Weekend

I had a long weekend, pretty exhausting. It started out well, with a good lunch with Tom Harpel. He covered our discussion pretty well (clarification: my site is run on Manila, but I use NetNewsWire as my primary posting tool). If it’s any consolation, Tom, I get lost at RedWest all the time. In addition to Tom’s commentary, we discussed his experience as an “embedded” ops guy on a product team.

The concert went well. UPC organist Joanne Stremmler proved that Bach is still the master with her organ rendition of “Come, Sweet Death,” which set up the Brahms perfectly.

From time to time, I forget how emotionally and physically taxing singing can be, particularly the “warhorse” masterworks. The Brahms is particularly insidious in this way, because while the music is not especially complicated (the fugues, while tricky, are nothing compared to the nightmares in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis), it’s emotionally so powerful that I was drained after three movements and totally exhausted after the seventh and last.

Saturday the dinner party went well—our new stove did meatballs, meat sauce, lasagna, eggplant sandwiches, and sugar syrup for lemon granita without breaking a sweat. We, on the other hand, sweated.

Today I had three services this morning, performing the Robert Shaw/Alice Parker arrangement of “Ride On, King Jesus.” Then home to collapse for a while before I went out to get a nail puncture in my tire patched. It turns out I waited too long to do it—I had driven on the underinflated tire (though I diligently kept it topped up with air) too far, and had damaged the sidewall. Plus the rear tires were too worn to go too much further. So I’m now hundreds of dollars poorer but with four new tires.

You know, I think the week actually might be more restful than the weekend was.