Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: May 2011

• Toting It Along

  Posted at 2:25 am by kayewer, on May 29, 2011

  Handbags are a pain in the neck, as well as the shoulder.  Ever since the Ambassador II–the greatest handbag invented since carrying stuff around in a small, decorated vessel was assigned to women–went out of production, it’s been a fruitless search for a replacement.

  Just this week I got one based on an online examination, and I’ll have to return it; it looked good in the picture, but the metal handle alone weighs five pounds, and it’s about the size of a toddler to carry along.  I’m really trying to downsize my purse, like most women (along with our weight).  I’m down to carrying the contents of a fat cereal box, and checking the scale (yes, I weighed the contents of my purse) I found I’m carting about six pounds every day on my shoulder.  You male readers may laugh, but just wait until you need a spare tissue or a pen.  Unless you cave and buy a “man purse” or fill your pockets, a woman with a purse is your best friend.

  For those of you looking for a purse with a good flap closure and some room inside for more than just a lipstick and pocket change, the best I’ve come up with so far is Donna Sharp’s Pauline model in patchwork fabric, which happens to be in this season.  There is a center zipped pocket, an extra outer zip pocket, one inside the flap and the back section, two outer pouches for cell phones or to stuff receipts, a pen loop,  and plenty of strap room to adjust for any shoulder.  Mine is in pink, but they come in a variety of colors.  One woman I know has a collection of them.  We now exchange purchasing lore, and now that I’ve introduced her to ebags.com and she pointed me to the handbag, we’re tight.

  Talk about tight, have you seen the new theft-proof bags out on the market?  The company, Travelon, says their bags are made of nylon and “wire mesh, chain link construction” (I’m not making this up) to deter pickpockets and thieves who might slash your strap and make off with your spare tissues and pocket change.  They look fashionable enough, but unless my favorite haunts become demilitarized zones, I want colorful and roomy.

  The problem I’ll have with Donna Sharp fabric is that I’ll be worried once winter comes.  There’s nothing like a soggy purse, which is why leather has stood as the most popular handbag material.  Maybe I’ll do what women have done for ages:  slap a plastic bag over it like it’s own little all weather coat.

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• Saturdays in New York

  Posted at 12:31 am by kayewer, on May 22, 2011

  The song was “Autumn in New York,” not Saturday, but just spending a day can be an interesting experience.  Over the years I’ve spent quite a few Saturdays or a few occasional weekdays in the city, mostly walking from place to place.  It’s good to have comfortable shoes, a well-rested body and good spirits if you plan to hoof through the forest of steel and stone that is New York City.

  It feels good to walk, spending an hour or so between destinations on the move and not sitting down.  When you work all week from an office chair, the pavements of the city are welcoming and amazingly well maintained for such high traffic activity day and night.  The people seem used to fast footwork, crowded street corners and the cacophony of multiple languages clashing above their heads from all angles.

  The backdrop of Times Square is changing (always has been), and the afternoon I was there found droves of visitors sitting in traffic-free zones enjoying the atmosphere.  The mess of city traffic has been refined by new laws, and the change seems to have relaxed the crowds considerably.  The glitz of the overhead signage was still there, but the visual effect wasn’t drowned out by car, truck, taxi or bus  horns.

  The running joke for me about NYC is the presence of the Duane Reed pharmacy chain, competing with Starbucks for the most city corner presence.  I guess with millions of people in the city, you need a lot of places to get aspirin or a cup of coffee, so at least the business district is accommodating in that respect.

  If you can’t find what you want in New York City, you’re not looking in the right place.  There are stores of every kind, places to eat, drink, take the kids, take your date, take a break.  Movie houses have what appears to be the entire Hollywood repetoire in one location.  There are museums for everything, restaurants for every culture, fast food for every finicky palate, and more ways to part with your take home pay per square foot than microbes on the head of a pin.

  As for me, I have been going to the opera a lot lately, with plans to make a special trip to see Phantom of the Opera soon (not being one to give up my first love of live theatre).  No matter when I get into the city, I always seem to miss what happens with the Saturday theatre matinee crowd, because I’m away from the theatre district, at Lincoln Center, when the shows start.  When you go to opera productions that start at 12 or 1:00, it’s easy to forget that Broadway gets busy, and the streets probably get less packed, as patrons file into the theatres for the next big musical or that big visiting star doing a cameo in a production.  Around 5:00, the lobbies belch out happy crowds of tune humming tourists back into the heart of the city, and the restaurants do their part to feed them all.  I don’t bother with dinner, because the busses run on odd schedules that don’t allow time for even a quick fast food stop.  My day usually ends with prolonged standing for a seat on a bus out of town, but by then I’m blissfully exhausted and have been well exercised and entertained.

  It’s one interesting place to spend a Saturday.

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• Well Met?

