Out of Office

That's how I've felt for the past two weeks. I mentally checked out of the office on or around Monday, December 15th, and I haven't gone back. Well, I'm here right now, technically...blogging...at my desk, but still! Mental vacay. This was a busy December, both in the office and out. (And that's not counting the things I had on my calendar but totally skipped.) Why is it that when we reach adulthood the holidays are a lot more overwhelming but without all that childish excitement? Well, I still consider myself capable of childish excitement, but it seems harder and harder to drum up when so many other things interfere. I thwarted the busyness to the best of my ability this month and managed to fill my cup with Christmas cheer despite it all!

First of all, let's talk about the Nutcracker. LOVE IT! It's definitely my favorite ballet. How can it not be, I've seen it close to ten times. This year I went all out for the Washington Ballet's Nutcracker, and it was amazing. Please keep in mind that I have the best going-to-the-ballet-shoes of all time. Why, you ask? Because they look like toe shoes. They're pink and satin-y and they have ribbons that lace around my ankles. They're also freakishly tall and really hard to walk in. Ugh. Even Dr. Scholls can't make these shoes as comfortable as my Merrills. Oh well, they look good...and as long as I take careful, measured steps they feel mostly good. Pair them with a sleek black dress and viola! I'm ready to go. Two of my roommates and I cabbed it downtown to have a leisurely pre-ballet dinner at Chef Geoff's before the show. And I mean leisurely. Don't try to make reservations less than 36 hours in advance of show night, cause then you'll have to eat at 4:30. Seriously, don't do it. The ballet started at 7, so we got there with plenty of time for appeteazies, first courses, second courses, and desserts. It was gooooood. Best butternut squash ravioli of my life. Best ravioli of my life, for that matter. Despite the excellence of the food, libation and merriment at Chef Geoff's, the real magic started when the curtain rose in the Warner Theater at 7pm. Have you been there? The theater is gorgeous. I was breathless throughout the show. One thing I love about the Nutcracker is that it's adaptable. Parts of the story can be worked to fit the tastes of the musical director. I've seen it performed maybe 4 different ways. In Tulsa it's set in 1920's Paris. Septime Webre's setting (for the Washington Ballet) was more traditional - the family home of Clara and Fritz and their parents with the tree that grows and the toys that dance. However, the second half of the show was very D.C.-oriented, and it was splendid. The nutcracker prince was George Washington. The Waltz of the Flowers was performed by the Cherry Blossoms. The Arabian Dance was more of an Anacostian Tribal dance. (Don't ask me who the Anacostians were. All I know is that Anacostia is a stop somewhere on the metro line.) Clara and Drosselmeyer's nephew were transported to their magical kingdom via riverboat. What a delight! I didn't want the evening to end. Luckily, the route home took us right by the National Christmas tree, so the night was Christmas-complete.

Let us not forget that I experienced two incredible shows in D.C. over the past couple weeks. I not only saw the Nutcracker, but I saw the revival of West Side Story at the National Theater. Wow! Forget Tony, I'll never stop saying (read: singing) Maria. Good times, people, good times. So there were other events that kept me busy: Christmas parties, orchestra concerts, visitors, Christmas shopping and family band concerts. Okay, not a family band, per say, but more of a member of my family in a band playing a show. Confused? My cousin Shara's band, My Brightest Diamond (see link at right for sweet deets), came through DC on tour. So I got to spend a cold rainy Thursday night listening to great music with strangers, friends and family. It was awesome. I would also like to give a shout out to Clare & The Reasons, who opened for MBD. They are so good. Loved every moment. Besides that, I played two WMPA concerts that were fun, caught up with friends who were passing through town, and prepared to leave for home.

So that takes care of the out-of-office stuff. Want to know about the in-the-office stuff? Well, prepare yourself. I was an office elf. Blerg. I thought I was signing up for the set-up committee. No, in fact I was signing up for the holiday party planning committee. Rookie mistake. I commandeered the gift exchange portion of the party. I recruited invaluable help from a couple coworkers, but I had to manage the whole shebang, and it was torturous. "Gillian, send out a mass email with the rules for the game so people can be prepared." No problem, done. "Um, wow, Gillian, send us ANOTHER Smithsonian email. Those rules were like a book." All lies, there were three sentences to the whole email. "I never read that email, how do we play this game again?" "Gillian, explain the rules to everyone before we start." ARGH! I will not be elffing next year. No, no, no.

