Is it pink-red or brown-red?

We're painting our house next week. This is one of those tasks that I usually believe should be left to professionals, but as we don't have that extra $10,000 lying around and I certainly don't want to take out a loan, we're tackling that treacherous home-owner learning curve with the aid of both sets of parents, our neighbors and an infrared paint remover. The last item is intriguing and hopefully will be as efficient as promised. The videos of stripping paint on the rental website were almost pornographic and made me want to pull out old copies of This Old House I had hidden under my mattress and lovingly stroke the glossy color photos of freshly painted houses.

We've decided on a color called Roycroft Copper, a dark brownish-red that sounds hideous when I describe it (too much like dried blood) but looks beautiful on the house. It's from the Sherwin-Williams Arts and Crafts Home collection, and God knows they must be right. The trim will be alabaster white. I honestly think I chose this particular white because of the simple name. I can't take descriptions like "Fair Virgin Lily" when I choose a color.

In anticipation of painting, Christian had to cut back the wisteria, which seemed to be the only thing holding up our ancient and badly-built porch:
















The wisteria is most likely around 30 years old, and cutting it seemed like a sacrilidge, despite its alien-like aggressive growth tendencies. Whenever we go away in the summer for more than two days, we come back to long tendrils reaching for the house and wrapped around the porch swing like they're going to crush the bedroom in a vegetative embrace. I just know that, if we were gone for more than a week, we'd come back to a throbbing green mass of vines and sweet-smelling blossoms. So, it'll grow back.

We know the porch looks like fifteen kinds of crap. We'll rebuild it with stone and cement and sturdier wood when we have accrued large sums of money from nefarious activities. I never thought I would wish to be a criminal, but owning an old home that needs work makes one think outside the strictly legal box.

Christian also cut back the flowering hedge that had been lovingly trained by the previous owner but one:




















All of the privacy afforded by the hedge is gone, and we can see waaaaaay too much of the neighborhood now. The trellis filtered the light so nicely and sheltered us from the screaming WT house-of-a-thousand-occupants across the street.

I shall report our progress with pictures. Of course, by the end of next week, my entries will most likely consist of, "Can't....go...on....the scraping...God...THE SCRAPING!"

Shackles for one in the tenth level of hell.

My grandma was robbed last week. My teeny little 86-year-old grandmother was awakened at 4 am by her enormous and useless German Shepherd as he needed to go outside to wallow in the dirt in the fenced in backyard garden, and no other time would do. After letting him back in, she heard a knock at the front door. She opened it slightly to see who it was, and found a young woman who was claiming that her car had broken down and she needed to use the phone. My grandma opened the door enough to allow this young woman to push her way into the house.

Now, there are several things you need to know about my grandma and her financial situation. She is the mother of six children, who were all raised on my grandpa's income as an Air Force welder. They live in a very working class, fairly poor neighborhood, in which their house is most likely the best cared-for, as Grandma is very particular. They have never had any debt, paid off their house many, many years ago and my grandmother still walks her one utility bill to the utility company's office every month, check in hand. Grandma is living off of my deceased grandpa's small pension, their slim retirement and Social Security. It has been sufficient as her needs are small. Whatever is not provided for her by her own income is provided for her by her six children, all of whom live in her town.

Returning to the narrative, this person, after pushing her way into the house, apparently ran about babbling "Money!" as she looked for a purse or wad of cash to just to be lying about waiting for her filthy, disease-ridden clutches, which, as you can see from the explanatory paragraph above, is absurd. My grandma, being the plucky broad she is, told the girl, "If you're looking for money to steal, you came to the wrong house." The whore-bitch-from-the-depths-of-Hades did find Grandma's purse and took the small sum of cash from her wallet and ran out, but not before pushing Grandma to the ground, perhaps as a parting shot for not having anything portable worth stealing. Fortunately, we have sturdy bones in our family, and Grandma is taking an osteoporosis medication that helps the bones stay strong, so nothing was broken, but she was bruised up one side of her body.

There is no instance that I can point to more clearly than this next bit to demonstrate how strongly the "Don't Impose" mentality is imprinted on my family. Grandma waited four hours to let anyone know she had been robbed and, when she did, she didn't call the police, she called my Uncle Mike, who called the police himself. Apparently, the events caused quite an uproar, and Grandma was on the news and in the paper. I'm still looking for the story, which better not have been buried under all this Israel crap.

If they ever find the girl who did this to Grandma, there will be no hole deep enough to protect her from the Family. For once I'm glad Uncle Wayne has those shotguns.

An auspicious day!

Happy birthday, darling mother in law, and happy hatch day, Cyril!

They would be a delicacy to some rainforest tribes.

For the frogs and turtle, we purchase little lidded tubs of waxworms (wws) and superworms (sws) every week. Gwendolyn loves the sws and can eat up to ten in a sitting. The frogs love the wws, but they're quite fatty, so we have to limit their intake. You have to refridgerate the wws so they don't pupate and, we can only give the pets limited wws, they pupate very quickly if they are left out. You're NOT supposed to refridgerate the sws as they pupate at cool temperatures.

When we got the last batch of sws, the container was quite cold from being in the fridge at the store, and the worms were not as active as they usually are. I noticed that some of them looked very dark and had a strange shell. It turns out that they had started to metamorphose and I didn't know it as I had never seen a sw become a pupa. Now, when the wws change to their adult form, they become pretty little moths. The sws, it turns out, become enormous black beetles. How do I know this? I reached in to the frogs vivarium yesterday to take out the old sws in their little bowl and a beetle crawled onto my hand. Gaaaaaaack. Any bug that is too big for the frogs to eat does not belong in my house, so into the bushes they went. Christian said they actually thumped when they hit the ground, they were so big. I can't control the shuddering.

To my beloved husband on our 5th anniversary:

Hi schweetie, can you believe it? Five years we've been married, and, while I know I'm most likely cursing us for saying this, wasn't it supposed to be harder? I mean, we've had our moments like everyone else, but there isn't one of those moments that I would take back.

There are so many things about you that have surprised me, mainly your affable adaptability. I had no idea when I married you that you would be such an excellent travel companion, and that you would let me obsessively plan and not make fun of me. You have embraced the alterna-pet lifestyle with aplomb, feeding frozen mousecicles to the snakes, growing broccoli for the birds and turtle and picking out live superworms for the frogs. You understand, as not many people do, that giving way sometimes does not mean rolling over. I have to learn that better. I MIGHT let you get the PGR steering wheel for the XBox. Maybe.

I listen to my singer colleagues who have trouble with their significant others/spouses and the amount of time that singing takes away from the relationship. I don't say anything to them because it would sound like I was gloating, because you not only understand the need, but you share it, just in a different venue. We've never fought because I had to go to rehearsal again. It's the other way around; you make sure that I get where I need to be when my resolve has failed me. I wouldn't have gotten two of my upcoming gigs if you hadn't convinced me to go to the auditions.

The biggest lesson I've learned over the past five years is that security is not financial abundance, because I don't feel any differently about you with or without money. Security is, I know now, coming home to a place where you are, a place where I am always safe. If home is where one hangs ones hat, my home is where you hang your hat.

I love you, Mooky. Happy anniversary.

Completely outnumbered.

It's a boy! We got the news today. So, he shall be named Cyril. Out of all eight pets, only two are girls, Gwendolyn and Persephone, and then me. It's the house of testosterone.

Poor little pooper had his well-bird check up today. He's lost 20 grams from the stress of changing homes, so we're going to give him (that's hard for me to say-I kept calling him "her") lots of treats to fatten him up and reward him for being such a good bird for the vet. He's been microchipped and vaccinated and had bloodwork drawn, which was terrible, I understand (not having been there to witness it), as they couldn't get the neck artery and had to clip a nail and take blood from the bleeding vein. Shudder. Gack. He seems in good health, though, and the shop where we bought him has an excellent reputation for well-adjusted and healthy birds. We'll get the bloodwork results back on Friday, and then all will be well. What a good birdie.

Cure vs. Disease

I've been taking a drug call Levaquin for the staph infection in my foot, and a potential side effect is soul-sucking, life-draining, will-to-live-destroying muscle and joint pain. I want to cry, go home and lie on the couch and whimper.

Oh, but C3 said "hi" to me this morning. That makes everything much better.

A Parrot Pictorial

We brought Charlie/Chloe/Cyril (heretofore known as C3 and "she", which may or may not be wishful thinking) home on Saturday. I had mixed emotions (not about buying her, but about taking her away from EVERYONE she knows) as the poor peanut has never been out of the shop, having been hatched, hand fed, weaned and raised there, and I was terribly concerned about the heat and stress involved in moving from an air-conditioned shop to our broiling hot house. Fortunately, we were home almost all weekend, so we could closely observe C3's behavior in minute and obsessive compulsive detail. We picked her up at about 11, did our food tutorial (the shop has its own bean mix that Fritz went nuts over; his little beak was covered in grain and he snarfed it for a solid hour before we took it away), read our paperwork, bought more stuff for the cage (suckers) and let the staff say goodbye. That was tough as they really love her, and have cared for her since she was an egg. The poor girl who was helping us was quite sad, but it does mean the pooper was loved, which makes me happy.

