Thanks again to everyone for the thoughts and prayers; I really appreciate it. We got back Saturday night; I went to bed rather earlier than is normal for me because it was a draining trip, and Wyberd woke me at 5:30 am to make sure I was there. Goofy cat. Better believe I went back to sleep;) Had miscellaneous unpacking and householdy-type stuff to do Sunday, and that kept me busy. Work today, back to usual.
We stayed at a different hotel every night. We’d originally planned on staying at Mom’s house up there, but it wasn’t close enough, so when we started to get close, plans changed. The first hotel was a run-down old-fashioned motel, more like a chain of cabins sharing side walls than a typical modern hotel. Wouldn’t have been so bad, but the ceilings were low, the paint and furnishings were dark (and clashed with each other), and everything was claustrophobically small. The next hotel was more what we’re used to seeing, but they only had vacancy for the one night, so we decided to start for home Friday night instead of waiting until morning. Worked out well; we got home at a reasonable hour Saturday night, instead of the wee hours of the morning.
There were upsides to the whole thing, despite the circumstances. I got to see relatives I’d never met, relatives I hadn’t met since I was too young to remember, and relatives I’ve seen only a few times in our lives. We did exchange contact info; maybe I’ll get to keep in touch with some of these extended family members now.
Another interesting thing; they asked me to sing at the service. It was a song I’d never heard before, but it was a fairly simple melody, so I figured it wouldn’t be too much trouble. With a good accompanist, I can do a totally new song and nobody will ever know the difference.
Two things I learned that day: 1) I really miss singing in public, and 2) I’ve been spoiled to have access to so many good pianists until now. I have NEVER had a pianist actively fighting me during a performance before; the guy was all ego without the skill to back it up, and he had the gall to laugh at me during the performance when I started early (I had no idea he intended to play the WHOLE verse and chorus as an intro – which lack of communication is another indication of his unprofessional behavior) and he didn’t even try to shift to accomodate me. He was going to play what he wanted, and I had to try to figure out where he was going. He allowed me one run-through beforehand, then shooed me away so he could do what he wanted. It would have helped if he’d kept any kind of predictable meter and rhythm. Brat.
Afterwards he complimented me on my singing and asked if I’ve sung before (and the priest expressed a wish that they could recruit me to sing for them every week; I told him it was too long a drive – didn’t think it best to mention that I’m also not Catholic). I told him I’d sung at church all the time growing up, but I didn’t even think to mention the choir tour to the National Cathedral until we were miles away, when my brother reminded me. That was fun; I and one of the other sopranos took turns soloing at the other venues along the way (we didn’t have any solos at the cathedral itself), and when we got there, they asked us to sing the mass, too. We’d only been asked to sing the prelude before we came, but offered the chance? Oh, yeah. We spent a few hours rehearsing and performed both the prelude and mass on schedule.
Anyway, apparently a lot of the family had no idea I could sing, so a lot of people came up to me later to compliment me; one man said I “should get on TV and make a lot of money!” I’ve thought about recording an album before, but I’ve never quite gotten there; not sure exactly what my hangup is. I think I prefer live audiences…maybe that’s part of it. If I can get through whatever it is, maybe I can get some recordings done and up online. Don’t know how long that’ll take, though.
