O Tannenbaum

Hey all! Here is your late blog entry as promised. I've been a little distracted lately with final exams, long papers, moving out of our U.S. apartment, and flying to Germany. The last item on my fall to-do list will be crossed off tomorrow, at which point I can focus 100% of my attention on my wonderful better half.

Speaking of which, she had a great time recording last week and, by all accounts, a phenomenal performance on Sunday. Opera Rara, the company that is making the recording of Fantasio, compiled a list of glowing reviews, which you can view here. I'm sorry to have missed the performance, but I'm very excited to hear the recording when it comes out late next year. By the way, Brenda will be back at it again tomorrow with another performance of Ariadne auf Naxos. It's been seven weeks since her last one, but I think she remembers most of the notes.

 Brenda, and her flowers, after the show.

My flight to Germany was a little more complicated than usual this time. I thought I might have some troubles because my layover in Chicago was scheduled to be one hour. When my first flight left around 45 minutes late, I got even more concerned. Sure enough, I missed my connecting flight, which was the last flight to Frankfurt for the day. Luckily, I got out on a flight to Munich that night and flew to Frankfurt later that day. Of course, my bags didn't make it, but they were delivered this morning, so all's well that ends well.

My protracted travels, along with Brenda's prodding, helped me stay awake quite late last night, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get over jet-lag easier than I normally do. One of our sleep-avoiding activities yesterday was buying a Christmas tree. The tree salesman was a young German guy that remembered Brenda and me and her parents who were with us when we bought the tree last year. He also remembered that Brenda is an opera singer. We must have made an impression. It makes me wonder if we knocked over some trees or something when we were there last year.

It was heavier than it looks, I swear.

Brenda just started decorating the tree, and I should go lend a hand. I hope you all have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!