Kitty Distraction

To keep my mind off the adventures of the coming week - you know, the opera with the terrible reviews, the performance that I might or might not be making a backstage visit after - I've decided to go ahead and stop ignoring Cat Pic Friday. Well, at least this week. So here we go with the cats.


Look! Diego had a big blue thought bubble!



Caught!!!



So really I'm just trying to not think about my upcoming adventures. Except that I can't. So let's see... I'm meeting my friend and voice teacher (that's one person - not two) at Penn Station on Wednesday afternoon and we'll walk uptown and find somewhere to eat before the travesty oops I mean the opera. Afterwards I'll find a cab to take me across town to a friend's apartment. The other option is a subway and then a crosstown bus... Yeah, I think I'll spring for the cab.

Next day my friend and I will hang out - I'm really looking forward to that!! Then at 5:30 I'm meeting someone (a regular I'd Rather Be Sleeping reader and occasional commenter, fellow Gunnfan and all-around nice guy) for dinner before Firebrand. Then the thing itself. Is it a show? Like a Broadway show? Semi-staged? Concert/recital style? Costumed? No idea. These questions and many more will be answered that very evening. So anyway, after Firebrand, I might zip backstage for a photo op, might not. Once a year I guess I have to have an annual, "Am I on the list" week or two. Another question that has no answer at the moment. And if I'm not on the list there is no way I'm hanging around by the stage door - how pathetic would that be? I do have some shred of dignity. Somewhere. I'll find it by then. Hopefully the "I'll see what I can do-er" will see and do. Anyway... then I'll make my way to Penn Station and catch the next train home, retrieve my car from the parking garage and drive 20 minutes home. Then I drag my sorry a$$ to work the next day and push some papers around for a few hours before coming home to collapse. And THEN, of course, I'll write all about it here. Hm sounds good to me.

Back to the Cats and a Clarifying Note

I know I seem to favor Diego here on Cat Pic Friday but he seems to pose for pictures more often than Viola. I mean, look at this:



Here's a Viola pic, just so it doesn't seem like I'm playing favorites. Even if I am. She'll never know - she doesn't read the blog.




And speaking of reading the blog, I want to clarify here that what may come across (to those nice people who don't know me) as an obsession is really just a habit and a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. People expect me to provide content and they send it along to me to share, and I do. Plus I love throwing videos together because it's like doing a puzzle. Of course I always respect issues of privacy and never reveal information that's not already publicly known. However, there will be a general slowing-down of videos, media and other information regarding certain topics for the time being.

Now, what do to... am considering skipping out on the whole Baltimore free recital thing. Someone needs to convince me that I should still go. Should I still go? I'm feeling a tad bit... embarrassed right now over possible interpretations of my...enthusiasm.

I know this sounds cryptic. But too bad. The rest is, as they say, private.

Gonzo Cat!

Musically today it's all about Muppets from Space. I'm about to go groove with Gonzo's brothers in a moment. Meanwhile, here are today's cat pics.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Diego poses for pictures:







Viola, well, we have to pose her.

More Tongue

What I can I say, I like catching 'em with their tongues out:





Diego loves to settle down on Husband's back:




Next week will feature Violacat. I'll try to get her with her tongue out, just for consistency.

The Noive

My voice teacher was SICK and had the nerve to cancel my lesson rather then haul her sick self 45 minutes to sneeze in my general direction. Haaaaarrumph. Good thing, too, because I was supposed to do the IPA for the Tipsy Waltz and I didn't. I did manage to write it out and then translate it, and I left a line free for the IPA, so at least I did something. But not the part she told me to do, probably because I've been busy with this. And would you believe I posted this entry there first by mistake? Oops.

The challenge of today's Cat Pic Friday is to post pictures I haven't yet posted. Although I just went through all the Cat Pic Friday posts and did see a few duplicates. Oops again.

Today it's all about Viola.


How does she DO that?


Cat Camouflage

Cat Pic Friday, One Day Late, With Guest Cats

Yeah, I know, Cat Pic Friday was yesterday. Better late than never.

We have some Guest Cats today, courtesy of Hey Liz. Thanks Liz! Umm... can you please leave a comment with their names???







And now, here's Digeo, trying to hide from his Adoring Public.




His true fans will always know it's him, much to his annoyance.

Is it Still Friday?

I was home alone all day today and spent most of the day recording myself singing. What better way to fill yourself with self-disgust and embarrassment than to watch video after video of yourself singing flat, singing sharp, cracking for no reason and doing all sorts of other embarrassing things. Luckily for all of us it's Cat Pic Friday.


Diego, King of All He Surveys




Viola Approaches the Table



Cats read Opera News too, especially when Nathan Gunn is on the cover

.

Cat. Pic. Friday.

The next time I invite you over for dinner, remember, we never let the cats on the table and they never ever eat off the dishes.

The good, the sad, the cats, the comparison

The good:

My voice lesson yesterday. Especially when she had my lie on the desks on my back to sing. Yes, desks, because my lesson takes place in an elementary school classroom. There's more but I've had too much to drink to go into it now.

The sad:

My friend Colleen lost her battle with cancer today. She is survived by her husband and two children, ages 2 and 5. My heart if breaking for her going, knowing that her kids would be growing up without their mother, and the 2 year old won't remember her.

The cats:


Viola and her closeup, last week.


Viola and Alex when he was about 3 or 4 months old.


Whose crib is this anyway? Alex, age 3 or 4 months.


The comparison:

I'm short! I forget that I'm short until I see pictures like this.

March, 2008 .........and......... October, 2008

Ok, Fine. Cat Pic Friday.

I think someone needs an attitude adjustment... and it's me!! I wasn't in the mood, but I don't want to disappoint, so here are the pics for Cat Pic Friday:



Diego lounging on a boppy pillow


Prince Diego in his castle


Viola will dominate next week's post. I promise.

If Only I were RICH RICH RICH

Yes, we've all done it. We've all fantasized about what we would do if we won the lottery, the Publisher's Clearinghouse or some other multi-million dollar prize that would set us up for life. They say money can't buy happiness, but I'd be willing to test that theory.

For example, if money were no object, I'd already have booked a flight to and a hotel in Chicago and would have tickets to see Pearl Fishers once or twice. But money is an object, an object that I don't have enough of to go gallivanting off all over the country to follow opera singers and maybe offer to do their laundry.

So, until I strike it rich, I'll have to live vicariously through friends who do get to go, and I'll also live internally, in my head, because anything can happen there, and, like Vegas, what happens in my mind, stays in my mind.


While we wait for all that, put this into your mind.

And as always, go, rate, comment, enjoy.

*******

Update:

My friend received the infamous postcard from the person. I thought I had gotten mine the other day... but it was a card from the vet reminding me to bring Diego in for his shots. Meow.

Cat Pic Friday Adventure

Not sure how the week went by so quickly, but here it is, Friday again. Friday means... cat pictures. Here we go:


Diego settles into a pile of clothes on the chair.



Viola caught checking the jewelry box for anything she can pawn.
(get it? PAWn. Just made that up. I'm feeling very clever!)



For 5 minutes there were no toys on the floor, so the cats made their move and collapsed as if they had been sleeping there forever.


Am in intense, intense discussion with the friend from the friend/person post about the particulars of her upcoming adventure. This is important stuff, people. We'll be living vicariously through her soon. She is aware that the pressure is on. She won't disappoint us.

Cats in My Tessitura

Voice lesson yesterday. Wasn't finding it. It was in me. I had it the day before. Had a bit of tension in me though and couldn't figure out how to get rid of it to relax and open my throat. It's so frustrating. Why can't I produce That Sound, that rounded, full and beautiful Sound, all the time?

We did vocalises (sp??) for much of the class just to practice that. I have to get the memory of the sound into my muscles, into my body, so that the whole thing comes together when I want it to.

My homework is to go over Ouvre ton coeur, aaaahhhs only, then vowels only, and not to add the consonants back in until next Tuesday. So Tuesday will not only be the first day of Rosh Hashanana, it will also be Consonant Day.

Wow that all barely makes sense but I'll restrain from editing it.

I have access to a photograph that you, dear reader, may find interesting, however I must pursue the Proper Channels before posting it. It's possible that the Channel may say "What? Are you f'ing kidding me? No way!" but it's just as likely that the Channel will say, "Sure, whatever." So if the picture appears in a future post, you'll know the answer. If not, you'll just have to wonder.

Cat Pic Friday:


Viola glares at the paparazzi.



Diego cozies up to his scotch.


This next one is blurry but I love how it makes his canines look longer. Why felines have canines is a subject for another post. Uh... another post on another blog.


Arrggh, get away from me scotch or I'll bite ya with me canines.

I Remembered Just In Time

Chased the cats around with the iPhone to get something up here for cat pic Friday. These pictures are very very fresh. Be careful - the paint is still wet.



Viola's small head shows how small her brain is.




Diego's head looks big in this picture, but don't be fooled. It's small.

At Least It's Not Just Opera (and a cat pic too of course)

"Oooohhhh," I thought when I saw that Cirque du Soleil was performing one town over. I've always wanted to go see them. Then I looked at the ticket prices. $95 and $75. Two tickets to that is actually more than two tickets to The Italian Girl in Algiers. No opera, no circus.

Cat pic time, seeing as it's Friday and all.


Diego caught in the act! Of what I'm not sure.