We packed C3 up into the carrier we had purchased the week before, a fun acrylic cage that will make for excellent transportation for outings, and strapped her in the car. I sat with her in the back seat to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't flap herself into a tizzy. It was a bit traumatic, the drive home:
















The noise, the sun, the movement...she thought that the bottom of the carrier would be a little safer, but she just slid and slipped like a little kid on ice skates for the first time.

Once we got home, she was very anxious to get into her cage, and didn't seem to have any problems with the size or amount of toys, as many of the books say new birds can:
















She saw the cage, spread her wings and leeeeeaned in, grabbed the rope perch with her beak and hauled herself up:















She seemed to approve of her surroundings, especially the opening top, from where she could eat:




















and adventure over the entire double cage, sometimes dangling precariously from the side in an effort to scrutinize every square inch, just to make sure that nothing was going to jump out or trap a toe. She was very thorough in her examination. Her grip is not the best, and she would periodically slide down the bars and have to grab with her beak to hang on, but I had to restrain myself from rushing over and picking her up and setting her back on top of her perch. One has to let ones children discover their surroundings, as long as the surroundings are safe. We've given her perches of various sizes as her feet need to be strengthened, due to the missing toe, but she's fairly dexterous already.

The first night was trying. She was frightened and had night tremors. I heard her flap desperately and fall from her perch at about 2 am, so I went and sat with her for a while, talking to her softly and scratching her head. She did eventually relax enough to sleep, but didn't seem terribly at ease. We covered her cage to keep headlights from coming in the window and waking her, but the street noise may have been too much. It was so hot, though, that we had to either keep the windows open or perish. She was very chatty on Sunday, but wasn't as willing to step up. She wasn't handled all that much in the shop as this species is not as needy as, say, a cockatoo, and there were so many birds that needed more attention sharing the space with her. She seemed to enjoy watching us from her perch and let us feed her and scratch her, which was a hoot, as it's amazing to me how far a bird is willing to contort itself to get us to scratch that ONE SPOT. She didn't eat as much as I would have hoped and she didn't find her food and water bowls, so we had to hang two more by her top perch to make sure she was eating and drinking.

She will go to the vet on Wednesday to have her well bird checkup, get her baseline bloodwork drawn and get microchipped.

I'm having a hard time with this situation. I'm so terribly worried about her health and well-being, and I'm so concerned that she's OK today while we're at work, and she didn't want to step up this morning, and it's so hot in the house, and the housekeeper is coming today (although bless Christian for reminding her of what not to use for cleaning) and I won't be home for hours and what if something happens, and what if she doesn't eat, and what if she hates me, and what if she's sick and we don't know it, and and andanandnadnadnandnandn.....

I'm very concerned. I sure do like her, though. She just breaks my heart.

Like a banana. Or a grape. Or the protective sticker that comes on electronics. I love that thing.

I'm peely. The terrible sunburn I got at Christian's track meet ten days ago has borne glorious, dehydrated, parchment-like fruit. I have spent the last hour scraping up the rough edges of unpeeled skin with my fingernail and then stripping off big sheets that look white until you ball them up, and then you can see the concentrated cell death in a lovely shade of beige.

I am, however, being very courteous and putting the peelings on a napkin to dispose of hygenically in the trash. I don't want our sweet little custodian to have to vacuum up the remnants of my poor judgment.

Don't judge us too harshly. We have no willpower.

Christian has wanted a big bird for a while. He likes the weight and substance of larger parrots and really yearned for a talking bird. I had been doing some research on bird species and characteristics, and came across the Pionus, a South American parrot not commonly sold in the US, but gaining popularity with breeders. They are sweet and shy and possessed of a quiet demeanor and will turn their backs on disliked personages rather than biting them, which is hilarious. I did some research and presented my findings to Christian, who agreed with me that this species had promise. There are two breeders of Maximilian Pionuses and Blue Headed Pionuses in Spokane, but only one store, Denise's Parrot Place on Mercer Island, fortunately, had any in house; one was a year old Bronze Winged, and two were just fledged baby Blue Headeds. We decided to go check them out on Saturday (Christian driving due to gimpy footedness on my part, and I think that standing in that shop contributed to the progress of infection) and met Charlie:

Charlie, whose name will shortly be changed to either Cyril or Chloe, absolutely slaughtered us. I have a weird and tragic fondness for special needs birds, and had a grand passion for a Cockatoo named Lola on Petfinder who was missing a foot. She was adopted before I could get my hands on her, though. I saw that Charlie/Chloe/Cyril was missing a toe, and when I commented on it, the woman helping us rushed to assure us that it was a nest box injury and that he didn't suffer from it or have any difficulty. I don't know why she thought we'd care, unless other people had rejected him based on the missing toe, but it made me love him all the more. He does eat with the three toed foot as the other is more stable for standing on, and I think his beak has grown more than it should because he only chews on one side, but that is very easily remedied by a trip to the vet. I have never seen a bird this sweet or shy, and he quivered in terror for the first hour we held him. This species is very sensitive and can make wheezing sounds when nervous or excited. Good God, could he be more perfect? And, he talks. Already, without any teaching, he says "Step up!" That was the clincher for Christian. We held him and talked to him and fed him and petted him for over an hour, and did all the paperwork to buy him. The store has a strict no same day purchase policy for animals, which I think is fantastic as it eliminates many unwanted pets, so we can't have him until this weekend, but we get to visit him several times this week. I can't wait to see this sweet little face again:



I really think it was fate or God or the universe telling us to buy this bird. He was passed over for a while as he isn't perfect, and the shop workers, who love him very much, were thrilled that he took to us so well. And then, I was flipping through channels yesterday morning, and I turned to the network channels to see if anything other than golf was on, and a pet keeping show caught my eye. I flipped to the description in the guide, and the first word was "Pionus." I screamed for Christian and pointed at the TV, surprised and kind of weirded out. I mean, these are not common pets, and here was a show touting them for how wonderful of birds they are. Sweet, funny, energetic and good natured were the descriptors the show host used. It felt like the universe was vindicating our purchase. So, Saturday sees the newest addition of chickens to the household. And then I swear we'll be done.

I thought Saturday night was date night?

If so, I'm a lousy date.

I should have listened to Dana when she told me, at drinks after rehearsal, to not scratch my mosquito bites, as they could get infected. Ha, I scoffed, such things never happen to me! The next night, I was thinking, huh, these bites really itch still, and boy, it hurts to scratch them. Oh well! Scratch, scratch, scratch. By Thursday night, I couldn't walk, and my ankle was one big blob of red and hot. Strange, I thought to myself, must be an allergic reaction. So, I took an antihistamine and some ibuprofen. Well, the next day, the pain was worse, and one of the doctors I work with, with whom I have a rapport and felt comfortable mentioning my predicament to, made me prop up my leg and, as she poked at my ankle and I sucked in air through my teeth in pain, told me to go straight to the ER. I needed antibiotics, she said. So, off I went like the obedient worker bee, and was diagnosed straight away with cellulitis. Doesn't sound so bad, I thought, as I hobbled back to the office to tell my bosses that I had to go home, per the doctor's orders. By the time I managed to get home after having to get the drugs, my ankle was so swollen and painful that, if I sat down and then stood up again, the pain was so intense it made gasp and tear up. I took some ibuprofen and the antibiotics, and thought I was better. After propping up my foot all night and the next morning, the swelling was better and the pain had decreased. Christian had a party on Saturday night, so he went without me, per my instructions. I was lying on the couch watching TV, and I suddenly got very, very cold. My hands and feet were icy. I covered myself up and thought, huh, funny. It's 80 degrees out. So, a few minutes went by and I got colder and colder, and my cheeks got hotter and hotter. I was in fever denial, as I was told that, if I had a fever, I had to go back to the hospital and by all things Godly, I did NOT want to do that. Now, my temp almost always runs about 97.6-97.9, but very rarely over 98.1. Why? No clue. So, when I saw 99, 99.2, 99.5 and up up up on the thermometer, I got a little worried. I pulled the blanket off my feet and looked down, and I saw this:

Now, I'm chubby, but I have little hands and feet where you can actually see the bones. Do you see any bones? No. Just bulgy red skin and unpainted toenails. Of all the times to lapse on pedicures. I called poor Christian in the tiniest of panics and he came home to take me to the ER. So, with the fever and the nasty club foot (the smaller circle is marking the inflammation on Friday and the line on top is marking the inflammation on Saturday) it was decided to keep me there long enough to give me IV antibiotics, and sneak in a tetanus booster while I was waiting. Shifty bastards.

