Scarecrows around Fallbrook

Better looking from the back.....

.....than the front. Scary.

The tidiest scarecrow. Polished shoes, good looking hat, crazy trousers. 

Okay...so I'm a little behind on my cellulite treatments. I was busy reading"Sorry about my neck" by Nora Ephron.

The most thoughtful looking scarecrow in town. Not very scary. 

Dragon Fruit in Bloom

Finally after almost two years my dragon fruit is blooming! This is the same photo with the second shot tone mapped with Photomatix Pro. I like the results and it's easy to use. Looks like ten more blossoms are getting ready to open. The thrills never stop around here. 

More Travel Tips from here and there

Never wear flip-flops or high heels on a plane in case of emergency. 

Can you imagine, God forbid, that your plane crashes like the Asiana flight on landing in San Francisco? The aircraft is on fire and you've got to scramble over mangled seats to find the exit:  Your flip flops or Manohla Blahniks are not going to be an asset! Instead, opt for your heaviest, bulkiest shoes -  your hiking boots or walking shoes; those with the best, sticky soles, freeing up room and weight in your suitcase and assuring, if necessary, that you can get traction, climb over those seats, even jump out of a window (good shoes would help with your landing).

If you have a choice of seats on a plane, don't sit next to a woman. We tend to be chatty and use the bathroom more often than most men. Although I've sat next to older men with obviously enlarged prostrates (I'm just guessing here) who have to pee every 20 minutes - they are much worse. While I'm sympathetic, it's awfully hard to sleep if you have to let somebody out into the aisle too often. The ideal seat if you have a choice would be an aisle seat with two smallish 40's men in center and window….they'll be busy with electronic devices, won't talk to you, will probably sleep and won't require the half hourly pit stop. As far as chattiness goes, if you get next to a babbler, who wants to tell you about her hemorrhoids or her grandchildren's brilliance, politely slip on your ear phones, even if they're not attached to anything, as that usually politely discourages them.

Always wear a hoodie on the plane - for warmth and also to snuggle into for naps or real sleep. You can end up seated behind someone who wants to have their air stream focused on you, freezing you out. If the hood is large enough, it will help block out distracting lights and sounds, making sleep easier.
People tend to leave you alone when you're hoodied. 

Never wear shorts on a plane. No matter how beautiful your legs are! Wear your heavier, bulkier clothing…I don't care where you're going, the plane will be freezing and you'll free up weight and space in your suitcase. You can always strip down in the airport bathroom once you arrive at your tropical destination. Layers work really well. Wear your shorts and a light t-shirt, then wear long pants over the shorts and your heaviest shirt and sweater on top. If it turns out to be too warm, go to the bathroom and take off a layer. You're going to be uncomfortable on the plane, everyone is unless you're in the first class cabin, so you may as well be uncomfortable with the knowledge that you were able to pack that one extra outfit, because you're "carrying on" a couple on your body.

Curb Your Enthusiasm - Shorts on a Plane

Choose the Asian Vegetarian option from the meal choices in advance. The food is usually better because it's cooked to order and not en masse. 

Bring ear plugs to wear on the plane and for noisy hotels. Take them out for aircraft take-off and landing just in case there is an emergency and you have to hear instructions. Remember that even in the newest gazillion dollar planes, the speakers are terrible. They often sound like something you might get pre-installed on your computer. Static, low volume and pilot accents combine to make it almost impossible to hear what's being broadcast from the cockpit. In my humble opinion, being able to communicate with the passengers should be a high priority in terms of safety check-lists. I've sat next to foreign travelers who infer erroneously, because they speak little English or are afraid, that there is an emergency because of the static, unintelligible muttering that passes for an announcement. "This is your captain speaking…..mumble, static, mumble static, static".

Pack a clothes pin or two for keeping the daylight from creeping in through that inevitable crack in the curtains or to keep a shower curtain secure OR even as a last resort, to hang up your laundry. The pin can be a God send. 

Have cheap business cards printed with your name and contact information, address etc. If you are interested in meeting people and staying in touch, people are more likely to keep a business card than a scrap of paper with your scribbling on it.  If you wish, include an interesting quote that you'd like to be remembered for, or a job description or as my retired brother-in-law has - a title that he crosses out with a black pen just enough that you can still read it if you try hard. He calls himself "Pornographic Stuntman". I make no apologies for him - it's his sense of humor.  If you don't get it or don't find it funny, you probably wouldn't get along with him anyway. My current title is Grove Goddess. Vista Print on-line is inexpensive and card creation is easy to manage. 

