TiVo Lady

Coughing, Sneezing, Ballet

I was supposed to go to see Alvin Ailey, American Dance Theatre this weekend with my daughter, who could not come home from Rio.  So, instead, I went with a friend.  I was coughing and sneezing and exhausted, but determined to see the modern dance performance I'd been eagerly awaiting since early September.  (Also, the tickets cost $126.  Each.) 

Between Christmas and New Year's Eve, Manhattan is always packed, but this year, as a friend told me, "you need a machete to cut through the crowds."  It took us 38 minutes to drive to West 55th Street, and another 40 minutes to drive about six blocks, where we could finally ditch the car.  (For slightly more than three hours, it cost $30 to park!)  We saw "Love Stories," a work choreographed by Judith Jamison that featured great music by Stevie Wonder, and lots of throbbing, vibrant dancing that was nearly as much fun to watch as to perform.  Next, was "Urban Folk Dance," a piece for two men and two women, danced at desks and office chairs in front of two chalkboards.  I have absolutely and utterly no idea what it meant, and trying to figure it out made my head feel heavy.

"The Groove to Nobody's Business" was a brand new piece set in a subway station, featuring a bunch of dancers waiting for a train, and then, I think, actually on a train.  I guarantee that it's the most entertaining bit of art, ever, that focuses on subways.  If RioGringa had been with me, she could have explained the movement here, and the way in which the dancers mimicked, so uncannily, the swaying movements invoked while sitting on a train.  But she wasn't, so my fuzzy brain just had to deal.

The last piece, "Revelations," I've seen about ten times, and it thrills and elates me every single time.  Except last night.  We were just so tired, that the thrill was gone.  I can't figure out, though, if the performers were not as great, or if I've seen it so many times I'm no longer surprised.  By the time we hit "Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham," which always has the entire audience on their feet and cheering, we'd sneaked out into the lobby and were on our way back to our expensively parked car.

TiVo Lady needs to recover from her cold.  Fast.

My Day

Today is my day:  Let's just call it that, and not that other thing.  My daughter, RioGringa, sent me these, even though she's 4,821 miles away.  (Actually, it feels a lot farther than that.) Thanks, sweetie!

TiVo Wasteland

There.  Is. No.  TiVo.  None. 

So I was forced to go to the (cringe in horror) mall, to return a gift.  In case you are wondering whether it's a good idea to go shopping in the next few days, let me give you some advice.  DON'T!!!!  You will definitely live to regret it.  First, there will be traffic to the mall.  Then, there will be traffic at the mall.  You will have to follow exiting shoppers to find a parking space.  Third, there will be (pedestrian) traffic inside the mall.  Fourth, you will have to wait, no matter what you are trying to do.  Trying on clothing?  Wait.  Return an item?  Wait.  Try to pay?  Wait.

I went to a store I will not name--let's call it M____'s.  Inside, only one out of every three cash registers had any sign of employee life.  At every register staffed by actual persons, there was a long, long line.  But nobody there knows anything.  So the first 'sales associate' says I can return my item at any register.  The second says, "No, not here."  The third says, "No, you have to return it to the correct department, since you don't have a receipt."  The fourth says, "That's wrong.  You can return it anywhere."  I stood in many lines, and finally returned the item of clothing that I did not want.  (Sorry, Mom, but I really, really, really don't like vests.  It's just, well, I like sleeves.)   Meanwhile, I watched shoppers toss items on the ground, in disgust, and leave.  I was glad that I do not own M____'s stock.

Moral of the Story:  More TiVo, Less Shopping.

Also, first cold of the almost-finished year:  headache, coughing, dry mouth, sore throat, swollen glands.  Yuck.  Bring me 2008.  And give me my TiVo back!

"I am Legend": More Night Zombies

I like a whopping, post-Apocalyptic, mega-Christmas movie as much as anybody else, but I am Legend didn't quite do it for me.  The premise is terrifying:  a smug scientist (in a 90-second cameo played by the wonderful Boomer Brit Emma Thompson) invents a viral cure for cancer that she has tested on 10,009 cancer patients.  All are healed.  Except a few months later, apparently, the virus has mutated and is on its way to killing 90 percent of everybody on the planet.  The ones it doesn't kill, it turns into very speedy, violent, demonic, homicidal, hairless, albino mutant zombies, who only come out at night.  (Just for once, I'd love to see a zombie movie that features daytime zombies:  even scarier by light of day!)  Before we see these computery  things, though, there are some great shots of a deserted New York City.  After three years with no people, the city looks exactly like it says in the book, The World Without Us, one of my favorites of the year.  Grass is sprouting through the pavement of Fifth Avenue, there are huge herds of deer in Manhattan, corn is ripening in Central Park, and the city has turned into a lovely, deserted wilderness.  Except, of course, for Will Smith (an almost-Boomer, born in 1968)--the surviving human/scientist/hero--and his faithful dog, Sam, played by Abby, who has her own IMDB listing!

