Ubi Caritas

Long and picture-filled post coming this afternoon.  But 'til then...

Guy walks over to customer service and asks for a job application.  Not only is he apparently both hungover and, shall we say, unwashed, but he is of the impression that his fashionably ripped jeans and tight T-shirt make for appropriate job-app attire.  (er, NO)

And then he opens his mouth.

I've handed him an application.  He replies with, "Can I have four?:

Me: "Four what?"

Him: "Four applications."

Me: "Um, sure..." (hands him another three)

Him: "Great!  This way if I mess up the other two, I'll still have one to work on."

Me: (blinking as he walks away)

You do the math. 

I've been asked several times in the last few weeks what my summer plans will be.  They are many, varied, occasionally peculiar, and most of them very ME.  Observe:

-No school.  No, that isn't like me.  Yes, I'll have a good 12+ weeks sans-school.  I'm tired and my brain has the IQ of soggy and day-old oatmeal.  Furthermore, I don't NEED those classes to be finished by a certain time, so ha!

-Lots of work (bit more like me :P).  I was told that hours would be cut this summer, and was most unamused as we had hired almost a dozen new people for summer (my point being "if you have people who are already trained and want more hours, why the blazes would you cut their hours and hire seasonal summer people?").  However, of the ten hired, EIGHT have already quit in one way or another.  I've given the store almost complete availability, and was told yesterday that my hours would "max out" throughout the summer.  $$$=nice.  Veeeerrrrry nice.  Some in savings, some fun purchases, etc.  I'll also do some pet-sitting; I have a few groups of people in the area for whom I will take care of critters in exchange for money while they are on vacation or what have you.  What can I say?  Getting paid to receive fuzz therapy: it just doesn't get much better than that!

-My books-to-be-read-during-summer list is growing.  Some great literature that I've never read (Wuthering Heights, most of Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, did Victor Hugo write anything beside Les Mis, and that's a very partial list), some books on music/singing/singers that I've wanted to read but not had the time (Joan Sutherland's autobio, bios of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach, Tebaldi's biography, for a few examples), some books on theology (there is so much I don't understand but want to know more about and try to see the reasoning, etc), some just-plain-fun books (yayyayyayyayYAY Elizabeth Peters is FINALLY doing another Vicky Bliss novel, I think Donna Andrews has another coming out, I need to catch up on Iris Johannson -sp?-, etc, etc, etc)

-then there's the yard, which has definite potential, but needs more time than I have during the semester.  The patio needs work, weeding and mulching must be done, and an herb pot or two (or six) need to be set up.

-SOUTH PADRE.  21ST BIRTHDAY.  ENOUGH SAID.

-Oh, yeah, and there'll be some music in there, too. :P  I'll be stopping by school a few days a week to practice songs for next semester, which will be fun/productive/focusing and all that good stuff.

yes, that books list is long.  I read REALLY quickly.  Even with school and work, I finished Les Mis (all 800+ pages, if I remember correctly) in a couple of days.  Without school, I could easily sit down and read something like that cover-to-cover just because I enjoy it.

Oh, and amusing story today.  I attend the traditional (ie, pre-'64) Latin Mass.  I suspect I stand out a bit in this relatively small congregation (about 150 or so) as I'm a single woman who doesn't live with her parents, dresses considerably more liberally than most there (I once brought a friend to church with me, and she has ever since refered to the congregation as "fundamantalist Catholics"), and attends college with every intention of a career.

So, as I walk from my car to the church, I notice that something doesn't feel quite...right.  Hmm.

I am wearing a light (green underskirt, tropical flower veiling overskirt) summer skirt, as it is in the 70s.  It reaches to about mid-calf, and is slit on one side to the knee.  Perfect for evening church in the spring with an uber-conservative congregation.  All light, airy, spring-y, etc. 

In fact, a bit too airy.

When I glanced down, I realized that I must have caught part of the skirt on something while getting in or out of the car, because that slit is now more like mid-thigh.

Naturally, I realize this while I'm in the middle of crossing a street.

