Just got back from seeing Les Mis at Wolf Trap with the Weese's and Morgenstern's.
Wow, was that an amazing production. It was so wonderful to be wrapped up in the play on the stage, of course the music helps, but there were tears of sadness and awe. There are few dates left, but if you have the time and inclination, I highly recommend a viewing.

Many ineloquent thoughts are running through my head about the evening. But to sum it up, it was very refreshing.

No further mice related news, other than that the peanut butter used in the live trap attracted ants, so I had to clean that up and will think about reseting the trap with bird seed or something else later.

Have been in training for the past two days, fun and entertaining playing with Wimba, but cutting back on other things I need to accomplish. Also got to work with a lovely guy named Evgeny in Moscow on setting up a video conference for Monday.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, last night, we went with the Morgensterns to go see Julius Ceasar at the dreaded SHH venue. First, we get the understudy for Mark Anthony, which was kinda irritating since Andrew Long is a joy to watch, even if he did a decent job. They did leave us attempted bribes of chocolate kisses taped to the back of our seats, which still isn't going to convince us to sign back up next season. On the whole I enjoyed the production. I had the gooby urge to be in costume myself, but obviously didn't and likely won't for Anthony and Cleopatra next week. The costumes were heavily influence by HBO's ROME, which did at least give a good feel, though the plebes were lacking color. Really I was just there for the blood splatter.

And for some reason I had trouble sleeping last night, up at 4am trying to talk myself to going back to sleep. Hopefully tonight will be better.

Major Barbara was quite a wonderful production last night. I loved the costuming, even though I'm not well versed in the period, and Shaw put in some great one liners. Very interesting characters, especially Cusins. Even thought provoking in a humorous way. Is it better to do good for the wrong reasons, or to proclaim morality and do nothing. Seems pretty cut and dry, but many fall into the trap. Regardless, the last line about it's not easy to love me (Major Barbara), but it builds character... had me calling theodorad "Major Theo" at the end of the play. rolanddem wisely simply smiled at the jest.


So the Shakespeare Theatre Company continues to do a superb job with their normal cast and crew, but we prefer the Lansburg Theater to Sydney Harmon Hall. And now I want more clothes from the 1890's-1900's. Brit's green dress was divine, and the neat pleated skirts look like so much fun...

 Wheeee!

Okay, so the past 28 hours has been awesome.

First, last night we went to see Argonautika at the Lansburg Theater downtown, and it was amazing. Truly, truly! If you can swing it to get tickets, I highly recommend seeing this show. Alan and I went in thinking, yay, more greek tragedy. But my constant comment was Best Greek Tragedy Evar! The writing was brilliant, the costumes were fitting, and the puppetry was fabulous. Yes, puppetry. Trust me, best use of puppets since Punch and Judy, or the Lonely Goatherd from the Sound of Music. It was hilarious, stirring, entertaining and poignant at the same time. How could you not love a play with a sparkly Naiad and Juno's amazing mood wings? Two thumbs up from me. 

Last night after the play, we made it home fairly quickly, and then I got 8 hours of full sleep and even got to sleep in a bit since I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor. (Doing better but not well yet..) Seriously, sleep, and lots of it. awesome.

Then I made it into work for a bit and out to lunch with two of my fabulous faculty members for great Indian food at the Bombay Indian Restaurant in White Oak for their lunch buffet. It was fun to have a relaxing lunch and get to know them better in the process. Oh, and eat lots of bits of really yummy food. MmmmMmm.

And then tonight I prepped and headed over to Bess and Shecky's for their Blackspear night to teach fingerloop braiding. I was happy that first of all I was able to teach myself the method that most directions and recipes are written for, and then I was able to pass the learning on to Bess, Tara, Maggie and Zig. Always nice to have successful students, and I left my pink on pink trial piece for the wall of accomplishment in the basement. What a really fun evening with wonderful folks. 

And now it is snowing. yay. With any luck I'll either get to take a snow day tomorrow, or at least sleep in a bit more.

We haz teh awesomist friendz evar!

