Yelling at the Giants...

is something I've been doing for most of my life. (Not at the above kind) Generally, it's been the baseball Giants. In fact, my wife would probably think their official name is the San Francisco Stupid Giants. At least I've never sunk to the depths of a Giants fan I read about while in Paris in the early 70s -- so angered at some typical idiocy of the G'men against Houston, he reached for his shotgun and blasted out the TV set. But this past Sunday -- and most deservedly -- the yelling was directed at the erstwhile Super Bowl champions. I wrote on and off while yelling and, reading afterwards, it seemed like a pretty good account of a New York week. Here's a condensed version:

Parked in front of the set, with a gin con gin -- drink dating back to the Confiteria Tuninetti after a day in the campo -- in hand, Westie in lap, licking happily, and the first play I see the Giants have two penalties, the second play Eli Manning throws an interception, on the third play the Giants get flagged for pass interference, and on the fifth play the Eagles score a touchdown, and right there the inevitable pattern of the afternoon is set that quickly. Otherwise, it has been a pretty good week. Monday night we went to the museum to hear from volunteers who had gone on dinosaur dig expeditions to very remote locations in the US -- North Dakota in one case, Utah in the second. Would we want to do it? Probably. Utah would be the place, many more fossils. One thing that struck me was how big this country is. They were serious hours from any even medium sized population centers, hundreds of miles from an airport with scheduled service. They spoke about their awe at being the first to find a specimen, an animal that had lived on earth and buried unseen for all the millions of years since its death until they uncovered the fossilized bone. Tuesday we went to see La Boheme at the Met -- we got wet, as we always seem to do this season at the Met and in fact (Manning continues to throw poorly and Carney, who had not missed a FG all year except for two blocks until he missed a very makeable one in Minnesota, misses an even more makeable one here. 7-5 Eagles.) this storm went on heavily for the next 24 hours. La Boheme may not be in the top tier of my favorites, but it was very good. The same Zefferelli production has been mounted since 1981. It's dated and overly precious to some, but new to us, only the third production the Met has had of La Boheme in its history and in only six of more than a hundred seasons has La Boheme not been performed at the Met. The third act was my favorite, outside Paris, outside an inn in winter, as Mimi and Rodolfo pledge to stay together until spring and on the other side of the stage Marcello and Musetta are fighting and separating over fickleness. One thing Puccini gets exactly right, just like Shakespeare did in R&J, is the goofiness and posturing, a constant no matter what the century, of young men who are in fact not quite men, but no longer boys. (Abetted by yet another stupid penalty and the Giants's inability to put any pressure at all on McNabb, the Eagles march straight down the field with less than 90 seconds and only one timeout and kick a field goal for a 10-8 lead.) Yesterday, a snowy day from about noon on, I did both the Views and Cross Park tours and now feel good about them both, ready to lead my first tour on Tuesday.