Zelda!

This past Wednesday I got to perform at the Venetian theater with an orchestra for performance of "Zelda: Legend of the Goddess"' which is basically all the music from the Zelda Nintendo game paired with a huge screen that showed clips from the game. It was awesome. From what I understand, they've been touring with this production, but this night they were also going to be filming it for PBS and making a DVD to go with a new release of Zelda that's coming out for its anniversary. How did I get this very fun gig? Several weeks ago, Jen Rudd, our USC bishop's wife asked me to email another harpist from USC who wanted some harping advice. I emailed her and forgot about it. She responded just a few weeks later with more questions and we emailed back and forth some more. Then, she emailed and said she had given someone my contact info for a Vegas gig that was coming up. So, there you go. These things come about through the strangest channels sometimes.

There were two harp parts. I was Harp I and they asked for help finding another harpist. I gave them three names, but one of my friends called me after they contacted her. Apparently the gig had tried to negotiate with the Musicians Union, but had failed to reach a deal. The Union wanted a cut in on the distribution rights or something since they are filming this. Anyway, my friend had had several union members and fellow musician friends call her and tell her not to play the gig. She's not a member of the Union, but is pretty prolific in the music scene here and didn't want to get blacklisted. Luckily, I'm enough of a nobody that no one knows or cares what I do, ha! They ended up bringing another harpist in from the Palm Springs area four days before the performance. In the end, they flew musicians in from New York and Boston and had some drive in from California. I think I was the only local playing. I was talking to one of the sound engineers (Frank, from Chicago, works for PBS) and he told me that when they did the math it would have been cheaper to fly an entire orchestra over from Italy, pay their airfare and hotels and performance fees, than it was to hire the Las Vegas Philharmonic to play it. Definitely a little drama! If you want a little more juice on the situation, give me a phone call.

They emailed us the music just a week before the concert, but we didn't have any rehearsal until the day of! Actually, the East coast had one rehearsal in NY or Boston, but none for the rest of us. We had a rehearsal from 2-5, which was a basically a full dress rehearsal that PBS was filming too. There was no real rehearsal to work out kinks. I talked with the conductor on my own to go over some tricky parts but that was it! It was nerve wracking because I don't think I've ever played in such a professional setting where every mic is positioned and tested for every instrument. We even had earbuds to put in our ears to hear the click of the metronome. That was amazingly helpful. I've never worked with a click before, but just to be able to hear it really helped me find tempos and key signature changes. When I had to play really rhythmic passages I could concentrate more on my fingers than on the conductor. I still had to watch her, but not as closely and that was so helpful because the sight-lines for the harp and reading music, looking at strings, and following the conductor don't quite fit that well. I can only imagine that if I was used to using the click, that I could have taken more advantage of it. There was a tempo and key change that I was having trouble with, but then realized that not only was the click slowing down, but I could also hear the downbeat change as it went from 3/4 to 6/8 and it was so much more simple! The downbeat had its own signature sound so you could always tell the meter and it was just amazingly helpful.

It was such a fun performance. The audience was so into it and clapped and cheered when certain video game sequences came on or when we started a certain song. Some of them were dressed up like Link. At intermission they gave us a standing ovation. Heading down to the green room, I remarked how fun the audience was and the conductor pointed out that they weren't regular symphony goers. They thought it was over at intermission. It was just refreshing to play for an audience like that. It introduced them to the orchestra scene, but also enlivened it for us with their enthusiasm.

During the dress rehearsal they filmed quite a lot and had camera crews walking on stage getting shots. Whenever I played it felt like one of them would whirl around to try to get a shot. They had the harps separated across the stage, which stunk for us, but looked cooler. Eventually the camera guys set up a little camera on a tripod right in front of me. I asked if that meant I couldn't pick my nose anymore. They said to go ahead and pick and that they would edit it out. Ha! I actually really enjoyed working with all the behind the scenes people. They really work hard to make the show happen and they were all super friendly.

