Well, that is what happens in San Francisco - too much action to have time to sit back and reflect.
Okay, let's see if I can catch up this time. I left you having just arrived in San Francisco (or Oakland, to be precise), safe and sound. I took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into town - have I told you yet that I finally broke down and got a Clipper card, so that I can just swipe and go anywhere (so there, all you greenies who think I am married to my car1) - and we had our traditional lunch at Henry Hunan's. A break from tradition, though; Andy, Chuck and I had to do without Hank - he had to stay in his office at the bank to wait for $19,000,000 which had gone missing in action1 (and yes, I brought him back a doggy bag!).
I went back to Hank's apartment just long enough to empty my suitcase before I was off again. Hank had booked us for that (Wednesday, June 16 - even I have lost track) night for an LGBT event, and there were errands to be run, don't you know. A few hours later, I picked him up from his office - the 19 mil still hadn't arrived, but by that time it was too late in the day to invest it anyway - and off we went.
Reminder - LGBT is Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender. I have to write this because it is still hard to grasp that the University of Arizona would have an LGBT studies program, the head of which we were feting. The "do" was, perhaps appropriately, was being held on the patio of a leather bar on Folsom Street in downtown San Francisco. Wednesday was the day that the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, and also California's Prop 8 prohibiting gay marriage, so - as you can imagine, it was quite a festive event - lot's of toasts to the "death of DOMA" and all of that. It was fairly well attended,, too, as alumni events go, including, Hank tells me, a number of people who never attended such events before. Some that stood out for me were the head of the program herself (transgender, but so comfortable in her own skin that it was totally a non-issue) and a lesbian couple who had been together for 36 years, had married in San Francisco 5 years when there was a brief window for that to happen, and were now going to remarry in honor of the momentous events!
Thursday, I began what was to be the daily ritual. I took the down to the opera house....
...at 11 A.M. to stand in line for rush tickets for the opera that night. You all know that I don't like to stand in line for much, but paying $30 for a $200 ticket for the opera? Well, that's worth getting old for, much less standing in line. (I got second row right aisle!)
Then, go about your day, and head for the opera at night. Thursday was a visit to the De Yonge Museum in Golden Gate Park to see the Diebenkorn exhibit. And yes, I liked it. Diebenkorn is one of my favourite modernists. (I find his mixture of representational and abstract just about right.) It was a lovely exhibit in a lovely space. I didn't even want to see some of my old favourites in the museum; the special exhibit was quite enough!
Then off to meet Ray at Stanly Ho's for dinner. (I may be getting that name wrong - the restaurant, not the guy). Ray and I met each other 30 years ago when we were both working at the Bank of America. (He likes to tell the story about how we met. It was December, he was hitchhiking from Marin County to the Bank because he was too cheap to pay the bus fare and I was driving from Marin in my convertible with the top down in December - it was California, after all. I was stopping at the allocated place - it was San Francisco, after all - to pick up hitchhikers so that I would have more than 1 person in the car and wouldn't have to pay the toll on the Golden Gate Bridge. I picked him up, and we started talking banking - we both worked at B of A - and symphony and opera, and, as they say, the rest is history.) Ray has long since gone back to Boston and I, of course, ultimately went to British Columbia. We have kept in touch, and seen each other on occasion, although we worked out that we hadn't seen each other for 9 years prior to Thursday night. Anyway, we discovered that we were both going to be in San Francisco at the same time, and I reminded him of the summer opera; a meeting was born.
The years have been good to Ray - he looks pretty much the same as he always did...
....although he tells me there are now some replacement parts!
I had forgotten how much he liked spicey food. and so we had quite the feast at this, one of his favourite Hunan restaurants (yes, I know, if I would have remembered my schedule, I wouldn't have had Hunan for lunch yesterday. Luckily I too adore Hunan food, so it wasn't too much of a sacrifice.)
We walked it off with a hike to the opera house. and got there just in time to grab our seats for
(Okay, I'm still working on this scanning thing, I obviously don't have it down yet. I was hoping to be able to scan these things so I can save the cast listing and throw away the program - I am obviously not there yet.)
The Hoffman was Matthew Polenzani, and also memorable were Christian Van Horn - an up and coming baritone - as Lindorf, and Hye Jung Lee who played Olympia. Believe it or not, Natlie Dessay as Antonia was an also ran in this cast! The music was glorious and the singing was fabulous. I had some quibbles about the staging when I saw it on Thursday, but when I saw it again on Sunday, I loved that too.
.
(Doesn't he look just like the kind of person who would be lecturing on Wagner and Freud?)