I spent five hours in the ER, which isn't bad, all things considered. Usually, ER visits take 8-9 hours and one has to sit in the waiting room with gunshot victims and hookers. The Northwest Hosptial staff was fantastic, and everyone had a good sense of humor, although I'm sure things would have been different had they been busier. My video iPod was the hit of the evening. Apparently, though, I cursed them by commenting on the quietness of the evening, or so I was informed by the ER tech who came to unplug my pump so I could go to the bathroom. In hindsight, a large raspberry iced tea was not the best idea. Here is my arm shortly before the infusion began:

The nurse thought I was pretty gruesome for taking pictures, but I must blog.

But, the wallop did a good job, and the inflammation is mostly gone. I have an ankle bone again! I'm sure everything at work will be dire when I go back tomorrow, but I can always summon some tears and clutch my ankle and say I have to go home.

Measure twice, buy once.

It is official. We've gone to the scary place that only the mentally unhinged and bird breeders usually inhabit. We have joined the legions of those who have homes stuffed with animal habitats on every available surface, with furniture incidentally squished between bird cages and rickety incubators on top of old TVs. These poor souls usually have floors covered in seed and bird poop, dining room tables and kitchen counters covered in bags of Birdie Bread mix and carpets covered by easily washable towels. It's only a matter of time before we never leave the house because we're afraid to abandon the pets.

Witness the madness:
















Our two itty bitty birds are in the upper right hand corner. Each side is meant to hold one bird. We could fit both birds and all of our other pets in one side and still have room for a cockatoo on the other.
















Do you see how tiny they are in comparison to the cage? What the hell was I thinking? It takes up the entire space of a chair. It's not like we had room to spare in the livingroom, as it's a wee little parlor, but I honestly didn't measure the space correctly.

Hopefully once I have Mom sew a pretty little skirt for the cage, it won't look so very, very white and dominant. I hope.

A glimpse into the future.

Saturday was an eventful day.

Christian is now part of the "Masters" track and field circuit, meaning over 30. Christian did well in the shot put, but the real event was the over 50 age group, which included the 90-99 age group. Yes, the 90-99 age group, of which there was one participant, a sprightly and adorable spindly little man named Leon who is a youthful 92. He joked about having to use the tiny 3K shot and thankfully got to do standing throws, as I can only imagine what a spin or a glide would do to those hips. He had mean form and never fouled. He's actually the national record holder in the his group so we were in the presence of fame and glory. Apparently, there's an over 100 age group as well. I would so dearly love to see that competition. It's my fondest hope that someday Christian will be in that category, carrying his little 3k shots in a plastic bag that used to hold oranges, like the bag one of the gentlemen in the 80-89 age group had with him. It's my fondest wish.

There was almost too much of the sweetie pooperness on Saturday. The camera pooped out at the reptile show, so I only have a few meager and not very exciting pictures from the event, but here is one:
Very young children and pregnant women (ahem, preggers in the picture) aren't supposed to touch reptiles because of the trace amounts of salmonella, so poor Kyan had to reach and point and make lots of "OOOO" noises and faces and struggle vainly to get out of his stroller to pet the pretty snake that could eat him and still be hungry for the next kid. We're training him well.

Jayden wasn't so sure about most of the reptile exhibit, but the petting area was a hit, and even though he's three years too young to touch legally (even though he's handled our snakes repeatedly, but we tried to respect the rules, mostly) he managed to get in a few good strokes. He seemed far more excited about the Purell handwash than the animals, however, so I think he's safe from invasive bacteria.

Joining the club

We, like every other American and some Europeans, who are ahead of us in most things but behind us on this, became victims of credit card fraud. I was rudely awakened at the ungodly hour of 10 am on Saturday with an automated phone call from Bank of America saying that there was a fraud alert on Christian's credit card, and could I please enter in the last four digits of his SSN? No, I thought, I don't know them. I got up, ran upstairs (Christian was at a meet and unable to provide the necessary information), got his SS card and called the bank back. I, of course, am not authorized on his (paid off) account, so I had to call him at the meet, interrupting his discus throwing, to tell him to call the bank, which he could only do 20 yards away from the ring where the event was taking place. He called, got a little information and his phone dropped the call. Gack. I was in a bit of turmoil as identity theft ranks right up with spiders in my bed on the fear meter.

By the time the event was over and he had time to go home to take a shower before we took the boys to the reptile show, it was 1 pm and I was frantic. What if it was money that couldn't be returned? We just paid everything off, and I didn't want to be responsible for a weekend of orgies and bathroom furnishings. He called BoA from home and was told that someone got ahold of our account number and charged $4500 at Bed, Bath and Beyond and some posh hotel. Fortunately, as the account had a whopping $15 balance, they noticed a slight increase in spending patterns and declined the charges, barring the first one that triggered the alert. They reversed the charges and closed the account. And then, they ruined it all by reissuing a new credit card. We didn't WANT them to issue a new credit card, and Christian tried to tell them that. We want all but ONE credit card to be cancelled (per customer request) and use only a Disney card to get points and then pay it off at the end of the month. One more credit card means one more letter we have to write to the BoA asking to cancel the account and one more headache of trying to maintain our credit score while eliminating all superfluous sources of credit. This is why we left BoA to go to WaMu. We don't like BoA's slap-happy approach to issuing cards, and they have awful fraud protection. Oh, they're fairly helpful when the fraud has happened, but they don't do enough to STOP it from happening. I only hope WaMu won't start flinging credit cards at us. I shall be forced to fling back and I'm terrified of confrontation.

So this guy walks onto an elevator...

I could have an entire blog dedicated to conversations overheard in elevators. This one, though, was actually said to me. A teeny, tiny little elderly woman with a perfect white bob and little shiny sweatpants got on the elevator I was riding in the Medical Center. She was with a person I assume to be her daughter and was at the MC for an appointment, according to their conversation. She looked at her daughter, who seemed unhappy, sighed, glanced around at all of us, caught my eye, and, with a huge smile, said, "What is it they say? You're born, you live, you die. Life's a bitch." She was awesome.

Support your local herp

We shall post pictures upon our return. Information here. Come get over your fears! Then you can feed our pets when we go on vacation.

Feather therapy

The best part of the long weekend was getting to spend quality time with the birdies. I really wish I could teach them to play with balls and string and bits of toys, but they seem to only want to eat, sleep and preen. We took them outside quite a bit as the weather was beautiful, and they enjoyed running about on the lawn:















They seemed to especially enjoy the sunshine and the accompanying sleepiness:




















When we were weeding yesterday, we brought them out in the smaller, portable cage, and they spent a good two hours in a grooming orgy, with fluff flying and keratin flaking. Playing on the iPod at the time was the Tiki Room soundtrack, and the birds were deeply confused as to where all the fascinating bird sounds were coming from, and cheeped along merrily with the Tiki Chant. When I finally had to separate them so we could leave the house and go to barbecue #2, we could hear the cries of dismay as we drove away. I think they were convinced that we've come to our senses and finally put them in the same cage permanently. If we wanted to come back to a bald Pierre, then we could. However, as we bought him for his pretty blueness, we'd have no use for him bald and would have to send him back.

Sanity, recovered.

I just returned from a luxurious four day weekend in which I performed twice and slept approximately as much as a traquilized narcoleptic. Get up? Why? I had no plans that couldn't be cancelled. The only problem with going back to sleep after waking up once is that I tend to have either nightmares or really intense sex dreams. Why? Couldn't tell ya. In between sweaty, heavy sleepiness, we weeded, cleaned, walked around the neighborhood, visited the Japanese Gardens with Tara and Lee, ate much grilled cow, lit things on fire (emits showers of sparks!), watched Will and Grace reruns, played with the birds and only took showers prior to leaving the house. The laptop heaved a last sigh and generated a kernel panic, so I couldn't even play Bookworm. Oh, and I got an excrutiating and marvelous massage in my livingroom. It was a good pain, never mind the screaming.

As most family outings begin by our smacking our heads for not remembering to bring the camera, Christian stapled it to his hand this weekend as we knew there would be many fabulous chances to take pictures of me screaming, "Don't take a picture of me!" At the Japanese Gardens, we got to combine two of my favorite things: herpetology and the elderly. We each purchased a bag of koi food that is much beloved by the resident red eared sliders in the pond as well, so we got to feed all the wildlife. Every time a turtle would open its mouth to eat, one of the four of us would make a sound that a turtle would make if eating in an animated film. Yes, we're five, and yes, we like cartoons. We're just providing the soundtrack.















The tour guide was an adorable and quite aged little woman who could not have been less than 85. She walked us around at a leisurely pace and I wanted to carry her at certain points as she was a little tottery. The best I could do was offer an arm.