It was such a fun experience. I made a few mistakes, which probably could have been solved with a basic rehearsal and not being totally exhausted from all the earlier rehearsals. but overall I think I did pretty well. As I was leaving the theater, people kept coming up to me and saying how much they loved the show. It was great being a part of something that so many people connected with. Ryan would have loved the show and I wish he could have come, but he was on dad duty.

Looking out at the theater from behind the stage. It was pretty full.

The big cutout at the front of the theater.

The giant screen onstage.

The other harpist's name was Celia and she was such a lovely person to work with. I hope that our paths cross again. She was totally professional and also very friendly. She talked through several passages with me to try to make our parts work better together. She also let me borrow some rubber guitar picks for all the glissandos. We realized that we're fellow Hoosiers and IU alums. She graduated in 1999 and knew my teacher Ela there.

Belonging

My great friend from many, many Latin classes, Rachel, invited me to be part of a blog chain. The theme is "Belonging" and everyone writes some thoughts or stories on the topic on their own blog and then link it to the next person. You can read Rachel's excellent post here at collinandrachel.blogspot.com. From her blog, you can link to the past bloggers who started the chain. It's been surprisingly nerve-wracking to be part of this blog chain, of sorts. I usually write here for my own remembrances and for my family and close friends. So please excuse anything that doesn't flow or that feels a little too maudlin.

In college, I was pulled between Comparative Literature and Harp. I never quite felt like I belonged in the music building. I always took this as a sign that music was just for fun and literature was where I was really meant to be. Looking back, I wonder if this was the truth, or if it was just my own construction of reality. I had never planned on majoring in music, so when the opportunity presented itself, I had a hard time imaging that I belonged with everyone else who had had this goal for a very long time. I've mentioned several times on this blog how I just did not get orchestra and what a struggle it was for me. It wasn't a struggle skill-wise, it was a mental struggle (which resulted in me not practicing my orchestral parts, which then became a skill struggle when it came down to rehearsals and performances). I could not understand my music friends who looked forward to and got excited about the orchestra repertoire for the coming year. I never even thought to look up what we were playing next, I'd just wait until I got my folder and see what music they had stuck in there. So of course, I constantly felt like I didn't belong, like I was out of touch, or maybe out of tune with a lot of the music department.

The Comparative Lit department loved that I was a double major, that I was "interdisciplinary"and all that. I had always planned on a major in literature and when I walked the halls of the Humanities building, it felt right.  Did I belong just because it was something I had always planned on? Did I not feel like I belonged in the Music department because it had come to me as a surprise instead of being set in my five year plan?

After growing up, getting married, moving from Utah to Indiana, to Los Angeles, to Houston, and now finally to Las Vegas, I've had to adjust and fit in and belong in many places with many people. I've learned that some moves and some places don't suit me, but I also have learned to make friends, get to know the area, and work hard to belong. I don't feel torn between Music and Literature anymore, I feel happy being a mom with most of my time and getting side perks like getting to play my harp at the Venetian next week for a performance of Zelda (details coming soon!!). Taking an overview of myself, I don't think I struggle so much with belonging anymore because I belong to myself. In the past, feelings of not belonging have mostly been my own projections of my own insecurities. I've come into myself a little more now, and for the most part I like who I am and who I've become. I belong to me and I don't feel embarrassed or inferior to others, or even the need to compare. There are occasional circumstances where I feel shy or out of place, but I can stand back and look at the situation a little more objectively and parse out why something feels uncomfortable without taking it as personally. My life is so full of me (that sounds a little big-headed) that there's not room for not belonging.

I asked my fellow music major friend Liz to continue the blog chain for me. She plays the double bass and is pretty awesome at it, but she dabbles in everything creative. She's a crafting queen, paints, writes, makes violins as a luthier, and is a mom to two little boys. You can read her thoughts at lizlambson.com.

