Whatever you do... DON'T LOOK DOWN!

Surprise surprise - no parking fiasco today! Another surprise, although I would have known had I looked carefully at the schedule - no chorus today, just principals, smaller parts, covers and supers. Michael wasn't there so his cover did the part. I forget his name - Cody maybe? He was pretty good. They ran through the entire thing so I got to see parts I hadn't heard before. Everyone is awesome!

When the supers were done we went to the costume shop to get our dresses fixed. Someone had previously put these huge hacked-up hems in them so they had them taken out. Then there was far too much material so they had to cut the bottom. I went first. I had to climb up on this pretty high table. Like, I got on a chair and still had to put a knee onto the table to get up - I couldn't just step up. The costume woman, who was in a surprisingly good mood, (another surprise!) sat at the edge of the table with her hands on it: "Come forward. More. More. Keep coming. Forward. A little more..." Until my feet were touching her hands. I mean, right at the very very edge of this rather tall table. For some reason I was reminded of being at the doctor's or dentist's office where they tell you to do stuff and you just trust them. Then she said, "Whatever you do, DON'T LOOK DOWN!" and went to work snipping, snipping. I had my new strappy character shoes on and all my weight was in my heels. I imagine I was even lurching backwards a bit. Then she said, "I'm going to hold your ankles. Turn SLOWLY to the left." Inch, inch, inch... around I went. Snip, snip, snip. Then the ankle hold again while I turned my back to her. Then of course I was leaning forward with all my weight in my toes. She finished up and I couldn't get off that table fast enough. Then it was Rachel's turn. I took her picture up there. Is that dress not the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen? Oh wait by gorgeous of course I mean HIDEOUS! It makes everyone's eyes go all wiggly. I cropped the picture and tried to fuzz out the lights because they were so bright, hence the weirdness around her head. Wow I just used the word 'hence' in my blog. The hands working on the hem belong to a sitting-down person. I was tempted not to include that info because then the table would seem even bigger, and therefore my adventure even more adventurous, but then I realized that none of my intelligent readers would believe that such a high table would exist.

So, I learned today how far I can lean in one direction without falling over. Can't wait to see if I'm sore tomorrow in leg muscles I didn't know I had.

Photo: Rachel getting her dress snipped.



I asked the costume woman if we were going to wear bonnets and she said, "Oh, have you been called to the wig shop yet?" Uh.... how is anyone going to be able to put a wig over this head of hair???

Looks like there might be some more opera adventure in my future - but this one better not involve snipping!