Sunset over El Cerrito

You may have heard me mention (or curse or lament) the status of my long overdue Invisibility Shawl, which I began last summer. The shawl pattern was for the light airy sort of thing that would be perfect to wrap around bare shoulders for a evening dress, and some time towards late fall or early winter of last year, while I was safely entrenched in the Great Christmas Sock Project of 2010, I vowed to wear that shawl to the ballet in the coming season.

As it turned out, I’ve seen a fair amount of good ballet this year. In February, a friend’s misfortune worked out to my benefit. He got a cold and I got his ballet ticket and the company of his lovely wife for the evening. We saw Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo perform at the Mondavi in Davis. Men in tights... and tutus. They did a splendid job of poking fun at the art of ballet while still respecting it to the utmost. I’d recommend the show to anyone. At the start of the evening, I went flying out the door to greet my friend and journey to the show in a plum-colored skirt. “I know,” I said before she could say it. “The invisibility shawl would be perfect with this skirt. It’s not done yet.” Plenty of time left until the end of the season, we agreed. And this was a bonus show. Unexpected. I could hardly be expected to have finished and blocked a shawl at the last minute.

March brought amidst the wind and chills, one truly beautiful weekend. My favorite LBD came out of the closet, and my best heels, and two tickets to the Sacramento Ballet’s performance of Carmina Burana came off their waiting position under a fat and sturdy magnet on the fridge. I’d seen this show before, and I love it. Shawn and I went to together, a grown-up evening without the darling little whipper-snapper. Shawn found us a lovely little restaurant near the theater, and by some miracle it was warm and dry enough to eat outside on patio in a hidden little garden downtown. So warm and pleasant, in fact, that I told myself, my husband, the wait-staff, and anyone else who would listen, that it did not matter that I had yet to finish the shawl because it clearly wasn’t necessary today. Lady Fate sometimes cuts you a break.

April showers bring May showers which might just bring June showers the way it’s been carrying on lately. One stormy day, Ania and I braved highway and railway to head into the city for San Francisco Ballet’s seventh program of their season. We inquired of a handy BART attendant the nearest exit from the Civic Center station to the War Memorial Opera House. He pointed us in the right direction but cautioned us with real concern, “But it’s raining.”

We looked at each other with incredulous eyebrows raised. “Well, we’ll just go home then.”

We dashed to the theater in a light rain that shockingly enough did not melt us away and saw a lovely show, the pinnacle of which was Jerome Robbin’s “The Concert”. Some elements of the ballerina sequence were too familiar to be strictly funny, but we laughed anyway. Traveling home, staring out the window at the rain, I justified that even had the increasingly-accurately-named Invisibility Shawl been complete, there is no way that I could have worn it. Not in this cold and rain. I was knitting while I proclaimed this statement. On a sock. Shawls aren’t good traveling projects, you see.

Come what May. Now we’re down to it. The last show in San Francisco’s season. (And Sac Ballet has wrapped up all but their shows in which the audience is encouraged to drink beer – I kid you not – so this is truly the last shot.) As a birthday gift, my mother got us each a ticket to Romeo and Juliet. Two houses both alike in dignity in fair Verona where we lay our scene. And I can tell you that Verona’s streets were not the only place experiencing unrest coming up to the date on these star-crossed tickets. I knit, I blocked, I bound off, I sewed in little fluffy ends of alpaca lace, I blocked again. I fiercely defended the honor of my bathed and drying shawl from the prince princess of cats.

The day approached. The shawl was prepared. The weather forecast was... seriously cold in the City. Something about an impatient child that hath new robes and may not wear them? Wait, that’s out of context. Moving on....

So I did what any reasonable woman would do under the circumstances. I wore it anyway, fully prepared to suffer if need be.

The ballet was phenomenal. Juliet was so stunning, I forgot to watch her feet. The weather held miraculously well while Mom and I toured Market Street (and Anthropologie) and walked across the gardens around City Hall. It only reached it’s foretold chilliness about the time we were queuing up for our ferry ride back home. No matter. We had coffee. We waited what seemed like a rather long time, making friends with our surrounding would-be ferry riders. Pink-Shirt-Guy helpfully called the ferry’s hotline to investigate the delay, but to no avail. The ferry’s arrival time changed from 6:00 to 6:30 on the electronic sign board. We exchanged pleasant conversation with Black-Coat-Guy. Bicycle-Guy chivalrously offered me his windbreaker, but I declined. 6:30 approached. The boat did not. Across the road behind us, I could see the large pitched tent for the Peter Pan performance in Embarcadero Plaza. I drew my little alpaca shawl tighter around my shoulders and clapped my hands. I do believe in ferries. Hey, everyone, say quick if you believe.

The electronic board informed us with little pomp and circumstance that the next ferry would be arriving at 8:30. That’s when we put our shoes to the road leading away from the water and gave up on the scenic ride home.

Mom wanted to take Pink-Shirt-Guy with us. This is why my family has always had so many cats.

In the end, BART got us to El Cerrito and my dad, hero that he is, rescued us on a noble black steed VW. All in all, it was a long voyage home and I suppose I should have been irritated. Somehow all I could do was laugh. I’d had a lovely day with good company, awesome dance, and I was wearing the damn shawl, braving goosebumps and breakdowns, watching the sun set over El Cerrito.