Thankful Thursday Thirteen

Absolutely Fabulous

Start with Champagne…

Then do some stretching exercises…

And get ready for a ladies’ night out!

I wear sensible old lady shoes so I kept mine out of this particular shot.

 

c-c-c-C-O-L-D !!

Waiting for the show to begin…

Mamma Mia! was absolutely FABULOUS.

New Year’s Eve

After I got home from the bluegrass concert/CD release party, SuperDad heated up a pan of brandy, dropped in some raisins and almonds, and lit it on fire. Voilà!

The name of this victorian-era game is SNAPDRAGON. Technically, one should use raisins for the beginners and currants for a greater challenge.

I think I just blew the “normal family” status.

Musical Monday: New Year’s Eve edition

I couldn’t get my family to budge from the house on NYE, but a friend kindly invited me to ride with her to a bluegrass concert, er… CD release party for one band, with another band as their opening act. I failed to video the event, but here are a couple of  YouTube videos to enjoy featuring each band:

JAKE AND THE BURTONES

That banjo player? He’s 16 years old.
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And here is the band that headlined the event. They just released their 2nd CD titled “Soul Bucket”.  Yes, I bought the CD. Now I’m itching to buy a harmonica.

This is The Acoustic Burgoo. They will be famous someday, and then you can say you heard them here first!  😀

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Musical Monday is a meme I discovered over at Thom’s place.

If you want to be an official participant, you can get the instructions by clicking on the badge.

The after Christmas party

Baby, it’s cold outside…

Susie is once again hosting the (6th annual!) blog Christmas Party. This year she changed things up a bit and is hosting it after Christmas, but I like to point out that there are 12 days of Christmas so really, it’s right on time! At least that is my excuse when the cards get sent out in early January…

I’ve been laying low for the past few days.  The house is not perfectly cleaned, but the cat has warmed a spot for you on the living room sofa.

The kids have eaten most of the cookies — and I’m afraid they’ve gobbled up the chocolate-covered pretzels, too —  but please help yourself to a slice of Stollen while I boil water for tea.  The coffee is right over there next to the fridge  if you’d like a cup of java instead; I just made a fresh pot a few minutes ago.

You are welcome to sit and rest and enjoy a cup of something warm, while we talk and listen to the wind chimes sing.

Celebrate!

1. Last Friday night was Humorous-Juniorous’ birthday party. It was the first time we had met most of his friends from school (H-J is a bit of an introvert). It was a successful geekfest. Who else would talk about math and wish for a video game called Orchestra Hero? (Admittedly, that WOULD be very cool!) They partied with DDR, snacks, Mario Kart racing, snacks, stick fighting outside in the dark, S’Mores at the firepit, Monty Python’s Holy Grail, cake and ice cream. And did I mention snacks?
If you needed party ideas for a 15yo boy, you’re welcome! 😉

2. We live between 2 towns; the smaller one has a population of 600, the larger town is ten times that size. The town with the traffic lights (FOUR!) had its annual Christmas parade last Saturday. More photos here and here…

3. SnakeMaster would gladly own a horse.

4. This is what the dining room credenza looked like on Monday. Procrastinator, who??

5. MusicMan, my college son, is flying home today. We haven’t seen him for over 4 months, so I’m sure you will understand if I’m absent much of the next few weeks.

Oh yes, I did!

We came, we saw, we rallied.

EB came with us

We read a lot of terrific signs.
[Click to embiggen any photos]

Americans for... oh, look! A puppy!

We did The Wave with the guys from Mythbusters.

And then we realized that we hadn’t seen a porta-potty and we were going to need one. The crowd was…. well, crowded! and we were too far away to see or hear clearly. So as politely as we could, we swam against the tide and headed for a museum.

A little dose of FEAR…

Hey, the Newseum!

It was awesome.  Inside the lobby is a ginormous viewing screen which was showing the live coverage of the rally on the Comedy Central channel.  And there were already a bunch of other people who had the same idea.  They were cheering and clapping. (Not for us — for Jon and Stephen and guests.) It was like being at the rally, only less crowded and with clean bathrooms.  Although with the cost of admission, they were pretty expensive bathrooms.

