Speaking of summer plans, let me tell you about the news on that front.
Granted, my upcoming New York trip is technically summer travel. But you and I both know that a four-day trip to New York certainly isn't enough to satisfy my wanderlust. So I applied to my favorite past volunteer organization, Pueblo Ingles, for another round of teaching English to intelligent people in the more remote parts of Spain. Happily, last Friday they offered me a spot in their July 6-13th program.
This was actually my second choice of dates. Jason's coming out to meet me in Madrid at the end of my program so we can tour about together for a few weeks - the plan is Spain and Morocco with an ever-growing emphasis on Morocco. We had been hoping for the later set of dates I requested, since that works better with his summer schedule. Sadly, that was not the offer. However, after reading about the venues and getting reassurances from Jason that the earlier dates can still work, I am pretty excited about this opportunity.
Pueblo Ingles actually has several different sites around Spain (and Italy and Germany) that they rotate between. I'll be at Coto del Valle, their newest site. Here's the description from their website:
This stunning 4-star hotel situated in the heart of
Cazorla National Park in the Jaen region is a private reserve
surrounded by a landscape of outstanding natural beauty. Exhibiting
architecture that is both well-maintained and respectful of the
surrounding environment, here you will feel close to nature without
compromising on comfort.
Bedrooms are all externally-facing, with a terrace and spectacular
views of the surrounding mountains. There is a large swimming pool to
cool off in those summer months, beautifully kept gardens for strolling
and a rustic, cozy lounge to have a coffee and relax. The restaurant and
cafeteria serve fresh cuisine typical of the region. There is a variety of outdoor activities that you allow you to explore
the beautiful and fascinating spots of the National Park.
This location is ideal for those of you who can cope with 40 degrees centigrade and above ... and for people who have never been to
Andalusia before and offers a typical representation of life in the
south. The hotel is modern and comfortable and boasts some of the best
views in the region. Be aware that this site is quite hilly as the hotel
is situated in the mountains. You'll be exercising more than just your
vocal chords! The trip to get there takes a bit longer but, trust us,
it's worth it!
It should be quite different than the restored medieval village I stayed in last time. The heat is daunting, but since the hotel a) has wifi, b) is "modern," and c) has air conditioning, I should be able to manage. I don't know about those "outdoor activities," though. As you may recall, by my experience, nature usually means dirt and bugs. Hmm.
I don't know if it's spring fever, burn-out, or a holdover of the events of last week, but I am having a really hard time caring. Probably a combination of all three.
I am very much going through the motions at work. On one hand, my classes are essentially running themselves. Advanced Drama has a play next week (the last of the year, thank goodness). We finished blocking it today, so now it's just drill, drill, drill. It's the kind of show that could use a lot of creative prop-making and set-building, the kind of design I love, but I just don't want to. I'm tired of making plays. I've produced the same number of plays in the last eight months that most professional theater companies produce in the same amount of time. Granted, their plays are a lot better than mine. But, on the other hand, they have at least a dozen people doing my job.
I have turned my Intro. to Drama class loose on a film project for these last few weeks. With "Blink" for inspiration, they're working in groups to create a 3-5 minute suspenseful movie that makes something everyday or commonplace scary. They're in the screenplay/storyboard phase right now, but every group is very much into it and working remarkably well together. I touch base with them through the period, call the full group together once in a while to give them examples and instructions for the next steps (such as this series of camera tricks that don't require a computer from the Intel Film Festival), but really, they don't need me for anything beyond the assignment, the cameras (thanks, Dad!), and the occasional dispute-settlement.
Humanities is clicking along. We wrapped up Neoclassicism today, just in time for their unit test tomorrow and a crash course in Twelfth Night and Impressionist art before their field trip Friday. I also want to squeeze in a class about appreciating ballet, thanks to a terrific list of video clips Rachel sent me over the weekend. Ideally, she'd come in and teach it for me; it's so much fun to hear her pick apart and narrate what she's seeing when she watches dance. I can point out the basics - the lines, the extension, the overall gracefulness. But 18 years (Rachel - 18 years? Is that right?) of dancing taught her to see so much more than I do when she watches Svetlana and co.
Part of this issue may be that school's just easy for me now. I'm completely caught up on grading, my classes take minimal prep. I've trained myself to be done when the last bell rings so I can run off to practice or rehearsal or whatever. Now I just tidy up my desk and wait for my car pool group. Sure, there's the daily wrestle to keep students who are less than 20 days away from summer engaged, but that's not too hard. These are good kids and we've got a good rapport.
I am finding it really hard to care about going to work or anything really. I feel tired, unfulfilled, and insignificant. This despite some solidified summer travel plans and some further travel details in the works. I keep reminding myself about those, telling myself to look forward to them. But I just don't feel my usual joie de vivre. I've lost it before, but never for so long. It's been weeks since I've felt like myself, and I'm not sure how to fix it.
My busy week continued on Wednesday with a meeting of one of my book clubs. Although many of the women in it are LDS, it was created as a group of women one of them, Lisa, wanted to know better. She put the club together a few years ago and invited me to join last fall. Normally they take turns hosting, but this time we met for dinner at a restaurant in Bel Mar to discuss Jane Eyre before going to see The Hunger Games. I bowed out of the movie since I had seen it earlier and I had an appointment with my bishop. The group is eclectic enough that it makes the discussions more entertaining. There are more than a few women in the group who, like Lisa, are well-traveled, art-enjoying foodies. I like them.
Thursday night I joined Rachel, Ben, and what seemed like half of Mountain Town at the DCPA to see Wicked. I've seen the show a few times before, but when I arranged group sales for others I decided I wanted to see them see it. Plus, I love going to plays with my sister. The show was as solid and silly as always. Fiero was a bit pitchy, but this Glinda was one of the better ones I've seen.
Friday was an inservice day for teachers, which turned into a heinous six hour long training session. We used to have to endure a lot more inservice sessions like this back in Salt Lake than I've experienced here at MTHS. In an effort to quell (or at least manage) my anger, I spent part of the session identifying just what it is that drives me up the wall with such things. I narrowed it down to three factors: 1) The waste of my time, 2) Being treated as less than an intelligent, capable, adult professional, and 3) The hypocrisy of the presenters. The other teachers in attendance were similarly outraged at the insult of the training, and it took John and me most of our car ride home to sufficiently vent that outrage so that we could enjoy our respective weekends.
