teach my feet to fly

as i prepared to start writing about tonight, these lyrics popped into my head:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

christmas is coming. reindeer everywhere. songs of joy, peace and praise were in the air tonight. and yes, i ended up wishing i had a river to skate away on. more on that later.

so, today. today i actually cooked. took beef (i'd previously cooked!), made a pasta kit and sauteed some mushrooms to create not-too-shabby beef stroganoff. my mom would be so proud.

around 315 i took off to visit 2 holiday fairs up in SF before going to oakland for dinner and symphonic escapades. i live in san jose. driving to sf - barring an accident - usually takes 45 minutes, hour tops. i got to sf at 520!! and no accidents, mind you. i'm quite happy that everyone's driving slower and safer in these torrential downpours, but apparently i need to start doubling my drive times in rain rather than adding 50%.

so, it's 520 and the first fair ended at 5. thanks! i tried to find the location anyway, just in case some folks were still there, but i couldn't find it so gave up by 530. headed over to the 2nd one, and wow what a waste that was. incredibly tiny, mostly scarves and stone jewelry. pretty, but not for me.

now it's almost 6 and i really don't need to have dinner until 7, but i head over anyway because i haven't planned alternatives. and hey! it's still raining! so it took me a half hour to cross the bridge. sweet. by the time i get parked and over to luka's, a mere 2 blocks from the paramount, it's almost 645. that plus the incredibly slow service meant i finished dinner about 730. had the roast chicken, which was pretty good. also the slow service gave me plenty of time to write. =)

i'd called ahead to try to find out how many tickets i had for the concert, and no one knew. thanks! turns out there were just 2, so at least i only wasted 1 ticket. i didn't mention this earlier, but i never really planned to sing, even thought it was a singalong. i know 2 pieces from handel's messiah and that's IT. so in perfect Moore tradition, i hummed rather than sang.

i ended up thinking about my parents a lot while i was there. during the intermission i wrote this:

sitting in a gilded palace, i am overcome with loss and longing for my parents tonight. knowing there was a time when both of them sang this production, and undoubtedly better than some of these guys. i wish so much that i could rescue them. give them the best medical attention, all the money they need, to return them to a time when they were as golden as this room.

i almost started crying when i wrote that, not just because i wanted it, but because i knew that even if i could move the earth for them, tomorrow the problem would just be something else. i love them, god i love them. they can be so much fun. but...i guess i hate feeling like the Really Mature One because often, i'm not that bright.

this was the first time, as an adult, i'd sat all the way through the messiah and i must say, it's a rather uneven bit of work. sections are quite beautiful and others rather dull. but there was one soprano who took my breath away, her voice was so incredibly delightful that again, i got misty.

i really ran the emotional gamut tonight, and i suppose i shouldn't have been surprised, since good music has been known to make me cry. nevertheless i felt a bit stunned by the amount of crying i did on the way home. FlagFloodgatesOpenEnabled. found myself thinking about things i thought i had resolved, and realized they weren't, which i've decided is my favorite tactic for torturing myself.

i still feel rather unsteady but since it's after 2am now, i'm going to interpret that as needing sleep rather than analyzing myself *any* further. 'night. :)