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Entry tags:
Opera! Culture! Stuff!
On Saturday I was invited by the wonderful ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
luvenditti (who no longer has an LJ, alas) to accompany her and a few others to a screening of the Metropolitan Opera's staging of La Cenerentola (Rossini's adaptation of Cinderella). I haven't been to the opera in well over a decade, and the last time I went to the theatre was in 2011 with pdaughter to see the play that luvenditti was in (I'm sensing a pattern), so I was very excited to go.
As I mentioned in my previous entry, I'd gotten a late start to the day, since I forgot to set my alarm and the dog had kept me up until 3:00 or so, and only woke up at 7:00. Still, I did get some basic stuff done, like the dishes and what have you. I also spent two hours in the yard doing more clean-up work, mostly cutting down lilac branches to a size that would be acceptable for the green waste pick-up this month. They are very picky about what size of debris they're willing to cart away for you, which I I can understand even if it's a hassle. I'm willing to bet if they didn't specify the size people would be leaving entire tree trunks for them to take away, which is just not realistic.
While I was out there I found the first garter snake of the season, which I picked up and brought inside for Bean to see, since I was pretty sure that he'd never seen a snake up close and personal before. I was correct, and he was delighted and gave the snake a kiss. The poor snake was a big traumatised and peed on me, but it let me hang onto it long enough to take a picture (which I have not yet uploaded to my computer, alas, but if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook you've probably already seen it) and then slithered away into the underbrush when I let it go. I found two more snakes not long after, and relocated them to the back yard because the neighbour's son was there chatting with me and he is rather phobic of all things herpetological (Yes, I'm making up words. Shh.).
Then I blinked and it was suddenly 11:00, so I made a wild dash inside to freshen up and put on clothes that weren't covered in crap from the yard and run out the door to get to the opera on time. I had to stop by the bank first (pesky opera tickets costing money and all) and noticed that the local M&M store was having a barbecue, so I calledpdaughter to let her know just in case she decided to take Bean for a walk in that direction. They did, as it turned out, so it was a good thing I called. The weather was beautiful, which is my only mild regret of the day, that I had to spend part of it inside in the dark.
The opera was lovely. I have to say that this kind of drama giocoso is not my first choice when it comes to operatic genres, but the lead role was sung by Joyce DiDonato, who has a beautiful voice for coloratura, and it was fantastic to watch her and Juan Diego Florez (the tenor playing the prince) together on stage. I'm not sure what to make of the set decoration. It was quite minimalistic, and everything was hugely oversized, making it look a little bit like the performers were dolls trying to use normal-sized objects and furniture. Quite strange, and it gave everything a rather surreal aspect. In a way it added to the humour of the situation, especially the various antics centred around an oversized sofa missing one leg, but overall I found it a little jarring.
(Shameful confession time: I was so tired that I nodded off for about five minutes toward the middle of the first act. Whoops.)
I had a great time. I'm definitely going to scrape the money together for tickets for next season, since you can only buy them at the beginning of the season and not as you go. It'll be tricky to work out with my schedule, but I'll make it work. I hadn't realised how much I missed going out to see professional performers do their thing. If I make it my *only* expenditure for fun things next year, I can probably justify the expense. It's only slightly more expensive than an actual movie ticket, and is a fraction of the price of actually going to an opera or a play. Well worth it, even if I'm currently tying myself into guilt-ridden knots over "wasting" the money I spent on something frivolous, as well as the time I should probably have spent clearing out the back yard. I know Bean is dying to get outside and play, and as long as I don't have the yard completely cleared he won't be able to do so. In the meantime we've been taking him on walks and to the park, but it's not the same as just letting him run around in the yard. I hope that we'll be able to get that fence put up really soon too, so that we don't have to worry about him getting into places he's not supposed to go.
Aside from that, it was wonderful to seeluvenditti again, as well as toughlovemuse, whom I hadn't seen since Bean's birthday party. I was a little sad to have to rush off after the opera rather than sit and have a chat with them, but I needed to head over to taxlady's place for, you guessed it, tax stuff. I got caught in inexplicable traffic on St-Jean boulevard on my way there, and as a result I ended up getting home well over an hour and a half later than I'd expected to. That was also due in part to the opera being longer than I'd expected, running close to three hours in total (the first act was nearly two hours long!).
