Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Moonwalk One

Okay, this will be my last post regarding the CNN Apollo 11 documentary I first saw earlier this year that I'm so crazy about.

I did a little more research on the "lost" footage. Here's what evidently happened. A film crew shot a lot of film - high quality 70mm film - for a movie they were making called Moonwalk One, about the moon landing. 

That film was released the year after the moon landing. It was only shown a short time in select cities. The film was not popular, supposedly because people were sick of hearing about Apollo 11.

If you ask me, it was not popular because it was full of narration intoning about humanity and it opened with Stonehenge and there was just a lot of self-congratulatory puffery.  Of course, I'm comparing it with the stripped-down CNN film and its subtext of, "Yeah, we shot a tin can to the moon, walked around, how crazy was that?"

(It strikes me now that this new Apollo 11  documentary is probably the most objective and factual thing I've heard from CNN for years. I don't disagree with their bias, but ah, for the days of objective journalism.)

After its limited release, Moonwalk One and its extra footage went into the archives and the filmmakers were consoled that they had made a time capsule. It was restored and shown again in 2009. You can see it on Amazon Prime, if you are curious.

Or, better yet, you can see the footage integrated into the CNN movie. That’s it! I am off the subject.

Today I Learned

I just got the Mini back from the Dobbs Tire shop, where somehow the cheap inspection was parlayed up to $800 worth of repairs.

The next day, I was tooling down the road and my Flat Tire indicator came on. The one that looks like a butt.

I took the car back to the shop, where the mechanics checked the tires, found them sufficient, then gathered to solve the mystery of where the tire indicator light reset button was. It was a mystery because my 2005 car is so old that it isn’t listed in any reference document. They looked under the dashboard and in the glove compartment. Eventually they found it ... in plain sight between the seatbelt latch and the parking brake (which they called the ‘e-brake,’ because my car is so old there has been a great vowel shift).

I have had this car for almost 15 years and I have never seen this button. For any mechanics googling “Mini Cooper flat tire light reset button,” here it is:

Has a little butt on it and everything. I was gobsmacked.

Gate

The last few days our back gate has been opened during the night. I usually assume it's the neighbor child retrieving a ball, and then not closing the gate because it's a lot harder to close than to open. But I've been paying closer attention, and unless the child has been playing ball in the rain at night, someone else is opening the gate at night.

I think it's the one in the middle. He looks like a ringleader.

This is the gate latch ...

... and they say if a two-year-old can open it, a raccoon can.

In addition, it occurs to me that just a week ago Gary added a flagstone under our gate opening because it's so muddy there. I'll bet raccoons can't fit under, so they go over now. But why wouldn't they just jump over if they were up at  latch level? Why would they open the gate? Out of courtesy to older, less athletic raccoons?

It could happen. I mean, if seals can sing ...

 

Opera Prep: Changing the Tempo

On an average day I take 15 minutes to get ready for work, 25 if I'm washing and drying my (scant) hair.

This was not the schedule I took while getting ready for the opera.

The opera season is over now, but every Saturday before the opera, I would take an entire day relaxing and getting ready, as if I were going to prom. Well, prom, but only if I had to make my prom date Gary promise not to talk to me so I could actually relax instead of getting all worked up with his nonsense.

First, I would spend time relaxing in bed and sleeping as late as possible so I wouldn't fall asleep mid-opera at 9:30, which is evidently my age-enforced bedtime.

Around one I would evaluate my hair and the weather to see what the plan of attack would be. There was the rainy day hair plan and the hot day hair plan and the windy day hair plan. And on top of that, last Saturday the Tiara threw an extra variable into the plan. I wouldn't do anything at one with my hair. I'd just plan.

Then, I would start assembling the components of my ensemble, and select the shoes and bra and jewelry, and lay it out. Then, I would take photographs of all the permutations and decide on the one that looked the best.

After that I'd bathe and commence implementing Stage 1 of the Hair Plan.

I'd stop drinking fluids, because you can't just pop out of the opera and expect to get back to your seat in the middle of someones aria.

Deodorant was applied with a one-hour drying window. Half an hour was devoted to a relaxing face mask. Another half hour was spent measuring, plotting, and plucking the eyebrows.

About an hour before it was time to leave - which was actually four hours before the actual opera was to start - I would start putting on clothing (specifically anything that might muss the hair or touch the makeup).

