Hobbits In Rivendell

While others concerned themselves about being taken up from the Earth, we spent our weekend in more mundane pursuits. First, we rested up. Next, we rehearsed. Finally, we regaled our audience with our best performance, ever — and our last official performance of the year.

And then The City of Glasgow Chorus went home and fell down.

T. forgot to take a shot of the Stage Door entrance, which clearly says BBC above it, which was a small thrill for her. Apparently the Beeb uses the building to record concerts for radio. What was once the site of a candleworks — thus the name of that area of the city, Candleriggs — the City Halls/Fruitmarket area is now all things gentrified and nice, full of little shops and restaurants, and no whiff of tallow — or fruit. We didn’t have time to do much exploring, however! We were signed in, and hustled up to the sixth floor for our three hours on the stage.

While the rehearsal was long and basically boring and filled with bits that had nothing to do with us — any full dress rehearsal tends to be, and why does one never remember to bring a book to these things?! — the concert itself was all things lovely and gorgeous. A young violinist, whose father sings with us in the chorus (he was so proud he was practically vibrating) played the romantic Vaughn Williams tune, A Lark Ascending and brought down the house. She’s in the last moments of her last year as a student at the Chethams School of Music, and is off to the London next year, to take the world by storm.

Most of our soloists are students from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and are up-and-coming professionals. This time our singer was Brazilian-born baritone, Michel deSouza, who was just amazing, and also quite resplendent in his tux and tails. (T. imagined him singing in The King & I, because his delivery in the Belshazzar piece was very lordly — reminiscent of Yul Brenner.) Mr. deSouza clearly enjoyed himself; even during rehearsal both the chorus and orchestra smiled as he emoted dramatically and sang. Honestly, next time we do this, someone needs to suggest costumes.

The Scottish Festival Orchestra, which is T’s favorite orchestra, is made up of all of the best professional musicians from the various orchestral groups throughout Scotland. It is, for that reason, so very good, and they’re also a lot of fun to work with, unlike some orchestra groups who seem to see the chorus as a horrible encumbrance they’re forced to endure. Also, they have great cellists, who saved our semi-chorus from going slightly flat in an unaccompanied section by very quietly drawing their bows across the bass note — and voila, the entire semi chorus re-tuned. (A great save, which may have even been written into the music, but probably was not.) Amended, 6/1: Apparently El Maestro reads this blog, and argues that the semi-chorus actually wasn’t flat, and the cellists came in, right where they were supposed to. We accede the point, and maintain that the Festival Orchestra still has the best cellists, ever.

Another thing T. was excited about was the number of women in the orchestra and in the brass, who, while sadly not pictured, were stationed along the sides of the room in their own little balcony – which made their voluntaries ring out very nicely. Aside from the usual section of female flautists (what IS IT with that?! How does an instrument become so gendered? Parents: encourage your girls play the French horn and the bassoon, the cymbals and the trumpet. Please. Enough with the girly flutes.), there were myriad females on all instruments, including a lady trombonist and a silver-haired lady on percussion. (She does a fabulous buzz roll on the snare drums. The entire percussion section got quite a workout during the Belshazzar.)

The acoustics in the City Halls are very live, which was a real pain whilst rehearsing; we could not hear ourselves over the orchestra — we actually felt rather painfully deafened. However, once the hall was filled, we heard ourselves just fine, and believe that the audience even heard a word or two. As always, singing with no electronic amplification is a tricky thing, and very reliant upon the room and the crowd, but it worked out fairly well this time.

Afterward, T. stripped off The Blouse of Purple Hideousness (We note El Maestro seems to have no opinion on this one. Hmph.) for the last time — with a sad little pang, and many sighs of woe from her section — and we staggered home. A stagger it was; D. overexerted himself just hanging out through the rehearsal and into the performance — a full seven hours, and T. sang so loudly in the final chorus she had spots swimming in her vision and the room darkened alarmingly. (It was also overly warm in the choir stalls.) We were both well and truly ready to go home and crash, but were awakened early Monday morning. Now, usually our morning wake up comes from The Ring-Necked Pigeons From Hades, they who have chosen to nest in an old chimney stack, and we can hear their mad cooing down the vent into our bedroom, which is right behind the bed. This time, however, our early wake-up came from The Wind From Who Knows Where, which rattled through said vent. ::sigh::

Monday’s day long gale force winds rose and rose, getting to just above 70 mph. at times. Eventually, the winds shut down the train system throughout the city, due to branches on the lines and random flooding. Meanwhile, planes were already grounded (or headed that direction) due to the Icelandic volcano ash. D’s coworkers were shooed out of the building at five minutes to five, in order to catch the last moving conveyances going anywhere.