Christian and I also took a long walk around the neighborhood yesterday as my legs were going to leap from my body in protest if I didn't get some exercise, so we took the opportunity to photograph our favorite house:















It's hard to tell, but the entire house is edged in brick and faced in some kind of river rock. It's enormous, extending back about twice as deep as our house, and has a matching little garden shed. The only house for which I'd sell mine.

And then there was an unidentified klassy neighbor, although I do agree with the sentiment:




















Enlarge the picture. Yep, that's our neighborhood.

She needs a paraffin soak with that.

I love getting pedicures, and Baby seems like she would be an excellent spa-mate. And then we'd go shopping and eat lunch while gabbing about our husbands.

Pushing through

I'm in a production this weekend of two short Menotti operas, "The Medium" and "Amelia goes to the Ball". In "The Medium," I play a grieving mother who comes to the titular character to communicate with her dead daughter. Baba, the Medium, is a fraud but convinces my character and two others in the first act seance that we are speaking with our dead children.

This opera is unrelenting in its grimness. I don't know what Menotti was feeling when he wrote it, but as he was born in Italy before the rise of fascism and has Baba speak of the horrors she's seen in Eastern Europe, namely torture, murder, disease, famine, I imagine that he was writing about the desperation produced by those who lived through witnessing such events and have to make a life for themselves afterwards.

Baba has a daughter and an orphan boy she is raising and uses the two of them to perpetuate her deceptions. There is a scene where Baba has flown into a rage after trying to get the orphan boy, Toby, to admit that he touched her throat during the Act 1 seance to frighten her. He can't speak, and won't admit to having done what he didn't do, and she whips him, screaming at him. It's into this cheerful little family pictorial that the three duped parents enter again. It's very hard to watch this scene, and, I imagine, even harder to do it, especially as both the woman playing Baba and the man playing Toby are the sweetest people imaginable. Every time Baba has to beat Toby and we then have to enter, interrupting the beating, I see the look in the singer who plays Baba's eyes. I can tell it's hard for her to carry on with the scene after having to put herself in this reprehensible place, that of beating a sweet-faced child, and yet she pushes through. She has an intensity that I've seen in very few people in my life. She's not afraid to go to a really ugly place to make the performance real, and it's absolutely hair-raising. She's been struggling a bit as the music is unimaginably hard, atonal in places, dissonant almost always, but I would take the drama over the right notes any day of the week. It's been an important experience for me. It's pushed me to go to a place in my performing that doesn't feel safe, and it's exhilarating. I hope that I get more opportunities to play a character where I'm not merely the comedic relief.

Actually, I think it's more Pinteresque.

Did the NY Times reviewer just use the phrase "verges on the Brechtian" in her review of the movie "Nacho Libre?" Yes, yes she did. That was unexpected. Now I want to see it. Of course, Jack Black makes me giggle and can sing soul like nobody else.

The perfect response for that irksome co-worker.

Not having children opens up ones personal life to many inappropriate and prying questions, mostly from utter strangers and unbelievably nosy co-workers. I have gleaned some excellent responses to impertinent questions about our childlessness from an excellent thread about this same subject on my favorite Disney forum:

Question: Are you going to have children?

Answers:

1. Alas! My womb is barren!
2. How do you make a baby? We haven't figured that out yet.
3. I was bathed in acid rain as a toddler, so I'm sterile.
4. Why? So I can share in your misery?
5. There are much better ways to contribute to humanity then simply by adding to it.
6. I like to visit elephants at the zoo, but don't want one in my living room.
7. Are you asking if I'm having sex with my husband?

And my personal favorite:

8. I do have a child! He's right h....oh my God! Where's the baby!

Picking up the slack.

As Christian and I are most likely going to die childless and Tina is busy diving and wrassling giraffes, Mark and Shannon have to have enough children to make up for our lack of ensuring that the human race continues past this generation. And a damn fine job they're doing. They've produced the only two children on earth who make me want to have my own.

So, imagine my glee when I found out that I may be sharing a birthday with a new Blewett baby! I make the parents promise to never give combined birthday/Christmas presents or I would report them to Child Welfare. That way, I'd get the kids. It's all part of a bigger plan.

I really want it to be a girl this time. Not that another boy would go amiss, as the first two turned out so well, but I could buy her things like this, and this, and this. Oh, and this. And especially this. And pretty much everything from here.

What, no "sweetie" or "sugar"?

Ah, to be called "honey" in a professional setting by someone, oh, excuse me, a SUPERVISOR, as I was so pointedly informed, who has been here SINCE 1988, as we were also informed, to whom I have never spoken and who is threatening to call security so she can rifle around in a faculty office to retrieve a patient chart, and this at the end of the work day when the owner of the office has gone home and thusly has not given permission to enter his or her personal space, and that the chart in question has no urgency attached to it, and could have easily waited until the next day to be retrieved, but, apparently, SHE HAS THE RIGHT TO DO SO.

I do so adore being spoken to as though I was a particularly simple-minded, nail-filing, gum-smacking, too-short-skirt-wearing, 1950's era "secretary" who answers the phone "Whadda want?" who had barely graduated from stenographic school. I especially relish it when the SUPERVISOR tells my boss that I denied the SUPERVISOR access to aforementioned faculty-empty office to retrieve the suddenly very popular chart that has to be found RIGHT NOW as work as we know it cannot proceed without it. I love the phrase "denied access". It sounds so forceful. Especially when what I said was, "The assistant who would know where those charts are is out of the office but will return tomorrow. Can I give her a message?" But my memory must be faulty. What I must have done is physically bar the office with my quivering body, ready to chain myself to the knob and hinges to prevent entrance. Sounds like me.

Just as annoying as any proud parent.

Do I have nothing better to do? Apparently not.

Fluffy

That's all.

Do you live in Washington State?

If yes, go here NOW. If no, do a search for unclaimed funds in your state. Both Christian and Shannon had unclaimed funds.

And can I just tell you how CLEAN my house is? It's a glorious, wonderful luxury.

It's the little things.

Until yesterday, we had utterly catastrophic water pressure in our shower. A tepid trickle, a sad stream, an insignificant issuance. However, my BRILLIANT husband, after seeing the variety of sediments filling our pipes when a blockage caused by basil stems (ahem) necessitated a call to the plumber, he decided to take apart the shower head and piping to see if similar detrius had accumulated therein. He opened the filter on the showerhead to find ROCKS, little pebbles, jangling about in the joint between the pipe and the head, trapped behind the filter. It was like a maraca. I could do a little Carmen Miranda number in the shower.

Anyway, aforementioned brilliant husband cleaned the shower head and OH MY GOD, I had a real shower for the first time in two years. TWO YEARS I TELL YOU! I swear it took ten minutes off my routine. I could rinse without doing a little dance when the pressure was too weak to get all the soap off and I think I actually got all the shampoo out of my hair. Conditioner, too. My hair is so shiny and manageable!

I feel so clean.

If we could just do all these things on one income.

As Blogger was down, I have many mental posts and, if I don't write them down, my head shall explode.

I received unadulterated and will-destroying Disney propaganda in the mail this week. Actually, I was OVERNIGHTED temptation, that's how important I am. I put in a request on the DVC website to be sent their "guaranteed to crush your pitiful resistance" book and DVD, describing in excrutiating detail all the benefits of joining the Happiest Borg on Earth. And what a lovely little package of soul destruction it is. Disney doesn't mess around with people who could possibly be convinced to spend, and yes, this is the right number, $15,000 to join their plot to incorporate every American into the Disney dream. The informational book is hard bound, glossy picture crack. I found myself stroking it lovingly and Christian laid on the floor while eating, reading and muttering words like, "Pretty" and "Oooooh" and "Wow" for about an hour. We then had to watch the DVD, with the requisite wanna-drop-her-off-a-cliff perky blonde popping from location to location in an escalating campaign of subjugation through travel lust. Of course I want to use my vacation points to travel all over the globe! Duh! I, too, could visit the Far East and throw in a trip to Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea while I'm at it. I mean, I can visit over 500 locations around the world, Disney and non-Disney while I'm at it! What's $15,000?? Well, it's everything if you don't have it. Oh, but they have financing! Financing vacations. Never a good way to secure fiscal solvency. But the book is sooooo pretty.

We're surrendering and hiring a housekeeper. In the two weeks that I've had off of singing, the last thing on earth I've wanted to do is clean. Yes, work at taking care of other's needs all day and then clean and cook and do laundry when I get home. It will be an unimaginable luxury to come home to a clean house. With the two of us working so much, it just isn't feasible to come home and vacuum, dust, mop, and our house is suffering. I usually clean on Saturday mornings, but I've been way too tired and, on my few days off, I want to knit or go to the movies or sleep or do anything but sweep under the bed. Now, if I weren't working a day job, I would relish cleaning. I actually really like making my house neat and pretty when I have time. But, when I don't, it can go hang because BookWorm is more important, dammit! I CANNOT wait to have someone else clean the baseboards of the kitchen. And the stove. They're going to have to have artillery to clean the stove as we can't use oven cleaner with the birds in the house. The heat and the drippings have probably combusted to create life hitherto unknown which will require small arms to destroy. But, I won't have to do it. Ha! I just have to make sure I'm not home when she's there or I'll walk after her with a duster and ask her if she really thinks the entertainment center is clean enough.

