Many happenings

To the left (maybe) is Harvey, Sandy, me at the far end, and close in Laura, our oldest granddaughter. To the right is a closeup of Laura. As usual, click on the photos to enlarge them; back arrow brings you back to the blog.

Dear Friends and Family,

I now have so many photos that I don't know what to do with them all. Merwin took the two here. Our granddaughter is 27, in her final year of a PhD program at Boston College. Unlike PhD candidates of my time, she has to publish papers, which she has done, but her advisor wants her to write and publish two more before she incorporates them all in her thesis. She is hoping to be finished by the end of the summer. Good luck, Laura! By the way, Sabrina, the youngest of our five grandchildren was 24 a few days ago. She is also a chemist.

On Sat, we went to the HD opera, and with the help of Laury's camp stool I was able to see and hear the whole opera. Not my favorite, I must say. Too static, too withholding, too little scenic drama. Wonderful singing, though, but I want the whole caboodle when I go to the opera. This one was Iphigénie en Tauride (Gluck), which takes place after Orestes has avenged his father's death by killing his mother. The set (Thomas Lynch) added nothing: the same throughout the opera (so no viewing of dramatic scene changes during the intermission), a main room with the prominent sacrificial altar, and a side room, which singers wandered into for no apparent reason. The lighting was quite dark, as usual these days. It's very much in the French Classical tradition. The main singers were Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo, both with serious colds, as we were warned before the performance began.The main thing was that I could go all the way through, about 5 hours, door to door.

When we came home, we started preparing for our Sunday visitors, our granddaughter and her parents. Sandy brought a beautiful huge salad. I made a roasted salmon to be served cold (cool actually) the next day. On Sunday a.m., we prepared cauliflower for the roasted version, which we all began nibbling as soon as they arrived at about 11 a.m. This version we made with olive oil, cumin and curry as well as a small amount of salt and a quarter teaspoon of ground pepper. In the way in, they picked up a cheese cake and bread we had ordered from Leonetti's. And for those wary of sweets we also had Sonia's apple compote.

Laura brought me several pairs of earrings, just beautiful. She is a crafts-loving person and designs these herself. Very delicate. I am happily wearing one pair now, along with green and gold slacks that go with the wild blouse I had on some days ago. Wearing the two together would be too wild. But I love them especially because my mother-in-law made the set for me, over 30 years ago.

In between, I am also beginning the work on Macbeth, while keeping Hamlet in mind as well. I have established a little set of books on a shelf and a scattering of journals around my recliner. The books include my own on Macbeth in performance, Nick M's collection of essays on the play (with his lovely recognition of our friendship in the credits). I am re-reading his introduction. It's a compliment to it that when I could not sleep because of itching during the night it did not put me to sleep, as reading often does. I also have Marvin Rosenberg's huge book on my shelf, and the New Variorum ed. of the play. Of course there are hundreds of books I could use, but I think we'll have enough with these four, plus the films Laury (and maybe me) with see at the Lincoln Center collection Theater on Film and Tape, and those we have on DVD plus the performances we are going to see in March. Shaping up in my mind.

Sonia will be here soon. So à demain,
Love,
Bernice