedantic. And not very considerate of his wife. All in all, a good read. Not quite up to the level of the original, but it stays true to Austen's story.

The Last Sun of the Season

The Last Sun of the Season

Finally, a whole day with nothing to do! I slept in for me, but not late, finally crawling out of bed at 9:30. I ate a leisurely breakfast, showered, and finally trimmed my hair. I've been needing to do that for a month or so. Just a trim and some shorter layers. I never thought I'd reach the day where I'm brave enough to try hacking away. But necessity is the mother of desperation...Or something.

After brunch I packed up my spending logs, calculator, and ledger and headed to the park to finally finish up my September, do my quarterly reports, and fill out spending logs for most of October. Plus updating my actual ledger part, balancing the bottom of one page, and starting a new one. I've been very bad about this since the Texas trip. It was tedious, but it's finished now. I then allowed myself the luxury of a short nap in the sun, and got a rather mean little sunburn on my back. Who thinks of sunscreen in October. That's what I get for living in a windowless apartment. Pain aside, it felt wonderful to be outside in such an Indian summer. It was perfect. Low 70's, sunny, with a little breeze just as you were getting a bit too warm. Ahhhhh. Now for the other major undertaking. Cleaning my apartment.