I Wanna Be a Soprano!

 

Metropolitan Opera Valkyries. Could this be me?

Advent is flying and one of the reasons for that is that I am singing in the St. Louis Choir. And the St. Louis Choir is busy!

We have our weekly rehearsal, and Sunday Mass, where we get there an hour in advance to rehearse some more. Plus we keep having these concerts. Last week it was Carols By Candlelight. This weekend it is Lessons and Carols.

It is the Marine Corps of choirs!

However. I love the idea of singing a Lessons and Carols. All my life I have been listening to them. The most famous one comes from Kings College, Cambridge.

(On my Substack page I linked to a video: please click to check it out -- it's free! The video is of the King's Singers singing "Ding Dong, Merrily on HIgh")

We did this song at Carols by Candlelight last Friday. We did it in B flat, a bit higher than this version in the video. As the night went on I got less and less inhibited about going for those high notes. When we got to this number, I sailed on up there and hit those F’s. It is a funny thing about high notes. The ease with which you can hit them depends a lot on where they are in relation to the other notes. If I had to go up to that F from the note right underneath it, we would have had a problem on our hands. However all I had to do was grab it out of the air. So we were OK.

I had practiced that afternoon and worked out a way I could hit a few other high notes in other songs. Often you can nail them if you connect them to the note before. I have figured that out.

I am determined to expand my range. OK, let’s come out and say it.

I wanna be a soprano!

Sopranos rule the world. At the St. Louis Choir, our sopranos are like goddesses. We worship them. They are not just sopranos. They are trained singers.

That is another thing.

I wanna be a trained singer!

I would have thought this was all a pipe dream. However, I have learned it can be done. Allow me to introduce my authority, Angelina Jolie. She plays Callas in the new movie, “Maria.” 

What were they doing calling it Maria, you know? They should have called it “Callas.” But anyway.

Angelina Jolie said she learned to sing for the movie and she discovered she was a soprano.

Her speaking voice is low like mine. But she said she has learned that your singing voice is often higher than your speaking voice. She cited psychological reasons why your speaking voice might be low. Maybe you wanted to be taken more seriously, or something. I don’t know. I stopped paying attention at that point. I had heard what I needed to hear and that was good enough for me.

So I have taken steps. I appointed AI — that is artificial intelligence — to be my voice coach. AI is thrilled with the assignment and cannot wait to make me into Callas. The first thing he — it, whatever — did was issue me directions on how to warm up, and exercises to do daily. Then he assigned me Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” He said it would be good for me.

You hear all these people saying AI is evil but you have to wonder, how evil can something be when it goes and tells you to sing every day to Our Lady? So that is what I have been doing. “Ave Maria,” every day.

Warmups, every day!

I will check in and report on my progress. I will tell you this, I can already hit some notes I couldn’t hit a few weeks ago.

Besides AI I follow this singer on YouTube. Her channel is called "Healthy Vocal Technique."

There is one video, I can’t find which one, where she tells you to buy a notebook and take notes on your progress. That put her over the top in my mind. I always get all excited when I am told to go buy a notebook. That is the magic word for me.

Another notebook! Where should I go?

Back to Hyatt’s? I never get tired of going there.

To Office Despot?

Do I need a new pen to go with the new notebook? I do think I do.

Whatever, one way or another, I will take notes as I was directed to.

It will be quite a story!

 

A Cloudy Fall Fit For a Pluviophile

Not to shock anyone but today I went walking in Forest Lawn Cemetery. You have to walk in cemeteries in the fall, I am sorry. In October.

I love fall days when the weather is undecided. That happens often here in Buffalo. Sometimes it rains when the sun is shining. Often the sun beams out of dark clouds. The trees shine red and gold against the brooding skies.

The picture above shows in the center the memorial of my Buffalo News boss, Stan Lipsey. He was always wonderful to me and I say a prayer when I pass.

Stan Lipsey was the publisher but he was always happy to see any of us when he ran into us, in the office or out of it. He was at my wedding and he was at parties at my house.

"Get out! Stan Lipsey was at your house?" Someone said that to me in the ladies room.

"I invited him," I said.

That was when I was a humble copy editor! I had actually invited the whole newsroom. I loved it when someone didn't show up and later found out the publisher was there.

Happy days in the newspaper business.

Back to the October skies. Here are more pictures of Forest Lawn that I took today.

