A lousy $25 million and there's no flippin' aviary??

July 31st and fireworks fill the sky.  Fabulous!  I suppose fireworks aren't just for that 'special' day anymore.
Not just July 4th.  
Desecration of the national holiday (horrors!) started years ago with fireworks/concerts on the 3rd.
This year, the rumore (that's noise in Italian.  If anyone can think of a noisier country lemme know) started officially on the 2nd.
Bastille day isn't on July 14th in certain parts of France (more on that particular story a different time).
I missed World Sauntering Day--June 19, and totally blew through Anti-Boredom Month--July 1-31


What, WHAT, WHAT is happening?
London is holding the summer Olympics??  Israel is running amok due to cottage cheese prices?  My children are about to get a step-mother, step-siblings, my ex wants me to relieve him of his 3 cats AND I'm supposed to care about Spotify.com and Google +?  
It's all too much.


Too,Too much.


But not quite as too-too as the house down the road that is selling for $25 Million.  Now that may not really raise an eyebrow to anyone who knows about home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area. For instance $45 Mil. for one of the most coveted Gold Coast Pacific Heights Mansions - the usual 7 bedrooms, 4 stories, 2 grand ballrooms, tennis courts, indoor pool, view of the entire Bay and Pacific.
Okay, so probably more than a family of four could afford.
They could always look around Palo Alto where the average price for a house within walking distance of downtown is a mere $4.3 Mil. with 4 bedrooms and, according to the listing, has 'unrivaled style & elegance'.
It's also within spitting distance of Mr. FaceBook himself, whose house has, like, TOTALLY displeased all humans far and wide as evidenced by this headline in the Wall Street Journal, 'MZ modest new home disappoints at $7 million'.
For sale, closer to home, on over 12 acres of land, a house of 11,000 sq.ft. with an unassuming 6,500 sq.ft. guest house.  A steal at $59.5 Mil.
So, if I do my math correctly (and I don't) it seems to me that the price per acre here is anywhere from $3 mil. to $14 mil.


So what you may ask?  
I can't afford to buy cat litter or fill up my gas tank.  And with a generation of You Tube/FB/Yelp/Twitter/Shutterfly/Google etc. ad nauseum billionaires beating down the doors, why should I even care about their massive waste of money?  And don't lecture me about people doing what they want with their own money.  We know who they are.  But I wander off point. 
So ANYHOO, there is a house just a few doors away, that we call the marshmallow house. 

 Not only does it look as though it's a polystyrene 'smore, but it took about 10 years to build (egad! it might be a 'wired' house, how totally embarrassingly 5 years ago that is).  Building would start, then suddenly stop.  Then 2 years would pass and a window would go in.  Then a palm tree.  Then nothing.  Then a chimney.  Either the owner was riding the market like a crazy person or had a massive case of the ADHD's. Or just came to the realization that the house was ugly as sin and the only thing to do was get massively drunk  and blackout.
Maybe they were a family of pirates.  I don't know.


Then, all of a sudden, with no sign of life and no signs of sale readiness, I saw in our local rag (it's glossy. don't ask) that the marshmallow house was on the market.


Look what it's got!


Operational glass panels  (well that's good news)
Central vacuum with kick-vacs in the kitchen (what's a kick-vac or am I just hopelessly behind the times?)
Rocky Mountain hardware throughout  (?)
A grand receiving area introduces textured limestone slab floors (Floor, I'd like you to meet Area.  Area - Floor)
Three sets of French doors to the front are featured  (you're going out a chorus girl but you're coming back a star!) 
Commode  (HELLOOOOOO! It's 2011!)
Floating limestone counter  (sometimes it's in the 3rd floor master suite, other times coyly hiding behind the dryer)

Dramatic circular floating staircase (very Harry Pottter)

A driveway of paver stones winds past the front entrance culminating at the underground garage (and then what do the paver stones do? Protest?)

