The Gurly Life

Cirque du Soleil

Last night my mom and I went to see Kooza, the new Cirque du Soleil show. I cannot describe the show to you, it cannot be described. But the athletic and artistic ability of these artists is breathtaking. Here's the trailer, if you'd like to get a glimpse.

If you've never been to one of their shows, deterred perhaps by the price of the tickets, I urge you to try to save up your pennies and see at least one. It is expensive, but the level of artistry is so inspiring that it will be money well spent.

I loved the whole show but my favorites were the contortionists, three women who appeared to be made of rubber (you can see them a few times in snippets in the trailer), and the two guys on the big wheel.

I watched the contortionists very carefully because their show was a beautifully choreographed advanced yoga routine. I noticed, for example, that they never bent at the lower back when they did those crazy back bends, but they bendt at the higher part of their spine. If you've even tried to do a back bend, you know that the upper spine, that part that is not your lower back and is not your neck, does not bend much at all. It takes years and years of practice to loosen it up.

So there I was, marveling at the contortionists' flexibility and strength, and thinking that I should be able to do all that in about 100 years, and I got all inspired about my yoga practice. What's a 100 years, after all? 40 have already gone by in the blink of an eye. Ok, ok, 41. Jeez.

The other number that totally blew me away involved two large metal circles attached to each other and hinged in the middle so that they circles themselves in a larger circular motion. There is a very brief snippet of this in the trailer, too. The circles were large enough for people to get into. Two guys got in, one in each circle, and started moving the thing by walking. Then they went faster and faster, and started jumping instead of walking. I almost fainted, as did everyone else. There were shrieks and oohs and mad clapping. Then one of them jumped out and as the empty circle zoomed past him again, he grabbed the outside and got on top of it and started doing crazy stuff outside the circle. Huge jumps, skipping rope, OHMYGOD I almost died. Unbelievable. Now that -- not even 100 years of yoga will prevail upon me to even try that.

A shopping spree

When my mom comes to visit, we take on big domestic projects. By "we," I mean that my mom does the thinking, which includes hours of catalog and website perusal, decides what will work where, and then we do it. This time around we have a couple of big projects. One is to go through every drawer, closet, box, and pile, and get rid of anything and everything I don't need. We've only just begun, and my hallway is already full of stuff that we'll be carting off to Goodwill, and stuff that will be thrown out.

The other big project is taking on the furniture. There are several things I have been wanting to do for a while, but they always take a back seat to, say, writing classes and trips to Hawaii. Today we went to Ikea and got some stuff: a bed, a table, and chest of drawers. The bed will go in the bedroom, under the mattress which is now on the floor. The table will go in the kitchen, and the round table I have there now (as well as the cat table by the window) will have to find a new home, somewhere somehow. The chest of drawers will replace the shipping trunks I currently have sitting under the tv. We ended up w/ drawers because space is limited and this way a guest has a place to put their things. Not exactly an entertainment center, but all things in good time.

Because my mom had so painstakingly looked through the entire catalog many many times and we measured things and consulted before going to the store, the trip only took three and a half hours. For me, that's a record, normally I start freaking out after about an hour of shopping.

Here's what we got, though of course the pictures are a bit meh. You'll just have to wait for them to be assembled and all to see the full effect (and yes, we're paying someone to do the assembling, these things are too heavy to do ourselves).

 
 

The table below has two extra leaves that can be inserted in the middle to make it longer, as you can see. Except the pictures just make the table look smaller, but I gotta work with what I got.


 

By the time I move to Colorado, the place will be perfect.

Writing assignment no. 2

The assignment, with a 500 word limit, was as follows:

Choose a photograph that triggers a memory for you. Describe what we can’t see beyond the borders of the frame: your memories of that day, the people in it, and its significance to you. Try to remember as many details as you can, using the picture to remind you.

I have this photo, framed, on one of my bookcases. My parents, who are in the photo with me, have the same photo, also framed.  It’s my law school graduation, May 2003. I was almost 35. So many things began and ended and changed during law school, that it’s hard to say it all in 500 words, but I’ll try.

Law school was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and one of the best decisions I ever made. It left me full of debt, but I like to call it good debt because in return I got power and passion. I know, how many attorneys are passionate about what they do? Most will tell you it’s an awful life. To me, it’s empowering and fascinating and I wouldn’t trade it in for anything.

This moment is also important because I hadn’t seen my dad for 11 years. It’s not clear why, we hadn’t really had a falling out, but we had drifted apart. Mostly, I had decided he didn’t get me or we didn’t have the right kind of relationship or some such shit. At some point during law school, I let that go and accepted him just how he was. I thought, why is our relationship not the right kind of relationship? What does that even mean? Next thing I know, here he was, at my graduation. It was good that he got to see that law school was no picnic, but more importantly, the kind of world-changing work attorneys do every day. I wish more people could see that, actually.

