Friday, December 24th - Seattle, Washington
Happy Christmas to all. Tommy and I are in Seattle with my family enjoying the holiday amongst my nearest and dearest. The whole Duxbury clan is in town this year so we're spending time catching up. It's a bit bittersweet as my parents have made the decision to sell the family home and move into retirement living. They signed the papers this week and have been downsizing like crazy. I am doing my part in giving homes to various books and various other family curiosities. Life is change and this is one more. It's a change that they are making in their own way and on their own schedule and having vetted the facility and the people running it, I think they will do well. It's one of the few upscale senior facilities I've seen where it's possible to walk to shopping, restaurants, movies, and public transportation downtown so you aren't trapped if you stop driving.
The weather is gray and cold and wet. Very Seattle in winter. Everyone seems to be in good health and my nieces are both growing up quickly. Maybe too quickly as it wasn't that long ago that I was holding them as babies. Time marches on and the story continues.
We return home next Wednesday, just in time to get our annual holiday open house organized. It's on Sunday the 2nd this year. After that, we head into a month of intensive rehearsal for 'Faust' which plays the 28th and 30th. I have the music down but have a lot of lyric memorizing still to do.
Tuesday, December 7th
My usual Appalachian trip went off last week without a hitch. The weather was frosty cold, it snowed a bit but the roads did not ice so the driving was fine. The nurses in the hollers of Kentucky and West Virginia continue to do a phenomenal job with limited resources and all is well. Detoured slightly on the way home through the college town of Berea, Kentucky to see my old high school friend Charlie who currently resides there. I like that town and one of these days I shall have enough money for a handmade mountain dulcimer.
I returned to the realization that the holidays are again upon us. The list of things to do seems relatively endless but things are getting done slowly. The christmas trees have been hauled out of storage and at least placed on the correct floors of the house. Now to get them decorated and the house otherwise prepared. We are going to spend Christmas in Seattle this year (helping my parents move in to Senior Living) so our holiday celebrations are going to be New Years weekend. This gives us a couple more days to get everything ready. I figure that there are twelve days of Christmas so as long as things happen before Epiphany, all is good.
Spending Thursday this week with the Leadership Birmingham program studying the criminal justice system hereabouts. Should be interesting. Now if I can just shake my sore throat that's been bothering me the last few days. A twelve hour day of courtrooms while not feeling well might be a bit much.
Have a couple of opera rehearsals for Faust coming up. I have the music down more or less, but have to work to get the French into my brain. Much memorization for New Years coming up. I'm also singing in a Lessons in Carols in a couple of weeks. That's fairly easy and I can hold the music.