Those clouds!

I am a Pluviophile. It means I love clouds.

Can you take one more?

And I took this picture yesterday on my way to the trolley.

That sliver in the lower left hand corner is just a bit of the bridge. That is a wonderful view you get on the Amherst Street bridge.

Even the dreary Audubon Branch Library gets drama and poetry from clouds.

Everything looks better against a cloudy background.

I think I must as well!

Adventure at Our Lady of Victory Basilica

 

On Assumption Thursday, a couple of days ago, I found myself at Our Lady of Victory Basilica, pictured above. It is one of my favorite places in the world. For one thing, things always happen to me when I am there.

Everyone has places like that. It does not have to be some place exalted, either. Another place where things always happen to me is Gates Circle Liquor. It is one reason I do not go there that often. Something always happens to me and you are not always in the mood for that.

But anyway. I was in OLV for Assumption. By the way that is my own photo at the top of this post! I never get over that place.

It was a great experience from the word go, this being Buffalo.

The church was crowded, for one thing. I remember not long ago when holy days were not crowded. It says something about how committed people are these days. It is really a new era.

The people who were there — and there were tons of them, you need tons to build critical mass in massive Our Lady of Victory — were really with the program, too. They were alert and paying attention and clearly involved and reverent. These are the people who made it through Covid and through the priest scandal and through various rounds of church closings and we are still with it, damn the torpedoes. It wasn’t all old people either. I mean, middle of the day, you get a lot of retired folks, however young people are very involved and it is great to see. Which reminds me, there was one baby who kept yelling “Amen!” LOL!

So… what happened to me? I told you things always happen to me.

I ran into my childhood friend Patricia Murphy!

Patricia lived down the street from me. She and her sister Sally were at the Mass and they came over and said hello to me afterwards. Sally, whom I love, we run into each other now and then. Always under insane circumstances — like once, our congregation at St. Anthony’s was doing a procession, for Corpus Christi or something like that. And Sally happened to be passing in her car. And she pulled over and parked and got out and joined the procession! And came back to church and prayed with us afterwards. What a cool person.

But Patricia, I had not seen her in I do not know how long. Decades. Maybe not since I was a kid. used to go over to the Murphys' when we were kids. Patricia was more or less my age and I would spend hours over there with her. That is another story for another day. It is a beautiful story. Maybe I will tell it tomorrow.

But today, what a joy it was to see her! We are going to reconnect online.

Quick other story, because it is just so Buffalo.

The organist at Our Lady of Victory, God love him, did “Immaculate Mary” as the opening hymn and “Hail, Holy Queen” as the closing. Note to non-Catholics … those are THE two hymns you have to sing when it is a Mary feast.

However fie on the organist, he cut us off after one single verse of “Hail Holy Queen.” SO disappointing! This is a magnificent hymn — it ranks up there with “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” as the Catholic national anthem — and everyone loves singing it. It is hard to find a decent YouTube video of it. They are all too stodgy, too kitschy, too amateur, too something. However here is one that seems to date to today. I am not sure where it was in the world, but look at the choir singers’ faces. They love it!

We loved singing it today too at Our Lady of Victory. The girl in the pew in front of me was singing along too. She had a great voice. I heard her singing the Communion hymn, “Gift of Finest Wheat.” That is not a hymn I really know or care for, so I was not singing it, however I heard her singing it, and she sounded great.

When we came to the disappointing early end of “Hail, Holy Queen” there was a moment before the organist began playing his recessional. And I took that moment to complain.

I said to this lady: “I wanted to sing the second verse!”

She said: “So did I! I wanted to sing it, too!”

I said: “You have a beautiful voice. I heard you singing ‘Gift of Finest Wheat.’”

She said: “Thank you!”

I yakked on: “I sing at St. Anthony’s, with the ladies’ group there. If you ever wanted to join us, you would be most welcome.”

She said: “Oh, I couldn’t sing Latin.”

I was wearing a veil which is probably how she figured Latin might come into this.

I said. “You just did!”

She stared at me.

I sang, “Salve, salve, salve Regina!”

Ha, ha! That is of course the rousing last line of "Hail, Holy Queen."

She will likely never join our group at St. Anthony’s. However we shared a laugh. 

And as far as her joining our group, you never know.

You never, never know!

 

 

Remembering George Jones at Oliver's

 

I heard recently that the Buffalo pianist George Jones had died. The world has lost a little something.

