Disco Fever

Thursday night was the Sacred Heart school disco. Oh the anticipation! Last year when we went, T-man spent most of the time cuddled up to me, only rarely venturing out onto the floor and then just to talk to friends. But this year he seemed really excited about going. We were met by the usual wall of sound, a mash-up of thumping disco music and squealing children. To my suprise the moment we entered the hall, Tyler started busting out the moves! Must get it from his father cos he sure doesn't get it from me.

The obligatory glow-sticks and flashing bit 'n' bobs were purchased and away he went, not fazed at all. As usual, talking to other parents was done by sign language. Here's the end result of ear-splitting disco music and too much fizzy:

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'The Singing Part of the Blog'

As I have mentioned, my voice has not been the same since I lost it at the end of Hansel and Gretel and after trying Sudomyl and Prednisone to catch any possible underlying inflammation or infection, Plan B was commenced and I headed up to Dunedin on Tuesday to visit an ENT specialist. Ironically the same one who does Chris' 6 monthly cancer checks. Depsite my apprehension, as I have a strong gag reflex, having a camera shoved up my nose and down my throat was not painful or awful, just strange. The best bit was seeing it all on tv. The verdict is (and even I with layman's eyes could see this) that my vocal folds and epiglottal area are purty enough to grace a medical textbook under the section: 'What healthy vocal folds look like.' Which is good from an I-don't-have-nodules-or-other-nasties point of view, but didn't explain the ongoing voice strain.

So the theory is that while my voice was still recovering, I inadvertantly started using a bunch of smaller muscles in the throat and neck area to compensate and that became a habit. And these muscles are big enough for the job and so get strained resulting a husky voice. So I'm being referred to a speech therapist to relearn to use the right ones.

Of course that's not going to be happening in time for Competitions with start on 7 October. The repertoire for Comps is:

Duet (with Ruth Gorrie): Christie Eleison - Bach, B minor Mass

Oratorio: If God Be For Us - Handel, Messiah

Lieder: Wer hat dies Liedlien Erdach - Mahler

Aria: In Uomini, in Soldati - Mozart, Cosi fan tutte

French Art Song: Au pays ou se fait la guerre - Duparc

Scholarship: Test piece - Music, when soft voices die - Quilter

Contrasting piece - Let the Bright Seraphim - Handel, Samson.

Make it shut up

The other day I got the vacuum out and warned Mr T that I was about to vacuum and there would be a bit of noise in the lounge shortly. Several minutes later as I entered the lounge there was no sign of him. I mentally shrugged my shoulders figuring he'd retired to his bedroom. Then as I headed toward the window, I noticed a large bulge at the bottom of the drawn-bacl curtain. This is what I found when I pulled the curtain back:

:

Me me me meeeeee

I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I should peel off all my singing stuff into a separate blog. This blog is supposed to be about us as a family and Tyler in particular but it seems to me that my singing is dominating lately. I shall ponder this :)

Anyway, starting with the little dude, he has been complaining the last couple of days about not being able to see very well. We have had him checked over the last few years, given that my genes are of the variety 'blind-as-a-bat' and at the last check the optometrist said that his eyesight was perfect but given that his eyes still have some growing to do, it is quite likely he may end up slightly short-sighted. So we will head off for another check and see what transpires. I was a bit worried when yesterday he was complaining of a sore head and feeling unwell, given that I also have the Auld migraine gene. I'm pretty sure he's too young to get them yet but....

And.....back to singing. :) I had the first RWC (oooh will some faceless beaurocrat smite me for mentioning 'that' Cup?) anthem sing last Saturday. It was great - I was nervous, excited and proud all at once. I think the choir did a fine job - the crowd certainly thought so as they clapped us off the field - but it was a shame that the cameras focused purely on the 2 teams (Scotland and Romania) and didn't even do a brief shot of the choir. So much for my 2 seconds of world-wide fame. Afterwards we scored front row seats in the uncovered grandstand and a fellow choir member and I managed to get on the big screen at half-time, shamelessly mugging to the roving camera. )What was funnier was that about 30 seconds later, the fellow (male) choir member got a terse txt from his partner, sitting elsewhere in the ground, asking who was he sitting with! His response - 'just one of those geeky choir girls'. Hahaha - true :)

I opted out of tonight's Georgia v Scotland game so my next and final game will be Argentina v Romania on Saturday. And we get to keep our pretty scarves - cool!

RWC time!!!

Only a few hours to go till the opening ceremony at the Rugby World Cup and the first game, All Blacks v Tonga. Rugby heaven :) I have the final practice tonight for tomorrow's game. I think I've got the Romanian anthem off pat but still have the occasional blank on a word. Here's the translation of it:

 

 

Wake up, Romanian, from the sleep of death,

Into which you have been sunk by the barbaric tyrants,

Now, or never, make a new fate for yourself,

To which even your enemies will bow.

Stirring stuff!! Tomorrow I have to be at the pickup point at 8:30am to catch the bus to the stadium. Miss the bus, miss the game. Which does not start till 1pm. We will have security checks, sound checks and practices and then have to fill in the time till the game starts. We wear black from top to toe, no logos, discreet jewellery, street make-up (no 'glam' make-up!). No heels on shoes - I guess so we don't make holes in the grass. And any food we take in has to be in non-commercial packaging. A packet of Eta chips? Decant into a plastic bag. Bottle of coke? Decant into a drink bottle. The bonus is that we get to stay and watch the game.

 

 

In other news, Tyler has lost another tooth, so that's $2 added to his coffers however he has blotted his overall copybook by cracking the dining room tv screen by hurling the Wii remote at it, having not put on the wrist strap as we always remind him to. Just waiting to hear whether it is repairable. Both Chris and I were out at the time and apparently when Tyler heard Chris come home he ran into our bedroom and hid under the covers and started crying!

Warning: Contains Willy references. :)

Scene:

Tyler is sitting on the couch watching TV, hands down the front of his pants in the classic male way.

Tyler: Mum, why do have you have to have two balls?

Me: Well it would be a bit much to have three wouldn't it?

Tyler, looking anxious: But why do we have them, because you keep thinking about them, and then feeling them....

Me,feeling slight panicked about where this is heading: Look don't worry about them now, you'll just need them when you grow up.

(Yes I can see you all rolling your eyes and thinking surely you could see where this was going? I could but, a nano-second too late)

Tyler: What for?

Me: Um, because they help make babies.

Tyler: *silence* then with a derisive snort: Nah, babies can't come out your willy!! Oh wait, maybe if you go *scrunches up face and makes sound of person with severe constipation* it will come out.

Me: Oh look, Ben 10's on TV!!!

My dear mother if she reads this, will likely be laughing her head off and recalling an incident of my childhood in which the church minister was at our home for afternoon tea and I, maybe seven? eight? and obviously reading something interesting, called out loudly from the bedroom "Muuuum, where are your testicles?"