Measuring up

I’m having a “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” kind of day today. According to my friend Pat this unseasonable type of weather, temperatures see-sawing between 30 and 50 degrees F back and forth, makes all those germs and spores in the air active. Somehow they have chosen me as the host, nothing serious, but just feeling lousy.

Today I just vegged out after my morning walk, then watched some segments of Planet Earth. Who’s counting the number of times I’ve seen the films? These natural history cameramen are just amazingly talented and dedicated. I just love the diaries at the conclusion of each segment. Imagine staying for days on, living in the confines of a cave with bats and piles of dung just to get a perfect shot! BBC really did a fantastic job on this series.

As part of my yucky feeling survival, I try to eat something light and get a lot of rest. Light as in chicken soup and Jell-O for dessert! Jell-O? In my senior years, I have become less ambitious in the kitchen and started taking the easy route. Dissolve and chill. Jell-O although not exactly comfort food, is easy to digest, I think, and if it makes Cosby’s kids jump for joy then it must be good.

Which raises a question. What is Jell-O made of? Jell-O as we know is the brand name for a gelatin dessert preparation. Gelatin can be found as ingredient in a lot of foods as thickener or emulsifier and in pills as coating to make them easy to swallow.

But where does gelatin come from? You better be sitting down for this unappealing truth! Gelatin is a processed version of protein called collagen. The gelatin you eat in Jell-O comes from the collagen in cow or pig bones, hooves, and connective tissues. These parts are ground and pre-treated with strong acid or base to break down the cells and release the collagen. There’s more to it but Food Chemistry is not our subject here so we’ll skip the details. Yes indeed, and you claim you don’t eat pig’s knuckles, ears or chicken cartilage. Surprised huh? Or maybe not.

Gelatin is ubiquitous and can be found in yogurt, chewing gum, cream cheese, soups, cake icing, sausages, cosmetics, pills, etc. Yikes!
And gummy bears also.
No big deal. I am partly made of collagen too!
I love Jell-O just don’t give me that green-colored flavor. It’s a good simple dessert by my standards. I tell you I'm feeling much better already, thanks to Jell-O.

Mission possible

Our Carol (the wife, mother, sister, daughter, cousin, aunt, niece, in-law, friend) has done it again. She was accepted to the Doctoral Program in Nursing at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey!

Congratulations. We never doubted your ability. In less than five years, she’s accomplished so much. First, uprooting herself from a career of over 19 years as nurse in Michigan City, Indiana, leaving her husband Ped and son Marc and moving to New York as a traveling nurse. Ped followed suit after a year of her stay in NY, successfully landed an equally great job at Memorial Sloan Kettering, while Marc stayed in Chicago to get established on his own. This would eventually turn out to be a great decision Carol made, expanding her career, working permanently at an administrative nursing level at the Hospital for Special Surgery, and finishing her MS in Nursing this year. And then pursuing her educational goals further.

All in one fell swoop, she did these. Cool as a cucumber as she gets to the finish line!

Typical graduate programs take five to seven years to complete but according to her, this will take two years. This is not to be taken lightly. We know Carol could do it and with flying colors. Committing to a PhD also means some sacrifice, perseverance and hard work and that’s not new to her. Take heart! This is exciting and a positive experience that will further enhance her leadership skills. She loves being pushed and challenged and I’m sure she’ll be best served by this choice in career path.

We’ve known her to be ambitious from the start, whatever Carol wants Carol gets. She doesn't let anything stand in her way. The family is behind you, Carol. Go for it, we'll be there to cheer you on.

A lovely family, a successful career, a house in NJ a couple of years after they moved to NY and now this graduate program. And the NYC half-marathon in January and the Chicago Marathon next year. That’s a given!

Marc says “Dr. Tinio has a nice ring to it, Mom”. It sure does and it's a reason to celebrate, family!

To sleep, perchance to bloom

Cyclamen persicum

On my first visit to Phyllis' enviably gorgeous apartment in Manhattan, I spotted this plant on the kitchen counter wilting and almost out of life. I must've sported my "St. Bernard's sad eyes" look that she asked if I want to adopt her plant. She was about to discard it. Sitting in it's original green plastic florist pot, this corky tuber which still seemed to be capable of being revived, found its new home at my place. I don't mind that my neighbors unload their dying plants at my front door, so why should I turn this one down?