While MTHS prom sparkled on Friday night, I celebrated my freedom from chaperoning by going to the symphony. Brian joined me for the evening, and this time the "Inside the Score" series took the idea of shuffling music on an iPod and presented a mix of different artists and genres that the conductor tied together through commentary between each one. I enjoyed hearing such a range of music all at once, even if the theories connecting them were vague ("certainty overlapped with uncertainty" was the thread teased out through the second act, for example). Will Chase, of Smash fame, provided the male vocals for the evening. He has this fantastic Broadway voice that worked beautifully for some songs, but seemed too grand and full for others such as the Philip Glass piece. While I liked the Eroica "Inside the Score" better than this less-academic evening, Brian and I did enjoy watching the show put on by middle school group that sat in front of us. The costumes! The characters! The drama! Ah, middle school.
Rachel and I took Jack to a local fleece festival Saturday afternoon. Neither of us bought anything there, but we did have a lot of fun showing Jack the angora rabbit, the wee sheep and goats, and the rather petite llamas. Jack seemed a bit startled when the sheep actually said, "Baa," but he quickly caught on to the idea of feeding them grass. He didn't even protest too much when the sheep ate all of the grass and proceeded to nibble his fingers - his eyes just got wider and wider.
Having struck out at the fleece festival, we headed downtown to Fancy Tiger to check out their roving. On their advice we also checked out a new store called Ironwood near their old location that was filled with all kinds of interesting things. Rachel had to keep a tight hand on Jack in this very touch-temping store.
I ran a few errands after we got back to Rachel's place for Jack's nap, then met them and Mavi, Brian, and Angela for dinner at Old Chicago. Ben took Jack home after dinner while the rest of us headed to the Highlands for a session at Sipping 'n' Painting.
I've done a similar class before, as you may recall, and Mavi and Brian have both taken classes at this location before. After a week like this I was very much looking forward to throwing myself into some art work.
Signs of a good time
It was fun, especially with a group of friends with a range of art experience. I really liked the striped blending this painting required, and I could have easily kept going for another four hours (Rachel congratulated me on stopping when I did - she knows both me and the call of perfectionism all too well). The painting is hanging in my second bathroom right now (I kid you not, group!), but I don't know if I'll keep it there. It's hardly great art and I might want to play with the canvas for another project this summer. We'll see.
Mavi's painting, Brian's painting, and Brian
Rachel pulled out her knitting while I kept tweaking the river.
My painting, Rachel's painting
Today, Sunday, is strangely quiet after such a week. Stake Conference this morning, visiting teaching this afternoon, and now just catching up on blogging and laundry. I actually don't have anything aside from work planned this upcoming week until the Humanities field trip Friday (tour of the Denver Art Museum, dinner, and a show at the Arvada Center). Despite running on less-than-optimal sleep, I've enjoyed being busy this week and am more than a little apprehensive about having four empty evenings stretched out in front of me.
Ann just came into my classroom. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she exclaimed as she walked down my room's hallway, her hands palm-to-palm together. "Mike was so excited after you worked with him. It was like night and day the difference in that kid. He went from being so nervous and frantic to happy and excited to do it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"You're quite welcome," I said standing up and crossing around my desk. "It was fun to work with him - he's got a lot of good instincts."
"He feels so much better now!" Ann continued, almost brushing off my compliments to her son. "He kept going on and on about how he just needed direction, he needed to be told what to do."
I smiled, "Yeah. People often think that acting - that theater - is all the same set of skills. But you know that from your music-playing! Just because you play the trumpet doesn't mean you can conduct."
"True!" she agreed. She continued as I walked her back to her classroom, "And he raved about how great you were. He said the direction you gave was so good and so helpful. He feels so much better about it now! And he said to me, 'Mom,' he said, 'do you know what the best part was?'" Ann looked at me expectantly, imitating her son (she's quite the actress, too). I raised an eyebrow in return. "He said, 'The whole time she's giving direction, she's smiling this... this smile. You're doing the piece and you look up and she's smiling at you and you think, 'I can do this. I can be better for her.''"
"Oh!" my breath quietly caught, my hand instinctively went to my heart. Ann buzzed back to class, and I turned back to my room still astounded by that compliment. Those words would mean a lot to me anytime; but this week, now, in the midst of a really hard fight for my own self-esteem - those words are a lifeline.
I know that pro bono work is a part of many professions whether it's formally done, like the hours Jason dedicates at the law firm, or informally, like my father diagnosing his neighbor's eye problems in the middle of the night. As a teacher, I am not typically called on to instruct for free (if you do not count the after-school activities or my callings at church, that is). Well, I went pro bono tonight.
Ann, a teacher at my school, approached me yesterday. Her son, Mike, an in-between-jobs young man in his early twenties, performed in an Edgar Allen Poe reader's theater event last fall. Apparently one of the audience members is affiliated with production of the new movie, The Raven. She contacted Mike last week and asked him to re-perform "The Tell-Tale Heart" at a special advanced screening of The Raven tomorrow night here in Denver with several movie-mucky-mucks and actors (including John Cusack) and important-types in attendance.
Naturally, Mike has been a nervous wreck all week. He called his mother in a panic, saying that he has run it over and over again by himself but he wished he could just perform it for someone else, a director who can give him actual direction (apparently the director of the reader's theater show had never directed before and approached it very much as an actor talks to other actors). Ann, of course, volunteered me, gave Mike my number, then came over to my classroom to inform me of these events.
So after I got home from school today I headed to a nearby park to meet Mike. He performed his piece for me, and then we picked it apart, word by word in some places. I asked a lot of guiding questions, had him try lines this way then that way and let him talk through the choices, we spent several minutes working on just three words ("oh so gently"). I pointed out to him the hidden heartbeat in Poe's language, pointed out which words he didn't understand, and pointed out the connections between this story and MacBeth (I mean, for Pete's sake, there's knocking at the door and then the narrator says, "What need I fear who knows it?" It's Shakespeare! It's always Shakespeare!) Basically, I did two hours of speech coaching, just like I do for my not-so-wee ones.
I didn't really mind it. I adore Ann, I enjoyed working with someone literate with talent, and I do like directing in the minutia. Two hours picking apart a ten-minute text, and we could have kept going. Mike, I think, was completely oblivious to the time, but I am struggling to take care of myself this week. So I started nudging us along once we got past the big moments and sent him off with a list of things to work on tonight. I'll be curious to hear how it all goes for him, and I'm curious to see if I get asked for more pro bono work in the future.
Apparently I have decided to accomplish a month's worth of socializing in one week. I have events every day, and few are work-related.
The first event was Monday night trivia.
Although, as you know, I am a fan of this when I have Tuesdays off, I relaxed my rule when Ben invited me to join them for a Joss Whedon Trivia night. I had protested originally, since although I enjoy a lot of Whedon's work, I am by no means a knowledgeable expert. But my lack of knowledge really didn't matter. I paid my entrance fee and joined my team not to play trivia, but to watch Brian play trivia.
The event was popular - 35 teams in all, which meant things progressed slower than usual. I was overly tired to begin with, so when we barely wrapped up round six at 9:45, I made my good-byes and headed home leaving my team (i.e. Brian) to fight their way to 3rd place victory without me.
I will say that I did contribute one answer that Brian did not know: What animal is on Anya's shirt when she sings "I've Got a Theory"?
I will also say, for the record, Brian and Shawn selected "The Team Name is my Penis" as our team name (a Doctor Horrible reference). I still like my suggestion of "Naked and Articulate" (a Firefly reference) better. Either way, Nathan Fillion fans and Joss Whedon fans come hand in hand.
I have been fasting all weekend. To be fair, it didn't start out as a fast. At first I didn't eat because I was still a bit wary from a moderate case of food poisoning Friday afternoon. Then I didn't eat because I was busy. Then I didn't eat because I'm stubborn that way towards myself sometimes. Then I went to the temple, where I figured it was time to turn the not-eating into a proper spiritual fast.
I haven't done a longer fast in years and years, and I certainly haven't done one this long. I liked it. I enjoyed church more with that spiritual preparation than I have in months and months, and once I stopped eating it was easy to continue. It helped that I kept busy all weekend, of course. I'm lousy at fasting when I'm home alone. I figured I would keep it up until after church on Sunday, then break the fast all proper-like.
But even after I formally broke the fast with the sacrament at church yesterday morning, I didn't want to eat. So I skipped lunch, wrote some emails, and headed out to escort some students to a play up near Mountain Town.
I was planning on eating when I got home. Thanks to my errand-running Saturday, I had good food in my fridge for once. I changed out of my dress clothes, fed the cat, and prepared a plate. Then, just as I had settled in at the kitchen table with my plate and a book, my phone rang and I was sucked in to a long conversation.
I did eat a little even as we talked. But then I was worried it was too annoying for the other person, too rude to eat while talking on the phone, so I pushed my plate aside.
When we finished talking, I took up my plate again. I tried to eat more, but I just didn't want to. So I wrapped it in Saran wrap, tucked it back in the fridge, and went to bed, telling myself that I'll eat in the morning.
I want to eat. I know that I need to eat. I didn't exercise this weekend because I didn't trust myself not to lose my balance and fall off the elliptical. I'm rational enough to know that a few bites of pad thai and a vitamin pill over 60 hours is not good.
But I also got on the scale this morning and discovered I had dropped nine pounds over the weekend.
I know it's not real. I know it's mostly water weight, that I haven't been drinking nearly enough. I know that weight lost by not eating isn't at all healthy, nor is it typically permanent. I know that the body kicks into starvation mode, which is not at all the way to lose weight. I know, I know, I know.
But there is that voice in the back of my mind that says, "If you lost that much after just two days..."
And so I'm sitting at my desk at school, looking at the unopened yogurt in front of me. And I just don't know.
Dissatisfied with my productivity levels last weekend, I had a firm list of Things To Do for today. Getting a good night's sleep was on the list, since much of my inactivity last weekend was the result of being so thoroughly wiped out by the previous week.
Sadly, getting a good night's sleep was not to be. Circumstances (somewhat) out of my control kept me awake until 4:00 AM, and my apparently finely-tuned internal work clock woke me promptly at 7. I tried fiercely to sleep longer, but there was to be none of that. At eight I threw in the towel, threw off the cat, and got up.
First on my list was a trip up to Rachel and Ben's to drop off their copy of the "Beauty and the Beast" DVD my student director made and to pick up a funky theatrical-ish chair Rachel found next to their dumpster.
Next, I went out to the Denver temple to do an endowment session. The temple was hopping (Saturdays in April = weddings), but I got in a session and some solid meditation time. I didn't fully go into the meditation techniques Phra Bart taught me. That kind of meditation asks you to empty your mind, to dismiss all thoughts. I am not very good at doing that. Okay, I am awful at doing that. Besides, my desire to meditate today was driven by the crowd of thoughts in my head. I didn't want to empty them out; I wanted to sit quietly, close my eyes, and sort them.
I did that, noting along the way that 1) I may not be able to dismiss all thoughts, but I am still pretty darn good at dropping into the relaxed physical state Phra Bart taught me, 2) I stayed remarkably awake in the process, and 3) at one point I lost track of where my body ended and the air around me began. I knew logically where my body was, of course, but I managed to drop in deep enough to lose that ever-present awareness of my corporeal self. I noted it with interest, pleased that I could even be consciously acknowledging it and still maintain it. Yay me!
Phra Sanjoy chastises me repeatedly that meditation can be done anywhere at anytime, so long as you practice it daily. I think he is right, but I feel a certain affection for meditating in the celestial room. It's a light, quiet space, yes, but it's also a fun conflation of Thai Buddhism and Mormonism.
After the temple I headed back to up Rachel and Ben's to pick up Jack. All three of them are sick, but Ben seemed especially miserable when I saw him earlier in the day. Besides, I wanted some company while I ran errands.
We had a good time at Tattered Cover. I looked through travel guides to Spain and Morocco and Jack checked out the children's section. He particularly liked the big dragon kite hanging from the ceiling ("Grr!" he said every time he passed it) and the rubber ball he carried everywhere.
We got a lot done, Jack and I, and he got a giant chocolate chip cookie as a reward after helping me shop for groceries at Whole Foods. He's particularly adept at throwing (well, smashing might be a better verb) the items I hand him into the cart behind him.
Rachel was home from work when I returned their stolen child, and we got to catch up a little before I headed to my own home. We mostly talked about the Patrick Rothfuss books we've all read and thoroughly enjoyed. They're wonderful pieces of storytelling - enough so that I'm already looking forward to rereading them next year when the third book in the trilogy comes out.
I feel like my writing is deteriorating, and I still need to do some planning for the Gospel Doctrine class I'm teaching tomorrow, so I'm going to forgo any attempts at writing a conclusion that brings this post neatly around and instead hie myself towards bed.
My Adv. Drama class and I skipped 4th period yesterday to head downtown for a theatrical field trip.
It was the usual package I put together with the usual adaptations for schedule, circumstances, and the group I was bringing. We began with an acting workshop. The DCTC always asks me what topic I'd like them to cover. In the past they've put together workshops for my students about using Shakespeare's text to develop character, body language and external characterization, group exercises to build community, and so on. Since I did not know what show my students would be rehearsing now when I scheduled the workshop back in January, I requested an improv workshop.
