why december was quiet

"Unsettled", that's what Jon tells me I've been, and that kinda sums up 2013 for me.  I can't explain any of it.  I didn't like the things I used to like but wasn't sure how or if to replace them.  I wanted to move on but didn't.

A New Year's Eve usually depresses me -- the time-goes-too-fast thing.  Here at the end of 2013, I am ready for the start of a New Year.  Getting back to normal while at the same time doing something radically different:  that's the plan.

2014 may turn out to be the best year that I have left.  I want to get back to blogging -- maybe back to an every day thing -- but only if I can say something at least marginally worthwhile.  That's why December was a blank -- There was nothing.

'so did you see any shows?'

You know that I love Las Vegas as another-world getaway, but, let me tell you, I'm a really boring person to go to Vegas with.  I can spend a couple hours at a time zoned out in front of a slot machine or perfectly content just having a cup of coffee and people-watching.  When I get home, friends ask, "So did you guys see any shows?" or "Did you find any good restaurants?", and that's all normal Vegas stuff, and I usually say No, because, let's face it, I'm no foodie and I have no interest in seeing Celine Dion or Donny & Marie.

As I write this, I'm sitting in our room on the 21st floor of the Aria Hotel, looking at the flashy neon of the Las Vegas Strip and enjoying the moment.  Meanwhile, Jerry called.  He was just in a multi-car accident (he was sitting at a stop light, not moving), so the rental car is dented up but he's okay.  Reality sneaks back into my awareness.
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And, by the way, we did go a show -- Zarkana, a Cirque du Soleil show here at the Aria.
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Home tomorrow for Thanksgiving.

MSP to LAS

The heck with it.  It's my birthday, and I'm gonna go to Las Vegas.

first, the non-radical stuff

I didn't set out to skip two weeks of blogging.  It's not like I didn't have anything to share.  Maybe I just wasn't ready to share.

Remember when I said I was feeling the need to make a radical change of some sort?  Well, that radical change may be imminent or it might not happen at all.  Whichever it is, getting close to doing something radical has re-invigorated me in some weird way, even if it doesn't end up happening.

On the same-as-usual front, I've been going to too many Timberwolves games and a few plays and even a Scotch class.

The Guthrie Theater still gives me complimentary tickets to selected performances of most of its plays, which I appreciate.  Two plays that I saw this fall were Tribes and Skiing on Broken Glass, two relatively new works given great interpretations by the Guthrie.

Something new, something old:  The Guthrie has been doing Dickens' A Christmas Carol every holiday season for 30-some years -- every year, a masterful production -- and, even though I've seen it before several times, there were the tickets, and I took my son Tom, who hadn't seen it, and it was fun.  The sobering fact, seeing it on the 17th of November, is that some people are already thinking about Christmas.  Some people are already listening to Christmas music.  Some people are already planning on Christmas-shopping on Thanksgiving at those awful retailers that will be open that day.  Help!

utter worthlessness, part 2

And then there is the silliest of political trends -- "ranked-choice" voting, which is now in place here in oh-so-progressive Minneapolis.  Two days ago, the election for Mayor (and City Council and other city positions) took place, and because of the new loosened rules, there were 35 -- count 'em, 35! -- candidates on the ballot for Mayor.  Voters were to pick their favorite of the 35 -- then, if they wish, a 2nd choice and a 3rd choice.  One candidate ended up with 36% of the 1st-choice votes and enough 2nd- or 3rd-choice votes to somehow put her over the top.

The way I see it, ranked-choice voting will in the future be a boon for fringe candidates, and the loose rules will be perfect for anybody who might be desperate to see his or her name in print.

Certainly, today's two-party system is screwed up, but a replacement for it should be something other than laughable... or dangerous.

the utter worthlessness of 2013 democracy

Consider the plight of the honest, intelligent, well-intentioned members of the U.S. Congress, assuming such members still exist.  They might have great ideas of solving some problems, but nobody hears them.  The media only hears the attention-grabbing loudmouths like Ted Cruz or Michele Bachmann, who get into the news for trying to be even more outrageous and nuts than their past idiocies.  And the plutocrats like the oil-rich Koch brothers keep buying elected officials, who then are not allowed to have a conscience of their own.

botannical madness in the inner city, part 3

It's November 5, and most of my patio plants are still surviving even though Minneapolis has had freezing temperatures -- maybe because it didn't get too cold and the plants are next to the building.  I'm hearing that we may be having some snow tonight, so my beloved plants may be meeting their Waterloo.  It was a good season.  Thanks for your advice, Jon and Nancy.

mid-autumn sports update

When you stop and think about it, are we really better or worse off having professional sports in our lives?  Is it merely a cute harmless distraction from reality?

I think it depends on which teams you choose to love.  If, like me, you mainly focus on the Minnesota and Philadelphia teams because of their connections with our lifetime mailing addresses, then it can be argued that having professional sports in our lives causes endless misery and heartbreak, and, if I wanted to dwell on that notion, I'd start harping on football:  how horrible the Minnesota Vikings (1-8 so far) are this year or how the Philadelphia Eagles have no credible offense.

