Delicioso

I just got home from my first performance of the weekend and it went well! I was pleased. It took a lot of focus and intensity, so I am pretty exhausted. Plus I have to be up early early for work tomorrow. Ah, the life...

Today was a nice day - I actually did not work, so I was able to get a few things done and rest up a bit for the concert. I even did a little cooking! I mixed up some of my pineapple chicken salad. I have made it a few times and I think it's a great, light, tasty sandwich alternative for the summer. It's nice to make ahead because it takes next to no time to make and can hang out in the fridge until it's needed. I got the recipe from one of my Cooking Light magazines from back in the day. I now access the recipe online here. Yummy! Can't wait to eat it!

hitting the low notes

I love my bass clarinet. I've had it for a few years - got it when I was in grad school. I played it a semester or so in school after I got it, but unfortunately haven't had much opportunity to put it to use since then. Without a concert or some kind of goal to reach for, it has been hard for me to keep in shape on the bass clarinet. Many things are the same as playing the regular clarinet, but it is so much bigger and takes much more air, making it a whole different beast. Let me remind you that I have had some problems when trying to practice the bass clarinet in the past.

Lately, I have been spending a lot of time with the BC. A group I play with, the One World Symphony is performing a concert version of the opera, Vanessa by Samuel Barber this weekend and I am playing bass clarinet in it. Actually, it is a reduced orchestra version, so I am playing the second clarinet part, which is mostly bass clarinet, but also has B-flat and A clarinet. Basically that means I am carrying a lot of stuff around and it takes me forever to get everything together before and after the concerts. I am looking forward to the performances, which are this weekend. I feel much more comfortable with the BC now and am having a lot of fun playing it. I mostly enjoy playing low notes - they rumble through me - I like it. :)

Do you speak Snacklish?

Snickers, the ever-popular candy bar has been doing some major advertising in New York City. I am curious to know if these cheesy ads are everywhere, or just in NYC. They are very simple, pretty corny, but amusing. They play on current ads by changing normal words to promote snacking. For example, a sign that says "Learn to play the snaxophone" or "Learn to Speak Snacklish". My favorite is super simple and sits on top of taxi cabs. Easy enough, it simply states: snaxi. The genius of logos and advertising is that we don't need to see the word Snickers. We all recognize that label and even though we are looking for a ride, we crave the candy bar. Funny... but smart.

blah

Oh my - I've been sick, sick, sick the past few days. No fun at all. Now I am just sick of being sick. In 'normal life' sometimes I would give anything for a day to lay around and watch movies. But when several days of laying around are given (forced) the appeal is lost pretty fast. Did I mention: I am sick of being sick! Tonight I plan on venturing out into the world for the first time in a few days. I have a rehearsal that I am going to try to pull off. I had to cancel work yesterday and today and have been doing nothing but drinking juice and eating soup! I've gotten tons of rest and I am feeling quite a bit better than I did when this first started. Hopefully going to rehearsal tonight will send my body the message that it is time to get better.

mood fix

As I was walking around the city yesterday I passed by a Dunkin' Donuts with this sign in the window:
I think that is very appropriate. Whenever I find myself in a bad mood, the first thing I should try is a fresh cup. Often that does the trick. There is nothing like a little coffee break!

Congratulations Grads!

Way to GO! Jared and Stacy graduate!
They are ready to take on the world!

Heat and Humidity

I am on a little escapade down in Florida! I jumped down here a couple of days ago, but will be heading back soon. A nice little trip - more to come...

Nothing like a little drama...

So you want to know what I've been spending a lot of my time with lately? Opera. Yes - opera. Last year I worked at Carnegie Hall and I was able to see several concerts there. I am currently working for the Metropolitan Opera and have seen a lot of opera. Before I started working there I had a friend who took me all the time, so this little opera affair has been going on for most of 2009. A significant difference between going to a concert at a venue like Carnegie Hall and seeing an opera is the amount of time that it takes. You can go to Carnegie and be out in an hour and a half. An opera is just getting started at an hour and a half! Attending an opera requires an entire evening - it is an event. Which is great! But, it does take up a chunk of time.

Now, I would say the average opera clocks in at around 3 hours. That includes an intermission where you can walk around, mingle, show off your fancy earrings and eat an over-priced cookie. Some operas are a little longer, some a little shorter. But there is this special phenomenon that happens every now and then called the Ring Cycle. I don't want to get into it too much, BUT basically, for those who don't know, Wagner wrote this series of operas (4) that make up the cycle. These operas take huge orchestras (HUGE - he even created instruments specifically for this thing!) and require major productions and are performed (usually) within the span of a week. AND they are much longer than "regular" operas. The Met is currently in the midst of Ring season. This happens every few years - people flock from all over the world to spend night after night at the opera house watching these performances. The first one is only about 2 1/2 hours long and they increase until the last one is a whopping 6 hours long. Ring fans are a breed of their own. These are serious fans. You'd have to be, right? In order to devote about 15 hours to one opera? In one week? Yes, it is broken into four nights, but it's really one huge story. Think Lord of the Rings, opera style. Everyone knows some of the Ring. Click on this to be reminded:


If you are not a serious Wagner fan, the only reason you would put yourself through all this madness is that you are either curious or crazy - or some combination of the three. Anyway - the whole reason I am blabbing about Wagner and Ring Cycle is that today I accomplished the task of watching the entire final opera. All 6 hours of it! Yikes! It was the final dress rehearsal before the Saturday opening performance and they gave us tickets. I was only going to go to the first act (11:00-1:00), but got sucked in and didn't end up leaving until the final curtain at 5:15. Wow. It was pretty amazing and I can add that to my list to say "I've done it". It was great and so epic - the end of the world kind of a thing. But 6 hours! Come on! And just in case you are wondering, I have also seen the first two operas of the cycle. Missed the third, but it will come around again and I will probably catch it just so I can insanely claim to have seen the entire Ring Cycle.