I think that's all for now. If I'm bleeding out my ears later, I'll know I've forgotten something.

Weighing time at the zoo, Part 2.

And then there were the snakes. Sigh. Wiggle. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Cling. Grip. Dangle. Flick, flick. And me, shouting, "Get in the damn bowl! Stop gripping me! Leggo!"
















I love this picture of Frederick's little wistful head.

Weighing time at the zoo, Part 1.

Please forgive the lack of posting the past few days. Blogger was experiencing some technical difficulties but promised to get back to me shortly!

We have taken to weighing the pets as a change as small as 5% in body weight can indicate health problems in animals at the bottom of the food chain. They have to maintain an appearance of health so they don't get eaten in the wild, and only show signs of illness when they're ready to croak, to pardon the pun. We had to purchase a gram scale as the birds are so dainty they don't even weigh an ounce. Fluffy bunnies. The frogs, too, are more accurately measure in grams.

First, the birds, on their handy little scale perch:



















We did, of course, weigh them separately and record the weights, but it was cuter to show them together. Note that they're so small, they weigh NOTHING! Actually, if anything is on the scale when it is turned on, it tares that weight. It'd better for $80.

Next were the frogs, and, as you can see, that was great fun.















There was much resistance and hopping away. Poor chubby trinkets. Squinky, of course, winkled on me.

Gwendolyn was easy and bewildered, and she can be weighed in ounces on the kitchen scale (which we, of course, don't weigh food on, Mom.):




















And, as I STILL can't get all of my pictures to post, see part two for their squirmynesses.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Vapor expands to fill whatever size space in which it is contained. When getting a raise, we increase our spending to match our income. Along these lines, I am convinced that my boobs expand to fill whichever bra I'm currently wearing.

Follow me here. When it's time for me to buy a new bra every three or so years, I've inevitably gained weight, as the march of time and my obsessive love of half and half crushes my sense of self worth and eliminates all urges to maintain any kind of pleasing figure. So, I go shopping, my shirts still fitting, only to find I've gone up a cup size or so. Now, my left boob is a size bigger than my right, and Stacy and Clinton say to fit your largest part, so I get a bra that fits the left boob. Well, now that I have a bigger bra that fits, my boobs, being the clever glands that they are, stop holding it in. They relax. They spread out. All of a sudden, my shirts don't fit. I cry when I see my reflection in mirrors and windows. Are they REALLY that big? At my costume fitting, I shriek, "Tighter! Tighter!" to the dresser lacing my bodice, "Flatten them out!" I watch as, while wearing the new bras made of slightly flimsier fabric, buttons pop and strain where there was no strain last week. Everything else still fits. There's just a gleam of nude nylon in the gaping buttonholes.

I have a plan, though. And no, it doesn't involve anything taxing. Sheesh. Have you met me? I'm going to start buying smaller bras. If the breasticles can expand, they can compress. I'll start marketing them as condensers. No minimizers for me, they aren't aggressive enough! They'll be reinforced with steel mesh, forming a perfect shape with my boobs. And they won't bounce! No bouncing boobies. I'll be able to walk down stairs without pain and without gaping passerby. People will stop telling me to get a reduction. It's my own plan of reduction. Reduction by force.

I think I'm on to something.

Because I bare my privates at your aunties.

I have a theory that there are really only two kinds of people in the world. There are those who like British comedy and those who don't.

Those who like British comedy also like:

1. Animation in general and all things Disney, in particular
2. Books and reading
3. The arts
4. Travel

They tend to be:

1. Whimsical
2. Smart
3. Socially aware
4. Nerdy

Those who don't like British comedy like:

1. Pro sports
2. Trucks
3. Movies like "The Fast and the Furious"
4. The U.S. of A.

They tend to be:

1. Very, very literal
2. Limited in their knowledge of world events
3. Traditional in values
4. Very religious

It's my acid test of people with whom I'd like to be friends. If I say, "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy," and the hearer doesn't laugh, they are forever spurned. That, and they have to like cheese. I have very limited requirements for potential friends.

Feeling sentimental.

Christian found this picture of Stanze preening Fritz from a few weeks before she died. She really loved him. If only we could have figured her out. Poor little pooper.

Do you hear that popping sound? It's my eardrums exploding.

I hate this woman. I hate her breast implants and her bad roots. I hate the fact that, while my fabulous singer friends who are talented and amazing slave in crappy jobs so they can take three gigs a year, she signs the largest record deal in the UK ever. EVER. That the record label, who also records some excellent legitimate artists and should know better, is marketing her as a classical singer makes my blood boil. Yes, she went to the RAM. So? This does not mean she has talent. Potential, maybe. But I've heard some Juilliard grads that would make every hair on your head jump out of its follicle and run from the room. Yes, she won some Welsh choirgirl competition 100 years ago. She, according to the BBC, is a prodigy. But a prodigy for what? Her accomplishment of becoming some Welsh soccer team's mascot? She has been praised for her performances of sacred and traditional music, and I can believe from listening to her that she would be an excellent chorister. But the voice is not well trained. She sings miked, she uses no support, her vibrato is thin and out of control, her technique abysmal. I am appalled that her marketing machine will mislead the public into thinking that this is what opera singers sound like.

I am always angered by successes such as this. They dig at my sense of fair play. Why should actual performing singers be told that classical recordings are a dying breed so they shouldn't bother trying to make them? Why is this label calling her an opera singer if opera doesn't sell? Oh, wait, real opera doesn't sell. Dolly Parton songs in Italian sell. Poor Dolly. The BBC called her an opera singer. How can she be an opera singer? Outside of school, she's NEVER BEEN IN AN OPERA. Take a look at this. A great classic success story? Hardly. This is not Carmen. This is Jessica Simpson singing the Habanera, if JS were Welsh and even more of a talentless hack than she already is. This girl was signed right out of school. She was signed for her looks and for her marketing potential. Ironically, I've seen better looking and more talented singers get passed over for roles every day. This girl couldn't carry a role in a performance if it were stuffed into her already overcrowded bra.

But the thing I hate about her the most? She is called a mezzo, and this is what the idiots who buy her album are going to think a mezzo sounds like. Fabulous.

Just get married already, or why I hate Whole Foods.

I had to get mushrooms and Italian sausage for dinner last night and tea tree oil for the vile thrush in my throat from my new asthma inhaler, so I thought I'll bag two birds and my soul with one stone and go to Whole Foods. Now, I'm not fond of WF. I feel that, whenever I walk in, I'm being judged as I don't do all my shopping there as it's outrageously expensive and I don't need all of my food to be packaged by nuns who only wear biodegradable habits and grow all of their own food using only the poop from their free-range chickens as fertilizer. I also am chubby, so I obviously am not an active person, and I don't wear clothing only to be found at REI. I don't drive a hybrid or a Volvo and I'm not a stay-at-home mom living in Ravenna with an activist attorney husband who takes her kids to Gymboree on Tuesdays and grows her own hemp in the backyard. I don't go to the Folklife festival or all the days of SIFF. I don't know the difference between a chardonnay and a Cote du Rhone. So, whenever I go in, I get looks from the skinny, wealthy, vegan, mountain climbing lawyers who ONLY shop at Whole Foods to keep their conscience clear.

So, last night, I got my few items and waited in line to check out. The girl in front of me took an age as she wanted to pay with credit and then get money back from her debit card, even though there was an ATM a foot behind her. So, of course, they let her, and I finally got to the checkstand. I had set my basket down on the floor in another basket, but I apparently put it in askew. The tall, thin, expensively-togged very pregnant woman behind me fixed the basket and then me with a contemptuous look and began unpacking her cart. Panty liners made from unbleached cotton, frozen fruit bars guaranteed kosher and organic, flushable and biodegradable diapers, fifteen kinds of strange root vegetables, unfiltered apple juice. Now, I noticed that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring, and there was no dent, which all ring-wearers get when not wearing the ring at that moment. While I don't believe everyone should be married (Kevin and Britney, hello?), what is it about the specific demographic that shops at WF and buys unbleached cotton panty liners that makes them disdainful of marriage? I CANNOT TELL YOU how many people I have met living in this very absurdly image-conscious city who have children and homes together but are not married, and all of them are just like the basket-straightener. To a one, they make statements to the effect of, "my commitment is between me and my "partner," not me and state", "I don't need a piece of paper to validate my relationship", etc, to which I say, yes it is, and yes you do. If you own property and have children together, that piece of paper means that you have a legal and binding contract to each other, that you value that person enough to state in front of the government and community that you hold to them. I have always found it so ironic that these people are so committed to the environment that they won't use plastic grocery bags, but they won't give their spouse the protection afforded under the law to have health insurance and equal property rights. I think it's especially ironic that these are the same people who look down on folks like me who are married and don't have children and buy processed cheese food.

