32 days left, but who's counting?

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OK, this place is hot in the summer. I'm not talking about hot with a nice summer breeze every few minutes. I'm talking about 80% humidity in the morning and about 60% humidity in the afternoon with an average right now of 92 degrees. Add in hills (not small hills, I mean steep, mountainous, paved
terrain) and it makes a very unhappy singer! NM is hot but this is just downright crazy. It explains why all the ancient buildings are made of stone - moldy, but cool! That's the heat rant for the day. I think it is now a regular thing I can complain about.

Now, back to the music. We had a master class today. That's when someone with a huge career or a huge career-maker lets you sing your aria and then rips it apart so that you can be even better. They generally come in and out of your singing life because the music world is tiny. This particular person has met me before, so I thanked her for her advice from way back when. I sang today, it was fine but not as good as my inner critic wanted it to be. At some point, she said to think of sadness and heartache which got me thinking about home and then - wait for it - I was crying and singing at the same time! It wasn't good singing (try doing both at the same time) but it was emotional like she wanted and I ended up making other people cry. Now that's good stuff! And that was only the morning! Later today I have one more rehearsal for opera stuff and then I'm done for the day.

Too bad I have no clue what I'm doing tomorrow or I might schedule myself and a few friends a bottle of wine and some incredible meats and cheeses! Or maybe I'll just take a gelato trip. Forgot to mention gelato is Italian ice cream, but creamier because the milk they use has more fat - super delicious and fabulous. If you've ever been to Las Cruces, it's creamy like Caliche's custard creamy. My favorite is stracciatella (strah-cha-TELL-ah). I think it's like bits of chocolate shavings with vanilla ice cream. There's also a sorbet like one called frutti di bosco (froo-tee dee boh-scoh). It literally means fruit of the forest or bosque for us New Mexicans. Kind of like a berry mix - very good but not so good for you.

This weekend we have time off, so I might go with a few people to watch some other singers they know sing in a concert in some random town I've never heard of. Apparently, you have to take a bus to get there, but they're all nice kids so I think we'll have a great time. Another group is going to Milan to watch the Barber of Seville at La Scala. Don't get me wrong, La Scala is another house I dream of working at, but the expense to get there is ridiculous: 50 Euro for a 4 hour train ride, 25 Euro to stand and watch the show (IF any tickets are available - if not, you're looking at 50-200 Euro per seat), 30 Euro per person to get a hotel room which is probably in a bad part of town, 10 Euro for taxis from hotel to La Scala, 30 Euro for food for two days and maybe one glass of wine, and don't forget the shopping! Now for US Dollar equivalents, add it up and multiply by 1.25. Now you understand. I'll take the bus to the free show and stay in someone's apartment on the floor any day! Some of us are hoping to get enough time to go to Rome and the beach while we're here. I don't know if that will really happen bu

Sidenote: The funniest thing about this town is the little farm next to us. It's maybe one acre rectangle with half of that dedicated to farming (but nothing's growing right now). There's an old man there who raises sheep. The sheep get let out every morning to eat all the weeds in front of the house, but they don't really eat the weeds. They just kind of stand there and when it gets too hot, they go back to their pen. The old man tries to get them to eat the weeds, but they want the dead grass on the other side of the fence which happens to be closer to the main road. Every day, they have this struggle and every day they end up eating weeds they don't like. And the little farm also has a rooster that likes to wake up the hotel at 4am. Sometimes 4:15am if he sleeps in. This of course gets the two ducks quacking, at which point the people on the first floor are wide awake.

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