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May 11, 2013

With the wheezes, and the sneezes, and the sinuses really a pip…

By lucysfootball

I am a terrible sick person.

I don’t get sick often. This is a good thing, because when I DO get sick, I am not good at it.

Dammit, NPH! Why must you be so awesome? WHY?!?!?

Dammit, NPH! Why must you be so awesome? WHY?!?!?

Things I want to do when I get sick:

  • moan
  • sleep
  • moan some more
  • not interact with human beings
  • imagine how the sweet, sweet embrace of death would be preferable to the evil sickness that has me in its clutches
  • eat all the soup

This is what I want to do whether I have the flu or whether I have a pesky cold. Right now, I have what I think is between the two; it’s gone past being a pesky cold, in that I’m coughing up half a lung and have lost most of my voice and have a fever, but I’m not DYING, like I was when I had the flu over Christmas. It is being made worse by the fact that it is officially allergy season here in my beloved Capital District; the pollen is so thick in the air that it’s like walking through a sticky golden haze. When I use my windshield wiper fluid to get it off the car, it creates pollen-mud. Why are you so oversexed, trees and flowers? You’re going way overboard, pollen-wise. My poor little allergy-prone body just utterly cannot handle this.

I thought I was just having an allergy attack this week, but as the week progressed and the sore throat got worse, I could no longer deny that I was actually getting sick. Allergies very seldom cause fevers. Or coughing. Sneezing, maybe, but not coughing to the point your whole ribs ache. DAMMIT.

I had to leave work early today because not only could the callers not hear me, it was like gargling with broken glass to talk. Sorry, coworkers. I’m an embarrassment. Luckily it wasn’t very busy and we had plenty of people working today, so if I had to be sick, it was a good day for it to happen.

NOT as luckily, I’m in a stretch of extremely busy busy-ness over the next 5 days. Plays to see, people to visit, auditions to run, work to do. I managed to see and review a show last night, but coughed all the way through it, and am not 100% sure how well the review came out, because I had to stop every few minutes to put my head down and moan.

Also, when you have a fever and run out of cold medication, you sometimes make poor decisions, and then you wake up and say, did I really make that poor decision? Or was it all a fever dream? And then you check into it and realize that yes, yes you did make that poor decision, and you feel like an utter and complete asshole for having done so and probably owe people an apology for things done while under the influence of fevers. I mean, so I hear. Such things happen. To some people. Not ME. Heh. No. Not ever me.

So now I’m off to make another poor decision, which is to attempt to sit through a play because it’s my only chance to see it. It’s only an hour and fifteen minutes long; I had some soup; I took a nice fortifying nap; I drank some unnaturally-orange store-brand DayQuil and am bringing a bottle of water larger than my forearm and a bag of cough drops the size of my OTHER forearm and luckily it’s at my theater so hopefully no one will get too upset at the feverish hacking chick sitting woozily in the back row.

Moan. Moan moan MOAN. Cough. I’m the most pitiful thing that ever pitifuled. Doom. Gloom. Tiny violin.

(I promise to be back soon with final episodes of “Adventures in Baltimore” if I don’t cough myself to death. No. Really. I promise.)

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35 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in sick

May 10, 2013

Many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea: Adventures in Baltimore, Part Three Point Five

By lucysfootball

This isn’t a REAL “adventures in Baltimore” post. It’s more of a continuation of yesterday’s post, which just got too crazy long. Plus I got really tired. I have to get normal amounts of sleep one of these days, yo. I’m in a weird walking-through-mud not-enough-sleep-space lately. That does not make for a cheery Amy.

OK! So if you’ll remember back to yesterday, we went to the zoo, then came home to see how A. did in his race. How did he do? JUST AS WELL AS HE WANTED TO, YAY! Also, he got a crazy sunburn. The best part of his sunburn was that he was wearing a biking outfit? They probably have a name, I don’t know what it is. You know, the spandex one-piece biking suit, like they wear in the Tour de France? And so where the suit was and his arms and legs came out was a VERY CRISP LINE where the sunburn started because those suits are tight. I fretted at him that he needed to wear sunscreen from now on. I think he ignored me. WEAR SUNSCREEN FROM NOW ON, A.!!! Look, I found this for you. It’s a spray, it dries DRY, not STICKY, so all the road-dirt will not get all over you, and please use it from now on because I like you very much and sunburns are scary.

See? Neutrogena is the good stuff! GET SOME OF THIS PLEASE!

See? Neutrogena is the good stuff! GET SOME OF THIS PLEASE!

So when we got home, A. was there, and A. was on Baby CeeVee duty for the evening, and R. and I got all ready for our NEXT adventure, which was…

DINNER AND A SHOW!

R.’s friend S. met us at the house for our adventure. I did not change my clothes. R. and S. looked ADORABLE so probably I should have but I didn’t bring anything stylish so I told them I could be their country cousin who’d never been to the big city before. Also, S. had the cat-eye glasses that I covet, and also the most adorable stylish shoes and tights. I was kind of impressed with S.’s sense of style, yo. Want to know the secret of my sense of style? It is A., what is clean? and B., will these shoes be comfortable if I’m walking long distances? That’s it. That’s the entirety of it. Oh, also I like necklaces. That’s all. Fin.

