Das Rheingold

I went to see my first opera last night! I saw Wagner's Das Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera House. It was a really great production, but we had gotten the cheap 'day-of' tickets that are standing room only. This opera was the first in the tetrology Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the shortest, but still clocked in at two and a half hours without intermission. Needless to say, my feet hurt quite a bit afterward.


I don't know if any of you are familiar with this opera series, but it seems like Tolkein's Lord of the Rings was strongly based off of it. In Das Rheingold a gnome forsakes love and steals the Rheingold from the Rhinemadiens, using it to forge a ring of power. This ring give him domination over everything and he uses its power to amass wealth and intends to eventually conquer the world. He forces his brother to craft a helmet that allows him to change his shape, or even become invisible (sound familiar?). Eventually, the ring is stolen from him and he curses it such that those who possess it will meet ignoble demises until the ring is back in his possession once again.


Kinda cool right? I want to see the other operas, but I don't think I could bear to stand again. I think the longest one clocks in at just under six hours...

I guess this doesn't only happen in cartoons

No, I'm not talking about the suspension of gravity until you look beneath your feet to open air.

When I went to the water fountain today, I bent down for a drink and all of a sudden the water squirts out and hits me in the eye!

wtf! I didn't think that actually happened in real life!

Last post of 2007

The last weeks of 2007 have been busy ones. Scott and I flew to Des Moines Iowa the weekend before Christmas. We had good timing since they had a storm the day before we flew in. The runways were snow covered and the wind made the snow blow along the ground, either the snowflakes were very small or it was just pieces of snowflakes being blown along like dust along the ground. I tried to get a picture but it wasn't really possible.

From Christmas

Scott's mom picked us up and we decided that we'd need to stop at Walgreens since Scott's bag hadn't arrived with us despite the 3 hour layover and the fact that my bag made it there. We made the hour long drive to Toledo where Scott's Mom, Susan tried to drop off some stuff in a storage unit. Of course we realized once we pulled into the driveway that it was a solid sheet of ice and that we'd have to do some major manuvering to get back out. Scott and I got out and pushed and we managed to skate our way back out again. Later that night Scott's bag got delivered too, so everything worked out.

From Christmas

From Christmas

We opened presents at Scott's grandparent's house on Christmas eve since we'd have to head back to Des Moines on Christmas day to catch our flight to New Mexico. We had a nice time playing cards with his family and even managed to go for a walk out into the cornfields for a mini photo shoot.

From Christmas

From Christmas

We got to New Mexico with no problem and my Aunt Luella and Uncle Diego picked us up for the 3 hour drive to Farmington. We got to have another Christmas dinner and presents there.

From Christmas

From Christmas

It snowed enough to make the roads slick, but as ususal for NM snow it melted before noon.

From Christmas

My sister Erin will be graduating soon, so she wanted to try taking some senior pictures, but it was so freezing and windy that we didn't get much done. When the snow is outracing the car then you know it's windy. Hair blowing straight up in the air doesn't make for the most attractive pictures.

From Erin's Senior...

It was a short visit, but we also got to have some coffee with Chris and Tammie Billey of Largo Photography. We also got to meet their son Treston who is even more adorable in person than in pictures :) Scott got a mentos and coke rocket launcher in his stocking, but we didn't want to carry the soda so we launched it before we left.

From Christmas

From Christmas

From Christmas

Afterwards we headed back to Albuquerque so we could catch our flight the next day back to New York. I took some pictures of the NM scenery along the way.

From Christmas

From Christmas

From Christmas

Again we got lucky since we flew through Chicago and they'd just had a very large snowstorm the day before. We got home all in one piece and with lots of extra goodies. It was very nice to see everyone. It may have been a whirlwind trip, but it was definitely worth it!

From Christmas

Two Armed Drifting Bandit!

Scott's big project that all his PhD work thus far has been building up to is writing a grant which he finished tonight! Hurray for Scott! He's been putting in some long hours and weekends in the office to get this done. He had me proof read it and I am learning all kinds of things. I always knew that he worked with monkeys, but I learned that he makes them very happy monkeys. Basically they give them virtual cocaine by stimulating their dopamine area. He is also running this very cool sounding task. It's a two armed drifting bandit task! It sounds exciting doesn't it? I think it's actually just a bunch of categorical words shoved together, but I'm trying to get into all this neuroscience mumbo jumbo. It also sounds like it should be included in a punch line somehow. What do you get if you stick a robber with two guns in a boat?..... A two armed drifting bandit! Ok so I shouldn't write jokes for a living, or draw things, but at least I can be easily entertained :)

Fall Adventure

It's been awhile, but I've been busy. Lots of good news to report. Last week we won all three sets of our volleyball game. Whooo hooo! No games this week, so hopefully we don't lose our momentum. This weekend Sky, Anna, Scott and I all went on a road trip to Salem. It was great! A nice fall trip. The leaves hadn't really started changing too much yet since the weather has been so warm, but it was still nice to see the New England Coastline. Salem is about 10 miles outside of Boston, and it's a funny little town. Of course it's famous for the Salem Witch Trials where they burned a lot of innocent women at the stake for being "witches." These days it's just a nice town that really likes Halloween. There were people already dressed up in costume just because it was October. We went to the psychic fair, Scott got his Aura read, and Sky and Anna had a Tarot card reading. All very amusing. We saw a historical play where we were the audience/jury for a witch trial. Then in the end we convinced our hotel to bake a pumpkin pie that we brought them since Anna really wanted some and we couldn't find anywhere but the grocery store to buy one. The next day we tried to visit a cranberry bog but didn't quite succeed.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Instead we walked around in a corn maze, even though there was no one there for us to pay. I'll have to try to find a cranberry bog next year.

