Here's a (semi)funny story about something that happened to DD this week. She tells it much better, but since she's not available, you'll have to make do with me. The name of this story is, "Why Molly Thinks that Her Conductor Thinks that She is on Crack".
You may remember that she got an opportunity to play with the symphony for the opera, opening tonight. They're doing The Marriage of Figaro, which is apparently a very very difficult orchestral score which has been beating her up. I think she's finally getting comfortable with it, however.
She had heard stories about the conductor, that he was a tyrant/ogre who regularly fires players on the spot if they make mistakes. She was terrified of him going in. As it turns out, he's not quite that bad. He has fired someone before, but he doesn't do it routinely. He's a very good conductor, and also a very demanding one who expects good players. Whenever someone makes a mistake, he always makes eye contact with that person so that they know that he knows they messed up.
There was a certain passage that our Molly was having a hard time with. Eye contact had been made over it more than once. As the passage was coming up, she was getting nervous about it. The eye contact came just before it this time, as if to say, "I'm watching you because I expect you're going to screw up again". The eye contact lasted approximately 3 seconds. During that 3 seconds, the following 3 things happened:
1) Molly let out a horrible burp, the silent kind that actually hurts and shakes your body visibly.
2) Molly involuntarily let out a little sound, a sort of a moan or tiny exclamation.
3) In the course of the noise coming out, some spit shot out and landed on her chin, and then she drooled.
All while Mister Scary Conductor was looking her dead in the eye.
So, later, there was a break during the rehearsal. Molly, being her go-getter self, attempted to introduce herself to other members of the orchestra. No one seemed very interested in chatting with her, and she began to feel discouraged, so she went to the Ladies Room. When she saw herself in the mirror, she realized that her eye had been watering from allergies, and one side of her face was completely covered with mascara streaks.
Later still, she was navigating the back hall of the theater. She had her hands too full of violin, music, purse, etc. There was a door she needed to go through, but her wrist was sore and she didn't want to risk hurting it by transferring any items to the other hand, so she kicked it open instead. What she didn't know was that Mr. Scary Conductor was standing on the other side, and she kicked the door right into his backside, causing him to lurch forward and take several stumbling steps, narrowly avoiding falling flat on his face. While trying to apologize, she says her voice just kept talking and talking without her being able to stop it. Her long, long, uncontrollable apology apparently included several words like "dastardly", "foiled", "gentlemanly", and "intentions".
She is now convinced that this conductor is never, never going to hire her again. I told her on the bright side, he's not likely to forget her!
You're scary.
I am sure everyone will have a great time though
I will be in WDW soon if anyone would like to meet up then for a little while, let me know
We are leaving in just a couple of minutes for the hospital. Will let you know when I can what's up.
