Dinner and a Show

This post is about a month and a half overdue. :-) For Valentine's Day this year, John surprised me with a very thoughtful date. I had mentioned a few weeks before this that there was a theatre owned by the actor Jeff Daniels in a nearby town and there was a restaurant there owned by someone who had a show on the Food Network. Well, John remembered and planned out a date of dinner and a show!

This was in the nearby town of Chelsea, MI. The restaurant is called "The Common Grill" owned by Craig Common. It turned out that he does not have a show on the Food Network, but he does have a cookbook out and I guess is fairly well known. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was very nice. It was nice feeling like a grownup again. :-)


Chelsea is a very tiny town, and was kind of like a miniature Ann Arbor, about one block long. There were lots of art galleries, the restaurant, and a few other stores.

The theatre is called The Purple Rose, and is very small. The audience sits around the stage, so it is very intimate. The play we went to see was called "Vino Veritas". It was an interesting story that revolved around 4 characters. They were two married couples who were best friends and neighbors. One of the couples had gone on a trip to Latin America and came into possession of this wine made from the skins of blue tree frogs. It had the power to make the consumer tell the absolute truth. On Halloween night, the two couples get together and drink the wine. All secrets come out and it threatens the relationship of one couple while repairing the relationship of the other. It was really good and well acted.

The lobby.

Entering the theatre.

Some photos from the show.

Happy Belated Easter!

Happy belated Easter everyone! I took these photos with John's camera on Easter, but just got them downloaded onto my computer. John and my friend Suzanne and I went to mass and then Suzanne and I met up with her boyfriend for a nice brunch at one of my favorite places, the Broken Egg.

This is the church I attend, called St. Mary's in Ann Arbor. I love the old style architecture. We were so surprised at how empty it was up until literally 5 minutes before mass. We arrived a half hour early thinking that parking and finding a seat would be nearly impossible given that it was noon mass on Easter. But I guess being a college town and having approximately 10 million mass times that day, I guess there weren't many people at each service. But like I said, 5 minutes before mass the place filled up to standing room only!

We always sit in the choir loft, with the organ.

I got this hat for Christmas and have been waiting for a chance to wear it. I figured since Easter is about wearing fun Spring-like hats and bright colors, this would be a good time.

Talib Kweli

You may be asking, "what or who is Talib Kweli?" Well, Talib Kweli is a hip-hop artist that John and I went to see on Monday night. He is one of John's favorites and I greatly enjoy him as well. I remember months back there was a petition going around to try to get him to come perform here, so I guess it worked! He performed at the Power Center, which is an auditorium I had never been to before. It was fairly old, but every seat in the house seemed to be a good one. The place was packed and it was a great show. The opening act was beatbox champion Rahzel. He was amazing. Here is a video of him doing a popular Kanye West song, "Jesus Walks". Keep in mind that he is making every sound you hear. It becomes especially impressive when he sings the melody over the beat. It gets more complex as the song goes on.

By the way, he is the dark shape at the front of the stage. The white guy is DJ JS-1, who you can clearly see is not playing any music.

Sicky

For the past few weeks, I have been counting down to the time when I could visit my new nephew, Liam. I booked a flight for this weekend and of course, I came down with a bad cold yesterday. My roommate Eric has been sick for a few days and now my other roommates feel sick too. Eric feels really badly about it, but it's not his fault. Just bad luck! Since Liam is still developing his immune system, and Stephen and Annika have a difficult enough schedule as it is without being sick, I decided to stay here and cancel the trip. Needless to say, I was very disappointed about it. But I will hopefully be able to reschedule for May and by that time, he will be more active and spend more time awake anyway.

So I have been on a TV/movie marathon and bought a huge box of tissues so I won't run out. It's also snowing outside (again), so at least it's the kind of day where you want to stay in anyway. I'm hoping this won't last very long, but the good thing is since I had planned to be out of town, I don't have anything I need to do, so I can pretty much stay in and relax all weekend.

Here is a recent photo of Liam:

"It's Great. To Be. A Michigan Wolverine!"

Thus goes one of the many Michigan cheers (also found with MANY other sports teams). We chanted it last night along with a couple thousand other people at the Joe Louis arena in Detroit after we won the CCHA championship. CCHA is the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, the conference that Michigan belongs to. Michigan has the #1 hockey team in the nation this year, and a bunch of my friends and I drove to Detroit to watch the championship game against Miami of Ohio (the #3 team). John and I had planned on going to the semi-finals on Friday night with a couple of my friends, but we were the lucky recipients of 8-10 inches of snow, so we backed out. Yesterday however, the roads were all clear and a group of 8 of us headed out to the city. The game wasn't extremely exciting, but we won 2-1, so that was good.

Here are some photos:

My friends (from front to back): Bob (aka "Boston Bob" from William and Mary, Dan, and Aaron. All four of these guys were in my section last year).

