Fortunately and unfortunately

Prepping a samba group for a big parade.... Let's take just one topic that came up this week: Surdos. I shuffled the surdos all around about a month ago in preparation for the Folklife show. But Solstice is a longer parade.

Unfortunately, Juliana announced she can't come to parade.
Fortunately, David's doing really great.
Unfortunately, we still really need another 1st surdo - you always want back-up there in a parade, so the other player can take a drink of water, adjust a strap, etc.
Fortunately, Dave Henson said he could play.
Unfortunately, he couldn't find his drum.
Fortunately, he realized where it was.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be the same drum that David F is already playing.
Fortunately, I realized I have another 24" surdo!
Unfortunately, it's in Portland on long-term loan to Bob Webster.
Fortunately, I happened to be in Portland for 12 hours yesterday!
Unforutnately, I didn't have Bob's email or phone number.
Fortunately, I remembered that Xuxa is Bob's brother, and I had Xuxa's email.
And fortunately, Xuxa actually saw the email the next morning, and called Bob, and Bob called me.
Unfortunately, I only had 4 hours left and Bob was already at work... and he's a half hour out of Portland.
Fortunately, he actually offered to leave work and drive back to his house to give me the surdo.

So I drove a half hour west and there it was, the missing 24" surdo! Threw it into the car and took off north on a shortcut that Bob told me about, up the west side of the Columbia.

My other major things I've been wrestling with:
- worrying about parade repertoire in general. I think I've come up with a good mix of samba & funk breaks that everybody is confident with, but it feels kind of last-minute and I've been vibrating with stress about it.
- I am completely terrified about leading the whole parade and doing all the repinique calls. I've led 2 parades before but never did the calls in public. (There was another repinique player last year who did all the calls.)
- putting a 15 min stage show together at the last minute; the parade organizers want us to do this; but I don't know the dance cues (i.e. where to place the breaks so they fit with the dancers' choreographies); and dancers are going to be wiped out anyway.
- majorly running out of time on costume plans: I'd like to do body paint again, but might not have the time; and I can't decide between gold & a deep dark blue with gold stars painted on it.
- also have a MAJOR Lions show Friday night that I need to not forget about....
- ... and four Lions to house, feed, and transport on Saturday morning to the parade
- And I have to make a whole nother trip to Portland to get those 4 Lions back home.
- and my other commitments, an overwhelming NOAA job that I need to be starting on right now, and the zoo on Friday.