Real Royals

This week has brought out all the Royal-Watchers, and I have to admit that I’m one of them. My love affair with England began when I was twelve, when I first went to England for three weeks and began my love of travel. How could I not love it? It was rainy and old and literally foreign, with different food (stands selling hot chestnuts), different accents (blimey!), different transportation (trains & double-decker buses), different buildings (castles with turrets) and a different city vibe than I had felt anywhere before.

But I think the presence of the royals influenced the culture the most. While society gets farther and farther from ceremony, tradition, and respect for history, the presence of the British Monarchy gives us the true definition of class. We need more class.

Sure, some people may say that society is moving away from the royals – that they’re no longer needed, that they spend too much money. But we need examples of royal living. We need to see people bow and dress up and given titles of honor. In this world whose definition of “real” is watching people from New Jersey getting drunk in a hot tub, we need to see people living royal lives. We need to see that it’s possible. There really are princes and princesses living in castles, even nowadays. It’s a fairytale that is real.

Of course the Royals don’t have it easy; no one does. Their lives aren’t perfect; no one’s is. But that just makes them more real. So this Friday morning (at 3am!) I will sit in front of the TV like I did years ago, when Mom got me out of bed to sleepily watch the historic ceremony. I’ll see the military and the horses and the carriages and all the fanfare, live, right there, for real.

George's Buffet

This morning I took George for a walk before work, and on the way I had to suddenly pull him away from an apple core that was lying in the gutter. In fact, he has learned that any little thing on the street – rocks, leaves, twigs – might be food, so he knows to check out every single thing quickly before I notice.

George has learned from experience. There is always food lying along the sidewalks of our neighborhood. I have seen burritos, pizza, hamburgers, chicken legs, and more, and I often have to stop George and play tug of war to get a chicken bone from his mouth.

Why do people randomly toss away things? I also wonder about the number of times I see a lonely shoe on the side of the road – I’ve also seen a solo sock. Do these fly off motorists who drive with one foot out the window? I just don’t get it. I don’t think I’ve ever lost one shoe.

We live in such an excessive society, where we have so much excess that we let food sit in the refrigerator until it spoils, and we literally cover our sidewalks with food. A starving person would be in heaven just to walk my neighborhood, due to the smorgasbord that awaits. But for now, George is the one who enjoys it.

From Observer to Greeter

Oh, how I love to people watch. I’m sitting at Starbucks, and the guy outside is reading a book called All Things Shining. He’s sitting in the bright sunshine (the umbrella is still closed from our recent winds) and his feet are propped up on the chair across from him.

It’s Sunday morning, and Starbucks is bustling. All the tables are full. In fact, I had to quickly lose my place in line to grab the table where I sit today. Another man was also headed for it, and we decided to share the table, even though it was tiny. I told him, “We’ll just pretend we’re in Europe, where they share tables in restaurants.” I hoped he knew what I was talking about; it seemed like he did. So, right now he is sitting opposite me, reading the Wall Street Journal.

Against the wall is a young man who I have seen here two days in a row. He has no drink in front of him (maybe he’s been here so long that he already drank one?) and he is drawing. That’s exactly how he looked yesterday – sitting there in a low slung hat, drawing with an ink pen on a pad of paper before him. He’s chewing a toothpick – but on closer inspection I see that it’s a match that is hanging rakishly from his mouth. Much cooler. I wonder what his story is. Everyone has a story.

An excited group cry just came from the corner, where a family of three generations (at least) is hunched over a computer that is sitting on the coffee table. They are skyping with a family member somewhere far away. I should move closer and try to learn more, but I’m too lazy.

At a table in the window, a heavyset man sits alone with no drink. He is waiting for someone. Finally a woman enters, looks around the room, then walks over to him and introduces herself. It must be a blind date. I bet they met on the internet. They order drinks and their conversation mixes with that of the room.

Soon my role of Observer will change, due to the change in the season. It is now warm enough outside to resume bringing George with me, and we will sit outside next to the door and try to stay in the shade of the umbrella as the sun crosses overhead. There, we are the Greeters, and everyone says hello to George as they enter or exit. It gives him a big ego.

