Long day yesterday.  Fun though.  Wrote for about an hour and a half in the morning, then off to work.  From work, went to dinner at the Italian Bistro.  It's a restaurant in a small chain and it's right across Broad from the Academy of Music where we were going afterward for the opera.   The food is decent and since they are on the Avenue of the Arts, they are used to getting people out in time for their curtain.  All in all, a good choice.  I had the veal parm and so did Tom.  I wished I had room for dessert but, alas, had to forgo such delights or risk falling asleep at the opera, which would be humiliating!

The problem with commenting on an opera you've only heard once is that it takes a while for music to sink in and become familiar enough to recognize the nuances that will make it a favorite.  At least with Cyrano, though, I knew the story and had seen the play recently, which meant I could concentrate on the music and the production itself.

The production was amazing.  Tom said that it arrived in six trailer trucks, and I can well believe it.  The opera world is know for extravagant productions--live elephants onstage have been known.  So it takes a lot to impress an opera-goer.  But--wow!  The curtain opens to a crowd scene--with a huge crowd--staged as if Rembrandt had painted it, all dark sepias and umbers with bright splashes of color on one or two figures.  The architectural staging around the crowd felt solid and real.  Gasp-worthy.  All of the sets were lovely and elaborate, and required fairly extended curtains for scene changes, but the first was the most amazing and stands up to anything I've seen in the theater.

The singing was fine, excellent for the most part.  I actually thought that the soprano had a couple of not-so-great moments, but nothing to actually wince about.  But the duet when Cyrano and Christian hatch their plot to woo Roxanne was brilliant--I embarrassed myself by going "wow" (very quietly, thank heaven!) as the curtain fell.  But it was a wow moment.  There was a march that was fun as well, and the scene in the bakery, where the baker is preparing to receive his poet-friends and Cyrano is preparing to meet Roxanne, opens with the requisite ballet sequence, which was bakery maids in peasant work-clothes dancing folkdance-style (no point shoes!) in a ring to a waltz while extolling the brioche lyre made by their employer.  Delightful!  There were all the requisite bravura pieces for two or three or four.  What I missed, though, was the sing-able solo tune.  The final act had a duet that was very song-like, but I think the opera, which otherwise sounded like it could have been written by a rival influenced by Puccini, gave its one major concession to modern opera by not giving us that great "Nessun Dorma" go home humming off-key tune.  

Then off to bed.  Yay, opera!

Loved SPN last night.  Laughed and laughed 'til I coughed and wheezed.  Which probably says bad things about me.

Desk for the win!

In other news, D had two clear cultures and walked in the hall at the hospital.  Yay!

In other other news, went to dinner with Barb at Chez Collette last night--totally accidental, we forgot that it was Valentine's day.  We had arranged for first day of good weather after the rain and ice.  All was tasty enough, but the butternut squash soup with the scallop at the bottom ofthe bowl was so good I almost canceled my dinner for another bowl of soup.

In still more news, going to see Cyrano the OPERA tonight.  Not the play with Kevin Kline of the icon, but should be interesting to compare.  I didn't even know there was an opera of Cyrano.  Tom says the sets were so elaborate they arrived in six trailers instead of the usual two.  Fun week.

Hi, mom!  (wave, wave!)  Just in case you stop by.  You can hit "comment" if you want to say hi back. 

I am back from Washington, which was a stressful trip because going to Headquarters always is.    I had a short and easy walk to the hotel, and no one was mean to me or anything--and I had a great time with one of our headquarters editors at dinner at Jeleo's, which was wonderful.  But it is always stressful for me to be away from home and away from the people who know me and who, frankly, make me feel both valued and protected.

The family bits were grand fun, though--yay, fam!  It was my brother-in-law's birthday, so we went out to celebrate three nights while I was there, and alas!  I had to head for home before the assado on Sunday.  So, forget about the work part--lets talk about the food!

Jeleos is a Spanish tapas place.  They have a white sangria with strawberries and mint leaves instead of citrus that, I could have dived right into and drunk my way to the bottom.  Just about the most delicious drink I've ever had.  It was lightly sweet, but not like a sweet wine--just, a happy taste.  Yum.  Not all plates are created equally.  The garlic shrimp were so wonderful that we had seconds.  (I scraped off the garlic because I can't eat the actual bulb, but the flavor in the sauce and on the shrimp was zippy and savory--there was much dunking of bread and I would go back just for the shrimp.  And the white sangria.  The eggplant and roast peppers were yummy, and so was the cheese--I love manchego and there were a couple others I didn't know, also tasty, with an apricot sweet relish, made with whole dried apricots with it, that was also worth the trip.  The chickpea stew was tasty, and so were the lamb chops, but not so click-your-heels and ask for seconds as some of the other dishes.  We were too stuffed for dessert and rolled home (me to my hotel) early to contemplate the delicous.

Primos was Primos--good, inexpensive greek/italian diner-y food.  I had chicken with sun dried tomatoes that was very good.

ETA:  I forgot Outback, where I had ribs and chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.  After buying a new suit because I needed a bigger one.  ::hides head in shame::  Tasty, though.

More about Satuday, and sister-prom, on the next rock!

Spring!  After a long hiatus, during which we had reruns of winter, we finally have new episodes of Spring!  Yesterday, walked over to South Street Souvlaki with some friends from work.  Stopped for some DQ for the walk back to Chestnut Street.  Philly Pops did a  jazz program that was mostly wonderful, really, though there was one piece that just sounded sour at the end.  But mostly the play was bright and full of verve.  Dee Daniels sang from the repertoire of the great jazz women.  She overdid the patter a bit, but the singing was tear-your-heart-out terrific. 

But, I have canceled all social engagements for the rest of the weekend, and am doing page proofs, which must be done in by Monday.  And, for some reason of incompatible transfer, all the letters with diacritics have disappeared from the text, leaving blank white spaces in their place.  They must be hunted up and replaced, in addition to the stray typo and "ouch, that line just sucks" repair.

However, to stretch my eyes I took my first walk on the river of the season, and checked out the park.  The magnolias are about done, flowers almost gone but leaves slow in coming because of the cold.  The azaleas are late, but I did see buds, so that is okay, and the trees are finally hazed with green.

I went back to South Street, briefly, because the tourists have arrived even before the azaleas, but--ta-da, SPN fans--I had a cheese steak for lunch.  Chewy roll, provolone, (not Whiz) and ketchup.  The best.  Mourned the absence of onions, but that is what happens when you get old, I guess.

And now, back to work.  Which is not so bad, really, because I am remembering as I proofread how much I like these books.  But whoa!  a lot of pages to go over looking for missing vowels,