So first, we went to a teeny-tiny tavern for dinner. What was it called? Well, it was Baltimore…and who do they love in Baltimore? Edgar Allen Poe…and so it was called…

The Annabel Lee Tavern!

I didn’t take photos at ALL that night. I’m totally ganking all of these from the internet. Sorry, world.

It was so perfect, this place. I was crazy in love.

Look how pretty! The walls were all this mauvey color, and it was all mismatched furniture and Poe quotes and candles and Poe-paintings and it was totally moody and amazing. Seriously, THIS is how you do a themed restaurant. I hope it makes all the money and stays open for years to come.

R. knew I am attempting to have The Year of Trying New Foods so with that in mind, we decided to have three appetizers and share them, rather than three meals, so we had:

  • Baked Brie en Cruet! This was brie in pastry with what seemed to be jam on it but the menu says it’s brown sugar and pecans. This was ok, but you’d think with all of these things, it would be AMAZING, right? I wasn’t sold on this. But I’m not a huge Brie fan (is Brie a capitalized thing? It looks weird if I don’t capitalize it) so that might be why I didn’t love it. It wasn’t BAD, it just wasn’t AMAZING.
  • Crab Dip Flatbread Pizza! R. said I couldn’t leave Baltimore without having SOMETHING with crab it in. This was good, but again, not amazing. I think it needed more crab. I’m very crab-oriented. I could eat crab, with crab topping, on a bed of crab, garnished with a little crab, and be happy, you see. But, again, I liked it.
  • Duck Fat Fries with Herbs de Provence! O.M.G., you guys. OH. EMM. GEE. WHY DIDN’T YOU PEOPLE TELL ME ABOUT SUCH A THING BEFORE NOW? OK, here’s the thing. I don’t like fries much. I could live the rest of my life without eating fries again and I wouldn’t miss them much. I know, a lot of you are gasping right now; fries are a thing that some people crave. Like pasta. I could live forever without pasta and would be a little sad, but ok. (Now, take away chocolate, or bread, and we’d have a fight, yo.) But THESE fries? They were perfectly crispy. The seasoning was salty and herby and just right. And I don’t know if the magic was in the duck fat, or what was going on there, but seriously, I wanted to put my face in the dish and just start chomping. I don’t know that I’ve had an appetizer EVER that has been this good. So, yes. Instead of crab, the thing I discovered that I am in love with while in Baltimore (other than, well, Baltimore, and Baby CeeVee) is DUCK FAT FRIES WITH HERBS DE PROVENCE FROM THE ANNABEL LEE TAVERN.
This is not them, but close. If you are not a vegetarian-type, get yourself some of these, yo.

This is not them, but close. If you are not a vegetarian-type, get yourself some of these, yo.

Next, it was off to the theater!

The theater area was GORGEOUS. It was totally a mini-Broadway. I was muy impressed. Our theater was called The Hippodrome.

SO PRETTY!

SO PRETTY!

It’s an old-timey theater. It looks a little like our Proctors here, maybe a little smaller. I am a sucker for a pretty theater.

Pretty inside, right? S. said it was like being on the Titanic. I liked that.

Pretty inside, right? S. said it was like being on the Titanic. I liked that.

Now, what do you think we saw at this theater? (Mom? Dad? If you are reading this, because I know you’ve been following adventures in Baltimore, you should stop now. Well, Dad, you can stay. Mom, please read something else. Maybe a nice book about kittens. Or the Bible. Dad, you know I’m vulgar. And it alternately makes you laugh and/or shake your head. So you can stick around, I suppose.)

Well, I don’t know if you remember, but last year around this time, I posted a review of what is possibly one of the worst books I’ve ever read. It remains one of my most-read posts. People apparently love reading about terrible books and me ripping them to pieces in a snarky way. Also, do you know what else people love? Bad porn.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen; we went to see…

YES WE DID!

Listen, this was a big theater. I should have been more worried when I realized it was completely full. Mostly of giggling women. Wearing inappropriate clothing like hooker-shoes and very low-cut tops. Here or there was a man, but the men did NOT look excited to be there. No they did not.

So we got to our seats, but not without trials and tribulations. Apparently the ushers were not sure where the seats were. Even when we showed them our tickets. (Well, I should say “ticket”. Or even “piece of paper,” because when R. went to the will-call window, apparently they were out of tickets so they gave her a piece of paper with our seats written on it.) One man told us to go to one door and another man sent us further on and a woman told us we were in the wrong place and SIGHINGLY led us over to OTHER seats. Sorry we’re bothering you, ushers! Whose job is to ush!

So. The show.

Well, in good news, it was a parody, which I didn’t know going into it. I was picturing that it was going to be actually a serious theatrical version of the worst book EVERRRR.

Here’s the plot in a nutshell: three book-club ladies, two married, one sad-sack whose husband just left her (everyone keeps saying “Oh, CAROL”) read 50 Shades of Grey as their monthly pick. They then daydream about certain scenes, and actors playing the characters come out. Oh, also they talk about sex and masturbation a lot. And fisting. There’s a lot of talk of fisting.