We ended up putting Bean to bed shortly after that, and resumed our attempt to catch up on The Following, though we're now about eleven episodes behind. This is a show that I really want to love, but after a really strong start in it's first season it has been steadily declining in quality. They've abandoned any semblance of attempting to refer to Edgar Allan Poe and his works, which was part of its original appeal for the both of us, and the plot contrivances are getting, well, ever more contrived. It's getting very difficult to suspend disbelief when watching.
As for yesterday, it was a sadly pretty short Mother's Day, since I had to leave for Ottawa in the afternoon. I made waffles for breakfast, which went over very well with Bean. In retrospect I should have made bacon, too, but it didn't occur to me at the time. We haven't had bacon in quite a while, which is weird since we all love it and I know we have some in the freezer. I'll try to remedy that next weekend. The rest of the morning was spent trying to be productive. I mopped the basement floor where the cats have been making their nightly protest (*sigh*), threw out the play mats which were also irreparably damaged by cats (*double sigh*), did a surface clean of the bathroom and kitchen, folded all my laundry, packed my bags for work and loaded my all-season tires into the car (I'm getting the tires changed on Friday when I come home from work).
I made it to Ottawa and hit traffic anyway even though it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I really don't understand this city at all. I got my groceries, got home to find that my landlords were both there and had taken up the entire driveway, so I had to park two blocks away (other cars were taking up all the available parking spaces nearby) and unpack my bags and the groceries from there, which was a bit of a hassle. I put together my lunches for the week, did my landlords' dishes because they were in the sink and I needed the sink free to make my lunches, and set up the coffee pot for this morning. I then cleaned the kitchen before I retired for the night, because my landlady still gets twitchy if I leave anything on the counter or if all surfaces are not pristine.
In spite of all that I was ready for bed by 19:30, and had lights out within an hour. Not quite 20:00 the way I'd have preferred, but damned close, and I could feel the difference when I got up this morning at 3:50. I haven't quite made up the sleep deficit from Friday night, but at least I don't feel like a complete zombie, so that's something.
Now the work day is starting in earnest, which means I need to get my act in gear. See you on the flip side!
luvenditti (who no longer has an LJ, alas) to accompany her and a few others to a screening of the Metropolitan Opera's staging of La Cenerentola (Rossini's adaptation of Cinderella). I haven't been to the opera in well over a decade, and the last time I went to the theatre was in 2011 with pdaughter to see the play that luvenditti was in (I'm sensing a pattern), so I was very excited to go.As I mentioned in my previous entry, I'd gotten a late start to the day, since I forgot to set my alarm and the dog had kept me up until 3:00 or so, and only woke up at 7:00. Still, I did get some basic stuff done, like the dishes and what have you. I also spent two hours in the yard doing more clean-up work, mostly cutting down lilac branches to a size that would be acceptable for the green waste pick-up this month. They are very picky about what size of debris they're willing to cart away for you, which I I can understand even if it's a hassle. I'm willing to bet if they didn't specify the size people would be leaving entire tree trunks for them to take away, which is just not realistic.
While I was out there I found the first garter snake of the season, which I picked up and brought inside for Bean to see, since I was pretty sure that he'd never seen a snake up close and personal before. I was correct, and he was delighted and gave the snake a kiss. The poor snake was a big traumatised and peed on me, but it let me hang onto it long enough to take a picture (which I have not yet uploaded to my computer, alas, but if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook you've probably already seen it) and then slithered away into the underbrush when I let it go. I found two more snakes not long after, and relocated them to the back yard because the neighbour's son was there chatting with me and he is rather phobic of all things herpetological (Yes, I'm making up words. Shh.).
