Game, Set, Ouch!

May 10, 2008

I'm swimming in an exceedingly clean ocean. I'm very close to the shore. As I step on to the beach to find my towel, I find myself in the backyard of an enormous old museum.

I realize I don't have a ticket, so I walk in through the backdoor and up a long, winding staircase, where I find the ticket booth. I buy a ticket and walk through a metal turnstile.

I next pass through the museum gift shop where a large, colorful wooden box catches my eye. I open the box. It is a Frida Kahlo art set, filled with hundreds of color pencils and a book of Frida's paintings for inspiration.

I head back out the doors and on to the grounds of the museum, but instead of an ocean, I find a duck pond to my right and a tennis court with bleacher seats to my left. I decide to watch the match, which is already in progress. Rafael Nadal, the frequent French Open champ, who is dressed in tight fitting white shorts that leave little to the imagination, is receiving serve from his opponent.

There is something odd about the ball as it makes its way to Rafael's side of the court: it has a fish hook sticking out of it. Unfortunately for Rafael, it is the fish hook that catches him square in the middle of his tight, white shorts.

As Rafael collapses in pain, I leave the match and head for the duck pond, where the sun has almost completely disappeared behind the trees.

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If you're wondering,the parrots were not in my dream, but rather they are another tip of the hat to Frida Kahlo, who often painted members of her menagerie in her self portraits, including her monkey, her cat, and her birds.

Frida Be...You And Me

                                              

May 1, 2008   

It's late at night on Easter Sunday. I'm hanging Frida Kahlo prints in my grandmother's apartment and waiting for her to be dropped off from her day out at my cousin's house. I hear the low rumble of my Aunt's station wagon and see the glare of headlights as I peek through the closed blinds of my grandmother's front window.

I hurriedly gather up a stack of newspapers and drop them in a neat pile on a coffee table as Nanny (my grandmother) comes through the door. She looks tiny in her camel hair coat, and she is clearly exhausted from the day's activities.

I know this because she tell me as we exchange hugs, "I am clearly exhausted. This is no way for a 100 year old woman to be running around."

Suddenly, it's 1973 and I'm backstage at Carnegie Hall. I can see the first few rows of the audience from my vantage point in the wings at stage left. In the fourth row I spy a very young Oprah Winfrey. In the front row, an ebullient Leonard Bernstein stands, rocking back and forth and clapping his hands in time to the music. He gets into a scuffle when a tall man wearing cowboy boots complains that Leonard has stepped on his foot.

"This is a concert! What do you expect? You want I should get down on my hands and knees and polish your shoes as you walk by?"

My attention is now drawn to the stage, though I don't have a very good view of it. Bette Midler is giving a concert, only it's more like a variety show. I can't see her face, only a big blur of red hair.

Closer to my side of the stage, I see Bette's special guest, Miss Vicki Lawrence, dressed in a most unusual costume. Singing for the crowd, Vicki wears a metal corset and antlers in homage to two separate Frida Kahlo paintings, The Broken Column, and The Little Deer (sometimes called The Wounded Deer.)

Finally, I am in Queens, New York running from store to store trying to find a book of Kahlo paintings. I hail a cab to take me home, but the driver refuses, saying he only accepts fares to Manhattan.