Yesterday Kirsten and Scott installed stairs to our attic so we have easy access to additional storage instead of the dinky little hole the builder put in the ceiling that is barely wide enough for Alan's shoulders. Hooray! They are so pretty and functional and completely non-scary. I do need to put a longer string on the attic light so we can reach it from the new stairs now. The opening is all framed out and pretty and painted with one coat (could use a second). Kirsten, I assume, even painted over the patch in our bedroom ceiling that she and Scott patched up last time they visited. Some guests have a permanent welcome carpet rolled out. SRSLY

(For the record, it's not that we couldn't have done these projects ourselves, but we had extremely talented volunteers, and my momma taught me not to look gift horses in the mouth. Especially when they come willing and able and with their own tools. And Alan and I probably wouldn't get to those projects for another year or so.)

I think I'm finally starting to get the upper-hand on this bug of mine, but man...

Tonight we have a play to attend. It is called Argonautika and will be at the more comfortable theater at the least. Alas the Morgensterns are sick and moved their tickets, so we will not have their fun, if plague-ridden, company tonight.

I guess I should come up with a handout for the Fingerloop braiding class I'm teaching tomorrow night to the Blackspear folks. Handouts are good.

Last night we went and saw Edward II by Christopher Marlowe put on by the Shakespeare Theater at their new venue, the Sidney Harmon Hall (SHH). The play was quite good. The cast did an excellent job, the staging was cool, I rather liked the monochromatic nature of the costuming to determine groups, nifty lighting to set the mood, and the sound was a bit too loud in the beginning, but leveled out nicely. The stage at the new theater is nicely set-up for the cast and crew for putting on productions. A nice central pit allows for changing of some minimal sets by raising them instead of sliding stuff on stage and off. On the whole we had a really good time and got to see Mel, Steve, Kymber and Dave (seems to be doing well post-surgery) for a lovely evening of culture out of the house. If the production weren't ending on Sunday, I'd highly recommend it to everyone.

 

This amuses me greatly. For the record, my true feeling for davew1775is ... is... that I hope he heals quickly and is back in action soon. (Sorry, no unrequited love there, just friendly admiration.)  I like the concept of drinking four glasses of music every day. Will have to try that.

 Woke up this morning with a pain in my neck. No, not Alan. (He's cute and snuggly and warm.) An actual pain in my neck on the left-hand side. The Thermacare neck wrap has helped some, but after a while the heat makes me itch, so I had to take it off. Have to see the chiro tonight, and I scheduled a massage for tomorrow afternoon. I've been feeling the tension building in my neck and jaw for a while now, so a visit with the craniosacral massage therapist is definitely in order. 

Sadly, Alan and I aren't headed down to VA for the farmhouse final demolition. I'd like to, but tales of the mold from last time make me hesitant. Besides I've got projects I need to work on at home and bang out before too much time escapes from me. Hawaii is coming quickly. Must have the pain in the neck gone by then, among other prep things.

So, Wednesday night we went with the intrepid Morgensterns to see the Taming of the Shrew with the Shakespeare Theater downtown. It was wonderful; excellent cast, the lighting and sound cues were brilliant, I loved the costumes, and the stage, and it totally made up for the terrible Hamlet we walked out on. The entire theater was rolling in the aisles we were laughing so hard. The pink argyle dress and the revolving door torture about did me in. It was not traditional, but very very well done, and apparently the dates have been extended another week to 11/25. I highly recommend this play to those who love wit, camp and the theater. Trust me on this one.

The photographer has posted pictures from Mike and Cosette's wedding. While they missed the best shot ever, they caught quite a few choice ones. This is one of my favorite shots they took at the ceremony. Visit the link and say it with me folks, awww.... 

But before we got to the reception of great cake, we drove down to Richmond early to meet up with the Nia, who it seems like I haven't seen in a coon's age, but in reality I think it has only been a year. It was fabulous to get quality Nia time, fun Nia stories of libraries, and evil librarians, and scorpions, and wikipedia, and stupid questions. We had an great time with a late lunch at a local Ruby Tuesday that lasted for hours in the full of fun conversation kind of way. The we retired back to her place for more chatting before we had to be whisked away to the hotel to check in and change. 