On the bright side, I'm about two minutes late for church.  No one else is in the street with me.

I finish crossing the street with a dainty grasp on the edge of the skirt.  Anyone seeing me might (I can hope, right?) think that I was just lifting my skirt slightly, the better to take long steps.  Or something.

Once I get inside and get into a pew, I dig discreetly in my purse for my emergency safety pins, which, I belatedly realize, I neglected to return to my purse post-musical.  Brilliant.  I decide that this skirt will become a "hip-hugging" skirt, rather than have it sit at my waist where it usually is.  That slit is still somewhat above the knee, but at least there is no breeze in the church and the skirt is rather full.

Did I mention that this priest once gave a sermon on how SHORT SLEEVES (ie, above the elbow) are immodest?  Really, he has many good points, but he is a bit over-sensitive on the modesty in dress issue. 

(my crack after that sermon about "if someone is turned on by my elbows when I bare them during a texas summer, it's his problem and not mine" would not have gone over well, I think)

Needless to say, I departed RAPIDLY when Mass was over, skirt still delicately clutched in left hand.

good grief.

what a shift.

I suspected that things were going to gang a bit agley during this shift when I stepped into the ladies' room before starting my shift.  While applying powder and lipstick, I saw this conversation between a woman and her three-ish grandson, who was washing his hands:

Grandson:  "Don't WANNA wash hands!"

Grandma: "Okay, then just wipe them with this wet paper towel."

(Grandson does so, then throws wet and germy paper towel on the floor.  His older sister reaches to pick it up.)

Grandma: "Oh, just leave that; they get paid to do that." (ie, clean up such messes)

They leave restroom.  They couldn't have known that I worked there.

What the heck?  Oh, c'mon, ubicaritas, I said.  This one thing doesn't mean that the shift is going to go badly.  Honestly, lighten up already.

Not ten minutes later, I am blissfully sipping an iced coffee.  I go to set it on a shelf at the customer service desk and somehow misjudge the distance.  I spend the next twenty minutes wiping  hazelnut latte off of the desk, the computer screens, the binders, the phone book, the keyboards, the signs, etc.  How on earth did eight ounces or so of liquid splatter that far and that effectively?  Eh, whatever.  Didn't really need the caffeine anyway, right? 

The phone rings.  "Do you sell books by black authors?" No, we have a strict whites-only policy.  "Yes ma'am, we do."

Help various customers. 

The phone rings again.  "So y'all are selling books now?"  No, we've decided to focus exclusively on armadillos..  "Yes, we do."

Help various other customers, many of whom want to know if we have items in stock, but don't want them when we do.  What the heck?

The phone rings again.  "Do you have AP study guides?"  "Yes, we do; for which AP test did you need a guide?"  "Um, like, the AP test!"  "Yes, but which one?  English?  Literature?  Physics?  US History?"  "Um, I dunno." My suggestion:  don't.  even.  bother.

Help more customers, one of whom has been assigned to read "the fiction (?!?!!!!) book Hiroshima" for his summer reading list.  I discovered during the course of the conversation that this person a) was a sophmore in high school and b) did not know that Hiroshima was one of the two locations where the atomic bomb was dropped, though he was pretty sure it was dropped "in the 50s during the Vietnam War."  I have seen the future, and it is ignorant.

Then there was the delightful little old lady who called and wanted books on gardening.  I could have spent all evening with her (and very nearly did).  Well educated, certainly from the East Coast (my guess was Rhode Island).  Has a voice EXACTLY like that of my first "voice teacher" (we saw each other for two weeks straight every year or so, and would sing for most of that time.).  Just the nicest person.  I did make a $140 sale by the time all was said and done, and I know that she'll be a loyal customer from now on, but (to my mind) more importantly we laughed together as I found and ordered her books.  She sounded both housebound and handicapped in some way (she had to call back later for something else as she needed to wait for someone to get home so that he could go upstairs and get some information for her) and clearly was delighted that someone would spend some time just chatting as well.  While she was rather time-consuming, it was worth every minute.

