Never wear high heels to the opera!!!

A few months ago, I received an invitation from one of my trans-masculine friends to join him at the Santa Fe Opera this summer for a performance of La Boheme. He had invited many of his friends and several of us got to sit side by side in the same row! He even got a few friends to car pool with him and picked me up on the way north out of town. It's a 60+ mile drive just from my house and you get out late, so I greatly appreciated that.

I've almost always tried to dress nicely for the theater. And since my transition began three years ago, it's an opportunity to make that extra effort to look and feel really special. Two years ago I went to see Tosca in Santa Fe. Last year I attended a performance of Carmen in Spanish by Opera Southwest at the Hispanic Cultural Center which also has a great theater. I've also attended Fiddler on the Roof and My Fair Lady at the Popejoy Theater at the University of New Mexico with my daughter. All of those were wonderful performances.

But this time I decided to wear my Audrella booties by Aldo.
https://www.aldoshoes.com/us/en_US/women/audrella-white/p/13...

They look sexy as all get out and some of my friends said they looked great. But they have a 4 inch heel, don't have great padding in the sole and really aren't good for long walking! And we had to walk about 100 yards to get to the gravel area where the early arrivals had grabbed a few picnic tables and were setting up. Then back to the car and another 200 yards to the opera itself. And up the stairs to the main entrance and up 2 more stories to the upper mezzanine where we were sitting! And of course the ladies room was on the other end of the building!

Fortunately another attendee was very nice and helped me stumble across the gravel to a picnic table. And my friend gave me a hand to make it across the parking lot to the opera house. But my feet and ankles seem to have survived the experience.

Still, the potluck tailgate was a wonderful experience with great food and company from the local queer community. I saw a couple people I hadn't seen in at least a year and made some more new friends. And we enjoyed homemade goat cheese, locally baked bread, a selection of wines and other great food including the pecan chocolate chip cookies I had brought.

We assembled 14 people for a group photo with several more who hadn't joined us or declined.

And the performance was superb!
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/santa-fe-o...

My friends agreed that Sylvia D’Eramo as Mimi was the best in the show, but all the singers were quite good. Solomon Howard was also impressive singing the bass 'overcoat' aria in the final act.

All in all, a night to be remembered!