But, no, I'm in a Pollyanna mood, so let's find something to be glad about:

Basketball.  The NBA's season is only a week old, but for the Minnesota Timberwolves, my bad-luck favorite, it's been good:  3 wins, no losses.  They look amazing if they can avoid the injuries that usually doom them.  And the Philadelphia 76ers, predicted before the season started to be the worst team, are also 3 and 0, including  a victory over the champion Miami Heat.

Unfortunately, three games just won't do it -- each team plays 79 more games between now and April -- but Wolves and Sixers fans can feel good today and harbor some sort of guarded hope.
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Hockey:  My son Tom and I had a wonderful time last night seeing the Minnesota Wild defeat the New Jersey Devils, 4-0.  The Wild seem to be having a pretty good season.  I don't follow hockey too closely, but there is something about the energy of seeing hockey in person, along with 18,000 fans who all understand hockey rules better than I do, that draws me in.  Go, Wild.  Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Flyers are awful this year.  Fortunately, we keep expectations low.
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Added later:  By 9 P.M. that evening, neither the Timberwolves nor the 76ers were still undefeated.  I may have jinxed them.

the wicked people are gone for now

The Broadway touring version of Wicked was back in town for a few weeks and finally finished its run last weekend.  I mean, Wicked isn't a bad show to see once, and I saw it several years ago and for me once was plenty.  Somehow they manage to still fill the seats.  But the good and bad witches are gone at last, and now I don't have to give directions quite as often to confused-looking suburbanites as I'm walking back from the gym.

i was thinking about hillary

October was a weird month and now it's over, with nothing left of it but Halloween night, an annoyance at best.

For me, it was a month of tremendous dissatisfaction (hence, no blogging) for which I have no explanation.  I've had this urge to do something totally radical without having any decent radical options.

I'm thinking it's a panic-at-this-stage-of-life thing, realizing that there isn't enough time left to do everything and anything.  Boredom with the routine, maybe.

Or maybe just too tired to deal with the routine much longer.  The age thing again.

And that's when I thought about Hillary Clinton, an amazing woman of about my age, who may run for President in 2016, three years from now, potentially taking office in 2017.  She would be one of the all-time great Presidents, probably.

But why the heck would she want to?  Isn't she tired too and how much more tired will she be in a potential term extending eleven years from now?  Being President is hard work and, especially these days in the current political environment, ultimately unrewarding.

If I were her, I'd say No and go hang out with Bill.... well, at least some of the time anyway.  It's hard to picture the two of them being totally retired and watching "The Price is Right" together.

Same here.  No "Price is Right" for me.

Something else.  But something.

mad but not quite bad

In the last couple months, I've kind of gotten into Scotch whiskey, liquor that I had never really thought about before.  I think it started with our catch-up binge of the TV series, Mad Men, and I've been going through a Don Draper-wannabe phase, which made me realize what a wuss I've always been with my alcoholic-beverage choices, so I went right for the other extreme.  I started with Glenlivit 12, which Jerry happened to have in our liquor cabinet.  Then a client gave me a bottle Balvenie Doublewood.  Both brands are terrific.

So I've been learning and trying various brands of Scotch, mostly, unfortunately, at the high end, which has made me become a Scotch snob who looks down on the lesser brands of Scotch.

A month or so ago, I was with my two business partners at our happy-hour bar next door to the office, and I asked the waiter for a glass of whatever their best Scotch was.  He said, "That would be our Macallan 18,"  so that's what I had, and it was so wonderful that it was practically a life-altering experience.  But then we got the bill:  $30 for that little two-fingers of Scotch.  Whoops.  But I played it cool, just as Don Draper would have.

Now we're on a new TV-watching binge, a show that has been around since 2008 (we're always a little behind the times), Breaking Bad, in which the main character produces and sells crystal meth.  No temptations there.

we've got to get ourselves back to the garden

Montreal Botanical Gardens

It's so hard not to go on a useless rant about John Boehner and his treasonous lunatic-fringe Tea Party idiots, but you're hearing enough of that already in these shutdown days, unless you are one of those people who only get their "news" from FoxNews or Rush Limbaugh, in which case, what the heck are you doing reading my blog anyway??

Hey -- the Montreal Botanical Gardens.... If you go to Montreal, it's a must-see -- the 2nd or 3rd largest botanical garden in the world (depending on which tour book you read).  It's beautiful and peaceful.  A good escape.

YUL to MSP (two days ago)

Back from Montreal... what a great city.... I could live there.  (Watch the video in full screen if you can)

MSP to YUL

My son Jon and I are about to fly to Montreal.... Neither of us have been there before.  Renting an apartment there for a week, will get to know the city well!

 

 

Look out, Canada, here we come....

 

i love two things

"I love two things.  I love you, and I love the opera."  -- Ronny Cammareri (played by Nicholas Cage) in the movie Moonstruck.
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Personally, I love the Puccini and Verdi Italian operas.

Tonight we're going to the Minnesota Opera's production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut.  Giacomo Puccini also wrote the music for La boheme, Madame Butterfly, Turandot and other great operas.