The movie is based an a classic 1954 sci-fi thriller, by Richard Matheson, which was already made into several movies, including The Omega Man, made in 1971 and starring Charlton Heston.

So, did we really need another newer, fancier version of the zombie post-Apocalypse?  Nah.

This is just the first of what I'm hoping will be a glut of holiday movies on my agenda for the next week.  No candidates for Neil yet?

Help Me Win the Weirdest Contest, Ever

Visiting family for non-Christmas this weekend, I met my sister's friend, Neil.  Neil is, like the rest of us, a true-blue Boomer.  He's also a pediatrician, and the founder of an amazingly successful website about children's health.  He's got a wickedly funny sense of humor, a really nice place in Center City Philadelphia, and a warm heart.  But, see, Neil has never married.  And he wants to be married.  So whoever introduces him to his future wife (i.e. somebody he will actually marry) wins a free trip anywhere in the world.  Or something like that, I'm not clear on the details of the prize.  All I know is that my sister has been trying to win it for years, to no avail.

So how about helping me win whatever this prize is?  Here's Neil.  He's looking for a woman in her 30's or 40's or 50's.  But I am fairly certain he'd settle for 20's--not that I'd condone such a match.  (When I was in my 20's, I didn't see anything wrong with dating much much older men. ...)

By the way, Neil wasn't all that impressed with my blog numbers.  Compared to his, they're definitively miniscule.  His site gets 50,000 hits a day.  Actually, he might have said half a million hits a day.  As in 500,000.  Whatever.  It was a really, really big number.

A number that bloggers can only dream of . . .  To be completely fair, he is not a blogger.  Also, his site is sponsored by a well-established, well-known nonprofit organization devoted to children's health.

Bottom line:  He's a catch.  But you just have to be able to snag him and reel him in.  Any takers?

Merry Holiday-That-I-Don't-Celebrate (Really)!

Merry Christmas.  Here's what I saw on my walk today.  It looked, and sounded, better in person...

A Chinese Christmas

I know it may seem un-American, but there are those of us who do not celebrate Christmas.  Ever.  As in:  I never celebrated as a child, and I don't celebrate it now.  Sometimes, when I tell people this, you   can see the look of disbelief on their faces.  They sputter that I must, of course, have a tree or lights or cookies, right?  And I say, nope.  And then they say, 'But you have Chanukah, right?'  True, but this year, Chanukah was two weeks ago, and anyway, it's a non-event holiday, re-invented by American Jews to assuage children's Christmas envy.  Of which there is plenty:  it's every Jewish child's rite to yearn for a tree in the house.  It's her/his right to have that rite.  But yes we have no Christmas trees here.

Indeed, this year, as in pretty much every year, we are going out for Chinese on Christmas.  Chinese restaurants tend to be the only ones open on Christmas, and they also tend to be full of people like us, people who don't celebrate Christmas.  Oddly, they also tend to be decorated to the eyeballs with Christmas stuff--despite the fact that all of the people eating there, and most of the people working there, do not celebrate Christmas.  Go figure.

Holiday Distractions

I'll bet you are not distracted by having to go to the Consul General of Brazil on 1185 Avenue of the Americas at 9:00 a.m. to get in line for the line that awards you a number for the other line that allows you to apply for a visa to visit Brazil.  Right?

First, you have to show picture I.D.  Then, they take your picture--as in 'overkill'--then they give you a new, black-and-white ID to let you upstairs.  Then, you go upstairs where, if you're me, you're so early they haven't opened yet, so you wait near the elevator banks for nearly an hour.  There, if you're me, you meet a charming University of Connecticut pharmacy student who is visiting Rio for two weeks during winter break, because he can't really leave his six-year program to go abroad for a semester.  (Then, if you're me, which you are not, you give him your daughter's blog address and tell him to read her stuff on Rio.)  A few minutes later, you meet a Queens College student who is here for the third time because she didn't have the correct Money Order the first time, or the right photo size the second time.  Then, if you're me (again, not), you give her your daughter's blog address too, because she'll be in Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil all alone, and wants some company. 

These kids today:  Where do they get all of their money????

