Bat-like squeaking

 

OH GODS IT'S PAST ELEVEN O'CLOCK AND I'M ONLY JUST STARTING MY BLOG POST. 

            It's been an unnecessarily eventful day. 

            But let's start last night (as I so often do).

            THEY WERE STARVING.  STARVING.  HELLHOUNDS WERE FAMISHED.  RAVENOUS.  THEY COULDN'T FALL ON THEIR SUPPER FAST OR FURIOUSLY ENOUGH.  They just about ate the bottoms of their bowls through to the floor.  Why don't you feed us better, they said pathetically.  You're so cruel and heartless.  We're dying of hunger here.  More!  More!  More!  Our stomachs are cleaving to our backbones!*  Darkness refused to go to bed.  He sat by his bowl in a commanding fashion—he's the one who figured out that sitting is the magic.  Sitting gets you fed.**  So when he wants more, he very deliberately catches my eye and then sits. 

            . . . And they ate lunch today.

            . . . And they ate dinner, although I admit there was a certain manifestation of flapdoodle from Chaos.  They were all over me when I got back from the Muddlehamptons, and I fed them dinner IMMEDIATELY because it was so late, and Chaos was all, no, wait, you don't feed us IMMEDIATELY when you return home, you have to wait till the excitement of having our hellgoddess back has subsided—one can't possibly eat while excited—all one's neurons are too busy elsewhere, there aren't any left over for digestion—and then it was no, wait, we don't have dinner at this time of night, we're supposed to have had it already, we can't possibly eat now*** . . . Hunger, of course, doesn't come into it.  SIIIIIIIGH.   Darkness, who is not a drama queen, tucked right in . . . and Chaos, after rending his garments and crying aloud to the indifferent heavens for a while, eventually followed suit.

            Whew.

            Today began way too early.  Tabitha had had to swap our appointments† to a morning.  I was being expected to function in the real world before noon.  Please.  Hellhounds were delighted:  Oooh!  Adventure!††  But this inevitably meant that we got back for lunch late . . . and I had handbells at 4:45, because the Muddlehampton Choir started up again tonight and all handbellers had to leave at 6:45—Go!  Go!  Now!  And don't come back!  —Till next Thursday!, because I have to rehurtle hounds and get on to St Frideswide.

            I was singing in the car on the way since I hadn't had time to warm up or practise or anything today and it occurred to me that having figured out where my chest/head voice break comes, more or less, I can (more or less) figure out what I'm singing.  I'm a high soprano for the Muddlehamptons.†††  Where's that frelling G.  Okay, there it is.  Eeeep.  Park car.  Race into church.

            People are still on holiday and we were only about two-thirds strength.  This became hideously clear when we tackled the second of the Bruckner 'Three Graduals for the Church Year for Mixed Voices [a cappella]', Os Justi‡, which has both a second and a first soprano part . . . and we only seem to have four first sopranos.  I'm hoping that it's merely my dismal attendance record thus far‡‡ and there are lots of first sopranos when I'm not there‡‡‡, but tonight there were four first sopranos . . . including me.  Fortunately also including Griselda, their star female turn, who actually has a voice, and who was out sick most of the summer.  I hadn't met her before—she is a rather imposing figure and is intimidatingly musical.  But I forgive her, because golly is she necessary.  Os Justi is full of high As.  I didn't sign on for As!  I only promise as far as Gs!§  —I'm a first soprano.  I'd better pull the A out of my hat/sleeve or retire to the seconds.  Except they need first sopranos.  So I stayed.  This still leaves us with one genuine high soprano—Griselda, who I would bet on for a high C beyond that A—and two squeakers, which would be me and Cindy, and a little old lady§§ whom I've yet to hear on any note above about a D.  Whimper.§§§

            Nobody asked me to leave.  Or join the altos.#

            And I have a rather terrifying armful of new music which I was told by a grinning librarian isn't all of it, we'll get the rest next week. . . .

            Of course there will be another week.  Yes.  I have that A.  I just don't have it very . . . reliably.            

* * * 

* True.  It's the way they're built.  Sighthounds, and things with lots of sighthound in the genetic mix, all have backbone-cleaving stomachs.  I daresay us dog-breeding humans created this rod for our own backs, but it still doesn't explain the attitude.  There are fat sighthounds in the world, but they're rare.  It's mostly the opposite.  Anyone would think that they knew they were beautiful and thin, like a human catwalk model living on lettuce and diet Coke.  

** Unfortunately not sitting does not get you not fed.  He's still working on that one.  Sigh.  

*** Yes you can!  YES YOU CAN!  This is the new schedule for Thursdays!  Get used to it!  Please.  

† Bowen massage.  One of the Big Three that keep me on my feet despite the ME:  homeopathy, vitamins, and Bowen. 

†† I take them along and then we have a hurtle while Peter is being drubbed and belaboured.  Tabitha lives on the edge of town, and there are fields and footpaths, but we've fallen into the habit of coming back through this extremely glossy new housing development because it fascinates me.  It's all terraces and blocks of flats but it's laid out with a lot of open communal space kept primped to a fare-thee-well by teams of gardeners trundling around on gigantic ride-on lawn mowers trailing small carts full of rakes and hoes and loppers and spades.  And the windows are all clean and there are never any bicycles left haphazardly across a pavement or a front garden.  It all looks like something out of The Prisoner. 

††† Note:  snork.  

‡  http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=uR2E2GJS45M

Does everybody know that 'os' means 'mouth'?  So this means the just or righteous mouth, and I am a frivolous person, I think this is funny, possibly because I am masquerading as a first soprano.  It's Psalm 37:  'The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom' . . . and so on.  It's not funny in context, but the Bruckner piece tends to be called Os Justi, and I think this is funny.  

‡‡ Which is about to change.  It's bad enough I missed the Messiah last April, but then I wasn't thinking of joining a choir yet either.  It's really bad that I missed singing Vaughan Williams' Turtle Dove this summer. 

‡‡‡ I hope it's not anything I said. 

§ Speaking of how much you can guarantee on a bad day 

§§ Read:  my age 

§§§ I am assuming that there are more Muddlehampton first sopranos out there and they will magically appear next week or the week after.  The Muddlehamptoms have a reasonably good rep, and they certainly tackle serious music—I can't believe they'd be choosing this stuff with all this top end if they didn't have performers for it.  There's lots of choir music out there that doesn't get above a high G for the sopranos. 

              The Bruckner, furthermore, is for a wedding.  Whimper.  They must have some first sopranos in a closet somewhere.  Note that I didn't know we did weddings.  I thought we sang two concerts a year and had long holidays.  But the AGM is next week and I am assured that All Will Become Clear.  Possibly something to do with the backwash of having written my membership-fee cheque:  as the treasurer's hand comes in contact with my cheque, the scales drop from my eyes and muffles from my ears, and . . . 

# As I'm writing this I'm listening to Natalie Dessay, who eats high Cs like salted cashews.