the sun shining through the clouds

And in amongst all the hard stuff have been some delights.

I started attending a macrobiotic cooking class on Friday; it'll run for a few weeks. I find the food to be bland but at the same time fresh and interesting. Good, but not a steady diet. I'm taking the class because it's hard to find cooking classes which are about healthful cooking and which are vegetarian.

This class has a lot off "woo woo" in it -- things like it's ok to eat onions and scallions, but garlic makes people angry and you should avoid it, unless you're just using it for a little flavor. Things like if you're really sick, you should cook over gas because it's more natural, but if you're relatively healthy, it's ok to cook over electric heat, especially if your choices are limited.

I figure that in my big mix-and-match lifestyle, I can take the parts that work for me and disregard the rest. I've assured Robert that at this point, I can't envision myself totally adopting the macrobiotic lifestyle, and he reassures me (earning even more points than he already had) that he'd still love me if I did. I do realize, though, that when I'm sick, I tend to veer towards this style of eating quite naturally.

But aside from the two-part approach -- (1) learning to cook interesting food and (2) eating it -- there's another huge benefit to the class. After one class, I'm incredibly drawn to the teacher. She's a middle-aged Russian immigrant and former computer programmer. And she radiates such unbounded amounts of love and compassion. She reminds me a bit of my yoga teacher, Phil. The class should be interesting.


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On Friday, we attended a local theater to see a piece I'd already seen twice before -- Falsettos by William Finn. It's about a guy who leaves his wife for a man, the wife marries the husband's shrink, the man and his lover break up and get back together again, and the original couple's son is confused and approaching puberty. Oh, and the lover ends up getting sick and dying (part of the play is set in 1981, the first year AIDS was discussed in the New York Times). The characters play out as a little cartoony, but the material is deep and complex and the language is sublime. And oh, it's a musical with really difficult-sounding parts; in fact, it's "sung through," and there are few, if any, spoken words.

On the one hand, I wanted to support any local theater performing this piece; on the other, I was concerned about whether they'd pull it off. And they did, admirably. I was once again blown away. It was funny and sad in all the right spots. Bravo!

(We went with two friends, brought Robert's car, seated him on the outside aisle, and told him to just leave if he needed to. But he was fine, thankfully.)

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And last night, with the same friends, we attended another local institution to hear a small orchestra perform a "night at pops" (a la Boston Pops). Again, I was wary. Some of the pieces sounded like they were a little too popular -- they've been played badly before, and there was nothing stopping them from same this time. That, and though I have unending tolerance for enthusiastic but amateur theater performances, I have little patience for badly played music. And I've had bad luck with "community orchestras" before -- the obvious joy does not overcome lack of talent. In recent years, I've pretty much confined my attendance at live classical (and semi-classical) music events to professional venues.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. The conductor is also something like "principal guest conductor of the Boston Pops," and he runs a tight ship -- the orchestra was coordinated, in tune, and played well. The conductor joked around with the audience. In fact, he stopped the first piece (Pomp and Circumstance -- see what I mean?), told us we were being way too polite, and encouraged us to talk amongst ourselves until the music drowned us out. That was hard! But it was fun, too.

The featured guests are a jazz ensemble from the "real" pops, and they were a lot of fun. They played their own set, then joined in on selections from West Side Story. And of course, they took solos on Bernstein's work, making those old familiar chestnuts that much more alive.

Great evening. The organization -- Indian Hill Music -- is way out in the 'burbs, but the auditorium was packed. And deservedly so. I think we'll be back.