Coming Up For Air

My mother came from a musically talented family.  My maternal cousin Lola and my mother's half-sister Kay both have gorgeous singing voices; when Kay was in college, in fact, she won the talent contest in the Miss South Dakota pageant.  Unfortunately, although I loved to sing, I always thought I hadn't inherited the family vocal cords.

Just about a year ago a woman from my parents' church choir heard me singing in the congregation and talked me into joining the choir myself.  I was frankly astonished that they took me, but hey - they were desperate for additional bodies.

Since joining the choir I've learned a lot about singing, the most important of which is this - having the vocal cords isn't enough; good sound is based on air flow.  This last year has been the first extended period in my adult lifetime when I wasn't either managing other people or coping on a daily basis with Barry's Asperger quirks.  In other words, this is the first time I haven't been living in a constant state of tension.  It's no wonder I couldn't sing when my entire body was always clenched like a fist.  Now that my throat and my diaphragm have relaxed, I have a much bigger voice than I ever expected.

The choir is a small, close-knit group and I love them all, but I am particularly grateful to Vonda, the woman who originally recruited me.  Sadly, her wonderful husband Glenn - one of the kindest people I've ever known - died last week.  His memorial service was this weekend, and I sang one of the solos that Vonda had requested.  It was hard to get through it without bursting into tears, but it was the best way I could think of to partially repay the friend who has given me this incredible gift.

"I should like to see you free as a bird, singing for the joy of it." ~Joan Aiken, The Five-Minute Marriage

Shopping for Beefcake

I've never believed in astrology, or Fate with a capital F, or even God as an entity with a close-up and personal interest in me, but sometimes the stars do align and events arrange themselves to herd me inexorably in one seemingly inevitable direction.

Take my move to New York.  The very day I was turned down for a major promotion at my last job in the Midwest, I came home to find the National Underwriter in my mailbox with an ad for a New York job I was qualified for on the back cover.  Less than a month later, I was working just off Wall Street.  Had I received that promotion, I'd probably still be living in South Dakota.  Had the ad appeared a week earlier, I wouldn't have given it a second glance.  Had it been a few weeks later, I might have been reconciled to my passed-over state.  But no, it showed up when my sense of injustice was at its white-hot peak, and the rest is history.  Kismet?  Well, maybe.

Something similar has been at work this last month.  First I took advantage of some awesome after-Christmas clothing sales to augment my work wardrobe with sharp new stuff.  Next the staff at the church whose website I maintain hounded me into getting my picture professionally taken for the church directory, and it was way better than I expected.  Then I tired of trying to figure out how to squeeze the gym into my schedule and bought a folding exercise bike I can use at home, which lets me exercise in two ways - by pedaling while watching TV, and by muscling it in and out of the closet and setting it up and taking it down.  And after all that, Barry (with whom I technically broke up almost 2 years ago) finally realized that I was never coming back and found a new sweetie.  I am - O joy! - forever off the hook with regard to his computer and personal problems; he said he wants to make "a clean break."  Free at last, free at last...  So I signed up temporarily (for free) with OurTime, the dating website for people 50 years old and up.  Just to window shop, you understand.

As I've mentioned, Barry and I met through Match.com, so I've done the online meet and greet thing before, but it's different this time.  Then I was trying to be as open-minded as possible.  The guy was three inches shorter than me?  Fine, I'd wear flats forever.  He lived on the other side of the greater Phoenix area?  No problem, I was commuting most of the way there already.  He was supporting a deadbeat child and a houseful of grandchildren?  How nice that he was a family man.

PB (post Barry), this is no longer the case.  Life with him seems to have permanently depleted my supply of tolerance.  I am surveying the offerings emailed to me as if they are plastic-wrapped trays of hamburger labeled "Manager's Special."  Why are they there?  Are they too close to expiration?  Like a fussy shopper I sort them into the "Yes," "No," and "Maybe" buckets on the site.  I throw smokers, short guys, sports fanatics, East Valley residents, and guys who can't spell or hate to read into "No" faster than I would discard a package of ground beef with an off smell.  Call me shallow, but I don't want to settle; I want someone who is a good fit in as many ways as possible.

The one area where I'm still being lenient is looks.  Many people don't photograph well, and I'm more interested in what's inside the guy's head than outside it.  Mind you, I wouldn't be UPSET if the right guy turns out to be beefcake too...

"I've been dating since I was fifteen. I'm exhausted. Where is he?" ~Kristin Davis

Going, Going...NOT Gone

So where have I been for the last month?

Working on my parent's house.  Blowing the yard, replacing light switch plates, cleaning the last few pockets of grime, and...PAINTING.

The house was built at the tail end of the 1970's and the kitchen countertops are then-trendy mauve laminate.  The previous owners embraced the color and installed cabinet pulls with rose (the flower) painted ceramic insets; Mom and Dad replaced the hardware with plain brass, but they painted the kitchen blue, which made the counters look even pinker in contrast.  I said from the start of the selling process that we might end up painting the kitchen beige to make the counters look browner and less dated, but the rest of the family poo-pooed that idea.

Then the stager saw the kitchen.

