Martha Does it again! I met Bernie Williams! And Weekly One Minute Dance (Strut/ Crawl) Party

In exciting personal news, the boy surprised me with a date night jazz show...to see Bernie Williams, one of my favorite former Yankee players and his jazz band at Anthology in SD.
It was an amazing show, I had no idea he had such talent and was de-stressing from games by jamming away and making such beautiful music.

Take me out to the ballgame was an incredibly touching rendition, and the crowd threw in "Route route route for the Yankees" at all the right times.
Made me miss my friday night season ticket crew, our nosebleed "First Row Upper Awning " Shielded-From-Rain seats, the marlboro man and his shaggy mullet, yeunglings at stan's, and Bernie coming through with some clutch hit.
Cheers to Bernie on his new career! He graciously lingered forever signing cds and chatting with the crowd, which was much appreciated, as i'm sure he was beyond ready to head home. 
Please go see him if he comes to your city...I think he'll be known for music instead of baseball pretty soon.




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Am finally catching my breath after last week's Thanksgiving marathon. Had never roasted a turkey before so we decided to have practice Thanksgiving last Monday night so I could try out my new recipes and attempt to cook a large bird for a few friends without ruining everyone's meal on the big day. It was definitely a learning experience.
I was not at all prepared for the waterfall of blood and turkey juices that gushed out as I removed her wrapper, or the nastiness I'd find tucked inside our pretty little lady.
For some reason, I was under the impression that giblets and necks came in a tidy little bag tied neatly with a bow. Not the case apparently. But she gave her life for us, and so I will attempt to make soup out of her spare body parts, and I am thankful that when cooked, she came out beautifully. And so did her sister a few days later... I made a second feast for Mom's visit on the official day. I'll get around to posting my recipes on that food blog I occasionally update. But in the meantime, if you're going to buy a turkey, go find yourself a fresh Diestel one. They were definitely worth all the hype. (And are cheaper at Siesel's / Iowa Meat Farms than Whole Foods)

But I digress. The real reason for my post is to share another one of Martha's gems that arrived in my inbox last week. In case you were wondering how to dress the baby for Thanksgiving. Or needed a centerpiece.

If you missed my last Martha costume post, click here... Oh Martha


Hope you all had fabulous meals with friends and family. And did not eat your children.

Also wanted to thank SYTYCD, which I have gotten sucked into this season for using one of my favorite songs from earlier in the year. It's a great chick anthem by Melanie Fiona, Give It To Me Right. So click play and get up and dance. Or in this case, strut sultrily, and perhaps crawl. It's good for the soul. And the video makes me look forward to heading back to NYC next week.

Girls' Night, with Teens and Cougars...SYTYCD Live Show in San Diego 2008

So I did one of the dorkier things I've done in awhile, and went with some girlfriends to see the So You Think You Can Dance live show last night. I thought it would be all kids and teenagers, and the parents who took them there, but it was a very mixed crowd and we actually weren't the only ones of driving age who attended. And also surprisingly, it wasn't a dry event. We didn't realize this until after halftime, but good to know for the future. The top 10 and a few extras from the show danced as (too short) solos, pairs, and in a few group numbers...seems they picked the season's highlights and just fine tuned them. The show was more entertaining than I expected, but also too long. And nobody fell or messed up badly, so that was kind of a bummer.

If you are planning to see it when it comes to your city, here are some of our post show thoughts...

Pros-
*Dancers have been practicing and are in better shape & dance better than on the show
*The guys with the really hot bodies had their shirts off for most of the night. Thank you costume team.
*It's not a dry event
*Songs were mostly pretty good- mix of mellow, hip hop, and a few showtunes
* I was reminded that I needed to add Twitch to my Tigger list (see first blog post). I *knew* I had forgotten someone...

Cons-
*Crappy sound system with too loud music (it was a slightly low budget run down venue, so not the show's fault, i guess)
*Dumb mini-skits they had the dancers doing in between dances. The kids seemed to enjoy them. We say stick to dancing.
*Not enough (any?) new performance material, with the exception of the solos
*Too much product placement and show promotion / constant highlight recaps...and I think we could have lived without the dancing Snuggle bear at halftime...
* Speaking of, it didn't need an intermission, but i guess people spend money then, so they had one, which killed the momentum of the show and made it too long
*Area restaurants packed pre-show- so if you're going to Sports Arena in SD, don't plan on a quick bite a Chili's or the oh so trendy Olive Garden. Don't even plan on being able to get through the front door. There's a nice empty thai place just up the road on the right....
*Not the best type of show when seated a bit far away / up higher. Try to sit on the sides, floor level, close to the stage so you can see their faces (ok, glistening sweaty rock hard bodies) better.

I also discovered a few mellow pretty songs that I like...
Hallelujah and also Misery Business- Vitamin String Quartet
Hometown Glory - Adele
Rock Your Soul- Elisa
The Garden- Mirah (a bit creepy)
And they did a cool Bollywoodish thing that I think was Shankar Mahadevan...a song called JBJ. (No mich, not him)

But hands down, the highlight of the evening was the latest in cougar fashion, being sported by our (50 something) neighbor in the photo above. That we had to stare at for the entire show.