Some Assembly Required

Matt's had a busy week...Christmas, then his 6th birthday. He mentioned in the fall that he did not "have enough trains." This is not entirely true, but in his world, it's the way things are. He got several trains for his Thomas set, a box of tracks that includes a "real" crossing ("No buses or trucks. ONLY trains," he says) and a couple of "alternative" Thomas sets by Fisher Price and Mega Blocks. Plus some nice books, a "Toy Story 3" DVD and far too many Legos.

The Lego sets have many, many, many pieces. Occasionally a set will be built that still has pieces remaining, and no one can figure out where they should go. Occasionally, pieces fall off finished projects. The Lego City plane, for instance, has a wing assembly problem. Perhaps, like the Boeing Dreamliner, it should only be allowed to fly 100 miles at a time.

Matt proclaimed this "the best birthday ever."

Boxing Day

The tradition of Boxing Day, I am told, springs from people boxing up food or presents after Christmas and distributing them to the needy. At my house, it springs from the need to take down the tree and box up the ornaments, lights and decorations. Last year, I threw a lot of things last-minute into giant plastic containers (the hallmark of America, yes? Giant plastic tubs?) and then shoved them, curling-team fashion, into the closet under the stairs.

This resulted in several retrieval incidents last year in which I was heard to say, "I AM GOING TO HAVE A COME TO JESUS WITH THIS CLOSET." Well, some cleanliness and godliness visited the closet today. Carry-on luggage is stacked; decoration boxes labeled with Sharpies: artificial tree boxes are put in the corners; Halloween decorations are where they can be easily found come fall. Order reigns in the land. God Bless Us, Everyone.

You Are Here, and Everything Else Is...There

You know how you get frustrated when you lose something, and the amount of time you've spent looking starts to get ridiculous, and you think, "Well, it has to be SOMEHWERE"?

I'm here to tell you no, it doesn't have to be somewhere. It can be nowhere at all.

I'm currently engaging in an "America's Most Wanted"-style search for a pair of shoes - seriously, shoes - and they are not anywhere. How do you lose a pair of shoes?? You might expect to lose shoes in the following scenarios:
--Jail
--Really Fun Party
--Gospel Mission
--Shipwreck
--Tornado

But in Shoreline? No, not so much. I've been looking for a week. I've been through the closet. Through the suitcase they once traveled in. Under the dresser.
WHERE ARE MY GOLDARN SHOES?
Nowhere, that's where.

These items have long ago traveled to Nowhere, Never To Been Seen Again.
--Soundtrack to "The Wedding Singer," on cassette
--Recording of Brahms' Fourth, Marin Alsop conducting
--Matt's sunglasses
--One of our really good wedding photos
--My collection of favorite New Yorker covers

By request, a cat post

Cats are the owners of extraordinary ears. They can hear much higher frequencies than dogs can, and can pinpoint the origin of a sound when as far as 3 feet away from it. Their ability to detect variances in sound helps them identify the type and size of thing making it. This essential for mother cats, who need to hear if their kittens are in trouble if they stray out of sight.

Have you ever been reading or doing some other quiet activity, and noticed your cat suddenly sitting up, twitching its ears and switching its tail? Usually, that means kitty hears a car in the driveway, another animal, or in the spring, one of those giant dimwitted flies that is bumbling through the house. You, human, and your big flappy ears can't hear those things as soon as a cat does. My friend Doug the Artist used to say that if a human couldn't determine any noise, but the cat still seemed alert, that meant the cat was detecting supernatural activity. I think he was kidding.

Mad About You, The Mariinsky

Looking for a good time at the symphony? Sit a spell with the Mariinsky Orchestra.

