I am going to try, really try to keep up with a blog because for the almost two years I did not keep one regularly I lost track of my life. So good riddance to 2016. You really sucked. So here goes 2017:
New Year’s Eve
We went to China Chilcano for New Year’s Eve. We had been to this restaurant once before and loved the Peruvian fusion food. First, I love Peruvian food because it involves potatoes and chilis. Second, I love pisco sours, which is a Peruvian drink made with pisco, a Peruvian brandy made from grapes. The Piscos were part of the dinner package, all I could drink. So this seemed like a great place to have a New Year’s Eve dinner. Wrong.
The food was so-so, which really surprised us. But even worse, the music was so loud, that we literally could not hear each other and we were writing notes back and forth on a tablet. I suppose if I texted, we would have been texting across the table. Even though we had reservation for the midnight toast, we were practically running for the door by 11:30. Does this make us old? I don’t know but I vowed that we are not going out for New Year’s Even ever again. I’d prefer to sit in my basement and watch movies. As Louis C.K. says, (and he is my philosopher king) it is really a meaningless moment. It is a mental construct. All that happened is that day turned into night and night turned into day. A new year is just the next day.
January 1, 2017 – The Day After
I had one too many piscos but I forced myself to exercise anyway. Then I spent the day cooking a leg of lamb and fava bean puree, a Puglian staple that is kind of like but not really hummus. We fell in love with it on our trip to Italy. Then Matt taught me how to play Yahtzee. I remember when I was a kid I thought it was an old person’s game. I guess I was right.
January 5, 2017 – Wicked.
We went to see Wicked at the Kennedy Center. I have to admit, I am not a fan of The Wizard of Oz. I am not sure I ever made it through the movie. When I was a kid I was not into musicals and that movie has a lot of singing and dancing. I’d get bored and move on. Matt loved the movie as a kid and he had the Frank Baum books so I read them. I was not too crazy about them either and to be honest, I never absorbed the story line. Wizards, good witches, bad witches. Meh. So when Matt said he wanted to see Wicked, I kind of groaned and reluctantly said okay.
Well, it was GREAT! I did not know the story line at all so I was going in with no expectations whatsoever. Why is the wicked witch evil? Is she really evil or is it a plot? What is the back story? Too much fun. The two women playing Glinda and Elphaba were fantastic singers and also pretty gosh darn hilarious. The set was fun, the costumes outrageous, the music soaring but not pompous. We just enjoyed it immensely. I cannot say I am a fan of the Wizard of Oz, but I am a fan of Wicked. if it is coming to your town, go and see it!
January 11 – Hockey
Went to see the Pens play the Caps. We lost! in fact, we sucked completely. Gosh, I hate that. We need revenge.
January 14 – Louis C.K. at DAR.
I’ll be honest, I had no idea who Louis C.K. was. (I am oblivious about a lot of things. Hey, I’m busy.) But we have Netflix and I suggested we check out his sitcom, Louis. Oh my God! I love that man. He is hilarious, insightful, philosophical. I call him my philosopher king. He reminds me a bit of George Carlin just in terms of tackling hard topics and making it all seem so funny. At this show, which he recorded, he talked about such fun topics as abortion, suicide, and the fact that if you utter the words Jesus Christ with the wrong intention, you end up in hell. Yeah, he made all of that funny. I’d see him again in a heartbeat.
January 20 [____I am pretending this did not just happen___________]
A day I cannot discuss. But no, I did not go downtown to protest. When I saw the hooligans were out, I decided to stay home.
January 21 – The Women’s March on Washington
Oh, yeah. You know we went to this. But we never actually got to the rally itself. Way, way, way too many people. We came off the subway, got directed down a side street that was parallel and a block from the stage and from there did not get anywhere near the action. We wanted to get to the handicapped area and by the time we did, it was packed with people.
So we decided that Matt would set up his chair on the sidewalk and we would watch the crowd streaming off the subway. In that sense, the march went right by us. People are so clever. There were clever signs, street theater, puppets (I love the puppets) and just thousands of people happily marching. Good times.
Here are some pics. Keep in mind. This is on a side street coming off the subway. They are trying to get to the actual march which is blocks away. Lucky for us, they marched to the march:
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January 28 – Caroline, or Change
We have been going to a lot of theater this past year and Tony Kushner has been big on our list. Who is Tony Kushner? One of our best living playwrights. He wrote Angels in America and if you have not seen that extravaganza on HBO, you need to sit down and take it in. A play about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, Al Pacino goes full out as Roy Cohn. Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson join in to wow us with their acting with both playing multiple characters. It is a two part play so it takes two days to see. Back in November, we spent two nights and almost seven hours watching it live. It was fantastic to see. The actors have to go all out for the play and they did it at Roundhouse.
Tonight we saw Caroline, or Change, a musical about civil rights in 1960s Louisiana. Caroline is a maid for a Jewish household. Based on Kushner’s life, it is about the relationship between the maid and the young Jewish boy. But it is also about the nascent civil rights movement and Caroline’s frustration with her lot in life. The music is varied from soul to opera. The things surrounding Caroline–the Washing Machine, the Dryer, the Radio and the Moon–are all represented by in the cast. The Moon sings opera. The Radio is a Supremes-like girl trio. The Washing Machine is kind of like Bessie Smith and the Dryer is like Paul Robeson. Really all quite entertaining. Kushner creates complex narratives that run the gamut of human emotion and ambivalence. Plus, he wrote a song that uses the word “pogrom” as part of a rhyme. That just kills me.
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