Manon Lescaut, which premiered in Turin, Italy in 1893, is one I haven't seen before and am of course looking forward to it.

 

 

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My son Jon and I leave tomorrow for a week in Montreal and Quebec City.  Parlez-vous français, dudes?

rediscovered aunts and uncles

Currently on the Thrust Stage at the Guthrie Theater is the Anton Chekhov classic, Uncle Vanya, first performed in Moscow in 1899 but still thoroughly enjoyable here in Minneapolis in 2013, with remarkable characters that are real, sometimes funny but ultimately kind of miserable.  See it if you are local and get the chance.  It's there until late October.

Besides seeing Uncle Vanya this past week, I also got to see How to be a Korean Woman, a one-woman performance by actress Sun Mee Chomet, based on her own story of growing up in the U.S. as a Korean adoptee and then as an adult going to Korea in an attempt to find her birth family.  This show is up in the Guthrie's Dowling Theater, is just there briefly (ending tomorrow) and is entertaining, funny and sad.  In her story, she does ultimately, after much frustration and determination, find her mother, aunts and grandmother and learned from them, well, how to be a Korean woman, which might not be at all what you would expect!

Thanks, Guthrie, for providing such quality and variety.

delta's health care options

Michael, a friend (actually, more like a friend of a friend), and his wife were coming back from London the other day on a Delta flight, sitting in coach seats.  At some point, there was an "Is there a doctor on this flight?" announcement.  Michael's wife is a physician, so she responded.

There was a passenger in Business Class having a heart attack or something.  Michael's wife was gone from his seat for an hour and a half, trying to revive the man.  When she went back to her seat, she told Michael that the man didn't make it, he had died.

Shortly after that, a flight attendant came to them and said thanks for helping, we could move you up to Business Class if you like.  Michael:  "No thanks, there's a dead guy up there!"  So this is what the flight attendant offered them instead:  a $50 voucher on their next Delta flight!

What??  That's it??  Might it have been something bigger if the guy had lived??

what you didn't miss

"You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do." -- Eleanor Roosevelt.
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A word of wisdom to the lapsed bloggers out there.  Who cares what your readers think when you probably don't have any anyway?  Write what you want, write it for yourself.  Experiment.  Go wild.  Take chances.  Or just post photos of your cocker spaniel.
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What you missed or, more likely, didn't miss since I woke up screaming:

--  Within the last month, I started to write emotional rants about the Syria thing, really angry stuff, but I found myself self-censoring because I apparently worried about how you, the unknown reader, would react.  You know I like Obama, for the most part, and you might get the wrong idea if I started comparing him to LBJ or george w. bush, two presidents who led us into destructive, unnecessary but corporate money-making wars based entirely on lies.  Plus I didn't know how sensitive you might be to over-use of the F word in describing my rage.  So I published nothing.  I need to take chances of offending you, the perhaps reader, sorry.
--  I started drinking Scotch, thanks in part to going on a binge watching 5 seasons of the amazing TV show Mad Men.  I'll have more to say about that (Both about Mad Men and Scotch).
--  To get a fresh start on working out, I dropped my membership at Lifetime Fitness and joined the YMCA.  For the past month and a half, I've been obsessed with getting back in shape, and I'm feeling great, and when I'm feeling good, my brain works better.... Let's see if it shows in my renewed blog ...

ET MAINTENANT 2.0

i wake up screaming

Not too many of you have slept with me, so you probably don't know that once in a while -- maybe once every couple months -- I have this recurring nightmare in which I am driving my car at a good speed on a busy freeway, and I suddenly lose my sight and feel myself careening off into the dark unknown, waiting for the deadly crash. I wake up screaming, maybe jumping out of bed -- shaking, heart pounding and a general mess.  Last night was one of those nights.  Takes a while to settle down after that.

Otherwise, generally, I'm a delight to sleep with.
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Saw the new Woody Allen movie last night -- Blue Jasmine.  Cate Blanchett is great.  Remember her at Oscar time.
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Tomorrow starts the month of September.  I want it to never end.

the nearby diva

As people started trickling out of the bar to the Diana Ross concert across the street last night, I started having some regrets, or maybe it was the cocktails kicking in.  I said to Jerry that maybe we should have gone to see her after all.  After all, I hadn't seen her since 1967 -- Steel Pier, Atlantic City -- when she was still with the Supremes.  Back then, I was the ultimate Supremes fan, you know, and to some degree I still am.

But I admit that I'm still holding a grudge against Diana, for the way she treated the other Supremes, Flo and Mary, and, by extension, us the fans (A book I highly recommend:  "Dreamgirl:  My Life As A Supreme" by Mary Wilson).  So I went back to the cocktail and only had fleeting nostalgic interludes.
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Yesterday, by the way, was a big anniversary:  50 years since the civil rights March on Washington, where MLK gave his "I have a dream" speech, 8/28/63.
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Coincidence:  in our catch-up marathon of "Mad Men" (we are in Season 3), last night's episode took place during the week of that 1963 historic march.
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I kissed Mary Wilson once, or did I already tell you that?  I have never kissed Diana Ross.  It's her loss.