MARCH BEGINS

Exactly two months since my last post. Have really tried but chaos is not easily managed. At this moment DH is enroute to the storage unit (one of two), where more of our treasures are stored. The interior painting is done but now the exterior painting begins (if weather cooperates). Our move date is late in 2012 but selling a house in Chapel Hill may take that long and we cannot begin too soon.

Next event: Gilbert & Sullivan's Princess Ida. http://www.durhamsavoyards.org/
The director of this year's production is truly making it "out of this world" by staging it off planet, far in the future. As to plot, Princess Ida was engaged as an infant to Prince Hilarion. However, she is interested in women's rights instead of marriage and starts a women's university - she thinks "a man is only a monkey shaved". Hilarion and two friends disguise themselves as women and sneak into the university to try to win the princess, leading to the comic singing of "I am a maiden" describing what kind of "girls" they are.

Meanwhile, Ida's father and burly brothers have been clapped in prison by Hilarion's father. Discovery of the true identity of the male intruders leads both to flirtation and eventually to battle between the forces of the Princess and the Prince. Does love win in the end? You will have to see for yourselves.
STUDY REFERENCE:
Ancient playwright, Aristophanes, whose works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo, effectively define the comedy today. Aristophanes lampooned the most important personalities and institutions of his day, as can be seen...in his racy feminist anti-war farce Lysistrata.

Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace — a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes.

ALSO: "In Like Flint" staring James Coburn, Lee J. Cobb and Jean Hale.
[The film] posits an international feminist conspiracy to depose the ruling American patriarchy with a feminist matriarchy. To achieve and establish it, they kidnap and replace the U.S. President, discredit the head of the Z.O.W.I.E. intelligence agency and commandeer a nuclear-armed space platform, all directed from Fabulous Face, a women's spa in the Virgin Islands.
And remember La Cage Aux Folle? where two gay men disguise themselves as women to escape creditors and then the 'women' disguise themselves as 'hetero-men" to avoid further detection? continuous confusion of the sexes.  G&S stage the age-old 'battle of the sexes,' confuse gender identity and promote women's rights - all in comedic farce. This is going to be fun!

Sunday 3/13 found me at the Triangle Modern Quilt Guild meeting at Thimble Pleasures for the first time. What a exciting group! Thought I would be the oldest quilter there but there were a couple of oldie goldies like me. Finally got my photo up on the member's list so one can identify who I am.  

WHY, you might ask, have I joined another quilt guild when my entire sewing studio has been dismantled and my stash has gone to storage (?).  I am so in textile-withdrawal I cannot tell you. One of the many attractions was the Guild's May meeting is to be held at Spoonflower in Durham, http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome. Then I made the connection that the TMQG's treasurer is none other than Kim Fraser (Mrs. Spoonflower in person). IF I was 25 years younger and still working - I'd be at Spoonflower in a flash. 
The general appeal is that of a younger, techno-savvy crowd of women with design skills, Facebook, webpages and an awareness of internet resources that makes me look like a beginner. For one the webpage http://trianglemodernquilts.ning.com/, is really a mini Facebook for members and I am loving it.
My skill-set is way beyond many of the younger quilters but I am unable to create demos or tutorials as I have little to work with and less time to create anything. But...there is always hope and once this move is completed and I have a new studio - look out!

Item of interest:
Fab Lab is coming to Durham. Check out this story....
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/12225077/article--Mobile-Fab-Lab--to-visit-American-Tobacco-Campus?instance=main_article
Scrap artists, 3-D designers, theater and set designers and jewelry crafters take note. The tools you have always wanted and could not afford are coming to town.

Quote for the week:
Author David Brooks, The Social Animal, writes: "Adult personality is forever defined in opposition to one's natural enemies in high school." Wonder if he was in my class - that feels so right.

GLOBAL NEWS:
Quilt friend Cissa sent an email after a 32 hour flight from Australia - what punishment! Heard from Becky in Osaka that life continues but all residents are asked to unplug appliances and there are rolling power blackouts every few hours. Got a call from Kazuyo in Tokyo Sunday night (Monday there) who had arrived at her office in downtown Tokyo after 2.5 hours of traveling on a slow train that is a normally a 30-40 minute commute. And Noriko, my PT/trainer and aquacise instructor, heard from her Mother who is safe in northern Japan but has no power or water supply. We learn from tragedy how interconnected we are to the Far East.
We pray for those we know and all we do not know.