The actor playing Christian Grey was a short, overweight Asian man, which was supposed to be super-funny, especially when he came out and the actress playing Ana was all “HE WAS SO TALL AND HOT AND DREAMY!” There were songs like “I Don’t Make Love” (with lines like, “I don’t make love, I fuck”) and “There’s a Hole Inside of Me” (this song was FILLED with euphemism) and “Red Room of Pain” (this one had lots of props, like whips and dildos.)

The audience LOVED this show. I don’t know that I’ve heard laughter like that in ever. There was one guy who may or may not have been drunk who was loudly heckling. The actors had nice voices. And they were acting, and not badly. There were some dancers. Who danced well. No one got naked, and the dreaded tampon scene wasn’t represented (whoo) but there was some down-center doggy-style action, and some disturbingly animalistic cunnilingus which made me feel terrible for both of the actors involved.

I’m a terrible theater snob, you guys. I think it’s gotten to the point I can’t enjoy something like this. I know. I KNOW. I’m one of those snooty assholes who says things like “stage picture” and “believability of character” and such. I don’t know if it’s the show, or if it’s the book the show’s based on and my hatred of it, or the fact that the theater was FULL, and would the theater have been full for something like A Streetcar Named Desire or Fat Pig or A Midsummer Night’s Dream? My guess is no. No, it would not be. And should I just be glad that people are SEEING theater, or should I be upset that this is all the theater some people see? And should I be upset that this kind of thing tours, but good shows close all the time because they don’t have audiences?

And this is what I thought about for an hour and a half, while the actors mimed oral sex and put dog-collars on each other and talked about giving up all of your personal freedom to someone just for some really rough sex.

Is it a good or a bad thing that being a theater snob seems to have taken away my ability to enjoy something stupid for a couple of hours? Or HAS it taken that away? Was it just that I hated the book so I couldn’t force my brain to like the show? The whole audience was really digging it, yo. I was the only sourpuss.

R. and S. enjoyed it, though. And the theater was REALLY pretty. Also there was popcorn for sale, so I totally bought some and ate it while I was watching the show. You could also buy alcohol. I think they wanted you to be drunk to watch it. Although R. said the wine was terrible, and also it was like $9 for about 4 ounces. Not a good deal at all.

Here, I found you this so you don’t think I’m making this all up.

Then we went home and played CSI. Why was the dining room chair in the computer area? Why were there two water bottles on the stove? Why was there a half-eaten piece of pizza on the counter? We thought maybe A. and Baby CeeVee had been kidnapped by ne’er-do-wells, but no. They were asleep. It was just a very long night and A. got tired because he’d been racing in the sun all day long.

OH, also, I totally ALSO got a sunburn, even though I put on all the sunscreen. Guess where? The stupidest place ever. THE PART IN MY HAIR. Who would think to put sunscreen in their HAIR? Not me! And now my head hurts there. Nice. I’m going to be the first person to die from skin cancer of the scalp.

Off to bed, chicks and chicklettes. One more of these, but you might not get it until…um…Sunday? Monday? Big week coming up. Three plays to see! Dinner with friend N.! Work all day tomorrow and Saturday! A review to write! Hanging with The Nephew! Auditions for the next show at my theater! SO SO BUSY!!!

Until then, remember: duck fat fries, good. Anything 50 Shades of Grey related: no. Not good. Not at all.

15 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in food, Theater, thoughts, travel

May 9, 2013

Many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea: Adventures in Baltimore, Part Three

By lucysfootball

OK, here we are with part three. On the THIRD day, we did SO MANY THINGS.

First, let me tell you a story about A. Did you know A. is a championship bike-rider person? YES! IT IS TRUE! He runs a whole bike TEAM! And rides in RACES! And has all kinds of MEDALS! That clink pleasingly when you walk past them! I’m being a little facetious, but it’s totally all true. Here’s what’s the best about this: A. is so passionate about this. It is so much fun to listen to him talk about it. I am all about people having passion about things. I think passion is what makes life interesting. And people WITH passion about something – and I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s not scary and hurtful, like murder – make me happier than happy. Do I know anything about bike racing? Nope. Have I even been ON a bike in like, twenty years? Nope. Was I totally happy to listen to A. talk about HIS love for it? Absolutely. Could have listened to it all day. Because it made his whole face light up. And that made me overjoyed. People with passion are AWESOME.

So on Saturday, A. had a big race, and when I told him “YOU WIN THAT RACE!” he could NOT win, he was in the race to make sure that another guy on his team won, and to knock other people out of the competition. “By throwing gravel at them?” I asked. “No. No gravel-throwing,” said A.

His big race meant it was me, R., and Baby CeeVee for the day! And where were we going?

THE ZOO!

Luckily, R. is a member of the zoo, so we got to go through a special MEMBERS-ONLY gate! There was no champagne. I thought there should be. Membership has its privileges, you see. But apparently, the only privilege was going through the good gate quickly for free. That’s pretty cool. I’ll take it.

You take a shuttle to get to the zoo, or you walk. It’s a long walk. We had a stroller. We took the shuttle. It was so vibratey I’m pretty sure people could use it in place of a washing machine to get afternoon giggles, seriously.

