Don't believe me? Ask the dishes!*

I'm guest blogging over at HGO again. Check it out. (And yes, I am posting at 1:59 AM. Blame it on my overactive social life.)

*Here's a window into the convoluted brain of Little Ms. Bossy, dear readers: the title of this post is a line from "Be our Guest" in Beauty & the Beast…you know…because I'm guest blogging. The first part of the line is, of course, "Try the grey stuff, it's delicious."

Magic Fluterrific

The first Magic Flute weekend is officially over (2 performances down, 5 to go)! Friday was a lovely opening. The cast was healthy, the house was full, and the "Bravos" were plentiful. The opening night party was sufficiently schmancy (there were quail puffs with truffles—how's that for schmancy?), the toasts were pleasantly pithy, and the wine was amply abundant.

And then…well, then there was the dress. After I was told by two separate people that it was Oscar-worthy, I am fully jumping on the Butter by Nadia bandwagon.

It was a fun night. Magical, you might even say. Don't believe me? I have proof.

Erdrosselt!

You can never have too many redheads. This one is BrandNewMiniCooperGirl.

The obligatory arms-length self-portrait with CameraMan

The Wise Soprano, relaxing after delivering a stunning Pamina. (Please ignore my posture).

In other news, I completed my 30-day project yesterday, a project that I hadn't even mentioned on here because I was so certain that I wouldn't be able to actually do it. I ran for 30 minutes with stopping! This may not seem like a huge accomplishment, but it was definitely the first time in my life I had been able to do it (hey, I never claimed to be athletic). I even had energy left over to jump up and down with excitement when I finished.

Also, my kitten made a new friend last night. The Soprano from Wisconsin brought Bessie over for a playdate. Hilarity ensued.

Catching up

It’s been a week since I last posted. I am a terrible, neglectful blogger. How can I make it up to you? Will a retroactive Week in Review post work? No? Hmm... What if I provide some visual aids? Well, it’s worth a try.

Friday:
Free day devoted almost entirely to primping. Abduction opening night. Pretty dress (see visual aid #1). Big successes for The Soprano from Wisconsin and The Fabulous Ms. Wilson. Fancy schmancy party with slightly drunk colleagues, great food, and tacky ice sculpture.




Saturday:
Another free day. Breakfast with The New Oregonian. Shopping at the Galleria (something nobody should ever do on a Saturday). Dinner at an incredible newly discovered restaurant (Seco’s—go there). An interesting, only slightly too preachy play in a fun little space. An awesome band (see visual aid #2) at Rudyard’s with The New Oregonian, CameraMan, Fuzzball, and lots of Flickr/Twitter peeps.

Sunday:
Yet another free day (amazing, right?). Crepes for breakfast. Depressive funk brought on by ugly personal details I don’t feel like sharing. Early bedtime.

Monday:
Back to running for the first time since plague. Also back to work. Ill tenor. Cover rehearsal. First orchestra staging. Stress brought on by bad attitude.

Tuesday:
More running. Tenor still puking. Another cover rehearsal. Good mood brought on by possible hypothetical good news in vague hypothetical email form. Second orchestra staging. Beer and mozzarella sticks.

Wednesday:
Lots of running (yay!). Healthy tenor (double yay!). Continued good mood. Final orchestra dress rehearsal with invited audience. Perfect number of things gone wrong so that nobody gets too comfortable. Beer and mini corn dogs. Incredibly drunk waitress. Chatting with The New Oregonian and The Soprano from Wisconsin until almost 4am.

Thursday (the plan for today):
Day off from work and from running. Bergman Magic Flute on DVD (because I am a nerd and apparently cannot stay away from the opera for even a day). Lunch with The Wise Soprano. Hot stone massage and girly salon time with Little Miss Hardcore. Sushi dinner. Movie. Good mood and a snuggly kitten (see visual aid #3).

Moonlighting

I've written a guest post about our Magic Flute tech over at the HGO blog. Check it out!

Unless you find my posts about work boring, that is. In that case, don't check it out. Hang tight and I'm sure I'll be posting again soon about my kitten, my travel plans, and my opening night dress (Abduction opens tomorrow!).

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles

By some miraculous combination of positive thinking, a drug cocktail of my own devising (Sudafed, Tylenol Cold, and Mucinex—doctors are for wimps), and a series of cute outfits (trust me on this one), I woke up this morning cured! Don't be fooled by the box of Kleenex I must carry everywhere I go or by my residual bronchial cough. Trust me, as of today I'm a whole new girl. Plus, I figure I can always pass off the hacking as some kind of acting exercise. After all, I am doing Bohème next.

I don't often long for a predictable 9 to 5 job, but this week it would have been nice to just take a couple sick days and stay in bed (or, you know, have the weekend off). Alas, it was not to be. I don't flatter myself to think that I'm totally indispensable, but I do have a hard time staying home from work. It took several meditation exercises to get over the guilt resulting from my one evening's missed rehearsal. Luckily, I didn't have to deal with being sick all alone. My friends all had different ways of helping me cope. The New Oregonian called me "sweet angel" and offered me French toast and tea, CameraMan called me "sickie" and emailed me funny YouTube videos to cheer me up, The Wise Soprano pet my hair during rehearsal breaks, and my sweet kitten was extra snuggly in bed when my cough and the inability to breathe through my nose kept me from sleeping. It was a pretty miserable 3 days, but I certainly didn't mind the pampering.