A separate closet room is outlined with concealed hanging and drawer space (I don't even know what that means) 

Oh alright, to be fair, the house does have a pool and a cinema. And an elevator.  And a garage for six cars. And a sauna and wine cellar.  And a Miele espresso machine with cup warming drawer. So why am I obsessively annoyed and horrified by this manse?
Because it cost twenty-five Million dollars (the price on Osama Bin Laden's head by the way)?  I should be thrilled that property values seem to be spiraling upward again.  Maybe some lunatic will offer $40 Mil. for our house (as some lunatic did during the previous boom.  But he was Australian so was probably just a stickybeak Strine out for the arvo and off his face come to give us Pines an earbash, what).
$25 Mil. and no helipad? No topiary? No diving board? Because it's hella ugly?  Nope.
Because it's on less than an acre? YES. That is my friggin' problem.
For some reason, unless the interior is actually coated with gold and the appliances are made of rhodium, I truly don't get it and it makes me very very very cross.
The house is not set back from the street. THERE ISN"T ROOM.  Driving by, one can see the neighbour's fence, yes a fence, not even a wall.
Does Oprah hide out there?  Is it actually the Library of Congress?  The final resting place for the Shuttle?  The Temple of Artemis moved from Ephesus?  Maybe Christo does the linens?

Oh.


Never mind

Am I mistaken in thinking that cakes are usually a 3-D affair?

Just a brief note before I expound on Opening Night at San Francisco Opera's Ring Cycle.


I was having an online conversation with a woman from Dallas.  A woman who had asked my advice on travel to Mexico, specifically to Playa Viva (see previous video post). Within her long and funny question she mentions Carvel.
This throws me for a loop and I stop thinking about the drug cartels and state department warnings mainly because I'm thinking ,'Carvel? CARVEL?? Who knows about Carvel anymore? Does it still exist?'

I just checked.  And it does. 


And they have 3-D cakes. See:

 WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Aren't all cakes 3-D?


 My time-dimension-pseudo science/general knowledge level gut, feels like there's a trick in there that I can't figure out and since I can only count using my fingers, anything that whispers


                                                                    "Time-space continuum + (ice-cream) + cake=3-D"

 really puts me in a tizzy.

More about the Nibelung and the $25 million house for sale down the street later.


Now to rummage around for some ice-lollys

it's really dark but at least the mosquitos wont eat my head

Bunnies don't have webbed feet and other misunderstandings

Savage Water

Ou sonts les lapins d'antan?  Avec la plume de ma tante? Non? Avec la vache qui rit ou la vache qui vol?
(that last bit - the flying cow - came from a discussion that encompassed; Cyrano de Bergerac, the Yom Kippur War, sounds a cow makes in languages other than English, and cheese)


My French sucks and I keep begging Ambrose to speak to me in Hebrew AS IF I'D UNDERSTAND it anymore.
How thoroughly depressing is it to have forgotten an entire language.
I mainly speak Hebrew as though I had tourettes. A word will come flying out of the deepest parts of my mind without any prompting. Kelev! Melafephon! Marpek!
Wish I could blame it on the fact that I was in a car accident 3 days ago.  Not serious at all, for me.  Meaning I'm fine, my car and the 5K it's going to cost to fix and my rental has been pre-paid by the poor woman who hit me.  She made an illegal u-turn into me as I was toodling down the street thinking how pretty everything looked, when I actually had the experience of suddenly hearing myself say, 'Holy Crap I was just hit by a car'.  Something very satisfying in that.
D____ (the other driver), was not only uninsured, but was driving her boyfriend's brand new Jaguar and from the evidence of his fancy-schmancy insurance, he seemed to be a cop.
Of course my cell 'phone (yes I've given up calling it my 'mobile', because really, what's the point) was squawking at me, 'low battery, re-charge', so all the spectacular photos of the Jag looking like a horror show, never materialized.

So am using this as an explanation for my mind turning to mush.

Last year at this time, my mind was very much engaged.  Engaged in study and the accompanying jitters of speaking Aramaic to a crowd of 300 or so.  A packed house.
In the past, I have had the chance to spew a page-full of Latin to a paying audience, as well as two pages of semi-Creole/Shakespearean malarky to a smaller yet more-expensive-ticket holding audience, so this Aramaic business should have been a snap. And truth be told, it was. As was reading Torah.
What was slightly more difficult to explain was the fact that since I was already 'out' as an atheist (and, according to my-then Rabbi, heretic), becoming an adult Bat Mitzvah seemed somehow, well, heretical.
But no. The 18 month course of study was the closest I've come to doing anything remotely academic  since, um,1977 (no, I DON'T call my six-week stint at law-school as academic) and I loved it.
Of course I was completely immersed in my Jewish self.

Especially given that I had been working at a synagogue for 7 years, and even though I thought to myself every day, 'Good god {excuse me 'GOOD G-d', jeez, you'd think I'd have got that down by now}, what would dad say and how do I explain that I work at a religious institution to my 'normal' friends?'
A culmination? A life-changing experience?
A chance to throw down the gauntlet and shake my fist at an invisible paternal hand?
A cloggy dance?
Nope, none of the above.
I spent my time honing skills in other, more down-to-earth ways.  Gathering knowledge that will come in handy when I start my next job as an international spy;  Forging signatures, working around the red-tape of the U.S Post office, calling the bomb squad to blow up packages that were tied up with string. Those were a few of my favourite things.
I also got to field questions for which I had no reasonable or educated answer such as:

(from non-congregants i.e the general public)

What's a Jew?