When we first walked in, immediately, there was…

A red-foot tortoise! He was very active and crawled all around. I liked that. Tortoises make me happy. As do turtles. All happy shelled animals are my favorites.

First, something for Jim!

The ravens that are the ACTUAL RAVENS that are the mascots for the Baltimore Ravens! Aw, Jim, you LOVE the Ravens! What? What’s that? You actually HATE the Ravens? Oh, sorry. Sorry about that.

Ravens are very cool and larger than you would think and they have really sharp beaks. One was eating a chick. No, really. A baby chicken. There were feet dangling out of the raven’s mouth.

Here’s the other raven. I liked the ravens. I would like one as a pet. I would set him against mine enemies.

This was an arctic fox. He was taking a little napper. He also smelled like a skunk, but I don’t think that means he was a skunk in disguise. I think it’s just a thing, like how bearcats smell like popcorn.

There was a children’s area where you could do children’s things. Also if you were an adult who has the heart of a child, I suppose. So, in honor of that…

…I of course had to conquer a giant turtle and point at him menacingly as if he’d been naughty.

Mostly I was going to take a photo of this sign and say something snarky like “Don’t you tell me what to do, SIGN,” but then I realized this rock is kind of totally a euphemistic rock, right in the middle of the children’s area. Someone’s totally aware of this, right? Like, this is totally a man-made structure. SOMEONE DID THIS ON PURPOSE.

This is a regular fox. He was also sleepy. All foxes must have gotten the memo to take a nap at the same time. FOX MEMOS! I like foxes. They seem both debonair and also crafty.

It’s kind of hard to tell, but these are INTERSPECIES FRIEND SNAKES! There are two snakes all curled up together here. One’s the redder one, and one’s the brown/cream one. They were the best of friends and possibly in love. These snakes were in a cave that was kind of scary and dark and also there were bats in there and R. did not like the bats, even though I told her that they were actually very good for us and would not really get tangled in our hair like on television and ate all the insects. I learned this from Andreas at the Central Park Zoo. That’s why it’s nice to have a sciency friend.

OK I WILL THANK YOU!

(SIDE NOTE: I actually couldn’t, because in order to be a turtle, you had to get into a very small turtle shell on the ground and put your arms and legs out the arm and leg holes, and I’m a grownup lady and would never fit in that turtle shell. “I think calling A. and asking him to help get me out of a child’s turtle shell would be a bad move, right?” I asked R. “Yes, probably,” R. said. We were both sad. Think of the photo op, right? Sigh.)

So instead, I did the next best thing. The sign told me to be a turtle, so be a turtle I would, dammit!

A zoo’s not a zoo without a cut-out thing to put your face in and pretend to be an animal that’s really for children but you do it anyway because you’re Amy. Nice job, Maryland Zoo!

These are itty-bitty baby pygmy goats. They were a little over a month old and SO WEE. Look how little! I said I wanted to pop one in my purse and bring it home and I don’t think the zookeeper approved.

Then R. and Baby CeeVee went into the petting zoo area. All that was in there was goats. Why not sheep? Confusing.

Baby CeeVee was highly interested in these goats.

SO interested! She didn’t even look at the camera! She was watching the goats instead! I think she thought they were large kitty-cats. Because she has a cat at home and that’s her reference point for furry things. Also, isn’t R. beautiful? She’s just as beautiful as she was the day I met her. I think she has a portrait of Dorian Gray in her attic.

GOATS GOATS EVERYWHERE GOATS! You could not feed the goats. Probably if you did, there would be a feeding frenzy and the goats would swarm you.

Out of the children’s area, into the Africa area. Where there was…

A TERRIFYING BUZZARD THING THAT LOOKS LIKE IT IS MADE OF PLASTIC IT IS SO SCARY.

These things were the worst, seriously.

There was supposed to be a tortoise exhibit, but instead, we had this.

TEMPORARILY CLOSED! This is worrisome. I’m really going to hope this means they’re either updating the exhibit or the tortoises are somewhere breeding, not that the tortoises died.

As I was taking this photo, a man dropped his phone into the rhino enclosure and was going to go over the wall to get it but he was convinced to ask for help instead so two zoo employees went over the wall for it. I kind of wanted to see a rhino cellphone stampede that resulted in the rhino taking selfies with the phone he won fair and square in one-on-one combat, but was denied.

Also, the rhino couldn’t be bothered. He was too busy eating all the things and showing us his bum.

Then there was an awesome bird sanctuary thing in the middle of the Africa area. It was cool in there and so pretty and the birds made awesome sounds and it was all shadowy and they’d just been fed so they were nomming on all the fish.

I tried a million times to get a photo of the spoonbill, who was ridiculously funny. He’s the one at the bottom of the photo looking at us. He was very funny scooping up fish from the water with his big old spoon of a bill.

This was a pretty African duck. I am a sucker for ducks even though when we were in New York Andreas told me that ducks were actually kind of evil. But look at his pretty red head!

This duck was separated from all of his friends so he was making the best peeping call and then a duck from all the way across the enclosure was returning it and when I made the call back at him he looked at me like we were besties. I ALSO wanted to pop this duck in my purse. I feel like that’s an internal struggle I deal with every time I’m at the zoo. I want to bring everyone home with me.

