how these things get started……

Back in the day, when I was young and carefree and had no money (are those items related?) my “BFF Janna” and I went shopping.

As we were rummaging around dreaming over prom dresses and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans that we couldn’t afford, I found this gorgeous blouse. It was dark green silk with a ruffled neckline and ruffles at the end of the 3/4 length sleeves.

It was, in short, perfect.

I showed it to Janna.

She loved it. In fact she wanted one too. Did I mind if she got one too? No of course not. We can be twins.

Okay, so we go to the rack….there was only the ONE in our size!

AARRGGHHHH Teenage Tragedy !!!!!

Well. What now? Can she at least try it on? Well, yes, of course.

Result; she looks just as good in it as I do. Better actually since Janna actually had a bust at that point in our lives. Mine wasn’t delivered by the boob fairy till years later.

annnnyway.

So there’s one blouse, and two friends who want it.

Then we look at the price tag. Well, that’s that. NEITHER of us can afford it.

We put it back on the rack and trudge off to go have lunch in the food court.

But we keep talking about the blouse. Finally the light bulb comes on……Wait. If we both pitch in, we could share it! But we had better get back there QUICK before someone gets to it and buys OUR blouse out from under us!

We TORE through that mall so fast. We must have freaked out a few people. but we made it in time. the blouse was safe. It was OURS. She kept it for a few months, then handed off to me.

We passed that blouse back and forth for years and confused loads of people at our church. Eventually I even looked as good in the “Time Share Blouse” as Janna did. 😉

Janna would be so proud of me

Every year at Easter my good friend Janna’s father (choir director at her church) used to let whoever wanted to to come up into the choir loft and sing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. And every year I would get in so much trouble.

See I had learned it as a Soprano when I was much younger and had a soprano range. But I can’t do that anymore. And besides, I wanted to stand next to my friend Janna………. who sings alto.

oops.

So there I was, in the middle of the Alto section. The director has his arms raised. We are getting ready to start singing.

And I have NO CLUE how the Alto part goes!

yikes.

And somehow I never learned. Year after year I’d bounce up into the loft and every time have same oops moment. Is my learning curve really that flat?

But Janna, you’d be proud of me now. This year my choir has been doing the Messiah (Christmas portion) and I’ve learned the alto part by heart. And I just wanted to tell you, I adore the alto line. My director has joked that Handel was “sweet on an alto” and that’s why he gave us such a gorgeous part to sing. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that it is way more fun to sing than the soprano part ever was.

so be proud of me Janna, I’m a confirmed alto for life now.