Then I would begin implementing Stage 2 of the Hair Plan, which frankly would sometimes end with me just brushing my hair out and plastering it back together with hairspray because the weather shifted.

Then, there was the makeup, which incorporated the special Clinique rarely-used foundation and various eye-bag unguents.

After asking Gary how I looked ("Fine!") I would head off to my friend's house, with an extra fifteen minutes to get gas in the car, buy pre-opera picnic food, or duck in to the pharmacy to buy and swig a small bottle of Pepto-Bismol (again, one cannot just leave ones seat, and I wanted to quash any nonsense and rumblings). No chaos. No crisis. No rush.

Finally, after hours of preparation, I would pick up my friend who, I swear to you, would decide what she was wearing minutes before she put it on, which was seconds before she would brush her perfect, thick, weather-independent, straight hair, which was followed by zero seconds applying makeup because she doesn't need it.

Painting

Two nights ago I painted downstairs for about hour. After that, while I was cleaning up the oil paints, I picked up the soda I’d ignored, took a swig, and felt something shift on my head.

I suddenly remembered that on the way downstairs, my hands were pretty full with some painting supplies, so when I had to take down the tiara as well, I just jammed it on my head.

I had painted for almost an hour in my tiara, oblivious.

The odd thing is that Gary came down halfway in, said hello, saw me painting in my tiara, and didn’t comment on it.

 

Coronation of Poppea

Have you ever seen a performance of Taming of the Shrew, and when Kate gives her big speech on obedience at the end, and she turns and winks, and you think, “well, that makes it more palatable, but you know that’s not true to the original.” 

I felt that way about The Coronation of Poppea, the last opera for the season. Of course, the opera itself isn’t true to the original, the creator said upfront he was playing with history. Perhaps the version I saw was closer to the real history of Nero and Poppea. The version I saw had some extra set directions that changed the tone of the end dramatically. It made it better, absolutely: darker, less sappy, and more satisfying that the versions I saw on YouTube the next day. But is it canon? Probably not.

The costumes were interesting: they set it in the sixties. (Speaking of costumes, three people complimented us on our tiaras. We only saw one other person making an effort with her headgear: a woman wearing a very on-theme golden laurel wreath.) Instead of the sixties, they could have set it this year, given how people were chuckling over Nero’s speech on how he can be as irrational as he likes because he’s the President Emperor. 

The set, on the other hand, was perplexing. It was the talk of the intermission. It looked just like a drained swimming pool, only there was a refrigerator that held Bloody Marys that were the equivalent of the oranges in The Godfather. There was also a barn door, for some reason. During the intermission, I cornered an usher, Russ, and demanded to know what’s up with this set, what the hell, Russ, and he promised to get an answer and get back with me after the show.

He did! He said because the characters all all trapped by their lies and deceits the set depicts places you can feel trapped: a meat locker,  a swimming pool (trapped under water, I suppose), and so on. That’s what Russ the usher said, and I believe it.

Radio and Rain

Last Friday afternoon I had an errand to run. I checked the weather report and rain was not expected, no doubt because it wasn't the weekend yet. During the ten-minute drive, I thought I heard on the radio that bad weather might be moving in, but I dismissed it because I only half-listen to the radio.

When I first got in the car the sky was blue, then ten minutes later when I got out the sky was so black the streetlights were on. This happened with the Great Flood in '93: thunderstorms would pop up out of a literally clear and literally blue sky.

So, counting the police on Bennington and the thunderstorm, this is twice in a row that the radio has tried to alert me and I have dismissed it. I think I started ignoring the radio when they began playing the hockey team's favorite song 24 hours a day, and who could blame me?

Radio

Thursday morning I heard on the radio, "blah blah something parking lot blah Bennington blah officer shooting."

"What was that?" I thought, "I drive on Bennington on the way to work." I reached for the device that lets me rewind the radio but I couldn't find it because it DOESN'T EXIST even though there's one for the TV and the CD player. (Bogus.)

When I turned on to Bennigton later that morning I thought, "I wonder if I can figure out where the shooting took place. Slim chance of that, though, Bennington's a long road, and for all I know they were talking about Jordan Bennington, the Blues goalie, and ... hey... check out all these police cars outside that parking lot."

And truly, there were dozens of police cars, all lights flashing by the parking lot entrance, and there was even police tape across the parking lot entrance. It was a show of force, or perhaps a celebration, considering the the police won this one.