Although it wasn't very "instructional" - the actress led them through a series of games with only a little informal discussion of the concept of "Yes, and" - the students had fun and I was pleased with the equal amount of participation from the stronger actors, the goof-offs, and the shy and nervous students in my group, each group of which you can see here:
The Veterans
The Clowns
The Shy
I especially love the girl's pose in the last photo. That wasn't a gesture for the scene; that was how she unconsciously spent the entire round, with her arms wrapped fully around her critical organs. It may give you some idea of how proud I am of her volunteering to play a round of a new improv game in front of a strange professional actress, of how much she's grown since she began my classes last year.
And, in fact, they've all grown, even though I've had no consistency in the groups - there are students in this one who have taken four, five, six drama classes and others who only took the Introduction to Drama prerequisite before this class. Some had done similar field trips with me in the past, some had never been to DCTC before.
Regardless of the jumble of experience, though, I discovered a heartening growing awareness in their understanding of theater. When I first started taking students to see plays outside of school (which, while it seems like ages and ages ago, was startlingly just last year), they loved everything. The plays that I would rate at a generous C got rave reviews from my students. The costumes! The sets! The acting! The hot actors! It was so shiny and new and, in their eyes, perfect.
They loved the play last night too. It was a very silly rendition of Charley's Aunt, a play I actually performed my sophomore year of high school. As one does with any play in which one acts, I have a certain nostalgic fondness for this show. I figured my students would like it, although I was concerned. Our field trip in February was to see The Importance of Being Earnest, and the two plays are very, very similar. The students enjoyed Earnest, but most of the wit and humor, most of what I love about that show, went right over their heads.
I wondered how much preface I needed to give them, since many of the jokes in Charley's Aunt depend on you knowing the decorum of the day - removing your hat in the presence of a lady; so long as a lady is standing, the men stand too; the nuanced messages a woman sends with her fan; and so on.
While many of those jokes did pass my students by, they had a grand time. This production was filled with ridiculous nonsense, slapstick, and many jokes that existed solely for the sake of being funny despite making no sense for the characters, the period, or even the plot. One of the biggest laughs of the show was when Babs (the fellow who masquerades as the eponymous dowager) raced across the stage to escape his suitors. They chased him off stage right, then Babs reappeared running back to stage left, but this time he carried a broom and sang out "Here am I, defying gravity!" to the audience as he passed.
Normally, I do not like that kind of comedy. But the actors, and the one playing Babs in particular, executed the bits so well with such deliciously-perfect timing and my students were laughing so hard and having so much fun, I forgave all and just enjoyed the show as well.
As I went into class this morning and began the postmortem discussion, I expected to hear similar high praises for all that they saw. And they did, of course, begin by repeating their favorite lines and describing the best gags. But then, cautiously and to my delight, they began to criticize it. They were hesitant to question what they saw and unsure of how to explain what didn't work for them. Characterizations felt off, moments fell flat, some sections were hard to understand because the actors were speaking so quickly without clear articulation. My students hesitated in pointing out these flaws, assuming that their confusion was their own fault, their own ignorance. So we talked about making choices as actors and directors, about the audience's right to have an opinion about whether or not that choice worked, about the social contract of the suspension of disbelief. I gave them the vocabulary to talk about these things, and their comments took off. They had a long discussion about the accents that slipped, the shawl that never stayed in place and that no one ever fixed, the set design. We talked about theater in general and that production in particular for the entire class period, far longer than I had intended, but so worth the time it took.
I often deliberate over the time such activities take, the time I give. I enjoy these field trips, but they take an awful lot of time and stress to put together, to execute, and to clean up. At my lowest moments; the times when my back aches from the uncomfortable school bus seat, when I'm nauseous and headachey from the twisting mountain roads, when I'm exhausted because it's two hours past my bedtime, when I enter my 15th hour of work that day and I suddenly remember that I am not being paid one cent for doing those extra seven hours of work; those moments are when I want to stop taking field trips, stop arranging for group sale tickets, stop spending my time and my money to expose these mountain kids to the culture that is not so very far away.
But then they go and demonstrate real, actual learning. Then I see how much their conversation and thinking about theater has changed. Then I see that some, a few, of them are nursing those secret, burning desires to be actors, to stay on stage. Whether they succeed in doing that isn't what I care about. I am not very interested in creating professional actors. What I want are conscious, critical, thinking adults who go see plays because they love the arts and know their value. I see students who leave class talking about what play they want to see next, arranging rides to go back downtown to try for student rush tickets, arguing still over whether Kitty's accent worked in the show last night.
And so I go back to my classroom and I start making phone calls to arrange for the next show.
Just for my own reference, here is the list of shows my students have had the opportunity to see this last week and the weeks ahead through arrangements I made:
Week 1: Sweeney Todd (college production downtown) Law and Order: Fairy Tale Unit (MTHS class production)
Week 2: Charley's Aunt (graduate acting program production downtown) Curtains (community theater production near Mountain Town)
Week 3: Wicked (Broadway touring production)
Week 4: Twelfth Night (professional production)
Week 5: The SeussOdyssey (MTHS class production)
Week 6:
No shows
Week 7: Potted Potter, Newsies, The Phantom of the Opera (New York - Broadway, Off-B'way)
"Oh, fine," I replied, shifting into a cross-legged position in my armchair as they settled onto my couch.
"Still busy?" they asked, brows furrowed in slight concern.
"Yes," I said, "but that's okay."
They asked about my summer plans and I outlined what I knew - the student trip to New York, the probable Spain/Morocco trip with Jason; as well as what was up in the air - another round of Pueblo Ingles; summer classes and volunteering, probably in DC.
"That sounds busy," they said. "Do you like it that way?"
I shrugged. Not because I didn't know, but because it's a question I've been wrestling with and wondering about, and I wasn't sure how to answer without going into far more detail than I wanted to with my home teachers. I settled on vague honesty - "It's my default mode."
The field trip last week and the Intro. to Drama Class play that immediately followed it wore me out through and through. I have another late-night field trip this week at the DCTC. Next week is booked with all kinds of fun after-school things - a non-field trip with a group of students to a matinee of Curtains in a community theater near Mountain Town; another New York meeting; dinner with my somewhat-church-based book club; Wicked with Rachel, Ben, and a bunch of my students; the symphony; a round of Sip 'n' Paint with friends. The week after that is the Adv. Drama play for this quarter.