I have always believed it's an easy out. Those who don't make the commitment legal do so because they want to be able to dissolve the union easily, by merely dividing the CD collection and make arrangements for alternate weekends with the kids. It's the entitlement, the lack of wanting to be involved in anything that would make them sacrifice anything of themselves. Houses can be quickly sold, children will grow up, move out and go to an expensive college about which the parents will endlessly brag. But a divorce is forever a brand that will taint their edginess with normalcy.

I'm absolutely going to get lambasted for being so intolerant of this very irritating and pretentious demographic because it makes me sound so horrifyingly conservative. It's really the only area of daily life about which I am fairly conservative (never politically, just socially). But it's my blog and I'll drink Tang and not Odwalla if I want to.

All the time in the world.

I was discussing with a co-worker a young singer who has an amazing voice and should be watched as I JUST KNOW her career is going to be epic. I was thinking about this singer as she's had what seems to be a pretty charmed life. Wealthy family, beauty, talent, the kind of life that makes for a very unhurried and unworried person who knows she has the time and means to pursue whatever she wants. Of course, she's also a very hard worker and has made her opportunities, but the conversation got me thinking about what I would do if I had the means and leisure to pursue any path I wanted.

Would I still sing? I don't think I would care nearly so much. Why would I have to if I didn't feel the desperate need to bring something valuable to my life? So much of my desire to sing has to do with a desperation to instill my existence with meaning, to not let my dumbass day job define me. I MUST have that flip side of my life that lends interest to my person.

However, if I had means to lead whatever kind of life I wanted, I think I would be more interested in the things that keep me at my job, i.e., the money to travel, to read, to knit, to cook, to keep my pets, to have a home that I love. These things drive me so much, they keep me working very long hours. I wonder if I would still want to have a singing career if the every day life I would lead if solvent could give me the kind of contentment having a goal does. But would it? Am I so shallow? Do I only sing because I want to be seen as interesting, cool? I know I love it, but is it a vanity fest? Is it that important that I tell people at work, when they ask what I'm doing over the weekend, that I have the opera so they don't think that THIS JOB is the only thing I have in my life? If I wasn't at work and there weren't any people to impress, would I still want to sing for its own sake, or am I just trying to not sound pathetic?

Of course, these are all ridiculous questions, as I'll always have to work, but can open, worms everywhere.

Props to my peeps.

Finally, the extremely deserving girls I know, love and sing with are getting their rewards for years of hard work and sacrifice. There are FOUR of us who have been cast in local productions over people who have been more favored in the past, and I am so proud of my friends. One such friend will be Beatrice at Tacoma in November and the other two I'll share once they say it's OK. They both got very exciting and fun roles, however, and will kick ass. Please give your time and money and support all of us and the opera community in general. I'll post details as the dates get nearer.

No Fatal Attraction jokes, please.

You know how, when you were a kid, you'd say that you'd eat ice cream for dinner and stay up all night when you were a grown up? The picture below is my ice cream for dinner:















Being an adult and able to afford to buy the most gorgeous, useful, well-made and envy-inspiring cookware is all the staying up all night, the not wearing the coat in winter, the opening the windows with the car air conditioning on and the eating with my hands I swore to do as a grown up rolled into one.

I think the birds make excellent spokesmodels, too.

A day in the life of a suburban housewife.

Yesterday, I slept in until 11 am. I got up, dyed my hair, had a cup of tea, got my hair cut, cleaned the house, cooked an elaborate dinner and went to bed late after knitting and watching Alias. I am highly domesticated.

The opera is over. All hail summer vacation. Well, for two weeks anyway.

Happiness, schmappiness.

I'm not supposed to be a happy person, I don't think. When I'm happy, I'm ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that an anvil is lurking around the corner, suspended on fraying rope from a rusty crane suffering from metal fatigue. All it takes is my heavy footsteps and twink! Smush.

Things are going well this week. I often feel as though my singing is largely ignored (as I think many singers do, with so many auditions and so few roles), but I can't really feel that way right now. It's a relief, and a shock. I get convinced that I'm screaming into the ether, so when someone says they're listening, it's almost as though I have a peeping Tom, someone who's watching me when I don't notice. Wait, you were where? You heard me when? Oh yeah! At that audition. Funny!

On an amusing side note, while I was on a field trip this morning, the Met called my work number as that's the only number they have for trying to force me to buy a subscription even though I live across the country since I made the mistake of giving that number when I bought tickets once. My co-worker took the call and emailed me the message, "The Met called. Is this something I can know about?" The answer would be, "Oh yes, my $20 will go a long way to ensuring the future of the Saturday broadcasts." And I get a free CD.

The temptation to kiss it would be overwhelming.

I've been watching Battlestar Galactica's first season on my iPod, and I'm to the episode where the President is hallucinating as a side effect of her cancer drugs, and she sees snakes crawling on her podium from which she's giving a press conference on fuel shortage. The first snake she sees is a ball python, which looks exactly like Frederick (pictured below as a baby). All I could think was, "Cooter! Gimme! Oh, the little pooper, who's the best snakey in the universe? You are, yes you are!"




















If I were the President, I would have picked it up, kissed it and made cooing sounds, and the press would have recorded me doing so for later broadcast to prove that I was off my rocker. Of course, then I would have gotten salmonella and, if I had cancer, that would be a really stupid thing to do, compromised immune system and all.

I have to say that it irritated me, though, as the snakes were making "Foleyed" hissing sounds, and I've NEVER heard my snakes hiss. Also, the snakes they showed were all very docile species, like milk snakes and corn snakes (tweeters!). Of course, if I was in deep space and my brain went Indiana Jones on me, I'd be a bit unnerved, too.

I really would just like a side salad.

Foods that sound good when you're hungry but regret consuming later:

Deep fried burritos from the cafeteria at work
French fries
Easy Cheese
Chocolate eclairs from Safeway
Refried beans
Anything from Taco Bell
Chicken nuggets
Scrambled eggs
Turkey hot dogs
Bacon cheeseburger (it pains me to say that)
Onion rings

I'm sensing a theme, here. I really should cut back on poultry.

Sit. Your ass. Down.

Hey, you. Yeah, you in the pink silk suit. Oh, yes, I can see you. The house lights are up. And it's a myth that you can't see the audience from the stage during the performance anyway. The stage lights don't blind us like we say they do. I see the yawns, the eye rolls, the not-so-whispered conversations. We only claim that we can't see you so you won't try to make eye contact. Oh yeah, and you in the white polo shirt? Are you listening to this, too?

Sit down. The stage lights are down, but we haven't even started our bows yet. We see you ask your neighbors to move so you can get out of the row before the lights go back up again for the curtain call. We see the back doors of the house open and the light flood in. We see the stampede of those of you who are so arrogant and impatient that you think that showing your appreciation for the incredible amount of work and talent you just witnessed is beneath you, as though we're here merely to serve you. Yeah, pinkie, you especially. I saw you crawl over your row-mates' knees in your desperate clamor to get out. You even walked all the way down to the frontmost exits by the orchestra pit, in plain sight of everyone, and you weren't even applauding. Where were you going in such a hurry? Your car is valet parked, so you don't even have to get it yourself. And I know how long it takes to get to either of the two parking lots, as I do it every night, even after changing out of my costume and taking off my makeup. It takes five minutes. Yep, five. And the traffic isn't even bad. It's not like a basketball game where 10,000 people are exiting at once. The opera house seats under 2,000, even less as I see that we didn't sell out. Do you think what we do is easy? Do you think that the baritone singing the role for the fifth time in a week as the silver cast baritone is ill isn't tired, isn't wanting to have a little appreciation of his incredible efforts? He sings because he loves it, at least it seems that way from watching him and his passion and dedication, but it's his job, too. Hard work is supposed to be rewarded. Well, you're probably the kind of person who doesn't thank her own employees anyway, if she even works and isn't a trophy. Sit down unless you want to stand and clap, which most people seem to want to do.

And you, in the polo shirt. Stop talking. Yeah, I know the opera's over, but I was watching you. You're sitting right behind maestro, dead center in the best seats in the house, so every time I looked at him, I saw you. Chatter, chatter, chatter. What's so important? It couldn't wait for intermission? Were you trying to impress your date with your knowledge of Shakespeare or was your witty conversation centered around your disdain for the art form as a whole? Is opera not hip enough for you? You obviously don't respect anyone sitting around you, or you wouldn't be drawing attention to yourself. And, even if you were too cool to admit that you liked the opera, still applaud with everyone else. It is incredibly rude to sit with your arms crossed like we leveled a personal insult against you. Could you do this? Have you ever been on a stage?

