Kelly: Tell us, Doni, did you do anything interesting this past week, anything at all? Think hard.

Doni: Whimper, swoon…

Kelly: For example, did you perhaps see a performance by that objet de son affection? The really handsome one? Onstage?

Doni: Swoon, sway, moan…

Kelly: Mrs. Greenberg. Snap out of it. I know you’re dreamily remembering the adventure and at the same time pulling together a cooking class to take place 20 minutes from now, but just come out of your reverie long enough to tell us about seeing that amazing human musical instrument Andrea Bocelli in person. You can do it. I’ve waited all week. Now I want the juicy juicy details. Spill.

Doni: Andrea Bocelli. In person. Saw him. Heard him. Wished I could have touched him. Tried to wrangle an interview with him. Sigh. Last Saturday night in San Jose’s HP Pavilion. Oh. My. God. Shelly and I gave ourselves an early twin birthday present and bought tickets to Bocelli’s 2009 Incanto US Tour — Incanto being the name of his latest -uh, I guess they’re still called this — album. It wasn’t as if we planned this. No, ma’am.  Quite the contrary. In fact, it was one of the worst possible weekends to leave. I had firm commitments from Friday night to Sunday night. And Shelly did, too. Do you know what we did?

Kelly: Wept, tore at your clothes and pulled at your hair because you couldn’t go?

Doni: I didn’t catch that last part. Just a minute, let me turn Bocelli down. I’m back. Well, you got the wept part right. We looked at each other and screamed, “Let’s go!” If our family has learned anything, it’s that life throws enough life-and-death hardballs that cause us to drop everything and run for cover or comfort for hospitals or funerals. We threw all our commitments out the window. This once, we decided to drop everything for a happy, unexpected sexy Italian opera singer moment. You know how crazy Shelly and I are about Andrea Bocelli. We never imagined we’d live to see him, much less while we were still young enough to see him. Yes, we spent way more money than we’d ever spent on tickets, and we got a hotel (the St. Claire — a charming historical place). We got great seats with incredible views. I think he must have his own gym. He looks like he works out, for sure …

Kelly: How did he sound?

Doni: Like you’d expect someone to sound who is so into his music that you feel he’s taking me and nobody else everyone with him. Out of this universe. Shelly and I had the drive there and back to discuss and analyze exactly what it is that we find so appealing about him. We decided that a huge part of his charisma is that, yes, he’s virile and handsome and makes five o’clock shadows look respectable, but also, he’s so utterly in love with his music and singing that it transports the audience. It’s either that or some serious pheromones. We had little binoculars so we could see him up close, although the onstage camera people did an amazing job crawling all over to capture terrific scenes that were broadcast on superscreens to the masses. Would it be considered Bocelli blasphemy to utter a criticism about the concert?

Kelly: Sorry. I dozed off. I had a nightmare about a supersized Bocelli. Cold water, stat.

Doni: I couldn’t warm up to Eglise Gutierrez, the soprano who performed with Bocelli. Or maybe I’m holding a grudge that she didn’t pay better attention when she led Bocelli off stage. You know he’s blind, right?  So, when Bocelli and Gutierrez finished their number, he took her arm and she walked slightly ahead of him — and that’s when Bocelli stepped on the back of her long dress and they both kind of jerked and caught themselves. They could have all come tumbling down. I wonder how many other spectators, including us, almost had heart attacks during that awful moment. Could have been disastrous.

Kelly: I can imagine …

Doni: But here’s what I really wanted to say, actually, could you excuse me, Kelly? Just for a sec. We need the room, so I can say this to Andrea Bocelli himself: Dear Mr. Bocelli — I know you can’t see what images your Creative Entertainment folks flash on the screen behind you, but they’re kind of corny. … They add nothing to your show. In fact, they detract from you and your beautiful voice. That funky time-elapsed flower opening, the old footage of movie stars, and the very most corny of all, the grainy video clips of you performing opera. They just don’t work. I wish I’d told you before your Hollywood concert, because that audience wrote the book on special effects. They’d show no mercy. You’re so polished and classy, but the images behind you just didn’t match. Please consider dumping your background videos. Trust me when I say that you’re plenty. No background pictures are necessary.

Kelly: All righty, then. In other news, I’ve decided the city should retrofit the convention center to be a Public Safety Command and Control Monolith. It’s already an impenetrable fortress, with plenty of space for people and paperwork and patrol cars and police offers 24/7 and bad guys and holding cells and recovered stolen property. It’s centrally located and high-security (one way in, one way out). Easy access to all main arteries. Close to downtown. It’s even unattractive enough to suit City Councilor Patrick Jones. Just yesterday the City Council adopted a $306 million budget for 2009-2010 and a $284 million budget for 2010-2011. But it’s still not enough.  Immediately the councilors have to craft more budget cuts.  So, concert fortress into ultimate no-frills police bunker… what think?

Doni: Brilliant. Perfect solution. IMHO, the Redding Convention Center is one of those unfortunate pieces of architecture that was born ugly and never improved with age. Not to forget, the acoustics are horrible, which is why Andrea Bocelli would never ever come to the north state. Actually, the Cascade would be perfect for him, but jeez, Louise, tickets would cost $500 each or something. Oh, fund-raiser! I could start selling my Tepco and Fiesta ware now …

Kelly: I know. Let’s talk about good books we have recently enjoyed. I just read “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett. Really, really compelling story about white, small-town society during the 60s, told largely from the viewpoint of the nonwhite household help. Great characters. Riveting plot.