Rain

It is officially summer, and the end of a very wet spring. In my area it rained every weekend in spring, with one evidently forgettable exception. The garden is lush, but so are the weeds, and I can't get out to pull them because of the rain.

I sound pouty to you, don't I? No. I'm quite happy to not pull the weeds.

Other people get dismayed by rain. I love it. Rain has always been on my side.

Rain meant I didn't have to go out on the playground at recess and waste good book-reading time.

Rain means I don't have waste $70 a month watering the lawn to maintain Gary's status as a suburban Lawn Master.

And today, I can spend the morning inside with tea instead of outside with the weeds.

No One Cares What I Had for Dinner Before the Opera

It feels like it's been years since I had a nice dinner out. "Nice" defined as not a chain, but instead inventive, devoted to modern-day food -- which frankly can be an expensive risk. So, with apologies to my husband who treated me to a nice steak dinner at a chain the night before, I really enjoyed my meal before the opera at Big Sky Cafe.

But, like the opera, I enjoyed one half more than the other.

I elected to have two "small plates," and they were both entrees and I don't care. This was not like the day I got out of the hospital on steroids and I went to Uncle Bill's Pancake House and ordered two entire platter entrees for myself. (The waitress even objected and I did it anyway, and I ate it all.)

Before the opera, I got scallops, which were perfect. Little bites of melty sea-butter.

In addition to the safe scallops, I odered one daring thing: Pork Cheeks. I keep referring to them in my mind as Pig Jowls, but the menu said Pork Cheeks.

I was expecting something fatty, like Pork Belly, or something I couldn't even imagine (Pig Face? Pig skin Bacon ? Snoots?), but it ended up being something that resembled Beef Pot Roast so much in taste and texture that I had to ask the waitress if I got the right order.

Friend Anne had a very melty crabcake and, I believe, wasted her second gamble on field greens.

Now that I've given my opinion, I'm safe from influence and I can look up reviews of Big Sky Cafe. It would be astonishing if anyone disagrees with me.

Summer Plans

I am writing these things down. Supposedly, writing things down helps you hold yourself accountable.

I am determined to do these things this summer:

Visit the Tiger Sanctuary.

Watch a movie of the stage production of Kinky Boots (already have the tickets). By a coincidence, I'll be watching the filmed version of the London Adelphi performance while the same thing is showing at the municipal opera. This might end up being a good way to see shows that are at the Muny theater, but avoid the heat and the DAMN GNATS.

Visit the new Arch museum. This has been on the list for a year. I was very concerned that the crowd under the arch for the Stanley Cup rally might have tried to stand on the grass-covered roof of the museum and collapse it.

Leave the house on the weekends if it is under 83 degrees.

Garden in the evenings after the DAMN GNATS all die later this month.

See Samantha Fish at the Atomic Cowboy with Friend 2. I need  another concert for the list. The Kathleen Madigan concert isn't until November. And, I know, Barenaked Ladies are in town, but they're only opening for Hootie and the Blowfish, and decent seats cost over a hundred dollars, and can I justify $200 to watch my band play for an hour?

Encourage Gary to get the toilet and the driveway installed and the new basement crack fixed. This is out of my control, of course, and I know any amount of encouragement will backfire on me. Yeah, strike that off the list.

Participate in life in general instead of just waiting it out.

Gnats

Last week at work I overheard someone say, “Oh they were awful. I couldn’t get away from them.”

I whirled around. “Gnats!” I said. “You’re talking about gnats.”

”Yes! What is it with the gnats this year?”

”It’s the flood,” I answered, because I had already Googled “what is it with the gnats this year” and found that every news station along the Mississippi has run a gnat report.

The only thing is, I remember the Great Flood of ‘93, and there were no gnats. Then again, that crested in August, and gnats are a springtime pest. 

I’ve become able to identify gnat bites (a circular bruise surrounding a small bump). I got these bites while Gary and I were working in the in-laws’ garden. He finally had to resort to working with a handkerchief pinned to his face by his glasses. (It was just thin enough for him to see through.)

Damn you, gnats, for making me want hot and dry weather over my lovely soft rain.

Chicago Rivalry

Chicago and Saint Louis have a rivalry. I believe it originated when Chicagoans got tired of being a first-class city with a second-rate baseball team, while having to exist near Saint Louis, a second-rate city (a hard truth) with a first-class baseball team. The injustice makes them bitter.

But, since then, the Cubs won the Worlds Series, and good for them. Given that the St. Louis Cardinals are in the baseball playoffs, like, every other year, the Cubs can win one. I will allow it.

And now, so soon after, just as that feeling of Chicago baseball superiority was beginning to fade then BAM! Like a body slam against the boards, Saint Louis gets another first-class sports team when the Blues hockey team finally wins the Stanley Cup. Will Chicago be magnanimous, or will they start to feel insecure again?

Opera: Fire Shut Up In My Bones

First off, yup, trigger warning:

I loved the second half of this opera. Let's talk about the second half. It was poetry. There was ballet. Everything came together. Of course that was all at the expense of the first half, which needed to be devoted to setup and exposition, not so much with the parallels and the poetry that were to come.

The author was there. I spotted him before the curtain call, adjusting his socks. (Or touching his shins for luck: not sure.)

The music was jazzy and rambling, the singing was amazing. It's just that first half ... well, you know the bad stuff is coming for him as a child, so there's a lot of time in the first half spent worrying about every male relative. (I would apologize to Uncle Paul for doubting him, but I think the source book might implicate him.)

Now, in the second half, there are two ballets straightforward enough that even I "got it," and a very enjoyable part about getting laid. (I had no idea my "honey" had such restorative powers.)

I wonder how the author of the book feels about having his book turned into an opera? In a book, you can document your therapy in detail and it doesn't turn into a facile "Let it go" aria. Anne and I both want to read the book now.

Overall, I liked it ... no, can't "like" an opera based on someone's sexual abuse. I found it moving.

Days Spent Inside

Gary asked me this weekend what vacation I would go on if we could go on vacation, and I had no answer. It surprised me that I had no answer, because if he'd asked me two years ago I would have said "Venice Ireland Yukon Pacific Northwest."

It also surprised me that he asked, because when we are granted the gift of pleasant weather on a weekend I still have to drag him out of the house, even if it’s just to do yard work at his parents’. It seems a sin to me to waste good weather. Last weekend. when I went to a party, the opera, and the art museum while he stayed home, he behaved as if I was abandoning him.

I hope this stay-at-home mentality isn't the next stop on the inexorable march to old age. Werthers, birding, then agoraphobia? Or is it Werthers, birding, knitting THEN agoraphobia? If that's so I just have to never take up knitting.

Tiara

So, last week was a Bye Week for the opera, but tonight brings the premiere of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and given that I muttered "trigger warning" at the intermission of Rigoletto with its rapes and abductions, I don’t know how much I'm looking forward to an opera that might be about incest and sexual abuse. However, the author of the original book showed up on T.V. last week and if he comes I’m certain I could spot him due to his distinctive beard, so that’s exciting.

I am wearing my frayed fringed duster vest for the opera this week, in contrast with next week, when I am blinging out for the Coronation of Poppea.

A big part of the Coronation costume arrived last Friday:

It was purchased for twenty bucks on eBay, and I knew it would fit my tiny pea head because I had tried on similar ones at David's Bridal.

I told the saleswoman why I was getting a tiara at my advanced age, that it was for the opera, and I thought I had explained the situation completely when she asked me, "When's the happy occasion?"

I blinked at her a few times. "The opera? It's later this month." (Jeez, lady. Look at me.)

The e-Bay tiara is missing two rhinestones, but as they say, it'll never show on a galloping pony.

Dentist Post Stanley Cup Win

My neighborhood was in chaos Wednesday night after the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup, finally, or more accurately, for the first time ever. Great vindication for my dad who so wanted to see the Blues win that he bought season tickets for many years.

So my corner of the metro area had fireworks coming from every direction, people just standing around hollering, car horns blaring, etc.

Then, Thursday morning I went to the dentist, and after I walked in I heard the dentist say “LGB,” shorthand for “Let’s Go Blues.”

Odd. Because the Blues have no where else to go, unless the plan is to have them win the Stanley Cup every year. But the dentist is enjoying the afterglow, and deliberately tuned the office radio station to the station that is playing nothing but “Gloria,” the Blues’ theme song.  I heard Gloria every fifteen minutes for an hour and a half.