From Salem Fall Tr...

From Salem Fall Tr...

After traveling through 4 states we added a new one to the list, and stopped for lunch in the 5th state, Rhode Island. Providence is a nice town and we found the Brown University Campus and relived our college days sitting on the lawn. The buildings were all quite beautiful, and it made me think for half a minute that it would have been nice to go to school there. Then I remembered that it would be cold in the winter and was glad that I didn't. All in all it was a fantastic weekend. We love hanging out with Sky and Anna who are so fun and such great friends. This last picture is of a sign post that I saw in Providence covered with staples from flyers that have been posted there. I thought it looked neat.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Oh one more good thing. I heard from the camera repair people that they would fix my DSLR under warranty. Now I just hope it gets back to me in time for my class.

Healthy

Today was the annual Health Fair at work. I go every year and have things checked out. I think I must use it in place of an annual doctor's visit, because I definitely get ever get a check-up. So even though I have a slight cold at the moment (Thanks Scott) I went on over to the fair. They gave me a semi-nice Sony backpack type bag thing, and some candy. I also got a massage which was pretty nice, and some information from all our insurance providers. Oh the exciting life of adults. Anyway, I was proud because this year when I got all my levels back I was finally in the "Average Risk" category as opposed to the "High Risk" category for HDL which is the good cholesterol. The past two years my HDL has been too low and the only way I can raise it apparently is through exercise. I still do my same walk to and from work and up the stairs at the subway station every day with a few team sports mixed in, the same as always. In general it looks like I should probably still exercise more to reach "Optimal" levels in all the categories. Maybe I should let Scott drag me to the gym more often. I am not a big fan of places like that, but apparently it's good for you. Go figure. Your body trivia for today is - You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television. Great! I think I'll take more naps.

P.S. I found a mosquito flying in my office today. Further proof that they're out to get me. That mosquito would have had to go through at least 5 doors to get in, there are no windows in my office or anywhere in the building that open to the outside.

Worst CrossWord Puzzle Ever

Hello. I like this blog thing. It makes me think of other people all day. I walk around trying to see or find something that is interesting enough to write about. It really makes me notice things, or at least appreciate them. When you live in New York City you start to take things for granted, or well you take things for granted anywhere, but the things you're taking for granted are kind of remarkable. Some bad, some better. For instance I take it for granted that every restaurant I eat in has roaches, if I see one scurry across the table in the middle of a bite I don't yell and demand a refund I just shrug and shift away. I do draw the line when I find a little friend at the bottom of my rice carton. Then I stop eating at that restaurant. Yes, that really happened once, and that restaurant is now closed down. Anyway, all this week I've been weaving in and out of police barriers and secret service type men. It's because the UN is in session and all the foreign dignitaries are in town. Since I work across the street from the St. Regis many men in suits with earpieces stare at me as I walk past, and big black vehicles with signs like "Malaysia PM" are parked along the street. I like to covertly observe all the security dudes as I walk past and see how many I can spot, then I kind of get self conscious and worry that they see me seeing them and they're going to take me down for casing the joint.
And now for the picture portion of the blog. I was thinking of all of you today when I couldn't finish my crossword puzzle on the train. I know some of you are excellent puzzlers (by the way I've met someone who makes them as a profession.) and so you will be just as outraged as I was/am when I got to 5 across and realized that the stupid free newspaper can't even get the crossword right, let alone report any news. Now there are two free newspapers that I can get in the morning. One is "Metro" and the other is "AM New York" they're the caliber of papers that regularly sell their front page as advertising. I used to choose one or the other based on which front page story I found more interesting. Then one day I was doing the crossword in Metro and there was a blatant misprint in the puzzle, so I became an ardent AMNYer. But today just leaves me completely at a loss. Not one of the ACROSS clues matched up to the puzzle. Sigh, but the ones I managed to fill in before I gave up the puzzle for lost made me think of you guys. Dali- Hannah just got back from Dali's house in France. Oman- plus its clue, Sarah and I are going to Oman and Yemen some time. Wok- Scott wants a Wok. Ok that's a stretch but anyway, I just wanted everyone to know I think about them all the time. And I took pictures of the puzzle which includes most everyone else who reads the blog because of photography connections. Hah! I win.

Spackle

In our relationship Scott often cooks and cleans while I change tires or teach him how to do handy things. One of those talents is spackling. If you've ever spackled you'll know that it's really not that tough, so Scott caught on pretty quickly. Our place has needed some spackle for awhile since when our TV and couch came up the stairs they took a little of the freshly painted stairwell wall with them. Oh man, so now we have to paint. I'm really hoping that the leftover paint in the basement covers the spots perfectly and we don't end up painting the entire hallway. It's a good thing I had Scott doing his manly chores today, he's going to be in Massachusetts for the rest of the week. I'll miss him, but I get to take a Massachusetts trip the second week of October and I'm super excited to go see cranberry bogs and Salem at Haloween time.