Snow

My Christmas was very quiet, as is expected at the Brehms' place. I ended up making just simple sweet potatoes with brown sugar and butter, and it turned out just fine.

You know, I scrambled so much trying to get gifts out on time, and the only people who sent me any gifts were my mom and my aunt Renda, so I think I need to just plan ahead better next year. I still haven't gotten Ray's gift yet, but that's okay, because he still hasn't gotten me mine. I want the Treo 650, which is now available with Sprint, but I also want to switch to Cingular, and they won't actually have the Treo 650 until end of January. So I'm willing to wait. Ray wants a GPS navigation system, and since he didn't tell me what he wanted until the day before Christmas Eve, I told him he was going to have to wait for it just like me. :)

More Blah

Rehearsal was good, I thought. We're finally getting a nice sound, so I think the performances on Friday and Saturday will be good. As I was going into Philadelphia last night, though, I realized that I had left my wallet at home, so I couldn't park in a parking lot and was forced to find a spot on the street. The only problem with street parking in Philadelphia is that there isn't any. I eventually found a spot that wasn't exactly legal, but I had been driving around for almost a half hour and I had to get into rehearsal. So, surprise of surprises, I got a ticket. What is that, two tickets in two months? GRRRRR. Anywho, I guess that'll teach me not to leave my wallet at home.

Blah

We had a pretty productive rehearsal last night. DH mixed us up so we can't sit next to someone of our own part. I think that's a much better formation with this group, because nobody was listening to anybody else, and now you have to listen to everybody else. I think a bunch of people were pissed at him because he was kind of being a hard-ass about listening to each other, but I think he was completely justified.

The Philadelphia Inquirer came to rehearsal the other night and took pictures for a story they were doing on local events for the Christmas season, and my picture ended up in the paper! It was really funny, because the camera guy was like IN MY FACE while I was trying to sight-read this piece of music and I had to just ignore him. But the picture came out pretty well. Unfortunately it's not on the web site, which I don't get. The article is there, but the pictures aren't there at all.

We All Like Sheep

I just finished the last performance of The Messiah tonight. All in all, the soloists were very good. Celena Shafer rocked the house, and so did the bass, Philip Cutlip. His voice is so warm and beautiful, and he did the runs impeccably, even at the hyper-caffeinated pace of Maestro McGegan's conducting.

Nicholas McGegan is so much fun to work with, even if he does take everything really fast. He's so happy up there on the podium, and he's always trying to make us smile, and he has all sorts of fun gestures for different parts of the piece. At one point it looked like he was going to fly away, Peter Pan style. He made me giggle. The best part was when we had to stop after "And the Glory of the Lord" to let the latecomers be seated. He kind of did this little mime where he would tap his feet and glare at the latecomers, making the whole audience chuckle. It was so fun!

Parking in NY

I got a stupid parking ticket in the mail from New York. I never got the parking ticket on my car, but they sent it to my house and fined me $10 for not paying it on time. I didn't even know that I had gotten a parking ticket!!!!!!!!! Not only that, but it was for parking at a meter on Broadway at 8:50 PM. How late do the meters run on Broadway? Do they really run that late? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, if I don't want to pay the $10 fine, I have to have a hearing, which I can do online or by mail instead of in person, which I'm going to try to do. And if I can get out of the whole ticket, that would be just fine with me, too. But if I really was in the wrong, I guess I'll pay the $65 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). I know I'm not paying them $75, though. It's fucking highway robbery.