Humor

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Friday Dance Party With Some Extras – It All Starts With A Christmas Without You

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

It’s our last Friday before Christmas.  I hope everyone has purchased all their gifts and have wrapped the majority of them.  Unlike me, that has not even sent one box to my family back home in Iowa, does not have all their presents purchased and not one single package wrapped.  I may be in trouble, but as a woman at work told me there is always money.  It always fits and is always the right color.  I think this week it is only right to dance to another Christmas carol.  Last week, we listened to one of my favorite Christmas songs sung by Judy Garland in “Meet Me In St. Louis”.  Here is another favorite but we will need to travel from 1944 (the year last week’s song was released to the masses) to 1984 (when this week’s song was released to the public).  Yes, 1984!  I can’t believe that it was over 25 years ago that I watched the Christmas special “A Christmas To Remember” with Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.  O.K., their names may make you snicker a little, but back in 1984 these two were hot, hot, hot.  They were just coming off the success of their smash hit “Islands In The Stream” and so naturally when you have a big hit you immediately turn around and do a Christmas special with some new Christmas songs to introduce.  Are you thinking Justin Bieber right now?  The same trick is being used over 25 years later.

I don’t know what it was then, but my friends and I that watched this special loved this song.  We bought the album (yes, it was an album) and have listened pretty much every year to this song (from album, to cassette tape and now to CD).  We have actually used it to tease several of my divorced friends.  What better way to tease someone divorced than to play “Christmas Without You” over and over and over.  Call us cruel, but this “inside joke” has helped keep the song alive for us over all these years.

This week, I’ll admit finding that one perfect Christmas song for us to dance to was tough.  I have a lot of favorites.  Let me share with you some of my runner-ups.  If Dolly and Kenny aren’t your style, here are a couple of alternatives:

I love me some Amy Grant!

A Nat King Cole classic.

I still have the original album in my collection.  It’s the same album cover as in this little goodie.

I hope you liked this little Friday Dance Party with a twist.  Pick your favorite from the music above and just dance.  It’s the holidays and we’re still alive and kicking.  Here’s to us!!  I wish all of you a happy holiday season and let’s pray for peace on Earth.  What are your favorite Christmas carols or other holiday music?

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The Evil Little Theater Cup

This is the heart of Broadway and what it looks like outside a theater when a show finishes.  There are cars there to pick up the stars and fans lined up and down the sidewalk to get a look at or talk a little bit to the stars.  Hugh Jackman gets quite a crowd who wait for him each night.  He should–his show is great.  See the people who are waiting on the left?  Usually after a show lets out, my group always runs out of the theater and starts looking for a cab.  It’s hard to get a cab when everyone else who has been to a show is trying along with you.  We usually have dinner plans too so we need to get to the restaurant pronto.  It was different this night.  There was no need to rush.  Why rush?  This was different.  Why the change from hurried to mellow?  What had changed inside of me on this night of theater?

Blame it on the evil theater cup!

I saw my first show on Broadway in 1986.  It was “Song & Dance” with Bernadette Peters.  I have been going to see shows on Broadway ever since.  One thing in all these years has remained constant.  You are not allowed to bring any food or beverage to your seat.  That is the law of theater!  You can eat and drink before a show or at intermission, but do not bring it back to your seat.  If you even tried to break the rule, you would be hit with a flashlight beam and there would be an usher telling you to hand it over.  No eating!  No drinking!  These ushers would have the meanest face when you looked up at them from your seat with your bottle of water or your last Milk Dud in hand.  These ushers would make prison guards nervous.  Now all of this has changed.

