101 in 1001 #11: See the Ring Cycle at the San Francisco Opera!

Hey campers! This one’s coming to you from the security line at SFO – I’m headed home for a long weekend with my Schwegfam! We’re seeing “Hamilton” (yes, this will be my fourth time, and yes, I know that’s absurd), hitting up our favorite restaurants, and hopefully heading to the State Fair and out on the lakes, weather permitting. I haven’t seen my parents since May and June, respectively, and my sibs since March…so this is a long-overdue reunion!

After a long summer break from writing, I have a ton to catch up on from pretty much all of 2018. It’s been a banner year for having adventures, but not a great one for recording any of it…oops. The undoubted highlight of my summer was, indisputably, seeing my first full Ring Cycle at the San Francisco Opera in June! While I had seen “Das Rheingold,” the first of the four operas, in Minnesota, I had never seen the other three, and experiencing them all in just one week was a wild ride and total adventure.

Doing a full Ring Cycle is a cultish, hardcore, elite-opera-lover thing to do – so naturally I needed to do it. Over the course of our six-day cycle, I met opera fans who have done the full Cycle as many as 22 times – people who travel all over the world to experience it, spending thousands of dollars and years of their lives obsessing over it and discussing it with like-minded fans. As a first-timer, I found that the brotherhood of other Ring lovers was warm, welcoming, and enthusiastic – we made friends over the course of the week during intermissions, at restaurants beforehand, and even in the pool of my apartment complex.

Of course, who better to do a Ring Cycle with than my favorite opera friend Michael? He flew out to California early, spent the weekend in Yosemite being a beast and climbing Half Dome, and rolled into town on Monday night. We kicked off our week of operas with Rheingold on Tuesday:

First, cocktails at Laszlo. We went with mezcal-based drinks: a Melanie for me and a Margot for him.

Then we headed two doors down for an unbelievably good dinner at Lolinda – Argentinean wood-fired meats, including the most incredibly tender tongue I’ve ever had, and a Chappellet cabernet that was revelatory for me.

Rheingold was fantastic – we actually happened to see the same Wotan (the bass) that we had seen in Minnesota in November of 2016! The SF Opera production was set at the turn of the 20th century, and was set-designed gorgeously.

For me, Die Walkure, our second show, was the standout of the cycle. We raced downtown after a long day in Muir Woods and at Lagunitas, and made it to our seats with only three minutes to spare. At the first intermission, we discovered that the balcony of the opera house had been converted to a German beer garden, serving brats and giant soft pretzels with enormous German beers. Bonus: the view of the Civic Center is absolutely stunning from the balcony…

I was blown away by Swedish soprano Irene Theorinn singing Brunnhilde – her “Heilegin hoy” aria at the beginning of the second act got a spontaneous ovation from the audience, which is incredibly rare for Wagner. The entire third act, where Wotan curses her (his daughter) to sleep, left me in tears- the music is ridiculously rich, evocative and moving, and they really left it all out there during the scenes. As soon as my tears dried, we headed out and made it home…after midnight, after four and a half hours of opera! The Ring Cycle truly is a marathon, and I think we were really feeling it after an early morning, strenuous day, and mad dash downtown.

We fortunately had Thursday off from opera for a rest day, so we didn’t pick back up until Friday. This time, to avoid another frantic rush-hour race into the city, we packed formalwear and spent the day downtown exploring, thinking we would grab drinks and change before the show. So we popped to Epic Steak for oysters and Iron Horse champagne (of course). As we finished, I headed to switch my jeans out for a gown, and almost shit myself when the zipper zipped onto the dress midway up. The restaurant manager, who happened to be in the other stall, tried to fix it and, instead, ended up ripping the entire zipper out of the dress.

Not going to lie, I had a moderate panic attack. I didn’t have a gown, and we had dinner plans with another couple in an hour, and I was NOT about to wear jeans to the opera. Thankfully, there’s a stand-alone Rent The Runway in the downtown Neiman Marcus…

…where an absolute angel staff member hooked me up with a gown in five minutes flat. (She seriously deserves a prize for dealing with my panic-sweating, tear-stained, frantically-rushed spaz self with such grace and patience.) That gown was definitely out of my comfort zone…I tend to default to black dresses for the opera just because they’re elegant, understated, and most of all, safe. I’m not the kind of person who likes to stand out, and nothing stands out quite as much as full-length gold sequins…

…especially when coupled with a very low neckline and a very slinky fit. The funniest thing, for me, was that as uncomfortable and self-conscious as I was, I was besieged with compliments all night. Michael, being who he is, found it more and more amusing as I felt more and more awkward…and ended up making a game of it. So there you go… “Siegfried” was most memorable, for me, for the fact that I dressed up like a human disco ball.

