color my world

We opened the play last night, and I believe the playwright and director were both happy. The audience was full and enthusiastic. The first (mixed) review is already up. I'll link to the L.A. Times and Variety reviews when they are posted.

So today, I didn't have to go to work -- unless I wanted to pick up my glasses, which I managed to leave behind when I went home after the opening night party. Whoops. I decided I could live without them for the weekend.

Even though the party went late -- and I could have stayed much later, but I knew this was coming -- I had a 9:30 a.m. rehearsal call this morning. My church choir is part of the combined choral force singing Mozart's short, easy Coronation Mass as a fund-raiser for the Long Beach Mozart Festival. The concert is coming up Feb. 1, and this morning all the choristers rehearsed together for the first time. The second time will be a couple of days before the concert, and then we're on.

9:30 a.m. is too early to sing. But at least this music is light and fun, and it is emblazoned on some brain cells that learned it when I was an undergrad and will never let it go. So being tired and glasses-less didn't hurt me for this rehearsal as much as it might have for some others.

Afterwards I went to the aforementioned favorite coffee spot. I was slated to meet my friend A* there, whom I hadn't seen in a while. I was early and hungry, so I ate lunch while I waited for her. We hung out and chatted for an hour, and discovered that we're both interested in painting our apartments. So, we're going to help each other with those projects, providing company and labor and motivation to get it done.

Thus, I came home and put up a test patch of the paint I think I'm going to use in the living room and tiny central hallway of my apartment. I bought the paint a while ago, but my landlady didn't approve the colors I wanted. She's one of these people who thinks that rental property should always be white, because potential future renters will be put off by color. Now that I've been here 18 months, I no longer care what she thinks. Whenever I move out, if she wants to paint the place white again, she can do so.

The potential living room/hallway color is a light fern green, which I think will look nice with my deep red upholstered furniture and dark to medium wood tones. My living room windows face east, so I wanted a color that would be nice in the morning sunlight but would also take compact fluorescent lamplight well at night. I also have a fairly saturated periwinkle blue that I'll test in the bedroom, which gets strong western light. The carpet throughout the apartment is a very neutral light brown with a nice repeated textural pattern, and the baseboards and woodwork are creamy off-white. I fear I'm going to have to put a fresh coat on much of the baseboard and doorframe footage, because the fresh color on the walls will point up the scuffs and chips in the older paint on the trim. Oy.

I also want to put color on one wall of the kitchen -- the other walls are dominated by cabinetry and window, so what wall is there can stay as it is. But what color for the kitchen? Off-white ceramic tiles on the floor, warm oak cabinets, and a ballet-slipper pink vintage stove. Hmmmm. Suggestions?