Friday bullets, 12/16/16

What?! It's Friday again!? Say it isn't so. Does anyone else want an extra week tacked on before Christmas, or is it just me? Lots to do, so this may be short.

• In my discussions with D. about Hamilton, I've come to a realization. (I'm probably late to the party, so forgive me if my original thought has been hashed out a million times already in other places.) Hamilton is not a musical. Hamilton is a modern opera. There is no spoken dialog, instead the dialog which advances the story is rapped. Rapping is very, very similar in many ways to recitative. (Recitative for non-music majors is the sung portion of the opera which advances the story line, but is sung on very few pitches with a flexible meter, or tempo.) Put the rapping on a pitch and you have recitative. My other theory is, if someone were to mount an opera with a lot of plot and action, and gave it a modern sensibility, a la Hamilton, it could be a surprise hit. Or not. 
• Finals are over for B. and A. and they will be moving home for the holidays today. B. actually will be here for the entire next semester. (Hooray!) He only has one class left before he graduates so made the wise financial decision to live at home instead of taking a full load of classes he didn't need in order to live on campus. This way he only has one class to worry about and can work instead.
• Today I go in to the phone store to replace my cute little retro 2G phone. I'm so sad. I love that phone. I think, according to the information I got, that I can get another flip phone for free. I'm really hoping that I can keep my same pay-per-use plan. You know, the one that costs me $100 per YEAR. I know, I know, my friends have been putting the pressure on me to upgrade to a smarter phone, sharing with me all the grand and glorious things their phones do. But then I also hear complaints about trying to stay off of it and phones taking over lives and... who needs that? I'm quite happy not carrying around a pocket computer.
• Christmas gift wrapping has been postponed until the thermometer reaches double digits. Saturday is looking possible with a balmy 30 degrees predicted, but Sunday is out with a predicted high of 1. The worst thing about my current wrapping paper station in the cold, cold room is that I cannot take a cup of tea in with me to sip as I wrap. I sip, set the tea down, wrap a gift, take another sip, and... Bleh. Ice cold.
• K. is currently consumed with police officers. (He toggles back and forth between being a policeman and being a fireman. We're in a police phase.) The other day he says to me, "I think I will start out by being a Boy Scout for a while. Until, oh, June, and then I will become a police officer. Being a Boy Scout would be a good place to practice at first." So, if you've ever wondered exactly how long 'a while' is, it is evidently 6 1/2 months.
• The Curry family continues to be involved in our church's Christmas pageant. J. is directing, small people (minus L.) are singing, G. is also doing a dance with a group of girls using angel wings (which she is darn excited about), D. is running a spotlight, TM is a king and singing the myrrh verse, and J. and I are narrating. (I have directed the choir for many years, but there was no way I could manage rehearsals this year.) The very first time I ever saw the pageant, when J. and I were engaged, his mother (the director and creator) decided it would be great if we (J. and I) were to narrate. So we did. Now, 26 years later, here we are narrating again.
• But I forgot about L. She did not want to sing or play a part. (We were all surprised by this.) It turns out she is more interested in directing than acting. (That we are not surprised by.) Yet she still wanted to go to rehearsals and be a part of it all. So, she is a small assistant costumer and is thrilled by that. We have heard many times what her jobs are to help the kings get ready.
• It is possible to get 120 Christmas cards made and ready to mail in the course of just a few days. Of course, this means that other things fell through the cracks, but we don't need to talk about that.
• Oh, and that deal I made with M. about the driving and the bird legs? Boy, did M. get the short end of the stick! We got home and M. went down with the birds and a small children. By the end of the evening, two birds have legs, and to insert the legs into the birds' bodies required the use of M.'s dremel (a small drill). There are still seven more birds to go. M. plans on spending quite a bit of time at home over the holidays, so the legs will get finished then. Someday I might have pictures of finished birds to show you. Never again will I plan a craft that has more than a couple of steps, especially if those steps require multiple days to complete.