Finally, a quick report on the Future Opera Singer. Good thing he likes opera because he won't be pursuing a career as a piano player if he keeps this up. And of course these things always happen when Husband isn't home. In yesterday's case, he was at a baseball game.

I got a free plastic travel mug at work and gave it to Alex to play with in the bath. The lid comes apart into two pieces. One of the pieces has a hole in it. Silly Mommy wasn't thinking that would be a problem until Alex stuck his finger in it and couldn't get it out! I tried liquid soap, I tried lotion, I tried cutting it off with my flimsy scissors, all to no avail. Finally I called my friend across the street. She came over with an armload of tools, including a pair of heavy duty scissors that finally did the trick. Here she is, 7 1/2 months pregnant, kneeling on my bathroom floor, trying the pliers first. OK, it's just her arms, but I had to throw that pregnancy mention in there.



Thankfully she got him out and I avoided an embarrassing call to 911.

And no, I didn't run to get the camera. I had my iPhone in my hand trying to reach Husband by phone and by text message. He finally called after it was all over, and since everything turned out fine, figured he'd stay until the end of the game. And there's yet another difference between men and women.

Luckily I don't think it's possible to get your vocal cords stuck in a hole... is it???

Cat Pic Friday

Look at this great parking spot I found!

Ticketed

The tickets for the live HD transmissions from the Met went on sale today. I bought a pair of tickets for two performances - Lucia with Anna Netrebko in Feb and La Cenerentola in May. That spreads my opera out quite nicely:

Oct 22- Lucia at the Met - Diana Damrau!!!
Feb 2 (I think)- Lucia in the movies - Anna Netrebko!!!
Feb - Die Fledermaus, either as a super or else as a paying customer
March 24 - La Sonnambula at the Met - Juan Diego Florez!!! Natalie Dessay!!!(AAAHHHH!!!!!!! Can't wait!!!)
May 9 - La Cenerentola in the movies - Larry Brownlee - Sorry, I mean, Lawrence. I don't know him so I can't call him Larry. (well not yet, ha ha)

Now... what to do... what to do... The Gunnster is starring in The Rape of Lucretia with the Opera Company of Philadelphia. It's in a tiny theater. Tickets are available now for subscribers. So I could pay $75 to subscribe and then $95 for a ticket... or... I could wait until December when they go on sale for the Rest of Us. The theater is so small that all the seats are probably pretty good, but... 3rd or 4th row sure would be nice. On the other hand, do I want to see an opera that involves a rape and the ensuing emotional breakdown of the victim? And do I want to pay an extra $75 to guarantee that discomfort? Yeap. I think I'll wait until December, when I will then kick myself for not shelling out the extra money to get a ticket now.

Dayum, why is opera so friggin' expensive?

Ok. It's Friday. Cat pic time.


OHMYGOD what happened to the cat????
Ok that is so not a cat. It's my friend's dog Bear!! Bear-Bear, what are you doing in my house????

Let's try again:

Nope. They're not allowed on the table. Right.

Finally, I will end the post by embedding the video to which the comments here refer. Enjoy!

Almost Forgot About the Cats

Good thing Husband showed me a cat pic from one of the blogs he reads or I would have forgotten to post today's cat pics here. Well the pictures aren't from today, but you know what I mean. So here they are:


Dear, departed Sebastian during one of his baseball games

Sebastian and Viola doing a twin thing.

Diego during his kitten days.

Put It in Your Snout and Shout!

It's Cat Pic Friday! But that's not why I have the word snout in the title.

This is why. Go ahead, put it in your snout and shout.

Back to the serious business. Here are today's cat pics.

Ok one is not a cat, but the term Kool Kat comes to mind - check out the goatee. So see if you can tell which picture is of a cat and which is of a KoolKat.

So first here's Diego in one of his favorite poses. Or should I say, reposes.




And this... This has got to be the best picture of Viola EVER, taken just this afternoon with Husband's iPhone.



Finally, here's the Kool Kat in his porn-star goatee. Do you recognize this guy?



Comments about this picture are welcome, no, encouraged.

**

Ok, I'll go first. Does anyone else notice that his waist seems to vanish into the ground while at the same time his fingers look about a foot long? Fish-eye lens? Or... too much self-flagellation?

The Birth of a Picture

Well, it took 9 months, but I finally got a copy of that picture that was taken in December at the Met after seeing Romeo. The person whose camera it was on cropped the pic to just show me. Not sure why.... But here I am, glowing with the post-opera happiness. Of course this was before I got car sick in the limo on the way home... good thing I shopped, that bag came in handy...



That picture looks disturbingly like this one of me from last Halloween, minus the blackened nose and whiskers...




And that very nicely leads us to ... CAT PIC FRIDAY!

Here are Viola and Dear Departed Sebastian, when they were kittens. Viola has the white paws and her eyes are open.



And here's Diego when HE was a kitten: