Another week of chaos (but not entirely unpleasant) , for yours truly...
The quartet hasn't had a lot of business this summer. We've had the opportunity to get out and sing, but PAYING gigs have been few and far between. This week I managed to book us 2 gigs: a birthday pary for a 94-year-old and a business event at the Henry Ford. No sooner had I confirmed the gigs, than I get a text from our bass, Big Dave. He landed a job! Great news! The caveat is that it's doing disaster relief for the hurricane-hit regions and he's on call to leave for up to a month. Great...
Thankfully, I had an ace up mysleve. Our baritone and I have filled in on occasion for one of our other chapter quartets, and their bass is retired and flexible. I call him up and he's happy to help (whew!). We rehearsed on Thursday and, after working out some interp differences between his quartet and ours, we managed to come up with an impressive list of songs we can do well. That's the nice thing about having 4 guys from the same chorus. Our "sub" isn't as precise as our "regular", but we were fairly decent. I'm gonna miss the way we could ring with Big Dave as the foundation. I hope he gets back soon!
The weekend started out with mom-in-law picking up the kids on Friday night to spend the weekend with them. Then, Sonya decided to head to the cottage in Canada to help her brother paint it for her parents, leaving lil' ol' bachelor me home to run amok. My drum corps' alumni picnic was this weekend in Freeland, so I figured without the family to be concerned about, I'd drive the 1 1/2 hours north and have some fun with my old corps buddies.
I....HATE....MDOT!!!!
I hit the road about 12:30, after picking up some burgers, pop, and a veggie tray to contribute. I knew there would be some construction - there always is - but figured that on a post-summer weekend, it shouldn't be too bad.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the Michigan Department of Transportation...
They start squeezing 3 lanes of traffic down to one lane over the course of about 5 miles for about 20 feet of active construction. Then they open it up to 4 lanes agin...for all of a mile and a half. Then, back down to one lane again for some bridge work...and so the whole drive went. I passed through 4 sections of my route that were condensed down from up to four lanes down to a single lane. What should have been about an hour and a half commute turned into 3 1/3 hours.
I was just pulling up to the appropriate exit when I looked at my watch. If I was to make it to the quartet gig on time, I had to turn around immediately and put on my Captain Leadfoot cape. I hit the exit, get right back on and head back south (via I-69 & M-53 this time - I'm no dummy), arriving 15 minutes late for the gig. 5 1/2 hours of a gorgeous Saturday of free time shot to hell. Thakfully, they were still eating and hadn't presented the cake yet, so we were good.
The birthday girl was 94 with a bit of dementia, but when we sang she simply glowed. I was nice to see our efforts so richly rewarded. It's amazing, the power that music has. We finshed up, had some cake and coffee and basked in the glow of our warm reception (and the nice tip the gal who booked us gave us).
From there I head to work at the video store. Near the end of my shift, my good friend Paulie pops in and suggests we hang. I grab Fletch and we spent the evening watching a classic Chevy Chase flick over pizza and beer, just catching up. A shiny end to a frustrating waste of a day.
Sunday morning, with the kids still with their grandparents and Sonya still painting the cottage, I hook up with my friend Paulie again and we hit Slow's BBQ in Detroit near the old stadium. We caught up more over the meat and ambiance and had a great time. I spent the rest of the day doing dishes, laundry, mopping, tidying, and (almost) finishing the assembly of the kids' swingset, before driving up to north Auburn Hills to meet up with my father-in-law to pick up the kids.
So endeth my weekend...
...but not the chaos. More to come...
The quartet hasn't had a lot of business this summer. We've had the opportunity to get out and sing, but PAYING gigs have been few and far between. This week I managed to book us 2 gigs: a birthday pary for a 94-year-old and a business event at the Henry Ford. No sooner had I confirmed the gigs, than I get a text from our bass, Big Dave. He landed a job! Great news! The caveat is that it's doing disaster relief for the hurricane-hit regions and he's on call to leave for up to a month. Great...
Thankfully, I had an ace up mysleve. Our baritone and I have filled in on occasion for one of our other chapter quartets, and their bass is retired and flexible. I call him up and he's happy to help (whew!). We rehearsed on Thursday and, after working out some interp differences between his quartet and ours, we managed to come up with an impressive list of songs we can do well. That's the nice thing about having 4 guys from the same chorus. Our "sub" isn't as precise as our "regular", but we were fairly decent. I'm gonna miss the way we could ring with Big Dave as the foundation. I hope he gets back soon!
The weekend started out with mom-in-law picking up the kids on Friday night to spend the weekend with them. Then, Sonya decided to head to the cottage in Canada to help her brother paint it for her parents, leaving lil' ol' bachelor me home to run amok. My drum corps' alumni picnic was this weekend in Freeland, so I figured without the family to be concerned about, I'd drive the 1 1/2 hours north and have some fun with my old corps buddies.
I....HATE....MDOT!!!!
I hit the road about 12:30, after picking up some burgers, pop, and a veggie tray to contribute. I knew there would be some construction - there always is - but figured that on a post-summer weekend, it shouldn't be too bad.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the Michigan Department of Transportation...
They start squeezing 3 lanes of traffic down to one lane over the course of about 5 miles for about 20 feet of active construction. Then they open it up to 4 lanes agin...for all of a mile and a half. Then, back down to one lane again for some bridge work...and so the whole drive went. I passed through 4 sections of my route that were condensed down from up to four lanes down to a single lane. What should have been about an hour and a half commute turned into 3 1/3 hours.
I was just pulling up to the appropriate exit when I looked at my watch. If I was to make it to the quartet gig on time, I had to turn around immediately and put on my Captain Leadfoot cape. I hit the exit, get right back on and head back south (via I-69 & M-53 this time - I'm no dummy), arriving 15 minutes late for the gig. 5 1/2 hours of a gorgeous Saturday of free time shot to hell. Thakfully, they were still eating and hadn't presented the cake yet, so we were good.
The birthday girl was 94 with a bit of dementia, but when we sang she simply glowed. I was nice to see our efforts so richly rewarded. It's amazing, the power that music has. We finshed up, had some cake and coffee and basked in the glow of our warm reception (and the nice tip the gal who booked us gave us).
From there I head to work at the video store. Near the end of my shift, my good friend Paulie pops in and suggests we hang. I grab Fletch and we spent the evening watching a classic Chevy Chase flick over pizza and beer, just catching up. A shiny end to a frustrating waste of a day.
Sunday morning, with the kids still with their grandparents and Sonya still painting the cottage, I hook up with my friend Paulie again and we hit Slow's BBQ in Detroit near the old stadium. We caught up more over the meat and ambiance and had a great time. I spent the rest of the day doing dishes, laundry, mopping, tidying, and (almost) finishing the assembly of the kids' swingset, before driving up to north Auburn Hills to meet up with my father-in-law to pick up the kids.
So endeth my weekend...
...but not the chaos. More to come...
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