The title of the lecture to the contrary notwithstanding, it was actually interesting and informative, and will send me back to my Wagner books - when I finish the pile already on my nightstand.
And from the sublime to the ridiculous. On Saturday night, Hank and Pat and I went to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It is such a cult classic that Hank was appalled that I had never seen it. So, off we traipsed. For those of you who, like me, were Virgins, well, I am not even going to try to describe it. Suffice it to say, I loathed it. (I was mollified to hear that even Hank, who had seen it 90-some times, was appalled at how commercial the production had become). However, I was not sorry to have gone. It was one of those things that you have to have done, you know?
In spite of the late evening (we didn't get home until after 3:A.M. I was off to get my opera ticket bright and early on Sunday morning for the matinee performance of Tales of Hoffman. I had a few hours to kill before the opera, so I caught lunch at Max's deli (another old favourite, and convenient), and managed to catch a bit of the Gay Pride as well.
I know, the pictures didn't turn out very well, but I had to include them to show you a bit of the scope of the thing - thousands and thusands of happy people thronging the streets - some in costume, some naked (sorry, no pictures!), and totally benign. I would have stayed longer - and perhaps taken better pictures - but rushed back to the nearby opera house for the afternoon performance (my second Tales of Hoffman, see above).
After which. Peter. Hank and I met at Kokkari for a delightful (if pricey) dinner (we have come a long way from hitching and trying to save money on bridge tolls!)
(From left to right, Ray, Peterr, Nora and Hank) All of us met in the Bank in the 80's, although really, the guys all knew each other through me. So, great conversaion, great food, great booze (believe it or not, some of the best ouzo that I have ever tasted) - I think I can say that a great time was had by all1 (The restaurant, by the way, gets a definite thumbs up from me on all counts atmosphere, service and food - and the location on Jackson Square is not bad either!)
Which brings us to Monday. The last several days had been a bit much, even for me, so, having picked up my rush ticket in the morning, I rested (and packed) during the afternoon, and headed out to the opera in the evening, this time an old stand-by, Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte.
It was a lovely production, with lovely voices, but I guess I was just opera'd out (or maybe, as Ray and the King said, Mozart just wrote too many notes!). Anyway, I left after the first act, but perfectly satisfied, really, with everything.
I said my goodbye's to Hank when I got home that night, as I was leaving at the crack of dawn on Tuesday, and Hank doesn't do the crack of dawn. BART was on strikke, so a taxi was required - oh, well, think of all the money I saved on those opera tickets! Anyway, once again, the flight was uneventful, Mariah picked me up from the airport in Seattle as previously organized, and after a quick Mexican lunch at a neighborhood restaurant, I picked up my car and headed back to Vancouver. It was a lovely day for a drive in the convertible, a lovely end to a fabulous week.
And now, back to reality, working all week with only a brief respite for dinner and bridge with the boys on Tuesday, and long walks every evening. A nice change, yesterday, though, with friend Jean arriving from Edmonton. Jean was a former neighbor from Salt Spring, now working as a city planner in Edmonton. We've managed to see each other from time to time over the years (I think she has made previous appearances in this space), and generally kept up. She's had a bad year, though, with breast cancer requiring several surgeries as well as radiation and chemotherapy, so I was thrilled that a professional conference brought her to town. I picked her up from the airport, and headed strraight for dim sum - her request, which I was happy to comply with!
It was fabulous to see her and hear her sounding so good. And, oh by the way, The restaurant, The Continental, is another in my ever growing stable of favourite dim sum places, this one one of the few left with actual carts wheeling around. Come visit - I'll gladly take you to all of them!)
Worry not, folks, we went for a long walk on the dike afterwards, so the talk continued. Then, I left Jean at her conference at the Bay Shore - another glorious day for a drive from Richmond north to Vancouver, with a fabulous view of the mountains.
And now we are up to date. Today is Sunday, so I am heading off to pick up the Sunday New York Times. as is my habit on Sundays. then, well, I should go to the office, but will probably come back here, pour myself another cup of coffee, and read the paper out on my deck.
And wonder what you guys are doing. Hope you are having a wonderful summer, as I am. Be in touch. And (I know you have heard this before, but...), I will try to be a better correspondent.
Okay, let's see if I can catch up this time. I left you having just arrived in San Francisco (or Oakland, to be precise), safe and sound. I took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into town - have I told you yet that I finally broke down and got a Clipper card, so that I can just swipe and go anywhere (so there, all you greenies who think I am married to my car1) - and we had our traditional lunch at Henry Hunan's. A break from tradition, though; Andy, Chuck and I had to do without Hank - he had to stay in his office at the bank to wait for $19,000,000 which had gone missing in action1 (and yes, I brought him back a doggy bag!).