These were the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil ducks, all in a row. One was on one leg and all balancey. Hee!

ZEBRAS! Aw, hi, zebras! They did not want to be photographed. They hated the paparazzi.

Then one came out for his photo op! Hi, little guy, you’re all famous now!

SCARY OSTRICH! Ostriches scare the crap out of me. Because they’re so huge and also because one pecked my dad’s BFF at the drive-through zoo in Canada when I was little and we all kind of shrieked.

I couldn’t get a good photo of this thing. It had a scary beak, and like a dent in the front of his beak like he got in a car wreck? He looked like a mistake of nature, and therefore I loved him.

OMG YES PLEASE WHERE DO I SIGN UP FOR THIS HONOR?

Do you think Dumbcat would like a cheetah-friend?

Especially one as sleepy-purry as this one?

This was the sleepy cheetah’s girlfriend. She was also sleepy, but she was on the lookout for prowlers.

She could only stay alert for so long. Then she nodded off, too. It was sleepytime at the zoo.

Next was the monkey house. You know how sometimes people say things smell like a monkey house? Um. Yeah. There’s a reason they say that. WHOO!

I am not a fan of monkeys, especially ones that look like creepy old men. These were kind of cool because they’d just had a baby so every once and a while, a baby monkey would pop its head up and it was very small and almost (I SAID ALMOST!) cute. I couldn’t get a photo of it. Too small.

Tiny yellow frog! The tank was all, “THESE ARE TOTALLY ALMOST EXTINCT!” but there were like fifteen of them in the tank. Maybe they’re almost extinct because you guys have them ALL!

Happy fast lemur-things! This is the best photo I could get because they were zipping all over the place. There was ALSO a lemur-thing baby! It was TOTALLY adorable and was riding its mom’s back and we were so scared it would fall off because its mom was leaping around all fast, but it was clingy!

This is not the best photo, but it’s the mom and the baby lemur-thing. As you can see, I’m VERY scientific with the names of things.

We saved my favorite things for last.

GIRAFFES!

I was totally the giraffe whisperer. This one watched me the whole time. It TOTALLY wanted me to take it home. There were three giraffes and I gave them all names. I think this one was Raoul.

I love giraffes. I totally bought a giraffe necklace at the gift shop and have already worn it and I love it.

Elephants! They were far away but so pretty. One was getting a bath and most were just standing around doing elephant-things.

Elephant butt!

Prairie dogs! They made us laugh. They freaked out about EVERYTHING and then would all disappear into their holes and then slowly peep at each other and pop their heads back up. They were cheerful.

Finally…what’s last? Any guesses?

PENGUINS!!!

The penguins were just hanging out. Some were swimming. Some were waiting for fish at the little fish-door. They were very laid-back penguins. And they were OUTDOOR penguins! Not behind glass! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen outdoor penguins!

This penguin was way high up on the rocks and didn’t seem to know how to get down. I made a penguin-voice for him. “Guys? Hey, guys? A little help? Guys? Can anyone even HEAR me?”

Swimming penguins!

Waiting at the food-door penguin!

Just hanging-out penguin!

We might have spent an inordinate amount of time with the penguins.

Then it was time to go home! We had more plans that evening, and we had to see how A. did in his race, and also, did he throw gravel at the competition? ONLY TIME WILL TELL!

I was PLANNING on telling you about the rest of the day here, but it’s already half an hour past bedtime and I’m kind of exhausted, so soft-core porn will have to wait until tomorrow. Oh, whoops. Spoiler-alert, I guess.

OH! Also, there was a squished-penny machine at the gift shop, but the selections weren’t stellar. It was all, “check out other squished penny machines around the zoo!” but I had not seen any! So I got an eagle. Which wasn’t even a thing that was AT the zoo. BUT, on the way to the car, there was a squished penny in the parking lot! And it was a LION! Which WAS a thing at the zoo, only they were hiding (R. is convinced the lions are an urban legend; she has never once seen them out when she’s been there, and she’s been there a LOT.) So it was like it fell from the sky! Just for me! Aw, providence smiled on me!

Happy Thursday, people of the blog. Tomorrow: soft-core porn and more literary adventures, this time with FOOD!

35 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in adventure, animals, photos, travel

May 8, 2013

Many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea: Adventures in Baltimore, Part Two

By lucysfootball

Here we are! OK, so we talked about the day I arrived…on to day two!

On the second day, R. kept CeeVee home from daycare so we could take her adventuring with us. When I woke up, she was a little shy, but she warmed up almost immediately. This kid is pure sunshine, seriously. I miss her already. Our most successful game was called “Pretend to Eat Baby CeeVee’s Fingers in a Most Delicious Way.” I would pick her up, and first she would play with whatever necklace I was wearing. I purposely brought necklaces that babies would enjoy. I learned that these are baby essentials from The Nephew. Then she would try to put the necklace in my mouth. I would say “UM YUM YUM!” and pretend to eat it. This would make her squeal with delighted laughter. Then she would try to put her most wonderful teeny-tiny baby fingers in my mouth, with similar “UM YUM YUM!” pretending to eat results, and most delighted baby squeals of laughter. This never got old, and once she realized it was the best time ever, it happened every day I was there. I was more than happy to oblige. If it makes a baby happy and doesn’t hurt me? I’m down with it. (And I learned in The Nephew’s case, sometimes even if it starts to hurt but makes the kid happy, you continue to do it, like catching him repeatedly at the end of a slide even though he’s kind of heavy and tipping him over and making him laugh and laugh and the next day your arms ache but you can remember the laughter and that makes the achey arms hurt less.)