Three coats of paint and two weekends of my time and my sister's later, the kitchen still looked faintly blue in some lights, but we declared it as good as it was going to get and my parents finally listed the house with the realtor I've been working for.

They received an offer almost immediately (within 24 hours!) and we have spent the last couple of weeks trying to keep the place clean and the plants alive during a record cold snap until the closing.

Unfortunately, due to that record cold, the buyer's inspector was unable to test the air conditioning system, so the buyer wants an A/C service company to test it.  Since we are still in the middle of the cold wave, calling a service company out to look at the system would be an exercise in futility, and Dad refused.  So, the sale has fallen out of escrow and we're starting all over again.

I just hope the place sells before it burns down or the citrus trees are seriously damaged by the frost.  I'm also hoping that the next buyer doesn't look the place over and say, "Could you paint the kitchen blue?"

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” ~Edgar Degas

The Happiness of Hats

Did you see the photo of my sister Sue in front of the Hotel Villa San Pio in Rome?  If so, you probably noticed that she was wearing a hat.

I've mentioned before that we grew up in the era prior to the invention of SPF, when the little Coppertone Girl was dark brown and lifeguards had white stripes down their noses.  Both of our parents and various other relatives have had to have multiple skin cancers removed, and Sue and I would rather not go down that road.  For our late summer cruise to the eastern Mediterranean, therefore, we packed our SPF 45 sunscreen, lightweight but long-sleeved shirts and jackets, and hats.

Finding the right hats to take was more difficult than you might think.  We both have smallish heads and Sue's hair is extremely short, so "one size fits all" hats don't fit us.  At times Sue has even had to resort to "youth" hats, which tend to come in one style: the bucket.  Fortunately, through the magic of the Internet, we were able to locate the Wallaroo Hat Company, which sells ADJUSTABLE hats with an Ultraviolet Protection Factor of 50+.

On the first couple of shore excursions we took, we were almost the only people wearing hats.  Everywhere we went on the cruise, however, hat vendors abounded, and they all did a brisk business as the sun beat down on us day after day.  By the last shore excursion, over half of those along were wearing hats purchased en route.  Did they fit as well as ours?  Did THEY have UPF 50+?  I think not.

"Wallaroo Hat Company is committed to the elimination of skin cancer. The Wallaroo Sun Protection is a promise that each year, we will donate 1% of our profits to skin cancer research, education and prevention in the United States." ~http://www.wallaroohats.com/

Visiting the Vatican

Sue and I knew from previous experience that virtually all of France goes on vacation during the month of August.  We had assumed most of the French go to the beach then.  It turns out, however, that a goodly number of them visit Rome – at least, we heard almost as much French there as Italian, and saw a couple of French tourists melt down when they discovered the Metro branch leading to the Vatican City was closed for repairs.  The city was running extra buses in that direction, but didn’t really have enough to cope with everyone who wanted to go there.  Can you spell “sardine cans?”

We signed up for a tour of the Vatican Museum so we could skip the ticket counter lines AND take the shortcut to St. Peter’s at the end of the tour.  (If you go through the museum by yourself, you have to walk all the way back through the museum to where you started and around to St. Peter’s on the outside of the buildings.)  The guide also saved us from having to try to elbow our way through the crowds to read the captions telling us what the exhibits were.

Since the Vatican is holy territory, bare knees and shoulders are not allowed inside, even in the museum; this means the approaches to the buildings are clogged with vendors selling scarves large enough to serve as a shawl or sarong for anyone attempting to enter in a tank top or shorts.  (Most of them are printed with the word “Rome” in Latinesque type.)  Head coverings are no longer required, but many of the older women we saw there wore them anyway.

The Vatican Museum itself was incredible – the result of hundreds of years of treasure-gathering by acquisitive Popes and their staff.  Some of the collectors had better taste than others, so some of the artifacts were exquisite and others were just, um, gaudy, but the overall effect was of unbelievable wealth.  It was also a quickie tour of the history of art.  Our guide kept saying things like, “This statue was the first attempt ever to show the human body in a realistic pose, rather than just standing still.”  Amazing.

Note to potential visitors: Neither the museum nor St. Peter’s has been retrofitted with air conditioning.  If you plan to visit, you may not want to do it at the end of August.  If you are there during the summer, take a large bottle of drinking water with you – you’ll need it.  And remember, no shorts or sleeveless tops, unless you WANT to buy a cheesy Vatican-themed scarf to cover up with.

Of course the tour ended in the Sistine Chapel, where we were not allowed to take pictures.  Surprisingly, the cleaned and restored paintings there were even lighter in color than I had expected from the photographs I’ve seen of the restoration, and more beautiful.  Interesting fact: The Sistine Chapel was the first thing Michelangelo ever painted – he was strictly an architect and sculptor before the Pope made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

The high point of St. Peter’s, also courtesy of Michelangelo, was the Pieta, behind glass since it was attacked.  Fortunately the repairs are not noticeable.

Here are some of my photos from the areas that did allow (non-flash) photography.

"The Vatican Museums is one of those places that everyone should visit at least once in his life." ~IGoUGo.com