A Recommendation: Gentleman Jack

The TV show Gentleman Jack is based on Anne Lister’s diaries. Anne was a famous 19th century  traveler and lesbian.   I understand that the actual diaries are heavier on the finance plots and lighter on the lesbian seduction plots. As for the TV show, I don’t care about either plot, which is odd because I love a good plot. It’s only rarely that I like anything character-driven.

That’s why I’m surprised I have fallen in love with this giant lesbian character from Halifax. (That’s Halifax in the UK, not Canada: you should know that before you start watching or the travel implications can get very confusing.)

This woman - or at least the way this woman is portrayed by this actress, Suranne Jones, is constantly described as “fascinating,” and she is.  I can’t take my eyes off of her, specifically the way she gets out of carriages. They need to create a Special Emmy Award for Getting Out of Carriages. I lean forward in my chair every time a carriage stops because boom, the carriage door opens and this giant gangly woman pops out, hits the ground, levitates over a curb or front stair and bursts through a door in one awkward yet graceful motion. It’s like if Abraham Lincoln could fly. It’s like when John Belushi dances in the Blues Brothers movie. It’s impossibly graceful.

Also, I never skip the opening credits because she gets dressed in the opening credits and it’s sexy as hell. I don’t know how actual lesbians can stand it.

A Recommendation: Sloggers

A few months back I was at the local nursery, looking for gardening shoes, because it's discouraging taking ones nice leather shoes into the garden. Back when I thought my leather shoes were made of rubber, this didn't bother me, but since those shoes fell apart I was down to my nice leather shoes or my signed Barenaked Ladies Crocs.

She said, "We don't have any, but I would recommend these" and these are those:

Sloggers. Comfy, plus, you can keep wear them out to lunch if you've hosed them off.

It has be a good shoe if I'm going to enclose my heels and risk blisters - and there have been no blisters.

London Trump Protests

I've been reading about the Trump protestors in London.

My immediate reaction was of course, I love them. I love the signs and the Trump balloons, and I love the lady who shivved the Trump-baby balloon because I got to see the image of the shrivelled Trump-baby balloon.

On the other hand, would I protest the ruler of another country if he came to visit the United States? I know exiles would protest the Shah, and so on, but how many of the crowd in London were American exiles forced out by Trump? If Putin or this Boris clown or some dictator came to Saint Louis, would I be out there marching? Should I? This does open up new marching opportunities.

And then back on the other hand, he is a ridiculous figure, and they're protesting his hatred-based edicts, and who wouldn't pass up a chance to protest a fascist if he came to town?

I'm not torn down the middle, of course. It's about 98% "Yeah, he is an idiot," and a little nagging 2% "Stay in your lane, London."

This Week's Mystery

Last Saturday morning Gary read me the story of Everett Palmer Jr., the man who died in police custody and his body was missing the heart, lungs and throat. Before the end of the day that mystery was solved (evidently that's standard procedure for the police autopsy:  just take out your pertinent parts and send you back home).

However, I have not yet heard the end of this story: months after he went missing, former mouseketeer Dennis Day's body was found in his own home. So many unanswered questions in that story. Who is looking after the partner now? Who loans a car to strangers? How did the police not find the body in the initial search of the home? And with all horrifying stories, how do I keep this from happening to me?

Impending Rally / Riot

Game Six of the Stanley Cup Hockey Final is tonight, at the hockey venue in downtown Saint Louis, and everyone in Saint Louis* wants them to win this particular game because then they'd finally win the championship, and win it at home. They could win it in Game Seven, but then it would be in Boston.

*Everyone. I was in a work meeting Friday, and The Hockey Game should have been on the Agenda. Someone even played Gloria on their cell phone.

The City Powers have been showing the game on the display at the hockey arena, and at the big screen by the ballpark, but now they've taken three square blocks of downtown and devoted them to a watch party.

I would go, because I'd like to hear the noise the city makes when they win or if they lose, but I feel this is fundamentally Not A Good Idea. There's going to be a bad call (say, the referees will blatantly ignore a trip or a hand pass) and there will be thousands of angry, angry people in a small space.

 

 

Rachel Whiteread Exhibit

I won tickets to the Rachel Whiteread exhibit at the art museum. I wasn't familiar with her work, but if I had been in London in late 1993 I would have heard about her. She became famous for filling an abandoned house with concrete, then tearing off the exterior of the house, revealing a cast of the inside.

