I have a big mouth!

Ah, midnight. I just got back from spending way too much time at Patsy�s where we consumed tea and ginger cookies and my eyes are itchy from her two Siamese cats. Since neither of us has to get up early tomorrow morning, I thought we should go out for coffee after belly dancing, but the coffee store was just closing up. I was able to buy beans, since Hubby had been bemoaning the fact that he had barely enough to make a cup of drip for breakfast, but we were shooed out immediately thereafter and unable to slake our thirst. So we headed to her house, and you know the rest.

In belly dancing we started using veils. I don�t have one, so Lise loaned me one from the back room, a beautiful white silk thing that was so delicate, I had to take off my jingly belt for fear it get caught on the fine fabric and pull threads. Tomorrow I will head over to the the fabric store and see what I can purchase there. I don�t really feel like buying one of Lise�s veils. They are too long and too expensive.

After Latin class this morning I bought myself a styrofoam bowlful of vegetarian chili at the cafeteria and was carrying it back to the music department to eat in my office, when I bumped into my former student, the anarchist whom I thought would be studying singing as a second instrument this year but whom I have not seen at all, and he asked me if I would fill out a form as a recommendation letter so that he could join the armed forces. My jaw became unhinged at this point. It turns out that he and his parents had a severe outfalling (or falling out, take your pick) and he is totally on his own financially. Hence he has had to withdraw from the university and is working fulltime to make ends meet. The armed forces looks like a good way to make money. I�m not convinced. I like this boy a lot but I don�t think he is army/navy/airforce material, and god-forbid he should be sent to Afghanistan. But I will fill out this form because he asked me. Needless to say, by the time I got to eat my chili, it was chilly.

My recital student has most of her concert planned now. She decided on the Mozart concert aria �V0i avete un c0r fedele� which we both just love. She�s also chosen a baroque piece (recitative and da capo aria), �With verdure clad� from Haydn�s Creation (also with a recit.), a couple of Faur� m�lodies and Three Songs by Barber. We still need some Lieder and she is off to the library to find some late Schubert (late?). This will be a fun recital and we are both excited about its preparation.

Choir is slower than what I�m used to. We learn sections separately and then assemble them. I would rather just read through things all together, but there are lots of people in the group who are simply not readers, and I guess this is the most expedient way to get the music learned. We did do one of the sections in the Fanshawe where I get to sing the solo, wailing over the choir on high A, A sharp and B on the words �for thine is the kindom, the power and the glory�. I was actually shaking from the effort when I was done. I didn�t know that even I could open my mouth so cavernously. I�m certainly glad my teeth are good.

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