It might have been sooner, but this year I’ve noticed a change.  You can take drinks to your seat in the shows I’ve gone to as long as the drink is in the evil little theater cup.  Think of this cup as a sippie cup for adults meaning that if you drop them, they don’t spill.  All that is on top of the cup’s lid is a little hole you open up and stick a straw through.  At the bar, the bartenders will fill you up with your beverage of choice.  Soda to the top of the rim.  For $11, you get a cup that is half full of wine.  For $21, you get your cup filled to the top with wine.  For me, nothing says “classy night out on Broadway” more than sitting back watching a show with a sippie cup filled to the top with Chardonnay.  If you time it right, you draw your last sip through your straw at the end of Act I.  Then you go back to the bar at intermission and get another cup full.  This time around it is $16 because you get a discount if you bring your cup back to be refilled.  Then right before the 11 o’clock number, you are sitting there in your seat with your empty cup in hand and you realize “I’m drunk”.  You then do things you have never done:

  • You have an ugly cry for all to see during the last song of the show.
  • You give a standing ovation to the star while all the while hooting and hollering and making a spectacle of yourself.
  • You stumble out of the theater telling people you don’t know that you just spent $37 on wine.
  • You proceed to tell your friends that next time you are going to save money and just buy a bottle of wine at the liquor store and have the bartender hold it for you because you can fill your own cup.
  • You don’t run like hell to catch a taxi.  The restaurant can wait!
  • You realize that the evil little theater cup is a blessing and a curse.

Now I know that the invention of the evil little theater cup was probably done to boost sales during the slump in the economy.  However, I think it is also a great idea to use for shows that are not very good.  If I could have had my two cups full of Chardonnay in years past, I might have stuck around for the end of “A Moon For The Misbegotten”.

I wouldn’t have fallen asleep during “Top Girls”.

Lastly…..yes, I’ll publicly admit this……I wouldn’t have wished I could get a musket and shoot all of those revolutionaries on stage in “Les Miserables” just to make it end.

So, I don’t like change very much, but I think that the evil little theater cup is a keeper.  It makes a great show even better and I hope to also use it someday to see if it can make a bad show at least a little more bearable.  Oh, as with everything, moderation is key when using the evil little theater cup.  Who am I kidding?  I would sit there and drink wine out of a bottle with a straw if they’d let me.  Enjoy your next show, with or without a little booze.  What do you think of being able to eat and drink at your seats?

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Friday Dance Party – David Guetta, Usher and StoryCorps

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

Almost every Friday at 8:30 AM Eastern time, I am in my car driving to work with tears in my eyes.  Many times the tears spill out.  It really is not the most optimal way to drive a car.  Right on schedule, it happened again this morning.  Why you ask?  The answer is that I am listening to StoryCorps, which is a regular feature on National Public Radio.  StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of their lives.  Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants.  Each conversation is recorded and then preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.  StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind and millions listen to weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition.  StoryCorps does this to remind us of our shared humanity, strengthen and build the connections between people, teach the value of listening and weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that every life matters.  At the same time, StoryCorps creates an invaluable archive of American voices and wisdom for future generations.

The one today really hit home in so many ways.  A man was being interviewed by his friend about the loss of his partner 14 years ago on December 2, 1997.  At the end of his short interview, he told a story about him and his partner with so much emotion in his voice that it was hard to listen.  However, it made me think that even though a loved one may leave you here on Earth, you will always have strong memories like the man on StoryCorps that keeps a loved one alive in your heart forever.  These strong memories are probably the only things you have that keep you from cracking up when you deal with such a loss.  Memories enable you to move on and get on with your life.  Here is what he said:

“I have this memory of looking out our bedroom window,” he says.  “It was a night with a lunar eclipse.  We looked out and watched the lunar eclipse together.  I remember thinking that it was the last one he would see, and we would see together.  I remember, I don’t know what I said, something stupid, and made him laugh.”  “And I just loved, loved, loved hearing him laugh.”

Sometimes on Fridays, we have to give thanks for our lives and dance with a little bit of a heavy heart.  This week, let’s do that and dance to “Without You” by David Guetta with Usher.  It’s for Chris and Coda and their story on StoryCorps.  Let’s give thanks that we are alive and safe.  Let’s also remember to make the type of memories that last more than just one person’s lifetime.  Have you ever listened to StoryCorps?

