Parasite Pals

I was just looking through some pictures we took on our trip to San Francisco in 2005 and I noticed that I take a lot of pictures of odd things. I love taking pictures but I end up taking more pictures of things than I do of Jon and me where the things are.


For example, in Chinatown, among a billion other things I took pictures of, I shot these Parasite Pals. What are they? I remember posting about them when we came back from our trip but I complete forgot what they were. Parasite Pals are characters that appear on merchandise. Weird, huh?

Fall Weather At Last

Autumn has finally settled in.

I celebrated by going on a 10 mile bike ride with my husband. And it felt good to finally be able to exercise in nice cool weather. The ride was challenging. Not for Jon. He's gotten so strong from all the riding he did this summer - he doesn't mind the heat as much me - that he takes hills with little to no effort. But I still have to huff and puff my way up even the shortest hills.

But it will get better. I'll get back to where I was in the Spring and hopefully, if the winter stays mild like it has been over the last few years, I should be able to lose the weight that I gained this summer and more.

Hump Day

It's the middle of the week. Hoorah!! And I'm in between two work shifts. I would love it if there were somewhere I could nap for a couple of hours.

I used to have a very, very good friend that lived in the city. It was someone I grew up with. When we were friends and she lived in the city, hers was a place I could go if I needed to crash for a couple of hours.

I miss her. We were friends for a long time. Mostly, I miss the idea of her. In the end, she wasn't a very good friend to me. Everyone I met through her ended up either ignoring me or hurting me. And she used to hurt me as well. I trusted her opinion about everything - even those opinions that didn't favor me - and as a result, she undercut my confidence for years.

She wasn't always like that. Sometimes she was really cool. I learned a lot from her. She introduced me to many interesting things.

But she would always tell me things like "you're pretty for an average person" if I ever asked her how I looked. Or if I'd shown her something I'd written or photographed she would say "that's not bad if you like mediocrity". Her approval meant a lot to me but I never really got it.

It took me years but I eventually caught on to her confidence undermining and friendship sabotoging behavior and I stopped being friends with her. My life actually improved after that.

The reason I'm thinking about her now is because someone I've recently become friends with over the last few years, wrote an interesting post about people who we love who are missing from our lives.

It's very well written and adequately expresses that feeling of loss brought up by seeing or hearing something that was introduced to you by someone who is missing in your life.

Jon

America's Most Smartest Model - Episode 1 Recap - Balls, Cherries, Balloons, Tires

So. Like there was this show on like TV last night where like all these models and stuff compete to see who's like the bestest and most smartest model and like we watched it and stuff and we like laughed cause it was like funny. You know?

It's my theory that if I watch enough VH1 programming produced by Cris Abrego parts of my brain will melt resulting in a self-inflicted lobotomy.

The premise of the show is simple - to humiliate models in order to make viewers at home feel superior. Although after listening to Ben Stein and his partner in crime Mary Alice Stephenson (who could qualify as one of the lacklustre contestants herself) we are supposed to believe that America's Most Smartest Model is earnestly looking for the contestant who possesses the right combination of looks and brains for a prize of $100,000.

The contestants are a mixed bag of nuts. Some of the models have just enough intelligence to operate their arms and legs while others are skilled enough to use four syllable words (correctly)in their regular speech. Actually, some of the models are quite smart as we learned during the introductions.

Several of the models profited from the introductions. They told Ben Stein about their academic experience and Mary Alice about their modeling resumes. After the intros, the contestants moved into their house where they discovered key coded locks. Their first test was to find the answers that would unlock the bathroom and refrigerator (year Columbus discovered America, etc). Then they participated in a spelling bee the winner of which gained an advantage. Danny was told in advance what to study for for the final challenge. And then for the final challenge the models had to walk like models while listing objects from assigned lists.

Here are some of the more memorable characters:

Daniel

Daniel is one of those contestants with an advanced degree. He won the spelling bee by spelling Bacchanalian correctly and by doing so earned an "EDGE". He was informed that his subject was Dinosaurs which he successfully named during his walking and talking challenge. He's really cute too.

Jesse

Jesse seems pretty smart but he's not quite a model yet. He finished second in the spelling bee and he's pretty good looking. However, he was told several times in last night's episode that he has to lose weight. I didn't see it.

Mandy Lynn

Mandy Lynn looks like a porn star and has done nude modeling. Ben Stein thinks she's really pretty but Mary Alice thinks she looks slutty. For her walking and talking challenge, she had to list objects that were round. So she repeated "balls, cherries, balloons and tires" over and over again through her challenge because she didn't want to keep track of too much. She's really sweet, but she might be the dumbest person on the show, in spite of her claim that she builds websites.

There were a few other characters who stood out.

There's Blond Rachael who isn't very smart at all and not that pretty. Although she is thin and blond. But between you and me she looks a little too old to be starting a modeling career.

There's Pickel - short for Jeff Pickel who has ADHD and a 135 IQ which he was quite proud of although I myself would not brag about my 135 IQ. Mine is lower than that but still, it doesn't seem like a high enough number for bragging rights. He is also very handsome.

There was a Russian guy whose name I can't remember. My friend thinks he's faking the Russian accent although I think he's legit. But we both agreed that he was cast as the BIG JERK on the show that we'll keep wishing gets eliminated but will mysteriously survive every elimination. He has a great body but a really lousy personality. He also looks like he's been punched in the face once a year since puberty.

In the end, the models who were sent home were Gaston and Victoria. Gaston and Victoria both did badly during the walk and talk segment. Apparently Gaston didn't impress the judges when he listed DIRTY PENIS as one of many things that smell bad. He also walked like he had a load in his pants which was also not very impressive. Victoria was the first one to spell a word incorrectly in the spelling bee and she couldn't list a European city outside of Italy.

I'll watch again next week.

Brussels Dinner and Morning Walk

Continuing on with our tour of Brussels, Jon and I strolled the area surrounding the Grand Place until we found a place to have dinner. We settled on a restaurant called the Roue D'Or for some traditional Belgian food. I liked their decor. You can see they painted the restaurant in a style inspired by Magritte.


Jon ordered the duck confit while I ordered chanterelles. I was excited about the chanterelle mushrooms which are very expensive in the states (meaning I've never really eaten them before). But I was disappointed that I ordered them. They looked good but they were smothered in garlic and butter and I couldn't really appreciate their flavor. And I found that Jon's duck was WAY too salty. The restaurant was in Jon's guidebook so I was expecting the food to be better. I have to admit that it was good to finally sit down and have a meal. But I should have gotten a salad.

Either way I was content to be sitting in a fancy restaurant in a foreign country on the day before my birthday. During dinner Jon told me that he wants to get me a dog for my birthday. I'm still thinking about the breed. I'm leaning toward either a Norwich Terrier or a Shihtzu - both known for their adorable appearance and affectionate personalities. That news made me happy as you can see below. (That's funny. I'm wearing that shirt right now).