  Posted at 12:11 am by kayewer, on May 16, 2011

  I have been an opera patron for about 15 years, and my first love is Richard Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen (or simply The Ring).  In 2010 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of the 15-hour four-part opera, replacing a classic and much loved version directed by Otto Schenk that endured for 20 years.  This new version is the work of Robert Lepage.

  The key to the new production is “The Machine,” a 40-some-ton set of planks designed to rotate independently and serve as sets and backdrops for most of the action.  The planks tilt and undulate, and projections of oceans, mountains and forests add the depth of scenery.  In the first part of the Ring tetralogy (“Das Rheingold”), the mechanics failed on the maiden performance to configure into a bridge for the gods onstage to cross, so the performers were forced to simply walk off the stage at the climax.

  Like movie buffs, we opera goers know what we like, we watch for certain elements in a performance and can get testy when things don’t look right by our preconceived standards.  For example, it was not unusual for opera fans to boo Pavarotti at La Scala if they didn’t think he was performing well.   Some things one just can’t control in live theatre, but when a piece of machinery is the main source of your production’s entertainment value, mechanical flubs will get bad reviews as scathing as those for a bad tenor.

  In the Met’s next to last production of the 2010-2011 season, on May 14, the machine rebelled against the gods again.  This time, the mechanical behemoth caused a delay of 45 minutes in the start of a performance the Met was broadcasting to worldwide movie audiences as well as 4,000 patrons in the opera house.  I was one of the latter.

  After presenting tickets, the audience members milled about the lobby in increasingly oppressive heat (a lack of lobby ventilation/air conditioning, combined with 4,000 human bodies, is a bad combination).  An announcement came saying that–surprise– there was a delay.  Most of us knew right away that The Machine was to blame, though there were also concerns for conductor James Levine, who is a stalwart at the podium but in sub-perfect health.

  We were finally admitted to the auditorium by an apologetic staff about ten minutes past the scheduled start time, because they felt we would be cooler inside.  The crew was still at work on the planks.  The show started at 12:45 at last, and the planks appeared to function properly for the entire performance.

  The cause of the problem was attributed to the computerized communication system that keeps each plank properly aligned for each new configuration, but we were not told that by the Met staff.  The movie audience received that tidbit, and I learned it from the online news.

  So how was the performance?  Having been to a handful of complete Rings during the 20-year run of the Otto Schenk production, I find this version needs something more, but what is uncertain.

  It starts promisingly, with a pursuit through the plank’s projected stand of trees.  I particularly enjoyed Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund and Hans-Peter Konig as wronged husband Hunding.  I’m still on the fence about Bryn Terfel’s take on the fountainhead of the gods Wotan, though he seems more powerful in this performance.  The proof of a good Wotan comes at the climax, in which the god renounces his own daughter and summons fire to surround the rock on which he has left her in a deep sleep.  Terfel strove hard to be torn between his roles as god and parent, and he gets points for that.  Stephanie Blythe plays Wotan’s wife Fricka, and her presence is stunning, especially when riding into a scene in a chariot flanked by golden rams.  She puts her husband in his place effectively.

  Also worth noting are the title Valkyries, eight warrior daughters and Brunnhilde heading the brood, all mighty women with powerful voices.  Their task is to bring dead heroes to Valhalla to protect the gods, but in this interpretation they must bag up the discarded bones of said heroes, which lay about the set.  I’ve seen versions in which they drag deadweight stunt doubles around, but this method didn’t seem necessary.

  At the climax of the production, Brunnhilde is suspended upside down on a wall of well-behaved planks, surrounded by projected flames, with a distraught Wotan taking a knee in front of the orchestra.  Some of the visual power was lacking from what is normally a profound scene.  That being said, I know that any new production needs to get its roots in before it blossoms, so I’m holding off on a thumbs down for now.  There are still two operas left, to come this fall and next spring.  The gods will fall, because it is in the script, but I hope the Met can make sure they don’t fall with them.

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• That “Not My Car” Smell

  Posted at 2:25 am by kayewer, on May 8, 2011

  When your car has to stay in the shop and they give you a rental, why is it that the vehicle is never by the same manufacturer?  You drive in with a crippled Beetle and leave the rental place with a Volvo.

  Rentals have improved over the years in terms of model and appeal, especially if you’re in need of one because yours is in for repairs.  In the old days, I found myself in some real  hoopties (or, for you older folk, jalopies).  I got to use a newer Nissan during a recent repair excursion.  At least it appears to be a 20-something year model.

  A car by another manufacturer has its own little quirks, and the renter doesn’t provide a guide beyond showing you where the obvious things are.    I’m used to everything being non-power on a car; I crank my windows and lean over the passenger seat to adjust the right mirror so objects are not in the spot you expect them to be on I-295 driving 65.  This car had power windows and side mirrors, and it had so many buttons on the steering wheel, I was worried I’d thump the wrong button with my hand by mistake and make passing truckers laugh at the silly lady driving with the flashers on.

  I learned quickly how to make sure the buttons worked when I wanted them to, like by leaving the key on without the ignition.  They don’t send you to Power Accessory Upgrade School for these things, you know.