From the windows and an upper story balcony, we could see the mass of people at the rally…

and those attempting to be at the rally. This is a view of a side street clogged with folks still trying to get in. But they were there. It counts.

Also, we had time to visit a real section of the Berlin Wall and a guard tower (only one in the USA and one of the few remaining left in the world — the rest were destroyed in the past 20 years).

After the rally was over, we headed back to the Mall for more photos of signs and a chance to photograph the [empty] stage.

Oh, look! The porta-potties we failed to find earlier in the afternoon —->

I  strongly suspect that the bathrooms at the Newseum were much nicer, even if we did have to pay a pretty penny to get into the building.

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I’ve been asked why I went. Why would someone who admittedly doesn’t like crowds willingly go to a rally on the Washington Mall? What made me desire to be there?
Here, in part, is the answer I gave to a few friends on facebook:

I hadn’t really thought of it so much of being part of something big — although it certainly was! — but more a matter of standing up in support of what Jon Stewart was saying when he announced the rally. The whole idea of there being a small but LOUD minority drowning out reason, when really there *is* a large, quiet, and mostly reasonable majority out there — a majority that doesn’t agree on political issues but who also don’t think shouting is the way to get your point across. When Jon said, “If you are wondering, am I really the type to go to a rally? The very fact that you are asking that question…The answer is YES.” …that  got my attention.
The really wonderful thing, besides the huge show of support from the 200,000 people who showed up (hello, there ARE decent people on both sides!), was that everyone was just so NICE that day.   I was a little worried about the political climate there, because I am rather moderate  –neither extreme pleases me– and I have always voted independent of any political party, but there was no bashing of parties or individuals (well, fun was poked at Sarah Palin on some of the signs, but how can you NOT poke fun at her? She sort of begs for it. And there were a number of costumes with tea bags prominently featured).
All in all, Civility was the rule of the day.
That is what I observed in person.
Perhaps a part of me wanted to be a part of something big in Washington, D.C., while I was still living here — but only in pleasant weather.
Ultimately,  I went because I wanted to stand up and be counted as a voice of reason.

It was a beautiful day.

And then we walked all the way back to the parking garage at George Washington University in Foggy Bottom, loaded our tired bodies into the car and got into the mass of traffic to go home…

…where we watched the entire event that I had wisely recorded. It was the best of both worlds.  I can proudly say I WAS THERE but I could also enjoy watching the entire 3 hours of everything I’d missed being able to see… all while laying on the couch in my pajamas  and resting my aching feet.

Muffed Target: perspective

The Muffed Photo Meme is sponsored by Thom and can be found every Tuesday (actually usually as early as Monday afternoon) on his blog, Thom’s Place 4 Well, Whatever.  This meme really fits in his “well whatever” category:

Each Tuesday post a completely crazy, messed up photo — one you would normally delete. The subject matter isn’t important — did you take a picture of your thumb? The lens cap? The wrong half of great Aunt Betty? (Really, she usually has a head …) Or perhaps you’ve got a shot of your own nose hairs taken while you were trying to determine why the flash wasn’t working. Whatever your photo goof is, we want to see it!

I’m still training myself to stop deleting every single “bad” photo. After all, it’s hard to play this game (meme) with a GOOD picture!

This muffed target occurred  when I was trying to get a shot of a little girl dancing close to her mama, but right as I snapped the picture, a wine bottle was passed in between the bluegrass baby and my camera.

I love Marching Band

When you listen to music, does it make you want to get up and dance?

Musical Monday: Bluegrass Baby

I spent a wonderful Saturday evening at a bluegrass concert. While the music from this first act was decidedly amateur (it was dark when the headliners hit the stage), I couldn’t resist filming this adorable little girl. This is why I love bluegrass:

I found out about Musical Monday from Thom.

This post also segues with this week’s Thematic Photographic subject of kids.  (Thanks, Carmi!) I couldn’t figure out how to get a screen shot from this video, but I did get to choose the thumbnail shown above as the video opener.  Isn’t she adorable?

Okay, back to work for me. I’ll be around to visit you all when I can. Must. Work.