The approach of Christmas, and the possession of a personal life gone off the tracks, meant that I was walking in the fifties and sixties on Manhattan's west side this mid-day. The first present I wanted to buy brought me to the bookstore at the Metropolitan Opera where Anna Netrebko was signing cd's. I had never heard of her. Hundreds of people were in line ahead of me when I arrived half an hour before the signing was to begin. Hundreds more were behind me before the line started to move. When I actually got into the bookstore itself, there were a series of employees making sure that I had opened the cd that I wanted signed, to advise me that she had no time to do anything but affix her signature, and to ensure I had done all I could so the process would be as quick as possible. When I approached the table, I was asked by an assistant where I wanted her to have her sign so he could tell her which color pen to have in hand. She was most gracious, and was laughing with the approximately 10 people who seemed to make up her entourage. This number includes neither the two photographers nor the two uniformed guards.
If, after her signing, she had walked two blocks in any direction from the opera house, not one New Yorker in a hundred would have had a clue as to who she was. But to those who did know, she was a goddess.
Walking downtown myself, I stopped at a Sabrettes stand at 51st and 6th. The guy had lots of chestnuts roasting, but what I needed was one of the large soft pretzels stacked next to the fire. When he asked for $3.00 for a pretzel, I politely told him that he could keep it. I'm just happy that we have had virtually no inflation in the Bush era.
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