Because I have That Kind of Face

Do you have that kind of face, a face like mine? A face that beckons every weirdo in a thirty mile radius and says, without your lips even moving, "Tell me something about your scary life. GIVE ME DETAILS." A face that convinces people that you should be the recipient of their most personal information which they will tell you and tell you and tell you, even though you're actively backing away while looking at your watch and saying, "OH LOOK AT THE TIME! I'M LATE FOR MY LOBOTOMY APPOINTMENT."

Listen, I am a nice person. Fairly nice. Say, not nearly as nice as my grandmothers (they both had That Face too) or as nice as my mother, but one heck of a lot nicer than Kim Jong Il. I'm not insensible to the needs of others to unburden themselves of painful experiences, or find a shoulder to cry on. I understand that, I really do. And I'm not actively opposed to being the person who holds the burden or offers the shoulder. At least until last Monday, I wasn't.

People have told me stuff ever since I was sentient enough to sit up straight and say, "What happened next?" (Note: It is ALWAYS a mistake to ask this question. A better question to ask might be, "Do you hear that tornado siren?") One time I remember in particular was when I was a Ball State student and a fellow co-ed from a class on modern poetry followed me to the student center, talking. And talking. I bought a Tab, she bought a Tab. I went to sit in a booth, she accompanied me. And while we were sitting in the booth drinking our Tabs, she confided in me, "When I was in high school, my acne got so bad, I tried to dry out my skin by soaking cotton balls in lighter fluid and using it on my face."

Yeah.

I told the world's record for the fastest speed at which one can exit a booth while babbling, ""I'msosorrybutIhavetogo.IjustrememberedIhavetocatchaplanetoMadrid.BecauseIjustdecidedto

bea foreignexchangestudent."

Episodes like this have continued to happen over the years since I received my diploma, which was for English literature, but maybe should have been for psychology. But one of the worst in recent memory happened last Monday.

I was at the YMCA, in the swimming pool, getting ready to start the hour-long water aerobics class I attend. It's a pretty big class, about twenty-five people, so we're all crowded into the water like a school of little fishies. It makes it easy - FAR too easy - to strike up a conversation with people nearby. Now, listen, when I go to the gym, I don't mind trading pleasantries with people, but I go there to work, and my feeling is that if I'm in the pool conversing with my fellow splashers, I'm not really giving my all to the cardio, know what I mean? So I try not to get involved with the talkers.

Try as one might not to get involved, sometimes the talkers will just HAVE YOU. As I was warming up for the workout, one of them made her way over to me and said, innocuously, "So how are you this morning?"

I smiled at her, swishing my arms back and forth through the water, warming up those muscles. "I'm great! How are you?"

MISTAKE! MISTAKE! BAD MISTAKE!

If you get the vibe that someone might tell you a bunch of personal stuff about themselves you definitely do not want to hear, it is a very, very bad idea to ask them, even out of social politeness (the kind where you don't really care how they are, but ask anyway because that's just what we DO) how they're doing. You know why?

THEY'LL TELL YOU.

The water aerobics instructor, Becca, waded through all the people in the pool and started the class, saying, "Let's start with a jog. Move those arms and get your knees up high!"

"Well," my pool friend said confidingly over the splashy noises going on around us and the sound of Bachman-Turner Overdrive singing "Takin' Care of Business" in the background, "You might have wondered why I don't have any teeth."

Honestly, what do you say when someone says something like this to you? I mean, you have to be nice to people. Yes, you do. Don't argue with me. The world is bad enough as it is without people like you and me responding with something like, "No, I can truly say to you that I have never even once wondered why you have no teeth and I don't want to think about it right now, so move on, sister."

Becca yelled out, "Jumping jacks! Arms UP! MOVE that water, ladies!"

I said, "Uhhhhh.....welll....err......"

"I don't have any teeth because I used to do crack," my pool friend said at high volume.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, hoping that was the right thing to say. It hardly seemed appropriate to say something reassuring like, "That's okay. I know a lot of people wholost their teeth because they did crack" because I don't. Thank goodness.

