Afterglow

The concerts went very well Friday and Saturday. Friday Reid and I left Portland around 1 pm to avoid the traffic that starts picking up in mid-afternoon and reached Corvallis around 3. The church wasn't open so we hunted for a bookstore as Reid hadn't brought a book with him. We found the bookstore that sells Confluence concert tickets so after inhaling that particular smell that bookstores have we went browsing. Reid found this for a friend of his and I found this. Armed, we headed back to the church with the expectation of waiting for someone to unlock the door. But to our pleasant surprise the door was unlocked for an aerobics class, so we parked ourselves on a sofa to wait. Soon the production crew arrived with the risers and we were busy with staying out of the way.

After the concert, we went out to McMenamin's in Corvallis for dinner, then headed north to the outskirts of Albany to spend the night at Sam and Clark's. There's a subdivision that is out in the middle of all this farmland a few miles outside of Albany that is just a little strange, for you don't expect to be driving along and find a small neighborhood of houses amidst the fields and pastures. It's a nice quiet neighborhood very conducive to snoozing and loafing, and Sam and Clark are fabulous hosts. Outside of one of their dogs being extra vigilant and barking at nighttime wildlife, the night was peaceful and we slept well.

Saturday we played pinochle after breakfast, then Sam and Clark had to go run some errands. Reid took the time to read and I set to work on the Rose Trellis shawl. The last two pattern rows had been giving me fits because I'd count and come up one stitch short. I finally resigned myself to having to frog the thing back four rows and dug out the dental floss to put in a safety line. The cotton has a tendency to ladder very readily, so I wasn't going to take any chances. It took me a good hour to frog out the four rows and put in my safety line before resuming any knitting. After that, I was ready for a nap, which I did until Sam and Clark returned.

The second concert went very well. There were a couple of songs that we had had problems on in rehearsal, but in the concert we pulled it all together and made our director proud. Ray is not a diva director. He's patient and fun and really encourages us to perform for him. So we worked hard to make it come together. It was also a concert where I could stretch my range. I had a solo that put me in soprano range for a few measures, then later I had one that was in mid-baritone range up to alto. I'd been working hard to get that, so it was very satisfying to pull it off. I don't have any formal training except for a couple of workshops, so I'm pleased when I'm able to stay on pitch at the extremes of my range. It's not easy as it requires a lot of breath control, awareness of where your voice is coming from, and strength in the chest and abdominal muscles. So when a fellow singer who was in the audience came up and commented well on my soprano solo, I was very pleased (I sing tenor).

So this morning starts the week prior to going to Hawaii. I'll be gathering my things and preparing the house for my time away. Today will be quiet time with a quick trip to find buttons for the baby sweater and working a few rows on the Rose Trellis. I didn't get my WWKIP shirt in time from Cafe Press for Knit In Public Day but I'll have it for the trip. I was working on my cap while waiting in the green room concert days, so I did do some semi-public knitting. If I was home, I probably would have been in one of the parks in the city or at an outdoor table at a cafe. Oh well. Every day for me is Knit In Public Day.