Little girl lost

I'm struggling with the key in the mailbox, when I sense, rather than see or hear, a short figure breeze behind me.  A small girl comes up against the big glass door that fronts the building, and she reaches up and flips fruitlessly at the heavy handle to the latch.  She looks about four, can't be any older than five.

Without thinking it through, I walk over to open the door for her.  She doesn't acknowledge me, but rushes out on the path.  For one heart-stopping moment, I think she's going to barrel out into the street, but, after looking frantically both ways, she stops and sits down suddenly on the curb between two parked cars.

Silently berating myself, I walk out quickly but calmly.

"Are you looking for someone?"

"My mum told me to wait right here, and I don't know where she is!"

"Hmmn.  Well, you were in that building, so maybe that's a good place to wait for her.  There are chairs right by the door, so you can see her the minute she comes back."

To my relief, this seems reasonable to her.  We're just reaching the entrance, when a young woman appears, having run at high speed from the elevator up the hall.  

Her mother? An aunt? A friend of the family?  At any rate, my young friend evidently knows her.

"There you are!" the woman exclaims, and glancing at me, mouths "thank-you".

Well, she didn't know I let the little girl out.  I decide to head to our apartment, before she hears different.

Mixed media

The neigbourhood surrounding our not-quite-fallen-through house-sit is full of surprises. Our house-sitting hosts have downsized from a large hilltop home near a golf-course to what looks like, at first glance, a carport. It isn't; it's a perfectly charming three-bedroom bungalow with plenty of space, the sort of house that would suit us perfectly. However, I do think it used to be the garage for the enormous house next door; there are steps cut into the volcanic rock leading up to the mansion -- although now the steps go nowhere.

A walk down the street takes me past typical suburban constructions, then all of a sudden, I find myself just outside a metal fence festooned with "PRIVATE" and other equally welcoming signs. Several motorcycles line the curb at this point.

I blink and I'm by the meticulously kept gardens of modest duplexes which feature ancient lawn ornaments. I'll bet these people love living cheek-by-jowl with Hell's Angels types.

I turn the corner and descend a steep hill without sidewalks, taking me past the local park with an ancient and doomed willow. Dead ahead are the bouquets of artificial flowers marking the spot where a musician died trying to cross Hillside Road a few days before my arrival in Victoria this year.

The neighbourhood is so tangled and labyrinthine that it's possible to approach the house-sit by no less than five different routes. At night, I choose the best-lit one, scuttling past the condo where a friend lived briefly a decade or so ago, and peeking in the window of an old rangy house where students are partying -- sedately.

But one August afternoon, I'm coming from the mall, meandering up the hill through a cluster of smaller houses. No one is about, except for the occasional car. I'm listening to the padding of my footsteps when I hear ominous snuffling grunts that appear to be overtaking me quickly from behind. I barely have the time to register a brief, resigned thought of Oh gawd, no, when there's a puff of dust directly ahead of me and a large dog hurls itself at the chain-link fence, followed immediately by a slightly smaller dog in full snarl.

Dazed, I swallow my heart, and despite the protective barrier separating me from those two powerful sets of jaws, cross to the other side of the street and hurry on.

But not too quickly. I don't want to seem any more like prey than I obviously am.

The recital that almost wasn't

We've just had a way more exciting Sunday then we really wanted to have. You might remember (but you probably don't) that younger daughter's June voice recital was cancelled much to her disappointment and heartbreak. Well to our relief and slight embarrassment, her voice teacher decided to try to re-schedule it after hearing about how upset younger daughter was. We really, really hope that wasn't the only reason. In less than two weeks, she pulled together ten singers (a slightly smaller number than a regular recital which usually features about fifteen), a venue and an accompanist. We had one painful weekend during which younger daughter struggled to choose her songs, then scrambled to get copies of the scores to the pianist by the deadline.

On Saturday, we had a dress rehearsal where the singers ran through their songs with the accompanist. That night, younger daughter attempted to paint her nails for the first time with the nail varnish her godmother had sent her to go with the blush-pink lace dress which younger daughter had had hanging in her room for six weeks, saving it for this occasion. She was devastated when I gently suggested she try again, and managed to pick off all the varnish by morning. I sat her down at the breakfast table and talked her through the steps of applying coats. Her nails were looking lovely when I went to check my email at about 8:30. That's when I found the message from her voice teacher which had been sent an hour before.

The accompanist was in hospital. Unless she could find a replacement by 11:30, the recital being at 2 pm, we would have another cancellation on our hands. The Resident Fan Boy and I looked at each other in despair, but decided not to break the news to younger daughter until we were absolutely sure that the event she had been longing for was definitely off. Voice Teacher was singing at the 10:30 church service which the RFB and younger daughter were attending, so there didn't seem to be much hope. They headed off, and I took up a vigil by the computer, my heart sinking.

Just before 10:30, word came that younger daughter's regular accompanist was cancelling a previous commitment. I texted the RFB, and when younger daughter came home, she donned the dress and we saw her in it for the first time, before she glided out the door and strolled to the bus stop like Audrey Hepburn in her pink straw sunhat and navy flats. Her godmother has fabulous taste.

Our hero the accompanist had to sight-read 15 scores for nine vocalists. (A tenth was ably accompanied by her mother.) We heard all kinds of songs and all kinds of abilities. And younger daughter was, says her totally objective mother, in the top half of the pack. She sang with adequate volume and plenty of expression. She sang on key and listened to the piano when she wasn't singing. But you know, I'm her mother. (I think other people were impressed too, judging from the comments afterward.)

I won't violate my daughter's privacy by playing the video I (discreetly) filmed on my iPod, so I'll violate this fine young singer's privacy:
As I listened to my own daughter sing this, I thought of her great-great-grandfather who was born in Berlin when it was still in Prussia. Did he hear a young girl sing this, possibly one of his daughters?

The second song was from the movie version of Grease. I haven't seen the movie or the play, but daughter saw it in school and this was her personal choice. She can hit the high notes and does the melismata creditably:

I must confess I've never cared for this song, but I'm hopelessly devoted to my daughter. It's been playing in my head ever since -- with my daughter's voice, thank goodness.