As a side note, the Rosstache competition is underway where men grow out beards and mustaches, then get bid on for charity. That's why Aaron has all the facial hair.

Then, Iyates (Bob's Colombian girlfriend), me, Suzanne, and her boyfriend Brian who is a resident in the med school.


Me and Suzanne.


The players celebrating our win.



The leftovers from the celebration. :-)

A little video from the end of the game.

Follies: Because It's Business School

The title of this post is the name of the show I was in before spring break, and the reason they named it "Because It's Business School" is because that is the answer to most questions about our daily lives, including the question, "Why would I choose to get on a stage and sing and dance in funny clothes in front of all my classmates and professors"? Because it's business school!

Follies is the annual parody show the business school puts on that makes fun of life at Ross. It is always hilarious, and I decided to join the cast this year after seeing the show last year. Since I auditioned with a song as well as a "dramatic" reading (two scenes--one from "Mean Girls" and one from "Airplane!" where I had to try to speak jive), they assigned me a singing part in the live show (the show is a mix of live acts and pre-recorded videos). It was SO much fun and I got to meet a lot of cool people that I didn't know before as well as hang out with old friends.

I was cast into a medley, which was the largest skit in the show with 16 people. I sang a parody of the Michael Jackson song "Rock With You" with a first-year student named Paul (we sang it as "Mock With You" in reference to the mock interviews and case studies students do in preparation for interviews and classes). Our skit directors made glorious glittered suits out of suits we bought at the Salvation Army. Our medley was the talk of the night, and I especially got tons of comments on our outfits. It was definitely a hit! I am so glad I decided to join the cast this year and got the chance to perform in a live show again. It definitely reminded me of the shows I did in high school.

Here are some photos. I actually wrote this a long time ago, but I just got photos from the people who actually had their cameras at the show (I forgot to bring mine!). In addition, they make a DVD of the whole show, so I will have that to show people too eventually. :-)

Be prepared!


I don't know why I look so serious in this picture. I definitely felt clownish in the bright red lipstick. It was funny when I made the supply run to CVS to get liquid eyeliner, bright red lipstick, and fishnet stockings. :-)

At the beginning of the skit, I walked across the stage to where Paul was sitting to sing to him and try to get him to stop studying so hard.

Then we began to sing and dance together. He definitely loved those Michael Jackson kicks!






Backstage photos...



The entire medley cast...

Backstage waiting for the show to begin. We had an opening and closing number that the cast participated in.




The medley cast again in our dressing room...

A Little MD in Minerva

Last week, my roommates and I started having weekly dinners together. This is something we should have started at the beginning of the year, but this is the first term where we all have the same night off. It is definitely my favorite night of the week!

Each week, one of us plans and cooks dinner with the help of the others, if needed. We eat and have conversation and then we watch a movie. Last week, Mike made Pho (pronounced "fuh"). It's a Vietnamese soup with noodles and beef, and then you put other things into it if you want like limes, soy sauce, and onions to give it flavor. He also made potato scallion pancakes, which were delicious. We had a great time giving Mike advice about his upcoming date and talking about dating and the different moves we have all pulled/experienced over the years. Then we watched Transformers, a great movie.

Last night was my turn, and I decided to bring a little Maryland into the house by making crab cakes. I had never made them from scratch before, but wanted to give it a try. I looked up the recipe online and surprisingly, every web site had almost the exact same recipe. So I decided it was a great sign that it was the right/a good recipe! And it's not too hard, either. You basically get lump crab meat and mix it in with bread crumbs, mayo, mustard, Worchestershire sauce, and eggs, then fry on each side for about 5 minutes. They turned out delicious (to my delight)! I also made asparagus and fruit salad.

Everyone enjoyed the dinner and we watched a movie called "Across the Universe". It was something I had seen previews for and have been wanting to see, but never knew when it came out in the theatres. It is kind of a musical based in the 60's, about the revolutionary time period, the war, and of course, a love story. The neat part was that it was all told through Beatles songs. The director carried it off very well. The whole time all I could think was "wow, so this is what it would sound like to have someone re-do a Beatles song well! (as compared to the American Idol Beatles episodes.)" I think the American Idol singers are great, but seriously, the arrangements and the way the songs were sung in this movie were way better than on Idol.

Here is the trailer:


All in all, it was a great night hanging out with my roommates. We were informed by my roommate Eric that next week will be Chilean Day. He is from Chile and will prepare a traditional Chilean meal that apparently takes a few days to cook. And we are having Chilean wine. I don't know if we will watch a Chilean movie or not, but I asked if we have to speak in Spanish. I think we should try it!

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"If You Have a Phone..."