(The opera, for what it’s worth, was spellbinding.)

Saturday was another day off for us, and we spent it in Napa…our non-opera activities will have to be a post of their own, because this is getting long. Sunday brought us the six-hour behemoth that is “Gotterdammerung,” “the fall of the gods,” which legit ends in fire, flood and death to all parties. It is heavy, and it is dark. And I adored it.

I found myself in tears again as the opera drew to an end – in part because it was so ridiculously emotional, but also because I was so sad that this gorgeous, immersive adventure was coming to an end. It felt like coming up for air having held my breath for a long time when the lights came up after the show…I was completely jolted.

We went to The View Lounge to dissect a little over cocktails while enjoying, you know, the view…and immediately started discussing the Cycle. Both our opinions were largely favorable – the casting was impeccable, the staging innovative and cohesive, and the orchestra faultless. The Ring is extraordinarily demanding of every person involved, and the way the San Francisco Opera rose to the challenge of putting on three consecutive weeks of Cycles was insane. I’m already thinking ahead to trying to catch it at the Met in New York next May…anyone feeling like 16 hours of German opera?!

Inventory: August 2018

Making: the most absurdly complex workbook of everything I need to achieve at work, take care of at home, and plan ahead for pre-move in the next 42 days.

Cooking: hahahaha nothing lately because Dave has been doing it all. We totally didn’t have pizza rolls for dinner last night, guys.

Drinking: a Starbucks nitro cold brew, which has become my vice (my team keeps giving me Starbucks cards and I don’t hate it at all).

Reading: my way through Philippa Gregory’s Plantagenet/Tudor novels in chronological order, instead of the order they were published in – NERD alert!

Wanting: a puppy!! So badly!! It’s getting urgent!!

Looking: forward to checking out City Beer’s reopening tomorrow night!

Playing: Wordscapes, an addictive word-unscramble phone game that I am extremely good at.

Listening: at work, to the Ring Cycle all day as an excuse to not talk to anyone and just get work done; elsewhere, to Odesza’s “A Moment Apart” album on loop.

Wishing: for a puppy!!

Enjoying: our Tavour membership – Dave and I get monthly crates of craft beer from all over the country/world, and this month’s shipment just came yesterday. So fun to try new ones! (Who AM I?!)

Waiting: anxiously for Thursday – so, so ready for a long weekend at home with my whole Schwegfam and my best friends!

Liking: many, many photos of puppies!! (Can you sense a theme developing??)

Wondering: why USPS sucks at updating delivery statuses.

Hoping: that it’s a nice weekend weather-wise in Minnesota so we can get on the lakes and go to the State Fair!

Marveling: at the ridiculous number of Dave selfies in my phone - and at the sheer variety of facial expressions of which he's capable. 

Needing: a whole kitchen’s worth of stuff before we move in October!

Smelling: Jo Malone English Pear and Freesia perfume mixing oh-so-bizarrely with the Purell I’m dousing myself with every half hour – everyone at work is sick and I just cannot succumb pre-trip!

Wearing: the softest and coziest dress/sweater/scarf combo – perfect for variable Bay Area weather.

Following: every dog-related account on Instagram and Twitter – the thirst for a puppy is getting more serious by the day, friends. Stay tuned – 2019 IS The Year In Which Dave And Lizzie Get A Dog.

Noticing: how the people who bitch the most about being busy and stressed always seem to be the ones accomplishing the least amount of actual work…hmm ;)

Knowing: probably more than I should about office politics and transitions that are coming up.

Thinking: too much.

Bookmarking: wall-mount organization systems, neutral 8x10 area rugs, barstools, floor lamps, and bookshelves for the new apartment. All I’ve done lately is furniture shop.

