The reason you haven't heard from me for a while is that I have been engrossed in my partner's progress in the rehab nursing home. She has been there now for close to two months and she will probably be discharged before the New Year. Not my choice. I would prefer her to stay there, but the social worker is pushing her to go home.
Some conditions have been set, the first of which is for that three room apartment, filled with 60 plus years of accumulated junk, to be aggressively and ruthlessly shoveled out and professionally cleaned. This will cost well over $5000. (Shouldn't be an issue as she now has to spend down to get Medicaid). It will also take at least five work days (they work 10-5). Supervising this (which I have to do, to tell them what can stay and what can go) is not really what I wanted to be doing with my December, but I will suck it up, as the young people say. I said I cannot be available Monday (my tutoring day), Thursday (my Pilates and choir day), or any day that the choir is singing. In the meantime I have been visiting my partner in the nursing home every day. It is on the same subway line that I live, and that all my activities are on, so it is much less onerous than going to her apartment.
Another condition to her discharge is that she has to have an aide with her all day (not sure if this is just weekdays, or also weekends). She will pay for these herself until her money is gone, and then go on Medicaid.
Her finances will be outsourced so that she doesn't have to see any financial documents. Someone else will take care of the paperwork to get her on Medicaid. She will pay for this service also.
So a lot will be taken off my hands.
As I said, this scenario would not have been my choice, but....
I am writing partly because I am starting to get restless now that I have not felt free to plan another concert. Once she is settled I will see if I can put on a concert at the nursing home where she has been. They have concerts on Saturday afternoons. Or I can go back in the Spring to SAGE, where I put on Carmen and Il Trovatore.
I am going to sing "Rejoice Greatly" on January 1. I sing it very well. The original choir director told me he didn't like "heavy voices" singing that piece but I guess the new Director of Music feels differently. In the meantime I am working on an aria from Alcina to keep my voice in the right place for singing Handel. No matter what, I practice every day, even if it's just for 45 minutes.
Then I saw a photo someone posted of concert soloists in gowns, in a church, and I wanted to wail with envy and anguish. That is what I could kill to be doing. I have given up any idea of singing opera in costume with staging, for a variety of reasons, but I won't give up my dream of singing solos from an oratorio, beautifully dressed, with a sea of men and women in black behind me. I will chase that until I can no longer sing - which won't be any time soon.