You see, I'm in the chorus. There are a lot of us who are on stage a lot of the time, and sometimes our eyes wander when we're not singing. I know they shouldn't, but we're very discreet. We see you, all of you. We see the rudeness, the impatience, the condescension. Opera is not cheap. Why do you come if you either can't wait or can't respect the art form or those around you? Please, do us all a favor and stay home. We don't need your money that badly. Well, we do, but that's even sadder. You think you're doing us a favor by being in the audience. You're not.

Boobs

I got a compliment today (from the only person at work who could give it and not have it be inappropriate) about how my new bras are making my boobs look much higher and perkier and how the overall effect is very flattering. I, of course, then had to show her the strap so she could see that the bra I'm wearing today is pink. Pink! With a leafy applique!

And it only cost $68 (said with sarcasm). But, if it can make my rack look perky, I would pay with my soul. And then I'd be able to speak Spanish, so it might not be such a bad trade.

Stop it, already!

No one else I know and love is allowed to get a divorce. No more. Stop it! I can't take it. And it's all about me, you know.

Poor cousins.

I KNEW IT!

I had to give my statement to the insurance claims adjuster this morning, and she told me that jackass/dillhole/asshat/fucktard has an attorney and is claiming injury. According to said attorney, he has been in two prior injury-causing accidents and suffers from re-injury. Gasp! Choke! My suprise is rendering me speechless! Well, not really, as I knew the second he began to hassle me that he was going to try something like this. He had that opportunistic, swaggering air of the true born manipulator, the kind of person who takes everything as a personal insult, a chance to stick it to others, as they deserve it, him being the victim and all.

Well, he messed with the wrong girl. I am no meek shrinking simperer. I shall not allow my insurance rates to go up because of this amoral prat. Hmpf.

Famous AGAIN!

The birdies are getting their props (scroll to the bottom). Hee!

They'd better wash my costumes.

Thank God and all the saints, tech week is over. Finito. We open tomorrow. We made it through last night without stopping, but there still was a vitriolic issuing from the pit through most of the performance. I'm hoping that the torrent will cease once a paying audience is in the house, but I may as well hope that Stephen Colbert actually gets hired for the White House Press Secretary job for all the likelihood of it actually happening. I really like and respect the conductor, but man, he's a walking stereotype. EVERYthing has an EXCLAMATION point at the end. I keep expecting him to scream "Spaghetti! Roma! Al dente!"

Come to the production, if only to hear Macduff. Now THAT'S a voice.

Ah yes, the glamour.

Since Sunday, I've spent 24 hours at the opera house. And I didn't take any time off work, which was just the stupidest decision I could have made. It's tech week, which means oh my God, it sucks in so many ways:

1. The conductor walked out of the sitzprobe on Monday as the orchestra simply wasn't playing well.
2. At our piano dress on Tuesday, we had to do our two minute quick change from witch to refugee TWICE, with wigs and all, at 11 pm, prompting most of us to swear and cry and generally throw giant fits. Because the space was so tight, another chorister got hit in the face by someone who pulled her arm out of her costume too quickly.
3. At our first orchestra dress last night, we only barely had Act Three lighting, and the cues were all different.
4. They lost my shoes to go with my witch costume, and the shoes I had to wear, which are usually only to be worn with the ballgown and for a very short period, are too tight and too high and kept catching on my veil and hem, making me trip and keeping me from exiting the stage quickly enough to not be seen lingering at the doorway during the next scene.
5. About half of the chorus came in on the orchestra cue in "Patria, oppressa", prompting the conductor to hang his head and look as though he was going to cry.

Oh, and I also had an audition this last weekend for a local company doing fantastic mezzo stuff next season, but for my second aria they picked the shortest and the most boring, meaning that they didn't like me and I won't get cast.

At least the bleeding walls are cool.

Tiptoe, on the cow hide....

Not that we got to open the door and see them, but just seeing this sign made me giggle.















Several years ago, after attending a educational seminar on bats, Tina gave a very amusing overview of how a vampire bat actually eats. She told us that it tiptoes up to its prey, nips a tiny vein, licks daintily at the blood (using a anticoagulant in its saliva to keep the wound from closing) and, when it's full, tiptoes away. She did a interpretive dance of the tiptoeing. There was much guffawing.

There are currently 11 bats living in the exhibit at the zoo. After the tour was over, we went back into the night exhibit and waited until our eyes adjusted. We could see three little bats flapping about, licking delicately at the water bottle filled with blood.

Apparently, these misaligned little creatures even have an altruistic behavior pattern with other vampire bats. If another bat roosting nearby was unable to feed, the bat who has eaten will regurgitate some of its meal for the hungry little bat. Awww. How can people be afraid of these little guys? Tiptoeing, lunch-sharing, four inch long mammals. Cuuuuuute.

That is....Until you see their lunch! Well, their lunch refrigerator. I missed the shot of the pitcher of cow's blood from the slaughterhouse down the road, mixed with anticoagulant, of course, 'cause you wouldn't want a big bucket of clot.

Third time IS a charm.

Christian and I have registered for the Eye-to-Eye behind the scenes tour of the Day and Night exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo three times. The first tour was cancelled as we were the only ones registered, the second we missed due to the worst traffic jam in the history of the universe and the third was yesterday. We were certain that a comet would strike the earth the moment we woke up yesterday morning to prevent us from taking the tour. Fortunately, though, the only threat to our attendance was a disgruntled and infantile mother at the restaurant where we ate breakfast, and I wasn't going to risk coming to blows and risking grave injury (she looked like she had seen a fight or two) over her bad parenting technique of flicking her child on the ear (very hard, mind you) to discipline him. I could just envision myself with a broken tooth and a black eye at the emergency room having to explain what happened to me:

Doctor: So, you said "Jesus" under your breath when you saw this woman flick her son's ear?
Me: Yes, and when she said to me in that defensive and hand-in-the-face tone of voice, "It's my call," I told her that she might want to make her call a little more mature the next time.
Doctor: And then she jumped you?
Me: Yeah, right in front of her kids. What a great mother, huh?
Doctor: Yes, a real champ. Now hold still while I pick her press-on fingernails out of your cheek.

Well, the first part happened, but I didn't have a crushing comeback for her so terribly maternal comment, so she passed by with no threat of violence.

We made it to the zoo, even with a few minutes to spare. The tour started at 1:30 with a game of reptile/amphibian/sloth family knowledge tic-tac-toe, which we tied. Our group missed a question about whether or not porcupines can shoot their quills. Turns out that shooting quills are yet another myth propagated by Warner Brothers. Bastards. And here I had a fantasy that, if our team won the game, that we'd get to hold any animal that we wanted. That would be dangerous, however, as whatever I held would most likely end up in my purse.

When we finally got to go into the keeper areas, I wanted to rip open the doors to the exhibits and run inside. The night exhibit keeper was a mild-mannered hippie with the obligatory bandana headband. I just can't do any of the things we saw justice, so you'll have to just look at the pictures and hear the "AAAAAAAAAAAA" of my squeals in your head:















Hedgiehedgiehedgie!!! Sniffy, wiggly nose! ANTEATER!!!! Flicky tongue!!!

And when he took this little bugger out,















check out who was lurking behind him:



















I'm surprised Christian didn't have to physically restrain me from jumping into the enclosure. However, lorises have such allergenic saliva that they can cause anaphylaxis with their bite, so it's most likely a good thing I didn't.

The day exhibit has some extensive ongoing conservation projects with turtles and tortoises. These are two Egyptian tortoise hatchlings. And into my pocket they went.















Hee! Little old man faces.

It turns out that they rotate the King cobras. They have a male and a female and the female was behind the scenes when we were there. She was a grumpy, grumpy snake and struck at the glass whenever anyone would take a picture. Very big, very scary, very pretty. Hood. Flarey.




















I'm always a little disappointed when the enclosures pretty much look like the ones I have at home:















All in all, a very satisfactory day. Especially as the zoo has a new avian exhibit with free flight budgies, cockatiels, rosellas and Princess Margaret parakeets who are so tame they will feed from your hand:
















And there you have it. Add a squealy soundtrack and it will be just like you were there.

Not so much on the eye for an eye thing, though.

I'm a very big fan of the biblical maxim, "If it offends thee, cut it off."

Offender: Tonsils
Cutoff date: December, 1986

Offender: Uterus
Cutoff date: July 28, 2002

Offender: Hair
Cutoff date: October, 2001; November 2003; January 2006

Offender: Retinas
Cutoff date: Haven't saved $2,000 yet, hopefully will soon.

But the kicker:

Offender: Stomach
Cutoff date: Haven't asked yet. Hopefully will soon.

So many of my problems would be solved by not having a stomach:

1. No hiatal hernia, so no reflux; no reflux so no vocal cord problems or chest pain
2. No ghrelin production, so no hunger; no hunger, so no huge chest, flabby arms and giganto butt.