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Friday Dance Party – Sharing Taio Cruz’s Hangover (Literally)

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

So what do you do at night when you don’t have electricity for 8 days?  You drink.  I mean, what else can you do?  There is no food in the refrigerator anymore because it had to be tossed out.  You’ve already devoured most of your dry goods like crackers and cookies.  You can’t buy new groceries as you don’t really have a way to put them away in the pitch black darkness.  So, you raid the liquor cabinet and drink your sorrows away.  It doesn’t matter what you really grab as the alcohol, any alcohol, serves multiple purposes (not one being great taste).  The booze:

  • Takes your mind off of your electricity woes,
  • Makes you forget that you’ve only taken a whore’s bath for the last eight days because you can’t take a complete shower (you know what a whore’s bath is….a little water on the important parts of your body and then out the door),
  • Makes you forget that the only way you can access the internet is at the shelter set up in the recreation center for old people senior citizens (I don’t need to hear, “Can I log on with you Sonny’),
  • Enables you to laugh at the fact that you’ve had the same pants on for the last four days because you can’t do laundry,
  • Enables you to sleep (in a passed-out fashion) in a 49 degree house.

If we had music, the dark house would also enable you to dance like crazy to this week’s song.  Given the importance of alcohol this last week, it was only fitting to play Taio Cruz’s ‘Hangover’.  You’ve made it through another week and you deserve to celebrate.  Grab a glass of wine and turn your speakers up and dance.  Hopefully, it’s in a house with electricity…yikes!  What other home remedies can you think of that cure the “no electricity” blues?

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Friday Dance Party – Kelly Clarkson Has A Mr. Know It All

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

It is a beautiful Fall day here in Connecticut.  We’ve finally finished getting the yard ready for Winter.  The patio furniture is all covered up in preparation for harsher weather.  The garden pots are all stored until next Spring.  We’ve trimmed all of the spent plants down and we are waiting for the rest to die off so that they too can be trimmed before the first snow.  The garden is bare.  There are no more tomato plants, green bean bushes or radish tops sprouting out of the dirt.  We just can’t seem to believe that Summer is over.  Isn’t there an old saying that says the older you get, the faster time goes?  I believe it, especially this year.  Mother Nature gives us four seasons and makes us abide by each one.  You can’t make one season last longer or be shorter to suit your needs.  She sets the schedule on her own agenda to ensure the cycle of life works.  She is so smart, that Mother Nature.  Sort of a know it all.  That’s what made me think of this week’s song…Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Mr. Know It All’.  It is dedicated to Mother Nature, who knows exactly how to control the seasons whether you like it or not.  You’ve made it through another week, so go ahead and dance.  You deserve to celebrate.  Turn up your computer speakers and let it rip.  Have fun.  Have you finished all your winter preparation outside?

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Friday Dance Party – Loretta, Shake It For Luke Bryan

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

If you had to pick a type of music for the old-fashioned barn party we went to last weekend, you would most definitely choose country music.  This music is just so synonymous with family, friends, apple pie, barns and America.  Growing up in Iowa, I used to listen to and love country music.  If you ask any of my friends today, they will also tell you that I still have a soft spot for country music.  I used to be embarrassed by my love for this music, especially when I moved to California and then to New York and Connecticut.  I guess I was a little embarrassed by my country roots.  All that has changed now and I am proud to be from the Midwest and to be a country music lover.  Believe it or not, the twangier the better.  From Carrie Underwood to Dolly Parton’s Bluegrass…..from Blake Shelton’s ‘Honey Bee’ to Conway Twitty, I love them all.

There was only one time in my life when I turned against country music.  It was only for a day.  It was a time way back in Iowa during my early high school years.  In my hometown, most old timers were either farmers or coal miners.  Iowa had quite a few black coal mines where men would ride down into tunnels and pick for coal that would be carried to the surface on rail cars.  My paternal grandfather and my great uncles were coal miners; my maternal grandfather worked in a strip mine, which was a different way to gather coal.  To commemorate this coal mining heritage, my little town used to host a coal miner’s day celebration each June, including a parade, food, games and entertainment (a lot like our old-fashioned barn party).  For the parade, many of the town merchants would build floats, which were flat beds pulled by trucks that were decorated around certain themes.  The year I turned against country music was the year there was a float entitled ‘Coal Miners’ Daughters’ based on the Loretta Lynn song.  The float was decorated with plastic flowers stapled all over the flat bed and actual coal miners’ daughters sat on chairs and cubes all along the flatbed.  As the float drove closer to my little brother and me at the parade, we could see someone dressed up to resemble Loretta Lynn.  This person was lip synching to the song ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’.

