A few days in review

Well, it's been an exciting and exhausting few days since I've visited this site, though I've thought "I'd better write that down!" more than once. I especially should have documented my further critter found, as it was just the day after the mouse; but it's just as hilarious to write about now.

On Wednesday night I had taken a bag of music/papers outside on my back balcony, wondering if it was home to any bugs or lure to any mice, and vowed to deal with it the next day. I spent the morning grocery shopping for my roommate's imminent arrival, and then went out to lunch downtown with my international buddy, Sevan, who is Lebanese and grew up in Dubai, and who was very sweet and showed me various places to shop along St. Catherine (right next to McGill). I was home by early afternoon and headed straight to the back door intending to go out and work through the bag, but went to open my windows in my room to air the apt and left the back door (save the screen) ajar. Moments later I returned to the back porch only to find...a squirrel the size of a well-fed cat sitting on top of the bag, gnawing a hole. I hissed and yelled a bit, trying to "scare him off," but he seemed almost entirely domesticated, hopping off the bag but not moving any further. I had to go out, pick up the bag, and nearly hit him with it before he trotted away, and away was only a couple feet. May I please make the disclaimer that I have never ever been frightened of a squirrel before, even the brave ones at Yale that have run across my legs while sitting outside reading; but I've just been so hilariously jumpy from moths to mice to squirrels all invading my apt, so, anyway. He sat there as I cleaned out the bag, threw many things away, and brushed off some sheet music, but I had to go get a container for the things to keep; of course when I left for just a second he came back to snoop, but I decided to just give a round spray of Windex to his face - and he ran off along the telephone line. The nerve!

That evening was the first (or second, after lunch with Sevan) of many more social excursions; Ginny and Dave from downstairs had invited me to dinner, insisted that I not bring anything, and made a fantastic rice stirfry with excellent goat cheese salad and wine. I was meanwhile waiting to hear from Noah as to when he'd get home, but in retrospect it was good to be otherwise involved and kept from fretting - Ginny and Dave are both very kind and funny, and also didn't mind giving me exact cross streets of fun places to go. I thanked them again enthusiastically, and they came up to see what I'd done with my apt (at which point it was not done, still so much had to be done!! I whined). Having gone back up I saw that Noah texted my US phone, rather than the Canadian one, and was relieved - hooray to have him back in communication - though due to technical difficulties we didn't talk til the next day.

Friday was full of last-minute errands, going to the fantastic flower shop only a few blocks away, and a bit more detailed cleaning so the place would look impeccable when Nardia arrived. I went downtown to have lunch with a friend and fellow McGill student, Laura Osterlund, with whom I'd done the medieval program in Vancouver; she was amazingly helpful and I took notes over our salad/sandwich duos. I emailed another church that had a possible opening, St. John the Evangelist, and the director wrote back immediately, assuring me their soprano section leader just left and that they've definitely been looking. It seems like a great place to be, closer to my apt than St A/St P, and smaller ensemble; it only pays slightly less. So within the next week and a half I'll be auditioning for both places, and we'll see!

Apart from church stuff (Laura is an awesome recorder player, but also sings at SJE) Laura told me a lot about music dept politics, ensembles, etc. Though it was incredibly helpful, it also reminded me of what a completely new scene it is here, and how much universities love to (or at least it seems) string students along and provide as little info as possible til the last second. Online registration has been open for a while, yet all the courses I'm absolutely required to take show up as "restricted" due to some technical errors; all seminars are "full" and show no sign of changing; until our orientation meetings on Aug 27, it's just a weird waiting game. Granted today were audition signups and I got much more information from those sheets than from anything online, but there were curveballs there too! Just more hands-on rolling with the punches experience, right?

Anyway, Laura was then kind enough to let me into the practice rooms, and I'd brought just a little sheet music so I practiced for a couple hours. Even though I know it's in preparation for more auditions, this kind of practicing was very different; repertoire I already know, for people who have already at least let me in to study here. I enjoyed the time working through and spot-checking, and headed home to last minute apartment prep. It was lucky I did head home early, too, as Nardia arrived at 6 rather than estimated 7 - an early train! - and we got to hang out and relax. She spent the evening winding down and watching a movie I let her borrow (Kung Fu Panda, sooo good) and I went through the last of my boxes: very small ones full of toiletries and makeup, something I'm a little embarrassed to have collected over the years. I made good steps and threw plenty away, and cleaned and organized the rest - now stage makeup will be so fast and easy! - and then headed to bed happy to have someone else at home.