The morning of my birthday we were scheduled to depart for Bruges on an early afternoon train so we went for a walk around Brussels looking at the cool murals. We even had enough time to check out one church.

Here are two murals that I particularly liked.

This one was clever because of the use of tromp l'oeil while not exactly being real tromp l'oeil because it's obviously a mural. I guess no one really believes tromp l'oeil anyway but now I'm rambling and that's not very interesting.


The other mural I really liked was this one by Frank Pe.


There was a Notre Dame du Bon Secours that we visited - every big city seems to have a church named Notre Dame but that's enough about Brussels.

We packed our bags, checked out of our hotel and walked to the train station for the next leg of our trip.

This Stupid, %#$&~* Weather

Update 12:53 pm- Since I posted this morning, the humidity has dropped to 61% but now I have to leave for work.

This weather is making me nuts. I can't exercise if the humidity is too high. Is this an excuse? Yes and no. The dense air interferes with my breathing and makes exercising less enjoyable than it already is. And I like breathing. I find it useful when trying to get oxygen to the limbs I need for bike riding.

I was riding my bike with Jon in the spring and I dropped weight. But this summer has been too humid. I gained back the weight I lost, well some of it, and I've been waiting for the weather to cool off so I can start riding again.

This morning, the humidity is already up to 88%. I used to welcome rain as a break from the humidity but lately rain has just been bringing MORE humidity. In New York City, the weather stays humid even when it IS raining. You're thinking isn't rain 100% humidity? I used to think that too. But I guess the air can still hold moisture even if moisture is falling from the air? Does that make sense?

Even it doesn't make sense, I'm sure you understand that I'm explaining New York City is very humid.

And I wish it would stop already.

Brussels by Twilight

Following a nice, restful nap in our very peaceful hotel room, Jon and I strolled about the city at twilight to check out the local area and find a place to eat for dinner.

One of the first things Jon took me to see was the Manneken Pis. This is a famous attraction described in our guidebook as disappointing once you've seen it. And it was. They say it's disappointing because people expect the statue to bigger than it is. It was NOT as exciting as seeing the Bosch painting, that's for sure.


More exciting for me was the gift shop nearby that sold knockoffs of the peeing boy.


After visiting the peeing boy statue we stopped for a Belgian waffle because neither of us had eaten in HOURS. I love the image of this pouty girl who made our snack. She's probably happy to have a job but thinking that she's not going to be there forever. She might be think about her senior year of high school or her first year of college. But she's more than likely sick of dealing with the public.


We continued our stroll into the Grand Square down this elegant street that had a one of many beautiful murals based on Belgian comics and the most bizarre statue I've seen of Van Gogh.


Eventually we wound our way to the great square. If you click on the below picture you'll see more pictures of the square. It was quite lovely.


Most interesting for me was this statue of a local hero who recovered Brussels from the Flemish. It's surface appears worn because people line up to rub the statue for luck. Long after I took this photo we went back to the statue so I could touch it when no one was looking.


I know I'm dragging out this first day, but we did so much that I want to document it all so I don't forget it. The next posts will be about our dinner and the morning after.

Brussels

We spent our first day of vacation wandering around Brussels. Because we arrived so early, we couldn't check in yet. Our hotel was very strict about that, for reasons I still don't understand. This was tough because neither of us had slept on our 7 hour red eye flight and we both needed a nap. But we busied ourselves with a visit to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium.

We saw some amazing pieces. The first painter we saw walking into the galleries was by Heironymous Bosch. I took several pictures of his masterpiece, The Temptation of Saint Anthony. This theme is one I hadn't before seen in paintings but now I am fascinated by it. We saw another work based on this theme in a French museum later on. What's amazing about this work is the utter imagination shown by the painter to express the theme. Here are some of the parts I liked.

Here someone is getting stabbed in his face which is also a rearend.


And these are two particularly surreal abstracts


This is a painting that I found particularly appealing but unfortunately I don't remember the artist. And the museum website is no help.

I also saw for the first time paintings by both Brueghel the Elder and his son. I didn't photograph these paintings because I was intimidated by the guard sitting in the room and the sheer number of people crowding around to look at the fine details of each painting. It could also have been that I was too tired to lift my hands to take a picture.

We travelled deep into the bowels of the museum to view thier most famous piece. It was literally five floors underground. And that painting would be The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David. We had so much trouble finding the painting that I was too tired to enjoy it sadly. But Jon was happy. And now I'm happy I've seen it in hindsight.

This is a view of Brussels from the top of the hill up which we marched to visit the museum. Our hotel was near that great spire in the distance.


And this is the first shot I took of Brussels as we made our way from the train station to our hotel which we were finally allowed to check into at 2pm.


Before we spent our day in Brussels I would never have believed that two people could see and do so much in one day. After we took a little nap, we continued exploring the city. That post is forthcoming.

Gobsmacked

Gobsmacked is my favorite new expression. I've been watching some reality show programming on BBC America and the word Gobsmacked comes up all of the time.

According to dictionary.com Gobsmacked means utterly astounded.

It's a great word. Don't you think?

Paul Williams

Last night I saw Paul Williams and his wife at the Drowsy Chaperone. I wasn't quite sure it was him. I remember the chubby faced Paul Williams when he made guest appearances on The Love Boat. But was reassured of my sighting when I got home and did some research.

He looked really good. He is better looking now than when he was younger and his face is much thinner.

If you're not sure who he is, here is a link to his website and to his wiki page.

And if you're too lazy to read those he wrote a little song that we ALL love called

The Rainbow Connection
Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that and someone believed it,
and look what it's done so far.

What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing?
And what do we think we might see?

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

All of us under its spell, we know that it's probably magic....

Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.

I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

La, la la, La, la la la, La Laa, la la, La, La la laaaaaaa

Happy Birthday Jon

Jon's birthday was yesterday. (Happy Birthday Sweetie).


On Saturday, I waited patiently for his departure so I could spend the day preparing a special dinner for him. We had to celebrate early because we had a bigger celebration for our friend yesterday.

Here's the menu.

Appetizer
Shredded carrots with a dijon mustard vinaigrette

Entree
Roasted chicken with pita stuffing
Saffron rice
Asparagus

Salad
Mesclun with dijon mustard vinaigrette

Dessert
Angel food cake with chocolate frosting topped with kiwi

With dinner I served a Riesling from Alsace. I decorated the table with a 1/2 dozen small sunflowers and I used our China for the first time.

I was actually going to make a beautiful creamy potato/asparagus soup but the weather was quite warm on Saturday and the apartment was infernally hot because of all the roasting and baking, so I served it with the chicken.

And I ended up making two cakes. The first one didn't come out so good. I used a muffin mix in a loaf pan, which technically would have been fine, but I buttered the loaf pan and then lined it with wax paper. The wax paper fused itself to the cake and burned because of the butter. So, I trimmed off the yucky burned paper and cut it into brownies. For the bundt cake, I sprayed Pam and used NO wax paper. The result was much better, as you can see. But don't be that impressed. Both cakes were from mixes.