Despite all of that, it still feels like I have more time now that the musical and speech is done for the year. I'm reveling in getting grading done easily and promptly. It's nice to be able to carpool again, even though it means leaving an extra half-hour early tomorrow so John can make a leadership meeting. I can exercise and cook my own dinner instead of falling asleep over take-out. I have more time to choose what I'm doing, instead of trying to squeeze in what I have to do.
I'm off to Sweeney Todd tonight. Although I am loathe to have such a late night mid-week, a local college offers their last dress rehearsal as a "High School Night". Instead of charging admission, they're asking for donations of canned goods to be given to a local shelter. That deal is too nice and the show is too popular among my theater students to pass up. I agreed to chaperone them on the condition that they arrange for their own rides. They're very excited, and I'm curious to see what they think of the play as compared to the movie version.
On a mostly unrelated note, the New York Times made note of the encore we got to witness:
The tenor sang a number and the audience loved it, so he sang it again.
Such encores at the Metropolitan Opera have become such a rarity in
recent decades that aficionados — and press offices — take special note.
The repeat performance took place on Saturday, when Juan Diego Flórez
was appearing in Donizetti’s “Elisir d’Amore.” At the end of the aria
“Una furtiva lagrima” the audience responded with so much enthusiasm
that Mr. Flórez repeated it. The encore was also heard by millions of
listeners because the performance, the last show of the run, was
broadcast on radio. Within hours the Met sent out a news release
pointing out the encore and mentioning that Mr. Flórez was the last Met
performer to offer one (in 2008) and that Luciano Pavarotti
was the previous singer to do so (in 1994). The Met had banned encores
in recent decades amid a more serious performance atmosphere. But the
current general manager, Peter Gelb, has loosened the reins in what he has called an effort to make opera more exciting and entertaining. Encores were common in the 19th century and the early 20th.
I seem to have a habit of assigning myself major craft projects over school holidays, like making doll versions of our family. Sure, I spent three days locked in my bedroom sewing. But look what I accomplished!
My mom's birthday fell at the end of my Spring Break this year, perfect timing for me to make something. I wound up making her a version of this sand pendulum. I adapted the original project to scale it down and to use a glass Middle-Eastern-looking bowl instead of the squirrel baffle the original called for. That led me to teach myself some weaving tricks with leather and beads and I tried to figure out how to suspend a glass bowl in the air without drilling holes. It was a fun creative project, and I think my mom liked it.
I did not, however, take any pictures of it. Whoops! I did take a few pictures of the card I made her, though, so I'll share that with you.
My parents went to Seattle a few months ago and brought me back this Japanese book of embroidery designs:
Even though I can't read a word of it, the designs are adorable and simple enough to figure out. I used one of them to make a peek-a-boo-style card for my mom:
Cute, right? I'm going to have to try some more of these designs.
I called my parents while I was walking up 5th Avenue last week. As I had hoped, I caught them at lunch time and I chatted with them for a bit as I made my way from the Frick to the Met. I talked about my trip so far, but mostly I talked about how excited I am to take my students to New York.
I am so excited to show them the city, to take them to Broadway, to teach them how to ride the metro, and, in at least two of their cases, to escort them on their first plane ride. Since my first year teaching I've talked about taking students to New York. Each time I visited the city I imagined how different kids would react to it, what each of them will like and be astonished by. The groups of kids I imagined changed each year, but this time, this time! the group of kids I imagined walking into the Met will actually get to do so in less than two months.
Now that the musical's done and the tour company is finally starting to tell me some of the details of the trip, I arranged for an after-school meeting today with these lucky ten kids. We'll do a Big Meeting closer to the trip. That will be the one for their parents to come to as well, the one where I can go over all the minute details and reassure everyone that they will be fine, they will be safe. I know the kids are a little bit nervous and at least some of the parents are an awful lot nervous about New York City. One of the parents who is also the local fire chief said he might get some of his firemen-buddies in New York to follow our group around while we're there. I'm not entirely sure he was joking about it either. We'll talk about the basics of safety, how to avoid being pick-pocketed, going everywhere in groups, and so on. I'm not worried. Not only are we sticking to the big touristy areas, but the tour company provides around-the-clock supervision and security, even in the hotel. Which is in Jersey.
This meeting is a little one. A few updates, a few questions for them to settle, a few tasks for them to do. Mostly it's to pump them up even more for the trip and make sure everything's going according to plan. I've been looking forward to this meeting all week, and I spent part of the morning making up the agenda and researching the details for our possible third show.
The tour company told me we'll be seeing Phantom on Sunday (boo!) and Newsies on Saturday (yay!), which means Friday night is available for us to do a show on our own. The students want to see Sleep No More. I had told them about the show even before I saw it, and they're dying to experience it. That's understandable, but I'm not so sure their parents want them to see it, what with the naked people and the blood and all.
I want this other show, whatever it is, to provide a contrast to the two classic Broadway musicals we're doing on the tour. So I made some phone calls and read reviews and found the Off-Broadway London-transfer Potted Potter, a two-man 70-minute blackbox theater reenactment of all seven Harry Potter books, including a Quidditch match, (the trailer for it is here) and Peter and the Starcatcher, a new Broadway (non-musical) play which sounds like something out of the Lookingglass Theater and is therefore perfectly my taste (no decent trailer yet - the show's just barely in previews and the press materials are scarce).
I was going to tell them about those shows today after school and let them vote. But then! Fate intervened in the form of a mysterious stranger and small rodents. Midway through the last class our principal got on the loudspeaker to announce that we were going into "Shelter-in-Place." "You are safe," he assured us, "but this is not a drill. Teachers, please secure the perimeter."
My Humanities class, perplexed, looked at me over the laptops on which they had been working. I reassured them that everything was fine, told them to continue working, and set out "securing the perimeter."
Not being a full lock-down, I simply double-checked to make sure my door was locked, shut it, slid the green card underneath to signal that all was well, turned off the lights in the hallway that leads from my classroom door to my actual room, shut and locked the three other doors in that hallway (an office and two bathrooms), dropped the blinds on my windows, then had the students move their desks over about four feet to ensure that they couldn't be seen by any passers-by. The students kept working on their assignments, and I returned to grading papers.
About twenty minutes later the principal made another all-call to announce that we would remain on Shelter-in-Place for the remainder of the day. No students were allowed in the hallways, and the doors were to remain locked. Moreover, all after-school activities and sports events were cancelled and the students were to go immediately to the buses or their cars when they were dismissed. The administration and several police officers would be in the halls and parking lot to make sure the students left immediately and safely.
Well. After that announcement it took a bit more work to get the students to refocus their attention on their assignments. They speculated on what was going on, but I had no more information than they did. When the bell rang, the building emptied even quicker than usual for a beautiful, warm Friday afternoon. I stood outside my door, and indeed my group of New York travelers came up in a huddle.