Giggling: at the completely ridiculous antics of just about everyone on this season of “Bachelor In Paradise,” and at the plethora of dad jokes Nate, Margaret and I have been sending back and forth for a few weeks.

Feeling: honestly, at this point? Pretty tired and ready for it to be October already…

On plastic straw-shaming and saving the turtles.

I got plastic-straw shamed at the campus Starbucks a couple weeks ago, and I haven't felt quite that stupid in recent memory. The scene: 

I was late to a group outing with one of my teams because of a meeting I had to facilitate with another of my teams. It was hot, I was stressing, totally frazzled, and starting to get a pre-migraine aura going. Usually a healthy dose of caffeine will nip a headache before it goes full-blown migraine for me, so I braved the student union at peak coffee time. Having ordered my iced coffee with a shot of espresso, the oh-so-college, oh-so-Stanford barista turns back to me and asks, "And have you brought your own straw today?" 

Taken aback a bit (San Francisco just banned plastic straws at the beginning of the month, and the law doesn't go into effect until 2020), I shook my head and, dumbly, muttered, "Uh...no." The barista raised one eyebrow, with that perfect, intense condescension only a supercilious college student can master, and asked, "Well, would you like to buy a reusable steel straw for $2.99?" 

I was grumpy, campers. I was hot, I was anxious about how my day was shaping up, and frankly, I didn't want to carry a dripping, sticky straw with me to the food bank we were volunteering at later. So I said no, probably a little more tersely than I should have. And the barista raised the other eyebrow, overtly judging me and my hatred of the sea turtles and my lack of consideration for future generations, and turned away to make my drink...but not before muttering "wowwwww" in that perfectly under-her-breath-but-clearly-meant-to-be-heard way. And I started laughing, because how do you not laugh at something that ridiculous? 

So fast forward to this morning, where I was in desperate need of a caffeine hit en route to my off-campus office and zipped to the "nice" Starbucks with the drive-thru. Yes, I felt like a total bum getting drive-thru coffee - but some mornings, one needs to minimize human interactions before 9am, and today is one of those days. And my drink came with this weird sippy cup lid: 

I might be the last person to find out that Starbucks is going fully strawless by 2020, and replacing the straws with these recyclable plastic lids. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for earth-saving and reduction of plastic waste and all that jazz. Today, though, as I went to take the first sip of my nitro cold brew (#millennial), it sloshed out the too-large hole on top, down the front of my white dress (because OF COURSE I was wearing a white dress). And now I'm sitting here in my office, having made my angel of an admin give me all her Tide pens, and my entire chest is wet from the emergency stain removal work I undertook...so I look like a lactating mother having serious issues, basically. 

In other words, the most Monday-ish of Mondays, and we're only a few hours in. Here's hoping there's nowhere to go from here but up...

Bookworm: July 2018

I started gathering up my list of what I've read this month and did a bit of an incredulous double-take - how the heck did I possibly power through as much as I did this month? Then I realized it's been a super-stressful month which, for me, triggers acute insomnia, which in turn means I'm often up reading for an hour here or there over the course of a night when I get frustrated with my own inability to sleep like a normal human. So there you have it - a ridiculously robust July reading list! 

Also, I dog-sat Leia the first weekend of the month, and pretty much all I did was this, because Leia is my favorite dog in the world and I mostly want my entire life to be cuddling and playing with her (ideally while also reading a plethora of books).

Loved: 

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond: Dave recommended this to me almost immediately after we moved in, and I picked it up recently in a darling local bookstore. Guys, I couldn't put it down. The author wrote an ethnography, essentially, on life below the poverty line in the rental market of Milwaukee, WI. The stories he illustrates are deftly told and left me simultaneously frustrated, saddened, and grateful for my own good fortune. I need to unpack this further in its own post - such a fantastically impactful read, proving (once again) that Dave has surprisingly excellent taste in literature. 

Next Year in Havana, Chanel Cleeton: I half-heartedly read along with the Reese Witherspoon Book Club from time to time, largely because her books are generally popular (or become generally popular, once selected by her). This one sucked me in right away - set in Havana during the Cuban Revolution and in present day, it's a love story to both people and places, and highlights how once we love either, they never really leave us. 