I love to be at home on a day like this, with the windows wide to let in the sunshine. But it’s also nice to be outside in the world, interacting even in a small way, being part of it all, observing.

Hat Lady

At the dog park today, a little black schipperke approached me cautiously while I sat on the bench with another dog owner. The dog barked at me a few times, then he walked up and let me pet him on the head.

The dog’s owner explained the dog’s behavior. “He’s friendly; he’s just never seen a hat before,” he said, referring to my sun hat and its wide brim. “I’ll have to start wearing a hat at home so he’ll get used to them,” the man added. Friday (the dog’s name) waited for a few more pets and then ran after George out onto the grass.

I think it’s a shame that people don’t wear hats anymore. (A baseball cap does not count.) I long for the times when people dressed up – the days of gloves and heels and hats, when women wouldn’t be caught dead in pants in public, when men wore hats and shined shoes and made sure their pants had a sharp crease.

What does it say about our society, now that people wear pajamas and slippers in public? The next time you’re waiting in line at the grocery, look around you and survey all the people within eyesight. Usually, there is no one dressed well. It’s a sea of dingy jeans, cutoffs, bra straps, and sweatpants. And of course I’m not saying we all need to dress up all the time, but I think it’s sad that sloppiness is the norm.

I wasn’t alive in the era I’m talking about, but I watched it on TV all the time. I loved those old black and white movies with the elegant men and women. And I loved looking at the photos of Mom and her sister in the 50’s in poodle skirts, cardigans, and bobby socks.

So, I am a hat wearer. When I wear a hat, it means I’m in a good mood. In hats, I feel creative, artsy, dressed up a little. When I see other people in hats, they seem jaunty, edgy. You have to have a certain self confidence nowadays to wear a hat. Hats make a statement. My sunhats make me feel like I’m on vacation. Berets feel European. Newsboy hats feel cocky, opinionated.

And hats hold memories. My Mom’s fellow teachers gave her a hat party when she had cancer and lost her hair. I hung a row of antique hats in the kitchen of my first apartment. I tend to buy hats when I travel to other countries. And Mom and I always wanted to buy me a real top hat – the kind that is flat and then pops out so you can wear it – just like Fred Astaire. I’ve always had a hat collection.

After writing this, it makes me think of my Grandpa, in his black shined shoes and houndstooth pants, stopping by the door to put on his fedora on the way out. I’ll have to find that hat the next time I’m at Grandma’s. It’s a connection to Grandpa, and to those past times that make me sentimental.

Ho-Hum or Exotic?

During the past few weeks, the Las Vegas winds have been brutal. I passed a vacant lot at the height of it and saw hundreds of tumbleweeds had collected in the downwind fence, creating a brown spiky sculpture.

It’s strange to see tumbleweeds in excess. When I grew up in southern Indiana, tumbleweeds were exotic – those lonely things that drifted across the road in old Westerns. When we took a trip out West one summer, Mom put one in her trunk so she could show her elementary art students. It hung on a string from the ceiling of her art room for years.

Another exotic item that is now commonplace for me is the palm tree. We have two in our front yard and even more in back, and I pass them on practically every road I drive in Las Vegas. But as a kid, I only saw them when we drove to Florida for vacation. In fact, it was a contest to see who would see the first palm tree. Usually it was me, and I would yell excitedly when I saw it.

What other things have now become commonplace in my life? Glitz, neon lights, celebrities, plastic surgery, slot machines, cacti, city-people, traffic…to name a few. All of these things were foreign to me in my little home town, but not necessarily as exciting as tumbleweeds or palm trees.

So, now I have changed. Now, the little things that were ho-hum in my little childhood life are now considered special…rain, thunderstorms, front porches, lightning bugs, football games on woods-surrounded fields, town festivals…towns in which the one stoplight was a novelty.

But the grass is always greener, right? I’m older and know not to take my palm trees, or my tumbleweeds, for granted. I live in an exotic place, and I can appreciate that.

Can You Find the Hummingbird?

On Sunday night we watched TV as normal, while George obliviously slept curled into a ball next to us. When we went to bed, I looked back at our evening and realized all we had seen was depressing destruction. On 60 Minutes, we watched a story about the devastation in Japan. Then we watched two episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, one of which took place in Haiti and showed the poverty and hunger there, and the second which was in Cambodia and talked about the annihilation of much of the population there back in the 70’s.

