My 30th Year

If you recall, my 30th birthday was kind of a fun time, but I think my 30th year has proven interesting without a doubt.

- I rode a Segway around downtown St. Louis - that's something memorable for sure!

- I successfully PSM'd (Production Stage Manage-d) a crazy summer opera festival in the middle of nowhere. Survived with sanity mostly intact thanks to friends & colleagues.

- I switched from a freelance career in opera to a salaried, full-time job in the arts, still doing what I love but in a different way. Yes, I miss traveling, but I'm enjoying both the personal and financial stability.

- I entered a photography contest/exhibition and got in. Even if it was at my high school as part of an alumni exhibition. I wasn't a photographer in H.S. so this came as a surprise to some.

- I got caught outside in a microburst in the Loop with my parents and feared for my life.

- The Cardinals won an improbable World Series!

- I completed Photo Project 2011 and started a 52 Week Project in 2012.

- I crossed #33 (Join the Bone Marrow Donor Registry) off my life list and am working towards others as we speak.

- I broke my right middle finger… AGAIN. At work. Boy was that an adventure. I'd forgotten how inconvenient and annoying it was to have that finger out of commission.

- I got shingles. Yes, you read that right. No one still knows exactly why but I did and it was a painful month, and now hopefully I never get it again.

- I learned a little on how to shoot on manual and am starting to learn how to post-process my photography.

-I got an amazing lens for my camera which I haven't taken off since I got it and my pictures are amazing as a result. Or at least I like to think so.

-An award-winning photographer praised my photography and encouraged me to pursue it professionally.

-I have met some great people at work, and have developed some great friendships with some of my co-workers.

-Made a surprise trip up to Alaska to see many friends which was well worth the trip and the jet lag.

-Had my iPhone stolen at work by juvenile delinquents. Never thought I'd be part of that statistic.

It has definitely proven an interesting year and a good(?) way to kick off the 30s. May 31 be just as interesting but maybe not quite as crazy, and less with the sickness and injury.

My 30th Birthday

May 16th was a big birthday for me - my 30th. I left my 20s behind and am facing my 30s head on. Unintentionally, instead of just celebrating on my birthday, the celebration sort of spread out for the next two days.

I had just gotten back into town on my birthday eve, late in the evening. As I usually do, I spent the first night back in St. Louis with my family and my pups.

When I awoke on my birthday morning, we had a lovely breakfast of popovers (my favorite breakfast) and yummy fruit salad. I spent the afternoon with my mom's therapy and service dog group celebrating their therapy dog class graduation. Speaking of pups, when I got home in between things, I found this amazingness on my doorstep from one of my besties.



Seriously? How cute is that?!

To top it off, I had a simply AMAZING dinner with my parents at a new-to-me restaurant called Niche. They have this thing on Monday where it's a prix fixe menu and it was AMAZING. We had a chop salad with romaine, radishes, bacon, tomatoes, goat cheese with a tarragon buttermilk dressing. We all chose the Flank Steak as our main course which came with blanched asparagus, pommes anna and topped with ramp maple butter. And ended with what they called Humboldt Fog which seemed to be a goat cheese, with granola, pear mostarda and crostini. We only let it drop once or twice that it was my birthday. Thankfully, a chic restaurant like that does something like this to let you know you're loved:



It's also the only part of our meal that I actually got 'on tape' because I ate the others up before I even thought of documenting the amazing dinner we had. So amazing that I wrote the chef a thank you note the next day. Because of therapy dog graduation, no birthday cake (a tradition in our house) was made.

The next morning, we all got up early and my parents picked me up to take my to my birthday surprise. I was told to bring my smaller camera, wear comfortable shoes and that they'd be by to pick me up at 8am. My surprise was a downtown tour of St. Louis... on Segways. Judge Segways all you want, but until you've been on one, you can't really judge. These aren't the big ones of mall-cop fame, but smaller ones. At first, you really think you're going to fall off and harm yourself because you haven't learned how to trust the equipment, but once you get the hang of it, it's really hard to give it back at the end of the tour. It was really a great way to see downtown St. Louis and have an experience on a Segway that I wouldn't normally have. I'm not sure who had more fun, my parents or me.



The Segway tour kind of wiped us out, plus an amazingly delicious and filling lunch at JBucks, so making of my birthday cake was postponed to Wednesday.

We made this cake last year, and I loved it so much that I wanted it again. I LOVE lemon poppyseed cake (my usual request), but you can't deny the excitement of carving into this amazing technicolor cake. It's a lot of fun to dye the different portions of batter.



Fresh out of the oven! What we didn't know, is that dome kinda spelled disaster.



Look at that amazingness!! For some strange reason, the cake fell in the middle and some of it wasn't cooked. But you know what, most of the cake was fully-cooked and amazing. So we ignored the part that didn't cook (unfortunately, most of it was purple!) and ate the cake anyway.



So all in all, a three-day celebration for a new decade - not too shabby! I'm really glad I was able to spend this birthday with my family. I only wish I had more friends in town to do a party as well. But there really wasn't much time this time 'round. Perhaps I'll have a belated celebration when I get back in July.

Birthday

My birthday, this past Saturday, May 16, was a lot of fun. I specifically booked myself at the job I did, because I thought it was going to be an easy job (a concert), with a company I've worked for a long time, with people I knew. I really like being around people I know on my birthday.

That being said, the job was not as simple/easy as envisioned. But despite the lack of sleep putting together an almost fully staged "Das Rheingold" in 8 days (first rehearsal to closing), it was well-worth it. I got to work with some fabulous singers, meet some great colleagues and I got my first exposure to Wagner. And liked it.

However, another reason I took this job was because my birthday fell on the (only) day off... and my college roommate and good friend, LR, lives in Indy. As luck would have it, I got to see her not once, but twice - and we spent most of my birthday together. Nothing like spending a birthday with a good friend.

My birthday celebrations started after the opening night performance. Being a Wagner opera, it's not short, and midnight came and went sooner than I had thought. Before we all parted ways, GG dragged me over to the rest of the cast and I got a very Wagnerian (i.e. very powerfully sung) Happy Birthday serenade.

Then, the next morning, I picked up LR and she took me to Hoaglin's for a sinfully delicious brunch and then it was off to Broad Ripple for their annual art fair. We were not deterred by clouds and it did rain a bit, but persistence paid off and it was well worth the trip. There were tons of things that we both drooled over yet couldn't afford. That being said, we did not leave the art fair without keepsakes of our own. And lust for items that we could only dream about.



We also came away with tattoos (temporary, of course):





The evening was topped off by joining some of the cast members such as GG, DA, RPF, EB, for a thoroughly enjoyable dinner, both food- and company-wise.

All in all, it was a wonderful birthday.

Thanks to all who helped make this birthday special.

Done!

The season is over! Our last show of the season was a remount of our locally-inspired oratorio, The Refuge at the Miller Outdoor Theatre in Hermann Park. We totally lucked out with the weather because we only had one really nasty, hot, humid day. This show was tech-ed, opened and closed within a week (two performances only) and it was a quick week at that. While it was a remount, we had a new community choir, a new community instrumentalist and a new Studio soloist. Despite all these new things, plus a slight set-change due to the different stage at Miller, the process was amazingly stress-free and the product was great.

Opening night also coincided with my birthday, which was fun. Despite being at work all day, I was treated to a picnic dinner by my colleagues and a fabulous show. This temporary tattoo, found in my opening night gift from our stage manager, really sums up the day:



I really did feel loved. I came home to a lot of facebook, email and voicemail messages, and was well-wished throughout the day. And best of all, I got to work with my friends on my birthday.

Yesterday, our closing night, I arrived early at the theatre to wander around Hermann Park to take pictures. I had forgotten that our education division was sponsoring a kite-making festival in conjunction with our performance. It seemed like a popular gathering and I managed to snap a few good shots. For more, check out my flickr page, but here's a preview:



I'm behind on posting - I'll have to post about Art Car at a later date...