I just have to convince someone that these syllogisms make sense.

My father's daughter

I just spent 20 minutes picking stewed, canned tomato chunks out of my chili. I do the same thing with peas from fried rice. Because, you know, if I accidentally ate either, my head would explode.

Best. Invention. Ever.

I love my iPod, Jane. Not just love as in, "Wow, what a handy thing to have around," or "It's so convenient having all of my music in one place!" No. Love as in, "Stay five feet from her at all times or get strangled with my noise-cancelling earphones' cord. Mine. My iPod. No touchy. Don't touch it, I said! Stop breathing on it! You're steaming up the display! Gahhh (gahh being my killer karate move I'd whip out to protect it, 'cause it's a good little iPod, yes it is! So pretty. So shiny.... )!"

If I were pressed to do so, I suppose I would have to rank the printing press really as the #1 invention of all time, as I couldn't live without books, but the fact that Jane has 15 movies, three behind the scenes at the Disney Studios shows from the 50s and 60s, over 200 CDs, the Battlestar Galactica 2003 miniseries, the whole Firefly series, countless other Aardman and Disney shorts, constantly shields me from the painful reality of life and the inherent rehearsal drama stemming from no one on the artistic staff actually having communicated with each other and every scene having to be reblocked to the conductor's satisfaction, it really is the invention that has enriched my life to the most fulfilling degree. And it keeps crazy people from talking to me on the bus.

Why is it, though, that bus headphone "don't talk to me" etiquette doesn't apply to rehearsal? The second I put the headphones on during rehearsal breaks, everyone must talk to me at THAT PRECISE MOMENT, especially if it's to only ask what I'm watching or what is that or tell me that I'm addicted. I'm NOT addicted. I can stop any time I want. I mean, I left Jane at home today and my hands are only shaking a little. And I have to go home tonight after work anyway, as I can't wear a dress to rehearsal, so picking Jane up has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. I'll just finish the episode of Alias I'm watching right now and then I'll be able to concentrate on other things. Really! I swear.

Twitch.

I can't stop staring at this picture.

Even the most hardened animal hater couldn't help but love this picture.

A hundred thousand bows of appreciation to Manish for this pic of his new kid Bali (on top) and Bali's littermates.

Nothing like a good dose of public humiliation...

to cap a really fabulous day.

At rehearsal last night, a number of people were absent, and in a scene where I have to cross the stage with another chorus woman, stop in front of Macbeth, curtsy and exit, I had a new partner and was trying to walk her through the direction as it was timed to the music. Well, I crossed upstage of two of the principals instead of downstage as the principals were directly in my path, and to cross downstage would have meant going even farther downstage and then back upstage to exit, and there wasn't time. The director got very irritated. He came onto stage, telling everyone to stop as "these two don't know what they're doing," moved the principals upstage and took my arm and said, "And when you bow, don't stick your behind out," and proceeded to imitate me and make fun of how I bowed, which is how every opera singer bows. Well, the principals thought this was just hilarious, so the director kept going. And going. Making voices, faces, imitating my actions, all center stage with the principals laughing at me, not with me. I know the difference. I was the literal and figurative butt of their mockery. I finally just left the stage, angry and embarrassed.

I'm a smart girl. I can act, and follow direction. To get me to do what you want, all you need to do is tell me. Preferably in a more private setting, but if it has to be in public, don't make fun of my ass while doing it. Unfortunately, most of the people on stage had the maturity level of fourth graders, so any chance to mock a chubby girl was seized upon with glee. Ah, professionalism. There ain't nothing like it.

Christian will have to wear a shirt over his wife beater.

We're no longer the white trash neighbors, which means no more sitting on the front porch with a shotgun handy to keep away the damn kids. My mom weeded our entire front yard, shaming us into edging, pruning the hedge and planting our vegetable garden:
















Our lawn will forever look like fifteen kinds of crap, however, as we refuse to fertilize and aerate and all of that really labor intensive crap. My parents simply don't understand our lack of lawn attention. Theirs looks like a golf course and my dad takes unearthly delight in mowing it twice a week. I just don't care that much. It's all coming out in a year anyway to make way for my English-style courtyard complete with artistic fountain and wrought iron benches. Ooooh, and penguin waiters. And raspberry ice. And a white lace tea dress. And Dick Van Dyke. Who would need a fifth of scotch. Never mind.

I have a dream....

and that dream is to:

Fly to Europe and take the 11 day Disney cruise in the Mediterranean.
Go to Paris after the cruise and spend a few days with the Goussus, shopping for a Baroque guitar. Go to Disneyland Paris.

Yes, I'm smoking crack if I think we can afford this. Don't care, want to go.

But he promised me they wouldn't come back!

In 2002, when my cervix was attempting to plummet to its death and I needed to seek advice on how to end its suffering, the surgeon my OB/GYN sent me to, when examining me in that horrible thumb up the pooper way, said, "You have the worst hemorrhoids I've seen in years. You must get them taken care of. How can you LIVE like this?" He was very judgemental of my waste disposal system.

Now, I had never thought much of my, well, hangers on. It was my understanding that everyone bleeds out of their butts, itches like ants were crawling on their bung holes and cries when they have to go #2 because nothing will come out. Apparently that's not the case. So, Mr. Terrible Bedside Manner referred me (forced me to go) to a colorectal surgeon. As if women weren't exposed to enough indignities on the exam table. When the CRS looked at me bum, though, he said that he could snip off the offender while I was under, immeditely following my ute extraction, and all would be well. He was so CONFIDENT. He told me that I would never have these problems again.

He lied.

Makes me sound kind of pretentious, no?

I took this Myers-Briggs-based quiz yesterday, and this is who it says I am:

Personality Type: INFJ

The Portrait of the Counselor Idealist

(iNFj)

RATIONAL
ARTISAN
IDEALIST
GUARDIAN

Copyrighted © 1996-2006 Prometheus Nemesis Book Company

The Counselor Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in reaching their goals, and directive and introverted in their interpersonal roles. Counselors focus on human potentials, think in terms of ethical values, and come easily to decisions. The small number of this type (little more than 2 percent) is regrettable, since Counselors have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy helping their companions. Although Counsleors tend to be private, sensitive people, and are not generally visible leaders, they nevertheless work quite intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes with their families, friends, and colleagues. This type has great depth of personality; they are themselves complicated, and can understand and deal with complex issues and people. Counselors can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. With their loved ones, certainly, Counselors are not reluctant to express their feelings, their face lighting up with the positive emotions, but darkening like a thunderhead with the negative. Indeed, because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, Counselors can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people, mutely withdrawing from human contact. At the same time, friends who have known a Counselor for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that they are inconsistent; Counselors value their integrity a great deal, but they have intricately woven, mysterious personalities which sometimes puzzle even them. Counselors have strong empathic abilities and can become aware of another's emotions or intentions -- good or evil -- even before that person is conscious of them. This "mind-reading" can take the form of feeling the hidden distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types to comprehend. Even Counselors can seldom tell how they came to penetrate others' feelings so keenly. Furthermore, the Counselor is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena and to have visions of human events, past, present, or future. What is known as ESP may well be exceptional intuitive ability-in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such supernormal intuition is found frequently in the Counselor, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance.

Is it me? Yes? No? I'm curious as to what others think.

Isn't this what Flickr is for?

I KNOW I probably post too many pet pictures, but when we got home from Spokane last night, we had missed the birds so much that we forwent (?) cleaning and unpacking to take them out of their cages and subject them to a photoshoot. What different little creatures they are from each other, and from Stanze before them.















Stanze would have NEVER let us pet Fritz in her presence, much less hold the two of them together ON THE SAME FINGER. Christian's hand would have been a mass of bleeding flesh had he attempted this when she was around. Pierre is so placid, almost to the point of alarm. He sits and stares and makes no demands. He let Fritz very assertively preen him:

















And while regurgitation may be disgusting, but at least we know they like each other.




















There was a tremendous moment last night when Pierre perfectly stepped up several times in a row with no nipping, flapping or clinging desperately to the perch with one foot. They even stepped up TOGETHER, which was the highlight of all pet ownership thus far.

We then, though, had a bit of an unnerving pet moment when feeding the snakes. Mom, don't read this. Frederick was unusually hungry and lunged for the mouse as soon as I opened the cage. He missed, but I felt the whiff as he struck near my arm. He took it as soon as it hit the floor of his cage. And to think we were worried about his eating.

Persephone was in the small feeding cage and lunged for her mouse as soon as she smelled it (they must have been extra stinky) and caught her teeth in the mesh of the cage lid. Fortunately, she disentangled herself with no apparent damage, but it can be shocking to see snakes act like, well, snakes, especially when they're usually so docile. They are who they are, however, and I wouldn't want them to change. I just need to make sure that the next time they eat, the bags the mice are thawed in don't leak, as wet mice must smell to them like cinnamon does to us.