Years ago when I worked for the Niagara Gazette, I used to go and hear George Jones at Oliver’s. In those days, as I wrote a while ago, I was taking jazz lessons from an excellent pianist named Ron Eschner, and he was, or had been, a student of Jones’. You could tell it from his sophisticated harmonies. Ron always had beautiful harmonies and he would often credit George Jones.

Ron told me to go to Oliver’s and hear George Jones. He said dress nice, sit at the bar. Just listen, he said. See what you pick up.

So I used to go, with my friends.

It was an era that would not come again. Actually it was the end of that era. When I think back on going to hear George Jones, I always remember it winter. We would sweep into the restaurant with the wind and the snow. The restaurant was set up well with a few pairs of doors so with luck, the outside doors would close before the inside doors would open.

Inside it was sleek, warm, and welcoming. Women would be handing their furs to the coat girl. There were coat girls then, and furs. We did not have furs. We looked with respect at the ladies who did. The bar would be noisy. There was a wonderful noisy bartender in those days, barking at the customers, whooping it up. He would hand around new cocktails for us to sample. Up at the top of this post is a picture I found on Trip Advisor that is more or less what the bar area used to look like. They had these beautiful old plush booths. in the front.

George Jones would be at the baby grand piano you see in the picture. Typically, he would have a trio. He had a quiet, graceful style somewhat at odds with the raucous bartender. He was always in good humor. Fatherly, smiling at us, extremely nice. He was a settled down man, a family man. Rumor had it that he used to play Nietzsche’s and I seem to remember he confirmed the rumors. However you could not imagine him there. This was a different world.

I used to love hearing him play the Cole Porter songs, the Gershwin. I was just getting into jazz back then and I did not know that many songs. I was learning. This was before cell phones and I don’t have pictures or videos. All I have are these vague but lovely memories of these wonderful winter nights.

George Jones created such a beautiful atmosphere! Such smooth, graceful piano. Such lovely harmonies.

A different time in my life. It’s gone now. Some years ago, Oliver’s got rid of the piano where George Jones used to play. I hated that and I complained about it in The Buffalo News. To no avail. I used to complain about stuff all the time and there really wasn’t much difference between complaining in the paper and complaining to your friends. Whatever was happening still happened. Still, it’s nice that the restaurant is still there. I do wish they would get a piano again however, to give me a reason to go.

How does that old country song go? “Don’t rock the jukebox. I want to hear George Jones.”

I miss him!

 

The Secrets of My 10-Year-Old Self

 

While I was cleaning up the house, I happened on an old diary. It was from when I was 10 years old. I stopped cleaning to look at it.

My parents used to give us these little diaries at Christmas. I remember I would wait breathlessly until Jan. 1 and then I would begin writing in them. There was a page for each day. The trouble with that system is that eventually you fall off the wagon and it is hard to get going again. For this diary, though, I did pretty well. I made it all the way through January.

I do not remember ever looking at this before. It was illustrated! I drew pictures of my teachers and my friends.

I do remember Mr. Cvinar was our 7th grade teacher at Christ the King School. So I was in 7th grade. I was kind of babyish, I think, because I was just 10. I was the youngest child in my class. That was because when I was in kindergarten, my dad had taught me to read, and I was put ahead into first grade. In effect I skipped a year.

That picture of Mr. Cvinar does look like what he looked like, to my recollection. I did not remember Mrs. Cvinar. But apparently I liked her. “Mrs. Cvinar said on Monday she would bring little Steve Cvinar in so we could see him.” I loved reading what I was excited about.

On New Year’s Day I wrote, “New Year’s Eve, we stayed up till 12:30. We drank wine and Pepsi. We also watched them launch the New Year’s balloon on TV, and saw half of Show Boat. The grups wouldn’t let us stay up till 1:30.” “Grups” was our shorthand for “grownups.” I think my brother Tony got that from “Lost in Space.”

I was already a partyer. On Jan. 4 I wrote: “Margie (my sister) dropped out of Brownies lately. Jean dropped out of Girl Scouts.” Jean Schneggenburger, my best friend, makes frequent appearances in the diary. Looking back, I would have thought that with Jean out of Scouts, I would have wanted to leave too. But no! I continued: “I might drop out of Scouts too, but I’d just as soon wait until after camp and the Potluck Supper.”