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so you can't see the remarkable similarity between the Consul  General of Brazil and Every DMV Ever Invented, so you'll have to trust me.  The plastic chairs:  Check.  The plexi-glassed windows:  Check.  The digitized number system:  Check.  The air of despair:  Double Check.  You stand in line to get a number.  If you are well-behaved, and you have all of your documents, you will get a number.  Then, you sit in the area for People With Numbers.  If your cell phone rings, though, or you decide to make a call:  Watch Out!  You will be instantly castigated by the Security Guard, whose sole function seems to be yelling at rule-breaking people on cell phones.  (Not such a bad idea, now that I think about it.) 

Now, you are waiting in the seats.  The digital numbers rise.  Slowly.  Then, it's your number.  You go up to the window and present the following:  your passport, your visa application, a Postal Service Money Order (no other kind allowed) for exactly $100 (unless you are also getting a visa for your mom, which is not you, so that one is for $110), a photograph of you, passport style, affixed by staple to the application.  You slide all of this under the window.  Then, of course, the clerk notices that you have written "Consul General of New York" on the money order, instead of "Consul General of Brazil" (well, I'm a Boomer, my mind wanders).  But, hey, I crossed out "New York" and wrote in "Brazil."  I mean, I'm not totally senile.  Yet.  She really, really did not like this.  She also muttered something about whether or not it would be allowed.  Who knows?

The good news is that it's supposed to be ready the following day, a brand, smacking new visa affixed inside your passport, which you have left in this office.  As in, no longer in your possession.  As in, will I ever see it again?

Stay tuned on whether I do, or not. . . . . .

"The Savages"

Last night, I saw a screening of the ultimate Boomer movie, about what it means to take care of your aging parents, no matter how miserably they raised you.  It's The Savages, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman (near Boomer, born in 1967), and Laura Linney (real Boomer, born in 1964), and it is definitely not an uplifting holiday movie.  It's about a brother and sister, and their ailing father, a formerly cruel, bitterly-angry man suffering from dementia.  The film is about their decision to put him into a nursing home, and then they do.

That's pretty much it.

But it's also about the ravages of time, and how growing up with this man warped and ruined them, as human beings.  They've become, guess what?  Savages might be the way to phrase it, which also happens to be their name.  (This kind of cutesy character naming grates on me.  I understand the need to do it--but I think the impulse should be resisted.)

There's a lot of buzz about this movie, including the so-called "Oscar-worthy" performances of Hoffman and Linney.  And they are really moving and believable and all too real.  If you've ever had a parent in a hospital or a rehab facility or a nursing home or an assisted living place, at least one of these scenes will pierce your heart.  But.  The use of vintage music, the over-the-top scenes of elder women dancing outside in the retirement community, the cacti of Arizona, the ice and snow of Buffalo, it's all a bit too much.  Like hitting us over the head, just to make sure we Get It.

Okay, I got it.  Now, can I see something heart-warming and uplifting?  Please??

My Wii Winner!

As I mentioned earlier, I derived a great deal of pleasure giving away presents to complete strangers:  albeit strangers who were kind enough to answer my marriage survey. 

Here's the best part--I'm starting to hear back from them, as I requested.  Now that I write that down, it sounds a bit, well, curmudgeonly, doesn't it?  My only excuse is that I wanted them to send photographs of themselves with their prize, so I can post it on my Website.  I feel a need to prove that I am real, and that I really did give away the prizes I promised.  Flimsy, I know, but that's my only excuse.

Anyway, here's Travis and his baby, the lucky Wii winner.  Good thing I was so clever as to send the Wii in a carefully-disguised box, marked "PECANS," because the box sat in the rental office of his apartment building for several days before he got it.  If I'd written, say, "Free Wii Inside!!" on it, he might never have received it.  (Probably would have shown up on eBay the next day, for three times what I paid for it!)

Here's what Travis emailed me after receiving the Wii.  I think it's quite gracious, too: 

"Thank you so much for the Wii.  We were so thrilled to receive it.  We got the package  yesterday, apparently it had been in the rental office  of our apartment complex for a couple days.  We invited some friends over to play with us that night.  We had so much fun.  Even little Kate got in on some of the action and tried her luck at bowling."

Geez, that makes me feel great!  If I were, say, Bill Gates, or Oprah Winfrey, I'd give out a Wii every single day!  No, wait, that would mean that I'd have to stand in line every day just to buy one to give away.  So, nah, never mind....

P.S.  Did you catch my story in the New York Times this weekend?  I'm now an expert on teardowns.