On the bright side, my office won the door decorating contest. We re-themed the "12 Days of Christmas" as the "12 Months of (the Donor Fundraising) Campaign". As you can see from the picture, we showcased each of the 12 months with lyrics and visual representation. But that didn't win us the prize. We also included an audio representation. We sang, well I didn't as I was accompanying on the violin, and recorded ourselves on a digital voice recorder we taped to the door. That's what won us the prize. People kept walking by, pressing the play button and listening to us squawk out the 12 months of campaign. What a treat for the ears after the 5th time, really.

So there you have it. In a nutshell, that's what kept me busy this month. That and reading some really good books, watching some great movies (Marley & Me was phenom), and baking chocolate chip cookies. Plus, I had 5 fabulous days with my family in Tulsa, and now I'm back at the office (supposedly) scrambling to enter all the gifts before our year-end deadline. Well, I will be scrambling again shortly. I needed a break from the scramble. It's hard to go back to work after spending such good times with the fam. I really didn't feel like coming back to the District. Next year I'm taking more time off. Don't feel too sorry for me, though. The fun doesn't stop once Christmas ends. There's still New Years Day, my 4-day weekend including MLK Day and Inauguration Day, my birthday weekend, and so much more. January's going to be good. I can feel it.

Welcome, 2009. Make me proud.

Sounds of the Season

My favorite part of Christmas is the music. Okay okay! Let's be real. My real favorite part of Christmas is celebrating the birth of Christ. Buuuuut! Whilst celebrating the great coming of our Savior, one often finds celebratory words put to...wait for it...music. The secular stuff is pretty good, too. Ready for some trivia? My favorite sacred piece: ooo, tough one - probably "Silent Night." I do love a good "Lo How a Rose," though, and "Good Christian Men Rejoice" makes me jolly. Favorite secular piece: definitely "The Christmas Waltz." Love it, love it, love it. Right now I'm listening to the full Nutcracker score. Gets me every time. More trivia - did you know that "Coventry Carol" was written as the mothers' lament when King Herrod was killing all their infant sons? That's what someone told me at orchestra rehearsal last night. I'd like a second opinion.

As my fellow musicians can attest, this season is probably the busiest one for people who love listening to music, making music, and appreciating music. Especially for those who make music, it's a very busy time. These days I don't make music for money, so my schedule isn't quite as full of Christmas parties and church services as it has been in the past, but that hasn't stopped the music from coming to me, as you'll see.

Last Tuesday afternoon I left the office at 3 o'clock to catch the metro to Bethesda, Maryland. The Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic was scheduled to perform a special one-night-only Christmas concert at the Strathmore Concert Hall (totally gorgeous, by the way) that evening at 8 pm. I will preface this story by stating that this is the longest day I can remember in recent history. You might think it was only 24 hours, but I must have fallen through the space-time continuum somehow. I arrived at the concert hall ready to rehearse for two hours. We had a lot of music to go over. Several guest artists made appearances with the orchestra that evening, so we had to go over our pieces for each one of them. What a disaster! One guy never got his music for a piece, so he was singing along in the wrong key. One guy said he'd only ever played the love theme from The Godfather in c minor, and he wanted the entire orchestra to transpose the piece so he could play it "like [he'd] been playing it for 23 years." We couldn't do that. Let me rephrase - most of us string players couldn't do that, so the guy had to play his oboe in g minor instead. Then, of course, every time we were ready to rehearse with a different soloist that person was nowhere to be found. Ultimately our dress rehearsal ran a bit over time. We all had a sick feeling that the concert would be the same way.

