Chicken Salad

 

December 17, 2025

Bought chicken salad that I didn’t like, so instead of trashing it, I dumped on the front porch. In two nights it was gone– I’m guessing my big opossum. What a Christmas feast that must have been! Crows took care of the croissants that came with it. 

I’m wondering how my days pass. They do, and I wake in the morning full of odd energy, but I write nothing here and my recollections are of thoughts rather than incidents. 

Facebook threw up a photo of Maud in front of my Christmas tree three years ago. I wept bitterly. 

DJ to come home Friday. His patience exceeds mine as the heavens are high above the earth. 

 

December 15, 2025

Temperature in single digits, though mitigated by radiant morning sky. Our former executive B said the AVLGMC concert was “the worst he’s ever heard.” Put that down to short memory: there have been plenty worse. The discussion around his email revealed how out of touch I am with most gossip. There was a war between him and other members of the group, apparently, that “tore us apart” and about which I knew nothing. Fighting hard to include actual music in our next concert. We have become a show choir, the specific condition which I always dreaded.  But. . . fun is fun. 

 

December 14, 2025

Bright, but winds near gale force. Two burly young man came out to assemble my raised flower beds, my having determined there was no way I could do it myself. One had “Enka High” on his sweatshirt. I asked him about that and he said, “It’s my boys. They wrassle there.” The placing of Christmas lights in a 100 foot tree they planned to do after my raised beds had to be cancelled because of the wind.

K reports on Facebook that he has inoperable pancreatic cancer. 

Almost Perfect Music

 

December 13, 2025

Night. Renaissance dances from the speaker below. Last night and this afternoon were our two AVLGMC Christmas concerts: The Holidays Are a Drag. The program was too long and, musically, not first rate– in places not even second rate-- but we seem to have pleased our relatively huge crowds, so all is well. My body slowly recovers. Voice exhausted.  I don’t believe I’ll be able to do another concert unless accommodations can be found. Others sit. I could sit, but somehow have not made that compromise, though I leave stage staggering like I’ve been shot. Spent the morning answering a panicked call for more baked goods, so I didn’t get the rest I might have gotten. But, it passed the time, and here we are in our own study, hearing distant and almost perfect music. 

Awfulness

 December 12, 2025

Woke late after staggering to bed at 3 AM. Last night’s dress/tech unspeakably bad, and if bad wasn’t bad enough, also a marathon that didn’t end until 10. I was nearly crippled. Someone asked if he could drive me to my car. I should have said yes. My ancient goal for the group was to sing the best music we could find as well as we possibly could. This weekend’s offering is a mile and a half from that. If I ever mention this, the refutation will be, “but we sold so many tickets.”

A’s Nutcracker cancelled this morning because of a snow storm that never happened. 

Goethe

 

December 11, 2025

Cold. Cold coming under the attic doors. Cold wind rattling everything that can be rattled. Woke in a bad mood. Maybe it was the cold. Fury at the dead solar panels on the roof, the city’s refusal to inspect them, everybody’s refusal to set a time or date or give a plausible excuse. Not that I care. Isn’t that remarkable? I don’t even really care. It’s just that I want something to be under control, to go my way, or at least a reasonable way, rather than wandering about like dust across a desert. Any loose end tied up, any question answered.

Goethe says that those born under Virgo are destined to be writers. 

 

December 8, 2025

A week ago I met S on the street while I was taking out the trash bins. Thought of that as I performed the same action today, without the magic. 

Finished, I think, with baking for the AVLGMC. Two batches before 9 AM. 

Meeting of the planing committee (unnecessary, reassuring ourselves of things already assured) T gave us tree ornaments in the shape of G clefs.