Bridgett and Abby Spend the Weekend

A few days after we got back into town from Utah, we met Kim and Bridgett at the Children's Museum. This year has been hard to get together because Bridgett has preschool on MWF mornings and Willa has it on TTH, then you add in extracurricular activities like dance between the two of them, my teaching schedule, and we were left with not a lot of time to hang out. Wednesday afternoons always worked, though. Willa's Wednesday starts with piano lessons at 8:30 a.m., from there we go straight to our park play group where we play for a few hours until it's almost time for Bridgett to get out of preschool. Then, we get in the car and drive to Thalman's house or the Children's Museum (or sometimes they come to our house), and the girls play hard together for several hours until it's time to come home around 4:00 pm. It's a long hard day full of play, play, playing and I love it! It's exhausting and I have to hustle in the morning to get all our lunches and snacks prepped, but it's so worth it. Kids have so much energy and I love days when I can supply them with opportunities to expend the energy and do creative play with friends.

 Park with friends in the morning:

 

Museum with Bridgett in the afternoon:

 So, we met them at the Children's Museum and had a great time. As we were leaving, Kim mentioned that they were going to go to Utah the coming weekend for a wedding. They have been gone several weekends in a row for various funeral/wedding/baby blessings. I felt bad that the girls would have to do that drive for such a short trip and suddenly had the thought that they could stay with us. Kim said she would talk to Robert and the girls about it. After they all talked it through, they decided to let Bridgett and Abby spend the weekend with us while they drove with baby Toby up to Utah. I'll admit, I volunteered out of the goodness and spontaneity of my heart, but when it came down to it, I was a little scared of what was to come.

Happily, the girls are two very good girls and they were very excited. They came over as soon as Abby got out of school on Friday. That night was pretty low-key. I was interested to see how Willa would do sharing a room and being somewhat off her routine, she loved it.

Four princess nightgowns and ice cream sandwich faces:

Storytime:

On Saturday the Springs Preserve was having an ice-cream festival. All you can eat ice-cream, root beer floats, and more. I really wanted to go and we decided to brave it with the four girls. Britt mainly wore Willa's dresses the whole time, having all the girls in little dresses made it a (little) easier to keep track of them. Thank goodness Aunt Rebecca decided to come along, a third adult was very helpful.

 The activity ended up being kind of a bust. The ice cream wasn't anything special, I thought there were going to be specialty flavors, but really there were just the basics and they came from the Kroger gallon tubs - no Blue Bell, that's for sure. The girls made it through two cones, and Britt tried for a third. It was hot and VERY crowded. Supposedly, they were capping the entrance at a certain number, but I don't believe that they did. There were people everywhere. We were all happy when we decided to head home.

June had a nap while the girls watched a movie and decompressed. Since we still had the afternoon left, we decided to take the girls with us to WetnWild. We live about a quarter of a mile away and have season passes, which allow for you to bring free guests each month. We had a great time, but Willa had been coming down with a nasty cold all weekend. She last about thirty minutes at the water park and then begged to go home, poor thing. I sent Ryan home with her and June in the car. I stayed with Britt and Abby until the park closed (about two hours total), then we walked home together. That night Willa slept 13 hours and almost missed church! Thankfully, she felt much better and we spent a nice day at church (Willa and Bridgett absolutely thrilled to go to Primary together) and then the girls played together until Kim got mid-afternoon. It was a great weekend and turned out much better than I had hoped. It's always dicey putting kids together for extended periods of time. I thought Willa would need some alone time at some point because she is a bit of an introvert like her parents, but she did really well. We kept everyone busy enough that I actually can't recall any fights or disagreements between any of the girls. A success!

Scott and Aubrey's Wedding and Our Anniversary

The reason we went to Utah in May was for Scott's wedding. Scott was at USC and in law school with Ryan. He was one of the three amigos, the other two being Ryan and Peter. My memory is hazy, but it seems like we had a standing dinner every Thursday night where those two bachelors would come for dinner and we would watch the Thursday night NBC comedy line up together, which in those days included The Office and 30 Rock, and was probably the highlight of my week. I remember moving to Texas and the season premier came and it all felt so anticlimactic to not be having friends over to watch and laugh with us. Also, I think I was chasing around a crawling baby so my nights weren't so free and all about me. Ah, I miss those days.

