13 posts from January 2008

What can I say... our grocery had a special on chickens: buy one, get one free. Inspiration provided by The Pioneer Women's Spicy Roasted Chicken legs.

We went to our regular subscriber performance last night. This production was even more affecting from our subscriber seats - Main Floor Row P - we're quite close (by preference) to the stage. Many wonderful subtleties in the staging that I missed the first time around. But wow, the whole evening just packed a major emotional punch.

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It's been all Pagliacci, all the time for us: our neighborhood pizza place is Pagliacci.  And Pagliacci the pizza place couldn't resist doing a little cross-promotion with Seattle Opera's Pagliacci, thus this pizza box from our Friday night pizza:

Each evening, I try to get in 45 minutes to an hour of knitting before bed. It's a relaxing wind-down ritual after the day. And it keeps me moving on my knitting projects. I have my spot on the couch; music is on the stereo; sometimes Drake makes a fire.

The added bonus to this ritual in the past month has been my new Ott light, which Drake got for my birthday. We got one that fits in pretty well with our decor and the full-spectrum light is pure heaven to my middle-aged, presbyopia-affected eyes. But I also like just sitting under the light. I'm not affected by SADD and the Ott light doesn't have the strength or function of a light-therapy light, but it still throws off an extremely pleasant quality of light. It does feel a bit like being under the sun.

So off I go... to curl up under my little place in the sun.

The Wienermobile is back in our neighborhood!--parked in its "customary" location in front of the Embassy Suites.

The last time it was here, it stuck around for about a week and we saw it every day on our way home from work. Which lead to the discussion this evening: What does the Wienermobile really do?

I guessed it makes appearances at events, like state fairs. And that it drives around a lot just to be seen. Yep, that's pretty much it:

A typical day for a Hotdogger includes early morning appearances on local TV stations followed by two public "meet and greet" events, each lasting about three hours. These events include appearances at county fairs, store openings, sports venues, and a variety of other special events. A professional Hotdogger can expect to spread Wienermobile good cheer at 500 scheduled events on a typical year-long tour of duty.

There are six Wienermobiles with a total crew of 12 "hotdoggers" (two hotdoggers per wiener). Everything you ever wanted to know about the Wienermobile is here.

The Canio in last night's Pagliacci was Antonello Palombi, who Speight Jenkins (General Director of Seattle Opera) has rightly been raving about as a true dramatic Verdi tenor. (Pagliacci is not a Verdi opera, but requires a tenor voice similar to the big, dramatic Verdi roles such as Otello.)

What I didn't realize until I was reading the rest of the program this morning is that Palombi was the guy who stepped in, wearing street clothes, when Roberto Alagna walked off the stage of La Scala in the middle of a performance of Aida. Check out the look on the soprano's face when she sees Palombi make his entrance:

And, funny enough, we'll be seeing Palombi next season as Radames in Seattle Opera's production of Aida.

One of my opera regrets is never having seen Luciano Pavarotti. But yesterday, on the Met Radio broadcast we got to hear him "live" at the near-peak of his vocal abilities (1977) singing La Boheme. Pavarotti passed away just a few days before my Dad, so I barely noticed his passing at the time. Hearing him in his youth is a reminder of what an unbelievable artist he was.

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There was a chance I would be in Vegas through Saturday, so we weren't able to plan ahead to get tickets to an extra performance of Pagliacci. Based on everything we'd heard, this was a production we were going to want to see twice. Luckily, Drake was able to score a couple of tickets to the sold-out performance yesterday. We were "up in the Gods" but in McCaw Hall that really isn't too far up.

I'm not even sure what to say about this production. It may be the finest Seattle has done in recent memory in terms of emotional impact.

Got in late last night from Vegas. I don't know if it's from the dry desert air or the flying or both, but my skin is parched. And it was cold in Vegas... icicles on the fountains when I arrived Thursday night.

I stayed at Treasure Island (or "TI" as it is attempting to re-brand itself... in the same way that Kentucky Fried Chicken is now "KFC"). My previous forays to Vegas were in the mid-90s at the height of the "family-friendly" Vegas phase. The MGM Grand had just opened with its amusement park; Treasure Island was going for families with the whole pirate theme (and video arcades for kids). Well, the family thing just didn't work out. The MGM amusement park is long gone and "TI" has replaced the wholesome evening pirate show with something called the Sirens of TI.

This show goes off every 90 minutes in the evening, starting at 5:30. As it turned out, I was just starting an interview session in a room directly overlooking the pirate ship set-up. Soon, goofy narration, loud music, and fireworks were shooting up directly at us. I tried closing the curtains, but really, to no avail. It was very hard for the participant to focus with fireworks and sexy babes just below us... Oooh, Las Vegas... Ain't no place for a poor girl like me.

I'm glad to be home and glad to have the research study complete. Exploding pirate ships aside, it went very well and the client is pleased with the results. It feels good to have that all wrapped up.

Oh, and just for comparison's sake, here is the original Pirates of Treasure Island show, which I saw years ago and kind of liked, but then I'm a bit partial to pirates...even goofy Las Vegas ones.

Yesterday, finally, I got up to Stevens Pass for some skiing. But, we did something a little different this time--we left at about 1:00 in the afternoon, arriving at 3:00 for some late afternoon/early evening skiing.

I was hoping the crowds when we arrived would be a little less due to the Seahawks-Packers playoff game that was in progress, but it was still pretty busy.

I made the mistake of wanting to do a warm-up run on the easy run---it took us about 20 minutes in line to get on that lift. It's a slow lift to begin with, but made even slower by the large number of beginner skiers/boarders that use it. Normally, I get to Stevens about a half hour before the lifts open at 9:00am and you can ski right up to this lift first thing. But mid-day it is a madhouse. I wanted to get out of the line, but once you're packed into the chute it's not so easy.

We finally got through that run though and headed to my favorite lift Brooks. It's got a great intermediate run along one side of the terrain park and it's fun to stop for a bit midway down and watch folks take the jumps and rails.

By 4:00 the light was fading and I was hoping they would turn on the lights. Visibility was somewhat low anyway, due to a light snow falling. It was beautiful, and the snow as good as it gets here in the Pacific Northwest. But my night vision is not what it used to be.

When the lights finally came on, I noticed an interesting (and helpful) effect: I was casting a shadow on the snow. This helped me see my body position as I was going down the slope.  I know what I'm suppose to do position-wise, but still have to concentrate to keep everything together.

All my equipment felt great: boots, skis, helmet. I got the helmet last season, but didn't it didn't get much use due to my calf tear. And I don't feel so bad today, at least so far. A bit stiff, but not really sore.

I've written previously about the talks that Speight Jenkins (General Director of Seattle Opera) and Perry Lorenzo (SO Education Director) give at Elliott Bay Books the Friday before the opening of each new production. If anyone from Seattle is reading this, and you have even thought about going to an opera (and even if you don't have a ticket to a performance), I can't recommend these talks highly enough. Speight and Perry individually are probably the most compelling speakers I've encountered in any context. Funny, brilliant, fascinating.  And it's only $5.00 to get in. There are usually only 20-50 people so it's quite an intimate forum.

The last half hour they take questions from the audience. Last night, there was a woman who had never been to an opera before. What inspired her go was this video of Paul Potts doing Nessun Dorma (which generated a huge amount of traffic on YouTube):

Now, vocally, Mr. Potts is not a professional-caliber opera singer (at least of the caliber we get here in Seattle). And they are obviously pumping up the drama factor leading up to his performance. But the video does clearly convey the power of an aria to heighten drama. And for at least one person, it was enough to compel a first-time outing to the opera.

Speight explained that the Pagliacci was a wonderful first opera and she would have a chance to experience professionally-trained singers (minus any amplification; I think many people don't realize that voices aren't amplified in opera--and what an emotional impact hearing the voice directly can have).

So I hope she has a great experience. As Speight likes to say, "it's going to be a great show." The cast sounds fabulous, particularly, the Canio.

It's been a couple of months now since my skin cancer surgery. My scar looks only moderately improved from a month ago, though now it mostly lurks under my bangs with my new hairstyle.

It is still surprisingly tender to any pressure, but I'm OK now wearing a swim cap. Some days I don't feel my scar all; other days it itches. I am hoping the itchy days means it's doing some healing. Every night, I go through the ReJuveness routine, but I don't have any real way of evaluating of efficacy of this. Since there isn't much physical change in the appearance--at least so far--I don't know if it's healing or not.

So my scar continues on, living its own life atop my forehead....