...The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Things are finally beginning to slow down a bit after busy April.
Art's parents were in town for his performance in Die Fledermaus at school. The plot is complex and confusing, filled with out-of-date Viennese Victoria humor, so I won't begin to try to explain it here. But I will tell you that Art played a jail warden, and he had to sport some serious mutton chops (pictures to soon follow). On Saturday before the performance, we all enjoyed brunch at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain, which I highly recommend. Then we hopped a taxi to the Lower East Side to explore the tenement museum. Our tour focused on an Irish family who lived in the building in the 1860s. Most of the apartments, while safe for touring, are left in their present states of disrepair. Layers upon layers of peeling wall paper grace the walls and aged linoleum lines the floor. One 3-room apartment-a bedroom, kitchen, and living room-was decorated as it would have been when the family lived there. (The bathrooms weren't installed in the building until 1905, and even then, it was just a community toilet down the hall.) I am hoping Art and I can return someday and take another tour, this time seeing a different family.
A week later, Art had is Graduate Recital. He sang songs by Mahler and Ravel, a duet from Lucia di Lammermoor, and two Rodgers and Hammerstein songs-"Lonely Room" from Oklahoma and "Soliloquy" from Carousel. He sounded lovely, despite having the smallest remains of a cold. Now its only two weeks until his graduates!
On top of being so busy, I have been fighting a nearly two-week long cold and/or sinus/respiratory infection. Ugh. Not fun, but after a round of antibiotics, I am finally on the mend.
In a few weeks we shall be in California, and I am truly looking forward to a vacation!
Art and his funny whiskers!