On day two we had two plans. First, we went to…

THE NATIONAL AQUARIUM IN BALTIMORE!

It’s not even a rinky-dink aquarium, you guys. It’s totally national.

We parked on Level 8. That’s the Sea Turtle level. I was already excited and we weren’t even IN the aquarium yet!

Outside the aquarium there was…

THE U.S.S. TORSK! I mentioned that was a thing I might see in Baltimore and look! I accidentally did! A ship with a shark painted on it! RAWR! Also, hee, Torsk!

First there was a whole room of jellyfish! Jellyfish make me think of Finding Nemo. There were many kinds. These pretty little ones with long dangly bits…

These funny darty white ones…

These that look like floaty sea garbage but I promise are really jellyfish, just maybe jellyfish that have had a really hard life and are trying to make good but just…aren’t…making…it…

These gorgeous white ones that were mesmerizing, and also this photo turned out really well (and by the way, Baby CeeVee really liked the aquarium. We found out when we got there that no strollers were allowed, though, so poor R. had to backpack her all around, and Baby CeeVee REALLY liked to get handfuls of R.’s hair and just yank yank yank all while grinning cheerfully. R. didn’t even get angry. She’s such a good mom)…

These upside-down jellyfish which look like nature played a prank…

And this brown one, which was a lot bigger than this photo suggests and was very pretty but also probably the most deadly. I’m pretty sure a lot of the things in this room could kill you dead dead dead.

Here’s another shot of him and a little friend. SAY HELLO TO MY LEETLE FRIEND!

This is for Andreas and is the octopus. For some reason, Baltimore loved octopuses, and there were octopuses painted on people’s doors and buildings and things, and I liked that a lot and know Andreas would, too. You could not use your flash while taking photos of the octopus. The lady working there asked me if I knew why. “BECAUSE HE WILL INK!” I said cheerfully. She said, “Yes, he might do that!” so I think I win aquariums.

This is a very depressed yellow seahorse. I think the other seahorses wouldn’t let him play seahorse games.

This is the REDDEST SHRIMP EVER. I think it was a flame shrimp. ZOMG you guys how much do I want one of these? He’s kind of the coolest and the most jaunty. “BONJOUR!” says Jacques the Flame Shrimp. “Welcome to my love nest! Please to be taking off your shoes! Help yourself to some champagne!”

Ready for the best photo ever? Seriously, this should be on the brochure. I’ve never taken anything like this in my LIFE.

AN EEL THAT WANTS TO EAT YOUR FAAAAAACE!

Even A., who is like a super-professional photo guy and took a class and stuff and takes the BEST photos, was all, “whoa, how’d you do that with the glass there?” My answer, which probably should have been something filled with focusing and F-stops and such, was “I turned off the flash because I learned in New York City in March that if you use flash when there’s glass, you get a glare. Oh, also I zoomed.”

This is a Snowflake Moray. He is most scary and also kind of jaunty, and looks like he needs to blow his schozz. Need a Kleenex, Snowflake my man?

This is a sea urchin. I took this to remind myself to tell you all a story. See that fish way in the back there, through the spines? Well, there was a little girl at the tank with her grandmother. And the little girl said, “Gramma, won’t that fish get hurt by the urchin?” and the grandmother said, “That’s not real, honey, that’s tank decoration.” EVEN THOUGH THE SIGN SAID THE TANK CONTAINED FISH AND URCHINS. Because these types of fish hide in the urchin when predators come around and the urchin’s spines protect them from predators. I think the tank was supposed to show us how symbiosis worked. SERIOUSLY, LADY! I was so embarrassed and now that kid is going to go to school and have false knowledge. READ THE SIGNS OVER THE TANKS!

This fish is really, really big. I don’t know what it is. Just that it’s huge and it made me laugh with its huge old hugeness.

This is a pretty lionfish, I think. It looked like it had feathers. It was very dainty.

It’s very hard to tell, but this lump is a stonefish. No, seriously. The crescent shape on the far left is the mouth, and there are eyes somewhere. He’s like an optical illusion. Not a trick. If we’ve learned anything from Arrested Development, it’s that tricks are what whores do for money.

This fish had the funniest mouth I’ve ever seen and I stood at this tank laughing and laughing for the longest time. HE HAS A FUNNY KISSER. Also kind of a funny face. I don’t even remember what he was but he was MOST awesome.

Here he is at another angle. Look at his funny lips!

This fish really, really wishes you hadn’t worn that skirt today, because it’s too short. Also, he thinks you’re making a lot of inappropriate life choices, and he thinks you laugh too loud. Tone it down, says this fish.