"Yeah, me too," she bellowed. Becca looked inquiringly over her shoulder and then said to the class, "Back to a JOG, high knees! PUMP those arms!"

"Yeah, the guy I live with did too, but we quit."

"Oh, good!" I offered plaintively, wishing that Becca would tell us to do the remaining forty-five minutes of the class under water.

"It was bad," my friend hollered, shaking her head dismally. "I have four kids, and they had to go live with my mother."

"I'm so sorry!" I yelled back, splashing. I tried to put a little distance between us by craftily moving back in the water, but she caught on to me right away and followed.

"Boy, you really move around in the water!" she observed. "Well, anyway, where was I?"

"I have no idea," I said firmly, but she'd already recalled that she'd left off at the part where her kids were with her mom because she and her live-in boyfriend were both doing crack.

"So anyway, they're pretty much grown up now and I wanted to get some teeth, but now I have TMJ and osteo-arthritis in my jaw, so it isn't going to work out," she said, confusing me with her slightly garbled story.

"Oh, I'm sorry...."

"So my son? The one that's twenty-one? He came over to our place the other night and he stole about eighty vicodin pills out of our bathroom medicine cabinet."

At that point, I nearly just stopped in defeat and drowned myself. I mean, what the heck? Who was this woman? The other ladies in the class are retired teachers. Retired nurses. Current nurses who work non-day shifts. Ladies who serve Meals-on-Wheels and volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul. Ladies who finish the water aerobics class and shower and go to bridge club together. I'm familiar with and comfortable with all those people, and most definitely out of my sheltered league when dealing with former crack addicts and the toothless mothers of pill-stealers. Not that I don't totally applaud her for being able to beat the crack thing, and not that I'm not sorry that her life took such a bad turn that she couldn't even raise her own children - that's a tragedy no matter what. But....but...why can't I just do my exercise? WHY?

"Cross-country SKIS, ladies! Get those arms and legs MOVING!" shouted Becca. The other members of the class obediently began thrashing around in the manner of skiers on an open field of snow. I felt like I'd just been hit in the side of the head with one of their poles.

"He's probably gonna sell them," she predicted gloomily. "And my arthritis is going to be kicking my butt tonight."

"I'm...so sorry," I offered inadequately. "Listen, I need to get out of the pool. I have to pee." It was a frantic bid for escape and a total lie. But at this point, WHATEVER it took to get away, anywhere.

"Oh, me too!" she exclaimed brightly. "I'll go with you!"

Unable to maintain my Zen-like serenity

So I was in a yoga class this morning and feeling pleased with myself because it was the first time I'd been able to maintain my balance nearly perfectly in a very respectably executed vriksha-asana, or tree posture.

The person closest to me, a woman who just recently began coming to the class, whispered "Hey!" in a quiet voice. Being me and so full of myself that I'm in danger of choking on my own eyebrows, I turned my head, ready to graciously accept her expressed hope that she, with many weeks of arduous practice, would be able to do a graceful and balanced tree like mine.

Instead, she pointed at my left ankle. "Hon, you've got a panty liner coming out of your pant leg."

I physically felt my face change. My mother and I both have a problem with this. While trying to express an outward attitude of calm and generous tolerance, it's often perfectly obvious that what we're really thinking inwardly is, "Oh, shut up, dirtbag." I tried to rearrange my features into a gentle smile while bending over to remove the DRYER SHEET from my pant leg. I crumpled it up and dropped it into my gym bag and briefly considered interrupting the class so that I could whack that woman in the side of the head with my water bottle. Just as a helpful measure to correct her faulty vision, you understand.

Panty liner, indeed. I am never standing by that hag again.

Menu Plan Monday

We've had some autumn-like weather in the past few days. Then we had some summery weather. Then it got all fall-y for a few days so that we couldn't go to the pool and missed those final moments, unreclaimable until next summer. Now it's hotter than hob of hell again and the central air is going full-tilt even when I get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. Whatever. I am cooking fall food and that's all there is to it: slow-cooker, bread machine, soups and stews, casseroles in the oven. Game on.