Is this a Church?

Where can I buy Herring?

What are the schools like around here?

Can you recommend a singles group?

Is there a good kosher restaurant in Prague?

Why doesn't El Al fly from San Francisco?

Someone on the radio talked about a book about a Jewish man who walked all the way from Kurdistan to Bombay, what's it called?  

Do you guys have to wear special clothes?

If Jesus was Jewish why don't you pray to him?   

  

Questions from Congregants were just as …..what would be the right word...........oh never mind. 

Here's a sample:

I lost my earring sometime in the last month, do you have it?

Why don't you speak Yiddish?

When is the 2nd Seder in 2013?

Can you explain why we can have meat for one course, and as long as we go into another room ,we can have cheesecake for dessert?
What's my Hebrew name?

Why can't you take a donation over the 'phone for less than $400? It's a donation. Why are you balking at $18?  Will the machine break or something?   

I hated the food last Saturday.

Can you tell me where the fabric for the seats in the Sanctuary came from, and I need the answer this afternoon.    

Can you discuss the modal customs of cantillation? (could fudge that as was a music major) 

Of course I also had to fake-speak German for those times when we were confused with the Bethel Lutheran Church down the road. And a Spanish-Italian blend for those convinced that we were the west coast arm of Bethel University of St. Paul.
Actually, Fake German is kinda Yiddish, just as Dutch is like a ghastly English dialect (sorry Dutch friends).
Now I just have to figure out how much Hebrew I can fake so I can be all intelligent n'stuff about stuff.

Man o' man am I ever gonna be a great spy




p.s - If you saw this what would your first reaction be?

not a bunny

Divorced,beheaded,died; Divorced, beheaded,slob

Charles still not Queen - after all these years...

Alright, so I admit that I am a very late (as in only 2 days ago) jumper onto the bandwagon of the Royale Wedding.  But now that I'm here, I'm all atwitter.
All atwitter at poor Kate Middleton and her obvious fall from adulthood to infanthoody.  At least according to The Daily Mail.


To wit (to woo):

- Enjoying her last days of freedom: Kate Middleton skips along the King's Road like any normal 29-year-old (at least she's getting married before turning 30, which is what my sister said to me).
-  Kate 'will not obey': Bride will follow Diana's lead and ditch ancient vow as she pledges to 'love, comfort, honour and keep'

And wouldn't you want to leap back into the soggy womb when confronted with this vision of your future
- The inexorable, crinoline parachute drop into endless dowdy dowagerdom.


Although I must say that the writing is quite brilliant in that last nightmare scenario.

Then again we have the usual MacBeth wedding reference:
- Call for special branch! Workmen create Kate's indoor forest at the Abbey


Now, why, you may ask, is this of any interest to me whatsoever. 
Well apart from the general knowledge of outre ersatz cultural events so I can win at Trivial Pursuit (does anyone play that any more? Is it all now extraordinarily specific; 1980's female rock stars, HBO documentaries, Doomsday scenarios from the past 3,000 years? It's not even a game really is it), really nothing, nada, de nada but since I grew up with this nonsense, it's like old home week in the looney bin.


Which should have put me in good stead at a recent audition - the whole 'oh good, a native British speaker auditioning for a native British play' - but instead of either a) waltzing in and stealing the role or, well actually there is no b) this time.

But I embarrassed myself and possibly all of North London. I found myself putting on an english accent.  Yes you read that right.  I WAS PUTTING ON AN ENGLISH ACCENT.  How, how, how is this even possible? It wasn't as though I was putting on a Cheshire Cheese or Cockney cartoon accent.  Nor was I trying for the Beeb or London accent or even Received English.  I was just me, with what has been referred to as a prep-school accent (right Jono?).

I guess it's rather like realising that you can't walk down the stairs if you are thinking about how to walk down the stairs.  Brain suddenly gets confused.

Like throwing car keys away just because ones' tooth fell out.
Not in a horrifyingly public way but just because one begins to be decrepit after a point. Or maybe the word is 'decrepify' which then leads to all sorts of things - NB- This powerful curse (the aforementioned Decrepify) lowers movement and attack speed, as well as reducing all resistances (physical, poison, magic, fire, cold, lightening)by 50%.
All well and good, but that doesn't really whiten my teeth  does it. Yes I'm talking to YOU Mr. Rembrandt. Liar, liar pants on fire. 