I know I already showed you this guy, but I’m doing it again, because he balances out the Gloomy Gus up top. This is Cheerful Carl the Catfish! He is SO HAPPY you’re here. He’d like to thank you for coming, and also wants to know if there’s anything you need to make your day any better? He’d be happy to help. Seriously. Just ask. He’s right over here. Happily waiting. Anytime, chum.

This fish just looks confused, and also his face is too short for his body. What’s going on, fish? Why so bewildered?

This is a Blair Witch frog. He just would NOT turn around. I think the Blair Witch told him to stay facing the wall, dammit.

Also, SIDE NOTE, in the frog area was a group that I assume was a family. They did not speak English. There were two middle-aged men and a middle-aged woman. They were Hispanic and spoke very rapid Spanish. Español rapido! And at one of the frog tanks, they could not find a frog, and they were sad. Then one of them SPOTTED the frog! And they were happy! SO HAPPY, in fact, that they did a little dance and the two men HUGGED one another while pointing at the frog! And I was equal parts perplexed and touched at the joy that frog-sighting had brought this little group.

At the end was a shark walk thing, where you walked down this walkway and there were walls and walls of shark tanks all around you, and THAT was cool. This was the only shark who could stay still long enough to be photographed because if sharks don’t keep moving, THEY WILL DIE. Except maybe not this shark, I guess.

Look at his jaggedy teeth. Whoa!

Then we were done with the aquarium! We had lunch in the middle of the trip but I’m not showing you lunch. No fish were involved. And also we went to the gift shop and I bought a little key-chain thingy and also a present for Andreas but it’s a secret so you can’t see it. And neither can he, probably for a very long time, because it’ll be not until I send another package to the land of the Finns.

Next stop: FLOWER MART!

Flower Mart is a Baltimore tradition going back many and many a year. You can buy flowers or garden plants or many craft items or food or listen to local singers or watch interpretive dancers who confuse the heck out of you. The street is all closed off and it is a very pretty area I was very much in awe of.

Here is an old church that was near Flower Mart. I was obsessed with this church. It was the most beautiful of ALL the churches and R. and I agreed it reminded us of Europe.

This is the Washington Monument in Baltimore. I thought R. was screwing with me but that’s really what this is called! I like this photo because randomly I captured a bird and little does this bird know he is blog-famous right now. Also, look how pretty the sky was! It’s deceiving. It was SO COLD AND WINDY this day. And I was the goofball who forgot her sweater. I brought it with me all the other days but of course those other days, I didn’t need it.

This is the backside of a lion at the park near the Flower Mart where we took a timeout to give Baby CeeVee some snacks. Babies need to eat a lot, I assume to power how insanely awesome they are. I mean, if you were that awesome, I think you’d need a lot of calories, too.

This is another photo of that church. I WAS OBSESSED WITH THIS CHURCH YOU GUYS.

Also, this was a thing at Flower Mart. R. and I had to investigate when we got home.

It is called a Lemon Stick. And yes, it is exactly what it looks like: half a fat peppermint stick stuck in half a lemon. You suck on the peppermint stick and it kind of melts into the lemon and then you kind of suck and bite at the lemon and the sugar/mintiness of the peppermint takes away a little acidicness of the lemon. R. and I were SO PERPLEXED. And SO MANY PEOPLE HAD THESE! It’s totally a Baltimore tradition; we found a very good article about them in the paper.

And that’s about it for Flower Mart! R. bought some flowers and some household goods and I almost bought some gorgeous jewelry until I talked myself out of it because it was out of my price range and we did share a fried dough because SERIOUSLY, people, if there’s fried dough, you’ve got to get it. And it was the best fried dough. Totally light and not greasy at all.

Outside of the Flower Mart Jim had a whole art gallery named after his family, which was nice, because he hates Baltimore. I assume because there is a DIRE RIVALRY between their football team and his. Don’t be hatin’, Jim, yo. There’s enough room for all the awesome cities in the world.

When I told Jim this, here was his reponse.

Sheesh, Jim, YOU CANNOT HAVE IT ALL!

What’s that? You want to see what Baby CeeVee thought of her day out?

Well, luckily, I can show you that. I asked for permission to show you all Baby CeeVee and it was granted! R. said it was ok. THANK YOU, R.!

She LOVED it! Also, ZOMG, look at that face. Are you the most in love? I know I am. She’s ALWAYS this happy! She loves all things about life! I am just head over heels for this kid, most sincerely.

As you can see most clearly here. BEST OF FRIENDS AT THE FLOWER MART!!!

Time for bed for me, my little babushkas. Have the best of Wednesdays! More adventures soon! Tomorrow: ANIMALS and SOFT-CORE PORN! (Not related, but most definitely in that order!)

34 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in adventure, animals, travel

May 7, 2013

Teaching us how to see the world

By lucysfootball

I don’t remember the first play I watched. I know it was either Antigone or The Glass Menagerie; both plays came to my junior high via a local company that took shows on tour to the area schools. I remember watching both transfixed; I remember skipping classes to watch a second performance the following day of The Glass Menagerie because I wanted that magic again and didn’t know when I’d next have the chance. I remember thinking – no, knowing – that I wanted to be a part of that. That I wanted to be on that stage. That I wanted to be the one telling those stories to the people sitting hushed and transfixed in their velvety folding chairs. I auditioned for my first show not long after that.

