2009 in review

[jwg]

We had a nice quiet evening at home. Watched La Bohème - the Movie that we'd Tivo'd a few days ago and between acts had this "champagne" and nuts and Brie. Should have had it during the Café Momus scene, I suppose. This bottle reflects the event that starts in a few minutes where the Bruins play Hockey in Fenway Park - and mimics the scoreboard. (I'm still waiting for the Red Sox to play in the Garden).

Today we go to the annual party of an old work colleague and later to the monthly Contra Dance for experienced dancers in Concord.

Last year was a very nice year; uneventful and no health crises to deal with. I turned 71 and in spite of the fact that I've been officially a "senior" for a few years have not yet reached middle-age.

We travelled to Guana Island (BVI) for our close to 20th time, to the Bay Area for a visit to the Big Sur, some friends and Queer Dance camp, to Portland (OR) for the motsscon, camping in Vermont, to LCFD Dance Camps in Woodstck (CT) and Becket (MA) and to Philadelphia to visit Robert's father, brother and sister in law - and yes they are my in-laws too.

Our garden was pretty good this year - the lettuce bed thrived now that it has been moved from being in the middle of the woods (the trees grew a lot since we started it); the blueberry crop was good, and the strawberries were fine in spite of our being away for a few days at their peak.

We went to lots of concerts in Jordan and Symphony Halls; Rusalka, Don Giovanni, and Carmen at the Boston Lyric Opera; about 15 games at Fenway Park; over 30 Contra dances in JP, Cambridge, Concord, and Montague; and about 25 English Country dances in JP and Cambridge; and 3 weekend dance camps including the 20th anniversary LCFD dance camp in Becket.

In the fall the newly renovated Cambridge Public library opened; I'm proud to say I was part of the process that led to this design. The architects and contractors did a great job and we have a wonderful facility - even better than I expected and my expectations were high. Also the West Cambridge Youth/Community Center opened - I was also very involved in that process - and is a very nice building. There was one contra dance there, and another is scheduled in mid-February. There still is a chance that the Thursday night dance could more back there if the city is willing to lower the rent (a good idea since then instead of the hall being empty most of the time it will be in great use). The GLBT Commission of which I am co-chair got an award from GOAL, Gay Officers Action League, for our work to get GLBT training into the Cambridge Police Force.

Comments

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

71??? I pegged you for about 10 years younger than that!

What did you think of La bohème? (I assume this is the recent movie with Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko.) I had mixed feelings about it.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. I thought that the singing was uniformly excellent. I didn't much care for the double-image stuff, and yeah, we can probably guess that Rodolfo and Mimi had sex without your help, thank you.

I have to confess that it's not among my top 5, or probably even top 10, operas, anyway.

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a trend towards removing all subtlety from and adding luridness to opera productions. I was disgusted by a production of Bluebeard's Castle I saw at ENO a month or so ago, where they stripped away all the layers of complexity and intrigue and turned Bluebeard into a Josef Fritzl type, often in direct contradiction to what is in the music.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

That was the movie. La bohème is my least favorite Puccini (an awful lot of the music sounds the same -or as Robert says sounds like Puccini) but I thought it was pretty good and true to the opera as usually seen - not as spectacular as the Met's new Tosca that we saw several weeks ago. I'm glas we watched it.

[magid.livejournal.com]

When is the February contra dance scheduled for? I'd like to check out the new building, and that sounds like the perfect excuse :-).

And it sounds like 2009 was a good year; may 2010 be at least as nice.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

It is on Feb18 at 7:30 PM. Do come, we'll be there. The caller is Nils Fredland who is excellent (he's the caller to tonight's dance in Concord that we are about to go to) and the band is Elixir who is very excellent (Nils plays a bit of trombone with them).

[magid.livejournal.com]

Argh! I just checked my calendar, and that's the one non-Tuesday evening I have plans for. If something changes (or my information is wrong), I'd love to make it there. Otherwise, I'll just hope that it does, in fact, become a more regular event.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

And this year when we come to the Bay area we must make sure to actually meet you. Queer Dance camp is April 9-11 and I suspect we'll be there both before and after.

Winter Classic Champagne

[coachdutch.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if you could help me...

Where did you get that bottle of champagne? I never knew they had made ones for the Winter Classic game. I went to the game and I'd love to have one to go with all my memorabilia.

Could you please email me back (I only made a LJ account so I could message you) at CoachDutch@yahoo.com

Thank you!