holst's "the planets" on a flip-flop day

Today sparkled. Wearing flip-flops for the first time this spring, along with my UWM Libraries cap, I arrived at the Marcus Center downtown for Holst's The Planets. Since the women's chorus is backstage for this piece, I kept my flip-flops on, but not my libraries hat.
Backstage, a monitor showed Edo conducting the orchestra so that later, in the "Neptune" movement we could follow the 5-4 pulse. I watched the monitor out of my left eye during "Jupiter" and listened to the music with my right ear, positioning myself between the phenomenon of sound and light waves.
Then I became part of the female synthesizer, singing a steady "g." Mechanically, we watched our director interpret the miniature conductor in the monitor and sang our six part score.
Shortly after beginning, we left the stage and I re-adorned my libraries hat. My car was parked only a block away and so I walked around downtown for a half hour. Happily, in my first-time flip-flops.