I don’t remember the first musical I watched, either. I know the first one I watched on a television screen was Grease, and my mother thought it was too risqué for me (I think I was probably 9 or 10 at the time.) As for onstage, I think it was Bye Bye Birdie, a high school production when I was a freshman or a sophomore. I can’t sing a note and me dancing looks a lot like someone being electrocuted, but oh, do I like to watch others doing those things, and doing them well.

I don’t even remember my first Sondheim show. I want to say it was A Little Night Music, which I know I saw early on as a college student, but when you see as many shows as I have over the years, things start to get fuzzy around the edges. I do know there’s no way, seeing it as a college student, I would have understood it all. There’s no way I would have understood that when Petra sings “Every day a little death” in “The Miller’s Son” that “a little death” was an old-fashioned euphemism for an orgasm. Mostly because I’m pretty sure at that stage in my life I barely knew what one was. (Yes, that is totally an indictment of the men I’d dated up until that point.) And I am absolutely sure I didn’t get the utter sadness and longing and bitter sweetness of “Send in the Clowns” at my ripe old age of 18 or 19 or however old I was when I watched the show. When you’re that age, you can’t understand, not really understand, the meaning behind “Just when I’d stopped opening doors/Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours/Making my entrance again with my usual flair/Sure of my lines/No one is there. ” You have to have lived a little life to understand that. I’ve lived a little life. I get that now.

Since then, I’ve seen West Side Story with its doomed lovers and joyous “America” (in a strangely compelling high school production); Company a number of times with its utterly rapid-fire perfect “Not Getting Married Today” and triumphant “Being Alive” and wistful “Barcelona,” Sweeney Todd, again a number of times, once even with my mother, and she still sometimes sings “There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit! And it’s filled with people who are filled with…” and then she looks around to make sure no one’s listening and she whispers “shit” and giggles; Into the Woods, which I can’t even choose a favorite song from, I love so many of them (but sometimes I’ll find myself singing “I wish, more than life, more than anything, more than the moon” around the house when I’m in a particular mood); and of course, my most beloved Assassins, which I see any time I can, no matter who’s putting on the production (I’d probably see a kindergarten production of the damn thing, I love it so), which I actually got to work on last year.

I know I’m missing a lot in Sondheim’s body of work. I’m seeing Sunday in the Park with George for the first time this week, which is a huge thing for me. And I know I could watch some of these things on DVD, like Gypsy, but I really want to see them onstage first. I’m biased. I like the actors in front of me singing and acting. I feel it’s the way it was intended. At least the first time I see it. Once I’ve seen the stage show, I’ll watch the movie version. That’s the reason I haven’t watched a lot of movie musicals, actually.

I grew up in a very small town, and there weren’t many opportunities to see or do artsy things there. You had to drive half an hour to get to a very broken-down movie theater that played the same movie once a day for a month. You had to drive an hour and a half to get to a live theater, which didn’t open until I was in junior high. I wanted more, and I wanted a lot of it, but never really thought I’d get it. I didn’t dream huge. I thought maybe people only saw one play a year, maybe. I thought that’s how life was.

I am one of the very lucky people who had a dream and has been able to continue that dream in her life. I see a hell of a lot more than a play a year. In an average month, I see probably 4 or 5. I’ve gotten to work on more plays than I can count in my life. I’ve met some amazing people. I live in an area I love so much that sometimes I wake up and can’t actually believe I’m lucky enough to be living here. I’ve had such huge experiences that if I’d thought of them when I was a little kid sitting in awe in a darkened auditorium in junior high, I’d have laughed at my own folly.

And tonight, I got to sit about six feet from Stephen Sondheim and listen to him talk about sixty years of working in musical theater. I was close enough to see him tear up, talking about how important art is to our lives. “Art is a form of teaching,” he said. “It teaches us how to see the world.” (I hope I got that right; I’ll admit I was a bit choked up when he said it.)

He talked about seeing the original version of A Streetcar Named Desire when he was young, and getting a thrill that he was part of the theater world, that he was lucky enough to work in this art form. And then he said he saw another show in London recently that made him think the same exact thing. He’s 83 years old and he still gets that thrill, realizing how lucky he is to be a part of this.

The small-town girl who thought she’d get to see one play a year, maybe, if she was lucky, got to see one of her idols tonight. I’m not that small-town girl anymore. I’m all grown up, and I left the small town behind over half a lifetime ago. But that girl comes with me, you see. She comes with me wherever I go. And she is amazed at the opportunites that I have. She is so damned proud of this life I’ve made. And tonight, the two of us sat in our velvety theater seat, hushed and transfixed as if we were thirteen again, watching one of the great icons of musical theater talk about how lucky he feels, to be a part of this life as well.

Sometimes this is really just a beautiful life, you know? Just so beautiful, it hurts to even look at it head-on.

(I didn’t take photos as we were told not to and I didn’t want to be ejected from one of the best memories of my life. This person works for one of the local papers and did. I was closer than this, but here’s a shot from tonight.)

27 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Theater, thoughts

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