The Simple Things of Life Are the Best…
Like Staying Home.
When I was a young woman in my 30s, I dreamed of taking theater trips to NYC with Nashville theater critic Clara Hieronymus' group and attending Broadway plays. Failing that, I wished I could buy season passes to the symphony here in Nashville.
While nothing like that ever happened, except for December trips with our daughter to see the Nutcracker Suite ballet, when I turned 58 my sister and I bought season passes for our mother and us to TPAC in Nashville so that we three could attend plays. By the end of the first performance I was only pretending to love it because they did.
It was a very long season, with me dreading Sunday afternoons, other than for the pleasure of being with them. I thought about how many good movies we could have seen for the price of those season passes. Or better yet, how many more movies we could buy and watch from the comfort of home.
The necessary gene for enjoying live entertainment must be lacking in me. I would rather be in my own house and watch a movie in my pajamas. I would rather listen to my own CDs than go to the Schemerhorn Symphony Center. And I do not yet want my music coming from an iPod. I like holding my CDs in my hand and choosing one, even wish I still had the large LPs I grew up loving.
Mrs. Potter, the heroine of my beloved Virginia Rich mysteries, agreed with me:
"Trouble is, she told herself,
you will never be anything but a small-town person.
You're content with books and records
instead of concerts and theater,
and you know no matter how shameful it is to admit this,
that you can't stand grand opera.
You seldom enjoy shopping and you prefer
to do it by mail or telephone whenever you can.
You have eaten too many overpriced
and overrated restaurant meals,
and perhaps even enough really good ones."
from The Baked Bean Supper Murders
by Virginia Rich
Books, records, movie night on television in my pajamas--heaven!
But I will play my Puccini CD for dinner music.
And I would never turn down an invitation to dinner at a nice restaurant
or an invitation to a dinner party.
Other than that, staying home sounds best,
even with dirty dishes waiting in the sink.
[Note: the white Italian dishes are my favorite when serving fish.
And Virginia Rich, one of the very first authors of culinary mysteries,
is a favorite of mine too. Sadly she passed away after writing only a few books.]
