Be kind to your web footed friends.

Oh do I have a story for you dear reader(s)!

Last Friday I had the unique opportunity to do some "freelance" work for a local event planning company, Global Events Partners. The event I was working was an annual meeting for the Truevalue Company employees and retailers. I have done this sort of thing before, I get to meet a lot of interesting people from around the world, and I get to act all professional and helpful. It is sort of like an acting gig in a way, I get to be completely different then I am in real life, where professional and helpful rarely enter my vocabulary. :)

So, here I am, all ready to be professional and helpful. I even had on lipstick.

I was given my assignment for the evening: assisting one of the performing groups for the evening. The performing group I was in charge of: The International Children s Choir. Now, some of you may have heard of this choir, they are a popular children s choir from Salt Lake City. Let me just say that I loved them all! They were dressed in authentic costumes from all around the world, ages ranging from about 6 years to what looked like 15 or 16 year old teenagers. You all know I am a fan of singing, and children s choirs and such. The director, Dr. Kathy Sorensen was very kind, talented, and delightfully scatterbrained (in my opinion, a sign of a real musician). I loved them!

That being said, let me explain my first impression upon meeting the choir, specifically Dr. Sorensen. We exchanged greetings and shook hands. I explained that I would be her go-to girl for the evening, helping her and the choir with whatever they needed. She began to say that she needed me to help her cue up a series of CD tracks so that the choir could sing along with them when she reached behind her to unzip her duffel bag. I was expecting her to pull out the CD's we were currently discussing, but as she unzipped I realized that the duffel bag was full of something....like a goose. A real Goose. A Goose named Eliza Snow. A Goose named Eliza Snow that had a red cloth diaper and patriotic cape on and lives with Dr. Sorensen.

Oh, and did I mention that Eliza sings with the choir? She does.

So, Dr. Sorensen and I casually finished discussing the order or songs etc. while Eliza honked and "sang" at some of the 5,000 people milling about the performance area. Dr. Sorensen mentioned that she would like Eliza's two numbers with the choir to sandwich a large African medley, so that she could have ample time to do Eliza's costume change. COSTUME CHANGE! At this point I had to remind myself that this was real and not a dream, I felt a little dizzy and was trying not to giggle.

So, the performance ensued and it was very fun! I played DJ, while the children sang, danced, and puppeted their little hearts out. Eliza was spot on, and the crowd just ate it all up! The only snag of the evening was when I didn't cut the CD before the recorded applause blared over the speakers. They forgave me.

As I sit here and type this, I wonder what I learned or took away from this event?

1. A goose can be a domesticated pet. I didn't say should be, but can be.
2. Singing is fun, children s choir should be fun.
3. Just when you think you know what to expect from life, it goes and hands you Eliza the goose dressed as big bird. Enough Said.