I'm healthy just in time to move to stage tomorrow night, our first Piano Tech for Flute. Somehow the first onstage rehearsal always seems to creep up on me, so I spent part of this evening making sure I was prepared.

The other part of the evening I spent celebrating my miraculous good health with friends, tamales, and one very small margarita. There has to be some reward for self-diagnosis and successful self-treatment, right?

Bring out yer dead!

This morning I totally faked healthy to avoid staying home from work.

It only lasted until 4:30 this afternoon, though, and then I actually went home sick. I can't remember the last time that happened.

I guess with the plague going around, it's no big surprise that I've caught it.

Sigh Cough.

Happiness is...

I've been neglecting the blog. And Facebook. And Twitter. And Flickr. And email. I'm thinking it might be a good thing, though. For the first time in a while my real life is looking pretty damn attractive, and I'm nurturing it instead of my online life. Lest you think that I've abandoned you completely, however, here's an update.

What have I been doing instead of telling you all about my life? Well, working, for the most part. We've been rehearsing Magic Flute for a week now. Coming back to Flute after having just done it this summer is a bit like seeing an old friend. Only in this case, it's that socially awkward friend who invites himself to parties and then gets just a little too drunk and passes out on your couch. Despite the fact that it's not my favorite opera (not even close), though, I seem to be having a great time working on it. Part of it is just familiarity; I think I never truly know an opera until I've worked on it, and this one? This one I know. I'm also enjoying doing an opera in German more than I can say. Flute has a bunch of German dialogue, and I'm delighted by how much my comprehension, grammar, and the flow of my speech have improved since this summer. I was even able to help answer a grammar question in rehearsal the other day. Don't think I won't be bragging about that for the next few days months.

But the best thing about working on this production is that rehearsals are fun (seems like a no-brainer, but it is definitely not always the case). The singers are young, vibrant, and inventive; the conductor is soft-spoken and laid back with a wicked sense of humor that surprises me every time; and the director has a fantastic creative energy that sets the tone for rehearsals that are full of collaboration and discovery. And all this, despite the fact that, being Winter (yes, even in Houston we call it Winter), few of the cast members have not succumbed to some kind of illness, and we've even had one casting change as a result. Still, I'm having the best time! Who knows, the opera itself might even grow on me.

When I'm not in rehearsal, I've been spending lots of quality girl time with The New Oregonian (we're roommates now!) and my other girlfriends, co-hosting a Superbad party, chauffeuring CameraMan to various doctor's appointments (leprosy, in case you're wondering), going to the gym, and freaking out that I haven't found a summer job yet. I'm told that once I adopt a Zen attitude and decide I really don't need a summer job, an amazing opportunity will just land in my lap, but I haven't figured out quite how to get there yet.

Today's my free day for the week, the one day in which to cram everything I haven't done since my last free day (New Year's Day). I got my hair done (yay! no more straggly bangs and unsightly roots!), ran lots of errands, did laundry, cleaned, and sent my résumé to remind people that I exist and am highly employable.

And now I'm sitting with a cup of tea and shortbread cookies (thanks a lot for that new habit, Army Brat), listening to William Fitzsimmons, and feeling almost, dare I say it...happy.

Hey, what do you know.

A whole new world

2007 is so over, and I for one am not sorry to see it go. Oh, there was the occasional red-letter day (including that glorious day that I decided to start a blog), but overall, 2007...well, it pretty much sucked. However, in the interest of the eternal optimism I possessed before 2007 came and kicked my a**, I'm trying to look at it in that "every cloud has a silver lining, whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, when God closes a door He opens a window" kind of way.

New Year's resolutions aren't really my thing, mainly because I don't like to set myself up for certain failure. I know I should be looking toward the future and all that 2008 has in store for me, but just for fun, I'll take a moment to reflect on the train wreck that was the last year. Was it worth it? Maybe the whole year was like a totally lame elementary school field trip: it wasn't fun, you didn't love it, but it was a learning experience. And if so, what did I learn?

I learned just how important my friends are to me. I need them to make me laugh, hold my hand, and keep me afloat, and I am so incredibly lucky to have amazing people in my life who do all that and so much more.

I learned that the only way to get what you want is to ask for it. Out loud. It's astounding how often that's all it takes.

I learned that no matter how much you want something or how articulately you ask for it, sometimes you just can't have it. This doesn't apply only to Prada dresses.

I learned that nothing is perfect. Nobody, either.

I learned that a job offer doesn't mean anything until you see a contract. I wish I didn't have to re-learn this one every year.

I learned that I can speak German. That was a red-letter day.

I learned that your life can turn out completely differently than you planned. I don't think this means you should necessarily stop planning, though.


And a few lessons learned just in time for the new year:

I learned that personal tragedies and heartbreaks don't take the day off for holidays. Too many people that I care about are going through major life events, and I'm sending them all my love and my thoughts.

I learned that everybody has a story to tell, and that sometimes telling your own helps them share it.

I learned that if you watch The Big Lebowski and take a drink (even just a sip) every time someone says "Dude," you will become quite intoxicated. Bonus points if you get it done before the party starts.


2008 had a somewhat inauspicious beginning, but the optimist in me is apparently still alive and kicking.

After all, it couldn't be any worse than 2007. Right?