monkeys and ponies

Yesterday (Thursday) was very busy.

I met up with Jessica for coffee and conversation (and to pick up postcards for the Women’s Storytelling Festival) in the morning. Apparently the secret to getting a table at De Clieu (a very good coffee place in Old Town Fairfax) is to go there on a weekday at 10 in the morning. We also talked a lot about books.

Then I ran over to Wegman’s for groceries. I’d have liked to have picked up some inari for lunch but the sushi section was fairly empty that early in the day. I did get most of what I needed, but forgot to look for marshmallow fluff. By the way, they have their Chanukah candles on sale, so I bought a box of the taller ones I like.

I managed to get home just before crafts group started. Unfortunately, I discovered I’d made a mistake in my Tunisian crochet afghan, so I had to frog a row and redo it. I also learned that Mauritius is now apparently a hot spot for modern dance. (One of the coordinator’s sons is a dance teacher and has been offered a job there.) It was, in my opinion, one of the most boring countries I’ve ever been to, but I was there back in 1998. They do have nice botanical gardens and an interesting national museum, but they also have an overdeveloped resort tourism industry, in my opinion.

There are a bunch of household things I should have done and I should have taken a nap as I had gotten up too early and been unable to get back to sleep. But, somehow, I didn’t manage to do any of that. Oh, well, I did manage to sleep in a bit this morning.

I didn’t get around to writing yesterday because I was too exhausted when I got home from going out to dinner with people from Flyertalk. We went to Bluejacket, which is in the Navy Yard area. There were 8 of us and we were at a high top table, with wooden stools. Unfortunately, the lack of padding on the seats and the absence of chair backs got to me after a couple of hours. On the plus side, the food was better than I expected. I had fish and chips. There was tartar sauce for the fish, and ketchup and another unidentified condiment for the fries, which may have been their idea of barbecue sauce, but wasn’t really to my taste. Most people got beer, but I opted for a delicious cocktail called strawberry gingin, which had gin, lime, ginger beer, and fresh strawberry and ginger syrup.

More importantly, the conversation was lively and, of course, focused on travel. I had met everyone who was there before, but knew some better than others. The organizer was someone who I hadn’t seen in over ten years, as she recently retired and moved back to the D.C. area after several State Department overseas assignments. (The actual instigator was one of the out-of-towners, however.)

By the way, there was a large group there in one of the private areas. We learned later on that they were from a Brown University alumni group. I’m sure it was hard for them to be celebrating given that this was just a few days after the shootings there.

I was just too exhausted last night to write anything.

I’d had a pretty social day. I did do a bunch of household stuff in the morning. Then I went into the city to go to brunch and the theatre with a few Losers. (Losers are devotees of what had been the Washington Post Style Invitational, a humor contest that continues its afterlife on Gene Weingarten’s page.) We’d gotten about an inch of snow overnight but, other than crossing the street to the metro station which was a bit icy in spots, it was reasonably clear. It was, however, very cold and windy out. Normally, I would walk from Metro Center to Penn Quarter, but not with that wind. I had a long wait at Metro Center for the Red Line, but I’d left myself a lot of time, so I was still a little early for our reservation. We had a lovely meal - huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs) with salsa, tortilla chips, and avocado plus cafe de olla (spiced with cloves, cinnamon, and canela) - in my case. By the way, I am fairly sure that canela refers to true cinnamon, while what they refer to on the menu as cinnamon (and almost everything sold in supermarkets as cinnamon) is actually cassia. The food was all very good and the conversation was lively and far ranging.

We met up with the rest of the Loser group at the Shakespeare Theatre (Sidney Harmon Hall) where we were seeing Guys and Dolls, one of my all-time favorite musicals. I know every word and every note of every song from it and like most of them. I think the lyrics of “Adelaide’s Lament” are among the most brilliant comedy lyrics in any musical ever. (And Stephen Sondheim agreed with me on that.) While there are some rhymes I am not crazy about (e.g. in the title song, Biloxi doesn’t rhyme with Roxy, but hey, I’m pretty sure Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Benny Southstreet wouldn’t know that) and I’m fairly sure Frank Loesser never met anyone from Rhode Island given the accent he (and Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows) had Miss Adelaide use, the whole show works. My favorite song is “Luck Be a Lady Tonight,” but I also have a soft spot for “More I Cannot Wish You.” The combination of the book, music, lyrics, and choreography epitomizes everything I love about Broadway musicals.

This production had excellent performances. Julie Benko was note perfect as Sarah Brown and played well against Jacob Dickey as Sky Masterson. Hayley Podschun was spot on as Miss Adelaide. The whole show just worked for me. It isn’t the absolutely best cast I’ve ever seen for it - that would be Steven Pasquale as Sky Masterson and Phillipa Soo as Sarah Brown at the Kennedy Center Broadway Center Stage production a few years ago. (I’ve also seen the show on Broadway at least twice.) But it was still excellent and all of us enjoyed it.

By the way, I also ran into a storytelling friend who was seeing the show with a group of her friends. This sort of coincidence happens to me a lot. And I like that aspect of living in the D.C. area.

I had intended to go to the crafts fair at the Dulles Expo Center yesterday or today but was too busy trying to do things at home to manage that. And I have a commitment tomorrow, so no crafts fair for me this year. The Dulles Expo Center is closing so no more for that venue for me. (In case anybody wondered, it’s being replaced by an Ikea.) It’s not like I really need more jewelry and I’m well stocked up on local honey.

I did make it down to my condo complex holiday party tonight for a little while. They had the usual heavy hors d’oeuvres, which were okay. The best things they had were a decent malbec and lots of chocolate covered strawberries. It seemed less crowded than usual, but I had gone right at the beginning and didn’t stay long because i had a story swap to go to over zoom.

I told a brief Chanukah in Chelm story. Jane told “Prince Rooster,” which is a story I also tell. John told a story in India involving a young girl and a tiger. The highlight was (as usual for this time of year) Margaret telling “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas.