All Keyed Up

After Friday night's technical rehearsal we had a leisurely morning at home on Saturday. David took each of us for a ride on the golf cart down the hill to the creek that runs at the bottom of their property. They have a tree house that's the best I've ever seen (the previous owners had 7 children) and a barn and enclosed pen for animals. We picked turnips and carrots from the vege patch, but the deer had eaten the tops of the kale leaving only hoofprints. They have several persimmon trees on the property. I've never eaten a persimmon.

We went out to pick up pizza and the makings of salad, and brought them home for lunch. Sharon's son Jack dropped by to visit. Then it was time to put on makeup. Sharon did my hair by spraying it with Aussie Instant Freeze hairspray and scrunching it up. It took just a few minutes - amazing - and stayed in place all night. She's promised to do it again for competition in Nashville.

We finished off the scrabble game (Betty won) while waiting for our nails to dry. I struggled with eye makeup as I'm wearing contact lenses that give me long distance vision in one eye and close up vision in the other, but I did manage to get my eyelashes on all by myself.

We double checked that we had everything: shoes, costume, Aussie banners; and headed into St Louis to the auditorium at Logan University where the show is. It's called "All Keyed Up". River Blenders and CKC all shared the dressing room, which added to the camaraderie as we helped each other with hair and makeup and safety pins. They wear "all-in-ones" to control bulges under costumes, which can be pretty funny when they fasten in the crotch. Blenders were on stage in the first act and then came back for a costume change. We went on in the second act. It went very quickly (maybe because we were singing faster than usual?) and then the Blenders came back and sang Let theRiver Run with Us, and Irish Blessing to us (very moving, and I cried) and we finished with We Are Family.

After we changed out of our costumes and ripped off our false eyelashes, Sharon drove us to Umos Bar andGrill for a late dinner. We sat in booths, which made it hard to mix, but the food was good and the beer even better. With a long drive home ahead of us, we left at midnight and played "guess that song" again on digital radio to keep Sharon awake.

In bed at 1:30 am.