That old bachelor Scott finally decided to tie the knot to a beautiful girl from our USC ward named Aubrey. Ever since they were engaged, Ryan and I started daydreaming about a trip to Los Angeles for the wedding and how nice it would be. Behold our surprise when the invitation came and they were getting married in Salt Lake! We were happy to travel, though, and especially honored to be invited to the sealing and luncheon too. It happened to fall on our anniversary so we joked about how this would be the best anniversary ever: leave the girls for the day, attend a sealing and remember our own wedding day and covenants, have a nice lunch, and finally end the day with dancing that evening. It was a joke, but actually it was a very, very nice way to spend our anniversary. The sealing was beautiful. I love weddings and felt emotional and grateful to be married to Ryan. Hard to believe it was EIGHT years ago. Between the luncheon and the reception, we snuck out to see a movie, which was fun too. 

Scott and Aubrey looked beautiful and happy and of course I didn't get any pictures. It was a little funny because I had known and liked Aubrey a lot back in the day, but we weren't close enough to have received a wedding announcement let alone an invitation to the sealing. But, we were very close with Scott. It was a little strange to have the imbalance that way. Almost like we were crashing her wedding, but not Scott's wedding, if that makes any sense. Not that she ever made us feel that way. One of the best things about the day was seeing our USC friends. Again, there was that division of USC friends who were there for Scott and friends who were there for Aubrey. A mixing of social groups, albeit friendly ones. Here's a photo of Scott's side. Andrew and Rob had picked up wives along the way! 

I was ecstatic to see Chris and Tina Harns there too. We spent a good chunk of time laughing together in the temple lobby as we waited for the newlyweds to come out of the temple. It was funny because before we saw each other, Tina saw Ryan and my shoes in the coat room and knew we were there - an anecdote that was hilarious and awesome at the moment and is not translating well to the written page right now! So good to see them and all our friends, and so incredibly good to be invited to share this day with Scott and Aubrey.

Sisters gotta hug

The girls have been playing so well together lately, it's like a dream. There are still fights, but lots of the day they are good playmates. I see why having children closer together can be nice - provided you survive the first two or three years first. We ran to get a few groceries and Willa wanted me to take a picture of her hugging June. June ALWAYS wants to hug, so when Willa reciprocates, it's very fun for her. I hope they always love having a sissy.

Willa loves finding ants and potato bugs when we play outside. Usually the ants don't survive her handling. I like to think about it from the ant's perspective. Their just scurrying about their work when out of the sky, like a Greek god, this hand and fingers swoop to pick them up (and then squish them on accident). She often shows me the crushed ant in her palm and asks if he is sleeping. She let June in on the action and at one point June had five or six dead ants and one or two live ones on her hand. We were outside another day after that and June started crying that she wanted two ants for her hand!

At the zoo, Willa wanted to put her arm around June.

Doing things together without being annoyed at each other. It makes me so happy.

Willa's NEW new haircut

We went up to Utah last week for a wedding of a USC friend. I drove up to my brother's in St. George after church on Mother's Day. My parents were there and we had a nice evening, then we all drove up to Centerville together on Monday. It was very nice to split the trip up and especially to have grandma with us for the long leg of the journey! I also recommend Scipio as a rest stop on the way up. There is a little petting zoo and a Dairy Queen attached to the gas station. Get some gas, pet some animals, and then get a little ice cream cone as you get back into the car (after washing your hands). It's also a little more than 2/3rds of the way to Centerville (if you're coming from Vegas). Two-thirds is a magic number, they've done studies about how work days or meetings seem shorter if you break closer to the two-thirds mark instead of half-way.

I spent the week in Utah with the girls and then Ryan flew in on Friday night for the wedding on Saturday. One of the first things on my list was to get us all haircuts. Willa came with me to our curly salon. I can't recommend enough getting your hair cut by someone who actually knows how to cut it. He took some inches off of mine and gave Willa a cute bob. There are a few holes in hers because some of the hair was quite short in some places. She did a great job of sitting still and only needed a few pep talks and reminders that it wouldn't hurt.

