Wherever I go in the world, all my friends say “How’s your daughter?” I’m tired of bragging bit by bit and thought I’d go all out.
I went to visit Greer and her husband, Michael, at the beginning of October. They were supposed to be all moved in to their brand new condo, complete with mother-ready bedroom, but they weren’t. They had been unable to close because of problems on the seller’s side. The story is a lot longer and more gory than that, but I won’t go into it. You’ll have to read about it on Greer’s blog. IF she has written it up, which I doubt. http://greerbee.blogspot.com/
I had a great time with them, even though we were living in an unfurnished apartment their former landlord lent them. It was a garden apartment known affectionately and derisively as The Dungeon. There were two folding canvas chairs and two mattresses on the floor. I made Michael go to Target and buy another chair. They had a toaster, paper plates, cutlery, and a frying pan. We ate out a lot. However, this setup did not get me down because I was used to it. I’d just finished visiting my brother, Carter, and his family. They are re-doing the kitchen and most of the rest of the house as well. Folding chairs and paper plates for us. Oh, yay. My nieces were good enough to let Tom and me have their beds. They got the inflatable mattress on the floor.
Here’s Maddie sitting in comfort and elegance.
Maddie again, with the other floor-sleeping sister, Morgan.
Lack of proper beds and furniture didn’t stop us from having fun. The first night I was there, we went to see “Wicked”. I have no pictures of that. My kid wasn’t in it and pix aren’t allowed in the theater anyway. HOWEVER!!! If your kid IS in it, you can take pictures as you will see in a bit.
Here’s Michael performing the suicide scene from Mozart’s The Magic Flute in a concert at the Chicago Symphony’s “Day of Music. In this scene, Papageno decides to hang himself because he’s broken his vow of silence and consequently, his true love, Papagena, has been taken from him. However, the Fates are merciful and darling Papagena arrives just in time to save him.
This is one of everyone’s favorite operas, including mine. There are a zillion performances of it every year. Greer often sings Papagena.
Papagena and Papageno discuss how many kinderlein they will have.
I sat right in front (of course). Naturally, we got the “turn off your phones and no picture taking” speech. But I ignored the “no photos” part. There I was snapping away. During a short break some uppity woman came up to me and told me to stop taking pictures. Humph. I said, in my upper-class-butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth voice “Well, the artists have asked me to take them.” So there. She huffed grumpily away. A week after I came home, I got an email from Greer saying the Chicago Opera Theater wanted my pix for their web page. So there too.
The Lyric Opera of Chicago “Opera in the Neighborhoods” performed La Cenerentola (Cinderella) this season with our favorite soprano singing Clorinda, one of the ugly stepsisters. Greer first played an ugly stepsister in her first-grade class production and again (I think) in another school play. The role is now traditional for her. When I asked the stage manager if I could take pictures, she said “Of course! You can sit right here next to our photographer.” And so I did. When the pro photo man came he said “Which one is yours? I’ll be sure to get a lot of pictures of her.” Now, these people know how to treat mothers.
The production was fun and physically demanding. I don’t think those singers stood still more than 5 seconds at a time—if that. Here I am with Greer in her costume. Look! Our hair is the same color!!! (Greer is on the right. Tom made me put that in.)
Ugly girls get invited to the party, Cinderella stays home.
Here’s Greer and the Prince.
If you want to get an idea of all the fun, click here to see the movie I made with all the photos and music. I didn’t put it on the web page because it is BIG and I don’t want to have you all mad at me.
http://gallery.mac.com/themona#100011
The latest news from Greer and Michael is, they are finally moved into their new place. Now, they’re busy saying “Why did I keep THAT?!” You will see more of them on the Bangalore Blog because they’re coming to see us December 26 and staying for three whole weeks!! Yippeeeeee!! I can’t wait.
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