Friday, December 03, 2004

Over the High Notes and Through the Woods

This morning I trek off yet again for the upper reaches of the Upper Peninsula. For those of you playing mitten map, hold up your right hand, palm facing you. The trip begins approximately 1/4" south of the center of your palm. I drive straight up (and when I say straight, oh boy, is it straight. Flat too) to the tip of the middle finger.



Then I fall off the earth. This is my nightmare.



Hopefully, passage over the Satan's bridge of death and destruction will be non-eventful with no trucks, no traffic, no construction, no rain, no snow, and winds under 5 mph.



Assuming I survive the bridge, my journey is nowhere near over. Now you'll need to add the scarf to the mitten map. Keeping your mitten hand in the proper position, place your left hand perpendicular to your right hand, palm facing you with the tips of your middle fingers touching. Turning left at the left middle finger, drive all the way across the scarf and then turn right to start going up the thumb.



When you run out of land, or hit a penguin, you're there.



My raison d'etre this weekend is appearing as the Soprano Soloist in a performance of Handel's Messiah. It should be a great gig, and I always love singing with the Keweenaw Symphony and Chorus. It's going to be a bit of a strange trip, since for the first time in a long long time, I'm traveling alone. TinyTuna and GramTuna's weekend will be chock full of rehearsals, auditions and Christmas gatherings. So, I'm taking a armload of CDs, a couple of books to read and some sewing to occupy my free time.



Maybe during the drive I'll even enjoy some quiet, reflective time.

Heh. Right.



In between playing deer dodge-em, I'll be enjoying the Mitten's flatlands, and the various oddball touron spots in the UP. Unfortunately, most (if not all) of these will be closed for the winter, so I'll have to content myself with shouting out weird town names to nobody in particular, visiting the sub Arctic McDonalds just over the bridge, and finding various ways to incorporate "eh" in my vocabulary.



Good times, eh?

Yep. I got it down.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have a safe trip and a fabulous performance!

I think I sprained my hand attempting the Yooper map.

~grace

lifeonhold said...

Your entertaining map of the Mitten and commentary reminded me of a reoccuring dream that I get from time to time. In it I travel far north around the Great Lakes and find myself in a kind of wet, marshy, flat environment looking for dry land. I get a mildly anxious feeling about being there and wondering how to get back. Then I get an overview, like from space, of the entire region. Wierd.

Anonymous said...

If you're not mitten mapping the UP, do you still use your right mitten palm facing or do you instead use the left mitten back facing? Inquiring minds want to know.
BSTuna

Gary said...

Break a leg, Tuna!! and "Rejoice Greatly"!

Wednesday night, we did our performance of Messiah with Symphony New Brunswick (I'm just a lowly bass in the choir, though), but it went fantastic! Every time I sing that work, I love it more.

Hammie said...

Fa la la la la and drive safe!!