The 227-year-old institution is considered by some to be the greatest orchestra in the world. These types of rankings depend on how you like your music, though. If you like merely impeccable playing and a sound that matches a "global standard," you'll find them terrific. If you want something that sounds distinctly grown from its Russian roots and plays something deeply complex like Mahler the way Mahler would have liked it....you'll fall in love with the Mariinsky. I did, during a performance of the haunting Mahler's Sixth, at Carnegie Hall. There was nothing else on the program. They walked in, they hammered the heck out of Mahler, everyone stood and cheered, and it was over. American classical music historian Joe Horowitz, who sat in my row, said he was "shattered" by the experience.

Part of the Mariinsky's secret, I think, is its conductor, Valery Gergiev (that's him, looking pensive in the photo), who can wave his arms with the best of them but can also flutter his hands like doves when coaxing out the Mariinsky's trademark rich, lumbering brass section. He's not "horrible," as Horowitz put it, but he does not run a democracy. The musicians labor in the ballet and opera and theater pit in the Mariinsky Theatre as well as on stage all over the world. They played five programs over eight days of nothing but Mahler at Carnegie Hall. Yes, Gergiev likes Vladimir Putin too much, and he also likes being late for engagements -- something he likely wouldn't tolerate from the orchestra. But boy, does he do good Mahler. And so do his musicians.

Go here to find out:

http://http//www.instantencore.com/concert/details.aspx?PId=5076451

Oh, snow

Wow, today was kind of a disaster.

The heater in the SUV has been working part-time lately, but when we took the car in for service, the dealership said the part wasn't available for 5-7 business days. Seriously? Let's review. You're a dealership. You have a room full of parts. I have a car that needs parts. Right. Carry on.

The heat decided to show up for duty this morning, but shortly after getting to work, I find Matt's school decided to dismiss two hours early. No child care.
--I fetched him, then took him along to the doctor.
--Wreck closed the road I needed to go on. U-turn, so have to go long way.
--Wait for nearly an hour at doctor to find out internist was mistaken and trip was for nothing.
--Drive home. Find that story for Friday entertainment tab fell through. Find new one.
--Boss comes up with another one. I look dumb.
--Have drink. Repeat.

Rockefeller is My Oyster

This is one of my favorite places in New York: Rockefeller Center. It's as if someone said, "Melissa, we know you like art deco, statues, 1930s murals, outdoor gardens, fountains and a skating rink, so here are 11 acres of all those things."

Well, that's not how it really happened. This is what really happened:

"It was the largest public building project ever undertaken in modern times. Construction of the original 14 buildings in the Art Deco style begain on May 17, 1930, and was completed on Nov. 1, 1939, when John D. Rockefeller, Jr., drove in the final silver rivet into 10 Rockefeller Plaza."

Write? Wrong.

For reasons I don't fully comprehend, I volunteered to write both an opera story AND a travel story for my employer, basing both on what I did in New York. Well, I didn't fully volunteer...it was strongly suggested that I needed to have something to "show" for my fellowship and extra time off. Bigger brain and better outlook don't count as "showable," apparently.

If someone had told me 10 years ago I would be writing an opera story, I would have said that person was nuts. I liked the opera, but what on earth would I have to say about it? Plenty, by this point. Actually, the opera story went pretty well. I saw "Boris Gudunov" at the Met, then I saw it in a movie theater with the Met HD series, and in between I read some stuff. Our fellowship group also had a private audience with Met general manager Peter Gelb, in a very nice room at the mezzanine level of the Metropolitan Opera, thankyouverymuch. One out-of-practice phone interview with our local opera director, and voila! A story is born. Something to show.

The other is proving to be a Problem Child. It's about museums. I love museums. I like going to them, looking at all the stuff, reading ALL the informational placards and getting ALL the brochures - even the ones in German, so I can snicker over the really long words. I like going to the gift shops, using the penny-smashing machine, sending the video postcards at those kiosk things. I went to a lot of museums in NY. I did all the things I like to do at museums. So why I can't write a story about it? I've put three different leads on the story, and I hate them all. I've read other museum stories, I've typed "if I could write ANYTHING, I'd write this" kind of a lead, I gave it an early start, I gave it time to percolate, I buried it, I resurrected it. My boss helpfully added, "If I let it sit, and I still can't get inspired, I know it's toast." Well, I didn't order toast. I need waffles. Criminy.

