Like the first two, I escaped for yesterday's first gig by taking a long lunch. And it was a gift the employees and tenants of the building. Yesterday was at Le'enfant Plaza, just across the street from the Smithsonian Institution and a half-mile from the Washington Monument. The other singers were to
die for. . . well except for Bette and me. The alto is a member of the Air Force Singing sergeants, and the Bass is a member of the Army Chorus. He was kind of cute, too.
"Let's sing 'Lo How a Rose,' says Celia. I could have thought, "what the hey, really hardly anyone will notice," but I really didn't want to go down that road again, so I whined that it was too hard. . . but they knew better, what they didn't know what that Bette is tone deaf on that song! So, we sang it, and with two professional singers, and me (and my self-esteem rising by leaps and bounds) we went ahead. And I was pretty happy when it was done too, because the bass and alto were in the exact same key as me, and I'm pretty sure I was in the same exact key as when I began. I don't know what Bette was singing, but as the adage says: "If you're going to get that close to the note, you might as well go ahead and sing it!"
We wandered from building to building, cloaks flowing, heads head at odd angels to keep the hats on, singing in the lobby and also in the grand courtyard. People came up from the metro and were so happy to hear us. Honestly, every where we went, people were delighted. For me, it's just not Christmas until I can make musical Christmas magic for strangers. Some people tried to just seriptiously follow us around, listening and enjoying, but pretending that we just
happen to be sharing the same space.
In addition to the quartet, this event had a guitarist, a violinist, a harpist, and a pianist, each playing alone in the lobby of the four buildings that make up Le'enfant Plaza. The evening job had come up unexpectedly late the previous evening. When Bette called to confirm the job in the morning, she asked me if I would like to do the evening job too. She wasn't sure it was going to happen, it seemed. So, although I was supposed to go to Paxton's open house, I told her I would. (Hey it's for money! And I wanted Rolf to go to Paxton's party and tell them that I was
hired to sing at a party. He-he.)
When she introduced me to the dreadlocked keyboardist, she said "He sings too, and he said he'd come and sing bass with us tonight! Isn't that great!" "If you're game, I'm game," I said, shaking his hand while checking in with my gaydar to see if it was going off. I decided it was probabaly shorted out, and I'd try again later.
Of course, we sang
Winter Wonderland once or twice. But you know, these two service persons, were just having a grand time improvising harmonies, and I got in there some too. I was so delighted with it, that I sang it in my head on the way back to work on the metro.
I thought: "it's all good until you get to 'In the meadow we can build a snow man. . .' where is the tenor line there . . ."
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Up to the second floor of the University Club, Bette declares she couldn't possibly sing alto with me as the lead, so we continue on with Eddie, who doesn't really know these songs too well either, but he is a fine musician, and of course I continued to sing Tenor, but if the alto part was low, I'd switch up to that once or twice, and Bette continued bouncily along with her jingle bells and "I'm gonna sell this" attitude.
We got to peak inside the grand hall where a pianist was playing, and we could see four tables of handbells. They'd hired us, the Victorian Carollers, a pianist, and a
professional handbell choir.While we waited for them to finish their appetizer to the accompaniment of the pianist, we strolled first into the billiards room, occupied by a St. Elmo's Fire crowd of young capitol hill staffers, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, still wearing ties. A table of three young women were centered near the door, as the boys played pool and threw darts in the back. "OH Carollers!" one of the young ladies shouted with egg nog enhanced glee. "Oh, I don't think I can take the smoke," Bette said. And believe it or not, these kids rushed to put their cigarettes out, and begged us to sing for them.
Damn, I love seeing smiles like that. Some sang along, and they applauded after each one making us promise to come back after we'd sung in the other rooms. We passed out of that room into a grill not to much different than a Chili's restaurant really. There was a big mohogany bar, of course all the tables had obviously finer linen on them than I'm normally accoustomed to. I'm sure we cut quite a sight ourselves, even more so because Eddie is so tall, and just has a huge amount of hair, and being black with a joyous, but peculiar smile . . . well, it was funny. I probaly looked the more normal than he did, but his head was so big with the dreadlocks and all, that I had to give in and switch top hats with him. So both of us had hats on that were exactly two sizes to small. We had to walk like we had books on our heads.
You just had to smile when you saw us. As we sang a couple of carols, one of the men got up and joined us which made everybody laugh.
We found a bench and rested a bit before going on. We'd already missed a set by the bell-choir, so we arrived back a little early because we wanted to hear it. Me especially, because when my grandmamma, beloved to me, who passed away before I turned 16, when her estate was settled a gift she left to my boyhood church was used to buy a set of handbells. I got to play in handbell choirs for four or five years before I left home, on those handbells, and so now handbells always make me remember how much she loves me. And I know she misses me too.
Once they had finished their set, we were ready to go in. I guess they were on their second course. We'd decided to sing "Deck the Halls" first, when someone came yelling for us begging us to go in another room to sing. We were really being pulled in to directions, but eventually we were
sent to sing for the
cigar smokers. A tiny boardroom full of a bunch of drunk sons of bitches. Smug. Smug, drunk, Son's of Bitches. I hated them. . . but you know what? They all sang along, and eventually they all smiled. But we still got out of there pretty fast, smelling like cigars for the rest of the night.
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The grand ball room had one table. Around it sat seventy-five people (?), all the men wore tuxedos. I swear, I don't know what the women were wearing. Of course, they were all seated, so I didn't get to see their dresses. There was plenty of between-course conversation going on when we started to sing "Deck the Halls," and we were as happy as clams at high tide, until the old man at the center of the table starts hitting his glass with his spoon, making us think that maybe he had something to say, so we should stop singing. . . but no. He wanted every one to be quiet to listen to us. A flat soprano, a tenor trying to sing alto at times, and a big black guy with huge dreadlocked hair trying to sightread both words and music to carols he does not know.
I could have done without that. But they loved it.
It was a long night, but we had plenty of breaks, sitting and laughing in the grill. We sang more for each of the rooms (except the cigar boys.) But mostly we took it easy until it was time to go back in the grand hall.
We should have left well enough alone.
