I’m on the E mail list for the New York City Metropolitan Opera and I guess they sold my name to sympathetic venues because yesterday I got a mailing from the Miami opera company. Ed looked at the schedule for the upcoming season and said it was rather pricey. Best tickets were $200 per – so if we went that would be $400 to start.

Gas and mileage (3 hours each way) $70 for the round trip. A night at a Mariott, $246 for a double. Dinner $75. And let’s not forget that because we’d be gone overnight, we’d have to get Jan, super special cat lady from our vet’s office, to come and give Brunz his epilepsy medication and put out food and water for all three, $50. Another $25 or so for breakfast the next morning before starting back.

All told, we would be spending around $870 for a night of opera at what we consider a regional company. You can get a so-so performance, even in New York, but the odds don’t favor us down here.

Anyway, the thought of driving and seeing and over-nighting makes me tired just to think of it. Where’s the down time? There is no down time. I’d get really tired even in New York, even if we drove instead of taking the subway. Truth is, it’s hard for me to be physically idle without getting sleepy and an average opera is 3 hours long. Zzzzzz. Zo, fuggedaboutit.

Today I stopped in to see my pal and aces tailor person, Susan, at her little shop on Pine Island Road. She has other friends who stop in to get stuff done and they stay a while and talk (which I find annoying because I want her all to myself, but I have been graceful).

Today, her customer/friend Lou stopped in and said if it was up to her she would deport all the Muslims. By the time she finished her little tirade, I wanted to smack her, but I settled for “Wow, you really are a bigot, aren’t you?” When she left, Susan told me Lou was very right wing. Lou and her husband are going on a Royal Caribbean cruise, so I told Susan, perhaps the boat would sink. “Is that her dress?” I asked, pointing to a piece of finery Lou had brought in for alteration. Picking up a scissors, I offered “here, let me help with that.” Well, that got a laugh out of Sus, who thinks I am funny and is also receptive to my northern liberal tirades. I do my best.

I walked back (about 35-40 minutes) in the blazing hot sun, and rested from my labors.

xx, Teal