In the end, we really didn't have too much room for the salad.

We had to walk off the meal a bit before eating the cake.

Back. Back on the Block.

Last Day in Europe

It's our last day in Europe and we've spent it in Geneva. We rode the train for over six hours to get here and to tell you the truth I'm pretty wiped out.

Jon and I have taken about 600 pictures on our trip.

The best ones are probably from our day trip to two small towns in Alsace - Kaysersberg and Riquewihr.

Jon went out while I was sleeping and took pictures of Geneva. I walked with him earlier but to tell you the truth my heart wasn't in it until my aunt called me about 4:30pm from France to tell me that my grandmother's operation was a success. Does it really matter what kind?

And after I post this, we'll be looking for some place inexpensive to grab a bite to eat.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today is my 40th birthday. I'm writing this post from Brussels on a keyboard that is not qwerty. Yes. The mystery is over. We are in Europe. First in Belgium, then to France.

We spent one fun day in Brussells. It's a lovely town. The most exciting thing for me was seeing a painting by Hironymous Bosch - The Temptation of Saint Anthony.

Today we're headed for Bruges.

Smelly Man

Back at the cybercafe for a change of pace -- not.

My stalker is nowhere to be seen, but the man next to me smells soooo bad. But I'm using the best computer in the cafe so I don't want to move.

It seems the only times I like to write now are those moments I find myself with nothing else to do between shows. When I'm at home, I find myself working on writing clues for our online trivia club - or cleaning.

Cleaning is no longer the compulsion it was a few weeks ago. But, I still find myself at times, wondering what else I can clean with the magic of salt, vinegar and baking soda. Yesterday I engaged in a major cleaning push inspired by an upcoming trip. There is nothing better than coming home to a clean house after travelling.

Yes. We're taking another trip. I'll tell you about when we get back. Until then, you'll just have to wonder what we're doing.

Cyber Cafe

It's mid-day Wednesday so you know what that means. I'm celebrating my break between shows at my favorite mid-town internet cafe. One thing I like to do when I sit down at my station is to see what other websites have been visited previously by people who used the computer before me. Today I find for the first time a need to share where the previous patron has been. The website, My Foreign Bride.com is a website for "foreign ladies seeking marriage". I was looking through the ads. It's pretty eye opening. I can't imagine ever having done this to find a husband.

But didn't I, in a way when I had an ad on match.com, years before I met Jon. Isn't that kind of the same thing? I guess it was different in the sense that on a dating website you have to pretend for the most part that you don't want to get married so you can date decent guys who have to pretend like they do want to get married so they can get into women's pants.

At least on Foreign Bride.com everybody is on the same page in terms of what they want. The women want to get married and presumably the men want to marry foreign women.

Now I am insanely curious about who was using this computer before me. Other websites visited include a banking site for an Australian bank. And Gaydar.com.za. What does the za stand for? They also visited a website called Rentboy which is completely dirty.

Here is the scenario I've imagined. A gay Austrlian man vacationing in NYC was updating his friend's ad on the foreign bride page and then he went searching for his soul mate on two websites of questionable taste.

What scenario can you imagine?

Could This Be the Elusive Chupacabra

Phylis Canion claims to have found the mythical Chupacabra (pictured right) - as road kill - outside her ranch in Texas. Canion and three of her neighbors found three forty pound bodies of the legendary beast. She shaved one of the heads so she can test the DNA and trace the animal's ancestry. Canion claims that a chupacabra has killed 26 of her chickens over the last couple of years.

I would be more worried if it had killed her goats. Chupacabra literally means Goat Sucker in Spanish. So already I'm suspicious of this woman who is already selling T-shirts that say "2007, The Summer of the Chupacabra, Cuero, Texas" for $5 a pop.

Her local veteranian suspects that Canion found an unusual breed of dog.

That Woman

I saw that woman again today. She came to see the afternoon performance of the Drowsy Chaperone. As far as I could tell she was by herself, which is not a judgement, just an observation. I felt a little bad because during the walk-in, there were two or three times when she just seemed to be hovering in my general area and I ignored her. I acted like I didn't recognize her. That does definitely make me a mean person. But isn't that a strange coincidence? I wonder if she found my website. I wonder if she's stalking me. Now that's ridiculous right? That's the kind of thinking that could drive someone crazy. Of course I don't believe she's stalking me. It's a coincidence. That's all.

1 hour later
She's just arrived at the internet cafe. She just went behind my little table to get gum from the "never been changed or cleaned" gum ball machine. But it's a coincidence. . . right?

Loud Music Eminating From Cars

Have you ever noticed that people NEVER blast classical music or show tunes on their super neato sound systems? You never hear Vivaldi's Four Seasons or the cast recording of Oklahoma pouring out of a slick looking SUV with all its windows rolled down.

Sometimes, I fantasize that I'm driving slowly through Astoria while Patti Lupone and Michael Cerveris sing a duet from last year's production of Sweeney Todd so loud that the vibrations from the music set off car alarms as I roll down the street.

Different Things

Drowsy Chaperone Fatigue
I'm working my third consecutive week of Drowsy Chaperone and I'm bored with it. Although, last night's performance made me laugh for the first time in 6 days. The performers were really crisp and everybody's timing was perfect. I watched the whole thing - yet again.

Secret Online Jeopardy Society
Before joining the above mentioned club, I never believed people who said they made friendships on line. At this point, Jon and I have gotten to know at least a dozen people in this world and we are looking forward to organizing a meet-up some time in October to put faces with names.

VH1's Rock of Love
This show is boring. All the women competing for Bret Michaels' love seem to have the same personality. Maybe it's because Bret Michaels boring. I don't know. It's just not hitting the same way as Flavor of Love.

Slow Walkers
It feels like it has happened to me at least a bajillion times since I've been living in New York city, no exaggeration. And it's this. People cut in front me only to walk at a slower pace.

This plea goes out to tourists and New Yorkers who aren't on their way to work.
If I am walking faster than you please don't cut me off and spread out in front of me with your party of six slow moving relatives and/or friends. There are actually some people walking around Times Square that are on their way to work.

If we were driving on the parkway instead of walking on the sidewalk, you would never do that.

Garbage, Garbage Everywhere
I am still baffled by the number of people who leave garbage on the street. I've actually seen people throw garbage on the ground within 5 feet of a garbage can. Astoria responded to the garbage problem by installing these beautfiul, obvious, self-contained garbage cans - to encourage people to throw their garbage away no doubt. Yet somehow there are still people strewing garbage on the sidewalks and streets of the community in which I live.

There is this Woman

I've probably mentioned that I hang out at an internet cafe between matinee and evening performances when I'm working. They serve food and their computers are decent to excellent condition so I get a lot of needs met when I spend time there.

