Dribs and Drabs

So much to say and so little time to say it. Isn't that always the story. A few things:

• I like to talk but don't definitely don't love to hear myself talk. Still, I loved listening to the Performance Club audio that Claudia just put up. Despite cringing when I heard my own voice (I find that so unnerving) I liked revisiting bits of conversation with more distance from the performance and also hearing things I missed. And selfishly I hope that these audio recordings are done for more events, particularly ones I can't attend with the P. Club, because the post-show conversations are such an enriching experience for me and it would be fun to sort of eavesdrop when I can't take part. 
  

• I'm really enjoying New York magazine's "Vulture Reading Room." I have no desire to read Charlotte Roche's Wetlands. It sounds genuinely awful, and not in a fun way but in a just-plain-atrocious way. But reading about it has been genuinely entertaining and this back-and-forth particularly so. Hopefully they'll continue the feature for other books. 

• My younger sister is hiking the Appalachian Trail right now and the other day she did 29 miles. Seriously. In one day.  I, meanwhile, walked to Central Park and, entering from the southeast,went up around the Great Lawn, and back. I promised I'd hike with her for a few days later on, you see, and I need to train. So far? Not such a good start. 

• PEN World Voices has started and as always I'm looking forward to it. Although it's a disappointment that the NYPL doesn't seem to be taking part this year as their panels, etc. are usually particularly interested. Tomorrow--today, really--I'm going to watch a panel about women translating women. I'm looking forward to that.

My Grandfather

I was going to post about books today, but my grandfather died this morning and it seems appropriate to write about that instead. It wasn't terribly surprising as he was both old and unhealthy and I'm sure it must be awful to be blindsided by death so I'm grateful for that, particularly for my grandmother's sake. But, of course, it's still sad.

The last time I saw my grandfather I had gone out to my grandparents' apartment in Queens for the night. It was during what was the low point in my whole bed bug ordeal. I wasn't really eating and I'd go to sleep by 8:30 or 9 only to wake up at 4 in the morning still horribly tired. And returning to my apartment after work pretty much made me cry. Every day. (Yeah, I didn't deal with that so well. I am definitely not an example of how to handle a particularly stubborn bed bug infestation in an emotionally healthy manner.) Anyway, I was treated for bed bugs late in the day and my apartment was just a wreck. I had to be out for three hours because of the pesticides and the idea of coming back in fairly late in the evening and putting it all back together so I could go to bed was too much to bear. So I put some money and my metrocard in a ziploc bag with a toothbrush and a book that I knew hadn't been exposed to the bugs, changed into freshly laundered and therefor bedbug free clothes, and headed out to Queens. 

My grandmother was just getting over being ill but had dinner ready and over the first real meal I'd eaten in a couple weeks my grandfather told me about the time he'd had "bedbugs." Apparently, during World War II he'd taken a lovely blanket from a dead German soldier. And this would have been great. What luck! But the blanket turned out to be infested with bedbugs. Who migrated over and set up residence in his chest hair. Until he got rid of them by pouring a gallon of gasoline over himself. Now, given that bedbugs don't live on people, I pretty sure what was living in his chest hair was not bedbugs. But a little bit of perspective goes a long way. 

I slept on their couch that night and the next morning my grandfather made me eggs and bacon for breakfast. Everyone in the family always loved when my grandfather made breakfast. My grandparents took such good care of me that day. I'd felt so alone standing in my chemical-filled mess of an apartment, and going to stay with them for the night reminded me of how many people I have in my life who love me and are there for me at a time when I needed to remember that.  So I've been thinking about that a lot today. 

There are so many other things as well . . . all the little and big things that make up a life. But that seems like enough for tonight. 

Notes from the Homefront

1.) The night I got in to Buffalo, my brother (who is 18 and has Down Syndrome) asked me to give him back his Ultimate Spiderman comics. My father took them away ages ago because my brother isn't always so good at recognizing the line between fact and fiction, and stashed them somewhere in my room. I don't know where though and even if I did I wouldn't give them back. So I told him that I didn't really know what he wanted from me and a few minutes later, I got this note:

Ultimate
theef
bich
you
took
my things

Now obviously it would be better if he were writing me nice notes, but being able to express himself in writing like that is a pretty new thing so we're all pleased (and amused). It's particularly nice because it's not like anyone ever taught him how to write "bitch" so he obviously sounded it out on his own.

2.) My father took me to a Sabres game while I was home. Fortunately they won, if in an unnecessarily ugly way. Last time I went to a Sabres game in Buffalo was the ice bowl last year. There were an awful lot fewer people yelling, "You suck, Vanek!" this year. Also, we got ice cream, which makes any day better.


3.) My parents have what appears to be an infestation of excessively stupid mice. Not only have they set up residence in a household that has a fairly talented feline hunter, either the cat has taken to putting them there, which we doubt since he's previously shown a preference for eating his kills, or they keep drowning in the dog's water bowl. 5 dead mice between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thankfully there were none in the week I was home.


