All State Auditions Mystify Me Again

Over the weekend, Kennedy High School choir students left for Oelwein on a yellow school bus to audition for the Iowa All-State Festival after months and months of hard work and preparation. The day had finally come! We spent most of it sitting in a high school gymnasium for hours and hours on the hard benches of bleachers. From experience I knew what to expect and I brought a good book to read, but I quickly grew bored with it and wished I had brought my backpack with all my homework to do, even if  I had already brought one heavy bag and did not need an 85-pound pack full of books to shlep around and injure my back, no doubt right before my audition would come up.

The clock ticked. Our group of four finally stood before the judges and sang excerpts from this year's All State music. A stupid, lame version of "Skip to My Lou" and the annual "O Beautiful, for Spacious Skies" broke free of our tense vocal cords. How were we doing? To me, we sounded pretty good. My voice was tired from getting up at 4 a.m., meeting for breakfast at Perkins at 5 a.m., and singing more than I probably should have all week long. But I made it in last year, and this year should be even easier.

Tick, tick, tick.

Different people were recalled. That is the worst feeling, as I found out freshman year. If you were tired or tense before, you'll be ten times worse when you go back to those judges, who are not sure about you, or they wouldn't have asked to hear you again, all alone this time. Sight-read and sing, SOLO, for people who just were not convinced the first time around that you should be in.

I did not get recalled. That could mean two things: I was out. I was in. No second chances now.

Tick, tick....

Two members of our quartet found their names on the list on the cafeteria wall. They made it!

Tick, tick...

My name did not show up.

Five other girls from Kennedy who made it last year also did not make it this year, either. Mr. Armstrong told us we all sounded great, and there was no explaining or understanding why this year we were not chosen.

Well, the time we spent preparing was not a total waste. The process is an experience in and of itself. Meeting every week for two months with three other people, singing together, working on timing and blending our voices, is never a total waste of time.

I really didn't want to miss another day or more of school anyway, after two weddings in one month -- five days to Connecticut and back on Labor Day weekend; four days for the Nebraska wedding, the first weekend of October -- and  five sick days in between weddings.

And really: Skip to My Lou?

Maybe next year the music will be worth singing, and I will get in once more. If not, I don't really care.

Tomorrow night I have to go to Iowa City to audition for a different honor choir. Like the annual All State concert every November, this concert is every February, near Valentine's Day, and it is conducted by ISU's Dr. James Rodde. Last year I sang at both All State in November and Honor Choir in February. This year I hope I will at least get to do the concert in February.

I auditioned for last year's concert on very short notice during the school day at Xavier. The piano accompanist said I would be up soon, and what song was I singing? I had no idea! Thinking fast, I named a Mozart song I had been listening to on You-Tube. The pianist said "Phew! That one is easy to play and I already know it." We walked in to the audition. Together for the first time, she played, I sang.--and the funny thing is, I made it in, with no preparation or practice or time to worry about how I would do.

This year I am at Kennedy, not Xavier, and Dr. Rodde does not come to Kennedy for us to audition. Only one or two Kennedy students a year even try out for it. I am not sure why that is, but my mom got an appointment for tomorrow night's audition at City High. My piano accompanist will be Younjung, a music major from Kore and a friend of my brother Miles. I have never met her before. The audition is at 9:15 p.m. That is very late in the day for a singer, but one good thing is that I won't have to get up at 4 a.m., ride a bus, sit in a gym all day and wait, wait, wait for my turn to audition and wait, wait, wait all day for the results.

I might wait up to a week for the results! The teacher will announce Dr. Rodde's decisions.

I am not nervous.

Really! I'm not the least bit nervous!!!

Wish me luck.

Forever 21 Boycott

In Spanish IV, both yesterday and today, we watched a video about immigrants working in the garment factories of Los Angeles, California. The workers complained that they were being treated unfairly and the working conditions were inhumane. They were making clothing for the company, Forever 21, working twelve hours a day with very little pay, if any at all. One woman made a thirteen dollar shirt but only got paid nineteen cents in return. Many workers were not even making  minimum wage and did not get paid for working overtime. These immigrants thought that by coming to the United States, they would live a better life and provide a better future for their children. They ask for nothing more than to care for their families, but they cannot even accomplish this.

Finally, the workers decided to take a stand. They went to a community center where they were reminded that they had rights and did not have to put up with such injustice. The garment factory workers went on strike and formed protests, boycotting Forever 21 for months and months to no avail. Still, after more than a year had passed, nothing had been accomplished. People had given up hope. They were tired of shouting through mega phones and losing their voices, hearing rude comments from other people on the streets, and being ignored. Letters were written to the headquarters of Forever 21 and its president, but the only response was that Forever 21 had no proof that these people were working for their company. The workers even went to the president of the company's home to protest but the man ignored them and drove off. Even when the case was brought court, the trial was dismissed.