My law degree was the start of a new phase of my life. I left the entertainment industry behind me, happily as it turns out. Admitting failure in that field was surprisingly easy and liberating. I also left a marriage behind. I didn’t want to, but a relationship with a man who had never loved me, only liked me, was too painful to bear. I needed the independence so I could let that go, too.

Friends!

Yesterday I had lunch with three generations of friends: Michelle, her new baby Daisy, and Michelle's mom and dad, Pauline and Barry. How absolutely extraordinary to have THREE GENERATIONS of friends. Don't you think? It's awesome.

 

Today's craziness

Car alarm

I have mentioned before that apparently an after-market alarm was installed in Pixie the Prius prior to my purchase, and that about a year after I bought her, it started arming itself and doing weird shit. And I have mentioned that I drove all the way to the dealership where I bought her to have the alarm disconnected. And that within 2 days of it being disconnected, the damn thing rearmed itself. And that that was creepy and annoying, but mostly annoying.

Because disconnecting it was not enough, I am going back on Thursday to have the thing pulled right out of the car. If the thing alarms itself after that, I'm calling Ghost Hunters. And renaming the car Pixie the Poltergeist.

Family phone call

Today was my and my grandmother's Saint Day. In Italy, a culturally Catholic country, we celebrate the feast day of our namesake saint. So rather than just having, say, St. Patrick's Day, each day of the year commemorates a saint. August 18 is Saint Elena - of course, the notion of me as a saint is laughable, but I digress - so my family had a little party for my grandmother, whose name is also Elena and who's 103, in case you'd forgotten. Since everyone was gathered together, they called me on the phone to wish me happy saint day.

Like for most of our family gatherings, the noise was off the charts with people talking loudly in the background. Everyone grabbed the phone, yelled something like "Happy Saint Day! How are you? I'm sorry about the kitty. When are you coming to visit us in Italy? I can't hear you, it's too noisy here, everyone is yelling WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP hang on, it's too noisy, here's [insert next relative's name.]" Then the next aunt/uncle/cousin would get on and the whole thing would repeat itself.

Finally everyone had their turn, and my cousin, who made the call, got back on the phone and yelled something about hugs and kisses and how she couldn't hear me, and click. One uncle tried to pass himself off as another uncle, but it's hard to get away with that when the person you're speaking with HAS KNOWN YOU ALL THEIR LIFE! But I was able to glean from my aunt that she just got a new computer (from my mom, actually) and that she's learning how to use it she loves it and I'll be getting her email any day now just as soon as she figures it all out.

Thankfully, the madness and chaos have not abated.

A bit busy

Hi all - I haven't been blogging much, my dad's in town for 2 weeks. We've been running around, including a trip to Santa Anita to see the ponies last weekend, so I haven't had much energy left over for blogging. But don't worry, I'm still here.

Last night we had dinner with my friend Pier, who I've known all my life. Our dads have been friends since college. Pier is a musician, he scores movies. He just finished one for the Sci Fi channel, Sand Serpents (I doubt it's high art, but the music sounded really good!). Here we are at Niko Niko Sushi in Weho (damn, yesterday was Easter and EVERYTHING was closed). We did have a very good dinner, though.

And here Pier is teaching my dad to play with the iPhone flight simulator.

My dad

Will be arriving this evening for a visit. He just called from Newark to say his flight's on time. The first thing he did upon arriving in the US: eat a hot dog and drink a beer. Tee hee.

The books are gone!

Some of you might remember that about 2 years ago (was it that long ago?) my mom sent me 42 boxes of books. At the time, my parents were moving from Kenya to Italy, and into a smaller place. So many books came my way. Except I have a one bedroom condo and not enough room for all those books. So, after staring at the boxes for a few months, I gave up the idea that I would soon move to a bigger place with room for them, and put them in storage.

Storage is, I believe, a manifestation of an aspect of our society that really doesn't work. As human beings we really do tend to collect stuff of all sorts, and then when we don't have any more room for the stuff we already have and don't use, we put more stuff in storage. We pay for the storage, but the stuff never comes out of the storage, is never looked at, and often just rots away. Same with stuff that we keep in the garage or some such storage unit on our property. Our lives would be no different if all the stored stuff suddenly disappeared, except we would not be paying monthly for said storage.

As part of my shift towards not wasting money (I'm not going to suggest thriftiness, that's going a bit farther than I'm interested in), I decided that all those books in storage were not a good way to spend my money. But many of the books belong to my mom, so I didn't want to just throw everything away. I resolved to bring the books back and to make my way through them, keeping some but giving away most of the rest. A few more months went by, the books still in storage.

Then my mom came to visit, found out I was paying over $60 a month to store them, and decided to put an end to such wastefulness. We brought the books back, they filled the hallway again. But this time, my mom was on the job. Unlike me, my mom is not lazy and is not a procrastinator. So in the last three weeks she has been unpacking the books, and taking them to the library down the street. A few ended up in the trash, a few stayed, but the vast majority went to the library.

