(not necessarily in that order)
Yep, it’s the day after Thanksgiving and we’re off and running!
We both love the Christmas season, but Ramesha is definitely more of a traditionalist than I am.
Which means that, right on schedule…
1. The tree is mostly decorated.
2. We’re already using some of the Christmas mugs.
3. We’ve had our first seasonal listening to Julie Andrews’ Christmas album.
It also means an avalanche of final details for Christmas events, but I’m trying not to think about all that until next week.
It’s been a lovely Valentine’s Day.
We started the day off feeling deeply inspired by Anandi’s Sunday service talk on Divine Love. Then we celebrated with French toast for lunch, followed by opening our Valentine’s cards and simply chatting for a while.
It was the sort of cold and gloomy day that’s perfect for getting cozy with a movie, so in the afternoon we watched the 1997 Cinderella featuring Whitney Houston and a whole slew of other great movie actors. I had barely heard of it before a few days ago, but it was thoroughly enjoyable.
However, it got me thinking about another version of the same musical, so…! With the patient indulgence of my wonderful husband (and after a delicious tortellini and broccoli dinner) we watched Cinderella again — this time the 1957 live television version with a very young Julie Andrews.
It was an altogether enjoyable, relaxing, and love-filled day. 💝
I grew up on musicals, many of which were by Rodgers and Hammerstein. I sang along to the soundtrack recordings of The King and I, South Pacific, and Oklahoma. I didn’t know Flower Drum Song, Carousel, or State Fair quite as well (meaning I didn’t have every single melody, lyric, and inflection memorized!😂), but between piano sheet music, concert band arrangements, orchestra pops concerts, and catching the occasional television broadcast, I was pretty familiar with those as well.
But I missed out on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella completely! True, I had the vaguest of memories of seeing something on television — once — when I was a little girl, but it wasn’t until many years later that I found it once again on the internet (that was the 1965 version starring Lesley Ann Warren).
What a revelation! I realized that hints of the songs had lingered in my awareness, even after only one viewing, and it was so wonderful to finally know what they were and where they came from.
Well…imagine my surprise when, just this past year, I stumbled across a DVD of Rodger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella…with Julie Andrews in the starring role! I just watched it for the second time tonight and now I’m looking forward to the treat of getting to know all these songs really well.
Having the voice and gracious beauty of Julie Andrews combined with the sublime melodies, witty lyrics, and emotional depth of Rodgers and Hammerstein definitely takes me to a very, very happy place deep inside.
Oh, and let’s not forget the humor; love this!🤣
If not, you won’t get this musician’s joke…
How did you do?
Well, let’s fill in the gaps with some background. To start with, solfege is “the study of singing and musicianship using solmization syllables”.
Ha ha! Don’t worry, solmization was a brand new word for me, too! It means: “a system of associating each note of a scale with a particular syllable, especially to teach singing”.
Also known as…the Do-Re-Mi’s (Julie/Maria explains it so well)!
Okay, now you can go back to the image at the beginning, say your Do-Re-Mi’s backwards*, and prepare to chuckle!
The bonus is that you actually learned a little bit of music theory.
* Do-Ti-La-So-Fa-Mi-Re-Do 😉