After over a year of working to end the mistreatment through protests, boycotts, and trials, an agreement was finally reached. The workers went back to their jobs in the garment factories, but this time with fair working conditions and pay. The work day was shortened to eight hours instead of twelve and they actually were paid for overtime. One woman finally was able to care for her children, knowing now that all her efforts were not made in vain.

I personally had mixed feelings about this video. It was rather depressing to watch and a lot of the things in it angered me. At the same time it bothered me a little at the end of the video when one woman said she now going to apply for American citizenship, implying she was an illegal immigrant. I am fine with legal immigration, but I am not fine with illegal immigration. I can see why people come here illegally when they are in danger and need to provide for their families, but I do not think it is fair that they should be able to come here without waiting in line just like everyone else who wants to become an American citizen. Like I mentioned, I have mixed feelings. By no means am I saying they deserved to be treated the way they were. Absolutely not! The way they were treated was utterly despicable. All I am saying is I do not approve of illegal immigration in most cases.

Bad Church Music

This Sunday, my family went to church at Immaculate Conception at 5:30 p.m. My sister had come home from Iowa State University and Dad seemed pretty happy to have us all together for Mass. He loves Fr. Podhajsky, too, and the church itself is beautiful, with stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings and all the classical architectural details of an old church. The pews are quarter-sawn oak, stained dark, with hand carved scroll work. The fact that I am so cognizant of the wood the pews are made out of might suggest to you that I am not sufficiently getting into the Mass. There is a reason for that. Aside from my love of architecture (I am currently in a Goth phase, and by that I do not mean Goth or Emo but Gothic as in the style of castles). My appreciation for a beautiful building is not the reason I was seemingly not paying attention to the reason for being in church. If I seem to be taking forever to get to the point, there's a reason for that, too. Part of Mass is the music. Unpaid volunteers stand up there in front of hundreds of people and sing. It takes courage to do that, and a certain generosity. It also takes something I shudder to say in public. For a woman my mother's age to cantor, or lead the congregation in singing all the Mass parts, it takes a certain delusion that she is capable or qualified to do so. Maybe for elderly church goers who are hard of hearing, the music is uplifting. For people like me dad, born with nearly perfect pitch, trained for years in classical piano, listening to music like this is more painful than hearing my mother's polka so-called-music on you-tube. And yet here we were, all together as a family, except for Miles who left around noon to go to work; my sister, who left home again in August to attend college, was here on a Sunday night, and we were supposed to be celebrating Mass and praising God for all that is good, and for that matter, as Catholics, we must thank God for everything, even if it seems bad. So, by that logic, or that theology, I should have been smiling and singing joyously with great gratitude for the bad music that God had given us this Sunday night. Hallelujah! Or as the Pentecostals might say, Have Glory! It's a beautiful sunny afternoon in October. My annual fear of Oktoberfest had come and gone. My sister was home. The music--the 10-minute long responsorial song, with its 17-second-long Amen, was a wonder to behold but not to hear. Oops! I didn't mean to sound snide. God bless that dear woman who has the courage, the damaged ears, and the generosity to stand before all these people and help us celebrate God's love for humanity. Let me recount our blessings. My hair is so long and so thick, I might be able to wear ear plugs to church and get away with it. Oops again! Let's see. This organist and this cantor may be helping us to shorten our time in Purgatory by getting some of our suffering out of the way here and now, on this earth.

Al right, I give up. But I was not the only "bad Catholic" thinking this way. Mom--not I--says the singer couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. All of us, Mom, Dad, Claire and I agree that the organist never plays in the right key. It is always so much lower than it should be, no one can even sing along because it is too low for them. Both the singer and the organist cannot count, in terms of rhythm and reading music. However, as I said before, they are unpaid volunteers. We are not members of this parish, and I do cantor sometimes at our own church with my dad playing piano, and I absolutely HATE singing in front of all those people.

So, I feel a little bit evil, complaining about the Sunday night music at Immaculate Conception. On the bright side, we all must have looked happy and sincere to join everyone in saying "Thanks be to God!" when the priest said "Mass has ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord."

Rainy Days and Sundays

Something about rainy days has always enticed me out of the house and into the elements. Even when I was a little, I would rush out to my tricycle and enjoy the drip, drop, drip of little raindrops. Maybe it was because my older sister and brother learned a song at school and taught it to me, and we'd sing it together in the car on long rides. "Drip drop drip little April showers, we're getting wet, and we don't care at all." The last person still singing ended with the final words, "Drip, drip, drip." Then again, I think I loved rain even before that.