Part of the problem this evening was that we were so bloody short-staffed.  One cashier, one supervisor who spent most of his time either cashiering or answering calls for a supervisor from different areas of the store, one manager, and TWO people on the floor.  TWO.  Ergo, if one of us was on the phone, the other was swamped.  And that phone never did seem to stop ringing.  I was taking care of at least two lines for most of the evening.

At about 9 (we close at 11) I was told that I was in charge of the kids' section for cleanup.  I got back there just long enough to see that it looked as though a bomb had gone off over there.  I was called back to wait on customers and only got to start tidying at 10:40.  I could have cried.

All nights must end, however, and we finally left at about 12:20.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Shortly after nine (I think...time seemed to blur together a lot tonight) a diva friend stopped in to get some books.  While we didn't have a chance to talk, I did get a quick hug.  Someone (capital S)  must have known I needed one! 

The benadryl is starting to kick in, and I must go take out the contacts and then go to bed.  I am not in the least above sleeping twelve hours or so tonight.

If you have cats, ALWAYS check the bathtub for felines before reaching behind the shower curtain and turning on the spray preparatory to the post-workout shower.

That is all.

More after finals.

One of the many reasons I love my job is that my coworkers are better-read and more familiar with certain types of music than some of my former coworkers.  Ergo, we have some common ground and reference points and lots and lots and lots of interesting discussions.

Case in point: I'm working at the cashwrap (line of cash registers).  There are two other coworkers with me, also working registers.  We have a small line, but are merrily and briskly working through it, while sending customers on their way with smiles on their faces. Only one customer of this group was cranky.  Actually, he was just plain rude, but my coworker still rang him through and told him to have a nice day.  His response was some sort of grunt, but earlier in the transaction he had had a brief discussion with the cashier about his book.  It was apparent, from his very strong accent, that he was British.  The customer following him (female) made some remarkably inane comment about how the British customer was a bit rude, but "who cares, what a sexy accent."  She was the last customer of the line.  Evidentally his utter rudeness is excusable due to his manner of speech (erm, oooookay.)

That remark was overheard by all three cashiers.  As soon as she left the store, our eyes met.  And we broke into a chorus of

"He is an Englishman!"

(head cashier solo) "He IS an Englishman!"

"For he himself hath said it,

And it's greatly to his credit,

That he is an Englishman!"

(all) "'That he is an Englishman!"

"For he might have been a Roosian,

A French, a Turk, or Proosian,

"Or perhaps Eye-tal-i-an!"

(all, much louder) "Or perhaps Eye-tal-i-an!"

"But in spite of all temptations,

To belong to other nations,

He remains an Englishman!

(head cashier, who, incidentally, has an excellent baritone voice, solo) "He remains an E-e-e-e-e-englishman!"

At which point a manager walked up, took one look, shook his head and walked away.  (giggle)

A few hours later, we had a brief meeting at the customer service desk.  We were informed that we'd been hit rather hard LP-wise over the last week, and were polled for suggestions for ways to deal with shoplifters.

Me, looking thoughtful and stroking an imaginary beard: "Something lingering.  With boiling oil, I fancy."

(howls of laughter from those who had been at the cashwrap earlier, as well as a few others.  One of the three managers got it.)

Yes, I do love my job.

***if you aren't a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, you a) should be, and b) won't get any of this.  Let me give you a visual.

HMS Pinafore is unquestionably one of my favorite G&S operettas, though it is rather hard to choose.  Pirates of Penzance, Mikado, and Iolanthe would all rank up there, too.  Of course, I've never seen a G&S I didn't like. :P

but I have to give him points for creativity.

Lots and lots and LOTS of points for creativity.

And he did make me laugh, so more points.

Okay, backstory:

I covered the lunch break of a girl in music last week.  Whilst tidying a wall of DVDs, I was approached by what could only be described (or so I thought) as my weirdo du jour (WDJ).

First he asked if we had any documentaries on the Mormon church, then asked my opinion of the shenanigans in El Dorado (I don't have opinions about anything in the news while at work), inquired as to whether I was part of that community (huh?) and then wanted to tell me all about how inspired he was by the recent events in that area.  In fact, he was so inspired that he decided to write some songs about the aforementioned events.  And he wanted to tell me ALL ABOUT THEM.