My mom borrowed one of those wheeled carts from my neighbor, and each day she would walk to the library with a cartful of books. The library is about a 1/4 of a mile away.

Had it not been for her, who knows how long it would have taken me to finally bring those books back, and then how long it would have taken me to sort them and then take them to the library. I'm going with another 6-8 months of storage, and a year to clean them out.

So yay for mom who helped me out tremendously. And by the way, when she leaves, I think I'll probably starve to death. She makes such yummies...

Another lovely Xmas Eve, brought to you by the Willows

Well, actually, it's Willow and Adam. Not to be outdone by themselves at Thanksgiving, Willow and Adam hosted a grand Xmas Eve dinner for 19 people last night.

Todd, who took this picture, was in charge of the London broil, though I believe he was aided by Adam at the barbeque. Adam is on the far right of the picture, in glasses and a pink paper crown.

We had Christmas crackers, an English tradition. The crackers look like large, wrapped candy, and you hold one end and the other person holds the other end and you both pull. The cracker pops, and inside is a little toy or some other thing (I got a travel toothbrush and my mom found a small shoe horn), some really lame joke, and of course, a paper crown.

It was an excellent crowd, and my mom found several people of her generation to talk to, all very interesting. We got to meet Willow's new extended family: her stepdad, Bob, recently married Debbie, who has 3 grown up kids, Justin, Tiffany, and Brian. So the 3 of them are Bob's stepkids, too, which I believe make them and Willow stepbrothers/sisters twice removed? Or something. Anyway, they were very cool. I ended up talking to Brian, the youngest step-step-brother, because he's interested in going into law enforcement. I'm not sure why, but somehow I always end up talking to the cute 20-something year-olds. I wish I had been able to do that when I was in my 20's, that would have been much more useful.

Kristen's mom brought their little dog, a very sweet long-haired chichi, Twix, who was just a tiny bonbon of a dog in a red coat. Herbie, one of Willow's kitties, was having none of it and perched on the couch growling and puffing up his fur for a while, completely ignored by Twix. He calmed down fairly soon, but was not thrilled by the betrayal. Poor little Max, Willow's shy kitty, only came out towards the end of the evening, to complain about the situation, and then he went back downstairs.

I brought gluten-free brownies, which were ok, but a little gummy. Gluten-free desserts are tricky. And I'm not an accomplished baker, so that doesn't help.

Adam lit the menorah and read us the story of Chanukah, after much prompting and cheering from the crowd. I really liked combining the celebrations. That thing on his head, by the way, is not a yarmulke, it's a paper crown. Hey, we're working on it, you know?

Before my mom and I left we got presents. One of the presents was an awesome Disney Mickey antenna ball multi-pack. Somehow this year I didn't even get organized enough to get little presents, and I didn't even make it to the local fire and police stations. Sigh. Next year I'll have to schedule things a little better, I think. The truth is I need to actually schedule Xmas shopping before Thanksgiving. Once Thanksgiving hits, it's too crowded and I just can't bear it.

As I look back on the year, I realize how focused on my own crap I've been all year. First the hip surgery, then healing and recovering, then the wrist and back. My life has shrunk, and even then I don't have enough energy to do all the things I want to do, and many things slip by the wayside. I guess that's what happens when you're dealing with health stuff. I've also been focused on saving money, so I passed on going to Hawaii this year, like I wanted to. That won't happen again, I guarantee you that.

Anyway, Xmas Eve was lots of fun, I finally got to meet Willow's stepdad, and the new stepfamily is lovely. Yay for new family!

And to end, here's Willow in her lovely crown:

Food!

One of the many reasons I like having my mom here is that she cooks. Oh yes, I am glad she's here to cook, and I'm not ashamed to say it. Her food is delish, and very light, so I'm also losing some weight (yay!).

On Saturday night, we had a little dinner party, and my mom cooked for several days. I had not intended for her to do that, but she had all kinds of ideas about what she wanted to make, so off she went. Here's what she made: as appetizers, caponatina, sweet-and-sour (Italian style) onions (the small flat ones), and roasted peppers. We also had cannelloni and a beef dish - beef wrapped around a thin omelette, ham, and spinach. Then my mom also made a a cake. Everything was gluten free, and superdelicious. There was much experimenting to make some gluten-free stuff, and it all turned out great.

Here's the table with the appetizers on it:

 

I was going to take more pictures of all the food, but we fell upon it like we were dying of hunger, and I forgot. Eh-hem.

Anyway, dinner was awesome. Here we all are:

 

L to R: mom, Brooke, Ivy, me, Ian, Jonathan. I mixed people a bit. Ivy is a friend and colleague, as well as a law school buddy; Brooke and Jonathan are also Brown University alumni; and Ian is a friend from Landmark.

So, thanks to mom for the amazing food. We're having another dinner party in January for some folks who were not at this one.