Well, dear readers, you’ve heard of Doris Day. You’ve heard of Lady Day. You’ve heard of Dennis Day. Well, meet the new Day – Doozy Day, which is exactly the Day we had yesterday. It was a Doozy Day from start to when I decided that the damn Doozy Day was Done. But I’ll get to that in Doozy Day in a Doozy moment. For now, I just finished watching an absolutely brilliant ballet by Mr. Kenneth MacMillan for the Royal Ballet, entitled Anastasia. Yes, that Anastasia. He originally created it as a one-act ballet in 1967, but in 1971 made it a three-act ballet. The one-act became the third act, and he did two preceding acts with all the history, all set to the music of Tchaikovsky, mostly symphonies one and three. Then act three (originally, the only act) takes place in a mental ward with Anastasia remembering all the events from her past. Is she really Anastasia? That is a question left unanswered, but she thinks she is. The contrast between acts one and two and then the very expressionistic act three is astonishing. Classical ballet language in the first two acts, and the modern, angular ballet in the third. It works perfectly. The third act begins with some weird electronic music that lasts about three or four minutes and the rest is to Martinu’s sixth symphony. The Anastasia role gets quite the workout and Natalia Osipova is fantastic and up to it, clearly. Costumes and sets are by Bob Crowley, who is clearly a genius. They are amazing. And the choreography is also pure genius. I was mesmerized from start to finish and I’ll be watching it again soon. But I must devote a word or three to the terrible Ross MacGibbon, director of the video. It wasn’t quite as bad as the others I have by him, but again with the ridiculous tight close-ups and showing people watching something rather than WHAT they’re watching, which is, you know, the ballet. There are some astonishing feats of lifting and stuff in act one, and you know every one of those things got applause because they always do and so do ends of scenes within acts. But Mr. MacGibbon mutes the applause. He allows it at the ends of acts because he has to and oddly allows it for the entrance of the leading lady. The opening has no reference shot of the auditorium, no shot of the band or conductor, it just starts. He’s really hopeless. And if you want to know just HOW hopeless, all you need to do is watch the curtain call, where he repeatedly cuts to shots of not the cheering audience members, but the ones who look befuddled and bored to tears, and one nice lady who has her lit-up cell phone in her hand. Genius! We don’t want to see close-ups of the audience when the curtain call is going on, we want to see, I don’t know, call me crazy, the curtain call. Happily, I happened to have my set of Martinu symphonies in the house and easy to find, so I’ll listen to the sixth. Right now, it’s Tchaikovsky’s first, conducted by Svetlanov. But let’s move on because she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon.
Yesterday was a Doozy Day. I was up at nine-thirty. The helper’s mom had asked the previous day if she could pick up books to ship. I responded immediately, saying if it was for two orders, I only had one copy of the book she needed but more were on their way, so I said we’d do it next week. No response. So, at ten I texted her, just to make sure she wasn’t coming. No response. So, I left to take the car in at ten-fifteen, since she’d originally said between ten and ten-fifteen. Apparently, she arrived five minutes later. I felt bad, but I don’t understand why people don’t check e-mails and even more so texts. Anyway, I took the motor car in and they told me ninety minutes. So, I took a walk down to Ventura Boulevard and over to Art’s Deli, which is literally the only place now where you can get breakfast or that’s even open that early. I had a bacon and cheese omelet, with tomatoes on the side. It was very good and very expensive. Once I finished that, I then headed back to the car place. Altogether, coming and going, that was two miles. I got the car and headed home.
Once home, I knew I had to deal with the move stuff. I had a text from the helper telling me to call some moving guy and set the date. She’d said she’d do that but apparently it didn’t happen. I am not really equipped at this time and this age to deal with any of it. But I called and he didn’t know what I was talking about, so he said he’d text the helper, with whom he’s worked before. I guess he did, because now he’s going to look at the warehouse on Tuesday to let me know the deal. I asked the helper to please call – she didn’t, so I finally called her, and she answered. We talked through stuff but before I could get to my final important question, we lost the connection. I tried calling back, but it went to voice mail, which was full. I texted her and asked her to please call back for two minutes. That has yet to happen. Hopefully, it will soon.
I then called U-Haul to change the move-in date to Wednesday. I was on hold for twenty-five minutes and then finally someone answered. I got a nice lady and she looked up the reservation, which was for three 10×15 spaces. She found it but it was only for one space. I couldn’t believe it. Apparently, the original lady who’d made the reservation and confirmed with me on the phone multiple times that the three were reserved had only put in for one. We were on the phone quite some time, but she couldn’t tell whether the location had two more or not. By this time, I was ready to stick my head in the oven or at least go eat a pound of donuts. She messaged the actual location and asked them to call me. She was very apologetic and said she was going to put in for a VIP discount, whatever that is, and she gave me the customer service number to call. While she was telling me all this, the location called, so I got off the phone with her. They had no other 10×15 spaces, unfortunately. I grabbed two 10×10 spaces and put a hold on a third, just in case. I’m praying that everything will fit in three, but if we have to go to the fourth, the price difference is fifty bucks and I’ll be prepared for that if need be. We changed the date to Wednesday, so at least that part it done, but I really was ready to eat the head of a chicken by that point. I did have a nice telephonic conversation with dear reader Jeanne, and she calmed me down as much as possible, so that was nice. At that point, I decreed the damn Doozy Day was Done and I meant it.
I went to Gelson’s, got a 10 oz. top round steak, which is really cheap meat, and I should know better, came home and broiled it with a lot of seasoning. It was tough, as they always are, but it hit the spot and was only 470 calories, so even with the omelet I was only just under 1000 calories. I had an Atkins bar for a sweet and that was the food for the day. Then I watched the Anastasia ballet and that was very healing – nothing like great art to lift your spirits.
Today, I’ll be up by eight-thirty, I’ll go have an early breakfast somewhere (not Art’s) – perhaps sausage and eggs, which I rarely ever do, or maybe just another omelet of cheese and bacon. I need it to be light because of the five o’clock dinner at five o’clock. Once I’m home, I’ll work on the Indiegogo stuff – I especially want to get the 10-CD things in the works but they probably won’t ship until the new storage place is organized and since I have no idea how that is happening or who is going to supervise it, who knows when that will be? I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and then I have the early dinner, then I’ll come right home (I’ll probably just walk to the dinner and walk home – I really need the exercise, frankly) and I have another ballet to watch.
Tomorrow, I’ll really need to have a ME day because the stress is killing me right now. I’m tense and irritable and all that bad junk and I need to get that off me sooner than later. Then next week will be the big move and getting all that organized, which I cannot do myself. I can’t be lifting all that stuff at this age. So, hopefully someone will help do that, but I suspect I won’t know that until mid-week. I’ll finish casting the Kritzerland show – I added another excellent cast member yesterday, so the men are done and now I need at least one more woman, which I’m working on and I’m really hoping it can work out. It will all depend on if she’s set up to film stuff. So, please send excellent vibes and xylophones for the move and organization to go smoothly, because it would be nice to survive it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eight-thirty, have an early and light breakfast, work on Indiegogo stuff, hopefully talk to the helper, hopefully pick up packages, have an early dinner, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite works of Tchaikovsky and your favorite performance of same? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping that the Doozy Days are Done.