Birthdays

Seventeen years ago today I was recovering from surgery and holding a brand-new baby boy in my arms. Tonight we celebrated by taking that baby out to dinner and f�ting him with cake and presents and a generally good time. I tried not to overeat, leaving quite a bit of my pasta on my plate (it was so good though, I felt terrible doing it, but I couldn�t eat another bite). We had a lot of laughs. At one point I said, �Buddy Boy, 17 years ago today, you were born and I was in stitches.� He actually thought that was pretty clever. He loves his new iPod, I mean, loves it! We told him he�s not getting any presents from us for a while. We sort of blew our wad on this one.

I had a glass of wine with dinner, excellent Argentinian wine, Gran Lurt0n cabernet-sauvignon 2003, recommended by the sommelier, but it was a mistake. I had a bit of a headache before we went to the restaurant, and it just managed to intensify it. Oh well. That�s life.

I took Little Princess out for pho again today. It was part of our trip to pick up the cake and birthday cards. She wanted to give her brother a blueberry pie as it is his favourite, but the baker was all out when we got there. However, he said he would make one special, and we could pick it up in a few hours when we came to get the decorated cake. So we did that, after I went to a student�s pre-jury rehearsal (I was unable to get to his jury itself since I had belly-dancing, so I gave him his post-jury hug after the rehearsal), and at the same time went to the bargain store in town and picked up some stockings (thigh highs, you know what I�m thinking) and dropped off a film to be developed at the pharmacy.

My baritone�s recital last night went very well. I was really worried about him, but he pulled it off. His Poulenc was really good, and his Erk�nig was excellent. I was very proud of the boy. I was pretty pissed at Vlad though. I met her at intermission and said, �My boy did good,� and she answered, �There were parts that weren�t awful.� Holy shit, that was just so inappropriate. What the fuck kind of attitude is that anyway?

The second half of the evening was not so good. The singer was performing a 2nd-year jury in the form of a recital and sang four songs by Kurt WeiII (three different languages) and it was pretty bad. This is a girl who had three lessons with me in her first year and whom I refused to teach until she�d had a laryngologist look at her larynx because I heard either nodes, or a chink or something and I didn�t know how to proceed until I knew what was in there. It took her two years to get that looked after, and finally the answer was that there was an outgrowth, not a node, more like a wart, on the vocal folds, that otherwise she was perfectly fine, and so she went and studied with the other teacher. Okay, enough of that. But she doesn�t sing in tune anyway, although she does have great stage presence and she wore a very nice dress.

Speaking of Vlad, she brought up the UpIands spring concert and I didn�t give her any indication whether I would be singing in it or not. I still haven�t decided. She kind of assumes that I will be part of the team again, and I�m asking myself if I can actually stand singing any more G&S choruses poorly. Argh! Most likely I will do this one last performance with the group. Then I will tell her that that is it. No more.

It is also the Duchess� birthday today, so I called her up and wished her a happy birthday as she was having her chocolate cake (it�s a popular item). We had a nice chat and I told her that after I get my taxes done and my marks handed in, I�ll be able to come out and play. That will be fun.

It is also my dad�s birthday. If he were still alive, he would be 93.

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