At this point, I dived frantically across the department to ask another customer if "Do you need help ma'am?  Are you sure?  Let me tell you about all our specials this week...." just to get away from the WDJ.

When my coworker returned to music, I mentioned this guy to her.  We agreed that he had overqualified in the WDJ department and thought nothing more of him.

Until today, when the music manager walked over to me and said, "Hey, ubicaritas, remember when you covered a lunch back here last week and some bald guy talked to you for a few minutes near documentaries?"

"Oh, do I ever!"  I explained the backstory.

She laughed.  "Well, thing is, he walked off with about $420 worth of documentaries."

Me: "WHAT?!!!"

Her: "Yeah.  Oh, and he's that guy who's made off with at LEAST a grand or two worth of DVDs since Chrismas."

Me:  (expletive expletive expletive)

Okay, buster.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  THERE WON'T BE A NEXT TIME.  You've never been hit music before while I was back there, and if you EVER do so again, I WILL have a manager call the cops and I WILL get your license number if you (as you probably will, since the response time stinks) get away.

I have to say, though, that his approach was certainly original!

To end the evening, we had the incident involving about 4-5 boys who were about 10-12 years old.  They were running around the store acting like idiots, and were later found with several "gentleman's magazines," which are illegal to sell to under-18s.  Marcia, one of the managers, told them to cut it out.  One of them said, "You can't tell me what to do, and you can't make me leave because I haven't done anything."  Another of these young gentlemen suggested that Marcia perform several anatomically impossible acts.  She promptly had them removed from the store.  I might add that these were kids who were nicely dressed and fairly clean-cut.   A customer later told me that she had been down the street at another bookstore a few minutes before and that the kids had been there and pulling this crap there, too.  Their parents needed to be slapped. 

I know I haven't blogged much about singing lately, and I apologize.  The fact is that there is something going on there.  That something is definitely positive--I'd even say that it's a breakthrough--but at the same time it's indescribable.  I've tried to put it into words, but I can't yet.  All I can say is that things are clicking and lightbulbs are going off and I've just never (despite massive amounts of stress due to finals and finances and so forth) been this happy.  Ever.  It's glorious and awesome (in the original sense of the word) and incredible and undefinable and completely and totally overwhelming.  Thus, I'm letting it work without really thinking about it because I still don't handle emotion well.  I know that that's all really vague but it's as close as I can come for now.

I would have sworn that it was at LEAST Thursday, if not Friday.

For some reason, I am utterly disorganized this week.  (aside to the peanut gallery: YES, even more so than usual!  Hush!)

Now then, another to-do-before-more-recreational-internet list:

-Continue practicing for and take piano test

-Turn the completed-but-unreadable-by-anyone-by-the-composer theory project into something that my poor teacher has a prayer of being able to grade (yes, it's finished--just totally and completely unreadable.  my handwriting is bad, and my notation is worse.)

-review comments on scholarship application essay A and formulate some sort of intelligent reply to the teacher who is so kindly looking it over

-write scholarship essay #2 (it is researched and outlined, I just have to, well, WRITE the blasted thing)

-do the French assignment du semaine (yes, Madame, I SWEAR it will be done and done correctly by Saturday!)

-write out/translate the preparations for the week-from-Monday French oral exam (see previous remark)

I have that nasty suspicion that I'm forgetting something.  Grrrr.  Must go review planner.  I feel like it's...what?  A paper?  No.  A project?  Being worked on.  Financial aid?  FINISHED FOR THE WHOLE BLASTED YEAR, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!  (every time I thought I was finished, they requested something else: a truly pointless worksheet that covered nothing that my FAFSA did not, a copy of my high school diploma--never asked for in the two years I've been attending the institution, I might add---etc, etc) Did I pick up an extra shift at work?  Agree to a trade?  Don't have a note of it or remember it.  A meeting with a teacher?  I don't think so, but....

Le sigh.

