Lots of news and happenings

Posting career info on your Facebook page is pretentious. I don't care about what gig you have this week. I don't care about with whom you're performing. I don't care about where you're performing. I don't care to see pictures of the food you've been eating while you're performing in said city. I don't care to hear about the traffic in the city where you're performing. I DON'T CARE! Facebook is a social networking cite. Save career info, photos, etc. for the website you use to promote your career and use Facebook to increase the number of people on your friends list.

Now that that's off my chest I can say that a lot has happened since I last posted. As everyone probably knows, James' mother passed away very suddenly about two or three weeks ago. I saw her on Friday morning of that week as did a couple of the neighbors. James talked to her that same day as did his aunt Alice and she seemed fine other than an upper respiratory infection that was getting better. The next morning, Saturday, her neighbor Jan found her on the floor of her bedroom. It looked like she'd started to get up, like she always did, and was struck by a sudden heart attack. James was in South Carolina with the Tenors and couldn't get back until early sunday morning. My mother was kind enough to let James' brother fly back from Toronto using one of her passes on American Airlines.

Everyone seems to be doing great. James and Johnny have never been the kind of people to wallow in sorrow. They are taking it in stride and doing their best to move forward. They have up and down moments. James said he was in a book store the other day and realized he was looking for books for his mom or he thinks of something he needs to ask his mom.

Also in true McQuillen fashion, the day after the memorial James started making plans to have all the bathrooms in the house remodeled. His grandmother had her house remodeled which his grandfather died and James's mother had a large part of the house redone when James's father died. Having the bathrooms renovated was something James been talking about with his mother so he figured why not go ahead and get it taken care of. The bathrooms haven't been touched since the house was built and are in desperate need of updating. They are decorated in tan, beige, brown, taupe and any other shade or hue of brown you can come up to. It's pretty bad. We are planning to move into the house after the bathrooms are finished. They mortgage on the house is almost paid off so we're going to move into the house when the bathrooms are finished, hopefully around the first of the year.

the other big news is that I recently auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera chorus. I sang well but I have no idea when I'll hear from them. I would be hired as extra chorus which means I might only be in one or two productions. It depends on what they need. We'll wait and see.

that's about it for now. Things are scooting right along. More soon!