Saturn Return

Have you ever heard of the life phase referred to as the Saturn Return? A friend of mine told me about it a few weeks ago and this morning I finally had some time to look it up online and read more about it. Here's what Wikipedia says about it and here is another good article.

According to what I read, between 27 and 30 years of age people experience the first of three Saturn Returns in their life. It takes Saturn 29.5 years to orbit around to the same astrological point it was when you were born, so the average person has about three in their lifetime. Anyway, the first Saturn Return is fairly tumultuous and often associated with moving, changing jobs, and a fairly big life overhaul in general.

Um, what?

Yeah, for those of you who know me, pretty much all of that and a bag of chips has happened to me in the last year, which makes me totally buy into this whole Saturn Return thing. But you know what's even better than a friend and a couple of random websites putting my life into a tidy little box that can be summed up in two words? Apparently all of this life upheaval leads to some *really* good stuff. After the dust settles and jobs have been quitted and the moving boxes are unpacked and the bad relationships are dead and buried, you wake up to what you really want and what you find really important in your life. And I am pleasantly surprised that what is shaking out of my Saturn Return isn't all that surprising.

I am realizing that my life will never fit into the "normal" box at the end of the road, and that's okay. I have a smattering of part-time jobs that all make me equally happy and fulfilled. I have a plethora of hobbies that I love and cultivate more and more each month, and fun friends and family to share it all with. In the future I'd love to see a husband and kids of my own play into that equation as well, but according to Wikipedia, my new astrological guru, I have about 6-7 years of stability coming to me after I turn 30 for that kind of stuff. So for now I guess I will continue to knit and drink tea on my couch, have dinner parties for my friends, sing, go to the gym, and hunt for bargains at my favorite thrift stores. That's some good stuff!

How does February 2010 look to you?

Now that I'm back to "freelancing" as an opera singer, I have to keep a calendar with me at all times that looks at least one year into the future. Right now I am juggling a fair amount of repertoire for a fair amount of auditions/gigs, and if I am successful and receive a role after these auditions, I won't actually perform many of the roles until sometime in 2010.

Here's a small glimpse into what I am forcing my brain (and calendar) to juggle:
1) Good Friday Service
Received the offer to sing Dec. 2008
Lots of music, in latin, performances in Everett
Rehearsing between now and April 10, performance April 10, 2009

2) Easter Sunday Service
Received the offer to sing Jan. 2009
Not a lot of music (just got a score last week), in English, performances in Issaquah.
Rehearsing shortly before April 12, performances April 12, 2009

3) LMC Competition
Found out I could enter two weeks ago.
Scrambled to get together 17 minutes of repertoire, including songs in three languages from three compositional periods.
Found an accompanist last week, recorded yesterday with no prior rehearsal.
Edited recording, filled out application and mailed today.
Finals for competition: June 6
Winner's tour for competition: September 2009

4) Tacoma Opera Auditions
Received my audition appointment today.
Need several opera arias in several languages and compositional style periods. Must diligently practice these between now and April 18th.
Potential show dates if cast: February 2010

5) Ladies Musical Club Auditions
Waiting (not so) patiently for auditions to come around again. Have heard rumors that auditions are in mid-May.
Need to prepare a few art songs/arias to show my depth and breadth.

6) PSCO Auditions
Not sure yet if I need to do an in-person for this or if my prior work will suffice.
Potential show dates if cast: January 2010, March 2010

7) Seattle Opera Chorus informational audition
Will contact chorusmaster this week for audition request.
Need to prepare arias (same as Tacoma probably) and make them sparkle.
Potential show dates if cast: I have absolutely no idea.

8) Seattle Opera Preview
Auditions are June 2009.
Need to prepare arias (same as Tacoma/Opera chorus).
Potential performance dates if cast: Opera season 2009/2010.

Seriously, all of that stuff came out of my head just now. In case you missed it, that is an insane amount of repertoire to prepare and have waiting on the burner to perform. And the castings are reaching all the way into 2010 at this point. I have to admit that it's a lot of fun. The only bummer is trying to plan my life so far in the future in between shows, like vacations and weddings (no, not mine!) and trips out of town.

Nearly

Spring is nearly here. After almost a week of bitterly cold days on my balcony, my pansies are enjoying a mild evening and look very perky.

I am nearly someone's employee. The construction company where I have been temping for the last five weeks is getting me set up with computer credentials, including an employee e-mail address, with no end to my assignment in sight. And with my flexible part-time schedule there, I will still have plenty of time left each week to sing my little heart out.

Lellow Blankie reborn is nearly finished. I am so happy with how it's turning out that the thing practically knits itself!

When it's done and has been washed and blocked I will post the pattern for all of you who want to knit one for yourself!

The seatback to one of my deck chairs is nearly woven. I decided not to give up on the original weaving I had done and I think it is turning out just right. It is fairly back-breaking work because of the awkward angle I have to hold my arms while weaving, but totally worth it.

















In some other indescribable way I feel like I'm nearly there. The last six months have been a real challenge and I have been patiently pushing ahead for a long time now. But I am realizing that I don't have to push as hard anymore, and things are all sort of coming into place. I have a fully-decorated home, steady employment, singing opportunities, and a full social life. Heck, that feels nearly perfect!

What I am made of

Has anyone openly criticized your line of work? Have you ever been put down because of your passion? Has someone made a cruel joke to your face about your career choice? All of these things have happened to me at some point, with the most recent occurrence being last night. I was at a casual German meet-up group and, in the course of a conversation, a man said something very hateful to me about my line of work. The specifics aren't important because I've heard this kind of thing before and his rudeness is not a singular isolated incident. And the person who said it may not have even realized how insensitive and cruel he was being. But after years of talking to non-musicians about singing I have learned to pick my battles. And in the process I have learned what I am made of.

When this man put my career down I was shocked, taken aback, and I think I might have struggled for words for a few moments. But dealing with ignorance and insensitivity are a common part of being an opera singer. When someone makes a joke about singing not being a "real" career or belittles performing artists as not being hard-working folk, it gets my back up. My temper flares and it takes a lot of self-control to keep myself in check. But I have learned to let a lot of these comments go. I can't fight every fight. I can't educate every person about the toils of being a classical musician, and I can't make them see how much blood, sweat and tears singers go through to achieve their goals. But what I can do is focus that energy into something positive, which is what I plan to do in a couple hours when I find myself in a practice room.

Spring is a busy time for singers in this area. Opera companies start thinking about the upcoming season, and audition and performance opportunities start coming out of the woodwork. Currently I am preparing for the Ladies' Musical Club competition, Puget Sound Concert Opera auditions, Tacoma Opera auditions, an informational audition for the Seattle Opera Chorus, and my two holy week performances. All together I have six different auditions or performances to prepare for in the next month. All of the practice and preparation for these opportunities are unpaid, and the only person to motivate me to practice is me.

I'm not going to say that performing for me is the end-all, be-all of my life, but it is something I am good at, something I enjoy, and something I take great pride in. And when I am cast in something for next season and achieve my next artistic goal, it will be further proof what I am made of: strength, determination, and perseverance.

Another living space!

Daylight Saving Time is upon us and I love the prospect of longer days. It also gives me hope that I can eventually put away my winter sweaters and scarves and welcome warmer spring weather. However, after seeing snow the last three days in a row, I'm not holding my breath for a speedy change in the seasons.

However, that does give me some time to remodel yet one more living space! I can't believe it sat ignored for so long, but it is finally time to give my balcony a makeover.

At the root of the makeover is this mess. It is a pile of woven plastic and consumed the greater part of my day yesterday.
















I acquired a really cute bistro set from my parents, which has been loved and used into its current state of disrepair. The woven chairs have become brittle and no longer support the weight of a full-grown adult.

Ooh, here is my balcony. The sun shines directly onto it every morning (when it's sunny, that is) for several hours. I can't wait to have my breakfast out here and maybe catch up on my knitting on fresh summer mornings.




















I bought some pansies for a color bowl yesterday. I noticed I was the only one at Home Depot buying spring flowers, but that may have had something to do with most of the outside plants being dusted in snow.





















Anyway, back to the chairs. At Home Depot I found some polypropylene cord that is most commonly used for tying together bundles of papers or securing tarps at a camping site. But it looked lightweight and sturdy and the price was right, so I bought a couple spools and started in on reweaving the chairs.




















I think my intentions were good in theory, but this is not turning out the way I had hoped. After cutting off the old woven seat panels, I realized that the space in between the wrought iron frame was pretty narrow, meaning that the whole spool of cord wouldn't fit through. So I wound mini-spools on a piece of cardboard, but the slippery polypropylene did not want to stay put, making work very slow going.

This was the point in my weaving project when my hands and back were too exhausted to continue, and my head had been chanting "there has to be a better way!" for far too long.




















See? This is why I don't mind the snow. I have plenty of time to get back to the drawing board and figure out a new solution to my seating dilemma. Actually, I know what the best fix would be, but I haven't quite worked out the execution. I think I need to build some sort of frame, kind of like an embroidery hoop, and do the weaving for the seat as if it were just its own piece. Then when the weaving is done, sew the woven mat onto the chair using a whip stitch. This would eliminate the difficulty of stringing a long continuous piece of cord through such tight spaces. However, I need to figure out how to get a frame constructed and then execute my master plan.

Oh right, and that would also involve taking out all of my hard work from yesterday, which is a little disheartening. But, after so many years of knitting and ripping out unsatisfactory projects, the thought of having to reweave isn't that big of a tragedy.

Music

This weekend has been filled with fun outings and exciting musical events. On Friday night I went to see the Lion King at the Paramount Theater, which was an absolutely amazing show in a regal and sumptuous venue. After several months away from being a stage performer in Germany, it was refreshing and fun to sit in the audience and enjoy the hard work of all the singers and dancers onstage. I took in all of the elaborate costumes, make-up, sound and visual effects, and the overall feeling of the artistic director's concept, and let myself get caught up in the performance.

I could appreciate so many things about this show that most of the other audience members might not notice. For instance, I noticed the singers in the ensemble had their microphones taped in the middle of their forehead just below the hairline, with the cord going up and over their head and the power source being belted to the back of their waist. The quality of those microphones was really fantastic and it was a cool feeling to also know what it's like to be belted into a microphone and have to do costume changes around the wiring taped to my skin.

On Saturday night I went to see the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra's winter concert in Town Hall. I used to be fairly active in the PSSO social circle when I had two roommates playing in the group in graduate school, so I was excited to see how many people I still recognized in the ensemble. Although there were only a few familiar faces at the concert, the atmosphere and the music was really great.

Since PSSO is a community orchestra, the instrumentalists donate their time to the group and the board of directors works hard to keep the ticket prices low. I paid only $7.00 per ticket in advance and heard three really great pieces of music in exchange, including the Grieg piano concerto played by the PSSO conductor. The conductor also speaks briefly about each piece before it's played, mixing in quite a bit of humor along with the description of each piece. The program notes in the program are also informative without being dry. For instance, to introduce Rachmaninoff's second symphony, the author of the program notes wrote a list of "25 Random Facts about Rachmaninoff," a la Facebook, including many gossipy nuggets of information about the composer.

With only three concerts per year it's pretty important to get the dates on your calendar so you don't miss it. I would definitely recommend clicking on the PSSO link and putting their spring concert on your calendar.

Lellow Blankie Reborn

Those adorable yellow braids from the Viking Hat on the cutest baby in the world reminded me of something. My yellow (pronounced "lellow") blankie from childhood. I blogged about it last fall in a sorry attempt to get someone to figure out the pattern for me, because I've been hankering to knit a new one. Well, after not getting any responses, I randomly came across a pattern that looked exactly like it in a knitting book given to my by my Mom! Eureka!

I was so excited that I cast on (all 179 stitches) for the blanket and started knitting!!

There is a lesson in this anecdote. It is called swatching, and all knitters should do it. All knitters should test out a new pattern on a small scale to make sure it is knitting up the way it should. I normally don't swatch, because I think it is a "waste of time." Ha.

In this case of this project, the pattern that I thought was *exactly* like my lellow blankie turned out to be different. Not dramatically different, but different enough that it bothered me. And it most definitely did not look just like my beloved lellow blankie. So I ripped out approximately 10 hours of knitting (SWATCH, people, I'm telling you!!!) and went back to the drawing board.

I decided to take a good look at the lellow blankie and figure things out for myself. It is a simple enough pattern, made up of some regular increases and decreases to create a gentle undulation in the stitch design.

















I put on my thinking cap and started counting stitches and taking notes. I broke down the pattern into an estimate of how many stitches I would need for the increases and decreases in one wave, or one pattern repeat.

















Then I cast on the estimated number of stitches (plus a few extra for good measure in case my estimate was wrong) and started swatching. Turns out swatching is a great idea. Not only did I figure out that my guestimate was correct and the pattern was knitting up just like the lellow blankie, I didn't waste hours and hours on almost 200 stitches per row to figure it out (haha, oh wait, I already did that...).

Then I did some simple maths to calculate how many pattern repeats I needed to duplicate my old blankie, and then I double-checked my estimate by counting the number of stitches per row on the lellow blankie to make sure my count was correct (I was correct).

Then I went down one needle size to make sure the pattern knit up at a gauge identical to the lellow blankie, because my swatch was knitting up a bit loose compared to the original.

And NOW!!!

I'd like to introduce you to the Lellow Blankie Reborn.




















I know the photo is kind of dark, but it's getting late in the evening and that is some BRIGHT yarn and I didn't want to hurt your eyes. But seriously, I am beside myself. Who would have thought that the poor blankie that I so carelessly destroyed as a child is now re-emerging on my needles some 20+ years later??

Knitting is cool, folks. Just don't forget to SWATCH, for heaven's sake!! :)