Saturday, July 19, 2014

Colorado Rocky Mountain High

It has been way too long since my last blog post.  My sincere apologies.  We are back in Colorado and taking in as much as we can while we are both back at work.  Mike is back at the rocket shop a.k.a. Lockheed Martin and I am back in a rented studio with Vocal Essentials.  

We both celebrated birthdays since we've been back.  Mike turned the big 5-0 and I turned 47.  We know that 50 is the new 30 but we are both feeling like the numbers are a bit unfathomable.  When did we get "old"-er?  I remind myself that at 30 I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer and not even sure I would see 40.  From that perspective, 47 looks damn good.



We are fortunate enough to be staying at Mike's dad's house and are enjoying him and his dog Yeti.  I look forward to a 2-mile walk with her every morning.  It is absolutely beautiful here.

I spent a week in Philadelphia when we got back for The Voice Foundation Symposium:  Care of the  Professional Voice.  It is always great to go back to where my career began and be a part of the Voice World and family again.  Denyce Graves gave an inspiring masterclass.  Great to see my mentor Robert T. Sataloff, M.D., DMA and Deborah Feijo.






I took a quick trip to San Diego with one of my voice students at the end of June.  Beautifully, our friends Nancy and Rob from Shindig were also in town celebrating Nancy's birthday, along eith Wendy on Willow.  We had a great birthday lunch all together at The Cove in La Jolla.


We have been riding a littlle every week.  I am working my way back to climbing mountain passes, but with a torn labrum, it hurts too much.  Yes, my fall in March resulted in a hip injury and the hip specialist is recommending surgery.  Thus, our fall plans to return to La Paz will depend on how all that goes.

I had the pleasure of singing Beethoven's 9th with the Colorado Symphony Chorus up in Vail, CO with the Dallas Symphony.  It was a fantastic concert.  We will do it again in August at the Aspen Music Festival with Robert Spano directing.  Here I am with my friend Anne Maupin who sang with me.



We spent the 4th of July up in Dillon, CO with Mike's dad Al at his girlfriend Paula's condo.  We biked 75 miles that weekend, 35 miles from Dillon to Copper Mountain and 40 miles from Dillon to Breckenridge.




We are in Santa Fe, NM this weekend with our friend Kathryn and Marc.  We spent this evening at the Santa Fe Opera.  What a great night!  We saw two one-act operas, The Impressario by Mozart and  Il Rossignol by Stravinsky.  



We drove Mike's dad's Porsche 968 down here, and half-way down it started surging and losing power.  It wasn't idling well when we got into town and barely got it parked.  Now it looks like we will have to stay another night here to get the car running.  Thank you, La Fonda, for giving us a break on our room rate and two cold bottles of water on our way to the car mechanics.  Thank you Executive Auto repair for looking at the car right away.  It seems to be the mass air flow sensor.  Thank you Duel Brewing for giving us a place to sit...and drink delicious beer while we wait for the car repair.








On the sailing news front, Pangaea has a new watermaker.  We bought a Spectra and it was installed this week.  Now we can go anywhere and not worry about our sources of fresh water (assuming it keeps working)!  We miss Pangaea but know she is being well taken care of by Dennis and Susan Ross.  We are very lucky to have them manage her along with our summer boat projects!!