Month: September 2006

I’m going to a big family reunion in Connecticut tomorrow. It’s happening because I saw my cousins at my cousin Debbie’s birthday party, but didn’t have a chance to talk to everyone. I said we should get together for lunch or something and it became this big weekend thing, with all these relatives I didn’t even know existed! Which is great, it will be fun, but I bet I don’t get a chance to talk to all my cousins again.

That’s Debbie
on the
bottom left.

There are pet shops all over the place where I live and everyday I torture myself by going to look at the puppies. I would love to have a dog. But I live on the top floor of a walk-up and between that and the cats, I don’t think it would be a good idea. So, instead I make myself miserable by looking at all the cuteness that I can never possess. This is a window full of puggles on 6th Avenue.

Sigh. Well, today I’m going out to Long Island to do one of my most favorite things in the world. I’m going to visit a police warehouse to see what they’ve been storing since 1925.

We’ve started rehearsals for the holiday concert. Among other pieces we’re doing this lovely one I’ve never heard before called Totus Tuus by Henryk Mikolaj Goreckil. It was written for Pope John Paul II, who said this prayer after he was shot:

Totus tuus sum, Maria, (I am completely yours, Mary)
Mater nostri Redemptoris, (Mother of our Redeemer)
Virgo Dei, Virgo pia, (Virgin Mother of God, blessed virgin)
Mater mundi Salvatoris, (Mother of the world’s Savior)
Totus tuus sum, Maria! (I am completely yours, Mary!)

Awww. The gorgeous guy in this photograph is Robert Gardner, the baritone I gushed about who sang Ellijah for us last season. HE’S BACK. Well, he will be. He’s going to sing the baritone solo in a Vaughan Williams piece we’re doing called *Fantasia on Christmas Carols. Buy your tickets now. You’ll thank me, I promise. From my earlier post about him: “I don’t think I exaggerate when I say every man and woman in the choir had a crush on him — you had to have been there, you would have developed a crush on him too, trust me.”

*It’s pronounced FanTAYsia, but I hear FawnTahSEEa in my head whenever it’s said, for some reason. I’m not sure where that pronunciation came from. I’ll bet when I was 12-years-old I decided that way sounded cooler.

First, a gratuitous cat belly shot. This is Finney resting on the couch, after trying to pull the keys off my laptop, scratch the screen, tear up my papers, eat the isight camera, kill Buddy, kill my shoes, bite my face, knock over the vase on my desk, con me into feeding him breakfast twice and finally pushing the ibook off the desk when I got up to get him a toy. Ah yes, you must be all tuckered out. Rest little devil, rest.

Onto new TV.

Kidnapped. Is that the name? It’s okay. It has the actor who played Fearless in Boomtown, and I love that guy, but he got shot early on and I’m not sure if he’ll be back. I don’t think I’ll watch it again. Oh, the son was good, too.

Shark. James Woods is so full of himself and he’s good, but this is very ordinary, otherwise. Not a thing new. I don’t think I’ll keep watching.

Six Degrees. I don’t even know why I watched it, but this premiere is the best premiere I’ve watched this season, totally out of the blue. I really liked it. It had something. Did anyone else watch this?

Heroes. I”m going to give this a try tonight.

PS: To everyone who mentioned Veronica Mars. I tried! I totally expected to love it and didn”t (except I did come to love the father). I don’t get it. All my friends love it. Joss Whedon loves it. It’s almost like some flaw of mine has been revealed. My failure to appreciate it proves that there is something lacking in me.

She was in the Bronx! For those of you who don’t know Manhattan, that’s a long, long way.

I woke up so worried. Now I can get back to work! And working out! And whatever else I like. Maybe I will take a nice walk and pull down all the lost dog flyers I put up the past two days.

Look at
that face. Who could
not love Bean?