Lost & Found

Itchy and his brother, Scratchy, were born in my backyard about three years ago. Since then, I'’ve taken them in and fed them and given them their shots and gotten them neutered...all the right things a good mommy should do. I've let them be indoor/outdoor cats because I can't bear the thought of declawing them, and since they were born outside, they seem to like being outside most of the time.

Then Itchy went outside on Friday night, October 14th, and didn't come home the next morning. Or the next day, or the next day. Sometimes in the past he has stayed away for two or even three days, but he has always come back. Now, after four nights, I was starting to get a little worried.

Itchy is also incredibly friendly and loves attention. He meows constantly, whether he wants your attention or not. So my guess was that he'd just wheedled his way into someone'’s heart and home, and my hope was that he wasn't lying dead on the side of the road somewhere. Nevertheless, my worry-wartiness was getting the better of me, because I went ahead and made up "Lost Cat" signs to post around the neighborhood.

Of course, as soon as I finished printing out the first sign, Ray informed me that Itchy had shown up at last. I went out to the sunroom/cat-room to alternately hug him and scold him for making me so worried, and he acted as if nothing had happened. In fact, an hour later, he was meowing to go out again. I didn't want to let him out, and I made him promise to come back. He looked at me with that enigmatic cat look, as if to say, "Well, of course I'm coming back. You have food here."

When I got up this morning, there he was with his brother, waiting to come in and have breakfast. He brushed by my leg and went straight to the food bowl without so much as a by-your-leave. I'm thinking he's still mad at me for putting his tick medicine on him (the cats hate it when I do that). Or he could just not have any sense of the passage of time whatsoever. Or he could be cheating on me with another family down the road. Who knows? I'm just happy he's back.

Hobnobbery

I'm pleased to report that your erstwhile heroine has spent in the last two evenings in the presence of the rich and appreciative. On Sunday, I sang at a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Singers, which, as I'm sure most of you know, cancelled half their season abruptly a month or so ago. One of the board members offered up her house (dare I say mansion?) for the event, and it was quite a swanky affair with some of the best food I have ever tasted in my life. I never thought I could have a mouthgasm from a grape stuffed with toasted coriander seeds. I'm going into fits of rapture just thinking about it.

Last night I sang at another fundraiser, this time for Music Theater Group, a wonderful little off-off-Broadway theater company in New York. I had performed in a workshop of a chamber opera called Arjuna's Dilemma there several years ago, and have been involved in that show ever since; this summer, Doug Cuomo (the composer) asked me to sing in a recording of the piece, which was a huge honor, since I got to sing with two of the members of Anonymous 4. So when I got the last-minute call to sing a snippet of the piece at this fundraiser, I jumped at the chance. This fundraiser was in a penthouse in Manhattan with a gorgeous 360-degree view of the city by moonlight. The food was not quite as good as Chef Fritz's creations, but I certainly wasn't put off, by any means.

One thing that struck me about both events, though, was how incredibly appreciative all these people were of the arts. At the Philly Singers fundraiser, it was great to be able to see everyone's faces during the performance and watch them get caught up in the music. And for the Music Theater Group fundraiser, although I couldn't really see the audience because of all the lights, I was stopped after the performance by many people who exclaimed how haunting the music was, and how much they would love to hear more about the piece.

It just proves to me that there are still people in this world who love watching the kind of stuff I love to do. There are still those who understand how rich and meaningful music and theater can be to people's lives, and who are willing to support it. Granted, that bunch of people may be dwindling these days, but there's still hope. I still believe art has a place, a very important place, in society, and I am not the only one who thinks so.

I just hope more people with deep pocketbooks can continue to help us starving artists out so we can continue our craft.

Potluck

I got invited to a potluck dinner the other day. I've been recently wanting to find new friends, people my age who live close by, since all my friends are currently scattered across the globe. So when I received the invitation, I jumped at the chance to hang out with new people.

I made my famous lasagna (those of you who have eaten it know that's a good choice to bring if you want to make friends), decided not to change from my work clothes into something more casual, and drove to the address I was given. When I got to the house, I saw that it was actually a condo in a fairly new development where everyone has their own numbered parking space and the visitors all have to park in a lot in the center of the development. Let me rephrase. All the houses looked exactly the same, and I started humming "Little boxes, little boxes," the theme song to Weeds.

The condo was very nice, if a little small. Both the hosts were dressed very nicely, as were almost everyone else. I started thinking that maybe I should have dressed up from my business slacks and blouse. But one thing that hit me very strongly was that this was a group of WASPs. No doubt about it, you couldn't get more WASPy than this group, save myself (marginally) and one guy who I think might be Puerto Rican.

Now, there's nothing wrong with WASPs; quite the contrary, I really enjoyed myself at the party. I was just struck by the homogeneity of the group. This was a stereotypical gathering of privileged white people, complete with stereotypical food that people brought: a ham, potatoes, salad, cheesecake, etc. I think my lasagna was the most "ethnic" food that was there. Again, the food was good. The conversation was good. It was a great success, that party. And yet...I just wish there was a little more diversity in the group. Everyone was just too...NORMAL.

The Weekend

So I visited my stereotypical Italian relatives this weekend...my brother and I went to Long Island to visit our great-aunt and various and sundry cousins. It was fun, mostly because they LOVE to talk. Seriously stereotypical, but very fun.

Besides that, my great-aunt found out that I knit and she offered to take me "shopping" in her basement collection of yarns. It was amazing! All that yarn organized by color and type. I was very excited.

After my visit with the fam, I went to see Serenity. Wow, that was a great movie. I mean, I was a fan because I liked the TV show Firefly, but this was REALLY good. I encourage all of you to go see it now and then see it again. It was really, really good.