"No meeting?" they asked, sounding as disappointed as I was.
"Apparently not," I shrugged. We briefly discussed and rescheduled for next Tuesday, Monday being Senior Ditch Day. They headed off to the bus, and I went in search of an explanation.
I found one from Hugh, a history teacher who was in the midst of making phone calls to reschedule the rugby game he was supposed to have coached after school. Apparently a state trooper had been driving down the highway that runs alongside our school when he passed an individual, an adult of uncertain gender, who was walking alongside the road carrying a "suspicious stick, possibly a rifle" and acting "strangely." The trooper couldn't stop, so he called it in to the sheriff's office. The officer who was sent out to investigate drove up and down the road, but couldn't see the individual anywhere. So the police responded by putting our school on security-alert while they searched the road and forest for this person.
The principal, who had joined our group by this point, said that it probably was a rifle. "It's [Mountain Town]," he said. "They were probably out shooting prairie dogs. Hell, it could have been my neighbor. He's got plenty of guns."
This led him and the other older teachers in our group to recall the time a few years ago when a former student "got a little angry." He stole a police car, hitting an officer in the process, and led them on a high-speed chase down that same freeway. "By the time he got to the main drag," Mike said, "everyone knew about it, and half of [Mountain Town] grabbed their guns and ran out their front doors to fire at him as he drove by."
So I didn't get to talk to my students about New York today. It does give me something to look forward to next week. In the meantime, I am going to keep wondering how people from such a town as this could possibly worry about their child's safety in such a town as New York City.
It's warming up again after our big snowstorm Tuesday, and my Adv. Drama class is memorizing lines for their next play out on the track/football field.
The boys at the top of each section are in time-out for going into the Port-a-Potties without permission. If I take Rachel's rule of thumb for time-outs, they'll be there for 16/17 minutes.
I did not get either of the NEH seminars I applied to. They're a tricky thing - it's not about being the best candidate. The qualities they're looking for are not at all specified, plus they're looking to create a particular group dynamic, so each accepted candidate would affect the others.
Anyway, it's nice to finally have that resolved so I can move on. While both seminars would be great opportunities, the time table is frustrating. I missed the deadlines for many other programs while waiting to hear from this one, so I am in a bit of a quandary over what to do with myself this summer. Because, as you know, I need Things To Do.
A novel thought did occur to me: What if I stayed in Colorado?
It wouldn't be for the whole summer of course. Let's not be crazy now. I still plan on traveling somewhere with Jason. I might also do another Pueblo Ingles program. If that's the case, Jason and I might switch our destinations from Berlin/Poland/Russia to Spain/Morocco. We'll see.
Even if I do all of that, the combined travel time is just over three weeks. That leaves an awful lot of summer left to make productive.
I think I was spoiled last summer. I loved living in DC with Jason, and I find myself missing both the city and the company. I need a purpose this summer. Structure. So I've been looking through online catalogs the past few days. Red Rocks offers a few classes that fit between school letting out and my travel plans. I'm drawn to the idea of studying "Tap" or "Painting with Watercolors" or "Music History - Medieval to Classical." I balk at the tuition, though. I haven't been very frugal with my traveling this past year (our new-found affection for the Michelin Guide might be a contributing factor here), and my summer-time playing money is depleted.
We did not have a snow day today. It snowed all day, two semi-trucks jack-knifed off the road on the way up the mountain, a public bus skidded across the lanes to straddle the meridian between the two flows of traffic, every single school bus was late, kids and teachers were slipping and sliding up the sidewalks to the building, and our schedule was not altered to accommodate that one bit.
I like myself better when I'm around other people. This is not to say that I don't like myself when I'm alone. I just don't like myself when I'm alone and I don't have a purpose, a project, Things To Do. I'm pretty good at coming up with Things To Do, but there are an awful lot of times I just feel... useless. It's a curious thing. It's not that I'm unhappy, I just feel like there's no point to my living.
I look at my life and wonder what would be different if I weren't here. I feel like I should have other people to live for - a family of my own. Don't get me wrong - I'm crazy about my family - my parents, my siblings, and so on. They are awesome individually and collectively. But I feel like I have to rely on them too much to fill the gaps where someone else should be by now. I should have a sub-family of my own by now, people to look out for and take care of and talk to and who will do the same for me. My family loves me, but I don't think they need me.
So what do I live for? Work? Despite choosing a rather altruistic profession, I don't get a great deal of personal satisfaction from teaching the children, touching the future, blah, blah, blah. There are plenty of other teachers out there who would do fine work and would probably very much appreciate the job, given the state of the education market these days. I don't think lives are significantly different because I personally am their teacher right now.
Plus, I'm rather annoyed with my job. I really am fine with hard work, but it's getting harder to keep giving so much when there's no compensation for it. I don't mind the low salary, but I am starting to mind working for so long and so hard for free, let alone the number of things I personally buy for my classes. I am also tired of teaching under perpetual uncertainty - Will they cut our benefits next year? Our salaries? Will my position be the next to go? Will the district shut down? Will there be a job for theater teachers in schools anywhere in the next few years? It's hard to keep going to work, to stay optimistic despite the Sword of Damocles. The frequent reports of yetanotherschoolshooting don't exactly make this career choice more appealing either. It seems that work should either 1) give you personal satisfaction or 2) give you the financial means to do what does give you personal satisfaction. If it can do both at the same time, terrific! But what if it's doing neither?
So if I don't have a sub-family, and I'm not living for my career, what else is there? I plan trips, I go see shows, I exercise and read and learn new crafts, but it is all beginning to feel wasteful. Selfish. I'm doing things for me, and that's just doesn't seem worthwhile. And so I start to wonder - what's the point to my living?
Like I said, I promise I'm not suicidal. I'm not depressed either. It's more of a philosophical question. Spiritual, perhaps.
Scene: A platform of the Times Square Metro Station, morning. I am standing near a pillar, reading a book on my Kindle as I wait for my train. A man comes down the stairs and looks my way.
Man: How're you doing?
Me: ...
I ignore him, assuming he's talking to another one of the passengers. A few moments later, he comes up to me.
Man: Excuse me, do you know if this train goes to 34th Street? I look up from my book, then look at the giant subway map we are standing next to.
Me: Yes.
Man: Great. Thanks.
Me: No problem. I start to turn back to my book.
Man: Are you going to work?
Me: No, I have the day off.
Man: Nice. I'm just coming from work.
Me: Ah, a late shift?
