SITC People's Choice Awards: Rigoletto in the Park or Cat Bingo? 
Well, hello there Saturday.  What to do?   Today I had failed to find a suitable Groupon, Bloomspot, LivingSocial, Yelp, Goldstar or TravelZoo voucher that would direct me how to spend my day in making things and being crafty, so instead I had to freestyle it.

Well, at least until tonight, where I'd got a voucher to go to a free showing of Rigoletto at AT&T Park for the opening night of SF Opera's season with a big bunch of Brits.  But more on that later.

I got up around 8am, having treated myself to a night on the Tempur-pedic in my spare room.  Ahh.... snoozy bliss.  That mattress is so damned comfortable - I'm sure my guests sleep better than I do!  I had a squash lesson booked for 10am with George at the Bay Club, so about 9am, I start to head out along the Embarcadero via the ferry building, where I very briefly saw my wee Scottish mate who makes the best chutneys on the planet, Alison.

 http://www.mcquadechutneys.com/

She was there with her brother, Roy who was visiting for the day and who had been roped in to help her make chutney - gotta love putting the family to work on visits!  (what, mumsie? what's that? oh...stop yer complaining and git back to work!).  I'm going to be helping her sell her chutneys at Fall Fest - a local artisan foodie fair held in SF every, um, Fall.  It's going to be a lot of fun, its on Oct 13th so come visit us and buy a load of chutney!  http://sffallfest.com/  Who knows, you may even end up making a guest appearance in my blog....

What everyone is wearing this season, dahlink...

However, today alas - in contrast to my usual tradition with Alison - there was no time to stop for champagne at an inappropriately early hour as time and squash lessons wait for no man, so it was back onto the steel pony and head over to the Bay Club.

As you can imagine, my wardrobe of squash-appropriate attire is somewhat limited in scope (I'm not sure they let you play if you're a girl and not wearing a skirt).   All I had to wear was a bright pink Nike tennis (i think) skirt which I'd actually bought for a pole-dancing lesson some years prior.  It actually didn't look too bad - other than, unfortunately, of being the color a 7yr old girl (or stripper) would choose.  So what did I decide to pair said skirt with, to offset the pinkness of it all?  Yep, a slightly darker pink top.  I have no idea what was going through my mind when I threw that in the gym bag this morning - maybe i was hoping to distract George from my atrocious nascent squash skills by dressing like a stick of Hubba Bubba.

Anyhoo, the squash lesson was great (I won't bore you with all the details) and apparently I didn't suck too badly (he said my backhand was actually pretty good), so I have another one booked on Tuesday, so I can consolidate everything I learned before it escapes my vapid brain.  The only question - what the hell am i going to wear??

After my squash lesson and heading home, it was time to indulge in my very latest fad - the chopped salad!  Why am I only just discovering this now?  They are yummy - and sooo easy to make.  Salad?  Check.  Chopping board?  Check. Chop?  Check.  Rockstar chef?  Check.

I did, however, discover that my enthusiastic style of chopped salad-chopping warranted a bigger chopping board so, with only the thinnest of pretenses to cover up an otherwise purely gratuitous trip, off to Bed Bath and Beyond I headed!

I bloody love that place.

Unlike the last time I went to BB&B for some tealights and ended up buying a whole new set of Kate Spade china that was on offer, I was actually pretty restrained this time.  I found the perfect chopping block for only about $30 (rather than the super high-end $300 black walnut ones I'd been drooling over online) plus I bought a new grill pan too that was on offer for about $25, so I managed to leave with my sales check only in the 2-digit range.   Result.  I even managed to resist the Kate Spade crystal glasses that were on special (sense a theme here?), so well done me.

Cool, huh?

