Hot July

A heat wave. I suppose nothing really new, although with hazy, hot and humid days and late afternoon thunderstorms, I feel like I’m living in central Florida again. My garden is dying, we are going to have a huge electric bill due to the constantly running ACs throughout the house, I have been taking showers at the end of the day instead of the beginning, and the animals are pretty much wiped out.

Here is Dot sleeping on her back. She tends to do this a lot anyway, but these days, almost every nap is like this.

Dot

Pixel spends most of the day in the TV cabinet.

pixel

We can tell Diamond’s hot because she spends most of the day on the desktop as opposed to her bed.

diamond

And Schrodie, our scardy-cat, won’t subject herself to the heat of a closed cabinet (her usual hide-out is the bottom of the china cabinet) and instead exposes herself to potential capture by Dot while hanging out in the pantry, which for some reason has always been cooler than the rest of the house.

schrodie

At least it should cool down to the 80s next week!

It’s been a long time…

…since I posted last. 2013 has started off pretty rough. My grandmother died in January, and I was so depressed for weeks. But, then there are things that have to get done, shows to do, concerts to practice for. I am, of course, feeling much better now, and looking forward to a rather quiet summer while I practice for my recital, play in only 1 band, be on only 1 board (for my orchestra), and do only 3 shows, 2 of which are actually the same show at different venues.

Steampunk Sweeney

Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to play Sweeney Todd for the third time! It was the 2nd time I was able to play my self-orchestrated book for piccolo, flute, Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet, oboe and English horn. I was in heaven playing that show, as it’s not only one of my favorites, it’s Sondheim!

The cool thing about this production was that the dress was “steampunk”, and the pit was encouraged to dress up too. We were actually up on the platform that doubled as Todd’s room on one side and Johanna’s on the other (it was pretty terrifying for me to climb up the stairs, but by Sunday I was cruising), and therefore visible the entire show.

Even though she lives in London, Kerri helped me put together this outfit. I purchased the spats and hat (I love that veil!) and bought some gear accessories to make the necklace. Of course, I suspect I look more like an extra from Firefly than steampunk, but whatever: it was fun!

And even better, although we won’t be dressing up, we are doing Sweeney Todd again in May with the same music director!