Just a few things I've been thinking about . . .

Where do dirty glasses come from? I am a coffee drinker. Period. Aside from the occasional glass of iced tea, I drink coffee. Coffee requires a cup -- just one cup. I start with a clean one every morning and as I finish one cup of coffee and get ready to make another, I wash the same cup that I began the day with. The Amazing Egyptian Dude drinks a cup of coffee in the morning before he leaves for the office, and a glass of hot tea (Egyptians drink hot tea in glasses instead of cups) in the evening before he goes to bed. If he has iced tea, too, then he has used a total of 2 glasses and 1 cup. Add to this my 1 cup, and I should be washing 4 drinking vessels daily. So how come my sink is perpetually filled with dirty glasses? Where do they come from?

Ok, we do have a guest now. And the past three or four weekends, Iman, Magdy, and Basma have been here. But still, that doesn't explain how a well-stocked cupboard can go bare in a matter of minutes and my sink fill up in record time! Unless . . .

. . . is it possible that everyone but me is using a different glass or cup each time they get a drink? And if they are, why is that I'm the only one washing all of them?



Who said picnics are outdoor events? On Saturday, we went to see the opening performance of the Long Beach Shakespeare Company's production of Julius Caesar. When we've attended performances in the past, they've always been held in a park where we could bring along a picnic. So when I invited the usual group of suspects -- er, friends -- to join us, I suggested that we just continue the established pattern of everyone bringing a dish for all to share. I fried about 40 pieces of chicken, made a gigantic bowl of macaroni salad, and the Amazing Egyptian Dude filled the ice chest with water, soda, and ice.

Imagine my surprise when, as we were approaching the freeway exit, I get a call from Diana, the 4th grade BFF who joined us for the first time this year, telling me that the address from the company's website was actually a furniture building of some sort. What?! Sure enough, the performance was being held indoors at an empty furniture expo that the city of Long Beach owns. Despite the change of venue, our picnic was still on.

Although the acoustics in the building left a lot to be desired, the performance was quite good. Each member of the richly diverse cast performed his or her heart out and played as if to a full house. The dance at the Lupercalia was a bit unusual because the ancient Roman festival was celebrated to honor shepherds and this production's director turned it into a visual orgy better fitting the Bacchanalia. It is strange turns in the interpretation of the plays, like this one, that make me genuinely enjoy watching performances by local theater companies.


During the intermission, the company's Co-Artistic Director, Denis McCourt, introduced himself to us and engaged us in a friendly conversation. A very personable fellow, Denis was genuinely interested in feedback from the audience as well as ideas for future productions. It was from Denis that we learned why the venue had changed. The Furniture Expo is an empty building that belongs to the city of Long Beach. Someone, somewhere, somehow was able to convince the city to allow the building to be used for a Center for the Arts and with the city's agreement, the company is allowed to use the facility at no cost. For small theater groups such as the Long Beach Shakespeare Company, find a free venue is a godsend.

In these trying economic times, families look for things to do that cost very little. Check your city to see if they have a theater company and if the do, go see a play! It is very often free or very low cost if a fee is involved.

Here's wishing everyone the start of a great week!

Post about 5 favorite things from the past week. It can be anything that tickled your fancy: favorite quotes, posts, happenings, scriptures, recipes, pictures, great internet finds, etc., etc. Be as detailed as you like, the more detail the more fun for those of us visiting. Susanne, the hostess, just asks that it be kept family friendly. Click here to play along with us.


1. This week, I'm grateful for my baby sister and America's Got Talent. I've had a week full of seizures, most of them worse than normal, so I haven't been feeling as optimistic as I usually do. In fact, I slept away much of the week as always happens when The Brain takes charge. My sister called me yesterday to check in and knowing how much I enjoyed Britain's Got Talent, she asked what I thought of this season of America's Got Talent. Well, D-U-H, I didn't even know that it was on! After we finished chatting, I visited the NBC website and got caught up with the show. I have two favorites so far: Barbara Padilla, whose YouTube videos have the embed feature disabled, and




2. When the Amazing Egyptian Dude was acid washing, cleaning, then refilling our swimming pool on Sunday, he sent me to Home Depot for some additional supplies. Since the pool supplies are in the garden center, it provided me with the perfect opportunity to look at house plants. I was thrilled to find a new orchid plant for just $6.98!