“Scotland cannot take any weather,” one of D’s coworkers sighed. Well, that’s not exactly true. Scotland can take any weather just fine, as long as everyone goes home and sits tight and stays off the roads and the trains. Then, everything’s great.

It seemed a good evening to go home and make soup. And oat bars.

Monday was D’s first day at work on his new schedule, which gives him a day on and a day off, in order to see if the cataclysmic weariness he experiences can’t be coped with in that way. So far so good – we have had nine days in a row with no falls or mishaps or calls to EMT’s. Sometimes in the battle of What We Want to Do vs. What The Body Says We Will Do, the body wins, and so we learn to take it easy and listen when the body says “I’m too tired to keep going.” Epstein-Barr or mono, or whatever this is, really humbles and focuses a person. Meanwhile, we’re still awaiting the lab results, which should probably come in on Wednesday of this week (or we’re going to go and storm the lab), and D. is working on his departmental presentation. After this week, he’ll know how much revision he has left on his dissertation (or, if you’re a UK citizen, his PhD thesis), and the date for his oral exams will be set. We will finally have a clue about the time frame for what we’re doing next.

It’s funny — and a bit alarming, when one first learns to play chess — how often one move from one’s opponent can put everything in jeopardy. A quick defensive move, castling, leaping in with one’s knight or bishop — and sometimes the danger is averted. Sometimes. But in the field of identical black-and-white squares, it’s hard to see where the danger is coming from, and one mistaken move can result in a checkmate – a disaster from which there is no recovery.

At the moment, that’s a bit of what our lives feel like. We haven’t posted on this much, because really, ailments are simply not that interesting, and whining isn’t good reading. However, we thought we’d provide a little update for the concerned.

A bit of background: through the extended winter of this year, D. has been ill off and on, first with a pneumonia, then with a terrible reaction to the antibiotic he was taking, and later, he had a build-up reaction to a different drug — and a little over a month ago, he decided to stop taking anything, and go with herbs (milk thistle is an amazing thing, and is used by doctors in Germany to heal the livers of those who have mistakenly eaten poisonous mushrooms). Unfortunately, some damage was done; it appears that he has had some liver toxicity from the drugs and after a lot of throwing up, we thought he’d be better. Not yet. Many blood tests and trips to the doctor later, we’re still exploring his baffling list of symptoms (which include no appetite, sudden low blood pressure and fainting, and the ability to fall into a horribly deep sleep for two-three days straight) and have narrowed his problems down to various disorders, including Hepatitis A (the aforementioned inflamed liver), Epstein-Barr’s disease, or mononucleosis.

Right now, our American audience is wondering why we don’t know yet for sure. Well, that’s because labwork can take up to two weeks here. The cuts that have been made for the good (debatable good, some say) of the financial big picture here have been to the NHS, and so lab tech jobs have been cut. A lab procedure that might take thirty-five minutes is delayed because there aren’t enough hands on deck at present to deal with it. (This was explained to T. by someone who works for the system.) We are having to have patience, D. is working when he can, and we’re balanced on the keen edge of faith and frustration, learning to change our expectations of what we can do and where we can go, setting aside all but the most crucial appointments (we’re SO grateful D. was able to turn in his dissertation draft, and he’s writing out his oral presentation for the 26th, in case someone else has to read it for him). We are learning to breathe through the panic, to celebrate the moments of normalcy, to restructure expectations, and to cope. (For all our friends to whom we owe notes or packages [Jac, G, & C, your little packet of odd bobs is still sitting by the door, and Tony, the fedora-wearing paper doll is still in process], we apologize. We haven’t forgotten you!)

