A cold!

The last few days I've been getting a bit of a cold. I managed to get through all the opera performances this last weekend, but I'll have to wait and see about the last one. (Two years ago I had to miss the later half of the shows!)  The next four days will be mostly rest.

Today I bought some grapefruit to help with the cold.  This was after the Sunday afternoon Merry Widow performance, which Moira saw.  If only the weather had been warmer and I'd been in better shape we could have walked home like last week!

Today we had another big family gathering to mark Donald's birthday today, and Father and Margaret's birthdays in this coming week.  We had Indian food again, and I took too much and could only finish half of what was on my plate, so we saved it so I can eat it later. (Nobody else wants it because of my germs!)

I remember a year ago when I got a cold and ate huge grapefruit while watching the miniseries Texas Rising, with Bill Paxton who just died as Sam Houston. (I also liked him in One False Move, Trespass and the polygamy TV show Big Love!)

Friday I baked some gingerbread for the opera people to sell in the lobby. (It went pretty fast.) I wrote out the recipe for Kathy, my dance partner in The Merry Widow.

Thursday I went to the Deer Park library to try to find Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha for John Snow's book club, but it had just been taken out.  So Saturday I went to Yorkdale Mall and bought one of three copies at Indigo Books.  The Spadina subway line was being serviced so I had to take the bus north on Bathurst, west on Lawrence and north on Dufferin.  I love these urban adventures!

On The Sopranos I got an episode ahead of the others again, so I could warn them to skip the scene where Paulie murdered his mother's friend for her money stash! (But they liked the scene where the family was talking about Billy Budd.) That show had a lot of good actors even in small roles, like Sharon Angela as Carmela's widowed friend Rosalie and Alla Kliouka as the unaffected Russian Svetlana.

More dress rehearsals

Last night and tonight we had two more dress rehearsals of the operas for the other lead casts. (We have two groups of soloists for each show.) That's a total of four dress rehearsals and two performances over nine days.  It's grant time and we need to sell about 1400 tickets this year--we've done that before when doing Carmen.  The music from both shows has been going through my head.

Yesterday was a holiday, so the library wasn't open for my memoir group.  I took advantage of the two-week gap to take home the canister of subject cards again, and winnowed out half a dozen redundant ones. (Last time there were more like ten.) I found one card that had subjects written on both sides, so I rewrote them on two cards.  Used to be that I'd think of a lot of new subjects to add, but I don't think of many these days.

I've finally finished the Lapham's Quarterly special issue about Alexander Hamilton.  They ought to make a movie about the crisis in late-1790s America!

In our latest Sopranos episode, we skipped the part where Tony confronted Ralph and ended up killing him. (As loathsome as Ralph was, he did dress pretty cool!)

I'm no longer wearing long johns or winter boots. I guess it's time to put my electric heater away too.

Opening weekend

The opera started this weekend, with The Merry Widow last night and Carmen this afternoon.  The audiences were pretty enthusiastic.  Moira came to see Carmen today (she liked it) and we walked home together in the mild weather.  I'm now wearing my non-winter shoes again!

Yesterday we finally got around to returning the new malfunctioning printer.

I finished Angela's Ashes yesterday and started reading the rest of the Lapham's Quarterly special issue about Alexander Hamilton.

Father and Moira have finally caught up with me, and now we're watching The Sopranos together again.

It turns out that we're doing two more dress rehearsals this week for the operas' other lead casts.  You'd think I'd have noticed that earlier, but I'm my mother's son!

Dress rehearsals

"Elizabeth, your justice could freeze beer!"--The Crucible

Tuesday and Wednesday were the dress rehearsals for The Merry Widow and Carmen respectively. On Tuesday I didn't wait for a mirror but put on most of my makeup by feel! (Kathy says I did an OK job.)

Tonight I looked at the video of Nicholas Hytner's movie of The Crucible, Arthur Miller's play about the Salem witch trials.  It was pretty good, though I got sleepy in the middle part.

Last night I dreamed of being in a Heart of Darkness type adventure, except that instead of a man the target was a woman in military uniform, and the team out to get her included a teenage boy. Then I dreamed of a non-existent tall building west of Keele & St. Clair that exploded into a big fireball. (That must be from hearing about the tennis club fire near Yonge & St. Clair.)