"...YOU have a lawyer." That was the slogan I most remember from those attorney-at-law commercials so prevalent on the TV and radio growing up. But the commercial I heard last night might take the cake. It went like this (no lie):

[male voiceover] "Are you considering doing away with your spouse? Consider divorce." Then followed the name and number of So-and-So, attorney-at-law.

I could not believe it! I was half laughing, half stunned. I have never heard that pitch before. And just having come from my social marketing class where we talked about how to grab an audience's attention by making it relevant to them made me wonder just who this commercial was targeting. The image that popped into my head was people surreptitiously convening with hired hit men in their cars, making nefarious plans to "do away with" their spouse. I couldn't believe this ad was so blatantly targeting these people! Are they really that large of a customer base for a divorce lawyer? Running out of the run-of-the-mill aspiring divorcees?

I guess the bad part is I didn't remember the name of the lawyer, but I did remember how awful I thought the ad was. He won't be getting my business!

Mike Doughty, Blind Pigs, and Cigarettes

Last night, John and I went to a concert at a club in Ann Arbor called The Blind Pig. The artist was one of my favorites, Mike Doughty. He used to be in the band Soul Coughing, but is now on a solo career. I guess you would call what he plays "alternative" music, although I know that is not very descriptive. I first discovered him through a song in Veronica Mars (I Hear the Bells), and he has also had a song on Grey's Anatomy (Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well). Then he has several other songs that have played on the radio (including one from his new album called "27 Jennifers"). When I first heard 27 Jennifers, it was when everyone was discussing names for Liam, and I thought that was representative of the whole don't name your kid something too popular rule. The first lines of the song are:

I went to school with 27 Jennifers
16 Jens, 10 Jennys, and then there was her

Anyway, after listening to his new album on iTunes, I wasn't too sure that I would like all of his songs - maybe this was just a case of liking a few good songs from an artist. But the concert exceeded my expectations. He was great live and I loved all of his songs. Plus, he was funny and personable and even made jokes about Gary Kasparov and Ayn Rand, which gains bonus points in my book. Another thing he did that I could appreciate was to make fun of the "fake" encores that all bands do nowadays. He said, "we have come to a very important part of the rock concert - the song before the fake last song of the show." He said that after the fake last song, they would step to the side of the stage for about 30 seconds during which we could clap or do whatever we wanted, because they were going to come back on no matter what we did to play the real last song. :-) He did one song using recordings of random sayings. He used some sort of electronic board with a bunch of buttons on it and played various sayings in a funky rhythm. That was pretty unique.

There were just a few problems about the concert. First, the Blind Pig is basically a black box of a club, about the size of matchbox. Okay, maybe slightly bigger than a matchbox, but you get the picture. Low ceiling, tiny stage, standing only. Now add to this the fact that the smoking ban has not yet come to Ann Arbor and lucky for us, the people all around us were smokers! This made the air thick with smoke and pretty hard to breathe toward the end of the night. I was so glad to get out in the fresh air! The other problem was that John and I got there fairly early and grabbed what we thought was a great location to watch the show - it was right next to a counter that we could lean against so we wouldn't have to purely stand up for a few hours. But as the concert went on, more and more people crowded in front of us. Back home this might not be as much of a problem with all the short people, but here in the Midwest where they grow 'em tall and strong, I found myself contorting into all sorts of positions to try to see the stage. Luckily, there was a mirror on one wall where I could see Mike Doughty's reflection.

Despite these annoyances, we had a great time and actually stayed throughout the entire concert, which I didn't think we would do since it was late on a Sunday night. John has already reserved his new album at the library!

Whirlyball!

I experienced something today that I had never heard of before coming to Ann Arbor - the game of Whirlyball. I don't know if any of you have heard of this game, but it is SO much fun! You can play with a max of 10 people (5-on-5) and the whole thing lasts for an hour (at least, those are the blocks of time you can pay for). You ride around in bumper cars (so already this sounds like fun, right?) and use scoops to throw whiffle balls at a basket. The basket looks like a basketball backboard but in place of the regular net, there is a hole in the backboard with a net in it.

We played with some of John's friends in a 3-on-3 game. It was a ton of fun, but I am SO sore and it took me a long time to even score a basket. In the bumper car, you have a lap seatbelt on, so whenever you get bumped by someone (or run into the wall), you get a jolt into the seatbelt. Thus, I have some bruising on my hip bones that I put ice on when I got home. My abs are sore from contracting whenever I got bumped, and my upper arms are sore from throwing the ball, so it was a great workout! The only part I didn't like was the fact that the bumper cars have no brakes. So once you get going, you can only stop by running into something, turning sharply, or letting the car slow down naturally (but that takes a long time).

Anyway, I would highly recommend it if there is a Whirlyball place near you. I think we will go again before I leave for the summer.