Off to bed.  If it's important, I'll wake up at 2 AM and remember. 

However, a couple of lines-of-the-week, courtesy of the customers.  Both are Shakespeare-oriented, interestingly enough:

Customer, handing me a copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "Do ya'll have the movie the book was based on?"

Me, deadpan: "Absolutely.  It's in the drama section.  Right next to A Midsummer Night's Dream, which, incidentally, also inspired Mr. Shakespeare to write a play."

I wouldn't have DREAMED of saying it if I had even the faintest idea the customer would have gotten it.  Needless to say, she didn't.   According to her T-shirt, the parents of this intellectual young female are paying about 30K/year for her to attend a local university. 

The second one was more disturbing, and happened a while ago.  I'd neglected to blog it 'til now.

Phone rings. 

Me, answering" "Thank you for calling The Bookstore.  This is ubicaritas; how may I help you?"

Customer on phone: "Yes, I'm a teacher at XYZ High School (public), and I was wondering if you have the Sparknotes version of Romeo and Juliet."

Me: "Let me check." Pause. "Yes, I have three copies, ma'am."

Customer:  "Only three?  I'm going to need about 50."

Me: "FIFTY?  Er, okay.  Well, how soon do you need them?  I can order fifty and have them here next week."

Her: "Well, I teach eleventh grade, and my students are going to read it in class.  Can I just send them in next week to get the books?"

Me:  "Yes, ma'am, as soon as you get an email saying we have them in.  Now, to just check, these aren't the 'easy-read' versions of Shakespeare with the modern English on one page and the original Shakespeare on the other.  These are the outline-basic-plot-structure Sparknotes versions."

Her: "Yes, that's exactly what I need. It'll cover everything they need to know.  Thank you!"

Well, at least she said thank you.

But our educational system is still going straight to the netherworld in the usual conveyance.

If you enjoy light and humorous mysteries, you will enjoy Donna Andrews' Meg Langdon series.  I'm rererereading it at the moment, and laughing out loud as hard as I did the first time.  The first is Murder with Peacocks, followed by Murder with Puffins, Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos, We'll Always Have Parrots, Owls Well That Ends Well, etc, etc. 

In the latter, Meg and her fiance have recently bought a house and are holding a yard sale to get rid of the excess of junk to which the last owner was most attached.  Needless to say, someone is murdered and she has to solve the case, but prior to the murder Meg is describing to her fiance a particular lamp shade that, to her amazement, two buyers are fighting over:

"The lamp shade was huge--three feet tall, and equally wide at the base, though the sides curved in as they went upward and then flared out again, making it look like an inverted Art Nouveau birdbath.  Its dominant colors were orange and purple, though at least a dozen other hues appeared here and there in the trimmings.  And as for the trimmings, I had nothing against lace, fringe, braid, bows, beads, tassels, appliques, rosettes, silk flowers, rhinestones, prisms, or embroidery, but I thought that inflicting all of them on one defenseless shade was unforgivable."

Snort.  Chuckle.  Giggle.

Off to work...

Which team are you rooting for this baseball season?

Three words: New York Yankees.

(ducks as blunt objects fly her way)

Seriously, I am a Yankees fan.

I'll confess that I don't follow them as religiously as I did as a kid (okay, so I can no longer reel off the roster by number, name, stats, etc.)  I don't even watch the games terribly often, though I'll follow the scores.  And, incidentally, would y'all win a World Series already, 'cause this is getting downright embarrassing!

When I was but a small ubicaritas (and far from being a diva), my dad would tell me stories about the old-time Yankees: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle.  He instilled in me a love of baseball.  If you ever want to see what my dad is like physically, in his manners of speech and dress, his love of the game, his wonder at the unknown, and yes, even his cap--watch Field of Dreams and, particularly, watch the James Earl Jones character in the last scene.  He is so much like my father that I'll cry whenever I watch Field of Dreams.  No, my father isn't black, but overall, they are so much alike that it's amazing.  At this last scene, James Earl Jones is playing an older man who has been disappointed for much of his life, but has seen how incredibly beautiful baseball--"the thrill of the grass"--really is.  He's no rock star; he's somewhat overweight, looks like moving is somewhat awkward and difficult, is wearing slacks and a button-down shirt and a flat cap, and is sitting on the bottom step of a set of aluminum bleachers with his legs akimbo and a thick book on his lap. 