Or having English teeth. No, it's not an excuse, but it does save me time knowing that no matter what, flossing just wont help.  It wasn't only the sweets consumption as a child but it was the horror of going to Harley Street and being told that I needed fillings and was given fillings without the use of novocaine.  Yes, my American friends, novocaine wasn't used in England when I was growing up - and no, we aren't talking about the 1930's - we're talking about the Carnaby Street Era - Mary Quant, Biba, Vidal Sassoon being my mum's hair stylist, Crank's.
My father used to try and jolly up the whole situation by writing on my teeth 'drill, baby, drill' - wait he didn't write that, he wrote pro-labour messages to the dentist though - on his teeth. I got the special dissolving lozange that was supposed to create foaming at the mouth, timed to start as I got into the chair but of course didn't.  I started looking rabid right around the Royal Academy of Music (where I spent portions of my time being scared witless by adjudicators who pronounced me, musical but sloppy). Sloppy. Slattern. Slovenly.

And who in their right mind would even mention the future QofE after that?

Well the Press of course:

- In a branch of Whistles, Kate even bought The Kate, a blouse so-called because it was the one she wore in her Mario Testino engagement photographs. Perhaps she spilled soup on the original.



Love you guys

Muzak Stole My Boyfriend's Soul

  (and I apologise in advance for the use of screaming CAPS)

I don't even know what that means as I was, not exactly, drunk, but certainly not in my right mind.
One of those, 'What are you KIDDING ME?' moments.
Of course I know about Muzak.
It was a company. In Omaha.
How did I know about it?  How does ANYONE know about ANYTHING I wanted to scream over my Arnold Palmer (I can't believe I admitted to drinking that).

At least I can't remember knowing where I learned much.  (That's not even a sentence is it)

SNBF however trumps my story (as he always seems to do - in a very sneaky yet masterful way), of knowing about Muzak from friends who were studio musicians in Omaha, by telling me that, when, as a young tyke, he got some sort of decoder from Muzak and learned how to separate the Music/Muzak from regular FM (like I understood any of this) because of a Popular Electronics subscription he was given by grownup friends in the States

I thought the story ended there, but no. Of course not.

Because then I learn that he worked with a Muzak system on his Kibbutz (you did know he was an Israeli, right - which can give y'all an easy stereotype) - and then when he rushed off to NYC he installed Muzak through 'phone lines, which was, apparently, completely backwards.

OR SOMETHING

 And I was so proud about Nebraska of all things.

Nebraska - my experience of which was screaming the entire way across the state because it was so damn FLAT and UGLY.
Iowa's rolling hills (yes I said something positive about Iowa. So sue me) at my back.
 The Rockies in front of me, my head stuck out the passenger window like a dog.

A screaming dog.

I don't think we stopped to eat, pee or sight-see, unless you count my (then) husband* pointing south and saying, 'That's Lincoln'.

And I'm not exaggerating.  South Park bears this out: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/150953/grandma-song



But what I really wanted to write about was the moaning and whining of men when they get a cold.
A cold.
A COLD
A COLD

You'd think they'd just been diagnosed with terminal Pneumonia and limb-falling-off disease.

babies. all of them.

And as a sign-off - My best friend was just outed on Facebook by her daughter.
What did the poor stressed woman dare to do?

Eat a gallon of Ben and Jerry's Vermonty Python/ Coldstone Cookie Batter ice-cream.


This is NOT A CRIME.

What IS a crime is driving across Nebraska without the aid of an IV Morphine drip, sunglasses and a coke.




*need an appellation for ex-husband if I insist on mentioning him.  Possibly 'exH'.

CT scan or Psych ward - You decide

Alrighty everyone - I had started a blog on WordPress a week ago, but I'm too much of an html-moron, so decided to come over here.
 What put me in a real snit was, that at WordPress, which I am sure is a very elegant site, I couldn't even manage to change the size of the font.
So that's me in a nutshell. Impatient and unable to punctuate.
So why is this night different from, say, all other nights one might have time to make the change?
I am sitting with my 83 year old mum in urgent care while dealing with ex-husband having some sort of psychotic break half a mile away.
I just had surgery 2 weeks ago and was hoping against hope that when I got home, at least one of the cats would be dead.

oh god - my mother is impossible.

Like that's news