Enough. I leave you with a picture taken 4 years ago. I was visiting New York and had my picture taken in front of the opera house. I had no idea what was to come - I hadn't even been in the building yet...

Wacky Weather

We have had the strangest weather lately. It's up and down and all over the place. Hot, cold, rain, and shine all in one day. Forget "one day" - try one hour! It doesn't know what it wants to do! No surprise that I am cheering on the sun and the warm, but it's a struggle. The most confusing times are when it is cloudy, but really bright. How exactly does that happen? I feel so strange - walking down the street squinting, wishing I had my sunglasses, when it is completely overcast. Hmm...who knows. Anyway, we had a few beautiful days over the weekend and I actually had one afternoon off where the weather was nice and I was able to sit outside and enjoy it. I was introduced to a place downtown that is very different from my everyday New York. I almost feel like I am in a different city when I am there. There are some nice cobblestone streets by the water where I can sit at the outside tables and have a nice lunch. Afterwards I can go for a stroll or a bike ride in a little park with the Statue of Liberty and the Hudson River behind me. An afternoon like that is exactly what I need every now and then to refresh and reset in all the madness of daily life.

Speaking of refresh and reset - I am excited about a little trip I will soon be taking. In just a couple of weeks I will fly down to Florida for Stacy and Jared's graduation. I am looking forward to seeing them and the rest of the family that will make it down. I will only be there for a couple of days, but it will be a nice change of scenery. I plan to take an empty suitcase to fill with Florida sunshine to bring back to New York. If I can bottle up enough I will share. Otherwise I will have to be selfish and keep it in my apartment for myself.

Extreme Inbox

I wonder if anyone else has ever experienced an out-of-control inbox? I just had a huge cleansing session with my hotmail inbox. I have a couple of email accounts. One I use more for business stuff and the other that is more family stuff. I tend to not erase messages very often... or ever. Is that bad? Am I taking up too much space out there in the cyber world? I guess not, because even with the 485 unread messages and the billion read messages still there I was only using a small portion of my allotment. But seriously... 485 UNREAD messages? What is the point of that? It's not that I blow off important emails or ignore people. These are mostly emails from stores trying to get me in to the latest sale or my bank telling me my account statement is ready. Anyway, I am so proud of myself because after donating a nice half hour of my life and going through the inbox I am down to 75 unread messages! Yay! I would have deleted more, but I couldn't find them. Haha - yes, that is bad, but I didn't have the patience to click "next page" forever and try to find where they are hidden. Besides, having a few unread messages makes me feel special when I sign in - there is always something there waiting for me!

For shame, for shame.

Well, here it is - beyond mid-March and I have to admit.... I have been horribly bad at keeping my New Year's resolution. Shamefully bad, embarrassingly sinful, I must say. Almost as if calling it a "New Year's resolution" put a curse on it and made my little goal completely unobtainable. I guess that is what resolutions are for, right? They are made to be broken. Does ANYONE ever keep a NY Res? Seriously? How many diets go out the door; gym memberships unused? Well, my pots and pans have remained empty. Shame on me. All the "cooking at home" I had intended to do... didn't happen. A few times it happened. I've made a few breakfasts, made a couple of lasagnas, and thrown together some sandwiches along the way - but those fabulous cookbooks and magazines are pretty much just sitting around looking fabulous and not much more.

Today I thought I would try to break the curse by mixing up a pot of chili. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I imagine that very soon it will be so warm out that I won't really want a big bowl of soup. This chili doesn't take many ingredients or too much effort, which is nice. I was able to make it while I did the laundry (I know, I am being extremely productive today). I don't know why I don't do something like chili more often because now I have the leftovers for later in the week when I need a quick lunch before work. At one point in my life leftovers seemed unappetizing but now that life is so busy they are wonderful! Especially the kind I can take on the road with me. Perfect. I should learn my lesson and cook more so I have more leftovers!

Originally I was going to go off in this post about knives. But now I don't think I will talk about how the more knives I have used the more I realize that I am a knife snob. How a bad knife is really worthless. In fact, it is more than worthless...it takes up time and effort - stealing precious moments and happiness from life. I thought about that as I sawed away on an onion this afternoon with the "whatever knife I could find in the drawer". I have my own set of knives that I keep in my room, but I didn't feel that I had the time to go search for them. Looking back, maybe the time I would have spent searching would have been equal to the time spent sawing and resawing that onion. Plus I would have had the satisfaction of cutting cleanly and quickly through the vegetable. Maybe I have learned my lesson. But my question is, why do so many people have so many bad knives??? Where do these come from and why are they in nearly every apartment I have stayed in? What about quality of life? Oh - but I wasn't going to get into the knife rant. Oops.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Don't get pinched!

If there was grass in New York I would go search for a four-leaf clover and get myself some good luck...but the park is the only place I might be able to do that and someone's dog probably already ate it. No luck there.... I'll have to go search for a leprechaun instead. I bet we have a few of those running around here. Most likely down in the village. I'd guess that would be the place to find a nice little leprechaun. Or maybe Times Square, but I try to keep my distance from that place. I'm afraid with the current economy the pot of gold might be a little lighter this year anyway. Or maybe they will opt for silver this year. Ho hum...