Back home again, and all that restraint had fair tuckered me out, so it was time for a very quick snooze before tidying up a bit ready for this evening's fun and games.  As I mentioned earlier, I had managed to get some tickets to go and see the free showing of Rigoletto in the ball park, a simulcast of SF Opera's opening night's performance.   Lori was coming to join me, driving into town after a day in Berkeley, so she was arriving around 6pm or so.  I had also signed up to see the Opera with the Ex-Pat British and Irish Meet-Up group and - as it wasn't a hosted event - had suggested that if anyone did want to meet up beforehand, they could come round to mine as a meeting point.  I'd been trying to go to an Ex-Pat Brit Meet-up event pretty much since I came to SF, but just hadn't quite managed to get to one.  But this time, seeing as it was literally outside my front door, I had no excuse!!   I wasn't sure if anyone was going to come or not, but i stuck a little sign up on my patio and waited to see if anyone turned up!

Now - I should just mention that I hate opera.  It doesn't matter if its one of the best opera companies in the world, but any time I watch opera, I'm reminded of all those bad school plays and musicals I was either in or watched where the over-acting is rampant and the plots impossibly improbable.  In my time, I've given it a fair shot - a couple of years after moving to NYC, I went to go and see La Boheme at the Met.  I'd bought quite an expensive ticket, so that i'd have a great view but - it was no good.  By the half-way intermission, I was bored out of my mind and considering storming the stage to demand that everyone should just get on with it, so I bunked out and went to go and meet my Brit mates in a nearby pub for a drink.  I guess you really need to like continual pointless repetition about inconsequential matters in obscure languages for hours on end to "get" opera - and I got enough of that dating in Manhattan for 7 years.   *sigh*

But - this time, it was free, it was right next door and it had the potential to at least be sociable, if not entertaining, so I figured, why not?  From about 6.30pm onwards, people with accents as peculiar as mine started turning up - first Karen, then Lori, then Laura and Dominic and lastly Jeff.   No-one knew each other (well, obviously I knew Lori!) so it was great to be able to introduce people to each other and get to know some new peeps.  Everyone was really friendly and sociable, so I was glad I'd put the invite out.

Best seats in the house....unless
you wanted to read the subtitles

After gathering together enough pillows, cushions and blankets to keep us all toasty, if needed, as well as lending Lori a stunningly stylish pair of lilac-colored cat socks, we were ready to head out.  We waited til about 7.15pm (even though we had early entry tickets) because the line to get in was bonkers - I felt I should be entitled to a resident's pass and not have to queue at all, dammit.  But, alas, off to stand on line to get our bags checked with the great unwashed.  But, in the end, it didnt take long, so within 15mins we were inside the stadium and searching for that perfect spot with which to take in the magnificent performance.  Unfortunately the field was pretty full by this stage, but we grabbed some seats in the bleachers (that's what they're called, right?) and we were pretty happy with our selection.

Swapping fashion tips at the opera

Until the simulcast started and we realized that we had placed ourselves with a view of the screen such that the first half of the subtitles was completely obscured by the massive speaker in front of it.  Umm... yeah.  YOU try watching opera, from a distance, without your glasses on, trying to read the text AND trying to figure out what the bit was that you missed!!  Completely impossible!   Fortunately, I had a little knowledge of Rigoletto (bizarrely enough from secondary school - I remember it from Mr Lovell's music classes) so I vaguely remembered how much of a depressing story it was and how it all ended tragically (what a surprise) with Rigoletto accidentally murdering his daughter in a sack, rather than the Duke.  (if you want more of a synopsis than that, you'll have to look it up!).  And yes - after about 30 mins of singing about despair, curses, murderous plans and how terrible the price of bread was in Mantua, I was also remembering vividly why I don't like opera.

Count 'em!!  Go on... I dare you to try not to!!!

I kept myself amused by instead counting the number of ridges in Gilda's shiny and expansive brow (the lady in blue in the picture).  There really was quite an impressive, almost Klingonian, array.  I really tried hard not too, but I just couldn't help it.  Rather than getting lost in the emotion of the music and the beauty and poignancy of (half of) the words she was singing, I found myself instead with the almost uncontrollable urge to grab a large block of English cheddar and grate it on her forehead.   While I was thinking about cheese, one of my new found Brit mates, Laura, was obviously having similar troubles staying focused on the plot.  In one of the breaks, after Gilda had been doing lots of "O" mouth shaped singing, Laura made the passing comment that she thought she reminded her of the blow-up doll from one of the episodes of Only Fools and Horses.  I thought that was a little harsh, but she had a point - maybe that explained The Duke's sudden infatuation with her?  ("I feel like we have met before, fine lady...")

Anyway, with Ridge Face Plastic Lady as well as the Duke looking like he'd escaped from an Indiana Jones film, it was probably game over before it'd even started, so Lori and I managed to limp our way through 45mins before the decision of the day presented itself.  Do we stay and run the risk of becoming slightly more cultured but 100% more depressed, or do we bail early, go back to mine for a nice cup of tea and a game of Cat Bingo?

Cat Bingo Deluxe Box Set with free
bingo token dispenser included

No contest.  Cat Bingo it was, then.

For those of you who may have missed the earlier posts, Cat Bingo is a continuation of the legend that began in Yosemite with Wildlife Bingo last month.  It caused quite a stir when Lori and I played at Curry Village to the envy of young and old alike (only slightly ahead of the other gaming sensation of the summer, Bunyaviridae Virus Bingo), so Cat Bingo seemed the natural extension for two single gals on a Saturday night.

Anyway, unlike Wildlife Bingo, this box set came with fully pose-able models included, who were extremely helpful in both the token distribution and playing card chewing tasks.  Dylan found the Russian Blue particularly tasty,  They also provided free refereeing services deciding, with a swish of tail, whether either of us were getting too close to victory for comfort.  Alas, the descriptions on the back of the picture cards were somewhat less informative and interesting than those in the Wildlife Bingo edition (where, amazingly enough, we actually learnt stuff).  I think they must have used up all their research budget on WB - example: Russian Blue description - "this cat is blue in color and originally comes from Russia".  Really?  Wow.  I'dve never figured that one out.  I wonder if Sarah Palin can see it from her window?  Another classic was the "American Shorthair" - I have no idea what the person was smoking who wrote this, but here was the description:

"The American Shorthair is a hardy and independent cat.  It is thought to have arrived on the Mayflower in 1620.  It is a working cat with no extreme features, making it the all-American cat.  It comes in many colors and patterns, the most common pattern being the classic tabby".

Meet Chuck.  He's an All-American cat.
And - apparently - he works.

OK.  Firstly, it sounds more like a political statement than a description of a cat breed.  Secondly, what is an "extreme feature"?  The writer is basically calling the entire breed dull and plain - with less remarkable countenances than our own beloved be-grooved Gilda.  Finally - and this is the most heinous- the person who wrote this has obviously never owned a cat, and may never even have met one in real-life.  Perhaps their experiences have been confined to just reading about them in books or pondering Schrodinger's famous feline paradox.  Because I ask you this - cat owners of the world - have you EVER, even ONCE, in your entire history of feline servitude ever met a "working" cat?   As I sit here and type this and my moggies are hard at it with their 16th continuous hour of synchronized sleeping and shedding, I fear the very appearance of those two words in the same sentence are causing a schism in the fabric of space and time that only one individual in a larger-on-the-inside blue box may be able to fix.    And - pray - if it were true and the American Shorthairs were indeed the unsung working heros of the cat world, in what capacity do they ply their furry trade?   Cat burglers?  Cat-tle ranchers?  Meow-sicians?

Anything, even love, is possible in Cat Bingo...

Fortunately, even for the hardest working cat, there is always time for love, so, Lori and I were delighted to be able to introduce Chuck to Tiffany, helpfully described as a medium-sized cat with a semi-long coat.  Tiffany (on sabbatical from the One Hit Wonders of the 80's Bingo box set) didn't seem to mind Chuck's lack of extreme features and nature seemed to take its furry course.  Aww...kittens (oh - kittens are small baby cats?  really?)

In the meantime, the inaugural Cat Bingo smackdown was reaching its thrilling conclusion with Lori and I neck and neck in our attempts to claim Cat Bingo glory.  In the end, we both needed a single chip (not Chuck) to finish... and we both needed the Burmese!!  So it was that the evening ended in an honorable draw - it was, indeed, the cat's meow.