(where was I again?  Oh, right.  The Yankees.)

Now, growing up on Yankees baseball as I did, I naturally had a few favorite players.  I watched David Cone's perfect game start-to-finish.  Ditto Roger Clemens'.  Derek Jeter was never a favorite, but he is one of the few players who has been with the Yankees ever since I can remember.  My favorite hero of all time, though he died years before I was born (heck, a few years before my dad was born), was Lou Gehrig, AKA the Iron Horse. 

I went to Yankee Stadium exactly once.  I remember that it was in June, and I was nine or ten.  I remember being in complete awe that I was actually standing in The Stadium.  My dad has always called it The Stadium, as if there were no other.  To us, there wasn't.  See, The Stadium has more history than most in the country.  It is one of the older stadiums still standing.  Imagine that as a kid, you've grown up listening to stories about the Babe, the Iron Horse, the Mick--and then you go and see the field on which they played.  Ruth would have been hovering over that home plate, and just waiting for that perfect fastball that would end up in those center field stands.

This will be the last year that anyone gets to play on the same ground on which Ruth and Gherig played.  Because, you see, George Steinbrenner has decided to tear down Yankee Stadium and rebuild it elsewhere, making it more "modern" and "family-oriented"--read, makes even more money than it does now when games at The Stadium are closer to sold out than anywhere else in the country, despite the older field and ghastly neighborhood.  (Steinbrenner, for this you will rot in hell.)  Okay, so the neighborhood is atrocious (my father swears that he once saw cannibals dancing around a large pot in an alley, but he's always been prone to slight exaggeration), and The Stadium is a bit grungy and certainly old fashioned.  But the truth is that Steinbrenner just doesn't get it.

Fans don't go to see the Yankees to be pampered in reclining box seats.  Fans don't avoid Yankee Stadium because of the neighborhood.  Those who aren't fans but go to The Stadium anyway go there because of the history.  And the fans really aren't interested in be-bopping mascots.  They want to see their Yankees play where their Yankees have always played.  And they'll fill the seats and shell out goodness-alone-knows-what for bleacher seats just for that privilege.  There's this fantastic scene in Finding Forrester (a rather obscure Sean Connery flick that isn't one of his better films) in which the cynical and depressed writer and his over-enthusiastic young protege end up standing alone on the pitcher's mound of Yankee Stadium and discussing the ghosts who must be there.

Did I mention that Shoeless Joe is one of my top ten favorite books ever?  Field of Dreams was good, but the book was a thousand times better.  Trust me.

Possibly one of my favorite pieces of history about the Yankees is the story of Lou Gehrig.  Yeah, the guy for whom Lou Gehrig's Disease was named because he had it.

Lou Gehrig was a fantastic ball player and even more fantastic human being.  He was never so famous as the Babe, but then the Babe was a world unto himself.  They played together, and, despite some differences, made up in the end.  Gehrig was the son of German immigrants who felt strongly that baseball was more of a waste of time than anything else, but who eventually permitted it because of the money he made doing so.  His stats are nothing short of impressive: a 2,130 game playing streak (despite 17 hand fractures over the years).  He batted over .300 for 12 years STRAIGHT, and, in 1927, hit 47 home runs.  This was the year that the Babe hit 60, but until September the two were about equal in their home run records.  In 1932, Gehrig became the first American League player to hit four homer in one game. 

Despite these stats, Gehrig was frequently overlooked by the media, and never really attained "star" status.  A very humble man, he was once asked about being in the "shadow" of the Babe.  His reply?  "It's a pretty big shadow, so I have room to spread myself."

