One of those weekends

[pameladean]

Friday, April 2nd, was one of Raphael's and my anniversaries, usually the one we celebrate. It's our ninth. Raphael had to mess zir sleep schedule around for work stuff, so we hadn't made any specific plans for the evening, though I had noted that the sleep schedule didn't need any adjustment.

It was a very fine spring day. I got a late start, but did get my walk in, and another for my cat. While out with the cat (phenology report to follow, but I will note that while he is still pursuing his plan to become a gray cat by rolling in the dirt, he got seriously set back by then rolling in the sawdust left by the removal of the neighbors' mulberry tree, which simply turned him pale orange again), I decided I'd spend the rest of the daylight hours doing yard work.

I went upstairs to get a glass of water into myself and find a rattier T-shirt. While I was drinking water and looking at my email, David sent me a pop-up. "Dinner plans?" I assumed that he was asking whether I was cooking, and answered that question. "Before Iolanthe," he responded. "We're going to Iolanthe?" I typed. "Lydy SAID she'd talked to you." Well, actually she had; but she hadn't said whether in fact she had been able to get tickets. When the original notice came from the Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company, I assumed that we couldn't afford to go. Lydy had pointed out that we had bought her tickets for the past two years and why didn't she buy ours this year? It wouldn't have come except that GSVLOC actually sent David email reminding him that he hadn't seen this year's production and there were tickets left for April 2.

So I was going out to dinner and then to see Iolanthe in about half an hour. I talked to Raphael, who took it quite graciously, removing the necessity of finding somebody to take a ticket on two hours' notice. I stared at all my Elisian necklaces and gave up.

We had a nice dinner at the Java, mostly complaining about the idiocy of either the City of Minneapolis or our lender, we weren't sure which at that point. Before we went into the church where GSVLOC holds its performances, we admired the moon and Venus and Jupiter. We had front row seats, well to the left, which may have affected our ability to hear the music properly. But we enjoyed ourselves very much indeed. Watching the entire male chorus, who are Peers of the Realm, active in the House of Lords, sprout fairy wings at once near the end, was alone worth the price of admission. And the woman who played Iolanthe preserved great dignity, pathos, and a hint of tragedy in a story, like most of G&S's, that is not very respectful of women. I know, I know, they are not respectful of anybody, that's the whole point, but there is still a strong bias and a lot of underlying assumptions.

This is long enough for now, I think, and I have to go move the sprinkler.

Pamela

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

"Middle-aged women are icky. And inherently funny, especially when they want love."

[pameladean]

Yep. But middle-aged men, while partaking of the general folly of the human species, are allowed to want love from young women.

Pamela

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Equal rights for contraltos, say I.

[pameladean]

Hear, hear!

Pamela

[darcydodo]

Always good to find more people who like G&S. Especially sf/fantasy authors. :)

[pameladean]

It's David's fault. He's got bits of it by heart. I came to it all backwards -- I remember seeing The Yeomen of the Guard for the first time and realizing how copiously Lord Peter Wimsey quotes from it.

Pamela

[darcydodo]

It's not just Yeomen that our dear Lord Peter quotes from... :)

(In case you're unaware, that's Gondoliers.)

[pameladean]

I'm tolerably familiar with Gondoliers and The Mikado, as one may be tolerably familiar with oft-performed plays of Shakespeare. But I didn't know anything about most of the others until we started going to see GSVLOC's productions.

Pamela

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

"I've always thought Yeomen was sentimental tosh..."

I wish somebody would do an Annotated Sayers. It will probably wait until she's out of copyright.

Somebody has done a book of annotations

[(Anonymous)]

I have forgotten what it's called. _The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion_, or is that something else entirely? (It sounds like the opera singer in the posh flat, whatever.)

The edition I saw had some notable errors, but by and large was useful.

