Kick up your heels

I had a great dinner last night with Matt and Frank and am looking forward to connecting with them again on Saturday. Denver just keeps looking better and better. Matt shared this and I had to pass it along:

If anyone is planning one of those cool public dance/crowd art events...call me! I'm your gal. It's one of those things I have to do sometime in my life.

Also, have you seen the previews of the Where the Wild Things Are movie?

Beautiful. Judging from their use of Arcade Fire's Wake Up for the clip, the soundtrack sounds like it will be pretty great, too.

Pubs & Pogues

A couple of years ago (back when G worked for a British company and I rode his coattails as often as I could when he went there for meetings) we wandered into a pub on a little side street in London.  As a non-British non-drinker, I was always fascinated by the whole pub experience (do I choose where I sit?  do I walk over to the bar and shout my soda order? is someone going to yell at me? and what about the crowd of people lingering outside?  do I just walk up and make conversation? are they already in groups of friends?)  

As you can tell, I overthink things.

This time it was irresistible.  It was the night of the European Football Playoffs  and there was a jolly chaos inside that we couldn't ignore.  So we went in, joined in the happy cheering and jeering, suddenly die-hard English football fans by virtue of pub-adoption. I grinned through the whole jubilant exuberant night and left feeling like I had jumped, Mary-Poppins-and-Burt-style, into another world.  Minus the penguin waiters.

* * *

Last Friday G and I had tickets to the Pogues concert at The House of Blues.  Let's see...Irish folk/punk band in Boston?  In a concert hall with five bars along the interior perimeter?  Think that'll be lively?

I'm pretty sure we were the only sober ones there.

I'm pretty sure lead singer Shane MacGowan was the least sober one there.

I'm pretty sure 85% of the attendees were singing along with the band at the top of their lungs.

It brought back memories of that merry pub experience (multiplied by 10). There aren't any seats at the House of Blues concert venue, which makes for a lot of dancing and interactions. Lots of grown tough burly Irish American men dancing jigs, complete with locking elbows and spinning.  Pretty much like this:

For instance: At one point I was walking on the way back from the loo and a guy put his finger on top of my head. I looked at him quizzically and he and his girlfriend said "spin! spin!" so I did and they all cheered.  (Apparently I was the first who did. I kind of felt like "Norm!" at Cheers).  It was amazing fun.   We laughed a lot--at the dancers, at the manic mood of the whole audience, at the enthusiasm.

And at the same time, a bit of sadness on the underside of the evening.  Looking at addiction's ravages in Shane MacGowan (he looks decades older than his age) you wonder why the extreme lows and destructiveness have to so frequently accompany the joyousness.

{In fact, the Boston Globe called the show "a blended blur of life's emotional extremes: joy, laughter, tears, and sorrow. Beating at the music's clamoring heart were the Pogues, who ultimately left us wondering whether there ever was a band so perfectly, equally suited to playing either a wedding or a wake." } 

Other Pogue favorites:  Fairy Tale of New York, Love You Till The End

photo via MaryElle St. Clare's Flickr page

It turns out...

  l that hosting a teenage sleep-over on the weekend of the "spring forward" time change is a recipe for a very lethargic and sleepy Monday.

 l  that Miss Saigon was powerful and the lead voices really rose to the challenge (in particular our extremely talented neighbor who played Kim and the boy who played John--his "Bui Doi" was amazing and every bit as good as the one below...it's an amazing number. Have you seen it?-->)

...but I still feel like the production is beyond the developmental appropriateness for high schoolers (as young as 14).  Even though the message of the play is to criticize the objectification of women in that way, it's still wacko to ask young girls to dress and play prostitutes in the same mature way the West End and Broadway productions did.  In my humble opinion.

l that just because it's 55 degrees and sunny on Sunday doesn't mean you're immune to a Monday morning sleet and snowstorm.

l that having a "spring break" that is a different week from your kids' spring break is not a terrible thing.  (Although difficult when their week rolls around next month.)  I'm enjoying a relaxed schedule this week and catching up on some much-neglected house projects and reading (both for school and for fun).  Oh, who am I kidding?  I still have a to-do list a mile long but am giving myself a few moments of vacation-like indulgence.

l that I really enjoy trying some new recipes for the family (who knew?).  This is a new development, folks. Recent hits:

1. cinnamon waffles with caramelized apples
   
2. cauliflower soup (although the kids didn't love it)
   
3. Ina Garten's shrimp scampi
   
4. Sopa de lima from the Turtle Bay Tacqueria cookbook (one of our faves when we go to Pacific Grove)

Um...we won't talk about the quiche I made last night that somehow ended up with broken glass in it.  The only thing I can think of is the frozen spinach must have had some shards in it, since everything else (half-and-half? grated cheese? chopped onions?) was fine.

l that, in order to take advantage of an offer of two free airline tickets, we would have to charge $500 on our AmEx by tomorrow. Our own little economic stimulus package (or, rather, AmEx's). Not sure we're up for that, but just for the sake of discussion, what would you spend it on?

My Funny Valentines

Just a little clip of G and me, doing a little Valentine's Day dance in the rain...

Okay, actually it's Neve Campbell and Domingo Rubio in a beautiful dance scene from the movie The Company. I love this cello & piano arrangement of My Funny Valentine (it's a great soundtrack all around, actually) and it's one of my favorite dance scenes ever. So romantic and the rain makes it even more dreamy. {If I've posted this here before, just pretend I haven't.}

In reality, our Valentine's Day will be spent chaperoning a youth dance. Sigh. Maybe we'll try a few of the ballet moves to show those kids what's what. Now that would be a funny valentine (pa-dum-pum). Our anniversary is on Monday, though, so we'll just celebrate Valeversary then.

* * *

photo via Ali Edwards

Other My Funny Valentine favorites:

Chet Baker

Miles Davis

Elvis Costello

Kronos Quartet (couldn't find links for the last two)

What songs would be on your Valentine's mix?

Beating the winter blahs

 

Idea #1 for beating those winter blahs:

Read a great book that takes place somewhere warm and exotic.  My brother Matt gave me this beautiful vintage edition of Out of Africa for Christmas this year (Modern Library edition 1952. It even came with an old folded up portrait of Isak Dinesen from a 1950s magazine tucked in the back pages) and it has helped me breeze through January as I gobble up morsels of vicarious sun and beautiful words every night before bed.  {Thank you, Matt.  Such a thoughtful gift.}

I loved this passage about an orphaned pet antelope they have on the farm.  It could easily be speaking to me, or you, or one of my children:

"Oh, Lulu," I thought, "I know that you are marvellously strong and that you can leap higher than your own height. You are furious with us now, you wish that we were all dead, and indeed we should be so if you could be bothered to kill us [well, maybe not that killing part...].  But the trouble is not as you think now, that we have put up obstacles too high for you to jump, and how could we possibly do that, you great leaper?  It is that we have put up no obstacles at all.  The great strength is in you, Lulu, and the obstacles are within you as well, and the thing is, that the fullness of time has not yet come." (p. 72)

Have a great weekend, you great leapers.  G and I are off to the Andrew Bird concert at the Orpheum tonight.  So so excited.