The Other Part of Florida

Finally have time to catch up on the blog - got stuck in Florida an extra day due to a snowstorm up north, and then was struck down by a stomach virus.

Lucia in Florida was fun!! My mom, my cousin and I



met another cousin in downtown Fort Lauderdale for dinner. We at at Himmarshee. It was good, although a little noisy. The weather was gorgeous and we sat outside so some of the noise was from the street. Then we walked the two or three blocks to the theater and found a cute guy to take our photo:



Yeah, I know, he's not IN the photo, so use your imagination. Look at our smiles.

The opera was great! Everyone was so talented, as usual. My only beef with the production, and my companions agreed, was with the stage setting. They had this diagonal wall across the stage, pretty much cutting off half the stage, so everything was sort of stuffed into the space in front. Also, some of the scenes seemed out of order from how I remember, some stuff was cut and there were parts that I didn't recognize. I guess that's normal - directors cut sections of the opera for various reasons, and the plot is so ridiculous that doesn't really matter. The mad scene was great - Lucia came in walking on this long long table, and they brought Arturo's body out wrapped in a sheet - wonderfully gruesome!

Opera Tattler type stuff:

• The chairs squeaked like mad. Someone get out there and oil them! The people in the row behind sat down, heard the squeak and began doing it on purpose, for fun. Not during the production - not on purpose - but anytime anyone moved the chair made a squeeeaaaak.
• The coughing!! At one point I started counting each time I heard a cough or a nasty throat-clearing. I'd start again from 1 when I heard another. The highest I got was 12. Generally it was: 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1....
• Once again, the cellophane candy wrappers. Or perhaps it was cough drops?
  

There's nothing else to rant about - just the noise from chairs and people. Everyone was dressed up - some were ultra-glamorous. We were too tired afterward to peek backstage to say hello so we went home.

The rest of the Florida visit was uneventful. When I asked my mother if she'd like to hear me sing she said, "If I have to." Nice. Later in the trip I was singing while doing the laundry. I came out of the laundry room and she said, "Ok, you can stop singing now." Nice. On the other hand, when my cousin showed her the video of me singing with the Opera Project, she was so proud of me she was ready to explode. So... ? Perhaps she was trying to "protect" me from my father's mean comments? Who knows. Anyway, it allowed to me rest my voice. And the snow up north gave us another day to swim in the pool, dip in the hot tub, swim in the pool, dip in the hot tub...

Now we're under a blizzard warning!! Look!


TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS ARE EXPECTED TO RANGE FROM 12 TO

22 INCHES INTO EARLY TONIGHT... WITH THE HIGHEST AMOUNTS
STRADDLING THE INTERSTATE 95 CORRIDOR.

NEAR-BLIZZARD OR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE RARE FOR OUR AREA... SO
IT IS LIKELY THAT PEOPLE WILL NOT REALIZE THE PERIL THAT EXISTS
IN VENTURING OUT IN SUCH STORMS.

Peril!!! Quick! Duck!! Geez, you'd think I had free tickets to see Nathan Gunn 2 hours away, with weather like this.