June 30, 2018

White Dog smiled at the memory of her first Opera Season. "I was just like Pearl is. She has checked the window every hour since you left." At one in the morning when we returned, our Pearly Girl was exhausted.

 The chorus of White Dogs was louder than the Opera's as we walked in...and when they saw the picnic leftovers Zso and Bai accented the theme with soaring howls of bliss.

Not only did the White Dogs enjoy the planned chicken strips but LOVED the thin tender strips of calamari. As we retold the tragically sad story of Madama Butterfly, the Army sniffled its way through blueberry empanadas.

White Dog leaned quietly against me. "Are you better, momma? You were pretty frazzled when you left." A bunch of last minute imps nipped at toes that were trying to pull it together and head to Santa Fe. Nothing was life threatening but added complications and details that were irksome. I was not in a good place.

It did not help when we arrived at the Opera, excited as school kids on the first day back to school. We were disappointed as we pulled in past other cars we have seen for years picnicking with beautiful setups and foods served in silver. The new efficient re-alignment of parking spaces has eliminated the casual parking arrangement and folks are forced to picnic at their back bumpers in the traffic lane; elegance gone for sure. It seemed like camping in the Wal-Mart parking lot...something was lost.  And not just that,  half of the handicapped parking spaces have been given over to new $1500 a season privileged parking. As Steve and I sat enjoying our lovely meal in the stripped walkway, we heard many stop traffic coordinators to be told that they must park in regular parking but could "drop off" disabled guests.

So I told White Dog, it took me a bit of effort to slide into the opera groove, into a story made so much more poignant because of America's current imperialism. One thing that helped was chatting with a young man who worked on the set when it was built for the 2010 performance. It was nice to hear his behind the scenes accounting of what went into the relatively spare set which turned and was actually a quite complicated framework.

"But the music was amazing and the story as always tear jerking. I am better," I told her.

"Good." she sighed. "We are together now. All is good. Let us go to bed."