Saturday was quite a marathon day, but I didn't anticipate it at all; I had tentative plans to go shopping for housewares with Nardia, and to get to see Becky Wexler (friend from New Haven) who was visiting for the weekend. I decided since there were so few days in which I'd get to cook for two rather than one, that I should make Nardia breakfast, and tried out an orange popover recipe: they made the whole apartment smell like oranges and cinnamon, and came out perfectly with a few streetsmart alterations. And that way, I got to try my mom's housewarming gift - tangerine-lemon marmalade from home! It is seriously award-winning stuff.

So directly after having had popovers, Nardia went grocery shopping and I stayed home to tidy; Becky called and invited me out, so I finished things up and walked out to meet her and a couple of her friends as they shopped at their favorite and very expensive, very designer stores. Maybe when I get a job......but, it was still fun to hang out. We also went to a gelato place on St. Denis, a few streets up from mine, so on the walk home after we parted ways I got to go to a few little shops I'd otherwise never seen. Got a few gifts for friends, and eyed a beautiful wok at a cooking store; again, need that job. Once I was home I just wanted to collapse, but ended up making a bit of dinner and then heading out soon thereafter, as Becky had insisted I meet a few more friends of hers in the area; I'm very glad I did, but it took a lot to get me back out. Instead of walking about an hour I hopped on a bus, extremely efficient, and went out to St. Viateur area, famed for its bagels and coffee. We met at a coffee shop called Club Social and, after having received many two-cheek greeting kisses, I got to chat with her lovely friend Alexis who is a baroque trumpeter in the area, and with whom I've exchanged a few emails...how great to have such a helpful contact! He had also been to the bath/body store they also have in the states, called Lush, right before, and presented all of the women at the table with fancy amazing-smelling soaps...even me! I felt very welcomed and was glad to have come out, and Becky even gave me a ride back home.

And now we're almost updated; yesterday, Sunday, I also stayed busy by going out with Nardia and her friend Leo to shop around downtown, and especially get some cooking supplies for me. I did okay on prices, probably paid too much for the mixing bowls, but otherwise, excellent deal on a new pot and pan and cookie sheet. Also got some double-sided extra sticky stuff for posting my mirror on the wall sideways; we did that later on, and successfully. They stayed in town to shop more and I went again to the practice room, feeling guilty about not having made it on Sat, and went through various rep before heading home, but not before stopping at the grocery store on the way to get asparagus and sundry things; at home made a dinner of the asparagus along with a cheesy omelette, and managed to retire early so as to get up as such this morning for McGill audition signups. I headed in at about 10am, only to find hardly anyone had signed up and (!) the opera audition signups were elsewhere; so I found those, and along with them some very interesting info:

Productions this year are:
Handel's Agrippina (WHAAAT so cool! My fave audition aria is from that!)
Rake's Progress (Stravinsky)
Carmen excerpts (Bizet) and Trouble in Tahiti excerpts (Bernstein)
and
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas

At which point, I'm very excited. Then, find: for auditions, please prepare three opera arias, Italian/English/French, one Baroque, one 20/21st C. Uh oh. Luckily they strongly encourage auditioning with repertoire from the upcoming season, so I'm set for the Italian/English with Handel/Purcell; but, um, a modern French opera aria? Oops. Don't have one. So I emailed my teacher asking if it'd be possible to substitute and art song, and we'll see what he says, but for now that's a little bit in limbo.

After signing up and practicing quite a bit, I came home for lunch then went back again, practiced some more, and the met up with Noah's good friend and my now-good friend Conrad for dinner. He was great to talk to and took me to a great pizza place on Aylmer, right near the music school, and we spent a good couple hours talking about music and musicians and McGill and Montreal. I headed home to the delightful task of taking out all the recycling (Nardia's never home on Monday nights for the Tues morn pickup, so there was a LOT) and then re-stacking it after I saw some kids take the cash-redemption stuff out of the bin (sad, but, glad I could help?). I can sense the neighborhood slowly waking up a bit as students arrive and last-hurrah summer parties are carried out (yes, Livin' on a Prayer is cross-cultural). I'm going to head to bed early with earplugs and have a leisurely morning practicing and class/accompanist-hunting; soon (Weds) Noah will be here and I'm sure all I'll want to do is go out and explore together!

Love,
Estelí

PS Update! Teacher wrote back, it's a go for substituting some Fauré and Britten in. Here we go, opera...