Eugene Onegin

Wayne was familiar with themes from this opera by Tchaikovsky and always wanted to see how the music fit into the story. So when UMich music school did a production, he bought tickets. I went totally unaware of what we were about to see. The opera is about a haughty young man who is what we now call a user. He visits a friend who lives next door to two young women. The friend is madly in love with one of the girls and the other sister, Tatyana, falls madly in love with Eugene in just one day. Give me a break. Is this the Russian idea of love? As you can see, times have not changed one bit. Even in the late 1800s people had these false ideas of love. So the young woman writes him a passionate love letter which he reads and then honestly tells her that he is a cad. At least he is honest.

Next we meet Eugene at a ball thrown by the young girls' family. Eugene decides to move in on the other sister and flirts with her. She is flattered. His friend is infuriated and challenges him to a duel. In the end Eugene kills his friend. Eugene wastes his life frivolously for several years moving from place to place trying to find happiness. Then he finds himself at a ball where the prince is in attendance. Low and behold the prince has married Tatyana and now she is a regal woman. Eugene discovers that he is madly in love with the princess and writes her a letter. (This guy has more lines than a telephone company.) She admits to still loving him (the prince is an older man) but refuses his advances and choses her life with the prince. Good choice girl. So the moral of the story is--don't be a user, you'll wind up unhappy in the end.

What these students accomplished was impressive--they learned the language and the music. But unfortunately, either the performance or the opera left you uninvolved. Perhaps it was because the acting was only mediocre or perhaps the opera is just mediocre, but I found myself missing the emotional involvement of great operas well done like the performance of Madam Butterfly. It was superb. Perhaps it is just that Tchaikovsky is no Puccini when it comes to operas although Swan Lake is certainly emotionally engaging. It was not a wasted evening, but it would have been better had the prices not been quite so much.

MR--Charlotte's Web

CHARLOTTE'S WEB--Julia Roberts as Charlotte

I've never read Charlotte's Web although my children enjoyed it. I'm not certain how close the movie is to the book or if a fan might be far more critical. As live action, it was really well done. I don't think the critics liked this or it was well accepted. However, I enjoyed this little movie despite a couple of characters that don't seem to fit. More importantly are the wonderful values about self-worth, friendship and sacrifice that are woven throughout the story. We enjoyed watching this.

Chocolate Royal Cheesecake Square

This is a really decadent chocolate cheese cake--not too sweet. Serve with whipped topping.

2 c crushed chocolate graham crackers or grahammy bears
1/3 c melted butter or margarine
4 pkg 8 ounce cream cheese, softened
1 c sugar
2 T flour
1 tea vanilla
1 8 oz pkg baker's semi-sweet chocolate
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix graham crackers and melted butter in bowl. Press into a 9 x 13 baking pan.
Beat cream cheese until soft. Add sugar, flour and vanilla and beat. Melt the chocolate and pour into the cream cheese mixture.
Beat in the eggs one at a time until mixed.
Pour over the crust. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until center is almost set. Do not over bake.

MR--Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

INDIANA JONES--Harrison Ford

As we watched this I kept thinking they were copying the National Treasures movie only it wasn't as good. So much time has gone by since the originals that we've forgotten how they brought this genre back and improved upon it. However, others have taken it up and now Indiana Jones looks old and tired. It was fun to see Karen Allen back, though. Glad we didn't see this one in the theaters.

Weekend In New England

Our first stop was the Joseph Smith birthplace Memorial. The grounds were lovely with perennials still in bloom and the walks were lined with mums. I felt envious of their apparent budget. We don’t even have that large of a budget at the temple for flowers. We ate lunch at one of the well cared for picnic tables and spent a little time at the monument. The FM group responsible is doing a great job.We drove down the tree lined path and took a picture. It was lovely. Then it was off to the Times and Seasons gift shop where were found a fun member/store owner. We found post cards and gifts for the family.

Because of traffic we had to skip our planned train ride around Lake Winnipesauke. Oh well. We had other fun things to do. We headed straight for the farm bed and breakfast. This was a little disappointing. The picture on the web site showed a new farm building without the trees. These pictures must have been taken may years ago or else photo-shopped. The house was really old and not well cared for. Camilla remarked that it was mainly garage sale quality. However, the dining room was very clean and the table was set with white linens. We had a nice dinner although the dessert was very old chocolate cake. Fortunately, we had brought treats from the local shop in Boston that were really yummy.

Camilla and Victor ended up without a shower in their room and so borrowed ours. Our room was over the kitchen, unfortunately because it was really warm. With no fan we opened the window but the room didn’t cool down until 4 am. Despite that it was large and we had a table that we pulled out, put up the leaves and played a game a scrabble. I won. This is the first time in the history of our married life that I have ever won a scrabble game. We used the pieces to play another game that one of the kids’ friends had made up. It was rather fun and we did several rounds of that.



By then it was pretty late. I did some knitting in the low light. Then we got ready for bed and found that the beds were like rocks. I used two additional pillows—one for the legs and one for my arm and still tossed and turned until 4 am. Despite the bad night we had a surprise for breakfast. They were serving fish balls. I passed but Victor and Wayne each got one. Victor afterward sang us a famous Broderick song about fish balls. Camilla couldn’t eat and I ended up skipping their underdone scrambled eggs for a bowl of Cheerios. Oh well. At least it was on nice dishes.

We headed out to Mt Washington afterward. Wayne was a little skeptical about this drive. We had to wait 10 minutes in line and he wanted to skip the drive. We convinced him that the 41 dollars was worth it and boy, we were right. This has be the scariest drive we have ever had. Each time we passed a turn-out I wish we would have stopped and turned around. By the time we got to the summit—8 miles and 6200 ft later—I was too scared to get out of the car. However, nature won and we had to drive up a steep ramp to get to the handicap parking. Victor declared it the scariest part of the drive. All the way up I was fearing the drive down, but when we started down, it was exhilarating not scary. The view was spectacular and we stopped and watched some really frightened drivers pass us. It was wonderful. If we ever go again, I want to tackle the train, which looks even scarier than the drive.

Everything after that was milktoast. We talked about it for hours as we headed toward the lighthouse. It was a gorgeous day to be at one of the most picturesque lighthouses in the country. Then, tired we drove home.

The best part of the whole trip, though, was the drive from Boston to New York the next morning. Every few minutes we were both saying, “Look!” as we drove through the freeway lined on both sides with gorgeous fall colors. Everyone should make that drive the first of October.