I went back to Hank's apartment just long enough to empty my suitcase before I was off again. Hank had booked us for that (Wednesday, June 16 - even I have lost track) night for an LGBT event, and there were errands to be run, don't you know. A few hours later, I picked him up from his office - the 19 mil still hadn't arrived, but by that time it was too late in the day to invest it anyway - and off we went.
Reminder - LGBT is Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender. I have to write this because it is still hard to grasp that the University of Arizona would have an LGBT studies program, the head of which we were feting. The "do" was, perhaps appropriately, was being held on the patio of a leather bar on Folsom Street in downtown San Francisco. Wednesday was the day that the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, and also California's Prop 8 prohibiting gay marriage, so - as you can imagine, it was quite a festive event - lot's of toasts to the "death of DOMA" and all of that. It was fairly well attended,, too, as alumni events go, including, Hank tells me, a number of people who never attended such events before. Some that stood out for me were the head of the program herself (transgender, but so comfortable in her own skin that it was totally a non-issue) and a lesbian couple who had been together for 36 years, had married in San Francisco 5 years when there was a brief window for that to happen, and were now going to remarry in honor of the momentous events!
Thursday, I began what was to be the daily ritual. I took the down to the opera house....
...at 11 A.M. to stand in line for rush tickets for the opera that night. You all know that I don't like to stand in line for much, but paying $30 for a $200 ticket for the opera? Well, that's worth getting old for, much less standing in line. (I got second row right aisle!)
Then, go about your day, and head for the opera at night. Thursday was a visit to the De Yonge Museum in Golden Gate Park to see the Diebenkorn exhibit. And yes, I liked it. Diebenkorn is one of my favourite modernists. (I find his mixture of representational and abstract just about right.) It was a lovely exhibit in a lovely space. I didn't even want to see some of my old favourites in the museum; the special exhibit was quite enough!
Then off to meet Ray at Stanly Ho's for dinner. (I may be getting that name wrong - the restaurant, not the guy). Ray and I met each other 30 years ago when we were both working at the Bank of America. (He likes to tell the story about how we met. It was December, he was hitchhiking from Marin County to the Bank because he was too cheap to pay the bus fare and I was driving from Marin in my convertible with the top down in December - it was California, after all. I was stopping at the allocated place - it was San Francisco, after all - to pick up hitchhikers so that I would have more than 1 person in the car and wouldn't have to pay the toll on the Golden Gate Bridge. I picked him up, and we started talking banking - we both worked at B of A - and symphony and opera, and, as they say, the rest is history.) Ray has long since gone back to Boston and I, of course, ultimately went to British Columbia. We have kept in touch, and seen each other on occasion, although we worked out that we hadn't seen each other for 9 years prior to Thursday night. Anyway, we discovered that we were both going to be in San Francisco at the same time, and I reminded him of the summer opera; a meeting was born.
The years have been good to Ray - he looks pretty much the same as he always did...
I had forgotten how much he liked spicey food. and so we had quite the feast at this, one of his favourite Hunan restaurants (yes, I know, if I would have remembered my schedule, I wouldn't have had Hunan for lunch yesterday. Luckily I too adore Hunan food, so it wasn't too much of a sacrifice.)
We walked it off with a hike to the opera house. and got there just in time to grab our seats for
The Hoffman was Matthew Polenzani, and also memorable were Christian Van Horn - an up and coming baritone - as Lindorf, and Hye Jung Lee who played Olympia. Believe it or not, Natlie Dessay as Antonia was an also ran in this cast! The music was glorious and the singing was fabulous. I had some quibbles about the staging when I saw it on Thursday, but when I saw it again on Sunday, I loved that too.
.
Out on the patio of the opera house at intermission, this is what we saw - City Hall, lit up in the rainbow colours, in honour of the death of DOMA (see above) and Prop 8. Only in San Francisco! Anyway, Ray and I talked and talked, the music was wonderful, altogether a wonderful evening!
Friday, another day, another opera, this time with friend Peter. We headed off for dinner at Absynthe, an old favourite in the Hayes Valley, quite close to the operaa. The food is good, with a very traditional menu (I had coq au vin, for example, when was the last time you saw that on the menu??)
The opera?
A world premier. The singers were young, and quite good. It was a pity they didn't have anything better to sing. Peter and I agreed totally (which is not, I can assure you, always the case) - the first act was at least 20 minutes too long, the libretto needed work - if I had to listen to another rhyming couplet I was going to run screaming down the aisles - and the music was trivial. However, in certain company, it is almost as much fun to pan something as it is to praise something, so in the end, a good time was had by all! (It also helps if you have only paid 430 for a ticket instead of $200 - you can take risks for $30!).
