Mushroom growing kit, day 14

Just look how they've grown in the space of two days!

Messiah sing, voice lesson clip, Lucia di Lammermoor

This past Palm Sunday I finally attended the Messiah Sing at West Valley Presbyterian Church, the one where we, the audience, perform the entire work (2 1/2 hours or so). I've been wanting to do this for a couple years now. I'm happy to report that I handled it respectably, even the movements that I don't know so well because they're usually not included on Christmas programs. I had to be strategic about which movements I wanted to sing, because if I tried to sing every note written for soprano in that work, I'd have no voice by the end of the night. I like these Messiah sing-alongs, even though sometimes the more difficult movements end up as train wrecks :) Partly, I enjoy these events because they're the only venue where it's ok for me to sing "Rejoice greatly" in public.

While there, I heard a guy with a beautiful voice behind me and to my right, singing the tenor solos. Tenors, especially good ones, are always in short supply, so I thought to myself, "I should recruit that guy for my choir!" Later, when I turned around to take a peek, I realized: "That guy IS in my choir!" Which was reassuring. I believe it's his first season with our group - hope he sticks around!

I've been excited about my voice lessons lately, so much so that I am daring to post an audio clip from one of them. Normally I would be too self-conscious to do so, and I can certainly hear my own shortcomings in the clip. At the same time, though, this clip represents a lot of progress, considering where I started from a year ago. (I'm singing a passage from the aria "Una donna a quindici anni" from Mozart's opera Così fan tutte.)

Also this past week: watched the DVD of Lucia di Lammermoor from the Met production with Sutherland and Kraus. No happy endings there. Great singing, though!

Mushroom growing kit, day 12

My darling mother-in-law decided to indulge my fungal pastime by sending me an early birthday present - a mushroom growing kit from Mushroom Adventures. It grows Blue Oyster mushrooms (same kind of oyster mushrooms you get at the grocery store). Basically, it is a block of substrate inside a black plastic bag with holes punched in it. The substrate is already inoculated with mushroom spores, and the mushrooms grow out of the holes in the bag. There's also a loose plastic sleeve that goes around the block to keep the humidity level high. The kit is pretty easy to use - all you have to do is water it a couple times a day.

The mushrooms started sprouting this past weekend and they grow at an unbelievable rate, so I am going to post updates with pictures as things progress.

A gold star day in the voice studio

...is what I had the other week at my lesson. Over the past two or three lessons, I've experienced some breakthroughs and a "singer growth spurt". In the previous lesson, we breezed through the vocal exercises and made good progress on the piece that I was working on. Then my teacher brought up the subject of repertoire, and we discussed possibilities for songs and arias I should tackle. I believe he was giving me a nudge to start working on more difficult pieces. I feel like I've graduated to the next level. It is exciting and rewarding! I never thought I'd have the interest or ability to sing pieces from the operatic repertoire, but here I am, taking the first baby steps in that direction.

I've updated my repertoire list accordingly.

Other recent musical endeavors:

Saw tenor John Bellemer perform at Stanford as part of the Shenson Recital Series. The following day, I sat in on the masterclass he gave for Stanford voice students.

Recently learned how to use LilyPond, an open-source software package for music notation. I used it to prepare some sheet music for my choir. It lays out musical scores beautifully, but it is not all that user-friendly, and using it is practically like writing computer code. However, it is free. I checked out the commercial alternatives, Finale and Sibelius, and they are definitely not giving them away!

Updates: T-shirt quilt, Mt. Everest, Fourpiter, Twopiter, and Dinky

Here's a photo of my completed T-shirt quilt!

So I did decide to make one after all, to replace a picnic blanket that I own (and will now freecycle). There are cottage businesses for making custom T-shirt memory quilts (like this one), but doing it myself had a few advantage. One is price - it is NOT cheap to have it done. Another is the creative control of designing it EXACTLY as I want it. And the last, unexpected, bonus was that in taking the time to do it myself, I had time to reflect on the memories embodied by the t-shirts. And since I'm the T-shirt Queen, the story of my life is written in t-shirts - this quilt touches on everything from my junior and senior high school days, college and dorm life, choir and band, my spouse, first jobs, friends, travels, and shows I've seen.

While working on this, though, I did come to the realization that it's a VERY time-consuming project, especially for a non-quilter like myself. Definitely something to undertake only while taking time off from work :) And I don't blame the professionals for charging a lot to make one of these!

As for other stuff I've been up to...

The Grand Decluttering continues. I've been recycling, freecycling, and selling old junk on eBay (and incredibly, people are bidding on it!).

Recent reading & viewing: I read two books on the disastrous 1996 Mt. Everest climbing season and one on the 1967 climbing disaster on Mt. McKinley. Also watched three documentaries on Everest. Don't worry, I'm not planning to climb it, I prefer armchair mountaineering.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

Climbing High: A Woman's Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy

Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters

Mountaineering disaster books are a guilty (and probably sick) pleasure. You get to read real-life tales of conflict, suspense, and harrowing tragedy, set in the some of the world's most dramatic settings, while lying in your bed eating ice cream.

Recent astronomy-related activies: We went to a talk called New Worlds and Yellowstone: How Common are Habitable Planets?, which was part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series at Foothill College.



The lecturer, Dr. Geoff Marcy, related a story about naming extrasolar planets: "I have gotten suggestions from a lot of school kids. For example, if you're looking at this schematic of Upsilon Andromedae with the inner, middle, and outer planets, I got a letter from a school kid -- now it's been two or three years -- and she was in 6th grade and she said: “Dear Professor Marcy, I just read in the newspaper that you discovered three planets around Upsilon Andromedae. I don't know if you have names for them, but I have suggestions for you” and I thought oh boy, here it comes and she said: “Well, the outer planet I saw in the newspaper has four times the mass of the Jupiter, so I think you should name it Fourpiter. I kept reading in the newspaper and the middle planet they said it has twice the mass of Jupiter, so I think you should name it Twopiter. The inner planet, I think you should name that Dinky.”

Fourpiter, Twopiter, and Dinky! Love it!!!

And here's a bonus, something that we saw at a recent astronomy club meeting...a video of a volcano erupting on Io, a moon of Jupiter:


The frames were captured by the New Horizons probe. The plume of volcanic debris is 200 miles tall!

Save our California state parks!

I just sent this letter out to my in-state family and friends:

Dear friends and family in California,

I'm writing to ask if you would join me in telling our state officials to save our California state parks. As you may have heard, Gov. Schwarzenegger's 2008-09 budget proposal includes the closure of 48 state parks - see the article below. If you look at the map of closures at http://www.sfgate.com/ZCAR , you will almost certainly see parks in your area that are affected.

This is important and personal to me. California's state parks have an important place in the lives of my husband and I. We've hiked at Big Basin Redwoods SP, picnicked with friends at Pescadero SB, gone swimming at Torrey Pines SB, ridden the train at Railtown 1897 SHP, and gone on astronomy outings at Henry W. Coe SP and Fremont Peak SP. We even got married at a state park, Empire Mines SHP! And these are just a handful of the state parks where we've spent time. Sadly, Fremont Peak, Henry Coe, and Railtown are slated for closure, and lifeguard staff cuts are planned at Torrey Pines - unless we act!

Many of us Californians live in urbanized areas where access to natural spaces and beaches is already limited. These closures will only worsen the situation. Balancing the state budget is important to me. However, preservation of the state park system is also high on my priority list, and these park closures are too drastic a measure. If you feel the same way, please take a moment to let your state officials know:

Email your state legislators:
http://ga3.org/campaign/KeepStateParksOpen

Email Gov. Schwarzenegger:
http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/action/preservation/state-parks

Learn more about the closures and how to take action:
http://www.savestateparks.org/

And please pass the word along to others who care about our state parks!

Articles:

• State park closures hit close to home: Governor threatens to lock up Fremont Peak, Henry Coe
• Your pennies will make the point - this brief editorial mentions that it would only cost each CA resident 2 cents per month to maintain the state parks at their current funding levels!

Enjoy the moment, slow down

Spotted in my neighborhood. Thought I'd post it as the thought for the day. Here's another view of the sign, below. I cropped it philosophically. (The full text of the sign is actually, "Traffic calming measures ahead - Enjoy the moment, slow down")