3. Camry has fully recovered from her spay surgery and is back to her old tricks. Having had cats all my life, I know that they are fascinated by bags and boxes. Camry takes this fascination to the level of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, though! No box, no bag is safe when Camry is around.


Typically, we reuse the plastic shopping bags for the trash cans in the bathrooms and bedrooms. But after seeing Camry's latest misadventure, I'll have to remember to cut the handles so that if she grabs one, she doesn't become entangled in it.

4. My brother-in-law makes some mean felafel so when he made a huge batch on Wednesday and shared a freezer bag full of the raw mix with us, I was a quite the happy camper. Egyptians eat felafel any time, but it's especially popular as a breakfast food, like this:


Clockwise on the plate, starting at 9 o'clock is felafel, tomato, gargeer (I think this is watercress in English, but I'm not sure), parsley (beneath the gargeer), pickled turnip, and chili peppers. A dish of tahini sits at the center of the plate.

5. I am really looking forward to tomorrow! A local Shakespeare Company has a summer stock type show season at a park on the beach. Attendance is free, and the park has a picnic area. Ever since I had the brain surgery, we haven't gone. I decided that we will go this year and invited one of the Third Grade BFFs and spouse, along with some other friends and family to join us. I'll do my best to remember to take the camera along with me and get some shots of us as we picnic and enjoy Julius Caesar.

Random Thought #1

Listening to Senator Jeff Sessions' opening statement at the start of Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearing yesterday got me riled. I haven't yet figured out which planet the Senator lived on before gracing us with his presence, but it must be one with a society like the one in Lois Lowery's juvenile novel, The Giver. I still haven't decided if his comments are more hypocrital, disingenuous, or idiotic; all three are viable options.

As an attorney himself, how could Senator Sessions not know that everything we read is understood, interpreted, and processed through the lens that informs our lives? Meaning has never been the same for all people in all times in all places. If this were true, humanity would never have progressed! There would have been no flowering of democracy in Greece, no birth of Christianity in the Middle East, no Renaissance, no Age of Reason, no French or American Revolutons. Without a change in understanding and interpretation, Martin Luther would have had no reason to nail his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg; "the shot heard round the world" would not have been necessary, and the U.S. could well have remained part of the British Empire until its collapse; the notion that race determines a human being's worthiness of freedom might well have remained the norm in America, and Rosa Parks wouldn't have felt the need to refuse to give up her seat on the bus. As you can imagine, the list could go on ad infinitum.

The ever evolving landscape of human experience is what makes literature, music, and art great. The ability of a piece to have meaning across time, language, religion, and culture is based on the fact that meaning isn't the same for all readers, listeners, or viewers; what an individual gets out of a work is determined by his or her understanding and experience which, in turn, inform his or her interpretation. It is this fact that accounts for the volumes of books written about Shakespeare's plays, Mozart's music, and Raphael's art. Shakespeare's plays, Mozart's concertos, and Raphael's paintings haven't changed, but the knowledge, understanding, and experience of the people at the point in time in which they are read, viewed, or heard has; thus, the interpretations of these artists' work will change as well. It is also this fact that accounts for the various translations of the Bible; words translated from the original Hebrew and Greek are assigned meaning in another language based on the translator's understanding and analysis of context. Luckily for those of us living in 21st century America, interpretation and understanding of the law has evolved as well.

Senator Sessions established himself as an authority on the judicial system thus:

I have been an active litigator in federal courts for the majority of my professional life. I have tried cases in private practice, as a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice, and as Attorney General of the State of Alabama.

The Constitution and our great heritage of law are things I care deeply about — they are the foundation of our liberty and prosperity.