Then I blinked and it was suddenly 11:00, so I made a wild dash inside to freshen up and put on clothes that weren't covered in crap from the yard and run out the door to get to the opera on time. I had to stop by the bank first (pesky opera tickets costing money and all) and noticed that the local M&M store was having a barbecue, so I called
pdaughter to let her know just in case she decided to take Bean for a walk in that direction. They did, as it turned out, so it was a good thing I called. The weather was beautiful, which is my only mild regret of the day, that I had to spend part of it inside in the dark.The opera was lovely. I have to say that this kind of drama giocoso is not my first choice when it comes to operatic genres, but the lead role was sung by Joyce DiDonato, who has a beautiful voice for coloratura, and it was fantastic to watch her and Juan Diego Florez (the tenor playing the prince) together on stage. I'm not sure what to make of the set decoration. It was quite minimalistic, and everything was hugely oversized, making it look a little bit like the performers were dolls trying to use normal-sized objects and furniture. Quite strange, and it gave everything a rather surreal aspect. In a way it added to the humour of the situation, especially the various antics centred around an oversized sofa missing one leg, but overall I found it a little jarring.
(Shameful confession time: I was so tired that I nodded off for about five minutes toward the middle of the first act. Whoops.)
I had a great time. I'm definitely going to scrape the money together for tickets for next season, since you can only buy them at the beginning of the season and not as you go. It'll be tricky to work out with my schedule, but I'll make it work. I hadn't realised how much I missed going out to see professional performers do their thing. If I make it my *only* expenditure for fun things next year, I can probably justify the expense. It's only slightly more expensive than an actual movie ticket, and is a fraction of the price of actually going to an opera or a play. Well worth it, even if I'm currently tying myself into guilt-ridden knots over "wasting" the money I spent on something frivolous, as well as the time I should probably have spent clearing out the back yard. I know Bean is dying to get outside and play, and as long as I don't have the yard completely cleared he won't be able to do so. In the meantime we've been taking him on walks and to the park, but it's not the same as just letting him run around in the yard. I hope that we'll be able to get that fence put up really soon too, so that we don't have to worry about him getting into places he's not supposed to go.
Aside from that, it was wonderful to see
luvenditti again, as well as toughlovemuse, whom I hadn't seen since Bean's birthday party. I was a little sad to have to rush off after the opera rather than sit and have a chat with them, but I needed to head over to taxlady's place for, you guessed it, tax stuff. I got caught in inexplicable traffic on St-Jean boulevard on my way there, and as a result I ended up getting home well over an hour and a half later than I'd expected to. That was also due in part to the opera being longer than I'd expected, running close to three hours in total (the first act was nearly two hours long!).We ended up putting Bean to bed shortly after that, and resumed our attempt to catch up on The Following, though we're now about eleven episodes behind. This is a show that I really want to love, but after a really strong start in it's first season it has been steadily declining in quality. They've abandoned any semblance of attempting to refer to Edgar Allan Poe and his works, which was part of its original appeal for the both of us, and the plot contrivances are getting, well, ever more contrived. It's getting very difficult to suspend disbelief when watching.
As for yesterday, it was a sadly pretty short Mother's Day, since I had to leave for Ottawa in the afternoon. I made waffles for breakfast, which went over very well with Bean. In retrospect I should have made bacon, too, but it didn't occur to me at the time. We haven't had bacon in quite a while, which is weird since we all love it and I know we have some in the freezer. I'll try to remedy that next weekend. The rest of the morning was spent trying to be productive. I mopped the basement floor where the cats have been making their nightly protest (*sigh*), threw out the play mats which were also irreparably damaged by cats (*double sigh*), did a surface clean of the bathroom and kitchen, folded all my laundry, packed my bags for work and loaded my all-season tires into the car (I'm getting the tires changed on Friday when I come home from work).
I made it to Ottawa and hit traffic anyway even though it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I really don't understand this city at all. I got my groceries, got home to find that my landlords were both there and had taken up the entire driveway, so I had to park two blocks away (other cars were taking up all the available parking spaces nearby) and unpack my bags and the groceries from there, which was a bit of a hassle. I put together my lunches for the week, did my landlords' dishes because they were in the sink and I needed the sink free to make my lunches, and set up the coffee pot for this morning. I then cleaned the kitchen before I retired for the night, because my landlady still gets twitchy if I leave anything on the counter or if all surfaces are not pristine.
In spite of all that I was ready for bed by 19:30, and had lights out within an hour. Not quite 20:00 the way I'd have preferred, but damned close, and I could feel the difference when I got up this morning at 3:50. I haven't quite made up the sleep deficit from Friday night, but at least I don't feel like a complete zombie, so that's something.
Now the work day is starting in earnest, which means I need to get my act in gear. See you on the flip side!