The only need that hasn't been met is a social one. I tried once but it didn't quite work out. See. Usually I am one of very few people in there that isn't a tourist. One day, I noticed a woman a little bit younger than me pacing back and forth, talking on her cell phone. She was telling her mother about a job interview and how she's moving to New York City. So when she got off the phone with me I struck up a conversation with her in the hopes of starting a friendship. At first she seemed okay but then as the conversation progressed she started to sound crazy.

Apparently, she had a seen a certain Broadway show umpteen times because she is "friends" with the star and sees the show as often as she can. I felt her claim to be "friends" with the actress was a little bit forceful. The conversation left me with that impression by the time I had to go to work.

The next time I saw her, she was talking about Rosie O'Donnell. Apparently, Rosie has become a devisive conversation issue, especialy if you don't agree with Rosie's psychotic conspiracy theories about 9/11. This woman talked about Rosie O'Donnell as if she were the second coming of Jesus Christ's mother. Granted I respect Rosie for adopting older children with problems who need home. But when it comes to politics and/or singing and dancing, she really needs to stop whatever she's doing and just focus on her kids.

What I'm trying to say is that this conversation cemented in my mind the levels of instabilitiy fluctuating inside the head of this woman, who I have now realized is living in New York and apparently near the theater district. I see her all the time. She's always coming in and out of the internet cafe and most recently, I saw her walking her butterscotch colored lhasa apso.

When I saw her last time, I was thinking that maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she is friends with a certain individual. I thought this while avoiding eye contact with her. Since meeting her, I have backed away from initiating friendships with strangers. I've had better luck picking up friends at the various theaters where my company sends me on a weekly basis.

Making friends in New York City is tough.

Finnish YMCA Cover

The Drowsy Chaperone - Changes

Last week I worked at the Drowsy Chaperone. There have been some changes since I was last there.

JoAnne Worley has replaced Georgia Engel as Mrs. Tottendale, mother of the bride. It's really great to see her on stage. Do you remember JoAnne Worley? I don't remember her from her stage career, but I do remember her from Laugh- In re-runs. She was the tall brunette witht he big brassy personality and the crazy laugh who sometimes wore boas. I really must have liked her as a kid. After watching her perform in her signature style, I realized that I've been impersonating bits of her act for most my life.

Now that's star power. Her influence on my personality is deeply ingrained. And of course she's a delight. I will say that she doesn't play the part as well as Georgia Engel, but that doesn't mean she's not doing a great job. She brings a lot of energy to the roll and at 70 years of age that's no small feat. Of course she looks fabulous.

Mara Davi has successfully replaced Sutton Foster as Janet Van der Graff, the bride. I didn't think it was possible for someone to fill in because the part is extremely demanding vocally and physically. But Mara Davi is doing great. The last time I saw Mara Davi she was just a few months ago. She played Maggie Winslow in the revival of A Chorus Line. Every day before the show, the actors warm up for the big night ahead. And I remember that Mara had different warmup exercises than the other performers.

She would practice spinning a lasso and twirling a batton. Little did I know that she was getting ready to fill in for Sutton Foster. Both those tricks have been added to the Show Off number. Basically, the Janet Janet Van der Graff character performs a number explaining to her adoring fans how she no longer wishes to be in the spotlight while simultaneously performing amazing feats - like jumping through hoops and doing back flips to name a couple. Great number and Mara is just perfect. I found out that the producers had remembered from her audition and that's how she got the part. I've seen A Chorus Line without her and the show suffers a little for it. She's wonderful.

The other cast changes wouldn't mean anything to anyone except for the families of the people who joined the cast or moved from the chorus - not to say that they're not good, it's just that there roles are secondary to the ones mentioned above.

So, if you're in Drowsy Chaperone now and you happen upon this page, please don't be insulted that I left you out of the above review because you know you're great. You wouldn't be in a Broadway show if you weren't.

Rock of Love - Catch Up

Episode 3 - Motocross
Three teams of four girls each race each other motorbikes to win dates with Bret. There was a lot of trash talking and quite a bit of falling down. The four women to win dates were Magdalena, Samantha, Rodeo and Brandi M. Bret broke the dates up into two separate activities. First Samantha and Magdalena watch a film about Bret's life (cheesy) in the garden. He makes out with both of them. (yuck).

That night, Lacey tried to engage Dallas in a fight in an attempt to get Dallas sent home. She had to be restrained by Rodeo when she took it too far. Then the next day, Rodeo and Brandi M. wore personalized bikinis for an out door lunch. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Of course Rodeo told Bret about the incident with Lacey (rat) in an effort to prove to him how these girls "aren't good enough for him".

In the end, Dallas ended up being sent home. She left in a huff, not even hugging or kissing Bret good bye. He was put off by that but hey. Can you blame her? He did reject her. And he kept Lacey even though/because he is scared she might kill him in his sleep. Kristia was also sent home. What do you mean you don't know who she is? Exactly his point. She didn't make much of an impression on Bret or the cameras.

Episode 4 - Riff It Good
The women paired off to write new lyrics for one of two songs written by Bret Michaels. When they were done, they performed their songs. This was a pretty lame show. I'll sum it up really quickly. Rodeo cried so much about missing her son that Bret sent her home. He also sent home Brandi C. because, according to him, she was too much of a young spirit. I think she was just way too much of a porn star - even for him. Oh and then there was the dumb act that she thought she was putting on. You could tell that she was acting dumb even though she thinks she's smart. Unfortunately for her, she's not really all that smart to begin with so she wasn't acting as much as she thought she was.

Episode 5 - First Annual Bret's Mud Bowl
In this episode, along with the slutty, backstabbing shenanigans the women played touch football in the mud. No. Seriously, this show is getting lamer every week. Instead of making them compete and hurt each other, which is what they did, he should have just had the women roll around in the mud which is what he wanted anyway. He should have had a wet-with-mud T-shirt contest. The winner of the day was Jess - a blonde with pink streaked hair. Bret deemed her to be the most athletic. She narrowly beat out Heather who, by the way, in case you didn't know, wears more makeup than should be legally allowed in the contiguous United States.

The main drama of this episode was caused by Heather who wrote a letter to Bret ratting out the other girls. There was a lot of she said/she said and a lot of one on one meetings with Bret. In the end, Erin was sent home because she wasn't "really there for him" an allegation brought against her by Heather who of course is "really there for him". You can tell that Heather is "really there for him" because she keeps tattling on all the other girls.

Whatever. Rock of Love is about 1/5 of 1% as interesting as Flavor of Love.

I can't wait to see what happens next week. Not.

Coconut Lime Chicken

Tonight I roasted a chicken. I marinated it for an hour in coconut milk and freshly squeezed lime juice. I stuffed the chicken with pineapple chunks and then roasted it on a bed of pineapple slices. The result was heavenly. The sauce ended up tasting like pina colada (no surprise there) and the chicken was tender and juicy. I knew that the combination of ingredients wouldn't be terrible but I had no idea everything would taste so gosh darn good. For a side dish, I prepared VIGO saffron rice which I topped with the roasted pineapples.

And everything on the plate received a good dose of the delicious sauce/drippings.

Fabulous.

Rock of Love - Talk Dirty To Me - Episode 2

She's Not Realy Here for You
At the top of this episode, Heather overhears Erin talking about her ex-fiancee with a couple of women in the house. Heather misinterpreted Erin's comments and started telling everyone who would listen that Erin was engaged and gettting married in the fall. This misunderstanding would lead to a confrontation later in the show. Heather felt like it was her responsibility to inform Bret that one of the girls "wasn't really there for him"(a continuous theme in the VH1 dating show genre) and Bret invited them both to sit and discuss the matter with him so he could ferret out the truth. In the end, Bret believed that Erin was indeed NOT engaged.

If You Leave Out Instruments, They Will Come
For absolutely no reason at all, the beginning of the episode bought us our first true episode of debauchery for the season. Some of the girls decided to start fooling around with the instruments set up in what seemed like a random shrine to music. Bret heard this nasty noise and decided to join the fun. He started playing guitar and the girls started dancing around without their shirts. I'm not really a drinker so any drinking at all seems excessive to me. With that said, these girls were already three sheets to the wind. The women whe weren't participating sat in judgement and then something anti-climatic, yet completely expected happened. The womyn split into two groups.

Slutty vs. Bitchy - Can't We All Just Get Along
The Slutty girls were characterized by their willingness to drink and dance around a stripper's pole. The Bitchy girls were characterized by their reluctance to dance around with their tops off and their unwillingness to spend every moment of every day completely and utterly wasted.
There was some excitement when Lacy from the sluttly girls decided to push Jes from the Bitchy girls into the pool.

Apparently Jes's sobriety really got under Lacy's skin giving Lacy the idea that Jes was stuck up and sitting in judgement of the drunk girls. So, it made perfect sense to Lacy that she should push Jes in the pool, which she did. I'm sure if I were a guy that would have interpreted that interplay as sexy as shit. But as a woman, that moment didn't too much for me. But it did tell me one thing. The genius behind the show, Cris Abrego, really knows his audience.

Talk Dirty To Me
Every week the womyn have to compete. In this week's competition, they had talk dirty to Bret on the telephone - the premise being of course that if he is on the road, he'll want to talk dirty to whoever he picks to be his girlfriend at the end of the show. But how would he really know just how effective their dirty talk could be? He brought in a "doctor" who hooked Bret up to a machine that measured blood flow to his gleenus (I'm using gleenus as a subsititution for you know what so I don't get inundated with people looking for pictures of or stories about you know what).

After he was hooked up to the ridiculous machine, the womyn took turns trying to get him excited with their clever, sexy phone talk. The three winners Rodeo, Erin and Lacey went to a recording studio with Bret and laid tracks of groaning, moaning and giggling over Bret's singing. It was kind of stupid.

The girls who failed to turn him on were sent home. They include "don't-threaten-me-a-good-time" Tiffany, the unmemorable Faith and Tawny, and "dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks" Tamara.

95 degrees and counting

It's 5 pm on a Wednesday afternoon and it's 95 degrees outside. When we're not in the dog days of summer, at 5 pm we begin to feel a cool down but not in August; not in New York City. Every year in August we experience hot humid weather for days and days at a time. We're coming to the end of a long spell which should break tonight with thunderstorms.

Or will it? This morning's thunderstorms brought not only flooding but a continuation of the hot humid weather many of us are starting to loathe. I'm so happy that Jon and I have air conditioning. I grew up in this area without air conditioning and for as long as I can remember, brutal weather has always come at the end of July and lasted through most of August.

When I was a kid, I would go for nights without sleeping because of the heat. I would just lie awake for hours in puddles of sweat until September came. There were many nights those summers when I'd sleep outside on my porch in a sleeping bag, waking up covered in mosquito bites. When the weather did finally cool down and I could get some sleep, school would start and I would be sad about how unfair that was.

When I got to living on my own in Astoria, I spent years without air conditioning because of the wiring in my building. I could never run an A/C without jumping a circuit. But finally, the landlord rewired the building and I've been living with an air conditioner ever since.

Is the A/C making me soft? I don't know. You may or may not remember the summer before 9/11 but that was a freaking hot summer. My apartment was so hot, it was like living inside an oven. And when I would go outside I would get absolutely no relief. Those were the days before the A/C. On those hot nights I would get some sleep, but not enough to be qualified as good sleep. The only relief would come from going to work where the rooms were cooler or when I could sleep at a relative's house - a relative that had A/C.

I never get used to this weather. Some people do. And would you believe that some people actually enjoy it.

All I have to say is thank goodness for air conditioning. It's a blessing. It's expensive but it's a blessing.

I look forward to the autumn when I can open my windows and air out my house and feel a natural cool breeze, because I really don't like how air conditioned air feels or smells. But I sure do like the way it feels. We live our indoor lives at 72 degrees - 75 if we're trying to be economical.

And it's an absolute blessing.

Rock of Love

When ABC first aired The Bachelor five years ago, the producers probably had no idea what affect that show would have rn television programming. No one could have imagined for example that Flavor of Love would be the fruit of the tree that grew from the seed planted in our collective conscience in 2002. If you look at the geneology of Flavor of Love, credit is given to VH1's "Celebreality" programs Surreal Life and Strange Love. Flavor of Love was born from the latter. But surely The Bachelor strongly informed the format of the show.

I really enjoyed The Flavor of Love (T.F.O.L.), because it took The Bachelor and turned it on its head. It seemed like T.F.O.L. participants were behaving in a more "real" way, although I'm sure a lot of what happened was staged. There was something more sincere about a show where the women acted impulsively like the T.F.O.L. girls which was more interesting than the measured behavior and controlled responses of the contestants from The Bachelor.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise to you that I am currently watching and enjoying VH1's new program Rock of Love. Why? Why do I keep watching these shows that allow women to make fools of themselves? Because I can't stop myself.

I've missed commenting on the first four episodes so I'll do a quick summary to catch you up.

Rock of Love - Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time - Episode 1

In the first show we met the 25 wanna-be rock girlfriends to Bret Michaels's (check out this link to his shameless website) Flav. The 25 contestants waited in a clump outside Michael's mansion (which I'm guessing was provided by VH1 like in Flavor of Love and I Love New York) while he rolled in (at about 5 mph) on his rock'n'roll motor cycle. Michaels waved hello and quickly went inside. It was at that time that his body guard, Big John (see Big Rick) picked five women out of the clump to send home - based on first impressions. In that group was a mess of a woman named Tiffany.

After the 20 remaining got set up in the "rock manor" and started drinking dubious amounts of alcohol, Tiffany decided that she wasn't going to accept Big John's word as final and stormed back to the manor and started pounding, pounding, pounding on the front door until he let her in. He told her that she could stay but she was going to have to sleep in the bathtub - which are better accommodations than she deserved. She got completely drunk, wasted, incoherent and made a fool of herself. She kept repeating the phrase "don't threaten me with a good time."