Man: Yeah. So, what are you going to do with your day off?
Me: Oh, you know, a little shopping, maybe an art museum. You?
Man: That sounds good. I'm just goin' home, you know? Gonna relax.
Me: Sure. That can be nice, too.
A pause. I go back to my book.
Man:Leans against the pillar and looks over my shoulder. Are you reading a love story? He suggestively raises an eyebrow.
Me: Greek mythology.
Man: You read Greek, too? (His amazement is not for finding a fellow Classicist, but rather my apparently numerous observable remarkable qualities.)
Me: No, it's a translation.
Man: Still.... A pause. You got a husband?
Me: No.
We hear the sound of the train approaching.
Man: Then what I really want to know is, when am I going to get to see you again?
Me: Thanks, but... Rather than explaining the whole out-of-town-thing, I lie. I've got a boyfriend.
Man: Oh. Well, nice to meet you.
Me: You too.
We get on the train, but on different cars. I sit down. A young boy, perhaps 7 or 8, slides in next to me. His parents, sitting on the other side of the car, beckon to him and call in some Slavic language for him to come sit with them.
Slavic boy: Looks me over, shakes his head vehemently at his parents, then smiles slowly and winks at me.
End of Scene.
The Only Conclusion That Can Be Drawn: I am hot in New York.
(This is just a picture. You'll need to go to his blog to listen.)
Clever boy!
Jump to 5:00 to hear the end of the song and the audience that couldn't wait for the orchestra to finish to applaud, then at 10:50 you can hear the fun he had with the ending this time around as well as the surges of laughter and applause as he tried to move on with the scene.
From Wikipedia: Sleep No More is an immersive theatre installation created by British theatre company Punchdrunk. It tells the story of Macbeth through a film noir lens. The production “leads its audience on a merry, macabre chase up and down stairs, and through minimally illuminated, furniture-cluttered rooms and corridors.” The masked audience moves freely at their own pace, choosing where to go and what to see, and everyone’s journey is unique.
As I mentioned, I was both excited and nervous about this show. Between my distaste for haunted houses, the anxiety I get in situations when I'm not sure what I am supposed to do, and the fact that Brian loves the show so very much (he being an enormous fan of all things horror), I was concerned that it would just be overwhelmingly scary, especially since I would be attending alone.
On the other hand, from all I've read about it, it is one of the most innovative shows in modern theater and I was eager to see for myself how you go about constructing an immersive piece of theater. Plus, Shakespeare!
Per Brian's advice, I arrived early and was one of the first in the line outside. Once they opened the doors, I was immediately ushered up to the coat check window. No bags or purses are allowed inside, and they recommend checking coats as well because it gets quite warm in there. Knowing that in advance, I had only a jacket with my essential purse items in the pockets, so I stepped past and into the hallway beyond.
By this point the interior was almost completely dark. There were sparse dim red lights, but I could barely make out my hand in front of my face. I walked up the stairs and through a twisting dark hallway, feeling my way through by trailing my fingers along the wall to my right.
Finally, the lighting brightened a little and I found myself in the "hotel" lobby. I "checked in" and received my "room key" - an ace of diamonds playing card. A man in a 1930's bell-hop-style uniform punched my room key and ushered me into the smokey, red and gold bar. I refused the offer of champagne from a perky waitress also in period dress in favor of a glass of water and sat at a small table to people-watch.
Soon a vampy woman in a slinky sequined black dress called for our attention in her most seductive voice. "Darlings," she said. "If you have an ace, please come find me over here. We are about to begin. I will be waiting for you."
I joined about a dozen other people in her corner. She handed each of us one of the white audience masks (which I'll admit was another reason I was excited for the show, geek that I am) and gave us the rules - always wear the mask, do not talk, and the curious will be rewarded. We were then ushered into an elevator, then released into a long brown hallway.
And at this point, I'm going to speak much more vaguely. Here's what I will say:
1) I am amazed at the different settings they packed into the warehouses. From a hospital wing, to a photography studio, to a nursery, to a deserted series of shops on the platform of a train station, to a forest-maze of white birch trees, to a cemetery with a dirt floor, to a two-story ballroom filled with fir trees... and more besides. It's a marvel of design.
2) As is so often the case in theater, most of the atmosphere came down to good music, lighting, and fabric.
3) While there was a persistent ominous feeling, I wasn't really scared. I dislike the jump-out-and-yell-at-you kind of horror, and this was the opposite. Even though the actors could and did touch you, it was usually prefaced with intense and thorough eye contact, then such slow movement that you were being invited to let them interact with you. The actors were very much in character, but the movements were so slow and so controlled that even the most frantic moments, such as the witches' prophecies, felt safe.
4) Speaking of the witches' prophecies scene... I so, so, so want to bring my students there, to show them this kind of theater. They would love it. But there is just no permission slip in the world that would cover two women stripping off their dresses to breastfeed a baby doll after pouring a goblet of syrupy blood down the chest of a man wearing nothing but a Minotaur mask (and I do mean nothing - talk about educational!). I understand it from an artistic perspective, but I'm annoyed that it's just too much for these 16, 17, 18-year-olds.
5) My director's brain was in high gear most of the night, too. I could make a show like this. I know how. I would just need the space and the money. But, oh, how fun it would be to create!
6) Once effect I loved was how, in addition to the forced anonymity, the audience masks created a chorus of ghosts silently witnessing everything in the story. It's a wonderful allusion to a Greek chorus, but a chorus bound to silence. The device also works so well because the accumulation of people over the time of the play echos the accumulation of murders. As the Macbeths unravel, there are more and more spirits haunting them at every step, watching their actions with unwavering stares and swooping in to pick up and examine whatever they touch or drop or leave behind. Everyone, everyone, becomes a part of the show you're watching.
7) This was the best fight dance choreography I've ever seen.
8) I loved it, and I would love to see it again. It's a very, very cool piece of theater, and if you have the chance, go.
I don't want to spend too much time reviewing the movies we saw, mostly because they're not as interesting as the plays. The movie was fine, I love Stanly Tucci in everything he does, and I think Jason missed a wonderful possibility in his shaving experiments last summer.
Ooh! In searching for a link for that paragraph, I discovered this Slate article! Here, give me a few seconds with Pixlr...
And... done! Now you can see for yourself what sartorial goodness Jason missed:
I think we've got a real possibility here, am I right ladies?
The original motivation for the trip, this was just an ethereal delight. Happily (for me at least), one of the other members of the group Jason bought his ticket through did not come. Jason called me moments before curtain to say I could take the empty seat. I dashed down from my place in the rafters with the other groundlings (oxymoron!) and talked my way in past the ticket-desiring ushers to join the wealthy class in the seats left of orchestra center. Nice!