That's what she does: she fills objects with resin and plaster and such and makes a cast. Generally, the result looks like a smaller version of the original:

... and sometimes the source is a mystery:

I went alone, though I had four tickets. I think my mistake was using her casting of a storage shed to explain what she does. No one was interested after that.

After the exhibit I when to visit my friends: the Degas ballerina statue, the DuBuffet gnome - and, the gnome is gone!

DuBuffet's Geste et Parole is gone, and I can't see where he has gone to.

I flew back to the information desk and the Information Lady denied all knowledge of him - or at least, she said he wasn't in their collection any more. In response I grouched that the museum has too many Max Beckmann paintings. "That's your opinion," was her answer, then she pointed me to a Max Beckmann painting that was not displayed next to the twenty other Max Beckmann paintings in the Max Beckmann Hall of Post-War Nightmares, but is instead in the room with the Van Goghs. She said, "It's a Mac Beckmann, but you wouldn't believe it."

"Because it isn’t ugly?" I grumped. I went to see it, and it is lovely and peaceful, because it's from 1907.

Still sad my little gnome friend is gone. I knew there was a reason I couldn't find him seven years ago. You would think there would be some provenance trail on the Internet, but no. No forwarding address. No, "Sold like a dog to fund even more Max Beckmann paintings."

You know what else I didn't see this time? The Medicine Cabinet piece. Am I going to have to visit the art museum every week just to be sure my friends haven't been sold off?

Toto Fails Me

The Toto toilet has been dependable (read: doesn't clog) since last August when we met it and it became part of our family.

Last week began with a four-day period of bowel inactivity. This is average. This is not cause for concern. It is well below my personal best of two weeks. However, when the inactivity was ... over ... the Toto did not dispose of it in its usual charming way, with the deluge and the woosh and the disappearance and the satisfying ca-chunk (go here, jump to 32 seconds in). Instead, there was the deluge, the disappearance, and then it acted like a normal toilet. It filled and it drained, only slowly, and no soul-satisfying ca-chunk.

I told Gary, and thus began an evening of toilet diagnosis. We got quite an education in plunger types and plunging technique. He would see a video, try that technique, I would read an article, try that technique, and all along the Toto would just drain slowly and, as I say, no ca-chunk, the Toto way of saying, "Poop? What poop? No one poops in this house."

This lasted till two in the morning when I pleaded with Gary, "Stop. It. Stop flushing. Stop plunging. I have to get up in the morning."

In the morning, of course, the first flush showed great improvement, and the second ended with the ca-chunk that filled my heart with song.

This week, it has now been five days.

TeddyJ Visitor

Last week I was sitting in my pajamas, developing some on-line training for my job at TeddyJ, when the doorbell rang.

I was wearing my pajamas, but a bra had come in the mail earlier and I had tried it on, and Gary was in the house snoring away at 2 pm, so I went ahead and opened the door.

"Hello," the nice young man said, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I wasn't asleep. Just working at home."

"My name's Nick, I'm with TeddyJ -- " and I burst into laughter. Certain TeddyJ employees sometimes go door-to-door soliciting business, and here was one on my porch.

I said, "You're the reason why I'm working at home. I work at TeddyJ. I am writing computer training for you right now. You come in here. Do you want something to drink?"

So, we had a nice talk, about how he has to ring doorbells, and I have to program courses that are widely ignored, and then after fifteen minutes of this Gary woke up and came into the kitchen to see what was going on.

The young man asked Gary what he does.

Gary said, "Oh I'm retired. I live off her money, and she gets her money from you ringing doorbells, so thank you."

"Nice," the young man said. I wonder if he went back to his office and complained that he's out slaving away to support this old couple who sleep all day in their pajamas.

Gary Mines His Subconscious

As many of you know, my husband Gary is a master of lucid dreaming. I frequently wake him up in the morning, have a conversation with him, and then he goes back to the dream he was in and finishes the dream. I. Find. This. Freaky.

Now, he has decided that instead of surfing his subconscious and riding whatever dream wave that arrives and picking it up again later, he's going to govern what he dreams about, because why not? If you can dictate that you're going to "finish" a dream, why not say that you are going to "start" a dream?

