Catching Up

I see that I haven't written anything in about a month, which is because I have been busy with the writing contest.  I have done well so far: just mining incidents in my life and turning them into essays. I love to read novels, but when I write, I seem to find it easier to spin out pithy essays that are a combination of memoir, humor, and social commentary.  Like the OpEd pieces in the TIMES.

I have done well in this competition so far.  It started out with 50 people and now there are 13 people left.  They are going to drop 5 people on Sunday (our assignment was to write 5 pieces and the scores for those pieces will be averaged) so if I stay there will only be 8 left.  The final 4 will get some kind of money prize. My goal was to be in the top 10, which I guess won't be a "thing" because 2 people dropped out of the top 15.

I do have some news about Good Friday.  I am going to sing the alto line in the solo quartet in the "Christe Eleison" from the Beethoven Missa Solemnis and probably also in another piece that we haven't gotten yet.  So I will focus on that.  As for a solo on a festival day, I will probably either sing on Maundy Thursday again or on Trinity Sunday (June 16).  And one Sunday in August when there is an "open sing" because there is no choir and no festival days. For Maundy Thursday I may sing one of the Florence Price spirituals - "Rise Mourner", and for Trinity Sunday I suggested the Mozart "Laudate Dominum", which I haven't sung in years, so it will be interesting to see how it sounds.

I am sounding better again because I have a new strategy for taking care of my respiratory problems.  I went to get my annual physical and my doctor told me to use the asthma inhaler not just when I think I have asthma (I have the "cough variant" kind, not the wheezy life threatening kind) but also if my upper bronchial tubes feel full of mucus that I can't dislodge.  I have found that this really helps.  If my bronchial tubes are opened up, I can get rid of the mucus.  It seems to be more reliable than Mucinex.  I could really hear the difference Wednesday at my lesson and last night at choir rehearsal.

The annoying news, though, is I have not heard back from the two senior facilities that I contacted about performing.  I will have to try calling, as the people did not answer my emails.

Lastly, one source of anxiety is that my partner has a squamous cell carcinoma on her face that needs removing.  She had a biopsy last week.  When the results come back she will need to have it removed.  It is just an outpatient procedure (she had one removed from her chest two years ago) but it takes a whole day, and then she has to come back the next week to have the stitches removed.  And as the only way she can travel is on a gurney in an ambulance, we can be in the doctor's office for over an hour after she's finished, waiting to be picked up.  So I am going to draw a line in the sand and say that we can't do anything during Holy Week.  If they can't do it the week of April 1 (and remove the stitches April 8) it will have to wait until after Easter.  It is something that needs addressing, but it is not life threatening.  It is just very stressful to have to juggle these two things, not to mention that she will be put into a new Medicaid managed care plan as of April 1, so all the players that we have to deal with will be different.  And the last thing I need leading up to Holy Week is a lot of stress and time spent screaming on the phone.