Suffering from hyperactive imagination

Thankfully, Matt has been a healthy kid. Other than the first year at the children's center, he's had few colds, gastro viruses or mysterious rashes. And we are further thankful that he was born with no chronic or serious illnesses.

That said, he keeps busy with mysterious maladies all his own. His latest pronouncements:

--I have leg cramps. Do you know why? My legs are full of bathwater and they need to dry out. I'd better sleep in your bed, so I can stretch out my legs and they can dry.

--I have bed head. My bed is too uncomfortable.

--My toes are split. My socks don't fit right, and that splits my toes.

I think in a previous life, he was a medieval physician. Carrying around a box of leeches and magic rocks, he would "diagnose" his patients with sour bile, ill humors, witchcraft, and so forth. He was probably quite popular .... back in 1450.

A TV Evangelist

Once in a great while, great TV comes along. The first season of "NYPD Blue." "The X-Files." "Twin Peaks." That sort of thing.

Maybe because I don't watch a lot of TV (OK, I watch some crap telly very late at night sometimes), I tend to really latch on to something I like. I latch on in an embarrassing, I'm-10-and-live-a-rich-inner-life kind of way. I found just that sort of show recently. I was so excited! I was 10 again! Then I discovered there were only three episodes! Help! NOooooo! Then I watched the last episode, and it was a cliffhanger! So they have to make more!! Yessssssss!

This mental roller-coaster I'm riding is the new PBS "Mystery!" production of "Sherlock," a modern-day reimagining (that's big nowadays; see "Hawaii 5-0" on Mondays) of what we purists call "the canon." This particular purist was a skeptic. During the first 10 minutes of the first episode, I was like, really?? Afghan war flashbacks? Sherlock smacking around a body in the morgue while a lab assistant looks all googly-eyed at him? Seriously, people.

But I came around after about 15 minutes, and now I'm this show's SUPER. BIGGEST. FAN. I am a fan of the actors (including Benedict Cumberbatch, shown here). I am a fan of the modern London setting. I am a fan of how Dr. Watson is an Afghan war veteran.....just like he was an Afghan war veteran in "real life." I am a fan of the in-jokes with the titles. I cannot stop talking about this show. People wish I would. But the final episode for God-knows-how-long was last night.

I hate that.

Back in Business

By somewhat popular demand (2 of my 5 readers), I'm reactivating The Davis Buzz after a 10-month hiatus. What was I doing all that time? Let's see....working, reading, cleaning, gardening, going, doing, thinking. Apparently, far too much stuff to allow me to post.

A recent article about social networking quoted a Facebook survey in which users said "once someone has had a kid, they become boring." Yikes! I don't think our little family is boring - and at least one of the cats agrees. We've got it going on! The Ducks are No. 1, and Jim is helping by attending every home game; Matt is in kindergarten and growing mentally and physically every day, it seems; cats are aging gracefully; I am freshly back from New York and editing with renewed vigor and purpose. The gutters are cleaned; the small winter garden is in; the runaway clematis was successfully trained.

And what about that trip to New York? More about that later, but the short version is that I recently completed the 10-day NEA Institute for Classical Music and Opera Criticism at Columbia University. It's made me even more interested in classical music and also made me ready to do some writing again. I've reactivated my Twitter account (read me at @DuckMel) and I'm thinking seriously about a classical-music blog of some kind. I mean, I've got five automatic readers, right?? And two of you seem to be actively interested.

Pasadena and back

We went, the Ducks lost. But it was big fun! We saw old friends and met new ones, basked in the nice weather and sat with 96,000 people in the Rose Bowl, The Granddaddy of Them All.

Can't beat that!