Some things our conductor said in rehearsal tonight, and a Rhyming Moment

1. Our conductor seems to be consistently either unnecessarily cranky during rehearsal, or striving to be the young, cool, funny guy that wants to joke around all the time. I think because we were on the cusp of a long weekend he was in a good mood.

"Alright, so this is like the little French boy trying to sneak out of his house to play on the French streets in the middle of the French night. On second thought, that sounds kind of sketchy actually. Never mind."

"What does La poupée mean, anyway? The puppet? Ok, right here I want you to just tickle the puppet, okay? What, you think that sounds creepy, too?"

"We are in SCANDINAVIA! There's mountains, and cliffs, and snow, and fjords, and there's a Big Concert Timpani playing REALLY LOUD out there!"

"What's the tempo marking on this movement? Moderato? Good. Does anybody have "rush every time you have quarter notes"? Because I was afraid the publisher had marked all the winds' parts wrong again."


2. I think that perhaps I should change the cd I'm currently playing in my car. As I turned the corner onto my street this evening I noted that not only was I listening to the same song as yesterday when I made that same turn, but I was listening to the same phrase within the same verse of that song. I thought for a moment I had lapped myself.

Charming People 5: Me!

Hey folks, just so you know, I'm pretty dang charming. Want to know why? Here's some irrefutable proof:

• I take my banjo with me whenever I go camping. Everyone loves a banjo at the campfire!
• I donate every year to our local community radio and secretly I call it The People's Radio even though I'm pretty sure not all of the dj's are communists.
• I sing to my chinchilla every night when I feed her the square of shredded wheat that she so covets. Usually I sing either "Alberta" as sung by Eric Clapton (except I switch out "Chinchilla" for "Alberta") or "Honey Pie" by the Beatles (not "Wild Honey Pie", just the regular one).
• I had a speech impediment when I was a small child- who doesn't love a little kid with a speech impediment?
• I make cakes from scratch for the birthdays of everyone in my office.