1938 was the first year that Gehrig's average fell to below .300.  Doctors were uncertain what was wrong with him, but it was plain that he was growing weaker.  Indeed, a fellow team mate observed that Gehrig, when playing golf, would wear tennis shoes and slide his feet through the grass because of the effort it took to step in cleats.  In 1939, despite a lack of diagnosis, Gehrig's condition grew worse.  Manager Joe McCarthy, however, refused to take him out of the lineup until Gehrig took himself out.  After a simple play at first that he nearly flubbed in May of 1939, Gehrig was complimented by his team mates for making the save.  He never played again.  Shortly afterwards, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis by a team of doctors at the Mayo Clinic.

On July 4th, 1939, the Yankees held a "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" in his honor.  Many Yankees, former and current, spoke about his character, his talent, his humility, his courage.  When Gehrig walked out onto the field to accept the award, several things were noticed.  First, that this man who had recently been a great athlete could barely walk to the pitchers mound.  The awards and plaques (from everyone from the City of New York to fellow ballplayers to the Stadium groundskeepers) were too heavy for him to hold, and he would have dropped them had someone not helped him lower them to the ground.  Second, his eyes were full of tears.

So many men in his condition would have been angry or resentful.  All Gehrig could say was,

After he gave this speech, the entire team was sobbing openly.  Babe Ruth, who had refused to speak to Gehrig to to a remark from Gehrig's ever-outspoken mother, had tears pouring down his face as he wrapped his arms around Gehrig.

Gehrig may have quit baseball, but he remained active in the community.  He soon requested a place on the juvenile parole board of New York, in order to help kids who needed such support.  He would refuse to allow the media to watch when he visited correctional facilities and spoke with the inmates.  And he never lost his genuine joy, whether it be for himself, a friend, or someone completely unknown to him. 

An example of this is described in an article by Bob Considine, a friend of Gehrig's.

"...on June 2, 1941, Lou called me from his office...He...kept up a lively interest in research into the disease that had driven him out of baseball.  It was a note about the latter that prompted his phone call.

'I've got some good news for you,' he said.  'Looks like the boys in the labs might have come through with a real breakthrough.  They've got some new serum that they've tried on ten of us that have the same problem.  And, you know something?  It seems to be working on nine of the ten.'  He was elated.

I tried not to ask the question, but it came out anyway, after a bit.

'How about you, Lou?'

Lou said, 'Well, it didn't work on me.  But how about that for an average?--nine out of ten!  Isn't that great?'

I said yes, it was great.

So was he."

Yes, he was.

On the day that Gehrig died, the mayor of New York City ordered that all flags be flown half-mast.  Unrequested, every other major league ballpark in the country did so as well.

So yes, I'm a Yankee fan.  And yes, this man is one of my heroes.

Today=Monday.  Mondays are usually good days to begin with, despite their 9 AM piano class (I love the sound of a well-played piano, but that isn't what one hears if I sit at a keyboard, and 9 AM ISN'T MORNING YET, why does no one understand this?  But I digress).  There is a voice lesson in the afternoon, and a vocal repertoire class that evening.  Plus, lots of unstructured free time through the day, as I never work on Mondays.  Much of this free time is spent in homework etc, but I occasionally fit a nap into the early afternoon.  Naps are lovely things.

Today we had a guest master class in vocal rep, which is precisely what it sounds like.  A guest "lecturer" comes in and works with a few students while the rest of us watch and learn.  New perspectives, different approaches, all that good shtuff.  With me so far?  Excellent.

This was the first time that I sang for a guest lecturer.  I expected to be terrified, or at least nervous and unable to take a deep breath.  The latter frequently happens when I get onstage, even with people with whom I am very comfortable.

I wasn't nervous.  Just...not at all.  I felt fine.  I felt at home on the stage.  I didn't feel at all self-conscious, yet I wasn't just "zoned out," which I will do to avoid stressful situations.  I was there, I was comfortable, I didn't think once about how I looked.  I just became an anxious and upset servant girl, and sang about how dreadful it was that I had lost a pin, Heaven help me!

I enjoyed every second, and genuinely LOVED being onstage and making people laugh.  It was awesome, in the original sense of the word.  I'm just in awe.

Miracles abound, and are beautiful.