Since the weather has decided to reprise November’s greatest hits (hail, wind, rain and sleet), we don’t feel like we’re missing too much not being outside. D. is under orders not to exert himself, so walks are limited to right out front in the garden, and across the street to the herbalist. T. bakes and cooks to temp D.’s disinterested appetite, and we’ve come up with some really tasty oat bar cookies — which sadly have no recipe at present, but we’re going to try making them again this weekend, and we’ll write down what we do!

T. attended a concert with a friend on Sunday and was amused to hear a group from the Bay Area! The Kronos Quartet plays experimental classical, Mexican folk, and South Asian music, and it was an unique experience to hear them. (A few of their songs sounded like the violin equivalent of crickets, tree frogs, and cicadas with drums, rattles, the odd mandolin riff and snatches of digitally sampled voices. Really avant garde stuff.) One of the musicians was an old faculty member from Mills College in Oakland (T’s alma mater), proving the musical world is indeed very, very small.

Speaking of music, Sunday is the City of Glasgow Chorus’ final concert of the official season. D. will be unable to stand throughout the full two hours, but has his ticket and will be sitting in the audience with friends, front and center. How we wish some of you could be there, as we sing in the gorgeous City Halls. Belshazzar’s Feast is the Biblical story from whence we get the phrase “seeing the writing on the wall.” It’s a dramatic and overwrought piece of music wherein the choir gets to shout the word “Slain!” and lament with all the skill of a Greek chorus, whisper, and sing in eight parts. It’s fast, dissonant, challenging, and strangely gorgeous. Really do you could be in the audience.

Meanwhile, we carry on, as the icy wet Spring gives way to warmer weather. We’re hopeful that a solution to our current difficulties is only a week or two away. We’ve met some kind and conscientious folk who are working with us, and we’re grateful for understanding professors and flexible bosses.

It is a game of strategy, this life, and we’re playing as wisely as we can. We’re planning for our next move. D. has gotten some job nibbles from British Columbia, and so we’re looking that direction — but that’s all so far in the future. Right now, our focus is keenly pared down to essentials — getting through a day with no major mishaps. Do keep us in your thoughts as we figure out what’s going on, and we hope that things are going well with you.

Obviously a personal blog can be whatever one wants to be, but we do strive to keep this from being too political, religious (although spiritual is fine), or filled with the ideological soapboxes atop which we climb and expound. However, we do have our yearly “support kids, books, and reading” commercial that we’d like to reprise if we may. If you’re not a reader, look away…

T. is involved with Guys Lit Wire, a blog dedicated to finding literature of all sorts for boys, in response to the cries from teachers and studies which screech that “boys don’t read.” Made up of teachers, librarians, and booksellers, this team blog is all about the books, and every year, does one charitable function in the form of a Book Fair to get the word out about kids and teens in need.

Last year the Guys Lit Wire community donated some 772 books – their entire wish list – to Ojo Encino Day School in the Navajo Nation, and Alchesay High School, on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. This year, the focus school is in our nation’s capitol.

You’d think being in D.C. would mean that a school was well-staffed, well built, and primed to turn out America’s finest scholars. Yeah. You’d think. I was a little shocked at what I saw of Washington D.C. when I went to the ALA Convention last summer. That inner city poverty thing is alive and well. A few blocks away from the White House, and the sidewalks aren’t even as nice any more. Why is GLW interested in D.C.? Because Ballou Senior High School – a school with over 1,200 students – has 1,150 books in their library. Not even enough books for every student to read one, despite the American Library Association suggested ratio of 11:1 for books to students in American schools. 1,150 books! And you know many of those are dictionaries, reference books, and the like. But, alas, the D.C. district isn’t a state – it has no representative in the House or the Senate, recall. If there’s nobody beating the drum to care about kids and literacy, they’re not getting anything other than the bare minimum. Emphasis on “bare.” Which is the exact description of their library bookshelves.

Fortunately, there’s us. And the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair. As happens every year, the librarian at the school is polite, but slightly skeptical, afraid that nothing WILL happen. Other people have tried to help, given well-meaning stacks of books – in duplicate – without asking what the students readers want and need. Guys Lit Wire is different; we’ve asked. And the list is up.