I stayed in Scouts. On Jan. 11: “Tonight was Girl Scouts. We reviewed a couple of our dances and discovered we would do one for the Potluck Supper.” I remember going to several camps and Potluck Suppers. Good times.

It’s funny to see something that flies in the face of what you thought you remembered. I thought I hated gym. But no — the diary mentions hockey (floor hockey, this would have been). I looked forward to games. I was on a team called the Cherry Bombers. “We are the champs!”

My Uncle Bob gave us piano lessons every Sunday. “Boy am I going to be in trouble for lessons,” I wrote one Saturday. “I didn’t do 1/2 the things I was supposed to do.”

Next day: “Lessons didn’t go as bad as I expected. I simply said ‘no’ when Uncle Bob asked me if I did the Kinderscenen. Then I was able to fake (sight read) the finale of the Mozart Sonata, up to the ‘episode.’ When Uncle Bob asked me if I did the 4’th Beethoven variation, I just said no.”

I wrote a lot about my teachers. There is a day-to-day account of Mrs. Bucholtz and her sprained ankle and when she was finally going to come back to school and how she had to walk with a cane. I seem to have liked Mrs. Bucholtz more than I remembered. There was also a Mrs. Mazzu, whom I don’t remember. I drew a picture of her captioned “Mrs. Mazzu, when she isn’t yelling.”

I did a lot of drawing. One drawing of a woman yelling is captioned: “A Mean Teacher.” And at one point I wrote: “Somehow I can’t refrain from doodling in my books at school. Hope for the best!”

There is a nun named Sr. Marie Patrice who would give me a tough time. I had no memory of her. Then I read that she was subbing for a Sr. Marie: “Fortunately, Sr. Marie came back today. Sr. Marie Patrice was just going to give us a science test. Sr. Marie decided not to.”

One episode is something I distinctly remember. I got to go to my Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie’s to help my cousin Caroline serve hors d’oeuvres (I spelled it “orderves.” I don’t blame myself — I still struggle with that word.) I remember they dressed Caroline and me in dirndl skirts and we went around serving shrimp and stuff. Well, I describe it:

There were many people there, about 40. Most of them were doctors. Caroline and I were busy from beginning to end, picking up dishes, passing food, refilling glasses, etc. Despite that, though, it was a lot of fun.

There was this one woman there. She had a long, green feathered ‘strip’ around her. Caroline and I kept finding bits and pieces of green feathers on the floor. After a while the whole strip disappeared. Maybe it grew small and she put it away. Or maybe it shredded to pieces.

It is funny to be able to place that party in its proper place: Feb. 23, 1973. And the “strip” of feathers. I did not know the term “boa.”

Back to my friend Jean. We were just making plans to get together — I will have to bring this diary, or at least tell her about it. Because it is so funny reading back on our doings. One day we made mean posters of all our teachers. “It was great!” I wrote.

Then this: “I played with Jean again today. We decided to go to Tops. However, when we came back, there was so little time we only got to play the piano for one another and then separate.” Jean and I were always playing the piano for each other.

There is a lot of mention of Tops. I loved going to Tops — I still do, LOL. Back then I would go there with my sister Katie and with Jean. We would buy candy and cans of pop. No wonder that on Feb. 20 I talk about having to get two cavities filled. “Yippee!! It’s all over! Katie has 5 cavities. Man, I don’t envy her!”

How awful, that we had all those cavities. That wasn’t right, you know?

But the diary is so much fun. I found another little daily diary too, along with this one. That one was four years later, however. I would have been 14. I’ll read it at some point, but 14 isn’t as much fun as 10.

That diary of my 10-year-old self.

I wish I had kept it up all year!

 

Jackie Jocko's Piano Comes Home

 

Today lounge pianist Jackie Jocko’s piano came home to its old location. It is sitting in the corner of the Hyatt in downtown Buffalo where it used to sit. That corner is in the lounge of the new steakhouse Johnny D’s. When Jocko played there the restaurant was called E.B. Green’s.

I am explaining all this for the benefit of non-Buffalonians. Jocko is special to us in Buffalo still, even though he has been gone for a few years now.

Mary’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Howard is going to be playing Jocko’s piano most nights of the week as we go forward. I am going to be playing it the leftover nights. I am guessing I will have the low-rent nights such as Monday and Tuesday. That is fine by me! When I worked for The Buffalo News I used to like it when they ran my columns on those days. I figured they did that to get people to read the paper on a day when they might not otherwise.

