Journey to the Center

The story of Manon Lescaut is fairly well known, if only for its theme. A young woman must choose her direction in life: will she pursue love or money? The story is simple, but the womans inability to choose one or the other results in her death. Nice, tragic story.

The Puccini version of the story is remarkable mostly for its complexity. The story moves along during the arias and there are several groups of individuals and their conversations woven into a single song. For the production we saw, that complexity was also its downfall. The orchestra often drowned out the vocals, and the main line of the story was overwhelmed on occasion by the chorus singing another train of the plot.

The production was… ok. The music on the whole was pleasant to listen to. Of course, I missed the most interesting lines (everyone else laughed) because of the cough I develop in that hall. I swear, the air conditioning is out to get me. The sets were well done and most of the actors actually sang well. Of course, the had to stop and pose periodically to compete with the volume of the orchestra, but the music on the whole was good.

My favorite part of the whole opera was Act 3. It was the most influenced by Wagner and the orchestration was stunning. Even without knowing Italian, it was obvious what was happening on stage. I can’t wait for the Ring. I love Wagner best of all the composers. The emotion in his music is overwhelming.

I’ve been looking for a shawl forever. Something that would let me stay warm at the office and not have to wear a thousand different layers of clothes. Finally, I broke down and decided to google for an easy pattern to crochet my own. I found one, at Crochet Me. It was in fact, as easy as described. Except for losing my place about a million times. I’m just happy that the shawl is done - I’ve even started using it at work. If only I could find a way to keep it from adhering to the velcro on my jacket, I’d be ecstatic.

Who knew I would be so happy about something so insignificant. Only, it’s not insignificant. We now have real curtains in one window. Sure, they still need to have the corners tacked, but that’s simple, a ten minute job. The real thing is that they’re there. Hanging in their glory and hiding us from the world.

I recently finished Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman. I was initially reluctant to start this book - the idea that it would be like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was too much for me. I didn’t really enjoy the series of Adams’ works - they were too bizarre and disconnected for me to grab stong hold of a plot and run with it. (There you have it, my one big failure as a geek. I don’t get Adams.) However, my love of the works of Gaiman and desperation for a new book finally drove me to read it. Frankly, I’m glad I did. In fact, I may check out more of the works of Pratchett as a result.

The humour in the book is evident from the point at which a demon and angel are consulting as to which of them did the right thing with Adam and Eve. The story is completely irreverent, but takes a turn to the philosophical toward then end. Somehow, the bit of philosophy didn’t drown out the tale or its ability to make me laugh out loud. In fact, watching the demon develop the telemarketing industry was rather enlightening.

The plot takes science fiction/fantasy and sets the whole genre on its ear. I wish there were more stories like this one, it could care less about fitting inside a box and told a good tale.

Well, we’ve officially done it. There’s a new timer attached to the fan in the upstairs bathroom. The molding’s even done all the way around the places that don’t touch the fireplace. But it looks like we’re going to have to choose the hearth stone before we can really get going on the fireplace front. One more thing to do. At least it’s just re-ordering.

Last weekend the hubby and I worked on organizing the garage. It’s not great, not really even very close yet, but now we have more room for the things that we’re getting - tools and their storage. After spending all day doing that, we were pretty energized and ready to tackle other projects. Wiring? No problem!

So off we went to replace a regular outlet with a GFCI outlet. That was pretty easy. Well, once we figured out how to get the wires out of the old outlet, it was easy. Swapped those 4 wires and we were done! But we were also looking to replace the fan switch with a timer.

The timer’s still not in. Too many wires, it’s a 20 amp decive (and the bathroom’s wired for 5 amps) and the dark conspired against us. But the hubby thinks he has a way to get it in, so we’ll try it again. Later. Maybe next time when it’s light out. At least now we know more about how the crazy electician wired the upstairs.