Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday was yesterday.

I dressed appropriately for Church and went to Dunkin Donuts to get my coffee ( That's my special treat on Sat and Sun -I don't MAKE my own coffee - I buy at there. ) before my rehearsal with the Choir.

I get there and the Choir Director/organist is in the Chapel with some members of the choir. We reviewed a piece that I am playing the flute on for Maundy Thursday ( I was actually a Flute major in under grad! ). Our priest came in and sang his part, the choir did their part ( I sing most verses with them) and then I played the intro and closer to the tune. Boom. we were done.

Church begins in the parish hall. We do the blessing of the palms. We read the blessing of the palms and coordinating lessons and Gospel. Then we recreate the ride into Jerusalem by processing out of the church,palms in hand, and walk around the building to the sanctuary ( yes - outside), singing Ride on Ride on in Majesty a capella. I get to the lead the troops here, because I have perfect pitch so I can get them in on the right notes so we match up with the Organ in the Sanctuary when we get there.

Once Inside, we start our service as we normally would on a random sunday. We process down the center aisle to the alter, split off and and walk around the side aisles, out the door and up to the choir loft.

We continue through the service. We sing our anthem, Lift up your heads, oh ye gates. ( No not the one from Messiah), and wrap things up.

I head over to my students house, where I proceed to give her a double lesson. 10 years old and she has an hour an half lesson. She is in Once Upon This Island and learned her songs wrong. So we had to go back to the drawing board. She cantored that day and didn't look at the music she was assigned on Wed until Sunday morning. I nailed her on that, because it sounded like she was seeing it for the first time. Her sightreading for NYSSMA however was astly improved, so that was a plus. I probably spent a good 30 mnutes out of that hour and half lecturing her - and I HATE that I had to do it at all. Not a solid 30 mins - 30 mnutes spread out over the entire time.

Lesson was overall good though. She was very focused and she is stopping the baby talk and using her words to speak to me without being reminded 20 times.

My brother called and invited me to his in-laws for Easter Sunday - so that wil be fun.

I went home and watched TV, literally, the rest of the day until my rehearsal. I needed to decompress and for those of you who know me, I can't ordinarily sit still that long. But I did and I'm not sorry. I had a lot of plans for that day, but nothing that couldn't wait. I caught up with some friends, read some blogs, but largely just sat.

I was bored witless. I couldn't even identify the feeling because I haven't been bored since the third grade. I discovered that I ate all day long yesterday due to boredom. the good news is, Noticing that I was bored and that I was eating to compensate, I was also eating good and healthy things like fruit and vegetables. I wasn't eating crap or heavy foods. I had yogurt which Wolfi felt should be partially his. Overall, my snacking was reasonable. I just have to address the behaviour. I felt good about that and the fact that each item I ate, got written in my food journal.

At rehearsal that night, I spoke to the other "normal" soloist about the directors mid week calls. I wanted to know if I was the only one that recieved them, and thankfully, no I wasn't. She had the president of the group shut them down, so I will be doing the same thing. The problem for me, is that the director is also my voice coach. It will work out.

I took a hot bath and rested last night. I fell asleep fairly quickly and slept through the night with no aid. It was wonderfully refreshing.

It wasn't the Palm Sunday I planned on, but it wasn't a bad substitute.