Take a couple of packs of Post-It notes. I can barely live without these anymore. You can stick them on your bathroom mirror with reminders. Stick one on your hotel room door, reminding yourself to do the final check around for forgotten items. Remind yourself to look in that one place you always overlook! For us, it's the bed....shake out the sheets and look underneath for books or magazines.
I hate to admit it but on my last trip I left my "dress" black shoes behind...either they were under a chair or at the bottom of a dark closet. Henceforth, I use the flashlight to check the closet. It wasn't fun wearing sneakers to dinner on a cruise. 

Sepia Saturday #199 - G & S

The prompt photo this week was taken in 1914 in Waterford, Ireland and it's been suggested that it might be the cast of an amateur performance of the Pirates of Penzance.

When I was growing up, my sister and I sang Gilbert and Sullivan songs all the time, switching the roles around, playing men and women. Sometimes for the operettas we knew well we sang all the parts.
We'd prance around the house and over-act, cracking each other up - those were very happy moments I shared with her. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were very popular high school musical productions and as Winnipeg was a very musical city, the choir and the operettas were more popular than football. At least in my memory.

Here's a photo of my sister Eilleen in a high school production of the "Mikado. She was one of the Three Little Maids.

The second photo is Eilleen and Wally Fox-Decent who played, I believe, Nanki-Pu. Wally didn't let the kimono and fan slow him down and went on to have a distinguished career. Here's his bio when he was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award from the university.

Distinguished Alumni Award

Waldron “Wally” Fox-Decent

Waldon “Wally” Fox Decent received a BA in political science in 1959 while enrolled at United College, and an MA in 1971 from the University of Manitoba.

For some 35 years, Fox-Decent has been a mediator and arbitrator in labour/management disputes. He has served as Chairman of the Workers’ Compensation Board of Manitoba, as well as its Chief Executive Officer. He also has chaired the Advisory Council on Workplace Safety and Health and the Labour Management Review Committee.

From 1962 to 1995, Fox-Decent was professor of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba.  He has chaired a number of province-wide committees, most notably three successive Manitoba Legislative Task Forces on constitutional reform, including the task force on the Meech Lake Accord and the task force on the Charlottetown Agreement.  In 1997, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

Fox-Decent joined the Canadian Naval Reserve in 1954 as a cadet at HMCS Chippawa. From 1987 to 1990, he was Chief of Reserves and Cadets for the Canadian Forces. Between 1988 and 1990, he also served as the first Canadian to hold the post of Chief of Reserves Committee for all NATO countries. He retired in 1996 with the rank of Rear Admiral, Reserve.

For his outstanding achievements and contributions in the political, military, educational, and labour relations arenas, Fox-Decent received the June 2002 University of Winnipeg Distinguished Alumni Award.

Eilleen

Eilleen and Wally Fox-Decent 

I've seen many professional productions of the operettas but the most unique one was the gay production of H.M.S. Pinafore, named "Pinafore" in Los Angeles in 2001. It was a huge hit here where it won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for best adaptation and five L. A. Weekly Awards. While it was extensively rewritten it still shared the spirit of the original, the humor coming from being serious about ridiculous things.  From the CD liner notes.

Christmas Card from the Cast 2001

Pinafore (Original Cast)

Book and Score Adapted by Mark Savage from W.S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan

Staring Debra Lane, Wilson Raiser, Christopher Hall, Michael Gregory, R. Christofer Sands and David Gillam Fuller

A “Pinafore” about an all-gay U.S. Navy? Why not? For a hundred and twenty-five years people have been adapting, converting, altering, adjusting and generally using Gilbert and Sullivan’s irresistible comic confection H.M.S. Pinafore for their own purposes. Some have changed the original just to avoid copyright problems. Some have changed it out of a strange idea that it had become dated. It would be hard to imagine any adaptation succeeding, however, without being based on a deeply felt appreciation for the original. Appreciation is the key to the success of this one – and succeed it does. Handsomely!

This high camp adaptation of what was a high camp original builds on the honorable tradition of Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan to use the comic opera format to get away with only thinly disguised commentary on the issues of the day and the foibles of society.

This “Pinafore” is bannered “A Sexy, Saucy, Ship Shape New Musical.” It is set in the mythical presidency of Al Gore at a time when the failed “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy of the Clinton years has been supplanted by a segregation of the armed services by sexual preference. The Navy is now all gay and the Commander of the Navy is none other than Senator Barney Crank of Maryland who is coming to claim in marriage the child of the Captain of the good ship Pinafore. That child is a drag queen who happens to be loved by a sailor in that ship’s crew – a young man who not only has the misfortune of being the only heterosexual left in the new gay navy, he also is unaware of the fact that the “girl” he loves is, in fact, a boy.