– from organizer Colleen Mondor, author and book reviewer: “For those of you who have been with us before, the drill is the same. Go to the Powell’s web site. In the upper right you can click on “wish list”. On the next page you will be asked to enter the email address for the friend’s list you are looking for (you might need to scroll down a wee bit to see this prompt.) Enter our email: [email protected]”

There are 900 books on that school’s wishlist. We want to give that many, and more. Read the rest of the Fair details, and see the video the librarian made of the school’s EMPTY SHELVES @ Guys Lit Wire. And, think about the impact of just one book, and what just one book has done for you.

This month in the U.S. is National Mental Health Month. One of the many cures that we Hobbits have found to work, over and over again, when we are stressed and losing our minds is to concentrate on the struggles and troubles of others. While not downplaying the reality of our lives, we often ask ourselves, “Are armies encamped on our streets? Are people going door-to-door arresting dissidents against our government? Are flood waters rising even now and lapping against our doorsteps? Do we have a roof and food and a place to sleep tonight? Then, are things really so bad?”

Please, if you can, look outside of yourself and your own troubles this month, and bolster someone else. Participating in the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair is but one of many supportive options, and a place to start. Thanks.

That is all. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Okay, granted, just because one has turned in their full first draft of their dissertation doesn’t mean that all of the work is done. Just because one has had that All Important Chat with one’s editor about one’s revision, and has the hope of actual money changing hands (Authors get paid so erratically. Do not attempt this profession if you’re actually into making money or don’t have a sugar daddy with a PhD and a penchant for genius in your back pocket. N.B.), the work is not yet completed.

However, the projects are done enough for government work. That is, done enough for the moment. In a few weeks, the pressure will start up again…(The oral dissertation presentation before the external examiners and the entire department takes place the 26th. T.’s freelance editor is tapping her foot for the science fiction manuscript due the end of May, and her middle grade novel is coming up for editorial review via committee. Notice the groups of people passing judgment around here?)

…but, for now, there’s apple tart.

We wish that we could point toward some noble impulse like Making A Healthy Dessert in the formation of this dish, but alas, it was more along the lines of O Noes, We Bought Braeburns, And They Were Overripe, And All The Apples Are Getting Mealier, Except For the Pink Ladies, Which We Have Scarfed Down, Yea Verily.

Generally, T. makes sauce out of the various Varieties of Apples Which She Will Not Eat, of which there are legion, as she tends to stick with Gala, Pink Lady, and ripe Braeburns. D. keeps bringing home different varietals to try, and she tends to turn up her nose, dry or sauce them, as this really isn’t apple season at all… but apple season never really ends in Scotland.

But we digress. Badly. The point was the tart. Which we pulled together because we had geriatric apples around the house. Okay, not too-too geriatric, we aren’t talking withered flesh and wrinkles here. Just… older apples which were slightly softening.

You may wonder why we are talking this through, instead of putting down a recipe… well, we have a sneaking suspicion that you already know: there IS no recipe for this tart. We just… dumped it all in a springform. Here’s our best guess of what we did. We started out by:

A. Thinly slicing the apples. We left on the skin, because our Mama would be Saying Things if we did not. We used 2 Tbsp. of orange marmalade and coated the apples. If you don’t want your apple tart tasting orangey, use apricot preserves for this, which will allow the apple flavor to shine through. Only apricot-ly.

B. We took one cube of plain, silken tofu, and, with a stick blender, combined 1 Tbsp of almond extract, 2 Tbsp of water, 2 Tbsp. white sugar, and 1 Tbsp of cornstarch into a smoothly blended whole. You can substitute lemon juice for the water, or add 2 tsp. of freshly grated lemon zest to give your creamy faux custard a lovely scent.

C. In another bowl, we combined 1 Cup of porridge oats — which means they’re practically instant, they’re so over-parboiled, and we use them for nothing but baking, because they make GLUE if you try to eat them, and we have zero idea how people here cook them without that happening. We prefer plain rolled oats — 1 Cup AP flour, a pinch of salt — well, we forgot that, but please don’t you forget —1 Tbsp. ginger, 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, and 4 Tbsp. of olive oil. Feel free to use butter or margarine, but we tend to make crusts with olive oil because then we can say that Pie Is Healthy. It’s a lie, but it works for us. We cut this oat-flour-oil mixture up with a fork, until it clumped a bit, then moistened it with a scant teaspoon of water. It formed a dry crust, which we pressed into the bottom of a springform pan and baked for 10 minutes at about 350°F/160°C.

