The Olympics

Since the Olympics began we have been glued to the telly. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but considering that we almost never watch television, the Olympics is our one big indulgence in TV viewing. The last thing we watched on TV before that was President Obama's swearing in.
But the Olympics are really fun and we love to watch them. A good number of those Olympians are crazy! Especially the ones that jump high in the air and do flips and rotations before coming back down to earth.
I've particularly enjoyed short track and ice dancing. We stayed up late to watch men's figure skating too. And to keep all this TV viewing from being totally decadent, I am working on my knitting while watching the telly.
My Olympic knitting is of course a sock. I'm knitting with Noro yarn that Frances gave me. It's true these socks were started a long time ago, so they aren't a dedicated Olympic knitting project. These socks have been extra slow because I let Frances talk me into doing a pattern on the foot. That was a mistake, and I ended up ripping the first sock all the way out after the heel turn because I could see that the sock would not fit properly. Finally, thanks to the Olympics, I am now almost done with the first sock. In fact I could be done but I would like to get back to the start of the olive green color that begins the toe. Hopefully I can make the color repeats match up on the second sock.

Why the name?

I've been fascinated by old bottles since my childhood. I well remember the great vacations we took when we were kids to my parent's ancestral homes. My Mom grew up on a farm near Dale, NY, and my Dad's family had the adjacent farm. I don't remember all the ins and outs of my Dad's families ownership. I'll have to ask him. His family also had a house in Buffalo NY where he lived during the school year. During the summer the family would go out to the farm.
My parents were born in 1925. This was of course pre-polio vaccine. During the summer folks would send their children out of the city if at all possible to try to minimize their exposure to polio.
But I digress. The point is that both properties had a long history of human use. And, this being in the days prior to trash collection, their trash was dumped on the land in piles and the location of the piles was shifted around over time.
Among the many fun things we did while on vacation in Dale was scout for old dump sites and unearth old bottles. I was late on the scene for this endeavor, having some other pursuits I was also engaged in, but I did collect one very beautiful bottle which unfortuately came to a bad end when my Dad shipped it out to me. For an incredibly intelligent person my Dad has a bit of a blind spot concerning how fragile items need to be packaged when shipped.
I haven't spent time scouting for dumps since, but on our tramps we always keep an eye out for old bottles. One of our finds was an old coke bottle. The most interesting thing about this bottle is the writing on it: "TRADEMARK REGISTERED BOTTLE PAT'D DEC 25 1923".
Was the patent office open on Christmas? I had a hard time imagining government workers in the patent office awarding patents on Christmas day. But the bottle seems to be proof that indeed, the business of the patent office was not interrupted by Christmas, at least back in 1923.
I asked my Dad about this. Oh yes, he said. Christmas didn't use to be the big deal that it is now. So I keep the bottle in the collection on my window sill. A very tangible reminder of how much our country has changed over a not very long period.

It's spriiinnggg!

Noticed my Ice Follies starting to bloom in the garden last weekend, so picked a bunch to enjoy in the house.

Simon Boccanegra... At the movies!

Since Frances has become such a big opera fan, and in fact is hoping to turn opera into her life's work, we make a point to listen to the opera when it comes on the public radio station. There are two opportunities to listen to an opera each week, Friday Night at the Opera and the Saturday Metropolitan Opera broadcast. Sometimes I really enjoy the opera broadcasts, and other times we end up turning them off. However, it is true that opera is much more fun to watch than to only listen to.

Saturday was one of the Met opera broadcasts that was simulcast in HD into participating movie theaters. Frances has been going to these all season, and we arranged to go with her. A first!

The opera was Simon Boccanegra by Giuseppe Verdi. I usually like Verdi operas, Macbeth being one of my favorites. Placido Domingo sang the title role, which is unusual for him since it is a baritone role.

The opera started at 10 am, and there was actually a pretty good house, consisting almost entirely of the senior set. The exception was the small handful of Sac State music students attending. The audience was (except for a few people) what I would consider dressed up (i.e. no jeans and in nice looking duds). Maybe because of their generation, maybe because this broadcast was an Outing. Some of them brought their own snacks and lunches, which they ate during the two intermissions. With running time of 3 hours and 20 minutes, the opera is a pretty long slog.

Did I enjoy the performance? Yes. I particularly was interested in studying the costumes and watching the back stage switching of the sets. Renee Fleming interviewed the main characters back stage during the intermissions. I didn't realize why her eyes seemed so strange until Ted complained about how distracting it was that she was focusing on the telepromter.

There were a couple of interesting things that came out during the interviews. Renee commented that when singing, she couldn't hear anyone else singing. At one point when Adrianne Pieczonka is singing a duet with Marcello Giordani, they are both singing very vehemently, and their mouths move in perfect unison spitting out the words. I almost laughed out loud, their lips were so identically shaped. I imagine it's true, that they can't hear each other. On the other hand, I don't suppose they are trying to blend!

The other funny thing was Renee commenting that she liked the role of Amelia Grimaldi because she is the only female among the cast. She doesn't have to worry about competing with some mezzo. DIVA!!

What didn't I like? The story was pretty hokey. The plot had a lot of holes. I don't think this was a very listenable opera, but I'm not sure. Attending in the theater, the visuals took over. I suspect that if we had been listening to the radio at home we would have turned it off.

The outing was completed by lunch at an Italian restaurant. It was good and in keeping with the theme, but a bit pricey for lunch.

Would I go again? Yes, but not very often.