Well, I was born a coal miner’s daughter,
In a cabin, on a hill in Butcher Holler,
We were poor, but we had love,
That’s the one thing my daddy made sure of,
He shoveled coal to make a poor man’s dollar.

IT WAS OUR MOTHER!

We were horrified.  Each of us ran to hide at the sight of our mom in a big curly black wig, long dress and big microphone with a cord.  It is hard enough to be a teenager without your mother doing this to you.  It took us many years to recover and even today we grimace every time we hear someone mention Loretta Lynn.

Other than this one time, country music has been a great source of joy for me.  Given our barn party and that we haven’t danced to a country song in a long time, let’s celebrate this week by dancing to a little Luke Bryan.  If you are a country girl, go ahead and shake it for me him.  We’ve all made it through another week and deserve to celebrate.  Let’s dance!  Are you a country music lover?

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A Sweet Little Drink From The Devil Sisters

This is a sweet little drink we enjoyed this weekend at a party in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  From the three open bottles of champagne, you can tell that it was pretty popular.  It is a drink that is on the sweet side.  What could be better….a sweet drink to enjoy on a sweet day.  My two friends that grew up in Iowa with me (they are sisters) from Peonies From Heaven had this drink and then made it at the party.  I don’t recall hearing the name of the drink.  I’m sure they didn’t invent it (although I’m sure they would claim that they did if you asked them), but I’ll go ahead and name it in their honor.  Because they have a wild streak and take every opportunity to harass me (I don’t deserve it) along with it being close to Halloween, I’ll name it ‘The Devil Sisters’ Champagne Brew’.  All kidding aside, this champagne brew is delicious.  Make sure to have the following ingredients on hand:

  • Champagne of your choice
  • A bottle of St. Germain elderflower liqueur
  • A bottle of orange bitters
  • Sugar cubes
  • Fresh oranges

The Devil Sister’s Champagne Brew:

Take a champagne flute and fill it about 3/4 full with your favorite chilled champagne.  Then add about half of a shot of the elderflower liqueur into the flute.  Next, drop in one sugar cube that is generously soaked in the orange bitters.  Garnish by dropping in a slice of fresh orange peel.  Enjoy!!

I’ve seen more and more drinks that are being made these days with the elderflower liqueur.  I’ve read that it is an artisanal French liqueur made from hand-picked elderflower blossoms.  The starry white flowers are gathered by 40-50 folks pedaling the Alpen French countryside picking the flowers that is then distilled into this liqueur.  It is blended with a small amount of citrus and natural cane sugar to accentuate the subtle flavor of the elderflowers.  The resulting liqueur is delicate and balanced with fresh floral aromas and flavors and hints of pear, apricot and grapefruit zest.  So if you are looking for a sweet little brew, go ahead and give this one a try….and let me know what this is called if you know its name.  Have you ever used elderflower liqueur in any of your drink specialties?

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Friday Dance Party – GaGa’s You And I

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

This weekend we are off to Pennsylvania to see some old friends that I grew up with in Iowa all those years ago.  While we have been out of Iowa for a long time, we have remained close through the years and try to see each other at one of our homes as often as possible.  It’s funny, when we all get back together it is amazing how easy it is to catch up as if we had just seen each other a few days before.  I guess that’s the beauty of having close friends.  To honor our Iowa roots, I thought we could dance this week to Lady GaGa’s ‘You and I’.  It seems that she is traveling back to her country roots to find and reclaim a lost love?  I end that sentence with a question mark because after watching the video a few times I’m not quite sure what to think about her mission.  It’s a great song and a great video….I can’t take my eyes off of it.  If it makes sense to anyone, please let me know.  Mermaids and farm country….you tell me!  So take a few minutes to be in the moment and be happy for another week of living.  You’ve made it through and deserve to celebrate.  Turn up those speakers and dance with GaGa.  Let loose and be a little monster for a few minutes.  What are your plans this weekend?