Just as the plot of the original was a simple structure on which Gilbert hung fabulously witty baubles emphasized by the earnestness of Sullivan’s sumptuous score, so adaptor Mark Savage drapes his barbs on the same simple structure, changing it only enough to accommodate his concept. Thus whole choruses and verses stand unchanged except by context: this show gives entirely new meaning to Gilbert’s “Gaily Tripping.” Occasionally he over does it. “Our commander Barney Cranks a painfully P.C. dude / But we really owe him thanks / ‘cause we love his taste in seafood!” is too much of a stretch. But there are times when he comes up with an improvement in the wit of the original. Surely that is the case with the change of “my proffered love despised, rejected / No, no, its not to be expected” to the much more felicitous “My offered love she tosses from her / No, not, its much to big a bummer!”

This recording was made four months into the show’s apparently successful run in Los Angeles by which time the cast had enough experience performing the material before an audience to know how to not only sing the songs but sell the bits. It is a fine capturing of what must be a fun show. It probably isn’t something to be listened to frequently but it is one heck of a fun single listen.

Now for the rest of the day I'll have Three Little Maids playing on that tape in my head. 

Three Little Maids - Curb Your Enthusiasm

Sepia Saturday #198: The grand fiasco

This week's Saturday prompt was the launch of a boat; it was suggested we could write about "starting things" as well as anything else that caught the eye or fancy of the viewer. The photo was full of promise.

Just having returned from the Baltic, I thought of the many fascinating ship-related things we saw in the area.

In Sweden, we saw the salvaged boat, the VASA. It was intended by the King of Sweden to be the start of something new and it was huge -  the greatest battle ship ever to sail for the Swedish navy. Unfortunately, the mighty Vasa, on her maiden voyage, traveled for one mile, staggered under a gust of wind, heeled over and promptly sank. They aptly call the incident, the Grand Fiasco.

Despite the fact that she was fatally designed, she's breath-taking to see almost 4 centuries later.  People in Stockholm refer to it affectionately as "the wreck. Redemption is hers because it's now one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city. What loot she didn't carry her soldiers and sailors to in war, she now collects for the country in the museum gift shop. I wonder what the carpenters and boatbuilders who created her would think if they were told of the mighty war ship's ultimate fate?

Actually many of the builders knew the boat wasn't sea-worthy but nobody could could muster up the guts to pass the word up the line that a fiasco was in the making. "Not my job." And in those days I think they still "killed the messenger". The boat was a beautiful thing with the stern covered with carved animals painted in bright colors. Pigments weren't readily available in those days and people lived in a gray, brown world. The sight of this huge beautiful ship with all the color and dazzle would have done half it's job with the good PR for the King it would have generated. I'm guessing everyone in the know just had their fingers crossed that there might be a better outcome that there was. Doesn't that sound familiar?

Replica showing the Grand Fiasco as she met her fate

Halloween Finger

While in Lake Arrowhead over the weekend we enjoyed looking at a heap of large pumpkins entered in a contest sponsored by Jensen's market. The largest on display was Newton's at 169 pounds

and the smallest was Ava's at 8 pounds. 

The contest entrants didn't come close to the heaviest pumpkin on record, this giant 2009 pound monstrosity grown by Ron Wallace last year:

You can't help but notice how the outer skin of the giant fruits gets pulled and tight as the pumpkin increases in size. It loses it's lovely shape and gets distorted and asymmetrical, lumpy and grotesque.

The same thing happened to my finger on Sunday! In the garden something stung me three times: ping, ping, ping. The stings were sharp and clean; strong enough to notice but not seriously. A few hours later, I suddenly became aware of pressure against my rings.  I looked at my stung finger and realized it had swollen significantly. Quickly I applied soap and worked my rings off, breathing a sigh of relief as they slid onto the counter, but I was puzzled at the degree of swelling. During the evening the finger was a bit itchy and that night I slept fitfully, waking myself up scratching. In the morning several maroon colored lesions had appeared on the side on my finger - it was a digit grotesque, just in time for Halloween.

Here's musical accompaniment to accompany further reading.