It was. We had less than an hour and a half's worth of music to play. We started the program promptly at 8pm. You know what time we ended? 10:30pm!!! Yes, thanks to our emcee/guest oboist, we ran an hour longer than necessary. Never have I heard a man tell so many stories! And I am now aware that he has not only played at Strathmore, but at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and all over Europe as well. You know what was especially fun? After we played the Godfather theme and our oboe/emcee man had made his "impromptu" appearance he grabbed the mic, tried to make a joke about c minor, said "Hit it, Steve" to our keyboardist, and proceeded to play the entire piece again in c minor. Apparently, it was really important that the audience hear him play this piece in the key with which he was most comfortable. Gah! I worked very hard to school my features. People could have seen me roll my eyes, after all. Well, I heard enough anecdotes and bad jokes that night to last me throughout the entire Christmas season. This man would set the mic down and start walking off stage, then turn around and come back to tell another story he forgot to mention previously. I couldn't tell if the audience loved or hated him. Maybe both. But the icing on the cake was dropped from the metaphorical spatula when this emcee joined the orchestra for our final number, the "William Tell Overture." He fiddled with his chair and music stand for a bit, got settled, looked at his watch and whispered quite conspicuously and in all seriousness to our conductor, "We need to speed this one along, Ul, we're out of time." I just about stabbed him with my bow. Don't worry, at the last minute I remembered Christmas is about sparing, not spearing.

I mentioned that the fateful Tuesday was the longest day in recent history. We concluded the concert at 10:30pm. I walked to the metro, waited for 10 minutes, rode the rail for 30 minutes, switched platforms to catch the next train, waited for 20 minutes, caught the Orange line and walked home from my metro stop. I got home about midnight. Too late for this ol' gal! It took me the rest of the week and weekend to catch up on my sleep. You do realize that missing two hours of work meant I made it up the rest of the week by either staying late or coming in early. Staying late is the bane of my existence, so I chose to come in early. That did not help the sleepyness.

Okay, so that was Strathmore. A detailed description, I know, but you need to realize that the pain you experienced reading my tale is nothing to the pain I experienced living it. Yeegads! You ready for another story about music? Okay, here it is.

Every year the Office of External Affairs, of which I am an employee, has an office door decorating contest. Every office decorates its door. We all vote on our favorite door at the office party, and the winners receive a half day off work. Tempting. This year we had a little office meeting - there are 6 of us total in our cubicle-ridden file cabinet of an office- and decided that in order to be competitive this year we needed to stimulate not just the eyes but the ears as well. I did not volunteer my musical services. No indeed, I was volunteered by another. You see, I generally like to keep it mum around the office that I play the violin. Having this knowledge encourages my coworkers to ask me to play for things like office parties. I always nip that in the bud as quickly as possible, but I can never quite wipe away the disappointment they feel for not being able to procure free entertainment. Plus, this punky's not a solo player. No, I like to play with an ensemble...if the occasional solo is thrown my way just because I happen to be playing the lead first violin part then fine, I'll do it! But I'm not about to set up my stand and be the only thing for people to listen to. Blech. Regardless, my boss proposed a fetching idea for our audio stimulation. "I'll sing," she says, "and Gillian can play the violin." AHHHHHHHHHH!!! I didn't say no, though, because the prize is worth the risk. So tomorrow afternoon I will be playing "The 12 Days of Christmas" with my office's resident flutist. Don't worry, we're just going to record ourselves on a little digital recorder and attach it to our door so people can play it at their leisure while they peruse our display of the 12 Days of the Economy. Or did we decide on the 12 Days of a Campaign? I think the campaign one (think fundraising, not political).

Anyway, I just got home from work after a little practice session with the office arranger/flutist. Great arrangement, by the way. We'll make those Office of External Affairs people proud! Can you believe how much work we've put into this? I mean, JT actually took the time to write out a score for flute, violin and voice. Impressive. And it better pay off! I could use that extra half day to sleep and stuff.

So I rounded out the week with another orchestra rehearsal. We're playing 2 concerts with violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (www.wmpamusic.org) and her repertoire includes some fun fiddley Christmas tunes. "I Saw 3 Ships" does sound much more exciting when you're pretending you're Irish. Attempting to fiddle (a favorite pastime of mine) and playing Christmas music (a favie for life) are going to make these upcoming concerts WMPA's best yet! If you're in the DC area stop by. You won't be disappointed. Plus, I'll wave to you from stage and flash a toothy grin for the camera. Booyah!

(See that pretty picture at the top? That's 925. Nice, id'nit?)