My Newest Stage Disaster Story

OK, so I've haad a few nice stage disaster stories in my past, my favorites being the time I lost all the crinolines out from under my skirt while singing "I Enjoy Being A Girl" alone on stage with just me and the orchestra in high school. Another was the time at USD when I was accompanying a guy who skipped from the first verse to the coda on his song, I flipped 3 pages and we ended the song in 45 seconds.

Today's experience is bound to go down in history.

I've spent a lot of time on the stage in my life. I've been doing recitals since I was in the 2nd grade, which was roughly 28 years ago. I am in front of people every Sunday at church and I'm used to being there, so usually I'm pretty unflappable. But today presented a new challenge I've not faced before.

I was playing for one of my students on USF's departmental recital, a weekly recital that all students taking lessons in any instrument must do once per semester. My student had chosen "Sei Miei Sospiri" (formerly known as "Pieta Signore"), which is a standard out of the 26 Italian songs book. It's a long song which repeats back to the begning after playing it all the way through, totalling somewhere around 5 1/2 minutes.

I usually play for my students, and I always photocopy my music for departmental so that I don't have to take all the books with me across campus to the recital hall. I copy the pages front to back, so that it's just like the book (I destroy all the copies afterward, and I own all my original copies, so don't bother calling the copyright police on me).

So I go out to play for Corbin, my singer who was performing, play through the whole first page introduction, turn the page, and IT'S UPSIDE DOWN! I realize at this point that I have copied all the back pages upside down. O CRAP!!! Luckily, this song is in an easy key, has a lot of two measure a capella sections (where I don't have to play, so I can gather my wits), and I've played it several times.

SO... I read through the entire song, half of which was upside down, then I had to go back and do two of the upside down pages AGAIN!!!

Obviously, I didn't do it flawlessly, my poor singer kept looking at me like "what am I doing wrong?" Poor guy! He was trying to figure out why my eyes were bugging out and why I was on the verge of laughter the whole time.

This story is going to stick with me for a long time. I'll never forget poor Corbin!

So, I Got A Bike...

Check it out! It's even wilder in person! I call it The Mystery Machine. :) It's very Scooby Doo.

This is the bike I've kind of had my eye on for a few months. Matt found it for me (of course) in the new Trek catalog, and was trying to talk me into it. I'd really rather have this:


We are in desperate need of a replacement for the car that Matt drives, and I've always wanted a yellow car. The thought is to get a Bug for me and the kids to tool around town in, and Matt would get the Aztek. The kids are big enough to climb into the back seat of a 2-door, and the Aztek really looks more like a Matt car than an Amy car... But I've been warned that a Bug can be a lemon, so I want to do my research before I get one. Plus, I need money (details, details!).

But anyway, the bike is my Mothers Day gift from Matt & the kids. It was too hard to keep the secret, and Matt spilled the beans the same day he built it. He says he'd still like to accessorise it for me, with a basket and a bell and I don't know what else. I got to go visit it at the store this afternoon, and I took one look at it and said, "I'm definitely going to need a lock, because EVERYBODY's going to want to steal my bike!" Matt's trying hard not to let the store order any more so that I'll be the only person in Sioux Falls with my bike (of course, he doesn't have any control over what the other bike dealers in town do).

So now, I'm no longer the bikeless wife of the bike salesman.