Because of that fire, Scallywag's is closed for now, so I'll have to move the History Meetup location elsewhere, presumably to the Ryerson Hub where I've moved my other Meetups.

I've been contributing to a lively discussion at the Salon website about an interview with Susan Sarandon and her being blamed for not supporting Hillary Clinton.  Something that bugs me is that when I say that Bernie Sanders would have had a better chance at beating Trump, Clintonites respond with a circular argument: "We Democrats didn't vote for Bernie, therefore Bernie wasn't electable, therefore not voting for Bernie wasn't a mistake!"  I posted that Democrats who voted to nominate Clinton were "dumb as styrofoam"!

Costumes

Young Frank McCourt (being told that his baby brother was going to be christened Alphonsus): "That's a stupid name.  It isn't even Irish"--Angela's Ashes 

(He got slapped and missed out on the christening.)

This morning I went to the Bickford Centre and helped them unload the costumes for the opera. (I also tried on both my costumes.  Our male gypsy costumes for Carmen include a serape-type thing you drape over your shoulder--I wonder if it'll keep falling off unless you pin it or something.) I went to Beatrice and the other girls in the women's dressing room to tell her, "The male costumes are all hung," and couldn't resist adding "...and well hung too!" (That got a groan...)

Yesterday I attended John Snow's book club in his apartment building on Adelaide Street, where we discussed Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac. (Years ago Moira called her Anita Droopner!) I didn't have much to add, however, since I didn't have time to read the book. Getting there in the snowy weather was an adventure in itself.

When John visited a week ago he spent half the visit trying to fix my new printer.  Then Donald visited yesterday and spent a lot of time on it too. It reminded me of a time about thirty years ago when Donald was visiting the family in Sackville, but our new Atari 2600 computer was on the blink and I had a college paper to print out, so he spent most of the visit working on our machine!

As it is, it looks like we'll have to return or exchange the machine.  This time Father and I will carry it back together!

Just read the part of Angela's Ashes where his father went off to work in the factories of wartime England but never sent any money home, so his mother had to go apply for relief to two officials who made the experience even more humiliating than it had to be. Limerick may be a city, but it definitely reminds me of a small town!

The cable signal finally came back so we're watching The Sopranos again. (I'm an episode ahead of the others.)

LA LA LAND

On Los Angeles: "They worship everything and value nothing"--La La Land

Thursday I visited Dr. Hassan and with his advice completed my O.D.S.P. application. (My description of how Asperger's Syndrome affected me was on the brief side.  Maybe I should have mentioned my occasional bouts with insomnia!)

Last night I went to Bulk Barns near Keele & St. Clair and bought brown flour and rye flour there for the first time.  Our cable connection is off so we haven't been watching The Sopranos for the last few days.

This afternoon I was going to attend the big rally for electoral reform.  Unfortunately, it was in Nathan Phillips Square and I went to Queen's Park instead. (D'oh!) Oh well, it was a nice mild day for getting out.

Tonight I saw La La Land at the Market Square. It's a cute confection that gets better as it goes along.  It reminded me of Jacques Demy's 1960s musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, though that film had more passion.

The other night I dreamed of being involved in this scheme where they smuggled me into one of the Gulf States in the Middle East and I posed as Arab royalty and attracted pretty women!

ANGELA'S ASHES

Frank McCourt's father at his christening (to a priest who'd implicitly criticized his speakeasy habit): "Take off that collar and we'll see who's the man."

I've started reading Frank McCourt's memoir Angela's Ashes for my history group, for the second time. (The first time I read it, some fifteen years ago, I finished it in just four days or so:  it helped that I'd already seen the movie.) Depressing yet funny--I've heard that he developed the story from telling and retelling it over the years.  When they were interviewing him on 60 Minutes he said, "A Limerick man said to me, 'You shamed your mother, you shamed Limerick and you shamed Ireland!' A holy trinity of shame!" His Teacher Man is also excellent.

I had lunch with John Snow again yesterday. (We were going to eat at a new Indian restaurant called Ji, but it turned out that it's only open for dinner, so we went to Schnitzel Hub again.) Unfortunately, I didn't have much to talk about because so much of it I've already written on this blog, which he reads.

At opera rehearsal Beatrice said to the women doing the Gypsy Dance in Carmen, "Smile, ladies!...  Think of sex, think of shopping, think of ice cream, think of something that excites you!" I hope I have enough energy for the performances.