Helen

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

1) Have you been to Rice Paper in Linden Hills? They offer severalmany things with a choice of a meat product or tofu, and my experience with them makes me think they might know how to deal with tofu in reasonable ways. (I have to take the Timprov there, since it's cilantro heaven and if he gets to be any more of a cilantro monster, he'll turn blue and start singing, "Cilantro-lantro-lantro starts with C!" But I also thought of you with the vegan options.)

2) A silly question, but...is it time to be sprinkling the lawns already, or are you watering specific projects? We've never had to do this before, so I'd been watching the neighbors to see if they do it, and they hadn't, but then there you were, so here I am.

[pameladean]

No, I haven't been to Rice Paper. Is it Chinese?

As for watering, I basically ignore the lawn except to mow it occasionally. I am watering specific projects -- crocuses and tulips coming up, and rose bushes, and peonies. The soil is very dry, and it's hard on plants to have the light and warmth but no moisture. Now, grass is in fact a plant itself, so, well, you know.

My sprinkler is old and inaccurate, so I generally end up watering the lawn at the same time. You can't possibly hurt it by watering it unless it's still waterlogged from snow melt, and really not even then, it's just a waste of your water. Grass gets rained on this time of year, and if there's a frost the rain freezes, and the grass is none the worse.

This reasoning also applies to watering at night. One is sternly forbidden to do so, but it rains at night, so the hell with the forbidders.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Rice Paper is what I believe is called Pacific Rim fusion or something like that: they have Chinese and Vietnamese and Korean and I believe Japanese and Thai, kind of wandering around in the various dishes.

Thanks for the watering info. We're going to have to learn a lot about yards this year, and quickly.

[pameladean]

Can I be pushy and give some advice? You don't need a lot of horrible chemicals to have a decent lawn. Cue rant about the amount of horrible chemicals that are used on lawns across the U.S. every year, and their true horrors. You don't need to fertilize as often as even the organic people will tell you you do. I suggest looking into Gardens Alive!, which has a website, and getting the corn-syrup byproduct (they call it WoW) to suppress germination of annual weed seeds, for spring application, and in the fall, if you feel inferior about not fertilizing or if you have reason to believe your soil is very poor, get their Fall Lawns Alive! and put that on. I frankly believe that even the WoW is overkill, but if your suburban neighbors faint at the sight of crabgrass, this will keep it down.

People who faint at the sight of dandelions I simply do not regard.

All this is worth what you paid for it.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks! We're not big into chemical dumping, either (my dad is an environmental water chemist and thus intimately familiar with the water table; our C.J. is pretty hard-core Green). I'll go poking around and find that site. The only thing I have against crab grass is that it isn't as soft to walk on as bluegrass. I'm not sure that's worth very much work to me, though. As for the neighbors, well. I have no idea what they think of us already, and I haven't expended much energy in finding out.

[vass]

Friday, April 2nd, was one of Raphael's and my anniversaries, usually the one we celebrate. It's our ninth.

Congratulations to you both.

[pameladean]

Thank you!

Pamela

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Congtratulations on your ninth! I have a tenth anniversary I hope to celebrate later in the spring.

K.

[pameladean]

Thanks! Ten is good; may your hope be realized.

Pamela

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I recall being coached to sing in the chorus, viz.

We.Are.Dain.Ty.Lit.Tle.Fairies -- sung note-to-note, no musical line at all, to reinfoce the notion that the dainty little fairies ain't.

[pameladean]

Yes, it was pretty clear that these fairies had been so coached as well. And they get to mock the House of Lords. However, this is merely a temporary situation, after which they do that intensely annoying "We hate you/Don't go" song.

Of its time, yada yada, I know. But there was a feminist movement then. G&S were invested in its opposite, so I get to be cranky at them.

Pamela

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I confess. It's been more than ten years and all I remember is We.Are.Dainty.Little.Fairies.Not!

[pameladean]

I'm not surprised. It's that chorus's entry, and it's very funny when the contrast between words and actions is emphasized. More memorable than some of the other stuff.

Pamela