What can I say about the opera? We had never been to a Wagner before, in part because it was not something I was expecting to entirely love. I’ve heard enough of the music to know it’s not my favorite: I like Mozart, Puccini, and Verdi. But this is the glory of the Met in HD–you’re not risking kabillions on an experiment.
The results of this experiment were mixed. These broadcasts sell out fast and our seats were painfully close the screen. We could see the pixels at times, and they had a glitch with the satellite right at the beginning. But the Rhine maidens were very sexy and weird and the staging was ambitious. And I really heart Bryn Terfel, who sings Wotan. So I walked out saying “Yep, I suspected that might not be my cuppa.”
I was glad I went, though. One can’t love all operas (or all anything) equally, but I always enjoy going. And it was a perfect activity for what turned out to be an incredibly rainy day.
The other thing that was very sad about the adventure of Saturday was that once again we planned to eat at Nuba, only to get there and discover they’re not open. This is the third time, I think. I had been looking forward to that lovely wonderful spicy cauliflower all morning. I had brought snacks, but you cannot sit in an opera munching noisily away, and when we left the theater we thought we might as well get to the restaurant. The blood sugar got a tad low.
Plan B, as always, was to hoover up the food I’d brought and haul ass through the downpour to Memphis Blues. Why are they the go-to place? Because they bring your food in five minutes, dammitall, they don’t care if you eat with your fingers, and I’ve never shown up there and found a locked door. They gave me a barbecued lamb sandwich and a salad, and equilibrium was restored.
MB is right next to the Santa Barbara market, so on the last leg of the journey home, we went apple shopping. Only when we were safely home and ready to dry off did Kelly realize I hadn’t bought enough onions for the holiday perogies. So she went back out into the rain to buy some more, along with something else I had forgotten. I curled up by the fire with a book.