While I did not like the color scheme of the set design at all (it feels dated and clashed horribly with the profusion of Italian flags at the end), the performances were wonderful. The story is classic Commedia, down to a braggart Capitano who strutted about in a Tarantarrah manner and a Columbina-Innamorata. I didn't think I would know any of the songs, but was delighted to find that I recognized this lovely piece for the tenor from Act II. Here's Juan Diego Florez singing it at the Teatro Cuyas in Spain:
Actually, that led to one of my favorite moments of the trip. Mr. Florez, who is just all kinds of charming on stage between his singing and his Running Man dance moves, sang it beautifully in a serene night forest scene. When he finished, the audience responded in applause with as much passion as he gave us in song. He held his pose, facing off stage left, suitcase and army jacket in hand with his head bowed dejectedly. But the applause kept going and going. A man from the balcony called out, "Encore!" Mr. Florez held just for a moment longer, then turned towards the audience and nodded at the conductor.
The audience literally gasped, and Jason whispered, "An encore!" with a look of such pure delight and excitement that I am pretty sure I know what 5-year-old Jason looked like on Christmas morning. Mr. Florez, the lights, and the orchestra reset themselves smoothly for the top of the song, and the quiet notes began again. The audience collectively held its breath through his flourishes at the end, and burst out with even wilder applause than before.
Mr. Florez held his end pose again, then turned back towards the audience. The applause, which had finally begun to wane, surged back to full force again. Mr. Florez turned back to his hold looking off stage left. The applause began to fade, he turned back towards us, and it surged yet again. After the third time I wondered whether he was just playing with us, but then he stepped forward, obviously dropping character. "This is not why I was waiting there," he said with his Peruvian accent. He hit his mark one more time, turned towards the audience, and said, "Eccola!" - the next line of the opera. It dawned on the audience that his blocking called for him to wait for the applause, then turn towards the audience. He had not been playing for the attention, he had been trying to continue the scene as he was blocked to do.
The audience enjoyed the unintentional joke, then the pleasure of the whole scene was amplified by the beauty of the next song. Their duet was just lovely, and Diana Damarau sang Adina's song of love with such passion that when Nemorino turned away from her at the end declaring that she obviously doesn't love him, it took me a moment to recall that none of the lines of her song had actually declared her love for him - she had cried out love so convincingly from every part of her except her words, I couldn't believe the other character had missed it. Bah! Men! :)
It was a fun, light opera; the performances were as outstanding as we had hoped; and I am so pleased we got to see an encore and experience that moment between an audience and a master.
From barrowstreettheater.com: Tribes follows Billy, a deaf man raised inside the fiercely idiosyncratic and unrepentantly politically incorrect cocoon of his home of his parents' house. He has adapted brilliantly to his hearing family’s unconventional ways, but they’ve never bothered to return the favor. It’s not until he meets Sylvia, a young woman on the brink of deafness, that he finally understands what it means to be understood.
The Barrow Street Theater is a small, blackbox stage down in the Village. Both the setting and the play itself provided a wonderful contrast to the other two productions of the weekend. Despite how despicable most of the characters were, the play was gripping and I was riveted by the relationships and explorations of communities. The actress who played Sylvia was outstanding. There was one moment where she was translating Billy's signing for his family, interrupting him mid-speech to defend herself. She both seamlessly and abruptly changed her voice, so clearly switching from talking for Billy to talking for herself. It was as impressive a demonstration of skill as we saw from the opera singers earlier. Billy's passion in that scene was powerful, but the most heart-wrenching moment came at the end when we see so clearly how much Billy's independence has shattered his brother, Dan. All three of those actors provided outstanding work.
It's a moving, thought-provoking production in the best sense of those words, enough so that it took both of us a while afterwards to begin discussing it. Even still I don't feel like I have words enough to express all I'm thinking about it, which is precisely one of the points made by the author, Nina Raine.
On the train to Newark Airport. After dinner last night we enjoyed an excellent new play, "Tribes", then decided 'Sleep be damned! Seize the day!' and went to a late showing of "Mirror Mirror". We may both be exhausted, but the weekend was excellent.
The opera was splendid, and I'll do a more thorough review of all of the shows when I'm typing on a proper keyboard. Meanwhile, dinner!
The gastronomical highlight of our itinerary was a restaurant name Gilt just behind St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's housed in an old mansion, which we got to explore a little since we had a few moments before the dining room opened.
Everything about the meal was outstanding. The service was swift, attentive, and discreet. The dining room was lovely with dark wood paneling and low red lighting. We ordered from a three-course prix fixe menu which turned into six courses with the unexpected additions of an amuse-bouche (lobster bisque), a palette-cleanser (grapefruit sorbet with a beet cocktail and ginger), and an array of bon-bons at the end. Wait- seven courses if you count the bread, which I'm tempted to do since a waiter revealed a selection of five different kinds of bread and, tongs poised expectantly, asked which I desired. I chose the apple cider roll. "And?" he asked. "The butternut squash," I added. "And?" he asked, smiling with encouragement. "And the monchego roll," I surrendered, attempting to ignore Jason's raised and amused eyebrow (he showed great restraint in only selecting two - the monchego and a walnut gig roll) (lest you think me a terrible glutton, though, I only ate a portion of each if my rolls).
Throughout dinner I tried to be a good companion and start stimulating conversation, but every time I took a bite I would involuntarily close my eyes and lose all coherent thoughts except "Oh, my!" I'd worry, but Jason was quiet too, our comments limited to praising the food over and over again.
Our waiter was attentive to our show schedule, but we barley made the curtain. We recalled the time we actually did miss curtain, years ago on our first trip together in New York. We missed the overture to "Chicago" and slipped into our seats at the start of "All That Jazz" after getting on a subway train heading the opposite direction of Times Square. We were in Brooklyn by the time we figured out the error.
Ah! What young and naive travelers we once were! Who would have thought we'd someday risk tardiness despite a swift cab ride because we lingered over dinner at Michelin-starred restaurant? :)
First Course: "Bacon And Eggs" (white sturgeon caviar, cipollini compote, creme fraiche)
Second Course: "Turbot" (celtuce, oyster, meyer lemon, brown butter)
Jason made pre-opera reservations at the restaurant on the Grand Tier. It may not have been Michelin-reviewed, and we may have been surrounded by old opera biddies and their entourages, but the food (wild mushroom bisque, herbed chicken with asparagus, caramelized banana bread pudding) was good and the atmosphere was splendid.