Menu Plan for the Week of September 12, 2011

Monday - Vegetable soup (simmering on the stove right now and smelling so delicious I just want to, like, eat the air) and homemade whole wheat bread

Tuesday - Roasted chicken (not a Julia chicken; just seasoned boneless, skinless breasts), rice pilaf, green beans

Wednesday - Parmesan-crusted tilapia (the recipe for which I got off the back of the box the tilapia filets came packaged in), sweet potato "fries" and green beans

Thursday - Poured-Crust Pizza, Hawaiian-style, which means topped with spicy barbecue sauce, Canadian bacon, onions and pineapple chunks.

Friday - Mom's Best Easy Meatloaf, oven-roasted potatoes and carrots, apple cobbler

Remembering

Like most people across the United States, I suppose, my first recollection of the morning of September 11, 2011 is that it was the most perfectly beautiful day - sunny and warm, without a cloud in the sky. Which seems like the ultimate irony.

Meelyn was eight and Aisling was six and they were both sitting at their little tables in the living room doing their schoolwork. I'd just finished teaching Aisling a math lesson when my husband had to leave for work. We kissed him goodbye and he cheerfully drove off, waving at the three of us as he drove off down the street. I turned on the television to put it on the cable channel that plays the classical music and the screen automatically came up to FoxNews. One of the anchors, with a grim face, was just announcing that the first tower had been hit by a plane, and of course it was being portrayed as a tragic accident, some kind of terrible pilot error, maybe. As I was standing there in front of the TV taking in that bad news, my husband's SUV came screeching back into the driveway.

"Something bad has happened," he said as he crashed back into the house.

"I know," I said soberly, indicating the television and keeping my voice low so that the girls wouldn't hear. "I just turned it on and saw the news. What happened? They're saying on Fox that a plane hit one of the twin towers."

My husband was looking at the television, at the smoke pouring from the side of what we now know was WTC one. "It wasn't just a plane. They're saying it was a jet."

I was shocked. "How can that be? A jet wouldn't be flying low enough to crash into a building in the city."

We both turned our attention to the television just in time to see the footage of the second jet, looking huge and surreal and so very wrong there among the skyscrapers, like seeing a rattlesnake curled up in your baby's crib, go crashing into the second tower, triggering a huge explosion that sent a massive fireball bursting out of the wounded building. Both towers were on fire, blazing, smoking. It looked like something out of a movie - how could something so shocking be real? - something that couldn't possibly happen on such a beautiful day.

A day without a cloud in the sky, until now.

"That was no accident," my husband said as the news anchor on Fox gabbled, "Another plane has just flown into the second tower! The second tower has also been hit! This can't be an accident!"

"I have to go to work," my husband said. He hugged me long and hard. "I'll call you later."

I nodded wordlessly and turned my attention back to the television. I felt very alone. All my friends were at work. My parents were vacationing on Prince Edward Island in Canada. But my friend Cato, who had just moved to Cincinnati with her family, was a stay-at-home mom. I called her and she answered with a trembling voice. Her TV was on FoxNews too, so we sat together while Mee and Aisling did their school work and her daughter Rebecca played on the floor at her feet. We sat there for about four hours, sometimes talking, but mostly just sitting in silence, but we were there together.

Here are the memories that stand out for me.

1. The worst part was seeing the people jumping out of the buildings. That image of the man and woman climbing together out of the building onto that windowsill and then jumping, hands clasped, was the worst thing I have ever seen. Ever. The news anchor said in a strangled, agonized voice, "People are jumping. They're jumping from the upper floors." Cato and I sat and sobbed, unable to even speak.

"Mommy, why are you crying?" Aisling came and asked me, her face scrunched with worry. "Are you sick?"

"Mommy's sad," I told her. "This is a sad day today."

2. The second worst thing I remember seeing was that camera shot from the harbor after the towers fell, where the entire skyline of New York City was obscured by smoke and dust. I've never been to New York City, but like a million other movie-goers, I'd seen that famous view a thousand times. Like the harbor view of the Sydney Opera House and the view of the bridge in the San Francisco harbor, it's probably one of the most easily identifiable landmark views in the world. But not covered up. Not obscured. I kept having to remind myself that this was happening, right now. It was real, not some apocalyptic movie scene.

3. The third thing I remember is the horror of watching that same cloud of ash, smoke, dust and debris roll like a massive freight train down the streets of Manhattan, hungry and malevolent. Watching the people run, screaming in raw terror. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," Cato said from her end of the phone. "Oh, God. It's going to kill them."

We heard that clip from a young woman, a reporter maybe? The one who'd been standing on the sidewalk with a camera, filming, when the cloud started rolling toward her. She began screaming,.and a man threw open the door to a shop and pulled her inside, slamming the door as the cloud went past. "You saved my life!" she gabbled. "You saved my life!"

4. Another horrible, horrible thing was watching the people in the streets after the buildings had collapsed and the cloud had passed. People staggering around in a critical state of shock, many of them with blood smeared in the ash and dirt on their faces. Some of them sat on curbs, their heads clutched in their hands. You couldn't see them without wanting to take each one of them by the hand and lead them somewhere safe, somewhere clean and peaceful. You couldn't see them without wanting to just hold them and rock them in your arms, wash their faces, find bandages for their wounds. You wanted to tell them that everything would be all right, but that was something nobody knew. With the horrors piling up by the moment, who knew if this was the worst, if something even more awful was going to happen?

5. "Let's roll."

In some ways, it's hard to imagine that it's been ten years. On the other hand, those memories are so clear, it could have all happened just last week. I know that there are going to be a lot of memorial services televised today. I know that the cable news channels will be having all day coverage of the camera footage of that day. I probably won't watch any of it. It brings back too many memories of grief and fear and that awful feeling of helplessness that there was just nothing to do but sit and wait and watch.

I don't want to have all those feelings and images brought back to me today. But then again, I know I'll never forget.

Songs that make me cry (hopefully you have some too?)

Aisling just played this song, Taylor Swift's "The Best Day," for me on the piano and I am seriously thinking about lying down on the floor and crying until my eyes fall out. I cannot listen to songs like Stevie Nicks' "Landslide" or Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game" or any songs about people getting older and children growing up; it's just ridiculous. I even cry over that absolutely STUPID "Butterfly Kisses" song, which just enrages me but I can't help it. That person who sings it, whose name I can't even remember, gets to the part about his daughter in her wedding dress and I am just a face full of bubbles and snot.

Once I was crying quietly to myself in a store while looking at handbags and some lady asked me in a concerned voice if I was okay. I said yes, I was fine and tried to get rid of her but she said persistently "Are you sure?" and then offered me a tissue and I was tempted to tell her that I just found out that I'd lost my job so that I wouldn't have to tell her that I was crying because Alanis Morisette's "Head Over Feet" was playing and it always reminds me of when my husband and I were first married. In the end, I couldn't lie and couldn't tell the truth, so I left her mystified, that nosey thing, thinking that I was weeping sadly over the fact that the Nine West bag I coveted was $110.

 I used to cry a lot over "Cat's in the Cradle" but it has that really distinctive opening bar and I generally can make it to the radio in time to quickquickquick switch the station, unless I'm in a store and then I just leave, abandoning entire carts full of groceries or once, an Ann Taylor Loft 100% wool gorgeous winter coat priced at a steep post-season markdown and WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!? Please tell me I'm not the only one who spontaneously starts leaking tears whenever certain songs start playing.

RECIPE: Outback Steakhouse Onion Blossom Sauce

For those of us who really like spicy food, the sauce that comes with the Awesome Blossom at the Outback (or at Chili's or Lone Star or wherever - the onion blossom has several permutations) is better than the actual blossomed onion. The saddest day I ever experienced at a restaurant was the day when my husband decided that he liked the sauce better than the ketchup he'd been using to dip his blossom petals into. This sauce doesn't just have to be reserved for battered and deep-fried onions, however: we've found that it is good on a number of different things, including the jalapeno cheeseburgers we ate for dinner last Monday, and even the "fried" potatoes I cook in my great-grandmother's cast-iron skillet.

I've had this recipe written on a sticky-note for about five months, so I'd say it's high time to get it recorded here where I won't lose it. This recipe makes a good portion of sauce - the serving size is two tablespoons, which is plenty - so I hope you can forgive the eensy-weensy measurements. It's worth it.

Blossom Sauce

Directions: Combine all ingredients together in a small mixing bowl; cover and refrigerate for about two hours before serving to allow the flavors to blend. Store leftovers in fridge, if there are any.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons horseradish (I like to use horseradish sauce because it's smoother and more blendable)
2 teaspoons ketchup (adjust amount according to taste; I always use a teaspoon or two more)
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed between fingers
dash black pepper
dash cayenne pepper

Menu Plan Monday (on Tuesday)

Sometimes, like on Labor Day, life gets away from you and you spend that vacation Monday thinking it's Sunday and then you wake up the next morning and confusion reigns all day. I feel that today - TUESDAY, goshdangit! - is successful because 1) I remembered to take Aisling to piano lessons, and 2) I remembered about Menu Plan Tuesday. Uh, Monday. Whatever.

Anyway, here's the inaugural post of the new school year.To read other people's weekly menus (it may give you some ideas if you've announced "It's chili night!" for the fourth time this month and here it is, only September 6) go visit Laura at her blog I'm an Organizing Junkie by clicking this link.

Menu Plan for the Week of September 5, 2011

Monday - Ahhh, what's past is past, so let's not dwell on it. But on the slim chance that you're interested, we ate jalapeno cheeseburgers on grilled buns with pepper-jack cheese, jalapeno pepper slices and Blossom Sauce, an awesome dupe recipe from the Outback Steakhouse - I'll post the recipe here after I post this article because it is a keeper. Instead of actual ground beef, I grilled some MorningStar Farms® Grillers® Originals because they are just delicious, full of protein and very low in fat.

Tuesday - Err, it's chili night! Grade School Chili, to be exact, with both chili beans (which are red beans in chili sauce) and black beans, plus lean ground beef and about half a cup of chili powder because we like it spicy. If I'm feeling fancy, I cook some diced green pepper and onions to throw in the pot, and my husband always insists on spaghetti noodles, just the way they served it at Connersville Elementary School back in the early 1970s. I cheat and use whole-wheat pasta.

Wednesday - Gorton's Grilled Tilapia (if you're thinking that I'm relying heavily on some frozen convenience foods this week, you're absolutely right), oven-roasted potatoes, peas

Thursday - Patty melts, made with those MorningStar Farms® Grillers®  again, but this is a totally different type of sandwich. I think everybody in Indiana knows what a patty melt is - and hopefully, they've had a chance to eat one at Willow Springs Restaurant in Hagerstown because theirs are the best, no argument. I make a lower fat sissy version that doesn't even come close to the real deal, but they're still pretty good, smothered with grilled onions and served with good ol' American cheese on grilled bread. I use olive oil for the grilling instead of butter, which makes me want to just sit down and cry over my Paula Deen cookbook, but we all have to make some sacrifices, right? - plus corn on the cob and maybe a green salad on the side.

Friday - We're having company on Friday - a friend of Aisling's is spending the night - so it's going to be Poured Crust pizzas, I'm thinking a 12-inch with sausage, mushrooms and onions and a 10-inch made Hawaiian-style with barbecue sauce, Canadian bacon, pineapple chunks and onions. Yummer!

A dentist's office rant and poll

I just went to the dentist's office for my regular six-month check-up, filled out some paperwork that needed to updated, read a copy of Redbook from cover to cover, played around on the internet on my phone, counted the ceiling tiles, mentally rearranged the furniture and added a couple of plants and more side tables, rehearsed every swear word I've ever heard, invented some new ones and finally, after forty-five minutes, got up, walked back over to the reception desk with steam coming out of my ears and nostrils, and informed the receptionist that there were places I had to be, things I needed to be doing and a LIFE I NEEDED TO BE LIVING, and re-scheduled for next Thursday at 1:00.

