L'Shanah Tovah!

May your hair, your teeth, your face-lift, your abs, and your stocks not fall.

And may your blood pressure, your triglycerides, your cholesterol. your white blood count and your mortgage (or rent) not rise.

May you get a clean bill of health from your dentist, your cardiologist, your gastroenterologist, your urologist, your proctologist, your podiatrist, your psychiatrist, your plumber, and the IRS.

May you find a way to travel from anywhere to anywhere during rush hour in less than an hour, and (if you drive) when you get there may you find a parking space.

May this Yom Tov find you seated around the dinner table, together with your beloved family and cherished friends, ushering in the Jewish New Year ahead.

May what you see in the mirror delight you, and what others see in you delight them.

May the telemarketers wait to make their sales calls until you finish dinner, may your checkbook and budget balance, and may they include generous amounts for tsedakah (charity).

May you remember to say "I love you" at least once a day to your partner, your child(ren) and your parent(s). You can say it to your secretary, your nurse, your butcher, your photographer, your masseur/masseuse, your seamstress, your hairdresser or your gym instructor, but not with a "twinkle" in your eye.

May we live as intended, in a world at peace with the awareness of the beauty in every sunset, every flower's unfolding petals, every baby's smile and every wonderful, astonishing, miraculous part of ourselves.

May G-d bless you with every happiness, great health, peace and much love during the next year and all those that follow.

-- from and E-mail sent by a (non-Jewish) coworker of mine to every Jewish person he knows. I think this is reworked from at least two or three different rabbi's greetings to congregants quoted in various Rosh Hashana anthologies.

Wishing a good and sweet year to my Jewish brothers and sisters and dear friend of any faith. And Ramadan Mubarak to any Muslim readers. Although I think it's a few days before it starts.

And, of course, lots of fabulous music, especially opera!

I am finally...OVERWEIGHT!

...as opposed to being obese, that is.

On May 3 I weighed 220lbs, and I said, "That's it." Although that's not quite as bad as the 230 I was about 5 or 6 years ago, I was determined at the very least to get myself below 180, the marking point for "obese" at my height (5'5"). Although I was determined to be under 200 lbs by the time I went to London on June 14 and met Lulu and Angela (I missed by about 4lbs), this was almost entirely a health issue, not an aesthetic one. My father died at the age of 57 of heart failure (and since I've definitely inherited his temper, I may well have inherited other risk factors as well), I have a heart murmur (according to the doctor, nothing to worry about - but I still have to take antibiotics when I go to the dentist and let's just say Amoxycillin and my stomach are not on friendly terms!), and before I started this, I was tired, lethargic, depressed, irritable, and occasionally even murderous.

Partially because I've been reading a lot of books about a raw-food diet (I have been a vegetarian - mostly vegan - for virtually all my adult life), and partially because it's extremely cheap, I've been eating almost exclusively fruit from the various stands around work, Lara Bars (made from dried fruit and nuts), Maya Bars (same thing with raw cacao) and splurging for Shabbat dinner on wonderful salads from Bonobo's on 23rd Street and 5th Avenue - they also have a divine raw bell pepper and coconut soup. When they have a Community Kiddush at B'nai Jeshurun after Saturday morning services - usually twice a month - I have the salads and the spreads (humus, baba ganoush, etc) and one chocolate rugelach with fruit. I've also been doing "water only" cleansing fasts on Sunday to clean myself out and counteract any Shabbat overindulgences. So I've basically been eating very healthily. I was less "good" while in London, but that was only four days...

Well, since today is the day before my 37th birthday, I weighed myself - I wouldn't weigh myself tomorrow because I think doing so on Shabbat is a really bad idea - and I am now 178lbs. Of course, I have been regularly weighing myself in the interim. But this is the first time in at least 15 years since I've been down that low. I think I was only under 200 once, during a brief and ultimately unsucessful attempt at Atkins (all that meat did not appeal to me).

With Rosh Hashanah and all the other ensuing Jewish holidays and their feasts, I don't doubt I'll gain some of this back - but I'll be very good afterwards - I have no intention of ever seeing 190 again. Of course, I know that the slower it comes off the longer it will stay off, and considering that I'm now starting to buy new clothes (going from 2X to Large and even Medium) and how many compliments I've been getting, plus - most importantly - the improvement in my mood, I have ample reason to continue on this track.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures, either "before" or "after". Although I'll probably start taking them another 20lbs from now. This has more to do with lack of digital camera than anything else.

Oh, and I have no interest whatsoever in little black dresses!

"Where'er You...DON'T... Walk"?

Bummer! While looking over the schedule for New York City Opera's upcoming new production of Semele, it became obvious I will probably have to miss it. All the performances conflict with either the Jewish High Holy Days, Shabbat (which, technically, is even higher than the High Holy Days) or my Wednesday choral rehearsals (we're preparing Durufle's Requiem and possibly Holst's Festival Te Deum for a concert November 5). I can't skip a rehearsal for it because I'm already planning to miss one in order to see La Gioconda at the Met with Marcello Giordani. The other two performances conflict with Idomeneo (although I suppose I don't have to go the opening night of the production) and, more importantly, a rally in Central Park to stop the genocide in Darfur. If I do go I'll probably postpone Idomeneo. I'm not that nuts about the opera (20 minutes of plot in 3 1/2 hours), but it's a wonderful cast - I never want to miss Ben Heppner and I'm eager to finally see Dorothea Roschmann.

If I do miss Semele, it would a shame because I've never seen the opera (although I have heard the wonderful recording with Kathleen Battle, Marilyn Horne, et al) and because I have the greatest respect for its two stars, Elizabeth Futral (Semele) and Vivica Genaux (Juno/Ino). I'll admit Genaux doesn't have quite enough of the contralto quality I think the role needs (Blythe! BLYTHE! BLYTHE!), but she's a fabulous musician and I don't doubt she can put forward an elegant, regal presence. Tenor Robert Breault (Jupiter), who I heard under the auspices of OONY - I can't remember in what, but I did like him - is nobody to sneeze at either.

On the other hand, it is a new production. And apparently a "concept production". At least I think this opera, and other operas that are essentially mythology or fantasy, might be able to tolerate that better than something more "realistic".

Oh well. I guess I'll have to console myself with John McCormack's and (especially) Roland Hayes' renditions of the aria I mangled in the title of this post, and possibly Genaux's new album of Handel and Hasse arias which comes out next Tuesday if it's playing on a Tower Records listening station.

At least a friend of mine from work (the same guy I took to see Angela in La Traviata) and I are going to see Carmen on September 14. It looks like a great cast - Israeli mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham in the title role (she's had raves at Glyndebourne in the part) and a wonderful young soprano named Latonia Moore debuting as Micaela. And Mark Duffin, who played a murderous soldier with great high notes in The Mines of Sulphur last year, takes on another murderous soldier with great high notes in Don Jose. I regret I am totally unfamiliar with the Escamillo, baritone Adrian Gans.