4.) I am now in possession of a passel of new plants which I will hopefully manage not to kill. The first is a bamboo plant that was a Channukah gift from my brother. We don't actually exchange Channukah gifts, but he couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to me. The other two are cuttings from other plants.

The bamboo (obviously).

A cutting from my sister's Rat Tail Cactus,
which will hopefully not die since it really didn't cure long enough.
They end up looking really neat.

A cutting from my grandparents cactus,
which they've had for over 30 years
and just cut down for the umpteenth time.

5.) I'm glad there was snow when I arrived because the rest of the week was so warm and damp that it all melted and a lake formed in the backyard. On Sunday morning it was so windy that tiny rippling waves were running across the pooled water and you could feel the wind pushing against the car as my sister and I drove toward New York City. Briefly, around the time we passed Rochester, it looked like it was going to clear up. A sharp streak of lighter sky appeared at the horizon, as if the lid of a pot were being lifted up. Instead the rain came back.


6.) Driving up to the Holland Tunnel totally sucks.

Thanksgiving

I have to admit, I'm not exactly a bottomless pit of thankfulness these days. It's been a rough year and an even rougher fall. And I'm certainly not alone there because I know things are tough all over and there are a lot of people a hell of a lot worse off than me right now. So I thought I would try to make a list of things (and people) that I'm thankful for this season.

• My wonderful family, without whom I would be even more of a wreck than I am right now. I've been spending a good amount of time wishing my parents lived a few hundred miles closer, but they're still there for me and my grandparents are close by. I'm a very lucky girl.
  
• My job, complete with a totally understanding boss and coworkers I like. Also, the fact that I hadn't used up my days off before this shit began.
  
• Having the money saved to hire an exterminator (or two, if my next/fifth visit doesn't solve the problem).
• My roommate's mother, who is yet another person on the list of people who have done all they can to help me deal with this bed bug nightmare.
• The fact that the people I love are, if not all in great health, all still around and kicking.
• The fact that Thanksgiving means I'm getting out of my not-presently-much-loved apartment for nearly three days and will instead be spending time with people I adore somewhere where I can actually sit on the couch.

I hope you all have a fantastic, refreshing holiday filled with all kinds of good things.

Blather

As I write this my cat is kneading my bare leg with all ten of his stubby little front claws. Itake it to be a painful commentary on its firmness, or lack thereof. Getting in better shape is one project that's fallen largely by the wayside as I've spent most of the summer "resting" my ankle. I'm going hiking the first week of August no matter what, so hopefully the problem joint continues on its current path of slow but steady improvement. I go back to the personal trainer on Thursday but I'm going to be good and wear my hated ankle brace.


This summer is turning out to be much busier than I anticipated which is good, but also frustrating in that I haven't gotten things I intended to done. And it's not going to happen this week because my parents and brother are in town starting tomorrow. Which I'm totally excited about because my dad almost never comes into the city (not that it's not nice to see the others as well).


I went to a party in Bushwick on Friday night and on the subway ride home, sat across from an African American guy wearing a Canucks hat with the stick-in-rink logo. That's something you don't see every day in Brooklyn. Maybe he's from Vancouver originally? Either way, it was awesome.


The weather has been decidedly bearable so far this year. I went to the beach on Saturday and it was gorgeous. The weather that is. Coney Island isn't gorgeous but it's good enough for me.


I'm reading Amanda Vaill's Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins right now. I wanted to learn more about how his Judaism, and his at times conflicted feelings toward it, influenced his work. So far though I'm mostly learning more about his sex life (knowledge I could generally have lived without as it hasn't been much related to his choreography thus far).


And that's about it. Hopefully more interesting stuff to write about in the near future as I realize that was all less than fascinating.

Poiret

My 13-year-old cousin stayed with me Saturday evening to Sunday evening, and I think it went well. She's going through a rough time family-wise at that moment through no fault of her own, so I wanted her to have a nice time. One of the things we did, at my boss's suggestion, was go to see the Poiret exhibit currently going on at the Met. Interestingly, in an exhibiition hall on the ground floor, off the new Greek and Roman galleries, as opposed to in the Costume Institute space.

I actually read about Poiret fairly recently in the New Yorker which was good as my cousing travels through museum exhibits much more quickly than I do, so I didn't have time to do all the reading and slow looking that I normally do. It also meant I didn't have anyone to chat to while looking. I wanted to say un-witty things like, "my god, you'd need to be an absolute stick to look ok with a roll of fabric on your hips," and, "that coat would make a normal person look like a tank." Then again, it's hardly news that if one is going to wear something with very little structure they ought to be quite thin.

Still, the work I liked best was that which still had a real shape to it, while not going to far into the "oriental" look he was so influenced by. While the Met did a nice job of presenting his innovations, particularly in showing through projected images how some of the clothing was draped, I think you still came away--or at least I still came away--feeling as though you were looking at costumes. For all the practicality of getting rid of restrictive undergarments, the clothing still doesn't feel as though it would work for your typical woman. Then again, I suppose that's why his popularity declined once women became more active.

Still, one has to applaud that kind of devotion to beauty, even if it doesn't seem like clothing that is as functional as one might hope. Of course, the dresses Poiret was replacing don't scream functional either.

Beyond that, my cousin and I rented some movies, ate out, and did the whole girly manicure/pedicure thing. It didn't rain as it was supposed to, but it was nevertheless to hot to go for the long walk I normally would have liked. I don't quite know why being out in the sun is so draining, although I'm sure there's some kind of biologic reason for it. So now I'm home, typing away with one of the cats sacked out on my lap and enjoying the quiet. I love having a roommate and have not been liking this only-person-in-the-apartment thing generally, but I do have to admit as much as I prefer living with people, and as much as I liked having my cousin visit, tonight I'm really enjoying the peace and quiet of having the place to myself.

Spring Awakening

Spring Awakening was the latest in my monthly show-with-grandma series. You may be looking at that picture and thinking, hmm, not something I would want to watch with my grandma, but to be honest it's pretty much old hat by now.

And at this moment I feel that I should take a second to point out that as much as I joke about this particular grandmother on my blog, and as much as she drives me nuts at times, she's a pretty cool lady and I do hope that comes across. In addition to the classes she takes and the shows she goes to, in the next year or so she's going to Egypt, Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Mexico, and China. I certainly hope that I'm as active, and leading as interesting a life as she is.

But anyway, the musical. It just won a whole passel of Tonys, of course, though upon seeing it I wish some more of those had gone to Grey Gardens. I've never been wild about rock musicals. I like my cheesy musical music. And I like the good musical music, like Sondheim, even better. If I want to listen to rock, I can put on a cd. And I just didn't find the music that interesting.

That said, I did think it was a very good musical. Although I prefer it when the music actually moves the story along, I though it did a good job of illuminating the emotional state of the characters while being relatively disconnected from the action of the play. And as you couldn't always understand the lyrics, it's probably for the best that the actual narrative wasn't contained within them. The other thing I though it did really well was capture the confusion and over-the-top emotion of adolescence. Interesting, because there were moments when it evoked a certain feeling of nostalgia, but for the most part it left you with a feeling of, oh thank God I got past that mess. Which is how I generally feel about my middle school and high school years so no surprise there. I mean, I had fun, particularly in high school, but I certainly wouldn't want to live them over again. Such drama.

My problem really stems from the fact that I felt like it started out so well, and filled with promise, only to descend by the end into a typical melodrama with a bit of plot that felt entirely too after school special. Now, the play itself (minus music) was written some hundred years ago, so perhaps it was a bolder ending at the time, but now it just feels a bit boring and predictable. But most people seem to love the musical rather more than I do--although merely liking something should hardly be an insult--so here are some clips from the godsend that is YouTube.

"The Bitch of Living" (with cuts to other bits of the musical):


A bit of "My Junk" (after some introductory stuff) on Breakfast with the Arts:


"Touch Me" on the View:


"The Word of Your Body (reprise)" performed by cast members at the Apple store:


The Tony Award medley (a bit of repetition from "The Bitch of Living" in the middle):

110 in the Shade

Haven't been up to much. I went to the Bronx Zoo on Memorial Day which was fun. We got really good pizza at an Italian place near the zoo before going in and, after leaving, picked up 75 cent ices on the way to the subway. Just try to find that in Manhattan.

Yesterday I went to see 110 in the Shade with my grandmother. We had dinner at Iguana and I got to hear about how she had to go to the opthamologist soon and it made her very nervous so she was rather wishing she had marijauna. Then we moved on to how she had had seen Dmitri Hvorostovsky sing at a Metropolitan Opera Guild thing and stood not two feet away from him in the elevator. Hvorostovsky is totally my grandma's celebrity crush. Personally I don't see it, but according to La Scena Musicale, "Hvorostovsky is one of nature's physical aristocrats. Those sardonically sensual lips, that trademark mane of silver hair and those hooded Slavic eyes suggesting cruel Tartar ancestry - the man is totally hot and, paradoxically, cold."

Setting aside the fact that the writer should perhaps moonlight as a sub par romance novelist, I just don't get it. Personally, I'm not filled with the sudden desire to tear off that black turtleneck but if it works for some--grandma included--then ok. My grandmother is also charmed by the fact that he sings a song her grandmother used to sing years ago. Ochi Chernye (Dark Eyes), in case anyone was overwhelmed with curiosity. Of course, I suspect my great-great-grandmother sounded just a bit different when singing it.

Then, as she always does, she requested her dessert without the calories. This would be funnier if she wasn't a small thin woman who obviously can afford to eat her molten chocolate cake.

So, anyway, on we went to the musical. And lets be honest, it's a good musical, but everyone's there for Audra McDonald. She didn't win those Tony Awards for nothing. The most interesting thing about this particular production is the colorblind casting. John Cullum played her father (my grandmother happily noted that she saw his Tony-award-winning performance in On the Twentieth Century forty years ago) and because musicals require such a suspension of disbelief anyway, and they're so good, you really don't question it. My only moment of real disbelief came when McDonald's character was told she was plain and I thought, Audra McDonald is so not plain, you twit. The musical itself is good but not great. It's her performance that makes it such a delight.

And of course, because I cry at the drop of a hat, I was sitting there, just before intermission, wiping away tears and wishing I had tissues. Give me songs with lyrics like, "Oh, God, don't let me live and die alone," and I'm an instant mess.

I still say Ebersole should get the Tony this time around though, for her act of ventriloquism in bringing Little Edie back from the dead.

Breakfast and Waitress

So today was day two of the hanging-with-the-grandparents thing. They were supposed to call me around 9 this morning and tell me where to meet them for brunch. So of course they call at 8:30 and want me to meet them by quarter to 10 up by their apartment. Now, in my world, if I have to be in a restaurant before 10 on a Saturday morning, that's breakfast not brunch. Don't get me wrong, I was awake because the cats are convinced they're going to die a horrible death if they don't eat by 7:30, but I was not prepared to leave my apartment.

Anyway, we ate at this place that they love and I am utterly indifferent to with a french name and a rather generic appearance. The owner also has a Mexican place next door. Apparently he figured that his employees were all Mexican so hey, why not? I had waffles with strawberries, blackberries, bananas, whipped cream, and strawberry sauce, so I was happy even if the waffle itself was slightly mushy.

Then off to see Waitress at the movie theater in Union Square. It's a nice little movie and Keri Russel is adorable. I never watched Felicity (no really, I've never seen one single episode) but I assume that most people knew this already. All I knew was that she once got a very controversial haircut that I really didn't think looked that bad. I also loved Cheryl Hines in the movie. And the fact that it wasn't a romance. It was actually, for all it had a happy ending, quite bittersweet.

Ben & Jack's

My great-uncle and his wife are in town this weekend. They're certainly not my favorite family members but they are very nice so while I never have any particular wish to see them, it's always nice when it happens. Those kind of family members. They live in an overly tidy condo in a gated community in San Jose with a balcony overlooking a golf course. It's terribly far from the life I would want, all cut off like that.

A couple years ago, when my sister and I drove around the country, we stayed with them for a few days. We'd just come from Yosemite and hadn't showered in five days. And so we walked, filthy and bedraggled, into this house with white walls and white carpets which was just utterly spotless. Anyway, the first thing we did was wash our faces and shower because we felt as though we couldn't touch or sit on anything until we did that. And we'd been washing our faces in campground sinks and such, but apparently that was rather less thorough than we hoped because we actually left face-shaped marks of dirt on their (white, of course) towels. And then we both showered (I think I got to go first--victory!) and had to rinse the dirt out of the tub. It was simultaneously disgusting and incredibly satisfying. Although, we'd thought we were a bit tan and it turned out we were just that dirty. This is neither here nor there, but I suppose it gives you an idea of what they're like (and what my sister and I are like).

Right. So. When they come into town I go out to dinner with them, my grandparents who live a 15 minute walk from my apartment (it's my grandfather's brother), generally my step-grandmother's parents who are in their 90s and quite frail, and her sister-in-law who always wears gigantic pearls. The first year I lived in New York we went to this place called March (which has since closed and reopened in the same location as Nish) which served tiny little courses. At minimum you would get a three course meal for about $70. The food was great, I'm sure, and the service was fantastic, but it wasn't the place for a group with fussy eaters and as a result the meal was not a particular success. So since then we've pretty much stuck to steakhouses and Italian.

Ben & Jack's is the former and that's where we went last night. It's a good place to go when out with the elderly and near-deaf because you can get a private room even for a fairly small party. And in keeping with the steakhouse norm, they give you so much food that you end up with at least one extra meal. I never eat at steakhouses when left to my own devices--in part because I can't afford it and in part because it's not my favorite food by any means--so I can't compare one to another. It was good; the waiters were not as polite as they ought to be. Granted, they could fan him with palms and my grandmother's father would probably still be displeased with the service (a result of age, I think) but I can't say I was impressed. And then of course there's dessert. The end result of all this was that was that I ended up uncomfortably full and with half a filet mignon in the fridge for dinner today.

Beautiful night though. Went out and sat out on the balcony with the cat until quite late.

Iguana

I was supposed to go see 110 in the Shade starring Audra McDonald with my grandmother today. Unfortunately McDonald's father died recently. Normally you'd get an understudy, but apparently McDonald is a big enough star that they just cancel the show and let you switch the tickets to a different date. So I just went out to dinner with my grandmother at a Mexican place called Iguana where we go from time to time because she gets extra air miles when she pays on her American Express. And she gets to speak Spanish with the waitstaff. Except this time around our waiter didn't speak Spanish so she was out of luck. Also, she considers a dinner incomplete if we don't get dessert, so the good desserts there are a plus.

I was not totally looking forward to this dinner though, because I didn't call her on her birthday. And only one of my cousins did (thus getting tons of brownie points he totally doesn't deserve). She was out of the country and I don't like leaving messages on answering machines enough to call when I know someone's not going to be home. So she waited for me to call and when I didn't she called to say, "I noticed you didn't call me on my birthday. But that's ok...I know you love me anyway. [Etc. etc.]" You know the stereotypes about Jewish mothers and grandmother's and their expert guilt trip. Yeah, my grandmother is pretty much the embodiment of that. Unfortunately she had the misfortune of getting saddled with children and grandchildren who refuse to be guilt-tripped.

As it was, it wasn't that bad. She made sure to mention in many circuitous ways the lack of birthday calls, in between telling me about the biography of Victor Amadeus II she just read among other things. I pretended obtuseness on the birthday subject and was actually interested in the rest of it, so it was a nice evening.

I forgot (as usual) to call and let her know I got home safely. In a few days she'll call me and when I answer the phone she'll say, "Oh good. You are alive!"

The Weekend

I had a killer allergy attack last night and then got wrapped up with doing eight loads of laundry. Fun, no? Also, I just got a new glasses prescription a few months ago but I think my vision has continued to go downhill at an alarming rate. The problem with working at a computer I suppose, but I'm very concerned about it.

It seems we've be launched directly from wintery weather to summer, which is unfortunate because while I love spring, I;m not a big fan of summer. It was nice on Saturday, as I went to a picnic in Central Park and ate all kinds of good food while jealously watching people playing with their dogs. A nice afternoon.

Wendy and I also went to go see the new hall of Human Origins at the Museum of Natural History, but we only had enough time to see half of it, so we'll have to go back some other time. In addition to giving creationists fits, it actually looks really nice. It's so strange to go there and see exhibits that don't look like they were made in the '70s. Not unlike the Hall of Ocean Life they've spruced up the dioramas nicely. They've also added interactive stuff and things you can touch. I probably would have like that hall more when I was little if it looked like it does now. Although lets face it, when you're little, you're totally in it for the dinosaurs, the giant whale, and the dino-shaped fries in the cafeteria.

Apparently Wendy's childhood visits also included long hours spent at the gemstones exhibit. This is what happens when your parents are former geologists, I suppose. For me, the gemstone exhibit was mostly notable for the carpeted benches (like I said, very '70s) and the fact that we would always go see the Star of India. This visit always brought on the story how my PopPop recovered it when it was stolen, and was on the television because of it. Hey, it's my family's one and only claim to...well, not fame, but some proximity to an event of national interest, so it's going to get rehashed a time or six. Someday, I'll probably be lugging my children for through the museum and telling them, "You're great-grandfather..."

But anyway, enough with the nostalgia, which you probably don't share unless you too made numerous childhood trips to the museum. My point was,: neat exhibit, will have to go back to see the rest.

Yesterday, the heat was sufficient to be unpleasant. I had to lug a bunch of broken printers up to Union Square. Not fun. It was hot enough that I could smell the tarmac melting on 4th Ave (newly paved). It seems like the whole city was out and about this weekend. There were orange-robed monks handing out literature by the Ghandi statue in the square and people on the steps and people who were just generally in the way of the old lady rolling cart I was using to lug the printers.

On a happier note, the weather also served to bring out the amusingly off-beat. There was an old lady in a kerchief sitting on the bench in my courtyard an animal but from our balcony we couldn't quite tell if it was a large cat or a small dog. I ran to get my opera glasses and we could then see that she was indeed out there with a big, orange Persian cat. Occasionally the cat would jump down and start to wander and the old lady would stand up, fetch it back to the bench, make it sit, and then sit back down herself. It was to dark out to get a good, focused picture so the one to the left is the best a could do. I felt like a paparazzi. If paparazzi stalked anonymous old ladies, and used teeny little digital cameras, that is.

April? What April?

Seriously...it is too fucking cold for April and it's making me very cranky. The hat, the gloves, the wool coat. Ick. Granted there are lots of places colder than New York, but as I'm not in those places I feel like I might as well whine about the place I am.

I started a book and stopped decided not to read it for the first time in awhile. The basic premise of the book is that being obsessively organized is often neither cost nor time efficient. I don't need to read two hundred pages to be convinced of that, as anyone who has seen my room can attest. I passed it on to my mother. If nothing else she can wave it in front of my father when he goes on one of his multiple-times-weekly organization and efficiency jihads. Not that it'll have much of an effect.

In only slightly related news, my mother and brother Cody are down for the weekend. Friday they came over to the apartment so my brother could see the cats--he calls Pyramus "the boss," something Pyramus no doubt deeply wishes was the truth--and my mother could see the new carpet she bought me. Which is lovely, incidentally, and it's very nice to have a carpet in my bedroom for the first time of years. It also meant I got to give her the books I'd set aside for her and a couple of books on cd for my dad.

We went to meet my grandparents at the Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A. This was also good because I had about eleven romances and mysteries stacked on my dresser to give to my grandfather. He's a reader of historical romances and get through about a book a day, so I try to help keep him stocked. Restaurants are always a bit interesting with my brother, who has Down Syndrome. He was actually quite good, but insisted on going outside at the end of dinner and eating his ice cream in the cold. A few minutes later, I looked out the window to see him lying on the ground. It turns out that someone had tied up their chihuahua and he'd gotten down to pet it. You never know with him though.

Saturday it was to the Met for the Tiffany exhibit (again). Cody rushed my mother through the exhibit but I think she still liked seeing it. And my roommate Wendy, who came with us, bought a 500 piece Tiffany puzzle, so now we're really in a position to behave like elderly old maids. We can stay in on Friday nights watching Masterpiece Theatre and doing puzzles. How great is that?

He really wanted to go see the mummies in the egyptian art section. He's convinced that they'll come to life and it'll be super cool. Of course the mummies there are disappointing because there are so few of them, and the ones in their wrappings weren't even on display. I think he was hoping for something like the huge display at the British Museum. When he was there he got to see a movie on mummies and everything so that was obviously much more exciting. He was very insistent that my mother read some of the hieroglyphics to him, so we walked around with her making up things like, "And then the Sun king came, and he saw that things were good and all was well with the land. Peace be with you."

Wendy and I left them around 2:00 and stopped by Williams-Sonoma for smoothie samples and little paper cups of jelly beans before going home. Then in the evening I went out to Brooklyn because a friend of mine was in town and had dinner with her and some of her family at a good Mexican place. And now I'm spending Easter Sunday at home being lazy. All in all not a bad weekend.

Prelude to a Kiss

My cousin and her fiancée were in town briefly so I went out last night with them and my grandmother, who is very excited at the prospect of adding a new granddaughter to the family. Narrowly avoiding eating at Applebees (because there's seriously no reason to eat there when you live in New York) we had a very nice dinner. She wanted me to choose the restaurant which I wasn't really prepared to do. I don't really know the Bway/Times Square area that well so I can't pick restaurants off the top of my head. The only place I could think of was Saigon 48--which is very good, and very cheap should you be in the area--but I couldn't remember its location. I'd forgotten the 48 bit of the name. We ended up eating at West Bank Cafe which was just expensive enough that I wouldn't have suggested it myself for fear of imposing. My grandmother would never say no, so I try not to put her in a position where she might. It was great though--particularly the desserts--so I'm very glad we went there instead of Applebees.

I knew nothing about Prelude to a Kiss and hadn't really had a particular interest in seeing it, although I also wasn't disinterested. It's kind of Freaky Friday except the body switchers aren't related and one of them doesn't immediately want to switch back. Anyway, it's decidedly mediocre and I imagine that there are two reasons it's been popular: a) It stars the guy who played Frasier Crane's father b) it's got a happy ending which the old ladies around us seemed to appreciate quite a bit.

Less appreciative, was the forty-something year old man sitting behind us. At one point the young and fairly freaked-out groom kisses Frasier's Daddy who is really his wife in another body. He loves his wife and it makes total sense for him to do this in the context of the play. Furthermore, it's not exactly the kind of kiss that leads to people jumping into bed sans clothing and getting down to business. But clearly these things didn't matter much to forty-something who said, "Ewww," so loudly that half the theater must have heard him. Seriously? What are you, seven? Grow up. Probably some tourist from Omaha. I certainly hope so anyway.

Journey's End

It seems to be grandparents week here, as yesterday was my monthly dinner and a show date with my grandmother (different grandmother than I saw earlier in the week). We ate at a rather expensive Indian restaurant we've been to before. The service is better than the places on 6th street and the food is served on nicer dishes, but frankly it's not worth paying 4 times more. Particularly when my grandmother insists on getting appetizers and desert and whatnot.

Journey's End has gotten great reviews but apparently those haven't translated into great ticket sales because the theater was far from full. That was good for us though because it meant our seats got upgraded quite a bit. We always go for the cheap seats--although granted it's all relative on Broadway--so it's a nice surprise to be moved up to the somewhat less cheap seats. Between that and the fact that it was a very good play, it was obviously an evening meant to go our way. My grandmother got to make her, "Bush should be forced to watch this again and again until he learns something," comments and I think that only added to her day. It seems to make her happy any time she can insult the louse. At the same time though, I always have to suppress a laugh at the idea she seems to have that reading something or seeing a play could possibly change him. Thinking about it more closely though, I think it's a sad thing if such works can't change people.

I was particularly interested in seeing this one because I have a bit of a thing for World War I. I don't mean that I know a lot about the history or anything. But I love poetry and novels about the war. I wouldn't say that I'm an outright pacifist, but quite close, and it's partially because of reading this stuff. I remember reading All Quiet on the Western Front when I was quite young and certainly that played a role, but mostly I think it was the War Poets first: writers like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg. (Their poetry is available here.) Sassoon's "A Soldier's Declaration" was also an influence because it forced me to look at what I'd always thought of as--and been told was--a "good war" in another light.

I think it was Pat Barker's Regeneration that did me in, though. This scene in particular, although it may not seem significant out of context. I don't know. Rivers is a doctor treating shell-shocked soldiers in a military hospital, and David Burns is a former patient whom he goes to visit. He finds Burns to remain quite unwell. While he's visiting, there's a storm.

The more Rivers thought about Burns sitting alone in the kitchen, the more he thought he ought to get up. The sounds of the storm had now been joined by running footsteps. He wouldn't find it easy to sleep again anyway.
.......The kitchen was empty and didn't seem to have been disturbed since last night. He told himself that he'd been mistaken and Burns was still in bed. By now rather anxious, perhaps unreasonably so, he went upstairs and peered into Burns's room. The bedclothes had been pushed back and the bed was empty.
.......He had no idea what he should do. For all he knew midnight walks--or rather three am walks--were a habit of Burns's when the nights were particularly bad. Surely he wouldn't go out in this. Rivers heard shouts, followed by more running footsteps. Obviously other people were out in it.

Rivers goes out into the storm to look for Burns, and is unable to find him in the town. Directed by a woman also out in the rain, he walks along the edge of a tidal river, surrounded by marshy land, toward a tower he'd been to earlier in his visit.

Looking at the tower, Rivers thought again how squat and unimpressive it was, and yet how menacing. A resemblance that had merely nagged him before returned to his mind with greater force. This waste of mud, these sump holes reflecting a dim light at the sky, even that tower. It was like France. Like the battlefields. A resemblance greater by night than by day, perhaps, because here, by day, you could see things grow, and there nothing grew.
.......[...]
.......He groped his way into the moat, steadying himself against the wall. It was so wet, so cold, so evil-smelling, that he thought perhaps the tide had already reached it's height and was now falling. At first he could see nothing, but then the moon came out from behind a bank of cloud, and he saw Burns huddled against the moat wall. Rivers called 'David' and realized he was shouting when there was no need. Even the howl of the storm sounded subdued in the shelter of the moat. He touched Burns's arm. He neither moved nor blinked. He was staring up at the tower, which gleamed white, like the bones of a skull.
.......'Come on, David.'
.......His body felt like a stone. Rivers got hold of him and held him, coaxing, rocking. He looked up at the tower that loomed squat and menacing above them and thought, Nothing justifies this. Nothing nothing nothing. Burns's body remained rigid in his arms. Rivers was aware that if it came to a fight he might not win. Burns was terribly emaciated, but he was also thirty years younger. His surrender, when it came, was almost shocking. Suddenly his body had the rag-doll floppiness of the newborn. He collapsed against Rivers and started to shake, and from there it was possible to half lead, half push him out of the moat and up on to the relative safety of the path.

Now, I wasn't so naive that I didn't know about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or that war had mental and emotional consequences for the soldier. But it's one thing to hear about it or read about it, and another entirely for a piece of writing to allow you to truly form a picture of such a thing in your mind. And it was from reading things like this that I came to feel that war was beyond the realm of what should be acceptable in our lives.

So I suppose that literature had the effect on me that my grandmother wishes it could have on someone like Bush. The power of fiction, whether Regeneration or Journey's End is that it allows us to expand the boundaries of our understanding--to a certain extent--past that which we actually know. And while I've always rolled my eyes and thought it fairly ridiculous when someone says a song or a book, "changed [their] life," I do think such things can have a cumulative effect on a person's outlook, if they're willing to let it happen.

Italian Dish

My grandfather has been, let us say, bothered that I don't call more often. I don't call anyone, so I don't feel particularly guilty about this. I feel even less guilty when he has other people call to nag me about not calling him. I may be nag-free for a while though--yeah right--as I went out with him and my grandmother last night. A friend of theirs does a cabaret-type show so I met them after work and we went out for dinner and then to her show.

The show was at a new cultural center at the South Street Seaport. I've actually never been there or, really, considered going there. We ate at a nice enough Italian restaurant though, where we were served by a pleasant waitress with an Eastern European accent. Not much atmosphere and it was quite empty (as was the whole area, no real surprise on a Tuesday night) which I hate in a restaurant, but the food was good. I was informed that my grandfather called his mother every day even though she never called him. I rolled my eyes. Dinner proceeded smoothly. I actually love seeing them for all I complain about the nagging.

Anyway, the friend who does the cabaret show is someone my grandfather met at his gym and she obviously loves the performing. The show is called Italian Dish and features her little stories about songs mixed in with songs about food. Her enthusiasm made it fun and I thought the show as a whole was very charming.

The Host (and Hosting)

My roommate and I went to see The Host last night. It was playing at the theater near us and had gotten good reviews so we ventured out. We spend most of our Friday nights sitting at home doing nothing of particular import so we were a bit proud of ourselves. Also, while I am definitely not, she's a bit of a horror movie aficionado. She's been promising to have me watch Them for about five years now. One of these days. Anyway, for all that I don't normally do monster movies, The Host was fabulous. Funny and smart and featuring a totally awesome little girl. It wasn't perfect, and I thought some scenes could be cut down a bit, but it was really very enjoyable. I think that was pretty much the general opinion too because the crowd had a bit of a buzz to it as we were leaving and was very chatty. I always like that kind of atmosphere at the movie theater because if you don't have that why not just watch the movie while sitting on your couch at home and not paying $10.75 which is frankly ridiculous.

Actually the other reason I like to see movies in the theater is that I'm not a good movie watcher when I'm at home. I get up and walk around in circles. I make myself food. I try to read at the same time and miss key plot points. I take breaks every five minutes to do something else like organize my iTunes library. Which all goes to explain why it took me a month to finish watching His Girl Friday. It would be more fun to say that I had to limit my viewing of Rosalind Russell's ridiculous hat, but the truth is that I've got the attention span of a five year old when it comes to watching movies these days. I finally finished it today, along with cleaning my room.

While I cleaned my room (which was truly awful) my roommate--being the neater of the two of us--cleaned the rest of the apartment and tackled the dish pile from hell. We're not going to win any good housekeeping awards in the near future--the food gone bad in our fridge can attest to that--but the apartment looks pretty good right now.

I was excited because my sister, who I don't get to see very often, was coming into town today. Her flight from Alaska was landing in Newark so she got a ride into the city and then took a train out. She came over to my apartment to eat and use the shower and then we met up with her boyfriend and some of their friends. We hung out with them for a bit, walking from Greenwich Village, where I've never spent much time for some reason despite having gone to school right there, to Union Square. Then she and her boyfriend went for a walk and the friends went for a different walk. While the friends seemed very nice, I can wander around New York in the rain anytime, so I headed home. They were redezvousing at my apartment so while waiting for them I made tea and read The New York Review of Books online.

It was nice to see her but also sad that I got to see so little of her. So now I'm feeling a bit down. And I have to do laundry.We're at that stage where there's simply no choice. I haven't done any in three weeks and I don't have enough clothing to last and longer. I also don't have anywhere to put the dirty laundry. So that's the way my morning's going to go. After that I think I'm going to have a totally self-indulgent day. I'm going to go to Pommes Frites for lunch and then in the afternoon I'm going to take myself off to the Angelika to see The Lives of Others and get myself movie popcorn. And then I'm going to take myself off to the grocery store and buy piles of health food because I can feel my arteries closing up just thinking about it.

What the Frick?

There's no point resisting a terrible pun when it presents itself. I think we should just embrace the punny. Today I also needed to embrace a trip to the Frick Collection with my maternal grandmother to see the George Stubbs exhibition.

It was a gorgeous day today: warm, sunny, and springlike. On days like this I'd rather not be inside. I come up with some sort of errand that requires me to walk a long way and then just walk around the city. It's one of my favorite things about living here. I'd committed to seeing my grandmother though so I walked over the the 6 at Bleeker and headed for the Upper East Side.

Before arriving though, I needed to experience the joy that is weekend subway travel. The show for today was Out-of-His-Frickin'-Mind featuring Man-in-Big-Gray-Hoodie. He got on somewhere around 14th and proceeded to freak everyone around him out. About once a minute he would clap his hands loudly and say--in a preacher-type voice--something like, "just chill," or, "we need more pepper for these fucking cheeseburgers," all the while looking around with crazy eyes. Big guy too. The little old lady sitting next to me with the shawl over her head and a cane looked over at me and did the totally nuts finger twirl thing. I had a rare moment in which I actually liked little old ladies.

As it turned out, my grandmother was running pretty late and I spent about half an hour sitting on the steps to the Frick and reading. It's a pretty building with some nice little grounds.




Anyway the Stubbs exhibit was nice if heavily symbolic paintings of animals (see right) and idyllic English countryside scenes--also with animals--are your thing. Upon seeing that particular picture my grandmother said, "Well I wouldn't want to hang that in my living room. Or anywhere." Which is exactly what my mother would say. These charming horse and lion paintings were apparently a reaction to Edmund Burke's notion of the Sublime (capital 's' please) which demanded a mix of beauty and terror. I was actually familiar with this idea of the Sublime from reading Passage to Juneau which made me feel like quite the smartypants. Anyway, as a fan of neither symbolism nor idealized country scenes in which people happily reap grain in fine clothing I was glad the exhibition was short. I can be interested in that stuff, but only in small doses.

Since neither of us had ever been to the Frick we looked around the permanent collection as well. I'd always thought of the Frick as a rather staid and serious museum and apparently I was not mistaken. Lots of portraits of finely dressed ladies. In front of each one my grandmother would comment on whether or not the lady looked happy, sad, or what have you and saying things like, "Gawd, look at that jewelry. Good grief auntie." I really might as well just have been at the museum with my mother.

By the time we left it had cooled down considerably outside and we walked over to a little bakery for a late lunch. I don't think I've ever been to a bakery with ruder staff. You suck, Corrado Bread & Pastry!


My sister is in Alaska right now and going to see the start of the Iditarod tomorrow. Such adventure! I'm so jealous I could vomit.