Sunday, August 31, 2014
Ireland 2014
Michael will be taking the PU Orchestra on tour to Ireland in January, so we decided to go scout out some performance venues while having a bit of a vacation too. We flew into Dublin, stayed three nights at a lovely small hotel right off the bustling Nassau Street across from Trinity College. We saw the book of Kells, the famous library, and took the tour at the Jamison Whisky factory. We also managed to catch some fun music in various pubs in Temple Bar – Continue reading
The other big project that has been going on this winter is the Singing Through Menopause Survey. On Sataloff’s recommendation, I got the survey approved by the Princeton Institutional Review Board and enlisted the help of the Princeton Survey Research Center. Everyone I worked with in both offices was wonderful. After getting feedback from a number of my voice teacher colleagues, I launched the online survey in early March – hard to believe with everything else that was going on then!!! 
I finally decided to make an appointment to see Peggy Baroody again, the singing voice specialist in Sataloff’s office. School is over, the estate work has settled down, I have some more time and energy to devote to this. I have been pretty faithful to the low acid diet since January, and I have been doing the few exercises I got from Peggy and the speech pathologist on that first visit. 
This year I got offered a spot in the highly prized retreat with visiting Burmese master Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Some of the 100 folks at this years retreat had been at his last retreat two years ago. Others had been on the long waiting list for that one and were thrilled to be here now. The list of yogis was also filled with well known teachers and celebrities, 
Thankfully, this trip was already planned long ago. Boy did we need to be on a beach in Puerto Rico for Spring Break! I had learned about the small cottage in the low key west coast town of Rincon from my ISPP buddy Jane. It was sort of a project to get there – renting a car and driving almost 4 hours in Saturday afternoon traffic from San Juan to Rincon. 
My Dad’s passing was actually very peaceful and mercifully quick. At age 91, he had been having various non-life threatening issues over the past years and months, some related to his post polio syndrome – mobility problems, weakness in his limbs, swallowing problems, a little pneumonia, a little blood infection in his leg, a little bladder infection. Nevertheless he seemed to be enjoying his life at Stonebridge and could often be heard whistling merrily as he drove his scooter along the hallways. 
It was wonderful to return to Forest Refuge for ten days just as the peak of fall colors were blowing away in the wintery winds. My yogi job was sweeping the decks and entrance ways, and I learned a tremendous amount about letting go and letting be from the ever blowing leaves. By the afternoon, there were always more leaves on the decks no matter how many I swept away in the morning. 
This is the first time that a major Katzenjammer reunion has been held outside of the regular Princeton Reunions festivities. Since graduating in 1982, I have made appearances at most of my major reunions every five years on the ’2’s and ‘7s. The Katz events (SATB a cappella singing group for those who don’t know) are held the next year on the ‘3’s and ‘8’s resulting in two years in a row of too much P’ton Hooplah. 
The Holidays were very early this year, for my 19th year going to Wichita as the “rent-a-cantor” at Congregation Emanu-El. Has it really been 19 years!!!??? The weather was beautiful for Rosh Hashanah as I flew out of a deserted Newark airport on Labor Day. Because of various scheduling issues involving Tony the pianist and the local High School musical, we rehearsed, if you can call it rehearsing, a day early.