Because of her bad behavior she pushed away the other "womyn". When they wouldn't let her play their reindeer games, she of course interpreted that as a sign of jealousy. Surely, if she weren't such a serious competitor for Bret Michaels's love, they would be nicer to her. Talk about delusional. Of all the women there, she was by far, the sloppiest mess which is quite an accomplishment when you consider the level of sloppy drunkeness in the house.

In the interest of keeping this summary short (don't worry, they'll be plenty of time to get to know the contestants later) I'm going to leave out all the other personalities that were introduced that night. But among the women that Bret Michaels decided to keep around to "rock his world", Tiffany was chosen because he felt she deserved a second chance to prove how wonderful a person she could be if and when she got sober.

You see, he understands what it's like to get so wasted that you make a complete ass of yourself. I guess he didn't want to come off as a hippogriff, I mean a hypocrite. (Sorry, I've got Harry Potter on the brain).

He sent six women packing and 15 remained.

Minneapolis Bridge Collapse

The bridge collapse was very sudden and very scary. The morning reports said that four were killed which is down from yesterday's count of seven.

In a way, the bridge collapse reminds of 9/11. The landscape of Minneapolis is forever changed. New Yorkers and people who visit and work in New York City know what I'm talking about. The two towers of the World Trade Center stood for about 30 years before they were knocked down. It took me a long time to get used to not seeing the towers whenever I look down Fifth Avenue. I'm still not used to it.

It will be a long time before Minnesotans get used to their new daily landscape.

I hope the death toll doesn't go up.

Deuce

This week I am working at Deuce - a full week of it.

It's really exciting to Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes on stage, especially Lansbury. But the show isn't as good as they are. Of course, they make it interesting. Either one of them could recite my weekly shopping list and make it interesting. But the play(just read the NY Times review, Ben Brantley agrees) by Terrence McNally, is just eh.

I recommend seeing the show (it's Angela Freakin' Lansbury for crying out loud) but not paying full price . It is available at TKTS for 50% off.

Out, Damn Spot!

How Clean Is Your House is my newest obsession. After only two episodes, I am completely hooked. And I've been completely obsessed with cleaning since I first viewed the show on BBC America two days ago.

The show is hosted by Kim and Aggie. With cameras they go into the absolutely filthiest homes you have ever seen. Aggie goes around the house, teaching the inhabitants various cleaning methods. Kim finds the dirtiest spots she can find and collects biological samples which she takes to a lab. After Aggie finishes cleaning the house, Kim shows the inhabitants what grew in the Petry dishes. It's not pretty.

On the program I watched yesterday, they revealed a petry dish full of shigella and a bacteria that kills goats (they were goat farmers). There was a third that I can't recall but I can guarantee that it was exceedingly gross and scary.

So after I watched that episode I went to work on our bathroom with a pair of rubber gloves and a bottle of X-14 which kills mold and mildew with its highly concentrated bleach formula. I cleaned the bathroom for over an hour. It's probably the cleanest it's ever been and I know how to clean. Then I went over the floors with a Swiffer, for the third day in a row. I changed our sheets which I hadn't change in about 10 days or so.

Just now, I went over the kitchen counters with some Clorox Disinfecting Kitchen Cleanser and I'm about to tackle the spice rack - just 'cause it's disorganized, not because of germs. Or I might go to the laundry and throw the bathroom mats into a machine.

I'm on a cleaning jag.

The Brooklyn Cyclones

Sunday afternoon we joined our friends at a Cyclones game. We had great seats right behind third base - practically on the field. We could put our feet up on the rail and we had a great view of the parachute ride which has been jazzed up with a fresh coat of paint.



Pictured below is the Cyclones' mascot which we all assumed is a seagul, but we weren't sure. The mascot looks fine in the picture, but his costume was really, really filthy dirty. If I were a parent, I would be very uncomfortable letting my child touch the dirty seagul, but I probably would. I wouldn't want to be the parent who embarrassed their child by shouting out that they should stop doing what all the other children are doing - but I would have those Handiwipes ready to go as soon as he or she came back to me.



This is the sculpture above the scoreboard. Jon and I assumed that the rollercoaster moved anytime a Cyclone hit a homerun but it doesn't. I guess it's just fun to look at.


And for the most part we had a very nice time. Just one complaint. The family next to us had a toddler with a noticebly poopy diaper. We were downwind.

Cortland, Cooperstown and Syracuse

Cortland
Jon's parents picked us up shortly after the bus dropped us off. We spent the evening walking up and down Main Street sampling the wares of different restaurants and bars. It was part of a promotion to encourage business. We had a nice time and the outing ended with dinner at the Starr Bistro. When we walked in the chef was right there. His kitchen is set up like a sushi bar. The chef greets you and makes you feel at home. His food was tasty and a lot of the dishes involve apples which makes sense because there's a whole apple thing going on in Cortland. I loved my duck breast. Sorry. No pictures. I was enjoying the food too much.

Sunday we kind of hung back. Jon went on a really long bike ride and I went to WalMart with Jon's mom.

Cooperstown
On Monday, Jon's dad drove us to Cooperstown where baseball was "invented" by Abner Doubleday.

We found a parking space by Otsego Lake which is just dreamy.


We walked around Cooperstown a bit before heading into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooperstown is quaint - a nice place to visit.


We stopped in at Doubleday Field.


Here's Jon with his dad.


We watched about 3o minutes of an intense game between two teenage teams. It was quiet and low key. No blaring music or flashing neon signs. Great way to see a game. Very nice.


We posed for a few pictures outside the stadium. Here's Jon with the Sandlot Kid - an absolute icon in Cooperstown souveniring.


Shortly after this we went to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum which was way more interesting than I thought it would be. I found myself absorbed in some of the displays - in the museum part anyway. The Hall of Fame part was just kind of "eh" for me. Hundreds of plaques that look exactly the same hang on walls splashed in bright sun light. Not knowing anything about baseball or its heroes or its mythology, I felt lost in there. I preferred the museum part. At least there, I could learn a little bit about the sport.

Syracuse
The next day, Jon and I borrowed the car and drove to Syracuse. I found Syracuse to be quite stark. As exemplified in this picture of Dinosaur BBQwhich is also where we had lunch.


The interior of the restaurant was much warmer and inviting. Here is some of their artwork.
The picture on the left is relief of a motorcycle that was hanging next to our table. The picture on the right is a creepy boar's head reminding people not to smoke.


This is a mural of a dinosaur eating Syracuse.


What was on the menu? A lot of pork.


We each ordered a sampler - which all came with a rack of ribs. Here I am praying that the food doesn't make me sick to my stomach.


And here's our food.


We visited the outside of the NiMo building (Niagara Mohauk) which was built in the Art Deco style - quite nice.


And then we drove over to the Carousel Mall - which of course has a great old carousel not pictured here.

The next day, we rode the bus all the way back to New York and this time without any problems.

