When belladonna shares a tweet that got screencapped and put up on Insta:

@ madisontayt_: imagining a vegan who won't drink nyc's tap water because of the microscopic shrimp
@ TheWappleHouse: The what now

and I was like "Yeah! There was this whole thing about NYC's tap water possibly being not kosher because of copepods in the water supply a few years back. Which might've meant that NYC bagels, whose lauded taste and texture were credited to the tap water used to boil them, were potentially treyf. But then other rabbis weighed in and said as long as the proportion of these microscopic crustaceans was less than 1/60th of the total volume, it was okay by the principle of בטל בשישים (bitul b'shishim/beteil beshishim), thank you Shabot6000."



... and then I realized "a few years back" was 21 years ago.

hyounpark and I wrapped up our extremely concert-filled June last weekend with two shows in Wine Country, backing up Andrea Bocelli and friends. Three rehearsals in ten days with almost entirely new-to-me repertoire - it felt good to have that kind of intensity of practice again. It's different from regular rehearsal, where we have a month, two, sometimes even three to slowly, steadily polish a single piece. Harder to cram into daily life, but always worth it.

Saturday was also Hyoun's birthday, so I was highly amused when the sound check opened with La donna è mobile from Rigoletto. Because I originally learned that melody in fourth grade as a birthday song!

( Archiving the lyrics here because I know I was able to find it on the internet at some point in the past, but no longer. )

( the rest of the Bocelli concert experience )

And now, my Wednesday nights are free for a (very) few weeks! (Summersings start July 23, and then after that we're right into rehearsals for Verdi; I hope I'll be able to cram in one or two Wednesday night Friends With Bikes rides during the time off, but we'll need to see.)