Having determined that I probably would not have time to make a new dress before the Christmas parties and performances, I bought this one.

People who know me can have a moment to be amazed that I bought a dress.

That’s enough. Now we must get serious again, because I now have to buy shoes.

In the old days, I would have just bought a pair of black pumps. I would very likely have bought some Capezio character shoes, in fact, on the theory that they would be comfortable enough to wear for performances as well.

It is no longer comme il faut to wear black pumps with everything. And black pumps with a red dress are simply not on.

Chances are I also cannot wear my brown loafers or my green slides, and I think my ancient leather clogs are also out of the question, so I must buy a new pair of shoes.

I know that some of you guys who visit here regularly are experts on the subject of shoes, and I would appreciate your advice on this.

Today, I have a tree-trimming party and a lot of errands (my fact-checking job on the scandalous beauty queen went astray in the mail, so I have to redo that, as well) and tomorrow I have church and a performance, so I will not have a lot of time to search for shoes. I am hoping that someone knowledgeable will tell me what to look for and thus speed up the process.

As an antidote to pre-holiday rushing around, I offer you this very beautiful song: “Quelle est cette odeur agreeable?” or in English “Whence is That Goodly Fragrance Flowing?” or any number of other translations.

This song is in the voices of a bunch of shepherds hanging around on the hillside. There they are, chatting about the football scores or whatever, and all of a sudden the scent of angels appears and completely overwhelms their senses with its beauty.

Before I heard this song, I had never even considered what angels might smell like, and I like the thought of it very much. You might remember the line from church readings or Christmas pageants about how the angels appeared to the shepherds “and they were sore afraid.” This song lists the ravishing scent, the supernatural light, and the other surprising sensual experiences involved. Those shepherds were completely gobsmacked.

I was listening to it yesterday on a recording from Chanticleer, a men’s a capella choir. Seeing as how it was all men and no instruments, you could imagine that they were shepherds on a hillside. True, they would have to be French shepherds. And we would have to imagine some odd genetic bottleneck causing all the local shepherds to be amazing singers, and perhaps something in the water causing a third of them to be counter tenors. However, the soloist, Chad Runyon, has a voice like really good strong coffee, so I am willing to imagine these things.

Get the sheet music here.

The link with the midi says that the tune is from “The Beggar’s Opera” by John Gay, but this is not true. It is true that Gay used the tune for the immortal song “Fill every glass, for wine inspires us,” but the tune is a traditional French one, and the carol predates the drinking song. It is such a great tune that I would encourage you to sing the carol now (or after Advent if you are strict about that) and the drinking song the rest of the year.

I will return after my jaunt to the grocery and before the rest of my errands, in hopes that my question about the shoes will have been answered.

It is December first, so we can begin opening the doors on the advent calendar my mother gave us.

I have always loved this custom.

When the children were small, they ran out every morning in December to see what picture was hidden behind the little doors, crowding around the child whose turn it was to find and open it.

Now they still like it, and still take turns, but no longer rush out in the morning to see it.

Especially on a day like today, which is a snow day.

People from really snowy places are allowed to look at the amount of snow we had and laugh. My friend from Michigan assures me that the girls in her town weren’t even allowed to wear pants to school until it got to 20 below, and snow days did not take place unless the snow was so high you couldn’t open the doors.

However, you have to remember that we are a hilly place with a lot of unpaved roads, no snowplows, and school bus drivers who drive in the snow only a few days a year. So our inch or two of snow is enough to close the schools.

The threat of it (and the ice and sleet and the sheriff coming in to say “It’s getting bad out there” and all the sirens as people slid off the road and into one another) was enough to send me home early yesterday (I had already finished all the inventory for the day). #2 son helped me come up with the design for quilting the ends of the runners, and I completed one side.

I intend to go to work today, but I will probably still be able to finish the other side tonight, or at least tomorrow.

I am hoping that the roads will clear before I have to go to work. Since it is the first, I have to take my paycheck to the bank as well, so I cannot be a wimp and walk rather than drive.

I will not, however, be driving to the gym, so let me tell you about one more exercise DVD: Donna Richardson’s 3-Day Rotation. This consists of three 20-minute sessions: a kickboxing segment, circuit toning with weights, and a “dance party” plus an extra advanced section. You can do two or three sessions at a time to reach your time goal, and vary the weights to increase intensity. You can use your own music, turn off the talking, and click for close-ups of moves.

The instructor is relentlessly cheerful but not irritatingly perky, the “students” are varied and seem like a fun group, and overall it is a lot like the classes at your local gym.

We need a snow song for today. There are plenty of cheerful ones that you may already be tired of, including “Sleigh Ride,” “Let it Snow,” and my personal least favorite “Winter Wonderland,” but surely the best is “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Christina Rosetti wrote the words and Gustav Holst wrote the tune, and the result shows what you get when you let real artists do their stuff. This link allows you to have the midi pretend to be bells or an organ or a piano, which is kind of fun, but the phrasing is terrible. I like the bells the best. You can find a bit of history of the song and its creators here. Here you can listen to it in parts and print out sheet music for a variety of instruments (including SATB). It is hard to think of any instrument this tune would not sound good on, because it is a gorgeous tune. I am thinking that a clarinet might be particularly nice, but a good vocal solo on this is hard to beat.  It has been recorded by folks from Kiri Te Kanawa to James Taylor, so you can easily listen to it if you don’t sing or play.

But you could at least internally hum it for a plaintive counterpoint to what will, I hope, not be a bleak day.