MOMA and singing again!

I woke up on Friday to the beautiful sight of snow-covered trees and gardens outside my window. First snow! I went to Nia in the morning, my new favorite exercise class. I love the freedom of movement that it brings and the teachers are all just so fun and fruity. You can definitely make it a work-out if you concentrate on all the strength moves. Anyhoo….I spent some time practicing before heading out to the MOMA for the first time. Penny and friends from my dance classes gave me a year-membership as my going away present…amazing gift, especially since the admission is $20 for non-members and I can go for FREE as often as I like! Yay! Except for Tuesdays…they are closed then. They also have films that I can to for free as well as discounts at the MOMA stores….put in your orders now! I only had an hour and a half to spend there so I barely skimmed the surface…I’m looking forward to spending longer periods of time there…maybe just sit in the Monet water lilies room and journal or fun stuff like that. Its location is perfect as an oasis between auditions that are generally very nearby. My favorite moments were when I walked into the first big gallery on the 2nd floor…I got a little verklemt…I can’t remember who the painter was but these huge canvases were just so grand and really took me aback. I especially loved the Quattro Stagioni series. Other highlights: A really weird movie from Finland that was playing on 3 screens at once with different scenes of the same action in each screen, Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s Land and The Dance by Matisse. That one made me a little teary as well as that is the painiting that Penny printed up for me on the card she gave me. She said she was giving me the MOMA gift so that I could go visit the painting often and think of my dear dance friends!!! So special.
I picked up a couple of postcards in the store before running over to the Hilton to meet up with Manami, my Japanese mezzo friend I met in Aspen who is now a soprano and recently married to a blonde tenor!!! So fun to see her. She cracks me up with her bluntness about her husband. I told her I thought he was handsome from the picture she showed me and she said, “Oh no, he is much too fat. “ Okay. We had fun catching up at a nearby Starbucks.
She is so hilarious and really wanted to be my personal shopper. I could tell she was a little disappointed that I didn’t have more errands to do. She did take me to a fancy soap store, Sabon, for a free hand scrub and lotion application. And she toured me around Daffy’s which is a lot like Ross, with much detail! “See how the underwear is so cheap and cute….see, they have shoes from Timberland….” Etc, etc in every section of the store! I told her she should be a personal shopper! Our last stop was Bed, Bath and Beyond by Lincoln Center. The one thing that I needed for my room was some adhesive to get my new chocolate rug to stay in one place. Gracie, the cat, loves to ride it like a magic carpet, which is cute, but creates quite a mess! I had to say goodbye to Manami to meet Jon at his apartment to work on our audition repertoire. He was so helpful and it felt GREAT to sing out and to have his amazing support beneath me. He gave me so many great tips and helped me feel totally confident and that the song was my own. Yay! We got some ingredients for our special dinner and cabbed it over to our place…Adrienne had the great idea to recreate our favorite Dewey’s Pizza (of Cincinnati), the Green Lantern. Yum!!!! Whole-wheat crust with tomato sauce, mozzarella, pesto, artichokes, mushrooms and goat cheese. AMAZING! I also made us a salad and it was chocolate night…it doesn’t get much better than that!