Chaos

I never knew rehearsals could be such chaos. Everybody talking at once, and the conductor changing her mind several times about everything. Then the last-minute rehearsal, right before the concert, was even more crazy. Most of the singers were forty minutes late, the conductor was angry, and the pitch was about the worst it could get. I couldn’t figure out what key we were in—well, actually, it wasn’t a key at all. So I tried to fit my note with the tenor, who I thought was probably pretty close to being right, but that didn’t work either. I thought, if this happens during the concert, I will cry.

And then I lost my music, and had to read off someone else’s, which just barely succeeded because it was the wrong distance for my bifocals.

Because we never got around to working out just where we should stand, we ended up way too spread out, and we couldn’t hear each other well. Or maybe that was just as well.

But somehow, by some sort of miracle, we carried it off, though I suspect it wasn’t very accurate. The last piece, a lively and complicated one, was well received. And the rest of the concert, for the most part, was very good—the Jerusalem Street Orchestra, some Klezmer music, Tomas Tulacek and others.

There were tables full of snacks to be eaten at intermission, but most of it was gone before we even started.

And now it’s 1:30 a.m. and I’m still wound up. I’m in the mood for some chocolate cake or something. Maybe I’ll settle for cinnamon toast.

Concert

A concert is today. I'm in a small choir, singing first alto. The rehearsals have been so chaotic, it's hard to know how well it will turn out. We don't have enough really dedicated singers. It's all volunteers.

After the choir is a lot of other music, including a solo violinist from Slovenia. It should be good. I just hope my energy holds out.

February 2018

It rained today. Flood warnings. I guess there are places in Israel where an inch of rain can cause major flooding. But I've never seen a flood here.

I'm about burnt out with sitting at the computer. But over the last several months, and especially the last three weeks, I got all my music notes in order. About 1500 pages' worth. Each page has a few scribbles on it, sometimes the first line of a tune, sometimes the whole thing. But most of them are worthless, and some unreadable. Eventually I narrowed it down to about 300 that are worth looking at again, and most of those I have put on MuseScore. Of those, about 80 are looking promising. Occasionally we try singing one, and the moment we do, I find errors. In spite of all my careful proof-reading, there are still errors. A "ka" instead of a "ke" in the transliteration. A "ba" instead of a "va." Too many beats in the last measure. Wrong chords. Sometimes wrong words. Wrong verse numbers. Wrong formattting. Formatting is what takes the most time. And it's addicting.

I haven't yet found the perfect font. Some fonts are good in the lower case letters, but the capital letters and numbers look funny. I finally decided on Cambria for my English lyrics, only to find that the "f" always looks funny. Before that I used Free Serif, which looks nice, but on MuseScore it has some difficulties.

Something has happened to my taste buds. I now drink my de-caf double strength. Sometimes I even add milk and sugar. My eggs now taste best with garlic and black pepper. But I still eat the same old bread, something like Borozinski. It makes great toast. And it's habit-forming.

Apartment life is a drag. But we have a nice apartment for getting work done in. Annoying, though, is the variety of weird smells. This morning I smelled a very strong chlorine smell in the bedroom. Car exhaust, cigarette smoke, sewer smells and cooking make their way into my apartment. The cooking smells can be really good--sometimes brownies, garlic chicken, almost-burnt toast, and barbecue. But freezer-burn chicken is not so nice.

Ecclesiastes

Barnes sums up a passage from Ecclesiastes well: "Unforeseen events come from God; and the man who is always gazing on the uncertain future will neither begin nor complete any useful work: but do thou bear in mind that times and circumstances, the powers of nature and the results to which they minister, are in the hand of God; and be both diligent and trustful."

Refreshed 2017

After spending 3 weeks in the U.S., I have come back refreshed and with a little different view of things. I have a regular home-making type thing to do (finishing a quilt). I am following a more or less regular sleep pattern, and have somewhat less stress than the last few years. EXCEPT for one horrible evening of restless leg-arm-everything, which was caused by taking a nap too late in the day, so the evening was messed up. If you look up RLS on the internet, you don't find good explanations, but I can tell you it is something horrible.

And EXCEPT for Independence Day, when just below my window several men were all talking at once loudly for several hours--until 2:20 in the morning!

Then they went inside, and we had our last (I presume) rain of the season, which lasted for 30 seconds. Now it isn't going to rain anymore, so that means it's summer. Or it's summer now, so that means it isn't going to rain for several months.

All is quiet now, except for a loud boom I heard yesterday right outside my window. It wasn't a gunshot, such as when they blow up a suspicious object, and it was a clean boom, not a ragged one, so it wasn't a bomb. As it turned out, a bus blew a tire.

The only other notable noise is a large dog that barks occasionally, which to me is a sad sound, because the poor dog is probably a bit bored, and because dogs go with homes and families and they remind me of the good days that are past.

Beginning of 2017

Long time since I posted. Does that mean nothing happened? Does anyone care? What a small speck my whole life is. Yet at any particular moment, it seems like it's very important.

Looking back at my diary, which I write in only sporadically, I remember from January that a chiropracter solved a problem with my left hand cramping. A five-year problem solved in 2 minutes! After that appointment I went home and started playing the piano and I couldn't stop. I've had about 3 adjustments since then, and I think I'm about due for another one, though it's not as bad as it was before January. I probably ruined my neck from several years of playing violin with in ill-fitting shoulder pad.

