Well, I can finally breathe.   The high season chorally is now over.

My concert with the Renaissance and Baroque went well (from the audience perspective, at least--they seemed to like it)   But it sure waren't perfect.   It seems they liked especially the first half-- entirely a cappella.   And that was indeed a true white-knuckle affair.   We also went dramatically flat.   But we did it all together.   So probably quite a few in the audience didn't notice--we hope.

The SATB caroling party went real well too.   But good thing a real tenor lives in my town. All my others tenors begged off for various reasons.   It became much more of a local affair this year.   So one thing we did, since we were picking up kids left and right, and I had brought 6 bracelets of jingle bells, was to try to sing all the songs we could think of that mention bells--Jingle Bells, Ding Dong Merrily on High, Carol of the Bells, etc---so the kids could shake their jingle bells as much as they wanted.   We even picked up 3 kids and the mother from the family that just moved into the house where the people who wanted to take the bump out of the road--since it rattled their windows--used to live.

And by the way, I suppose if anybody needs a scapegoat for the big snow of 18-19 December, it might be us---we sang, among other things:   "Let It Snow".   The power of suggestion, I suppose.   Somebody at work suggested that we maybe should just sing:"   Let It Drizzle"   next year. Actually the snow, which was just starting as we were singing, was perfect.   And anyway, it ain't easy to fine-tune these things.

Then I had 3 concerts on 20 December.   Good thing they weren't cancelled. Audiences were down.   But they were up for 24 December--when I had two singing events.   Almost didn't make the last one--found I had actually forgotten everything I used to know about Alexandria VA streets, and missed most of the--only--rehearsal.   So I had to learn the pieces mostly during the sermon. That was interesting. But at least they had decided to do hymns I'd been practicing on the piano. So I mostly knew the bass parts.   Also good--because one of their other basses had no clue.   They had one guy who sang bass, tenor, and sometimes alto, did the solos-and read Scripture--and a bunch of other things, it seems. If they had cloned him, the rest of us could have stayed home.



Anyway, more about the snow--sorry if this is old news.

Old Dude's postings made me think of a song which is one of Jan's and my all-time favorite winter songs:

To be done in a very heavy Norwegian accent. It's a parody of Jim Reeves' Drifting Whistling Sands.   This one is The Drifting Whistling Snow.

"I found the valley of the drifting, whistling snow, between 2 great big snowbanks when I opened my door yesterday morning.

And for endless hours I wandered aimlessly through the snow, seeking answers to the many questions that was racing through my fevered brain:

Where was every-ting?   Where was the sidewalk? Where was my driveway?

My old yalopy.

All of a sudden I realized I was a prisoner, here in the valley of the Drifting Whistling Snow.

Then my wife she whispered to me
I got to go to Ladies' Aid
Shovel out that old yalopy
And she handed me the spade
Now the settlers and the miners
Fought those crazy Navahoessss
But I tell you that was nothing
Like the drifting whistling snows

Then there's something about

Then I took my scoop and started
Where that old yalopy stood
And after endless hours of shoveling snow
All I saw was yust the hood.




Got to go to work now.   Hope to get back to this soon.   Hope everybody is well.