Traveling Melancholy

Play the video and listen while you read. That is how I wrote the post anyways...

Going to California

Not now. But probably soon. I’ll be going to California.

I know I promised you all a snorkeling post. But it ain’t gonna happen.

Soon. Soon I’ll be back to snorkeling and body boarding and walking on beaches and writing verses in journals.

Driving around the island and taking videos of the scenes at the sides of the road while I play something I like and want to share on the car CD player. Make you feel like you were here.

Make me feel like I’m in the moment.

My husband’s stepmother passed away last week. The funeral is tomorrow.

My mom in California is at a crossroads. She’s 82 and a hoarder. We (and her doctor) have been trying to get her to use her long term health care and go into an assisted living home for over two years. But she is stubborn and has some mental health issues. Seriously.

So she has waited until her luck’s run out and her debt is huge.

It’s a mess.

A mess that will have to be dealt with soon. Somehow.

I’ll be going to California where, even after 27 years here in Hawaii, where so many of my youthful memories are cast along the sides of the roads.

I’ll put some Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd on when I get in the rental car and I’ll drive up the PCH from LA X and when I look out at the ocean or at the sagebrush on the hills the floodgates will come undone.

As soon as school is out mom, I’ll be coming to California.

Link on up and take us traveling.

Then, Lucky Me, I'm off to the Opera

Some readers could not tell if I really felt lucky or was being sarcastic yesterday. Blogging inarticulately, or ambiguously, apparently is a byproduct of insomnia and an overstuffed agenda.
Not sarcastic. I was not planning on going as the tickets were expensive and my daughter’s part was a tiny one. Things worked out that she knew someone that had an extra ticket for “Opera for Everyone” night. Perfect crowd for me, yes? She even said I could wear my jeans. And only six dollars.

The slight slippage of sarcasm, subconsciously of course, could only have been linked to work. Where things have been especially difficult lately. Not the students, although they can be difficult, they ARE teenagers after all. But the students are what they are and I love them on good days or bad. No, more the politics, the sometimes ineptness of the system. The fact that I spent the entire weekend at home trying to catch up and still feel overwhelmed.

HOWEVER….once I got to the opera it was amazing and wonderful. And I realized I had never been to the opera. Sure, I have seen it on the television. I have listened to it on NPR. One of my best friends over here was a voice major at UH (her voice teacher’s daughter is now my daughter’s voice teacher). I went to my friend’s graduation recital in 1984 and heard her sing opera in three different languages. But I had never EXPERIENCED opera before.

I discovered I loved it. I was like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. It grabbed my heart and brought tears to my eyes. Goose bumps on goose bumps. And yes, I realize this takes some of the juice out of my California Jam post.

Monon, a young and beautiful French girl on her way to the convent attracts the attention of two men. One is young, handsome, and, of course, poor. The other is old and rich. Her vacillating between the two causes her arrest and exile to America with a group of prostitutes. My daughter’s ten minute role was as one of the prostitutes getting sent to America on the ship with Monon. I could not have been prouder.

This scene is when her young lover finds her in the rich old man’s house and they reconcile.


My daughter says she can get me a cheap ticket to Carmen next month. I just have to go with her music class.

And the Winner is.......

But first, the weekly wrap up.

Some stuff this week on the internet:

In the mood for something fun, light, and the cutest thing since, I don’t even fucking know? I mean a video that makes BC look like old school run of the mill? Abstraction has a video post of a little French toddler, Capucine, telling her mom a story into a video camera. You ain’t heard nothing if you haven’t heard a little French cutie pie say hippo and crocodile in French. My daughter and I watched it twice last night, and that was after I called her in after watching it once myself.

Another of Abstraction’s posts is a great idea for Christmas. “Christmas is coming, and instead of giving your money to Target or Wal-Mart, 100% of your contribution will go directly to helping sweet Indian children receive a quality education! This whole art benefit will be on an official George Foundation website in the next month or so...but I am giving you a sneak peak of the amazing art that will be a part of this benefit, just in case you're an early shopper...” D’Arcy (Abstraction) is spreading the message for her friend Emily.

Thistle has an interesting post on guns, and since she’s Canadian, both the post and the comment thread explore thoughtfully a variety of perspectives on this issue.

A new blog for me, Whiskey in my Sippy Cup (and really, how can anyone not check out a blog with this title) has an excellent post on the backlash of Prop 8 making it through.

Salon has an excellent article about George W. Bush’s 8 year effect on the environment, along with some scientists’ ideas for Obama to try and turn the tables.

Last, and certainly the most entertaining for me personally, was my migraine med induced idea of a contest. First of all, I’d like to thank all who sent me well wishes. That is the second time internet positive vibes worked like magic. Because after suffering for 3 and ½ days, by yesterday afternoon I was feeling OK. Not OK enough to risk sipping a martuni. But OK enough to go out to an impromptu late lunch with my daughter. We invited a close friend to come along as she had called earlier and said if I felt better and was up to anything to let her know. How odd that my close and dear friend (“P”) that was spending the late afternoon with my daughter and I would be the one who got the most votes to be me. Which is quite the compliment, because she is gracious, fun, funny, and a great friend. We had a lovely lunch at The Pineapple room in Macy’s, followed with browsing through Ala Moana. Nordstrom’s opened a few months ago and I’ve never been, so we strolled down there and tried on expensive clothes just for the fun of it. Plus Daughter and P said I just had to experience the dressing rooms. We ended the day in Sephora, trying lotions and creams and asking the poor sales girl which cream would get rid of our wrinkles and sun spots.

So, thanks all for having some fun with me on my 51st birthday. Look like there is no need for a tumble. Liz is the only one who guessed correctly. I’m the one sitting with a baby in my lap (not son – baby is son of the other blonde I was mistaken for). That baby is now a 9th grader and like a younger brother to my 16 year old. They ride dirt bikes on the weekends together on the North Shore. The cutie in the pink dress is Daughter. Since all of my friends had boys, she is the spoiled girl that gets to hang with mom and the aunties.

Old Man Take a Look at His Life

I netflixed the movie The Savages last weekend. Two adult siblings caring for their father during his last months. A father who had been abusive and not very caring himself.

It made me think of this huge baby boomer generation and what it might be like another 10 and 20 years from now. Hopefully the economy won’t go belly up. BTW. For a great blog on the economic bailout, see Shauuna. She has links to articles AND to a website that gives you direct access to emailing your White House people’s what you think of it.

The movie also made me think of our dog grandpa. I write so much about Border Collie, even posting pictures, that it makes it look terribly neglectful of Old Man. He’s 16 and we adopted him as a three year old when Son was 3 and Daughter was 6. As a young dog he’d be out in the service alley with 10-15 kids. They’d try and tie him to their wagon trains to be their “horse,” but he’d none of it. He’d jump into one of the wagons and let the kids pull him all over the neighborhood. He used to go to the beach and spend the day trying to catch sandcrabs or swimming in the ocean. At his last check up the vet says he’s nearly blind and mostly deaf. He has arthritis in his hips. Before we got the puppy, Old Man used to act like he couldn’t walk past our yard. However, BC has given the Old Man a new lease on life and he now looks forward to a walk around the block twice a day.

I give you Old Man. Isn’t he regal?