These Things Happen: The Origin Story

Wagner's Ring Cycle. What is it?

Not a setting on those new-fangled washing machines, but I suppose that would be Wring Cycle, so in retrospect, a rather poor joke and perhaps not the best way to start a blog, but I'm sticking with it - kind of like what Wagner did with the Ring Cycle. He totally stuck with it.

Wagner's Ring Cycle (or more correctly: Der Ring des Nibelungen) is an opera, or rather four of them.  In German. They are each so long they require multiple intermissions. Only a handful of opera houses in the world perform the The Ring , so when one does, it is rather a big deal. People fly in from all over the world to see it. The Seattle Opera House is known for its performances of The Ring and and I attended the most recent (I promise, this really will come back around to how I named this blog, really, it will)

I am not actually a fan of the opera, I'm more your musical theater type. Tell me you've got tickets to Wicked or Les Miserables and I'm there. My husband (who shall be known as Mr. Calabrese* from this point forward) brought opera into my life in the form of season tickets, which I feigned enthusiasm for because at the time he was my boyfriend and I thought he was keen (he is) and I didn't want him to think I was a total Neanderthal (I might be). I was hoping to have the Pretty Woman  Julia Roberts response to opera, but sadly, this did not occur. Still, I was a trooper and while I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either.

But then came The Ring and Mr. Calabrese bought tickets to all four operas. I was originally supposed to attend just the first two. This seemed doable. He had plans to bring other people to the the last two. The first one I enjoyed somewhat. The story (which you can read about here) was a little less convoluted than in the following three, the costumes and scenes were stunning and Mr. Calabrese bought me a yummy cookie at intermission. But it is the second opera, Die Wulkure, that is most relevant here.

The Ring Cycle is full of Gods and Goddess, dwarfs, rhinemaidens, valkyries, and also some mortals. In the second opera, two of these mortals Sieglinde and Siegmund, who happen to be twins, fall in love and run away together. This is a problem for the Fricka who is the goddess of hearth and family. She is not keen on incest, especially given that the two involved are the children of her husband, Wotan, by another woman. So, the two of them have a ginormous, operatic argument. The words are translated into English on a small screen above the stage. At one point, Fricka demands and explanation as to how a brother and sister could fall in love and Wotan sings something in German and it is translated as, "these things happen, " prompting a rare chuckle from the audience.

From that day forward, "These things happen" became a catch phrase in our household. We use it to excuse everything from being late because of traffic to accidentally setting the microwave for 20 minutes instead of two minutes, resulting in a huge mess and a really horrible smell that still lingers, even though it happened months ago. But you know, these things happen.

And there it is, the origin story.

It was clearly the perfect name for this blog and much better than some others I came up with:

• Rachel's Ramblings (wow, how original)
• Minds in Decline (a self-deprecating play on my teacher blog, Minds in Bloom)
• I am not a Bird (an obtuse reference to my new "empty nest" status now that my youngest has headed off to college)

"These things happen," really is a useful catch phrase. Try it a few times this week and see what you think. Then come back and let me know how it goes with a comment. I might have written something new for you to read by then. Or leave a comment now. Try it, it's fun!

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*Calling my husband Mr. Calabrese on this blog was inspired by one of the two following fictional works: Downton Abbey, the Masterpiece Theatre series in which anyone of rank and age is addressed by his or her last name or the 50 Shades of Gray Trilogy , the poorly written, yet oddly addicting naughty books in which the main characters enjoy addressing each other by their last names. Which one? I'm not telling.