Fake Plastic Love, Kimberley Tait: I liked this much more than I was expecting after a very lukewarm first chapter - two college friends take very divergent life paths, one into the world of banking and one into lifestyle blogging. As I straddle both worlds (sort of?), I laughed and grimaced in equal parts. The characters and settings are so idealized as to be nearly caricatures, but that just added to the excellent beach-read tone of the entire work (I read this in an afternoon in the pool). 

My Oxford Year, Julia Whalen: Kels recommended this to me and I'm so glad she did! Loosely based on the Ali McGraw classic "Love Story," Verdi's "La Traviata," and Alexandre Dumas's "La dame aux camélias," our protagonist, Ella, receives a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford for a year. She must balance love, her professional career, and her own best interests along the way among a series of dramatic (and unforeseen by me!) twists and turns. Super enjoyable and a very quick read. 

Enjoyed: 

When Life Gives You Lululemons, Lauren Weisberger: The author also wrote "The Devil Wears Prada," and this is told in part from the perspective of Emily Charlton (portrayed by Emily Blunt in the movie) from that iconic chick-lit classic. It's escapist, frothy, fun, and everyone comes out happy in the end, which I think makes for a perfect July insomnia read, don't you?

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recomment, Katarina Bivald: A friend from college recommended this on one of my numerous "what are you reading?" posts on FB, and it was sweet and wholesome and lovely in every way. A young, socially awkward Swedish woman comes to rural Iowa to meet her elderly pen pal, only to find said pen pal has died. The ensuing events are the stuff of a Nora Ephron movie waiting to happen, I swear. Read this over tea when you're having a cranky day and it will make you smile! 

The Devlin Diary, Christi Phillips: The sequel to "The Rossetti Letter" (see "Re-reads" section, below!) finds our young researcher at Oxford solving mysteries with her hot professor, falling for another hot professor, said other hot professor ending up mysteriously dead, and all the while a parallel story about codebreaking and serial killers in Restoration England is raging like, every other chapter. Again, this is historical fiction with very little history and VERY much fiction, which is fun and escapist and enjoyable. Think "The Tudors," not the BBC! 

Jane Austen: The Secret Radical, Helena Kelly: I loved this, as I've been going through a bit of a Jane Austen renaissance and I enjoy just about anything that explores her life and writing further. The book picks apart a different Austen novel every chapter and peels back the layers, revealing (hypothetical) critiques of everything from social class stratification, primogeniture, the clergy, the military, and censorship embedded in Austen's works. A fascinating, if not entirely convincing read!  

Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Anna Elliott: I love a good "Pride and Prejudice" spinoff, and this perfectly fit the bill for an e-reader book to pick up and put down on my phone while waiting in lines. Picking up after P&P and told through diary entries by Mr. Darcy's younger sister, it's sweet and Hallmark-trite but still warm and fuzzy. 

From Pemberley to Waterloo, Anna Elliott: See above - same premise, just further into the action. 

Kitty Bennet's Diary, Anna Elliott: See above again - this time reforming noted flibbertigibbet Kitty Bennet and pedant Mary Bennet. Big fan. 

Tolerated: 

A Lady's Guide to Selling Out, Sally Franson: EH. This was such a letdown because it was recommended publicly by a Minnesota writer I adore, and she recommended it largely because it was set in Minnesota - and yet there was absolutely zero Minnesota in it. I wanted a MN version of Curtis Sittenfeld's lovely "Eligible," specific and tangible and indelibly of a place, and this was not that novel. Also the plot was insipid, the heroine didn't inspire me, and I found the entire novel simultaneously predictable and irritatingly convoluted. 

Re-reads: 

The Precious One, Marisa de los Santos: I've waxed rhapsodic about Marisa de los Santos so many times here, but as I'm sitting here the phrase "lighting truths like candles" popped into my head, and that's from this gorgeous story of screwed-up families, failed and budding relationships, and how we all somehow come together. The best read for anytime you need new faith in love, language, or life in general. 

The Rossetti Letter, Christi Phillips: A young researcher in Venice teams up with a sexy Oxford professor to solve a centuries-old mystery about the Spanish Conspiracy of 1618. There's also a parallel story set during the Spanish Conspiracy, and it's all deliciously frothy, Philippa Gregory-esque historical fiction - light on history, heavy on fiction, which is exactly as it should be for a good escapist read. 

Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare: Such such such a good tragedy, one that I think often gets overshadowed by "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "Othello." Even "King Lear," for that matter. It's DARK. Pick it up! Although I don't recommend it for the car dealer - it doesn't pair well with Muzak and sales pitches. 

Summer break and a Safeway story.

Hi crew!

It’s been a while and a half, hasn’t it? I decided I was going to take a summer break, primarily because I did the Classic Lizzie Thing in which I totally overload myself with two classes, thirteen discrete projects at work, a slew of visitors in town every weekend, and a social life that has been nothing if not overcommitted. Oh and also trying to go to the gym regularly and get a new car (my lease was up) and plan out the NEXT several months of my life. So some things had to give, and my blog was one of them. Alas! Alors! Anyway!

I’m hopping back in with a happy little moment from yesterday, involving me being a scatterbrain and the world being kinder to me than I deserve. I’ve been a bit homesick lately, after a rough month or two in general, and it was such a great reality check.

It started with a Sunday afternoon trip to my local Safeway, which is generally a mistake. I’m actually coming to think that going to my local Safeway, period, is generally a mistake (someday I’ll tell you all of my passionate love for Trader Joe’s, oh dear). Sunday afternoons at my local Safeway are overcrowded, understaffed, and always frenetic, and I am never at my best when faced with that combination of circumstances. I was also post-gym and pool on this particular Safeway trip, which meant salty hair, minimal makeup, and a “weekend T-shirt” (my designation) of the variety that really shouldn’t see the light of day. This particular “weekend T-shirt” was a just-because gift from my mother with the old Dayton’s department store logo on it. This is relevant, I promise!

After gathering all my ingredients for coconut curry chicken meatballs, Mexican corn, and a week’s worth of salad lunches, I popped the prettiest bunch of perfect white hydrangeas into my cart on a whim. The checkout lines, per usual, were minimum five people deep, so I settled in and whipped my phone out to read while I waited. The guy behind me had different ideas, and struck up a conversation:

“You’re not from Minnesota, by any chance, are you?” he said. I goggled at him, completely dumbfounded. I hadn’t said anything, so the accent hadn’t given me away. I wasn’t wearing any sports gear or anything. So I affirmed, cautiously, “I am – how on earth did you know?”

“It’s your shirt,” he continued, “it’s the Dayton’s logo. I haven’t seen that forever.” And I laughed, and we started the most pleasant conversation about where we were from, how much we missed Minnesota, et cetera. He had just been home at a family cabin on the Whitefish Chain, and he hailed from a suburb right by mine. I was having so much fun chatting with him, in fact, that as I unloaded my cart I completely neglected to grab my hydrangeas out of the child seat basket.

So I got all rung out and the cashier had already started scanning my new friend’s items, and all of a sudden as I was wheeling my cart out of the lane I spotted my flowers. In typical Lizzie form, I spazzed, offered to go to the back of the line, offered to go put them back, and all the while the cashier and bag boy are looking at me like, “what the eff, lady,” which just made me more self-conscious and embarrassed.

My Edina guy, cool as a cucumber, swooped my flowers out of my cart and said, “Don’t worry about it, let me buy your flowers.” Guys, I could feel myself turning beet-red with mortification as I dug through my purse looking for cash to offer him and came up empty-handed. And again, he goes, “It’s no big deal, it’s just a nice thing to do – let me buy a fellow Minnesotan a bouquet, seriously.” And I’m simultaneously utterly charmed and incoherent, so there was much stumbling over words and profuse thanking and bumbling around like a dork.

I’m not sure why this was such a monumental big deal to me. Maybe it’s that I’ve been a little cynical lately about humankind in general and Californians to be specific. This is not the sort of thing that happens here, and I realized that I took all of that very much for granted at home – the door-holding, the bag-carrying, the general demeanor of pleasantness and assiduity. It felt, for just a minute, like I was home and surrounded by people who cared, just a little bit, about making other people’s lives easier and happier and brighter. And that, in that moment, was not only nice, but kind of essential. So we said our goodbyes, and I headed to my car, smelling my hydrangeas all the way and feeling just a little more faith in the goodness of humanity.