I repotted the root and took care of it indoors occasionally moving it from room to room in order for it to get some sun. I followed its growth from day one and took pictures as it evolved into a lush plant with deep magenta flowers. It was a crash course on cyclamen propagation; much of the tips I got from the Cyclamen Society website. Isn't it a luxury that we have all that information at our fingertips nowadays? And isn't it cool that there exists a Society for almost anything?

Of particular interest was the way the petals reflex back from the center as the flower approaches the final stage of full bloom, likened to a graceful layback spin by figure skater Michelle Kwan. The blooming process would be interesting to catch with time-lapse photography. For one season, Phyllis' plant provided such a radiant touch to my place especially during the holidays. During its second season it didn't bear any flowers, so I decided to plant it directly on the ground. For a while I thought I killed the poor plant but it turned out it was just laying dormant in the summer time.

Last month when we met with Phyllis and Chantal, they asked me about the cyclamen and I sadly admitted of it's death. Then one day after my Fall cleanup in the garden my mother announced that she saw some new growth in the garden. Two little pink buds were peeking out of the stiff frozen soil. She knew I'd get a high out of this one.

Mother was on target! Voila. It was the cyclamen roused from it's beauty sleep. I rushed to the garage, reached for a pot and some soil and brought this plant back indoors. If this sounds like it was such a big production, it may have been and I expect only an avid gardener to understand. We were so thrilled.

Awakened from its beauty nap, the cyclamen warms up the house on cold wintry days. Thanks, Phyllis. It is a sweet reminder of our friendship.

La Damnation de Faust

It's not strictly an opera but rather a symphonic poem as I learned today. La Damnation de Faust is based on Goethe's legendary Faust, composed by Berlioz and staged as a "dramatic legend" by the Met.

We witnessed a new direction the opera has taken as the Met under Peter Gelb's management mixed traditional stage set with cutting edge software technology. It was hailed as the marriage between theatre and state-of-the-art video technology. Holger Forterer a German interactive video designer takes the credit for using this technology for set design. This was done skillfully without the video imagery overwhelming the music or drama. The images were not pre-recorded, rather the performers, acrobats, dancers and singers contribute to the projection through their movements or the pitch of their voices.

The producer Robert Lepage is known for his Cirque du Soleil production of Ka among others. To the unschooled like myself in this type of production, the set appeared to be a cold metal scaffolding of sorts with boxed compartments resembling the old Hollywood Squares television board which is a stack of open-faced cubicles.

But it is more than that. There were elaborate changes taking place, video projections on the stage, acrobatic and classical dance and of course the Met boasting its talented mezzo-soprano Susan Graham as Marguerite, Marcello Giordani as Faust and John Reylea as Mephistopheles. James Levine could not have been the perfect conductor bringing back this production to the Met. It has not been performed here in over 100 years.

Not everyone though was thrilled with this innovative style. At intermission, overheard in the ladies room line was a little old lady chastising Peter Gelb for his approach to this production. "It's utter nonsense", she declared. "Purely and totally nonsense. You can teach dogs, monkeys and horses to walk backwards too. This is not an opera. It's a symphonic poem and it belongs to the cinema!".

Outspoken and opinionated, she takes a very firm stand against this and all future productions under Gelb's flagship and swore that she'll write the Met out of her will and will not renew her subscription of 60 years. She is one dissatisfied benefactor. All because of change from tradition.

La Damnation de Faust where art meets technology. I feel privileged to have witnessed this change. (Sorry about the blurry picture of the stage; that was a strictly forbidden stolen shot).

Simply the best

The roads were empty on the way to New Jersey but as usual the expected happened. Between Mapquest's sucky directions and Jersey's horrible road signs, I don't know who to curse; we missed a turn and ended up in a gas station for help. This I was trying to avoid since we are not on friendly territory. If you've driven on the Jersey Turnpike you know you're toast if you miss an exit or a turn!

I was disappointed that the Prudential Center Arena with an 18,000 seating capacity wasn't filled to the roof. Our seats were perfect mezzanine center, it was too bad that I was such a jerk to be so "law-abiding" not to bring a camera. I saw lots of people taking pictures, not fair. Security check even made me dump my can of ginger ale and bottled water into the trash. So mean!