Now that I think of it, there was another song I heard before I was even born. Someone gave us a lullaby cassette tape as a baby gift for Miles, the first of us three kids. The song began, "I love the sound of the music they make when little raindrops are tapping away, like a piano on my window pain, playing a lullaby." Maybe rain always sounded like music to me, gentle and soothing, because of that song. Even when I was twelve, I'd keep that tape in my room and listen to it. The words must have made an impression on my sister Claire, too. All three of us had been playing Suzuki violin, but one day Claire saw a cello at the Symphony School. She sat down with it and played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, the song all Suzuki students learn first. Mom says hearing the word "cello" on that lullaby tape must have influenced Claire. It's in the same song I just mentioned: "When the wind blows on my window, I hear cellos playing a lullaby." I have no idea whatever became of our cassette tape, but I should buy the CD so I can listen again to little raindrops and wind blowing like cellos. http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/3511965/a/Child's+Gift+of+Lullabyes.htm

Another reason I might love rain is that my dad is so crazy about thunderstorms. I remember the dollhouse in the corner of the bedroom Claire and I shared in our last house in Bowman Woods. We had the best view of storms from the window right by the dollhouse, and Dad would squat down between us, smiling and gazing at wall clouds advancing like an army toward us. The wind would pick up, the trees would sway, lightning would fork the sky, and thunder boomed. The rain came fast and hard, but it never scared me. It was just exciting and something to love about our weather.

I never understand people complaining about dreary, rainy days. I love the shine of rainwater on sidewalks, the sound of tires on wet streets, the glow of lights from store windows and tall street lanterns. I think of it as atmospheric, not dreary. To be inside looking out is so warm and cozy, whether it's in a coffee shop sipping a hot drink, or sitting in a favorite chair with steamy chamomile tea.

Even though Dad is a light sleeper and storms keep him awake, I find the noise of a storm peaceful and a great way to fall asleep. The subtle rumble of thunder in the distance, the little pitter patter of drops at my window, is calming.

Another great night-time sound is a train whistle blowing in the distance, but that was only when we spent a weekend in Nebraska with Dad's parents. Grandma and Grandpa Kean have been dead for several years now, but I the mournful whistle of a train does not bring back the sadness of their loss. It brings back the happy sound of waking in the night in a bed at Grandma and Grandpa's house in a small Nebraska town. Rarely, I do hear the sound outside my own bedroom window, but it's fainter and farther away. And that just adds to the effect. Night time. Something rumbling and moving in the distance.

What a great feeling it is to wake up on a dark, rainy morning and realize it is not Monday. Today, Sunday, was just such a morning. I lay in my bed, snug and warm, with my cat Bobi, curled up in a ball right next to me, purring softly. After breakfast, our old dog Bailey jumped up when she saw me come outside in the rain. She must have remembered how I used to take her walking in the rain, but Mom always tells me, "She's too old now," and can't even make it up the driveway now. But I pulled down the leash from the wall, and Bailey wagged her tail and trotted up the driveway with me. I hesitated at the top, but she did not. I had to pull back on the leash, but then I decided to let her keep going. Maybe I would have to carry her home—or maybe she would rise to the occasion and walk like the old days. To my pleasant surprise, she did just that. She even got ahead of me. To make sure I didn't wear her out, I turned her around after just a few houses, but she walked all the way back home. She even seemed ready to go on another walk. So we did, this time with Dad. Bailey went even farther this time, and did just fine. She sniffed everything and left her "scented graffiti," as Mom calls it, all over the place. Just like old times, Bailey got to sniff donkeys, sheep, neighbor dogs, and who knows what else.

I'm the one who fell asleep on the sofa after our walk. When I woke up, the sun was shining. A new day? No. I was thrilled to realize it was Sunday. I was not so thrilled to realize I still had lots of homework to do before the day was done. I would have happily traded all that afternoon sunshine for a rainy Sunday morning. (985)

My brother made the wedding complete

It looked hopeless, but Miles made it after all. His boss had scheduled him to work Saturday night even though Miles has asked for the whole weekend off. He had missed the wedding of our Connecticut cousin, but Dave and his new bride Staci would be in Nebraska for the next wedding only a month later. How could we go without him? Both his sisters would be bridesmaids.

He must have said the right words. His boss just told him, "Go ahead. Go. Just assume I'll find someone else. Next time, give me three weeks' advance when you need a whole weekend off."

We were late for the rehearsal, by ten minutes, but we made it!

