Carmen, je t'aime!

Theme Song: Pendulum - Plasticworld (again!)

I am absolutely exhausted this morning. I woke up at 5:10 AM and came into work at 7.

Friday:

Came home from work, did my 2 hours of cardio, and made a complete fool of myself with Lovely, G, and E. It was late and I'd been planning on returning home and diving happily into the wondertastically delightful embrace of my down comforter, but I got a call from Steven after opening night of Carmen, inviting me out to a local bar with some of the cast. Chatting and Manhattans ensued until about 2 AM.

Saturday:

Woke up late, made waffles, ran 4-5 miles while Steven ran errands... And THEN we met my entire family at Bruegger's for a nostalgic lunch of chocolate chip bagels with pumpkin cream cheese, and pumpkin spice coffee! Shades of the autumn evenings of grad school - Natty and I would meet at Bruegger's on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I after statistics and she after some horribly advanced math class. We'd sit and chat for a couple hours while enjoying chocolate chip bagels and coffee... Ahh, so nice.

And then of course, we had to go to Krispy Kreme, and then out for barbecue. From there, S and I departed for a high school out in Somewhere, Durham County to watch his best college friend's choir performance (she's the choir director at the high school). They did a Queen medley that was so much fun, but they didn't do a single classical piece. Understandable - few high schoolers would get hyped up over that. Came home and crashed!

Sunday:

I slept until noon. UNTIL NOON. I woke up in a huge pile of comfortors and pillows and cats in the clearest, purest fall sunlight and was supremely content. Steven was up and out by 8:15 AM to conduct his choir and make call time for Carmen - he called me about 5 minutes after I woke up and we met for lunch. I was absolutely sublimely happy yesterday afternoon. I came home, got all gussied up, and amazingly made it to the opera house downtown on time! Reminded me of my mad scramble last October to see Steven in La Traviata: I had left my wallet at home and had no money for parking (nor my ID to pick up my will-call ticket!), and I had to employ all of my charm to get in and out of the paid lot for free. Which I did!

I paid this time, though.

Natty, Pepper, Lovely, Roony and both parents were dressed to the nines, and arrived a few minutes after I did. We all sat together in the balcony, and apparently one of my friends was there as well - he saw me, but I didn't see him! It was so much fun. I was so glad for the supertitles - even with excellent acting and body language, without the knowledge of linguistic nuances, it's hard to really appreciate what's going on in an opera. There were intermissions between acts I & II and II & III, but III & IV went straight through. The orchestra was first-rate, but they didn't tune after act II and it was showed. Two members of the string section were woefully flat - but they tuned between III and IV.

I found Steven in the lobby afterward and proceeded to become a hanger-on for the rest of the evening. We attended the cast party, held at the beautiful home of a Capital Opera benefactor, and enjoyed good company, wine, champagne, and excellent hors d'oeuvres before heading to Steven's parents house for the infamously awesome chocolate pudding cake. My stomach rumbles just thinking about it...