Good for you, Senator Sessions! I applaud your dedication to the Constitution and its principles. But I do have a question for you. How is it possible that you have achieved such a remarkable CV without also recognizing that your interpretation of the law is, at the very least, influenced by your understanding of connotation and denotation in language coupled with your values, beliefs, and experience?

Random Thought #2

Betty's health is improving at last. She was moved yesterday from the hospital to a rehab center, where she will stay for two weeks while she gets an IV antibiotic for the treatment of a staph infection in her lung. I felt horrible for agreeing to the placement, no matter how temporary, because I promised Bob that I would never put her in a nursing home situation. Unfortunately, there is no alternative available to her until the antibiotics course is finished. There is, however, some good news here. The nursing home / rehab facility is just a couple of blocks away from my house, so visiting her daily will be super easy.

Random Thought #3

I don't know what got The Brain's knickers in a twist yesterday, but It decided that I was so deserving of some good old electro-shock therapy that It delivered a total of 8 seizures throughout the day. Each succeeding seizure was worse than the predecessor so that by the end of the day, I had spent more of it asleep than awake, more of it nauseated than not. Bleh! I could have done without all that excitement. My fingers are crossed that The Brain feels confident enough in its preeminent power once again that It will practice -- are you ready for this one? -- empathetic justice on me today!

I found a wonderful meme at Necromancy Never Pays, and I've been saving it for a rainy day. Ok, it's not raining at the moment; however, I need something to help lift the funk, and a visit with the Bard just might do the trick.

What was your first introduction to William Shakespeare? Was it love or hate?
It was 1974 in Mr. Capalungo's Freshman English class. Mr. C was quite the character with an amazingly snarky sense of humor. To prepare us for our first foray into the Bard's world with Julius Caesar, Mr. C "latinized" our names. The guys got "-us" added to their first and last names, while the girls got "-a" endings; thus for the entire first semester of the year, I was called Carleena Willetta. Mr. C always emphasized the final syllable of the names, irrespective of where the stress really belonged. He entertained us by performing "Singing in the Rain" in Latin, and acting out Caesar's death scene from atop his desk at the front of the classroom. I have to say that it was Mr. C's obvious love of Shakespeare that sparked my infatuation with the Bard.

Which Shakespeare plays have you been required to read?
Since my M.A. is in Renaissance Literature with an emphasis on the drama of the period, I have been required to read all of Shakespeare's plays at some point in my academic career.

Do you think Shakespeare is important? Do you feel you are a "better" person for having read the bard?
Yes, and yes! The main body of Shakespeare's work, the plays, are meant to be seen; I must admit to a preference for reading them, however. I take such pleasure in reading, processing, and analyzing the Bard's masterful use of language! With a printed copy of the play and a variety of colored pens in hand, I can get lost for hours in mapping connections, marking sibillants in the speech of villains, noting the meticulous and deliberate plays on words. Reading and analyzing Shakespeare has proven one of the best mental exercises in which I have ever engaged. As long as I am able to exercise the noodle and continue to make connections between the situations and characters that Shakespeare created to those I witness in my own life and times, I am definitely a "better" person.

Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play?
Hands down, it would have to be Othello; however, A Merchant of Venice runs a close second. I pity and understand both Othello and Shylock. One of these days, I'm going to put in writing my theory that a careful study of these characters and the weaknesses that make them all too human could bridge some of the gaps of misunderstanding between East and West.

How do you feel about contemporary takes on Shakespeare? Adaptations of Shakespeare’s works with a more modern feel? (For example, the new line of Manga Shakespeare graphic novels, or novels like Something Rotten, Something Wicked, Enter Three Witches, Ophelia, etc.) Do you have a favorite you’d recommend?
Honestly, I don't pay any attention to the contemporary adaptations. At my daughter's urging, I did capitulate and watch Romeo and Juliet with DiCaprio and Danes; I hated it!

What's your favorite movie version of a Shakespeare play?
Hmmm.....it's a toss-up between Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet and the version of Othello with Lawrence Fishburn in the lead role.