King Singers: Flight of the Bumblebee (short)



Following Richard's advise, I took a Benadryl and kept an eye on it. By afternoon my wrist was swelling too. It was time to see a doctor. Off we went to Dr. Miller who said "Wowza" and declared it a severe allergic reaction to the bee or yellow jacket stings. She gave me a prescription for the steroid, prednisone,  orders to take Zyrtec and Zantac ( ZZZ's for the bees) and to go to the emergency room if it didn't improve by today. Even though I've had many stings in my life with no problems, all of a sudden I'm allergic. It's not uncommon to develop an allergy out of the blue and I know several people who've had the same experience. My name became McAcute for speeding filling of the prescription.

The Halloween finger looks much better today; the swelling's reduced considerably and the finger is rapidly returning to normal.   Hip hip hooray for drugs.

Nothing Exceeds like Excess

What can you do that doesn't pale by comparison after you leave the Hermitage? The next day we drove an hour outside St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo or Pushkin. The luxurious Catherine Palace, another tsarist wonder, was built by Peter 1st for his wife Catherine 1st then rebuilt later for their daughter Empress Elizabeth. Few people were visiting and we congratulated ourselves once again on choosing the off season for our visit. 

We donned our elfin shoe covers and set off once again to gasp and gape. 

What a court Elizabeth presided over! She is reputed to have owned 10 - 15,000 dresses and several thousand pairs of shoes. She makes Imelda Marcos look like an amateur. Known to never wear the same dress twice, she would change outfits several times a day and have the dresses stamped so there was never a repeat. I detest trying on clothes so I cannot imagine someone choosing to get dressed over and over again in this kind of gear. I suppose she went through doorways sideways and stood up a lot. She loved champagne and lots of french wine which means frequent trips to the loo...I'm sure it took several people to hold up all that dress and train while she tinkled. They never washed these clothes nor did they wash themselves so I opine that under the gold brocade and jewels, there was a lot of ickiness. 

The fashion shenanigans weren't confined to the fairer sex at court. Men at court were known to wear diamond buttons, own jeweled snuff boxes, and adorn their servants in uniforms made of gold. 

Women carried tiny jeweled boxes in which they stashed their beauty spots. The spots were used to signal a woman's intentions...if she wore one glued in the middle of her forehead, that meant something. If she wore it near the corner of the mouth, perhaps the spot was signaling a lover that the coast was clear. 

Elizabeth’s extravagance was displayed in the food she served.  A thousand bottles of French champagnes and wines might be served at an event and she loved to have pineapple at all of her receptions, despite the difficulty of procuring the fruit. Thanks to Elizabeth’s incredible extravagance and consumption of exotica she ended up greatly benefiting the country’s infrastructure. The need for shipping goods all over the place necessitated modernization of the postal system and roads in order to fulfill the Empress’s many needs. 

Living La Dolce Vita

Before joining us in Copenhagen, Debra and Zouzou were hiking the Haute Route from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn, one of the most spectacular and challenging hikes in all the Alps. They hiked up the Pas de la Chevre (9,875 foot-"pass of the goat") where they had to climb up two sets of vertical ladders. Here's a couple of their photos of the spectacular scenery and Zouzou realizing a personal best by climbing the ladder (which dangles over nothing) and completing the hike, feeling wonderful and in the best shape of her life. 

And then the wonderful cruise......

Zouzou on the ladder!

In the Oceania dining room!

Cruising the Baltic

The Oceania cruise on the Baltic had only one day at sea. We were in port for the remaining days: Copenhagen, Warnemunde, Gdansk, Tallin, St. Petersburg (3 days), Helsinki and Stockholm. Every day we got off the ship, enjoyed a full day of sight-seeing returned to the ship, dined well, had a few laughs and slept soundly while we glided on painlessly to the next port.  To see certain parts of the world, in my opinion and at our age, cruising is the best way to go.  We chose the last Baltic cruise of the season (that I could find) to avoid the crowds and luckily we had splendid weather.

In port, Tallin Estonia

Gliding through the Swedish archipelago just before dawn. 

The ship doing the hard work at night.

The Hermitage

150,000 works of art on display here with another 150,000 in storage; they say it would 9 years to see the current exhibitions, spending a 40 hour week and taking 6 minutes to look at each item. It's wonderful and overwhelming and exhausting and a peak experience. 

We spent our afternoon in the Hermitage at a near trot rushing agape from place to place under the watchful eye of Alex, our guide for three days in St. Petersburg. He told us how lucky we were to be visiting late in the season. The crowds and lines during the summer are horrible.

Before the museum visit we were fortified with a russian lunch (I envisioned pierogies, borscht and the like). Instead, we stopped at a fast food joint and gulped down a pancake thingie. 

Who cares about food when this kind of splendor is ahead? We would have eaten mud sandwiches if that was the price of admission.