It's theater week!

I've had a great week this week. Sunday of course we went to the Taper. Yesterday (Thursday) my sainted MIL came over to babysit so Kevin and I could go see a movie. We had a lovely little dinner at Chili's (my top choice in cheap, generic chain dining) and then got stuck in that dead zone between showings. Like we finished dinner at 6:55 and there was a 7:00 show and a 7:50 show. Hate it when that happens. But we got our choice of seats!

We saw Avatar in 3D. I really liked the 3D experience but Kevin wasn't all that wowed. I thought the movie was very good. There were some plot holes so big you could drive a truck through, and many points where I was like "Wow, I didn't see that coming--oh wait, yes I did." but it's James Cameron so you can't think about it too hard. All in all, I'm glad we saw it on the big screen.

Tonight my parents came over to babysit and we went to a community youth theater production of Grease. Two of the teens from our church, Chelsea and Zoe, were in the production. It was very cute and definitely brought me right back to my high school production of Grease, in which I played the unnamed "Pink Lady." That is, I was in the chorus. I was very proud of our girls--they did really well! It was a lot of fun.

Oh, and the funny part from last night--Cindy (my mother-in-law) said that she knew it was time for Theo to go to bed when he crawled over to the large dog bed (upon which both dogs were already curled up) and laid down with them. Ha! I wish I'd seen it! I hope he does it again.

Palestine, New Mexico

Last night we saw a play, Palestine, New Mexico, at the Mark Taper Forum. I really liked it! It was about this Native American guy who was killed in action in Afghanistan and his Army Captain goes back to his reservation to deliver a letter to the chief and find out what really happened. I thought the acting was fabulous. Overall I thought this season at the Taper was just so-so. I really liked the production of Pippin, which they did with Deaf West theater group with half of the cast being hearing impaired. They did a play called Lydia that was probably pretty good but I couldn't get over the shrieking tone of the main character. We saw the musical Parade, which despite its Rogers and Hammerstein-esque title was actually about the only Jew ever lynched in America (cheery!). We missed one play, Oleana, but heard it wasn't that great overall. I'm looking forward to the next season!

Of blood draws and other things

We went and had our blood drawn yesterday. I was extremely impressed with the phlebotomists there! Believe me, I'm pretty much the expert on blood draws so I was steeling myself for a moderate-case scenario--a needle insert, small amount of digging, and massive bruise afterwards (worst case would be 2 or more insertions with lots and lots of digging). Well not only did they get that giant needle in the very first try with completely minimal pain, my bruise is smaller than the size of a dime today. So kudos to Saddleback Memorial Blood Center! I'll certainly be using their services for all of my blood donation needs.

Plus I got to help my cousin AND get something free from Disneyland. It's a win-win-win-win all the way around.

I joined a "Gen X" mom's group in my area. As the name implies, it's a group for all of us who feel like matriarchs of other groups. We get together to chat about things like, "I love being a stay-at-home-mom, but I'm SO BORED!!!" and those moments when you're rinsing poo and spit-up out of your shirt and shorts when you say to yourself, "I have two college degrees! TWO!!!" Anyway, we've had such fabulous conversations about it, we decided to start a blog. And the best part? I don't have to run the blog because a bunch of us were in IT before having children! Look for it soon...