Someone compared Donald Trump's adviser Steve Bannon to Tony Soprano, and Trump himself to Tony's protege Christopher Moltisanti.  If you ask me, Trump is more like the twisted gangster Ralph Cifaretto!

55

Today I turned 55.  We ate Chinese food and a strawberry shortcake with white chocolate curls. My fortune cookie said "You have an excellent imagination." (Someone said that you can improve any fortune cookie prediction by adding the words "...in bed"!)

I got a whole lot of "Happy birthday" messages on Facebook from people I don't know.  I replied with a smiley emoticon for each of them, but with people who clearly had Spanish/ Portuguese/ Italian names I wrote "Gracias/Obrigado/Grazie"!

When I brought the new printer Friday, the salesman talked me into buying a fresh ink cartridge too.  So I assumed I'd have to add that cartridge when installing it, but it wouldn't go in. Eventually I figured out that there was already a cartridge inside!  I felt quite the monkey.

The printer is almost installed, except that when I try to print something I get a message that the printer isn't responding.  Oh well, I can wait for Donald or John to figure it out.

We're now watching the fourth season of The Sopranos.  We skipped the last part of the first episode where Christopher avenged his father's death.

I made a goof scheduling this months Reading Out Loud Meetup.  I thought that the opera's eight performances would be like last year, over two weeks with four performances each.  But it turns out that there are two performances in the first week, three in the second and three in the third. Which means it conflicts with that Meetup event, so I had to move it to March. (First time I recall doing that with Reading Out Loud!)

ROGUE ONE (spoiler!)

Good Guy: "You'll never win!" Bad Guy: "Now where have I heard that before?"--Rogue One

Yesterday afternoon I returned to the previous day's interview site with a void cheque (so they can put money directly into my account) and a copy of my 2015 tax return.  I had to miss the first event of a new Meetup group for people over 55, but there were almost thirty people going and I don't care for groups that big.  Besides, I'll only turn 55 this Sunday!

Last night the History Meetup discussed the United States.  Predictably, our discussion ended up being about The Donald.

This afternoon I went out to Staples near Keele & St. Clair and bought a new printer for my computer as a birthday indulgence. (First I checked out the Best Buy competition.) I'd been planning on getting a color inkjet, but on the way over I realized that I could use the downstairs computer's color printer, so I might as well get a monochrome laser printer.  It was somewhat more expensive but in the long run it'll save ink costs.  I was hoping they'd deliver it, but instead I had to tote it home.

I've started reading the original articles in the new Home issue of Lapham's Quarterly.

Tonight I finally saw Rogue One at the Carlton. Like the Star Wars series in general, it was rather shameless fun. The blind martial artist seemed to be derived from Japan's blind swordsman Zatoichi. One thing I liked about it was that... (Here comes the spoiler!)

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...all the important characters died in the end! (Like The Hateful Eight, it reminded me of those Biddle Family childhood plays where my siblings and I would all die in different ways.) While the Star Wars movies owe a lot to serials like Flash Gordon, this one reminded me as much of a war movie.

Welfare

Paulie: "You're late!" Ralph: "Well, tomorrow I can be on time, but you'll be stupid forever!"--The Sopranos

John Snow asked what I was doing today.  I had an interview about getting onto the welfare rolls so I can apply for O.D.S.P. (Moira came along with me and helped out.  I was late in thanking her, because I was ashamed that I couldn't do it all by myself.)

Unfortunately, I got the place wrong.  I'd convinced myself that the interview was at the office near Metro Hall when it was actually at the office near Eglinton Station!  We were half an hour late, but things went pretty well.  There was some confusion because I'd put down Father's income source when I was supposed to give my own, but it got figured out in the end.  I also got my name put on this list that can involve me in recreational activities and such.

Opera rehearsal is now on both Tuesday and Wednesday night.  We're finally working onstage with the soloists.  Last night was Carmen and tonight was The Merry Widow, and we staged the whole operas and stayed for four hours!  Us men had fun diving for the Merry Widow's dance card, but we had to do it three times to get the right place:  first time we were too close to the center stage entrance, second time we were too far upstage near the curtain.

In Carmen I get to kneel next to the star during the later part of her Habanera number until she pushes me away and I do a pratfall!