It's not as though anything of interest to the general world has taken place, but for my chums who visit here this may be reassurance that I have not fallen off some putative edge of the earth.There were definitely too many late nights, not necessarily related to carousing.
I have been living with scratched lenses on my glasses for some time. Thanks be to God and employment, I could afford new ones. This is especially good since the hinge on the left temple was broken and the old glasses kept falling off my face or were often sitting aslant on my face. Very irritating and disorienting. This task took much of Friday but I had new glasses to drive to Santa Fe for dinner and the opera. Lovely food and I commend Mucho Gusto on Paseo de Peralta to anyone wanting a nice meal.
[I must also confess that while waiting for my eye exam I indulged in some retail therapy, buying a bunch of new shirts. I love the wrinkle resistant things they do with cotton nowadays - all the joy of wash and wear without slaughtering all those polyesters.]
Handel's Radamisto is definitely for Baroque opera fans, one of which I am not. The singers and orchestra were great but, much as I love Handel in his oratorios or Water Music, the music was - to my ears - boring and the story line frustrating. The über-wuss Radamisto is the kind of prince and husband one wants to kill. Why his adoring wife would want him to kill her is beyond me; should be the other way around. The set in the first act looks like bordello flocked wallpaper on acid. Action, as in much Baroque opera, is rather static. And it is all solos until the very end when they finally sing together. That moment, for the four of us attending together, was probably the first moment of real musical interest. Still, it was a good night out and, as you all have seen, we had spectacular clouds. Pity I could not capture the moon and clouds afterward for you. I got home at 1 a.m. since I have an hour and a quarter drive from Santa Fe to my corner on the south end of Albuquerque.
Saturday was spent at the car dealership where I had a major service done on the car in anticipation of the road trip to California next time I fly home. Yes, I will take the camera and the laptop on this picaresque adventure. Saturday evening was Jack's 93rd birthday party - today being the day itself. Happy birthday, Jack! Good food and wine enjoyed with the family.
Sunday morning I headed to the north end of town once again for Eucharist at San Gabriel Mission where I preached, recounting to the congregation the painting at Margaret's blog. We are all cheering for the Canaanite woman. Wonderful to see the folks at St Gabe's, including some new ones. The mission is growing, thanks be to God and the faithful people who have been hanging in there for the past two years.
It was then dash home, change shirts, finish packing, and head to the airport. I slept all the way to Houston and most of the way to New Orleans, much as I had slept on the way home.
Yesterday I managed to work an 11-hour day, including a meeting with the big boss (as high up the ladder as I ever encounter), then drove my immediate boss home (she has a cold and I could not allow her to walk home after work) and continued on to the airport to pick up my carpool mate who was getting in from her weekend away.
Now, none of that is terribly exciting but at least you know what I have been doing when not blogging.
Oh, and the photo is a shot of my garden, or at least the Thompson seedless grapevine, viewed from my bedroom window.
--the BB
13 comments:
Loved reading every word of this update as you have been missed, dear heart.
Welcome back to Loosiana, Paul. No. I didn't misspell the name. That's how some folks say it. Have you encountered that yet? Folks from the North say it that way - north Louisiana, that is.
After your two week road trip, for which I rejoice with you, will you return to NOLA, or are you done?
Thank you kindly, Grandmère. I will return to NOLA after the road trip. Next stop is work in Albuquerque but I do not yet know if that will begin the first of October or the first of November. Until then, very much here.
I will even be working Labor Day weekend (when, I understand, every other gay man in the South will be here).
NOLA has been good to me, the humidity excepted, and I am grateful for the experience. Of course, meeting Mimi makes all that travel worthwhile. Lucky me.
I am getting stoked about seeing my home state and California friends again.
Well, Paul, I hope that we can squeeze in at least one more visit before you leave permanently for ABQ.
Are the feds giving you more work right in your own home city?
Mimi, that's the rumor but I've only heard it second hand.
Paul -- good grief -- only people of our generation who had some sort of "formative" years in California say: "stoked". Brought me back to my brief year in SoCal.
I love your NOLA posts but since I am so often away from ABQ I also love the "home" posts. We have just returned from a much-saved-for trip to the Galapagos and while there I checked in here for pictures of NM. You give me a sense of grounding which I greatly appreciate.
Susankay, so glad I could provide humorous nostalgia and grounding for you. Yes, I am a true child of the 60's in California. I lived in southern California from 1964 when I fled home to go away to college until 1981 when we moved to the Bay Area. I associate the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel with my early college years and we wore armbands to protest the Vietnam War at my graduation. I used to read the Los Angeles Free Press but was way behind my peers in finally getting around to smoking marijuana, which I did infrequently - but, yes, I did inhale. That's as far as I went with drugs, though. In response to the "America: love it or leave it!" bumper stickers I had one that read "America: change it or lose it!" But I never surfed and I have never, for one instant, understood the attraction of the Grateful Dead.
So glad you could get away to the Galapagos.
How is Molly the Wonder Dog?
Paul -- we have mixed feelings about the Galapagos -- it was wonderful but they are being buffeted by tourists such as we. So we enjoyed it greatly (snorkling with charming sea lions) but felt somewhat guilty at the same time. News in the NYTimes about possible tourist-born malaria to affect the charming penguins -- which also swam with us.
Molly the WonderDog is VERY pleased to have us home although the vet/boarding place she spent the last two weeks spoiled her dreadfully as usual -- we (and Molly) are so lucky to have found them.
We hope to relocate to ABQ this fall for a few months to save gasoline -- perhaps another meetup?
Oh -- and I took surfing lessons a couple of years ago and actually made it in to shore standing up -- at about age 60!
Susankay it would be great to see you again.
Dayumn, girl, I am impressed!
Thanks Paul. I have been lax in reading you and every time i come back I find more stuff to read and think about. I need to put you in my daily friends list, but i can't remember how. Maybe I can get my son to tell me how again.
So you are coming to the Bay Area? I can see from your last post the pictures close to my house. Is your time all filled up? I would love to meet you. Maybe for coffee somewhere in Berkeley?
Thanks for the McPain updates. It makes me mad each time I watch one. He is such a dick!
Oh I can't end with that. Will there be more NOLA pictures soon?
Susan S., does this mean you are somewhere in the Berkeley-El Cerrito hills? Nice part of the world. We will be in El Cerrito with godsons and their parents a couple of nights. Since we lived in that area for about a quarter century we have more folks to see than time to see them and I don't know how we will manage it. Coffee in Berkeley would be lovely but I am uncertain of schedule at this point.
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