I'm tempted to show up at 1:45 and innocently say, "What? You mean I'm late? Like you were last week? Oh, sorry. It sucks when people frack around with your schedule, doesn't it?"

I understand that doctors and dentists and optometrists in all their many permutations have emergencies that throw off their schedules. Don't we all? Sometimes something as mundane as a slow freight train can make you ten minutes late for an appointment and send you screeching into the parking lot with your hair on fire. I understand those things.

But if a doctor's office is running more than fifteen minutes behind schedule, the front desk people need to start making some calls (that's one of the reasons we have to give them our home and mobile phone numbers, right?) instead of just casually allowing hapless patients to trail in and then sit there, cooling their heels. It's just bad form. It says, "I am a doctor and my time is more important than your time because, well, I am a doctor and I care nothing for you and your substandard master's degree from an inferior university or the child you have to pick up at school or the fact that you were due back at work for a meeting - SIT STILL AND KEEP QUIET, humble peasant. I will see you when I see you."

It also says that, emergencies barred, patients are being scheduled too close together. And that the office is run inefficiently. And it makes me really mad.

What do you do when you're kept waiting? Comment here on on Facebook, either one. Answer any or all. No fair telling me that I'm a grouchy old bat: I already know.

1. How long a wait do you feel is too long?

2. Do you sit there fuming in silence or do you inform the receptionist that you can't wait?

3. Have you ever considered biting your dentist on the thumb to revenge yourself?

4. If your doctor's office is one of the ones with the sign that reads "Appointments canceled less than 24 hours in advance will be billed our regular fee," have you ever considered billing them for your time for making you wait longer than fifteen minutes?

Some random thoughts of randomness

1. My dad bought a new bike recently. He's always been a big walker, and goes around the White Estates neighborhood where I grew up, picking up trash with his grabbin-claw or whatever that thing is called and a Wal-Mart sack. He enjoys biking around now too, although I don't think he can still pick up trash, because wouldn't that be kind of hard? You might have to pedal in circles around, say, a cast-off paper McDonald's bag, before you could actually pick it up. ANYWAY, my mom was talking about getting a bike for herself so that she could join him, and I brightly suggested, "Why don't you get a bicycle built for two?"

My dad, who was sitting in an armchair with his eyes fixed intently on SportsCenter, snorted. Mom cast him a brief glance and said, "The last time we rode on a two-person bike, on Mackinac Island? He said he had to do all the work."

"I did," my father said emphatically, his focus on the television unwavering.

"Well, maybe you could promise to pedal really hard," I said soothingly.

My mother sat thinking for a moment and then announced, "I think I'd rather just get a rickshaw. We've been married forty-nine years. Why bother with pretense?"

2. Our new school year starts this Thursday, September 1. Meelyn will be a senior and Aisling will be a junior. I AM STARING DOWN THE TWIGS OF AN EMPTY NEST, PEOPLE.

3. Since school is starting up, I think I'll start Menu Plan Monday next Monday, which is Labor Day, so maybe I'll start next Tuesday. Just keepin' it real.

4. Dobby was barking at the people across the street, who were doing nothing more threatening than sitting on their front porch, talking and drinking iced tea. I know, I can't believe the nerve of those trolls either. Dobby barked at them so violently, he fell off the back of the couch onto the floor. Epic fail.

5. I'm teaching a class in British literature this first semester, plus my usual Shakespeare class. The Shakespeare play for this semester is Julius Caesar, and by some amazing happenstance, because I promise I did not know about this earlier, the Indiana Repertory Theater is doing Julius Caesar this fall! I am very excited, because although I have the three extant copies of Julius Caesar on DVD (one starring Marlon Brando as Mark Antony and the other starring Charlton Heston as Marc Antony and the other one starring no one I've heard of before and ALL THREE OF THEM SUCK LIKE A SHOP VAC.

6. This morning in water aerobics class, the music of the day was the greatest hits of Elton John and I knew the lyrics to every single song. Did some great in-pool jumping jacks to "Philadelphia Freedom."

7. I've been accused by several people of shamefully neglecting my blog. It's been a very busy summer - that's the only excuse I have. I'll try to do better.

As the mother of teenaged daughters, I'd like to say to God:

Dear God, it would be really helpful if all the crappy, nasty, jerkface teenaged boys could be ugly mutts, while all the honest, nice and honorable boys could look like Greek gods. That would cut down on a lot of confusion for the girls in our house, since recently they've encountered some real wolves in sheep's clothing. Or, more to the point, some truly sucky young men that, as you might remember? -- On Wednesday of last week? -- their father was inclined to punch in the face, but who looked, on the surface, like the handsome and charming proverbial Boys Next Door. If, by chance, you live next door to a brothel-slash-bus station-slash-public toilet.

If you could please see to this straight away, I would be very grateful.

Thank you,

Shelley

"A plague on both your houses"

I went with Katie on a scouting expedition to the Illinois Shakespeare Festival at the University of Illinois at Bloomington and we saw a wonderful production of Romeo & Juliet that just took. My. Breath. Almost literally, since the perfect little theater is an outdoor venue and when the play started at seven thirty, it was still about ninety-two degrees outside.

My favorite Romeo and Juliet is still the 1996 production, directed by the genius Baz Luhrmann, and starring Leonardo di Caprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet. For all of you who wonder about Leonardo's ability to pull off a believable Romeo, just watch it, is all I can say. And Claire Danes has a way with the innocent and girlish, yet steel-spined Juliet that will break your heart and make you think back to the days of your first love, I guarantee. There are lots of stars in this production, including a sinister and scarily nasty-sexy John Leguizamo in the role of Tybalt, the Prince of Cats, but the best of them all is the above pictured Harold Pirreneau as Romeo's best friend, Mercutio. He is full of life, right up until the moment he dies.

"A plague...on both...your houses," he gasps out, clutching the mortal wound Tybalt has given him with a switchblade. He turns, dazed and disbelieving, and mutters, "They have made worm's meat of me." Then he wheels back around, summoning his remaining strength and screams in the white-hot fury of one young and dying before his time, "A PLAGUE...ON BOTH....YOUR HOUSES!"

It's one of the most arresting moments of cinema I've seen, and hands-down Shakespeare's best curse, with Caesar's ghost in Julius Caesar coming in a distant second with the ominous, "Thou shalt see me at Phillippi."

The Mercutio in the Illinois Shakespeare Festival production we just saw was very, very good (played by a young actor named Santiago Sosa) and his moment to utter is the moment I always wait for in Romeo & Juliet, one of my own personal tests by which I judge the performance, asking myself Did that raise the hairs on the back of my neck and render me momentarily incapable of inhaling?

Santiago Sosa did a creditable job, although I have to say like there's nothing better than the banshee scream under Luhrmann's direction. Yet. I'll be happy to attend as many performance as I can, so as to compare and contrast, of course. My pleasure.

Here, for your own pleasure, is the very clip I've been talking about.

(And by the way, Katie and I both agreed that the Illinois Shakespeare Festival is a very worthy off-year trip for my students and their parents, great for the summers when we aren't traveling to Ontario.)

A moment of unabashed and guilt-free gloating

HA! HA HA HA! There something I've wanted to be able to do for a long time here at InsomniMom, something I couldn't do because Blogger was being glitchy and weird and not allowing people to fix this particular problem that was occurring with their blogs. There were hundreds and hundreds of pleas in the Help center, begging the powers-that-be to get this thing fixed already. But yesterday? I just happened to check back and Blogger has resolved the issue with their software and I FIXED THE PROBLEM and if the problem occurs again, I CAN FIX IT THEN, TOO. So HA HA HA, stupid mean troublemakers. HAAAA!!!!