The expert piano technician Thomas Miller did the honors of moving and tuning the piano. Here it is in its new/old spot. Before he tuned it, Howard played it. I stood by the piano and listened. I grew nostalgic thinking about how many times I stood on that spot, talking with Jocko.

“Mary!” Jocko used to beckon you over to the piano. And you would stand there.

Sometimes if he had something really juicy to confide, you would sit on the piano bench with him.

Ah, the memories. They light the corners of my mind!

I played for the restaurant owner. Howard told me to do something classical so I played Chopin’s Aeolian Harp Etude. I was happy I got through it from memory! I had not expected to do this. Grand slam! Yay me! After that I played “Over the Rainbow.”

The owner loved “Over the Rainbow.”

“I like songs I know,” he said.

So, I will be playing songs he knows. That is fine by me! I love playing classical music, it’s my thing — however you have to watch what you would play in an atmosphere like this, in a beautiful restaurant. You can’t play anything too loud or, well, anything too deep. The Beethoven “Moonlight” sonata, everyone knows it, however it is just too deep to play in this environment. You don’t want to distract people from their dinners. A lot of Mozart also falls into this category. It’s quiet, it’s simple — but it’s just too deep. Maybe I could do piano treatments of a couple of arias. I do not rule it out. However I aim to please, and I aim to please myself too, and if it’s a toss-up between Chopin and Harold Arlen, I am happy to do the Harold Arlen.

Today is a long story however the adventure ended with me taking the subway and then riding a Reddy Bike down Amherst Street in a long cheetah-print dress and sandals. This killed me — as I was nearing Delaware Park, I passed some parked cars, and this being Buffalo, a voice came out of one of them.

“Mary!” It was a woman, is all I know.

I did not want to know more! It was probably someone I love, however sometimes you cannot, you just cannot. Excuse me, I am riding a Reddy bike in a cheetah print gown and sandals.

Do I look as if my life is normal?

My wall-to-wall carpeting is out the door!

 

It wasn't pretty, but it had to be done! As my old friend Daryle woulds say.

Isn't it funny how you pick up phrases from people and use them your whole life? But anyway.

The carpets .... gone!

It was an, ahem, adventure that went on for three days and from which I have only just begun to recover. I reveal the saga on my Substack page. I would be honored if you would check it out here.

Above is a picture I took of Carpet Don putting in the pad for the living room carpet. I was standing their agog. 

The end of an era!

Do join me for this adventure.

A New Skillet, A New Website

There is this cast-iron skillet I cannot bring myself to use. 

It just sits on my counter!

And I keep on using my old annoying frying pan, which goes back centuries. The picture above proves it. Velazquez painted my old skillet! That is it in the picture, I am sure of it.

Because of the book "The Artist's Way," I am starting to question my behavior and try to figure out why. And so I am taking a trip down this rabbit hole.

Why do I not season my skillet?

I am exploring this question today on Substack. Click here to find it there. I would be so grateful.

My Substack is free!

Substack is nice and organized and it is helping me to get on a better writing schedule. I do not plan on doing paid subscriptions, in part because I do not want a job -- I want this to be for fun.

Please follow me there. Please take out a free subscription -- I would love that! One reason I am doing this is, I plan on shortly publishing my book about Leonard Pennario, and this would help pave the way.

If you are reading this I appreciate you being here. Thank you -- and if you want to be in touch, great

The Return of the Great White Heron

The heron is back!

I am not sure if it is a Great White Heron or a Great Blue Heron. It is a kind of bluish white. I saw it this morning at Hoyt Lake.

Studying the pictures I do believe it to be a Great White Heron. Whatever it was, the heron was standing around on its long legs looking for fish. I am building a history with herons, including this heron that I drew. In my growing experience, herons can remain pretty much motionless for a long time.

I could not wait it out on account of I had to go and get my manicure. Remember my first manicure? This was my second. And it will not be that long until my third. I am getting into this groove here and I find I like it.

However even being in a hurry I snapped some pictures of the heron.

I filmed him too! Here he is just standing around. Haha, I am noticing that because my cat Jeoffry is a tomcat I am always assuming all animals are boys.

I like the video because you can hear the birds. This is a part of Delaware Park where I love walking...

... because you can hear birds. The red-winged blackbird is the bird that dominates. To me that is always a sound of spring.

Notice in the above picture that there is somebody out on a boat. I loved that!

Spring... bring it on!

Total Eclipse of the Rhinoceroses

 

Howard and I went to the Buffalo Zoo today to view the Total Eclipse.

We had been invited to an eclipse party we had really been looking forward to, however the traffic predictions were vexing, and Howard had been under the weather and was recuperating. The Zoo allowed us not to be in close quarters with anyone, in case he had had some bug that could be passed on.

And so we viewed the eclipse from outside the rhino enclosure! Those are the rhinos up above. 

The afternoon was honestly magical. I had ridiculed the eclipse beforehand. Why are all these people traveling to Buffalo, I had wondered. I would not cross the street to view an eclipse. That is what I said.

Then I did end up crossing the street to view the eclipse. The Buffalo Zoo is across the street!

Delaware Park was full of people with their eclipse glasses. Howard issued me a pair of eclipse glasses so we were set too. We ran into some people we knew. Other people were texting us. Everyone was excited.

When the eclipse really got down to business, everyone grew quiet. This facet of the eclipse was almost as astonishing as the videos. Here in Buffalo we never shut up for anything! Yet everyone was suddenly hushed.

I took these pictures.

And this video ....

 

LOL! You can tell how dazzled we were!

And then I stopped filming anything because you just have to enjoy, you know?

It was just so beautiful! 

The Zoo being plunged into darkness. I mean real darkness, aside from the lanterns were on of course, and there were other lights.But really, it was dark as night. No one could believe it. 

This eclipse, I had totally underestimated it. It made me think of a few years ago when the high-wire artist Nik Wallenda walked the wire over Niagara Falls. I had thought that would be no big deal. Then Howard and I were watching it with Jocko in the Hyatt and we all realized we had been wrong in underestimating it.

I will remember this the way I remember that.

Magical!

An epic Palm Sunday

This morning I sang in the choir of St. Louis Church -- remember when I joined? It was quite the adventure then and it has only gotten better. Above is a photo one of my friends in the Alto section took of me on her phone as I was looking down admiring the church. I cannot get over how beautiful it all is!

Today being Palm Sunday we sang "All Glory, Laud, and Honor." That is the traditional Palm Sunday hymn. You may not deviate from it, not that we would want to.

The organ that accompanied us this morning!

Our choir director and organist, the great Frank Scinta, he pulled out all the stops. I mean it was as if we were in a movie. An epic movie. He is improvising this, too. He is pulling it out of his head. It is not as if you can go out and get this arrangement. 

I am sure that nobody in the entire world heard an "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" remotely like ours!

Oh, brother. I wanted to put the video on the Web log however the person in charge of the live stream is not letting me do it. So here is a link to the video.

"All Glory, Laud and Honor" begins right about 16:20. Actually a bit after that, however tune in at 16:20 so you can hear the announcer announcing it... "Number 97, on page 120," as if it is just another hymn, on just another Sunday. It is not!

That fanfare that introduces it!

It was like "The Ten Commandments"!

Then Scinta just takes off with his improvisations. We were so dazzled in the alto section we were all just smiling dazedly.

It is hard to get it across just in a video. I should have been recording it up in the choir loft. The volume of it, you can't imagine. Like an ocean wave. Here is where I wish it were a Latin Mass, where I also sing. This kind of church, this kind of music, calls for incense and pageantry. 

I recommend you watch the entire video because all the music was interesting. The Mass ended with the spiritual "Were You There." It was very quiet compared with "All Glory, Laud and Honor" -- in between of course you have gone through the entire Passion, and everything feels different. I was crying in "Were You There" and I was not the only one.

An epic Palm Sunday, as I said to one of my friends.

A Mass to remember!

An Artist's Date at a Salon

 In the last few weeks I have been charting my journey so far going through Julia Cameron's book "The Artist's Way." It is time now to recount my third Artist's Date.

In a change of pace, I went for a mani/pedi!

And yes, this is artistic. I need a manicure for my piano playing. What if I am invited to perform a recital or a concerto or something? This is one impediment that will be out of the way. The Artist's Way is all about clearing impedimenta from your life.

Besides that, I have never had a mani/pedi in my life! I just did not grow up in a family where those things were done. Also I was a nail biter until recently. That was a great victory, stopping that nail biting!

Preparing for this step, I scouted a salon on Hertel where I just got my hair cut. It is called Imagine. It is just about around the corner from where we live. Imagine that! Amazing the things in your own back yard, you know? You are looking for something and it turns up right under your nose.

If I like the place, I thought, I will go there for the mani/pedi. And I did like the place. I loved my haircut. It felt so good to walk out of there not wearing a Scrunchie. That afternoon I went to see the movie "Cabrini" and I was sitting there the entire time trying not to put my head back against the chair. I did not want to squash my curls before going out to hear Howard play at the Hyatt that night. "Cabrini," by the way, is a great movie. But that will have to wait for tomorrow.

The day I returned to the salon a few days later, was a beautiful day. Soaring temperatures. I wore sandals because I read that would be best for the pedi, in case the polish was not quite dry.

That did end up not being an issue. The stylist, Hayley, did the pedicure first, and it was a leisurely process, as these things should be. Now that I think about it, I do not think that we as a culture are comfortable with this kind of thing, with someone scrubbing your feet, massaging your feet, working on making your feet beautiful.  Jesus knew that he began the tradition of the Washing of the Feet which is, goodness, coming up next week -- Holy Thursday. 

Well, I got used to the idea and now I am comfortable with it, I will tell you that. Also I loved that I got to sit in a massage chair and fiddle with it, having it do this and that with my back. The chair purred and rumbled, and Hayley and I gabbed periodically about this and that. In the background a customer was getting her hair cut, and bits of talk drifted over, about children and upcoming marriages.

".... And it's so nice, he's an altar boy...."

"... And I told her, why don't you wait until you have lived your life a little ...." (No, I was thinking, don't wait...)

"...And he is changing his major for the second time..."

Conversations like this have been going on for centuries and it was part of the fun of this sweet experience. While the pedicure was drying we did the manicure. I asked the stylist to make my nails short, because I play the piano. She asked questions and I got to talk about Beethoven and about Leonard Pennario.

Oh! I did not mention the most important thing -- the color I chose, for fingers and toes. Yes, I am a poet, and I know it.

It is Barbie pink! 

Yes, I will be playing my late Beethoven with my Barbie pink nails. I did not think of the color as Barbie pink but that is what it is. My friend Brenda correctly identified it as that when she came to pick me up to go see "Cabrini."

She said, "Mary, why did you choose that color?"

When in doubt, tell the truth, as Mark Twain said. So I did.

I said: "Because it is fun."

My Artist's Date at the Zoo

 

I have had two more Artist's Dates and one of them was to the Buffalo Zoo!

This is a Victorian zoological gardens, in that it dates from 1875. It is across the street from my house. I mean I can see it from my front window, and at night I can hear the roaring of the lions.

However I almost never go there! Of course I was there when I was little. We all go to zoos when we are little. Then we go there again when we have little kids. However we never go there as adults on our own. Which, I just did that. And I totally recommend it!

The book "The Artist's Way," as I may have explained, demands that your Artist's Dates be on your own. You do not bring anybody! When I look around YouTube there are some YouTube gals who say you can take baby steps and bring someone else. However I strongly disagree. Get your act together and go somewhere on your own. It will not kill you. And when you are on your own you make your own decisions and you listen to your own thoughts. Do you want to stay and watch the polar bears for an hour? You do it. Do you want to wait until no one else is around so you can shoot a video? You can wait. 

It gets extremely relaxing, I have to say that. You just wander around, accountable to no one.

La la la la la la la.

Above is a picture I took of the capybara in the Buffalo Zoo's Rainforest exhibit. Just the Rainforest exhibit by itself is worth the price of admission to the zoo. You get to hang out in a tropical environment for as long as you want, listening to the waterfall, admiring lush greenery, looking at parrots...

... and turtles and capybaras. There is also a Giant Anteater in there though I have not seen him. My Seek app saw him! I pointed the app at some birds and for some reason it spotted the Giant Anteater though I could not, and that was what it identified.

At least I could see the capybara. There is no missing him! I texted a picture of the capy to my friend Ryan. Ryan loves rodents!

Ryan wrote back: "As they used to say at the Erie County Fair: "Come see the RAT that's bigger than a CAT!"

After that I could not stop laughing.

These Artist's Dates, I am not sure what they are doing.

But at least they are keeping me entertained!