I have found quite a few good sermons on sermon audio. Often I pick them at random, or because of their interesting titles, or something I am curious about. Other times by the speaker. Sometimes I think I will recommend to someone a particular preacher, but not every sermon of that man is good. As soon as I recommend Adam Adams, or whoever, Adam Adams will have a sermon that is just not that good. And if you happen to listen to that one, you will go away thinking Adam Adams is not a very good preacher, and I am not too swift for recommending him. But really Adams'es's's' sermons are mostly very good.

Actually, I suppose I could recommend Voddie Bauchman, Alister Begg, Konrad Mbewe, and Spurgeon. There are many others. You can tell from the different sermons that each is preaching to a different kind of audience, who have different backgrounds. Something of the flavor of each location comes through, though the basic truths are applicable everywhere.

fall/winter, birds, plants, starving, r's

When to blog?

When you have something interesting to say or show.

When you are bored and have nothing else to do.

When you are making a transition.

That's what today is. It's a transition from summer into fall/winter. No, it's actually too late to get ready for winter. It's here and I'm not ready. I knew this would happen, and I kept trying to put it out of my mind. But today I have to go downtown in the cold and it will probably rain and I don't know where my winter sweater is. And I'm not in the mood for tackling cold weather.

I feel rather like cleaning house. The kind of house cleaning where it gets worse before it gets better. The first day you take everything that's not in the right place and put it in the middle of the room. Then you clean everything that you have room to clean, and gradually you start sorting and putting things back, but that usually takes another day or two. As time goes on, your enthusiasm starts to wane, but you excuse yourself by saying, "It's x% better than it was. And that leaves only x% to do, which isn't much." Although actually the last 15% is harder than the first 85%, and at least half of that will never get done.

Fall/winter shows itself in not-terribly-obvious ways. The sycamore trees are shades of yellow, green and brown. Lots of other trees are their usual dull-green color. The neighbors' pomegranate tree is gold. The other neighbors' bougainvillea continues to bloom, as it almost always does, without any regard for other plants around it that would like to grow if given the chance. Bougainvilleas are like large furry dogs. They're quite lovable if kept in line. But if they aren't, they can be annoying. Licking you in the face, smacking you with their wagging tail. Doghair is nice on the dog, but not on the furniture. Magenta-colored bougainvillea blossoms aren't so nice when they're swallowing up apple trees and other useful plants.

In between the colorful or not-so-colorful trees are all the nice or not-so-nice apartment buildings. How can you get excited about an apartment building? The apartment buildings around here are well-designed and, for apartment buildings, nice to look at. The buildings are all similar enough to go well together, but there is some variety in shape, windows, balconies, and trim color. But still, a building is a building, and an apartment building gives you no indication as to the character or personality of the people that live in it. Maybe that's just as well, who knows.

Watching birds. A dozen or so birds fly to the sidewalk from the low branches of a sycamore tree. One second later a dozen fly from the sidewalk to the tree. This happens over and over again. I wish I could get close enough to see what they're doing.

A white-spectacled, yellow-vented Bulbul comes to my balcony now and then. He pecks the leaves off my Solanum. So far it hasn't hurt the Solanum too much. I need to plant more so as to maybe get more birds.

I have three different types of Haworthia. One for a long time was dark, nearly black and hardly growing. I brought it in from the sun for a day or two, as I often have to do with the other Haworthias, but it didn't recover. Finally I brought it in for about two weeks, and now it's starting to turn a little bit green.

There is no Thanksgiving-Christmas here. Which means there are no family gatherings. This seems wrong somehow. I was tempted to buy some toothpicks and some styrofoam balls and make a little Christmas tree, just for old times' sake. Really old, like more than 50 years. Yet I am not really interested in Christmas or Christmas trees. It's just the association of this particular craft with family and good times. When I was a little girl my father bought me some toothpicks and styrofoam and I made my first tree. The next year I/we did the same thing, with some improvements. Each year my tree got better. Toothpicks and styrofoam balls don't interest me now, but I remember doing crafts often, and it was fun to have my father interested in my crafts.

There is a little craft store near where I am going today, and I like to look at the little kits that are fun to do when you are a kid. I really crave something like that now, but I haven't seen anything I really want, and it seems kind of a waste of time. Painting something would be nice, but I don't know how to paint pictures, just walls. And I don't think I'm up to painting walls, especially since our ceilings are a bit high and I don't care to stand on a ladder. Using a long-handled roller would be a bit strenuous for me now, and you still have to get on a ladder to do a neat edge.

I think I am about starved for something creative. Do I dare start laying out scraps for a quilt? I have five quilts back in the U.S. I would like to bring over and finish. But meanwhile I am Starved. Starved. Starved. And Starved.

I guess I'll have to console myself by rolling my r's. This is my latest accomplishment. You never get too old to learn something new. The ability to roll r's is NOT HEREDITARY. I looked at a number of You-Tube videos and tried all kinds of things, and finally I found something that works. Brrrr is a bit difficult, but Drrrr works pretty well. I can even roll my r's while doing my do-mi-so exercise!!! So there!