It was a nice trip.

Our Bus Trip

Last week, Jon and I spent five days visiting my in-laws who we hadn't seen in quite some time. It was a welcome and much needed break.

Getting There
We took a Greyhound bus to reduce the stress of having to drive such a long way. But because of technical difficulties, stress was unavoidable. About 45 minutes out of Scranton, the bus started slowing down and then drifting over to the shoulder. The driver told us that the bus had shut itself down and he wasn't sure why. He thought the bus may have been overheating, so we sat on the shoulder while the bus cooled down. After about five minutes, the driver started again but had to pull over about 10 minutes later for the same reason.

This time he went to check the engine. He turned off the bus, flipped open the sun roof (escape hatch) and went around the back. Then he came back into the bus and climbed up through the sun roof so he could close it. He stayed up there. We heard footsteps moving on the roof walking toward the rear of the bus. When he realized he couldn't get down off the roof we heard him walk back. He tried to pull open the hatch but couldn't. So he had to knock so someone inside the bus could open the roof and let him back in. The entire bus was roaring with laughter.

As funny as that was, it didn't inspire much confidence. The driver made a series of phone calls to learn that he should go to a service station - duh - which he did. He poured water into the engine and we were on our way. He kept looking at a clipboard which had pages and pages of directions to different destinations.

An inpatient passenger ended up giving him directions into the bus station at Binghamton because she had to transfer to another bus. We all found that pretty amusing - well, some of us did. Others were audibly upset and losing patience with the demonstrably incompetent driver. One person who did impress me with their coping abilities was this sweet boy who occupied himself quietly throughout all the nonsense.

When we got to Binghamton another driver offered to take some of us on his bus, so Jon and I joined him immediately - anything to get away from the king of incompetence. We made it to our destination, only one hour behind schedule.

Harry Potter was Great!!!

I finished the final Harry Potter book and boy was it great.

JK Rowling is a great story teller.

Don't worry. No spoilers here.

But when you're finished with the book, let me know in the comment section so I can write my Harry Potter post.

Promises, Promises

It's been a while since I've posted and I owe a few posts to the people who follow my daily travails (cliche alert).

But a good friend of mine just gave me the newest Harry Potter book and I haven't been able to put it down much since I started reading it Sunday night.

Here are some topics to come.

1. Age of Love and Rock of Love
2. Our trip upstate and our visit to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame
3. Our outing to Brooklyn for a Cyclones game
4. Pictures of stuff

George Takei

What a treat. I saw George Takei at Spring Awakening. Sadly, I couldn't talk to him. I was stationed at my headset booth during intermission and a crowd of about 10 people stood in front of me for the duration. They were drinking and talking, apparently unable to get over the shock of seeing some nudity at the end of act I. Over their heads I saw George Takei. I was thinking that if they hadn't been standing there, I may have been able to get his attention - made some eye contact or spoken with him even. But I couldn't. He was gone before I could finish the above thought.

Then after the show, while walking away from the theater, George Takei was four groups of people ahead of me. I tried to catch up with him but I couldn't. The crowd was too dense and moved too slowly. He broke away from the crowd at the hotel where I assume he was staying but by then, he was in a private conversation with a friend. What would have been a cool moment on a sidewalk in a crowd of people, would have been a weird and uncomfortable moment in the lobby of his hotel. You know what I mean?

If I could have spoken with him, I would have told him that I'm a big fan; that I loved him in Star Trek, that I loved his autobiography, To The Stars, which I own on audio cassette (as read by George Takei) and that I am happy his career is on the rise again.

And from what I know about him, he probably would have been receptive.

I just didn't want to chase him into a corner to tell him all that. It would have been weird.

Coffee

Just one more cup, and I'll be fresh as a daisy.

McDonald Land

I mentioned earlier this month that Jon and I have joined a secret Jeopardy society. We're becoming pretty active participants and we've started submitting game boards for other members to play. That means that we've been researching and writing our own questions.

Jon is much quicker than me when it comes to submitting boards and he's written five to my one. But I started work on a second board. My third category on that board is fictional mayors. As part of my research, Jon suggested I check into a law suit that the Sydney and Marty Craft brought against McDonald's for stealing from the H.R. Puf"n'Stuff program for their McDonald's land ideas, which is what I did.

Anyway, as a result of all that Jon found this video on YouTube which I present to you here. It is definitely trippy and if you're familiar with H.R Puf'n'Stuff, you will recognize the imagery immediately.

Rachel Ray

Is it just me or does Rachel Ray drive anyone else mad with her bastardized version of English?

E.V.O.O. - This is what RR calls Extra Virgin Olive Oil. But honestly. Does it take that much longer to say it than it does to abbreviate it? And could she just say at the top of her show that when she refers to oil, she is referring to Extra Virgin Olive Oil since that's the only type of oil she ever uses?

To make it even more annoying, EVOO is getting added to the dictionary - I couldn't tell you which one though. Maybe it's some dictionary of annoying invented language .

Yum-O - What is she? Six years old? She can't remember how to say Yummy.

Delish - One more syllable and she'd have the word delicious. Not cute. Not really a time saver.

Sammies - Perhaps the most annoying of her euphemisms, it's how Rachel Ray refers to sandwiches. I'm assuming that's the shortened form of the common childhood mispronunciation sammiches. Not cute.

Daniel Radcliffe At A Chorus Line

Last night, I saw Harry Potter or rather I saw the actor who plays Harry Potter in the movies. I knew something special was going because I saw a couple of security guards standing in the back of the theater near my booth. Aside from always wearing suits, security guards very often wear devices in their ears with little coils so they can conduct discreet conversations with each other.

Daniel Radcliffe was hard to spot. He was sitting in the orchestra section on the aisle about 15 rows back. He was wearing a clever disguse - a beige painter's cap. Amazingly no one was bothering him. I heard later from an usher that a couple of girls sitting across the aisle starting giggling madly when they noticed him and tried to get an autograph but the usher discouraged them. Thank goodness. That would have started an assault of giggling girls because for whatever reason, last night, there were a lot of teenage girls seeing the show. Sometimes crowds are skewed a certain way with no explanation - people wearing red shirts; people over 50; groups of pregnant women.

With that said, he managed to maintain his anonymity throughout the show, because he didn't remove his cap until the show started. I didn't get a good look at him until the show as over. He was brought up the aisle and escorted back stage by his security guards. On his way back stage, he walked by me.

And I have to say, he looks like a regular nice kid. He's got very big eyes. He's not that tall. And he had a pleasant air about him meaning he didn't seem arrogant or spoiiled or obnoxious. In addition to his security detail (2 beefy, goodlooking English guys), he was with two adults who could have been his parents, but I don't really know who they were.

Most importantly he looked like a kid. I know there are people who think that Daniel Radcliffe is starting to look too old to play Harry Potter but when you see him in person, he looks just the right age. He looks like a teenager and I think might even look a little younger than his age.