So I imagine he bored himself with sex dreams for a while, and now he's using his freakish dream powers for self-reflection. He has decided that every night he's going to tell himself to dream about his childhood, and see what happens. I assumed that he would dream about things like "that time aliens came to junior high with buckets of KFC,"  and I could laugh at him, but he's actually been remembering things from his childhood. Then he looks at them from an adult perspective and revises his opinions.

It's like a superpower.

Opera Attire

Kimono

The Kimono selected for Rigoletto was the colorful one that prompted Gary to say, "You aren't leaving the house in that, are you?" Gary hates everything wonderful, so I felt confident from that point on. I felt even more confident when a random woman said we looked lovely and asked Anne and I where we got our clothing. 

Hair

I had been the random woman myself earlier when I went out of my way at the start of intermission to compliment a young girl's gorgeous Downton Abbey hair. (The girl was sitting the The Germans' seats, by the way, so we'll have to wait for The Germans to cross our paths again.) She liked the compliment so much she gushed about it at the end of intermission to the woman sitting right behind us. (I don't think she saw my face because I leaned behind her ear. So that was also a nice case of Rigoletto-like mistaken identity.)

The woman right behind us had googly eyes pinned into her ornate hairstyle and googly eyes glued to her temple, and I give her a big thumbs-up for her effort as well.

Scarf

I was speaking to the gift-shop attendant about how I cannot wear scarves. I leave the house with the scarf artfully pinned, it looks great, and by the time lunch comes one half of the scarf is choking me and the other half is entirely askew. She then tried to show me a way to arrange a scarf that the scarf artist had shown her, and after a long time, she thought she had it, looked in the mirror and said, "That's not right. What did I do wrong?"

And I said, "The scarf senses I am here. That's how bad I am with scarves."

I hadn't seen Rigoletto yet, or I would have said I was cursed.

Rigoletto With Spoilers

Just stop here if you have tickets to Rigoletto. If you plan to see it later in life I am sure you'll forget this blog post by then.

I went to Wikipedia the afternoon before I went to see Rigoletto and my eyes went to the words "when his daughter is murdered." Damn! Self-spoiled. I shut down Wikipedia immediately.

Then, during the opera, the daughter, Gilda, opened her mouth to sing, and I was horrified, because the singing was so gorgeous, and then she was going to be murdered any minute. So I spent the whole time poised for her murder (and there are many opportunities). I should not have worried, because she is murdered in the penultimate scene, and then we discover she isn't quite dead yet and she almost sings the very last line.

If she hadn't sung so well I would have wanted her dead long before then, because she is infuriatingly stupid. Falls in love with the Duke while he's impersonating a student. "I love him!" She continues being in love with him ("But ah luv him" she warbles incessantly) for the rest of the opera, even though he is proven to be a man whore who thinks women are fickle. (Fickle, as he sings in the aria everyone knows:

... which ends up being a satisfying plot point.)

As for plot: our Duke was hefty and our Gilda was wee, and there is no way Rigoletto could confuse one for the other, even if they were in a sack.

So, it's hard to say if I preferred Rigoletto to Marriage of Figaro. I preferred the singing in Rigoletto, but I didn't want to shake everyone in Marriage of Figaro.

Chernobyl

Has anyone else been watching Chernobyl on HBO?

My god it is bleak.

I had just finished Episode 4 when a friend commented that she had seen it through Episode 2, and, of course, she commented on the bleakness.

I said, "You think Episode 2 is bleak? Episode 2 is a romp. Wait until you get to Episode 4."

In our house we have taken to using Chernobyl as a descriptor, as in, "The Blues are Chernobyling the Bruins" or "The thunderstorm made the elm tree all Chernobyly."

One More Opera Story Before We See the Next Opera

I was in the lobby of the theater, admiring the effort people put into their attire for the opera, especially the two women in full-on ballgowns. One wore a silver ballgown: she had blonde hair, and she was followed by a brunette similarly dressed up.

I nodded at the brunette and said, "Nice." as if to say, "I approve of the effort you put into your dress." She smirked at me, or winked at me, or somehow acknowledged me.

Imagine my humiliation when I looked on stage mid-opera and saw the silver ballgown, with the blonde still in it, because she was playing Countess Rosina. And then I realized the brunette I spoke to was Susanna, the other female lead.

So, evidently the cast moves through the audience in the lobby beforehand and are not just cute kids playing dress-up who need your encouragement! Who knew? Not me!

I will be looking closely at everyone in the lobby tonight who appears to be well-dressed and might have lung power.