The next day, I took June into my mom's regular salon for a trim. I would have liked to take her to my place, but since I was planning to leave it long, and just wanted a little trim, and her curl hasn't really settled in since she still has a lot of fine baby hair, I decided to save a few bucks. The cut is okay, but it really reminded me of why I love curly cuts so much. I just hate when people wet your hair down to cut it. You never go out with wet hair, that's not the "done" look, so why would you cut it that way? You should cut it while it's dry so you can see how it hangs and falls. So, June's hair is totally even on the bottom now whenever she's all wet and in the bathtub, but during the other 23 hours of the day it still looks a little scatty-wompus because some of the hair curls and waves differently when it's dry. I'm not sure where I'll go for her next haircut.

She did look adorable sitting in the chair, though, and Willa worked hard giving her encouraging words and sometimes bossing her around to keep her head in a certain place.

She started out very brave, but started to get a little nervous towards the end. It was a little confusing to her. Still, it's a lot more even on the end and thicker since we got rid of some scraggles. Here's to new haircuts, I think all three of us are looking pretty good.

 

 

Willa cuts her hair

Willa came out of quiet time this past Thursday pleased as could be and very proud of herself. I believe her words were something like, "Mommy, I cut my hair short like Bridgett's!!" I honestly can't remember my exact reaction, but it probably involved some shock and disbelief. Sure enough, she had taken scissors and whacked the heck out of her hair on both sides of her face. There were long locks of hair falling off and if I pulled my fingers through her hair then handfuls of cut hair came along with them.

But, she was SO pleased and excited. How could I be annoyed or angry or mad? The only thing I felt a little sad about is that she has wanted long hair for quite a while and has vehemently refused any suggestions of getting it cut. We went swimming with Bridgett about a week ago, and she had cut her hair to shoulder-length. I had even suggested since then to Willa that it would be nice to cut her hair short like Bridgett's, but she was adamantly opposed. I guess children can change their minds quite quickly!

Her pleasure and reactions were so hilarious that all I could do was laugh. We went up to her room to see the damage and of course the floor was covered in hair. She then told me that her map to China had instructions on it to cut her hair. She's been very into adventures lately, especially going to China, and will pack a bag to go on her trip. She has this piece of paper that she was practicing her letters on a few days ago that she has taken special care of and put in a special place each night, and this is her map to China. I asked her if she would read the instructions for me. I hope you'll enjoy this as much as I did.

I called Ryan at work and told him the story and we couldn't help ourselves, we just laughed and laughed into the phone for quite a while.

I'm glad I was able to keep my cool, because what's really the problem if she wants shorter hair? It's also a childhood milestone that we've now passed through. Now that the excitement has passed, I've talked to her and said that if she wants short hair, she should always tell mommy so that we can go to someone who has bigger scissors (one of her complaints is that her safety scissors were pretty small for cutting hair). I also told her not to ever cut June's hair - we'll see if that one sticks. She gave me a weird look and almost acted like, "Hey, thanks for the good idea, I hadn't thought of that yet!"

Honestly, I felt a little sad throwing away this soft, thick, beautiful hair that she had wanted long for such a long time, but on the other hand I'm excited for her to have a really cute and short bob for the summertime. It's hard to see the haircut in the pictures, but it's very short - probably around her ears on both sides, long in the back, and also long on top where it was pulled up in a little braid! Since it's curly it blends a lot, but it still looks like a pretty terrible haircut. We're going up to Utah next week for a wedding and I already had an appointment for my hair, so I called and he is going to cut Willa's too. I'm debating about chopping hers myself just a little bit so it's not quite so uneven, but I also just want to wait for the experts. My curly cut person did a great job on Willa's hair last summer and cut it dry.  Another big positive out of this is that she isn't afraid of haircuts anymore. She told me several times that it didn't hurt when she cut it. Getting her haircut has been a major fear for the past few years, so I suppose the lesson is, if your child is scared of something, just let her do it to herself.