Browing out

Some people have canaries in the mine-shaft; we have younger daughter's eyebrows.

The Accent Snob went to live with elder daughter. He is too elderly and too anxious to make the trip to Victoria, and besides, our apartment won't take pets.

The morning after his departure, half of younger daughter's eyebrows disappeared. We take to a brow bar regularly, precisely so she won't have to worry about tweezing. However, sometimes when she worries, she tweezes. After the last incident, I hid the tweezers. So this time, she plucked them out by hand.

And, of course, she had her farewell solo recital the next day, and her cosmetics and jewellery had been stored against our impending move, so I found myself racing through Rideau Centre to find eye shadow, mascara, cheap trinkets, and an eyebrow pencil. Spent the evening printing up internet articles about over-plucked eyebrows. I left them on her bed - because telling her would only embarrass and enrage her. I'm her mother and any suggestion is "treating her like a little kid".

The next morning, when the Resident Fan Boy took her to church prior to her concert, he noticed more of her eyebrows were missing.

I packed food for the after-recital reception (including a pumpkin pie younger daughter had baked by herself!), and improvised a small eyebrow-repair kit.

When I got there, I just had time to notice that her brows had been filled in - Groucho Marx style. It didn't look too bad --- from a distance.

Then I sat in the front pew in dread. I'd sent out a handful of emails, and an announcement had been made at church. Fifteen minutes before the start, four little old ladies had scatter themselves throughout the nave. I handed out programmes and smiled warmly - I hope. I texted elder daughter that I hoped for at least ten people, outside of immediate family and her accompanist, might show up.

My heart was sinking.

Then, people started to arrive: about ten members of the church choir, who have watched her grow up; two of her fellow voice students; the eccentric lady who greets us in the church neighbourhood; younger daughter's math and science teacher from her high school; our next-door neighbour; the church organist who set younger daughter on this path by arranging for her to sing at services.

About twenty people in all.

Younger daughter, in her element, did long introductions to each of her five songs, but not too long -- and she was funny!

And oh....how she sang. I'm her mother, but she really sang well: Ave Maria (the Schubert one she loves from Fantasia; "Memory" from Cats (her personal choice), "Se tu m'ami".

Her singing teacher particularly wanted her to sing "Nothing" from A Chorus Line, because she blew the audience away with it last year, and she also sang her other entry to last year's Musical Theatre Kiwanis competition:
I have videos of her performance, but, of course can't share them here.

At the end, there was a standing ovation. I wish I'd remembered to bring a bouquet, but perhaps the reaction was enough.