D. Once the crust was baked, we poured on the tofu mixture, and layered the top of our custard with apples, and an additional 1 Tbsp. of sugar. The last bit of sugar is to assist in the caramelizing of the apples; technically one can leave the custard under a broiler for a minute, but as our broiler tends to make things go up in flames, and the foam from the fire extinguisher somewhat ruins the delicate taste of food, we skipped that bit and just baked it for 35 minutes at about 350°F/160°C. /p>

The trickiest thing was putting together the springform. Seriously. All tarts should be this quick and off-the-cuff. Our next attempt at this will include salt (cough), more spices in the crust – possibly just using gingersnaps and oats pulsed in a food processor with a little bit of olive oil would work – and the aforementioned lemon zest AND lemon juice. We’ll also likely experiment with an orange tart. Imagine thinly sliced clementines or oranges in marmalade, and maybe adding a bit of creamed cheese to the tofu mix, to make it more like a baked cheesecake…

Baking: the best thing you can do, when crises arise, and you need distraction.

If you are stressed, here is a way to de-stress. First, find a good and dear friend whom you have met in person but once in your life for the space of thirty minutes in a Starbucks on a layover in Seattle. Next, have your good and dear friend unexpectedly surprise you with a doll of you and your beloved.

(If you find you cannot manage this, take a moment to wonder why you cannot do something so simple. Then, look at our dolls.)

(Yes, that’s a camera that Baker doll has. He multitasks. And Author has tiny books. Please fall on pillows during the tremors from your Cute Overload.)

Then, take said dolls on a tour of your house, and put them in all sorts of ridiculous positions. Then, realize that you’re actually playing with dolls, when your two hundred page revision and/or the first draft of your PhD dissertation, the culmination of the last three years of your life in this damp and green country is due on Friday.

Oh, great. Now you’re stressed again.

(Okay, not really. You’re still playing with your dolls.)

This photograph of Author & Baker is from the doll maker’s Flickr account. Our thanks to her for such a lovely gift. Do check out her other story dolls, and her Etsy page.

Around these parts, today is a holiday.

As we speak, thousands are going about their business whilst the Royal Wedding is going on. And thousands are riveted to their television screens.

Though we tend to joke about people’s fascination with the wedding of Prince William, the truth has been explained to us by our friend Judy – when she was “a wee gel,” Queen Elizabeth married Prince Phillip, and there wasn’t television coverage, nor was there coverage of her coronation. People were bused to cinemas to see it on film, after the fact. For people in Judy’s generation (and, okay, people who lust after Kate Middleton’s wardrobe), this is a BIG DEAL. Imagine the millions of little girls who desperately wished to see their beautiful princess crowned and wed. And for Judy’s sake, today we will not mock. (Tomorrow is another story, however.)

Seriously, though, people have asked us how we, as Americans, feel about singing the Coronation Te Deum for chorus, which was written for the coronation in 1953, and how we feel about being here for the wedding… to which we can only reply, well, we don’t know the couple or their parents, they didn’t invite us to the wedding, and while we wish them as well as we wish anyone embarking upon a marriage, frankly, what does it have to do with us? Further, the Te Deum is a song to God – not to Regina Elizabeth, so we just can’t get into a swivet about it. Americans do not implode upon exposure to another country’s royalty. Despite the international picture of us as hardcore flag-wavers, we don’t generally get upset about anyone else’s flag. (Or do we? Are we behaving un-American-ly? So hard to know.)

Meanwhile, on Facebook there was an ALTERNATE Royal Wedding party to be staged today at Kelvingrove Park. The Powers That Be have put the kibosh on that, as the 1200 people who were going to attend might have overwhelmed the park’s bathrooms, and that there were extra police, etc., on hand for such an unofficial gathering. We have a feeling that it is going on anyway.

At least the weather appears to be cooperating. For Glasgow, that’s reason enough to celebrate right there.