We made it to the party just in time, saw the bride walking in and she told us where to park. She looked stunning. He looked dashing and handsome and almost worthy of her. Together they were cute and pie, er.. cake, and both had the wonderful look of love like they're sharing the same inside joke. We partook of the yummy nibbles, chatted with many old and new friends, and then Vic had to mention that photographing weddings was so boring since all folks do is sit around and talk. So I got up and did an interpretive dance (very poorly), and staged other fun scenes like the attack on poor puck_eater , and in general tried to liven things up. We (Aedan suggested it and I did the work) also convinced ccunning  that as the principal of the White Scarves it was his job to herd them all for the classic Provost wedding shot. Not to be out done, halowenslut  called for the Provost spouses for a picture, which I'm sure was also amusing to the audience. We ate the yummy cakes after the groom made a toast to his bride, and then they didn't smear cake on each other's face. It's nice to be occasionally dignified. We also got the chance to look at some of the cool miniature pieces of art on display. Some were truly impressive, and some were less than so. All were entertaining in one fashion or another, from Member #2 to the Love Bugs. As the party wound down, we all said our farewells and made our separate ways to various lodgings. We went back to our hotel, bemoaning the fact that we didn't pack swimsuits for the pool, and then crashed in bed.

Sunday we made our way to visit the Moore's after a breakfast stop by Waffle House first. I got to indulge in a waffle, country ham, and some grits, which are by no means healthy, but they were darn tasty. theodorad  indulged in the jukebox, thankfully asking me to pick a few, so we ranged from Alan Jackson's cover of 5 O'clock Somewhere and Walmart Parking Lot to Sunday Morning and Get This Party Started. Finally we got to meet sweet Grace Moore, in all her cute cuddly freshly bathed pink wonderfulness. I still say she liked me best, but I was wearing pink to test the like attracts like theory. But in addition to cute baby snuggling, we had the awesome chance to catch up with bdeb  and laruse  and just sit and chat for another few hours. It was a weekend full of stress-free socializing with friends, and that is always time well spent.

And that, folks, catches you up on the last week in my world.

Hamlet was terrible. There is a first time for everything. And this was our first time walking out on a play at intermission. We felt better about it when we saw others in the garage also lamenting the terribleness of the production/acting. sigh. Thai dinner was good though. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, this afternoon I was inspired by the Which lolcats are You? test, and asim's links to lolbuffy and lolfirefly, and I now give you 
lolbandes

Suggestions cheerfully accepted.

BTW, I got this on the lolcats test

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Okay, enough whining. Last week was packed. Monday found me abusing Theo's embroidery machine for Livia's cloak, and the embroidery on a new scarf for the Alan. While not done, I finally packed it in around 11pm to head home for bed. Tuesday night would have been laundry, but I was back at Theo's and the machine's finishing up the machine done details on said cloak. Wednesday was a lovely dinner out but a disappointing play with incapable understudy in lead role. Thursday I called to check on practice and it was called off, which was wonderful so I could do more work on the cloak assembly. Friday night was also final cloak assembly including whipcording 3.5 yards of silk trim for the edging, I was only up until 3am. Insert random pauses for heating pad usage and better living through chemistry.

Sunday we awoke to cute light fluffy snow. Alan was wise and shoveled the front walk and driveway in shifts. So he went outside to shovel 3 times, but it was in smaller batches, ultimately better for the back, right? I spent the entire day being a non-productive bum. I spent all day in fleecy pants and top and made brunch (turkey bacon and cheesy eggs), snow-cream (southern delicacy of snow, milk, sugar, and vanilla*), did 5 loads of laundry, took a 2 hour nap, and made half of a nalbound mousie. The rest of the time I spent vegged out in front of the tube, or watching the snow blanket form around us. I did take a few more pictures of the thick snow to share with the FL parents and Hawaii sister, also to be uploaded later. I think we got about 6 inches before the rain came and started tamping it down a bit. Most sad of all, the roads were all cleared last night, so there was no delay or cancellation of work today for moi. At least Alan kept a nice fire glowing in the den all day for warmth and ambiance, and in case of the slight chance that we had power outage.

Tomorrow morning I have a massage scheduled with Wendy of the magic hands. And oh how I need it. 

*Like lobster is more of a delicacy to those not from New England, snow cream is a delicacy only to those who don't get snow often, like southerners.