Doni: Talk about riveting. Did you know Andrea Bocelli was born with limited eyesight, which he lost completely at 12 during a soccer game? He always sang, but he followed his father’s advice and became a lawyer, to ensure he could support himself. He attended the University at Pisa and worked as a lawyer before he was discovered. Holy high note, Kelly! Look what time it is! I still need to prepare for my cooking class, just a little private class for three. But I didn’t finish telling you about Andrea. Want to hear something funny? After what must have been his fourth standing ovation, he was finally leaving the stage with Heather Headley (she was great, too, and in a stunning short dress, no danger of Bocelli stepping on that hem). Oh, shoot. Where was I?

Kelly: Convention center … Patrick Jones …

Doni: Nice try, small fry. I wasn’t finished talking about Bocelli.

Kelly: I noticed … zzzzz …

Doni: Just this one part. So at the end, Bocelli’s waving and smiling as he’s being led off stage. I can’t believe what I did. You won’t believe it.

Kelly: Please God … nothing involving panties …

Doni: I waved back. As if he could see. But when I looked around, I saw I wasn’t the only one. I guess we just got caught up in the moment.

Kelly: Also, I wanted to point out that Redding is backing a measure (Assembly Bill 715) that would let governments post legal notices on their own websites instead of paying newspapers for the space to publish them. It’s controversial because for most of this country’s history, it’s been a lucrative revenue stream for newspapers to publish those long, tiny-font, classified legals in the back sections. Newspapers are arguing heavily against the measure, saying if governments can publish their own notices, readers won’t know where to look and it will undermine democracy.

Doni: That reminds me. What about blind readers? How do they learn of such news? Don’t leave yet. Couple of more minutes. I’m planning my pasta-class menu, fettuccine with pesto and pine nuts; hand-cut lasagna noodles with roasted tomatoes, olive oil, basil and garlic; spaghetti tossed with bread crumbs, olive oil, Parmesan and red pepper flakes. Andrea Bocelli probably eats this stuff every night. Maybe I could sneak a job on his chef staff. I could take my laptop. Maybe he’d like some pink hollyhock seeds, too. We could work from Tuscany.

Doni: I met two women at the hotel who’d been to FIVE Andrea Bocelli concerts. Five! They had such an air of — bragging knowing. Oh, opera takes so much out of Andrea. You can tell toward the end he’s looking tired… Personally, I thought the longer he sang, the better he sounded. In fact, I’d go as far to say that the second half of the concert was better than the first. And the conductor, Steven Mercurio, was spectacular. And did I mention the guest flautist, Andrea Griminelli, he did a great rendition of The Flight of the Bumblebee. I hate saying the word flautist … I try to work around it by saying ’so-and-so plays the flute.’ I’m not crazy about saying pianist, either. Far too easy to commit a vocabulary malfunction, if you know what I mean.

Kelly: Of course, we’d like legal notices to be published by an independent party too, just not necessarily on newsprint. Anewscafe.com leaps to mind, for some rea$on. Enjoy magazine, too, for that matter. Plenty of other news outlets publish often enough to be effective. Heck, the Thrifty Nickel would work. But laws are having trouble catching up with technology, as usual. ‘Only in paid-circulation printed material,’ my quaking aspen. Other states have already changed this antiquated law. Would we like a piece of that paid publishing action? I can’t deny it: $ure. It’s not fair that a strong newspaper lobby keeps monopoly practices in place (wah, wah, cry, cry). Still, it’s hard to argue with the idea of publishing legal notices online free of charge, since Google makes everything easy to search and find. Cities and counties have to cut costs somewhere. I’ll check next week to find out how much money our city and county spend each year on these legal notice requirements.

Doni: … The music … the stage … the lights … that sweet smile … the screaming … OK, my screaming …

Kelly: Screaming. That reminds me. Personal fitness. I’ve gotten back on the treadmill during my brief period of no-exercise (more about that in a couple of weeks). I’m watching movies one-third at a time over three days each (right now, “Killshot,” with Mickey Rourke and Diane Lane, really good). The movies, I do love them so. Such good incentive to get moving. I’m working on getting my stamina back up to strength for my beloved Zumba at the Shasta Family YMCA. Maybe Tuesday isn’t too soon? Oh, and on June 28, be still my heart, there’s a master Zumba instructor coming to Studio U Fitness. I’m so there. AND I have to remember to check out LaRay’s Chambers’ monthly Saturday night Zumba parties at her studio. I hear they go a couple of hours and are tons of fun. Saturday night exercise parties — who’d-a-thunk-it? Doni, honey bun, come back, you’ve wandered off again.

Doni: So sorry. You know, I was distracted by Andrea for a while, and the cooking class, but now I’m back. It’s nothing to do yaaawn with you.  Really. I’ve been working on something creative, too. You’ll like it, I think. What do you think about this idea — well, now, don’t laugh at it until you’ve heard me out — OK, my idea is that the city could turn the Convention Center into its new police headquarters.  Wait. It could really work. I’ve got it all mapped out in my head. It’s like it came to me in a dream. Cue musica … Canto della terra …

Kelly: I think I’ve seen this movie.

Doni Does it have a happy ending?