Monday, May 9, 2011

Playing Catch-up Yet Again

It seems like I'm always playing catch-up on here. Things haven't been dull though.

First thing is that Sean's opera was last Thursday. He had the lead for his class's section of it and he did extremely well, if I do say so myself as who shouldn't. *grin* Seriously though, he was good. He was the only lead of all three classes who didn't have to have even one line fed to him. The opera was about the industrial revolution and it focused on planes, trains and automobiles. Sean's class wrote theirs about trains. Specifically it was about the steam train and he played a man called John Sanders. Some of the music was original and some of it was borrowed with adapted words. The funniest one that his class adapted was when they sang to him, "You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, Johnny you're no good" and then he clasped his hands and dropped to his knees and said, "Please don't say it again!" and they did it again. LOL He also was really funny every time he said, "Yes, Mother" to his girlfriend who had the role of his bossy mother. At one point she had to pull his ear and according to him, "That's not a prop pull, Mom. She really pulls it and she's quite good at it." I reminded him that she's the oldest of five so she's probably practiced at home. I told her mother and she laughed and pointed to the youngest (he's in 1st grade) and said, "She's had plenty of practice on him." LOL John wasn't able to go to the performance but he went in the morning to the dress rehearsal when they performed for the 4th graders. He spoke to Ms. Kim (one of the opera teachers) and told her that he wouldn't be able to come that evening so he had come to see the morning performance. She asked him whose father he was and when he said Sean she started gushing, "Oh, you'll love his performance. He is such a natural on-stage. We have really enjoyed working with him. He takes direction so well and delivers his lines naturally." Made John feel really good. So the opera was quite a success.

John has just gone through yet ANOTHER schedule change at work. This time he's doing 6pm-4am Sat-Tues, all south patrol. The other driver who was doing south patrol on that schedule bailed so John took it rather than have the one north patrol on Tuesdays. Saves on gas since he doesn't have to drive 30 miles to get to work. The only problem is that it doesn't end at 4am because there is too much to do in 10 hours. He did just find out that he doesn't have to stay at each hit the whole time listed in the patrol book though as long as he does everything that needs to be done. That has really helped. The last couple of nights he's been home close to 5am which isn't too bad. He's feeling better about it too. It's pretty hard to feel positive about your job when they schedule you for 10 hours to do something that physically can't be done in fewer than 12. This way it can.


I had a good Mother's Day. We celebrated it on Friday since that was John's only day off. Sean made me a lovely card at school and they took me out to In-N-Out. Then on Sunday while John slept Sean and I went out together for awhile. I was able to get a new pair of swim trunks for him and we went swimming Sunday afternoon. It was pretty darn cold but we had a good time. He wanted to go again today but we went down after John left for work and it was too cold. He couldn't take it. I didn't even stick a toe in. If an 11-year old can't get all the way in there's no way I'm even gonna try. LOL It's funny, he can be so grown-up that I sometimes forget he's really still a little boy and doesn't completely understand how things work. He was so disappointed that it was cold and felt bad that he couldn't take it. He kept apologizing to me and telling me he was sorry because he knew I wanted to go swimming too. Then he asked if we could go back down and try again later because maybe it would be warmer. He didn't seem to realize that the later it gets the cooler it gets because the sun goes down. I told him we could try again tomorrow and that we'd go down earlier so it wasn't as cold.

That's about all that is going on in our corner of the world. I hope everyone is having a great week.

7 comments:

MsCaroline said...

Sounds like a wonderful opera, Wilma! Did the kids write most of it with musical input from the teacher? What a great use of the 'you're no good' chorus!
Sorry to hear about John's schedule change (again). At least it sounds like this one's an improvement, but that sort of thing would drive me crazy. I'm really a creature of habit. Hard to believe it's ever too cold to swim in AZ - it's been in the 90s here and the pool's hopping. It's going to be a long, hot summer. Glad I'll be missing at least part of it.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wilma said...

The kids wrote the words and then had help with the scoring of it. Well, they probably had help with the wording too but all of the ideas were theirs. The OMA teachers who work with them are actually professional opera singers with the Arizona Opera Company here in Tucson.

The only thing that's not an improvement with John's schedule is the days off.

It's warm enough to swim if you're NOT in the water. In the water it's very cold because of the breeze. Plus it was late so the pool was shaded. We'll go earlier today if he still wants to go, which I'm sure he will. LOL

The removed comment was this one but it was posted with Sean's login. Gotta remember to check who's logged in now that we're back to sharing the computer. LOL

Karen said...

Ha ha...I was curious about the removed comment! I'm glad you explained. The opera sounds fabulous, what a great creative endeavor for the kids! Boy, I wish it was hot here, it just can't seem to warm up at all. Tonight it is freezing and I'm glad that I don't have to go out again! Still waiting for spring in New England!

Wilma said...

It's not hot here now, Karen. It's only 69 right now at 7:45 and it only got up to 75 today. Sean was so disappointed because it was too cold for the pool today what with the chilly weather and the wind and blowing dust. And he didn't have homework so he was really looking forward to it. :(

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen you on FB lately. Where are you?

Wilma said...

I've been there, not as much since I'm sharing a computer but I've still been on. FB isn't sending all the notifications though.