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Friday Dance Party – Cobra Starship You Make Me Feel

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

I’ve decided that the chorus to this week’s song by Cobra Starship is how I’m going to start talking to people when I feel I am having a problem with them either at work or in a personal relationship.  Think about it, if every time you thought you had an issue with someone, you just brought them in and said “You make me feel so _____” and then “You make me feel that _____”, then wouldn’t the world would be a much happier place?  I’m the type of person that really bottles up my feelings when I am having a problem with someone.  Instead of clearing the air, I’ll walk around for days and not say a word or, at the very least, not say a word about how I’m really feeling.  This type of behavior usually manifests itself in an explosion of angry feelings directed toward the person weeks later when they do something unrelated to why I was having problems with them in the first place.  Not such a great plan from a relationship management perspective.  In fact, I’ve even caught myself writing somebody off for good for doing something to me versus sitting down and talking it out with them.  My new Cobra Starship method for issue resolution is going to change all that…starting now.  As you are dancing this week and celebrating another week of living, call someone over if you are having an issue with them and try our new technique.  Just hope that they don’t answer you back with “la la la la la” like in the song.  Have a great dance–you deserve it!  How are you at relationship management?

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Hats Off To Magar Hatworks

This is a Fascinator made for the Kentucky Derby.  What is a Fascinator, you may be asking?  It is a hat that has gained in popularity since Kate Middleton began wearing these precariously perched feathered creations on her head.  The Fascinator is a particularly ornate accessory that can feature feathers, beads, flowers and other fancy trimmings.  Fascination over the Fascinator is growing in the United States, with Google searches up 50% for this style of hat since January.  Hats–that’s what brought us to Magar Hatworks in Charleston–and we weren’t disappointed.

Leah Magar has been described as a 21ist-century hat maker.  She uses old-fashioned hat making techniques with a fashion-forward vision in creating her quirky, Sunday-best hats.  She uses the technique of blocking to make and stitch hats by hand.  In fact, she has a collection of museum quality hat blocks lined all around her showroom.  Here are a few examples of the many hat blocks she owns.

But my friend and I were at Magar Hatworks to buy some hats.  You see, I am obsessed with hats and when my friend talked about the hat shop, we knew we had to go.  Honestly, even though I love men and women in hats, I only own two hats and they are recent purchases.  The reason?  I believe that I have the biggest head in recorded history.  There were signs of this before I fully realized it myself.  I have an aunt who says that as a new-born baby I was “all head”.  I could never, ever wear a baseball cap without it squeezing off my head.  Sporting ventures like football required the school to special-order head gear.  However, it was call outs from folks in college and then in the work place about the hugeness of my head that made me finally get the measuring tape out and take a reading.  I am proud to communicate that my head is approximately 26 inches in circumference.  It was confirmed by a measurement at Magar Hatworks.  For the most part, that is a very small person’s waist.  After my initial measurement, Leah Magar said in astonishment that she didn’t have a hat form big enough to block out a hat for me.  After she saw my sad eyes and face, she relented.  She knew how bad I wanted a hat.  You know how it is when you want something so bad and you are told that you can’t have it.  She is now making three for me!

Here is a view of some of the hats that Leah makes.  The straw hats are there for the end of the Spring/Summer season and the others are for Fall/Winter.  For the colder season, there were hats of felt, wool and cashmere that were all dyed in great colors and adorned with various notions.  I ordered one straw hat and two heavier wool hats for the Winter.  My friend bought two straws and is throwing serious hints to her husband about this wonderful Winter hat she needs as a Christmas present.

I have to believe that old-time hat making like what Leah Magar of Magar Hatworks is doing is a dying occupation.  When my friends and family see me walking around with my hats on, I want them to know it is not so much for the fashion statement but more about the fact that an art like this can’t cease to exist.  What a skill!  Oh, and by the way, if anyone laughs when my big head puts a hat on, I may just have to strap on that big Kentucky Derby Fascinator instead.  That will give them something to laugh about!  When was the last time you wore a hat?