  The symbols on the controls of some cars are hard to read.  I wanted to squirt some washer fluid on the windshield, but the curvy arrows on the turn signal wand didn’t provide a clue.  Sure, wipers are wipers in any car, but if I contorted the wand in the direction the symbol indicated just to shoot some liquid on the window, I’d have wrapped the wand around the steering column.  Fortunately I didn’t need the fluid badly enough to take the chance.

  The dashboard panel goes from a bright orange letter “P” when I’m parked to an orange “D” when I’m driving.  I don’t know why I need to see the obvious when I’m doing the shifting myself using a device next to my right leg that has the same lettering on it, but there you go.

  Cars have different ways of telling you how much gas you’re wasting on your trips.  My recent rental had a semi-circular row of orange squares that would vanish as the gallons disintegrated into the atmosphere.  My poor baby in the shop has a needle that sweeps from “F” to “E” quite effectively.  The rental agent asked me to return the car with four squares on the readout.  That’s easy to remember:  that’s my daily diet.

  Finally, a rental vehicle loses any sort of distinctive odor after a few different people have driven it.  The exception is if a driver smoked in the car.  The interior of a rental is spartan; no fuzzy dice on the rear view mirror, no CD in the player or spare change for the toll in one of those spring-rigged holders.  My rental did have an adjustable cup holder that can be shifted to accommodate two small drinks, two large drinks, or one small and one large drink.  They thought of everything.  I still took mine back from the shop and, even if this was the ploy the rental agency had in mind, I don’t think I’ll change car companies.  I have a few thousand miles of window cranking left in mine.

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• If You Can’t Say Something Nice

  Posted at 2:00 am by kayewer, on May 8, 2011

  Now that the dust has somewhat cleared, I wonder if it’s okay to say some things that are not negative about the late Osama bin Laden.  Don’t get all worked up about it.  I’m just saying that there are some things one can say about every human being, even him, that aren’t vitriolic.  Since God made us all, we should be able to find it in our hearts to use some emotionally neutral words to talk about even people whom many consider the most reviled human denizens of earth.

  We should remember that he was a human being like us all.  He started life, like we all did, as a baby in the care of a family who did what they felt was right to raise him to be an independent adult.  He had friends and an education.  He made good and bad choices, and many of the bad ones have become memorable worldwide.  His path in life took him into exile and ended with an untimely demise.

  Whatever the future of human relations may turn out to be, we will always remember this man as somebody who killed people to make a point.  It has never worked at any point in history, but he tried it anyway.  Battlefields have been rivers of blood since before recorded history, and not once has it made human beings any better than before the killings began.  After the innocent lives are taken, the perpetrator dies, too, at the hands of others if not by battle wounds or old age.  Innocent or guilty, death leaves no chance for redemption, no time to see what other paths are out there.

  It’s a shame that human beings do such things to each other.  The answers to why we do them are in a place we must die to get to.  In the United States we have been in emotional chaos for almost ten years, looking for the end of the pain caused by 9/11.  I hope that life provides more answers than death.

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• All the Single Ladies

  Posted at 2:57 am by kayewer, on May 1, 2011

  It’s bittersweet looking at the royal wedding from the POV of somebody unmarried.  Of course Prince William and his bride are destined to ascend to the height of the monarchy someday, unlike the common population.  That’s a bit of a burden nobody would experience in everyday life.

  The couple is stunningly attractive, have contact lists the size of the population of New York City and have grown up in the public eye and know how to interact with people.  The rest of us have to struggle with real life dating rituals and the months and years of heartache that go with them.

  The mysteries of how two people find each other and manage to spend years together as a legally and/or spiritually united couple aren’t always revealed to everybody.  As a result, some folks never survive marriage for more than a few months or years before attaching themselves to another mate, some circulate among many partners but don’t find the “right” one, and others never date at all.

  In my life I have seen beautiful people become miserable when married, plain or–dare I say, downright ugly– people find eternal happiness, and perfectly decent people somewhere in between who can’t make it off square one when it comes to the mating game.  It all seems to happen by accident, for good or bad, and either way has its own perks and problems.

  Weddings have become so lavish and ridiculously expensive, when it really seems to be about two people committing to each other and not who baked the cake or stamped their designer label on the gown.  Women who are obviously not virginal (sometimes they are already pregnant) wear white to the wedding.  In Vegas people can be married by a licensed Elvis impersonator.  Does any of that matter?

  The divorce rate in our country is high, which adds to the burden of the bills for the designer festooned wedding that takes years to pay off.  And let’s face it:  among the single people out there, it can be challenging to find and weed out the undesirables without getting your ego beaten up in the process.  What is wrong with the whole picture of marriage, when it’s so tough to get it right?

  I pass a few churches regularly, and I don’t see as many weddings as before.  It’s sad to think that we have to wait for royalty to tie the knot to see what should be a more familiar scene:  that of true love finding a way to make it happen and make it last.

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