Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

Boy, these last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy! I've been driving here and there, thither and yon. Ray and I drove to PA to do some repairs on the shop at the Ren Faire. I drove to CT to see my cousin, my aunt who was visiting, and my little baby cousin, Samantha. I got to see my brother briefly as he flew into NY for freshman orientation at NYU. Although he was a little trepidacious before he went in, he was much more relaxed and happy when he left two and a half days later. I really only got to see him on the way to and from the airport, but I was happy to have that time to chat. I'll hopefully be seeing him much more when school starts!

Well, now that the Lord of the Rings Symphony is over, I'm feeling much less stressed. I had a lot more fun this year than I did last year. I go the solo again, and that made me happy. But the best part about the whole thing is that Ray came to see it. He hasn't come to see me perform in years (no, the weddings don't count; he's there as my date), and he said I sounded wonderful. I felt good about it, which is more than I can say for last year's performance. And I think a lot of that had to do with Markus Huber, the conductor, who is simply fabulous. He's a true musician, and though I was a little disappointed that he missed a few plot points from the movie when explaining it to us, he more than made up for it by understanding the essence of the piece. It was certainly a pleasure to sing under his baton.

In the meantime, it's sweltering hot here in NJ. A thunderstorm the other day took out the electricity in a whopping two block radius, and it took the electric company all night to figure out how to fix it. With the AC off and all the fans not working, even the darkness wasn't cool enough to keep tempers in check, and it got pretty tense here at Casa de la Maren. A trip to Friendly's for some ice cream was in order, and then after that a nice, romantic walk along the riverfront in Burlington in front of the gorgeous colonial mansions. It was 11:30 by the time we got back home, but we were both calmer, and I was ready to go to sleep.

All's well that ends well, though, because sometime around midnight the power came back on, so the AC went back on in our room and I passed out. Ray, on the other hand, was still awake and wandering the house, resetting clocks and making sure all the lights were turned off. I'm not sure he slept very much at all that night, because the next morning, he was dead tired and still a little cranky. It's just amazing what temperature does to a person's emotions, isn't it?