Srurday afternoon, Hank and I met up again, and (irony alert!) went to the Jewish Community Center for a lecture of the Wagner Society. The lecture was Wagner and Freud -
The title of the lecture to the contrary notwithstanding, it was actually interesting and informative, and will send me back to my Wagner books - when I finish the pile already on my nightstand.
And from the sublime to the ridiculous. On Saturday night, Hank and Pat and I went to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It is such a cult classic that Hank was appalled that I had never seen it. So, off we traipsed. For those of you who, like me, were Virgins, well, I am not even going to try to describe it. Suffice it to say, I loathed it. (I was mollified to hear that even Hank, who had seen it 90-some times, was appalled at how commercial the production had become). However, I was not sorry to have gone. It was one of those things that you have to have done, you know?
In spite of the late evening (we didn't get home until after 3:A.M. I was off to get my opera ticket bright and early on Sunday morning for the matinee performance of Tales of Hoffman. I had a few hours to kill before the opera, so I caught lunch at Max's deli (another old favourite, and convenient), and managed to catch a bit of the Gay Pride as well.
I know, the pictures didn't turn out very well, but I had to include them to show you a bit of the scope of the thing - thousands and thusands of happy people thronging the streets - some in costume, some naked (sorry, no pictures!), and totally benign. I would have stayed longer - and perhaps taken better pictures - but rushed back to the nearby opera house for the afternoon performance (my second Tales of Hoffman, see above).
After which. Peter. Hank and I met at Kokkari for a delightful (if pricey) dinner (we have come a long way from hitching and trying to save money on bridge tolls!)
(From left to right, Ray, Peterr, Nora and Hank) All of us met in the Bank in the 80's, although really, the guys all knew each other through me. So, great conversaion, great food, great booze (believe it or not, some of the best ouzo that I have ever tasted) - I think I can say that a great time was had by all1 (The restaurant, by the way, gets a definite thumbs up from me on all counts atmosphere, service and food - and the location on Jackson Square is not bad either!)
Which brings us to Monday. The last several days had been a bit much, even for me, so, having picked up my rush ticket in the morning, I rested (and packed) during the afternoon, and headed out to the opera in the evening, this time an old stand-by, Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte.
It was a lovely production, with lovely voices, but I guess I was just opera'd out (or maybe, as Ray and the King said, Mozart just wrote too many notes!). Anyway, I left after the first act, but perfectly satisfied, really, with everything.
I said my goodbye's to Hank when I got home that night, as I was leaving at the crack of dawn on Tuesday, and Hank doesn't do the crack of dawn. BART was on strikke, so a taxi was required - oh, well, think of all the money I saved on those opera tickets! Anyway, once again, the flight was uneventful, Mariah picked me up from the airport in Seattle as previously organized, and after a quick Mexican lunch at a neighborhood restaurant, I picked up my car and headed back to Vancouver. It was a lovely day for a drive in the convertible, a lovely end to a fabulous week.
And now, back to reality, working all week with only a brief respite for dinner and bridge with the boys on Tuesday, and long walks every evening. A nice change, yesterday, though, with friend Jean arriving from Edmonton. Jean was a former neighbor from Salt Spring, now working as a city planner in Edmonton. We've managed to see each other from time to time over the years (I think she has made previous appearances in this space), and generally kept up. She's had a bad year, though, with breast cancer requiring several surgeries as well as radiation and chemotherapy, so I was thrilled that a professional conference brought her to town. I picked her up from the airport, and headed strraight for dim sum - her request, which I was happy to comply with!
It was fabulous to see her and hear her sounding so good. And, oh by the way, The restaurant, The Continental, is another in my ever growing stable of favourite dim sum places, this one one of the few left with actual carts wheeling around. Come visit - I'll gladly take you to all of them!)
Worry not, folks, we went for a long walk on the dike afterwards, so the talk continued. Then, I left Jean at her conference at the Bay Shore - another glorious day for a drive from Richmond north to Vancouver, with a fabulous view of the mountains.
And now we are up to date. Today is Sunday, so I am heading off to pick up the Sunday New York Times. as is my habit on Sundays. then, well, I should go to the office, but will probably come back here, pour myself another cup of coffee, and read the paper out on my deck.
And wonder what you guys are doing. Hope you are having a wonderful summer, as I am. Be in touch. And (I know you have heard this before, but...), I will try to be a better correspondent.
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