The minute Tina got on stage half-hour late, the arena rocked. However I found the New Jersey audience to be a little subdued compared to the New York crowds.

The 69 year old still sexy but classy Tina was energy-packed and her voice seems to be more powerful than ever. Wearing those 6-inch spike heels and doing her signature leg twitches and kicks, body and head shakes, she displayed such physical stamina most women in their 60's would have long lost. Her singing remains flawless as she reached her golden age, the crowd roaring as she sang What's Love Got to Do With It, Al Green's Let's Stay Together, The Beatles' Help, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary, Private Dancer, Simply The Best and a host of other old and new songs.

The band electrified the stage, the whole set and the show with the dancers, back-up singers and the pyrotechnic display was a blast! She began to sing Proud Mary with a series of nice and easy body sways that teased the audience and finally broke into an explosion that's Tina Turner's trademark.

She was great, seemed fearless as she was lifted by a cherry picker several feet above the band on stage, and continued to sing and dance on what looked like a narrow slippery runway.

What a performance! Age-defying, strong and still sexy, sometimes referred to as the female Mick Jagger, Tina Turner is simply the best.

Giving thanks

Day of giving thanks and we did.
I'm grateful for good health and the things that matter.

Yesterday I got a call from a good friend who offered a couple of tickets to the concert of Tina Turner tonight at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. How can I say no to that? Not even on Thanksgiving Day. This is Tina Turner my goodness, what is there to think about? Free, mezzanine premium seats ($100 each) and the show doesn't start until 7:30 pm anyway, so we have plenty of time.

We didn't waste any time -picked up the tickets, quickly said our thank yous and hurried back home. Chong had to rearrange the schedule such that we'll have early dinner (she always invites us for Thanksgiving at her place), then leave for NJ around 4:30 pm. Good enough for me, I'm not the one who's driving. Not to New Jersey anyway! It's the pits we always get lost. And at night? Fuggedaboudit!

I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, I'm sure Tina is going to bring the house down.

Proud Mary keeps on burnin', rollin', rollin'....

Now I have one more thing to thank God for - these priceless tickets that just came from nowhere. Am I lucky or what? See 'ya later.

Far from the madding crowd

We visit places, take home souvenirs and often times never bother to check for their authenticity or meaning. Maybe we doze off as the tour guide provided the commentary or were too busy taking photos; whatever it is, I now have this need to jog my memory.

This wooden paper weight has sat on my desk for the longest. It’s labeled “From the yew tree Stoke Poges Church”. Not having seen one, I decided to look up the significance of the yew tree.

Check this out. Most parts of the tree are toxic. No wonder I’m getting occasional memory lapses and brain freeze and as a result, often I just stare and suffer from blogger’s block. Thanks to yew!

Ironically it is also the source of a potent chemotherapeutic cancer drug (Taxol). The alkaloid or bioactive chemical can be extracted from the bark of the tree. We might recall how Al Gore and other environmentalists were strongly opposed to this since it will end up killing the trees. The yew is associated with Wales and England and commonly found in the church yards. They can live as long as 2000 years and have become a symbol of life but sometimes also referred to as the “tree of death” because it is poisonous. The only part which isn't is the fleshy part of the seed.

It is all coming back to me now, after nearly two decades. We visited this very old tiny church Stoke Poges is the name, in the countryside of England. According to the literature, in 1750 it is in this church graveyard that the poet Thomas Gray wrote his masterpiece Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Remember the phrase – "Far from the madding crowd"? He later was buried beside his mother also in this churchyard. Related to this are the spin-offs taken from the famous line - Far From the Madding Crowd, an 1874 novel which is a portrait of English rural life, by Thomas Hardy and later in 1967 a film production where Julie Christie played the central character Bathsheba. It’s good to learn that even in those days when it was not fashionable for a woman to be independent there was Bathsheba who broke the mold.

The photos I took (before the days of digital cameras) were a reminder of how beautiful and tranquil this place was. The church pews were made of thick wooden planks that have shown their age. The place, peaceful and truly an ideal breeding ground for churchyard poets. Far from the maddening crowd, indeed. Below is the Litch Gate entrance to the church and graveyard.

All these and more. Amidst this frenzied society, Long live the yew tree!