It was Just a Freaking Love Potion and other stories

Lou: "Not much happens. There are really only three acts."
Me: "Well, it's opera, so: they meet, they fall in love, they die?"
Lou: "Pretty much."

Apologies for not posting yesterday! Lou and I left at 4 PM to see Tristan und Isolde in Seattle and we got back after 1 AM; I didn't get a post up before leaving, and when we came home I was tired enough to go to bed with makeup on and everything.

All those hours of Wagner sounded a little overwhelming going in, especially as listening to the music on its own beforehand didn't do much for me. With the story and the visuals, though, I found it breathtakingly beautiful. Even though I never did figure out which was the famed Tristan chord. And even though the romance was partly killed by the fact that most of the passion arose from a love potion that was supposed to be a death potion. Oh, the drama.

I liked Marke. Good guys don't get enough credit in this world. Besides, he had a superb voice.

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Lou and I are leaving Monday morning to go huckleberry picking for three days. If I can get it together, I'll try to have posts scheduled for those three days... I'll try. But if I post on Monday and don't reply to your comment till Wednesday, it doesn't mean I don't like you. :)

As for huckleberry picking, I'm not quite the camping fiend I used to be in my rock-climbing raft-guiding days. Two years ago we fought more mosquitoes than I've ever seen in my entire life, all together in one place; last year it was hornets. I didn't know the world, let alone Western Washington, had that many hornets. This year--I understand and accept the usual outdoor difficulties, but PLEASE, GOD, LESS BUGS.

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Back on the subject of opera: Can I someday sing like this? Please?



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Another good show: The Perseid meteor shower. When we got home last night, I stopped outside to look at the stars, and one of the brightest meteors I've ever seen shot right through Cygnus and beyond. So beautiful! Despite the late night yesterday, I'm more than a little tempted to take a blanket out in the back yard tonight.

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Writer's link of the week: Nathan Bransford's "Do You Suffer from One of These Writing Maladies?" Many, many props to Mr. Bransford for working the Old Spice Guy into his post. I keep reading this and laughing aloud.

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Time-sucker of the week: Catalog Living.

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Funny line of the week, from EW's Keith Staskiewicz: "Twilight is significantly affecting how Americans name their babies, with a marked increase in Cullens and Bellas. All I can say is thank goodness this didn’t happen with Dr. Seuss, or we’d all be named things like Phooswacker and Bortle."

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Also: I love Microsoft Word 2010, at least compared to the 2007 and 2003 versions. But everybody did not hate Clippy. I liked the MS Word Assistant.

Speaking of Word, I think I'm going to try one more time to scrap/redo the first chapters of my book, and if that doesn't work, then it's time to accept it as is and move forward. First, however, I have to clean the house. Happy weekend, everybody!