And we spent the evening in the second floor of our cozy house, eating chocolate chip cookies and milk, petting our fluffy dog and stretching out on our oversized sofa.

Of course as we watched, I did the normal daydreaming about what I wish I could do to help these people. I imagined having a homeless Japanese family move into our guest room so they’d have a safe roof over their heads. I imagined adopting an orphan from Haiti and bringing him here for food and comfort. But those are just dreams; instead, I occasionally send a check to a charity to do my small part.

This weekend we had severe winds in Las Vegas, the kind that makes sucking-noises through our windows and blows everything outside into one corner of our yard. And all weekend, I was worried about the momma hummingbird who we recently discovered in a tiny golf ball-sized nest in our courtyard. Luckily she managed to stay in the nest even though the branch was whipping around. Worried, and wanting to do something for her, I put a hummingbird feeder in the courtyard and trimmed back a neighboring palm tree that was threatening to poke her when it moved in the wind. On Monday morning, she was still there, and I wished I could do something to warm up the courtyard for her. Turn on the Jacuzzi? Open the nearby window and turn on the heat? I daydreamed for ways to help her as I watched her before heading off to work.

Then as I neared my workplace this morning, I had to slow down early at an intersection because a tiny chipmunk had decided at the last minute to dart in front of my car. Luckily the light finally turned red, so I sat there and hoped he had run away.

While I waited, a woman got out of the truck behind me and approached my window. Great, I thought. She either thinks something is wrong with my car, or she’s coming to bitch at me for delaying traffic.

But I was wrong. “He’s under your car!” she said when I rolled down my window.

She was worried about the chipmunk just like I was! She bent down and said, “He’s just sitting there.”

I joined her outside and we both tried to scare him into the bushes. We never did see him run away, but I assume he did. We got back in our cars and drove away very slowly, just in case he was still around.

I may not be able to adopt a Haitian orphan or build a new house for a Japanese family, but I can acknowledge life when I can. We show our humanity by doing the little things that show we care.

Next Sunday night, I think we should watch Family Guy.

Happy 25th, Jean Valjean

I spent Sunday afternoon crying. George didn’t even seem to notice, as long as I kept rubbing his belly. What, you ask, put me over the edge? It was PBS’ broadcast of the 25th Anniversary concert performance of Les Miserables.

(For those of you who aren't "theater people," this production is based on Victor Hugo's novel, and is a hugely popular musical that opened in 1985.)

It is almost cliché for a theatre person to like Les Mis. The snootier ones snub it as being too commercial, too pop, too popular. But I loved it long before it was popular to love it, before every Drama Club member or Thespian owned a Les Mis t-shirt.

Actually, the first time I saw the show, I didn’t like it. And, I slept through most of it. It wasn’t my fault, though. My high school theatre group had been to the Improv in New York City until 6am and then went to a matinee of Les Mis the following afternoon. We were destined to sleep – our seats were so far back that the actors were little dots on the faraway stage, and after all, it is three-hour-long, emotional show, which does not mix well with lack of sleep.

Three years later I sat third row center for the London production and was mesmerized. It was the first time I cried in the audience of a theater. Afterward I read the original novel and even did a school paper comparing the two. I even played the songs on the piano and of course sang "On My Own". I loved every bit of the show, every character. I think the best story is one that gives you reason to like the bad guys as well as the good ones. (Javert is my favorite.)

It’s easy to be moved by good theater. I’ve even put a CD in my car and cried to uptempo Broadway songs, just because they’re so damn good.

So, this Sunday I put in a load of laundry and then cried when Jean ValJean sang "Bring Him Home." I made myself some lunch and cried when Eponine died. I emptied the dishwasher and then cried when Fantine’s ghost appeared to take Jean Valjean “home.” And you can just picture me when the original cast members joined in for an encore.

I think it’s great to be moved to tears just because something is so good.

(p.s. I can't write all this without noting the fact that in this 25th anniversary production, Nick Jonas played Marius. He did a fine job, although his voice wasn't as strong as the rest of the cast.)