If I were a teenager, I probably would have had the same reaction. I've never been a giggler in the face of celebrity - just people with I might really have had a chance of getting romantic.

So what's my take on Daniel Radcliffe? Leave him alone if you see him. He's a nice boy.

Grey Gardens Comes To An End

Sadly, one of my favorite new Broadway shows will be closing prematurely on July 29th.

Grey Gardens is the musical that some really smart people based on the Maysles brother's documentary about Jackie O's aunt and cousin, big and little Edie Beale. Sadly, they just haven't been able to fill seats, in spite of the two big Tony wins.

This really saddens me, but maybe it's a good thing. Christine Ebersole who won a Tony for playing both big and little Edie through the course of the show, has got to be exhausted by now. She's been playing the part for two years or so, since before it was on Broadway.

Additionally, a short run of a fantastic show makes you feel like you were part of something really special if you got to see it, of course.

Whether or not the show could succeed on the road with two other actresses playing their parts is an entirely different issue. And probably the reason why the show didn't win a Tony. From all the people I've talked to over the last year, I heard that a big consideration for awarding a Tony to a show is whether or not the show can travel. By traveling, I mean whether or not the show will succeed when community theater groups or bigger venues in cities like in Missouri or Chicago try to stage the show. It was the general concensus of quite a few people that I've spoken with the show simply will not travel as well as something like Curtains or Spring Awakening (2007 winner for best show).

I loved Grey Gardens all 20 or so times I saw the show. And just thinking about it now for this brief moment, I've got three songs from the show bouncing around my brain, particularly the opening number of ACT II. And the beautiful duet at the end of ACT II.

The final duet with Ebersole and Wilson, for me, is alone worth the ticket price.

Please. I implore you. If you haven't seen Christine Ebersole and Mary Wilson's Tony award winning performances yet, GO SEE THEM. Nobody on Broadway can touch them in terms of performance, personal chemistry and emotional connection to the audience.

It's a beautiful show and it's a shame it has to come to an end.

Xanadu - The Reviews Are In

The reviews for Xanadu the Musical are in.

NY Times reviewer Charles Isherwood liked it but didn't love it. Overall, the review is favorable. He describes the lead Keri Butler as "heaven on wheels, and in leg warmers".

Daily News reviewer Joe Dziemianowicz liked it for the most part. I thought he gave the most honest review. He liked the parts of the show that were strong and pointed out the parts that were weak. Isherwood did that too, but Dziemianowicz did it in a more constructive way.

NY Post reviewer Clive Barnes, in his review which is not so cleverly entitled "XANADON'T", really panned the play. While I agree that this isn't the BEST thing Broadway has to offer, it certainly doesn't deserve the harsh critique Barnes wrote up for it. Sometimes I think he is mean spirited just because he can be. He reminds of Anton Ego, the food critic from Ratatouille, whose mission in life is to make it impossible for any restaurant to succeed culinarily.

And while I agree that there are some dead spots in the show, something that all three critics commented on, overall the show is very entertaining. The nights I was there, not a single person walked out with their heads hanging low. They all felt good - the way they should.

Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School

I bet you've all been wondering if after my inexplicable obsession with VH1's hit Flavor of Love if I would watch Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School. Of course I did. I've just been too embarrassed to admit it up until now. What changed? Why am I now admitting that I watched it? Because in the reunion show, the show's host Mo'Nique said that Charm School was VH1's number one show. So with that many people watching the show, how could I deny ever having watched it? I can't.

The reason I enjoy this show much is it requires absolutely no thought at all. And it's designed that way. Somehow, Cris Abrego - the show's producer - has figured out a way to make a show that is all surface and no substance, more than any other reality show out there. And it's addictive. Once you watch a couple of episodes you become invested in the outcome. And you get caught up in all the little dramas. Never for one second did I believe that the producers really had any interest in teaching the Charm School students how to be more charming, although Mo'Nique did a pretty good job trying to convince us that she really did care.

If they really wanted to help these women improve their images, they would never have shown half the footage they did. When you think about it though, if they really, really wanted to help they would never have even filmed them. Of course, some of the women did thrive and those were the ones who really wanted to change their lives. But much like Flavor of Love, most of the women really just wanted to be on television. It was interesting to watch the women who couldn't reconcile that with themselves - like poor Larissa. Larissa - formerly known as Bootz - came in as a certain type of person and left as that person. She behaved just terribly on the show and really embarrassed herself. Not that the other women didn't, but her more than all the others.

Like I said, I found myself caught up in the life stories of these ladies and all their little conflicts. Will Leilene discover her inner strength? Will Buckwild shed her wigger pretense? Will Saaphyri be able to keep her temper under control? Will Shay and Larissa's friendship survive in the aftermath of having framed Shatar by stealing the photos of Leilene's dead mother? You get the idea.

And I was actually happy when Saaphyri Windsor won the $50,000. At the reunion show, I learned that with the money, Saaphyri put down a deposit on a condo, is starting a charity for women who have lost their hair through either cancer treatments or alopecia and is also starting her own line of "lip chap". I would like to know where she's living that she can make a dollar stretch that far. But I also hope that she's able to hold herself together after letting her image fall so far south in her first appearance on the Flavor of Love.

So. Yes. I did watch the show. I saw every episode - some I watched twice. And yes. I did enjoy the show.

Shady Lady

Because of the extremely hot and humid weather I have not left my cool, air-condtioned house (which we keep at a constant 73 degrees) since 11 Sunday morning. Don't be jealous. I do work, just not on Sundays or Mondays. And you should be especially NOT jealous of me because I am about to do our laundry which must be done by this afternoon or I won't have anything wear to work tonight.

Where am I working this week you ask? This week, I am working at A Chorus Line which is running at the Schoenfeld (formerly the Plymouth) theater. I imagine it will be sold out which means I'll have to stand in order watch the show (poor me). But that's okay because I'm reading a Jodi Piccoult book and that should keep me busy for a couple of hours.

Ratatouille

What a nice surprise. I actually enjoyed this movie. It was surprisingly well developed and not so surprisingly it was beautifully animated.

Who knew that I could enjoy a movie about rats in a kitchen especially after reading Rats by Robert Sullivan. I was afraid that after reading his book that it would have been IMPOSSIBLE for me to suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the movie but somehow PIXAR worked it out. The rat was cute and voiced by the personification of cuteness, comedian Patton Oswalt.

I wonder if Disney ever really listened to his stand up. I'm sure if that were the only thing on which they based choosing him, he wouldn't have gotten it because he is a dirty, dirty boy. But, like all comedians who make it as actors, he is immensely talented. In his stand up routines he portrays himself as an obsessive compulsive who loves food eating or as an eloquent person might put it, eating food. In the movie he plays a rat gourmand, obsessed with cleanliness. I like Oswalt so I'm not going to say he's a rat. He's not. But the other part doesn't seem like to much of a stretch. He was well suited for the role.

The movie is fun. Go see it. Now.

The Misanthrope has spoken.