Wacky Wednesday

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding he sings. Edward Gardner

Yesterday we just kept moving. Ditz & I are developing some really bad eating habits ~ well Ditz is. Mine are already pretty ingrained but there is literally no time to stop & eat. And it was hot! Stinking, steamy hot. I looked at the hill we had to hike up & just thanked God that this was our last flute lesson for the year. Jan, the optimist, gave Ditz some fun music to keep her occupied over the holidays...so why do I have a sneaking suspicion that child isn't going to touch an instrument all summer?

So Ditz has her certificate & her breakdown, which is really interesting now I can look at it properly because it is now obvious that if she'd sorted out her scales she would have done much, much better. lol. Ditz got lovely accolades about her actual playing: warm expressive tone quality, excellent tone & breath control, excellent dynamics & musically phrased [for the Largo], & under general comments: You play musically & with strong clear tones, your scales let you down today. Which is pretty much what Jan has always said about Ditz's playing from the very first time she blew into a flute. She gets a great flute sound. We just figure all that hot air's got to be good for something!

We detoured home for Ditz's violin & went on to her violin lesson. Her violin teacher wishes Ditz was as enamoured of the violin as she is of the flute & singing but having begged & begged to learn Ditz has found the violin much harder & more frustrating than she either expected or likes & she is only really persisting because I think it is really helping her musically in other areas. Besides it gives her another clef she understands. Oh, & it gives her something to do, you know. Like don't mention 'bored' around me. Three instruments & you want to tell me you've nothing to do?

Home so Ditz could change; at which point we discovered her brother had helped himself to her black uniform socks & departed for Western Australia, which is two time zones & thousands of miles away! We were already tight for time & I was starching a shirt we weren't sure we needed when Ditz began wailing. Food? What food? We rushed for the next boat so we could detour for socks.

I handed Ditz the refedex & told her to look up the street I needed. It had already been a long day & Ditz wasn't listening so it took several tries to get the right street. Sad experience has taught me Ditz is not a reliable navigator [though she's getting better] so I had to double check but at least this was a local concert & fairly easy to find. Liddy, of course, would have known exactly where to go & the shortest way there but I require a little more leeway.

As this was a school break up concert I sat on the grass with all the parents & grandparents for the first half of the concert so I could listen to the kids sing but 2 males decided to stand right in front of me & network & most of the time I couldn't see anything anyway as parents converged around the stage with video cameras & phone cameras & blocked the view for everyone else. As this is a rather elite private school I wasn't very impressed. Nor was I impressed that everyone talked all the way through the concert & no~one would join in the singing. Eventually I just went & sat in the car & read until it got too dark to see & then I went to sleep. Can't take me anywhere. I will sleep at the drop of a hat these days.

I woke as the kids were swarming out the gates & poked my head out to look for Ditz ~& a good thing too. She'd lost the car & was giddy with relief when she spotted me. Still we got the earlier boat & that is always a good thing but by the time we got home we'd both lost our appetite & just had a snack of sorts. It would not matter if it were a one off but unfortunately it is happening more & more often because of all the travelling with music & we don't like sandwiches. What I need are some good snack ideas that won't go funny in a lunch box. So anyone who has got good healthy snack ideas feel free.

Bearing in mind that the whole exam thing has done Ditz's head in & having promised her we won't do them next year I went ahead & ordered Beautiful Feet's History of Classical Music for next year. This has a time line of the major composers, a set of cds, & a study guide & I figure it will fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge. Maybe a year of theory will make the practical exams look much more attractive? Maybe.