My dress got fixed at the last minute, Miles got here at the last minute, and the wedding itself went smoothly. I loved seeing all the Kean cousins again. We never fight, argue or complain. I wish my mom's side of the family would get along like that, but some people are always looking for trouble and never able to see just the good and overlook the bad.

My mom keeps grumbling that weddings are silly, with all those bridesmaid dresses and rented tuxes, and she seriously seems to think we all ought to just elope. She may not have gotten to enjoy her One Special Day because no one in her family knows how to let one person have that much attention all to herself, and her wedding day was more stressful than fun for her. The good news was, only sixty-people showed up for her wedding, so she didn't have a big audience for all the things that went wrong. The bad news was, nobody showed up for her wedding because May 22 is a stupid time of year. Farmers are in the field and students are busy with finals. However, for all her complaints about her wedding day, the marriage itself has been the best thing that ever could have happened to her. Not one of her sisters ended up with a husband anywhere near as nice as my dad.

She knows that. Next, she'll realize that her daughters should have a beautiful wedding even if it is a hassle and a big expense. Nothing is more fun than a wedding for bringing family members together from all over the country. It sure beats meeting up again for a funeral.

I wonder which of our Kean cousins will marry next. The oldest Kean boy, Jim, has four daughters, and they all married in order of age. The youngest one got married last fall. The second brother, Dan, had his first son marry next. The next oldest cousin is Colleen, first child of Pat. If the Keans keep marrying in the same order as they were born, Dan's son Tom should be next in line. Then the youngest son, Tim, my dad, would have his first child, Miles, but this is getting complicated and mathematical. On my mom's side, nobody married in order. Daughter #5 married before Daughter #4 and Daughter #3 came lost, and Daughter #2 eloped, and Daughter #1 was murdered at almost 19 back in 1975.

I can't help wondering what cousins I might have had, if Aunt Julie had lived, married and had children. How many other weddings would there have been?

Unlike my mom's father, who had just one sister, and she never married or had kids, I have plenty of cousins. Even with my mom losing her sister, and my dad losing his sister Patricia to leukemia when she was only four, I still have lots of cousins to enjoy. Weddings and holidays are always pleasant and fun with Dad's side of the family, even if a lot of people came to exist when four sons each had two, three, or four children, so there are thirteen Kean cousins, plus the children of the three oldest cousins. On Mom's side, there aren't quite so many cousins, and none of them have married yet or had children.

Whenever the time comes for Miles, Claire and I to get married, I know we'll never get all our cousins from both sides of the family to show up for the weddings. But I'm glad Miles made it, after all, to Colleen's wedding. It wouldn't have felt complete without him.

Yet Another Wedding: But Problems Arise

Yep, you heard it. I am off to yet another wedding, but this time in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I am a bridesmaid for the very first time, along with my sister, Claire. I have been getting ready to leave all morning, but then the phone rang. It was my brother. Both my brother and my sister had already missed out on the first wedding in Connecticut because they were busy with college and work. Now my brother is going to miss this one too. It makes no sense. A long time ago, far in advance, he asked for Friday through Sunday off. He was going to drive from Iowa City to our house, then we would drive to pick up my sister at Iowa State, then we would be on the road to Nebraska for six hours. Yet for some reason (who knows why?), Miles' boss scheduled him to work. I do not know why, but no one can fill in for him and they cannot live just one day without him.

This is utterly depressing. It angers me greatly. I do not remember the last time I spent time with both my brother and my sister at the same time. Ironically, in the middle of writing this blog post, I got a call from Miles telling me he now can come, but it is eleven thirty in the morning and we were planning on leaving at noon. He still has to drive from Iowa City to our house, which is about forty five minutes away. At the same time, even though his boss says he can leave today, he also says it would help a lot of Miles could stay and drive to the wedding himself tomorrow. I do not have all of the details as my dad just got off the phone with him.

This reminds me of the other dilemma, which fortunately got solved. Yesterday my mom went to pick up my dress from getting steamed at David's Bridal. The problem is, however, when I tried it on there was a major problem with the him that I still cannot explain or understand, but the dress did not hang properly. It also was very wrinkly despite it having been steamed. My mom was furious. She had already spent hours and hours shopping getting jewelry and shoes for the wedding and had gone to David's Bridal once already.

We knew that something had to be done. There was no other option. So we went to David's Bridal a second time in one day and had to have the seamstress find time in her busy schedule to fix it. Fortunately, after she was finished working on a wedding dress, she was able to fix it in about ten minutes. She told us to come back an hour and a half later to pick it up. Again, my mom was very angry and stressed out. We had to kill time shopping again until the dress was ready. Luckily, the dress is great now. The seamstress did a good job and found time to fix it. It was also steamed a second time. Hopefully there will be no more problems!