Here is a photo from the web since I forgot my camera:

Liam Orion

I became an aunt today! And more importantly, my brother and sister-in-law became parents for the first time! I can't quite believe it yet. I think once I see a picture or see the tiny tyke in person, it will become more real to me. I think that one thing that makes it seem not as real is when I think of birth stories and stuff, it is in reference to my parents going through that with me or my brother. And thinking that my brother and I are at that same stage (he and Annika are now like my parents) is weird to think about.

Anyway, yesterday was the first really nice day here in Ann Arbor since winter started. The snow almost all melted, people were out playing Frisbee and beer pong, and it was nice enough to walk around with a light jacket (at least, until the sun went down). So Liam was born on a beautiful day (at least where I am)! Annika had a c-section since Liam was in the breech position, and everything went really well. He was born at 12:34 (cool time!), has deep blue eyes (at least, for now) and light brown hair. I was on the phone with my parents several times to check in and see what was going on since I couldn't be there myself and I got to talk to my brother briefly around 2:00.

I finally got a picture of Liam last night. I am anxiously awaiting more! My caption for this is, "Whatchu talkin' about Willis?" :-D


Thus begins a long and hopefully wonderful journey for Liam Orion Luke. Welcome to the world, baby!

A Magical Adventure, Part 1: The Magic

Come magic your way with me through my spring break in the land of eternal happiness, where all your dreams come true...Disney World! Michigan, unlike most other schools, has their spring break at the end of February, which some might call "the winter". I guess they knew just how much we needed time away from the bitter cold and never-ending snow. It was a week long, and I spent the first four days in one of my all-time favorite places on earth, Disney World! Technically, my time there encompassed Universal Studios as well, but I like to lump them all together into one big ball of fun. :-)

John has a sister who lives in Lakeland, which is between Orlando and Tampa, and I had never met her. So we decided to visit her and go to the parks. We arrived Friday night and I loved exiting the airport into 70-degree warmth. Then the magic began on Saturday morning when we went to the Magic Kingdom, my personal favorite of all the parks. Even though I have been to Disney World many times throughout my life, it still has not lost its wonder for me. We rode in on the monorail after parking in the Donald section (I think). I have always thought the monorail was cool, especially when it goes through the "Contemporary Hotel" (which was probably contemporary in the 60's). It was hilarious because as I voiced this to John and Kate as we entered the hotel, the two young girls behind us screamed in chorus, "Oh my God! This is SO COOL!!!!!!!" (By the way, just about everything in Disney World makes me smile, especially seeing and hearing kids' glee as they discover it. Everyone is just so happy in Disney World. Kind of like when I visited Google, now that I think about it...).

Anyway, the monorail dropped us off and we walked through Main St. to Cinderella's castle. At first I thought to myself that everything seemed smaller in that way that things do when you visit childhood places when you are an adult. But as the day went on, that feeling went away and I felt like things were just the size they should be. :-)

As you can see from the castle picture, it was pretty cloudy that day. Unfortunately it poured down rain off and on for the first part of the day, so that wasn't as fun. Plus we had to buy $7 Disney ponchos. ($7! I must say they were quality plastic, though.) But on the other hand, it made the lines way shorter and we were able to use the ponchos on some of the water rides (like the 3 times we went on Splash Mountain).

Here are John and I trying to wrest the sword from the stone.

I won't go into all of the detail on the blog (this is long as it is), but we basically went on every ride possible for "big" people (like, we didn't go on Dumbo). They have instituted a new system called FastPass and we worked that system to the bone. A FastPass is a ticket you get from a ride that tells you to come back within a certain hour window and you can go to the front of the line. So between that and the bad weather (and the fact that we were there in February, thanks Michigan!), the longest we had to wait in line was about 20 minutes.

We went on all of my old favorites, plus rides I had never been on (Space Mountain - possibly my new favorite ride at Disney, Splash Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain railroad). Here are some of the classics:

Peter Pan! This had the longest line of almost any ride we went on.

The Enchanted Tiki Room! This had been "updated" to include Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from Lion King, and it wasn't as quaint as before.

Pirates of the Caribbean! With added Johnny Depp character! This was the Jack Sparrow actor. Earlier than this photo, we saw him running away from some overly zealous fans (2 teenage girls running after him shouting, "Jack -- take me with you!")

Splash Mountain -- a new ride for me and John's favorite. This is based on the story of Brer Rabbit and at the end you get thrown into the briar patch, down this huge drop.

The Jungle Cruise! I thought I had never been on this, but my parents told me that we had. You go through a "jungle" all the while your guide is making punny jokes. One thing I love about these parks is all the detail that goes into the rides, even when you are waiting in line. This was the lunch menu for the Jungle Cruise.

John and his sister, Kate.

Our guide through the jungle.



I like this photo because you can see the real ducks among the fake animals. :-)

Another favorite - the Swiss Family Robinson tree house!








Frontierland!

Just outside another favorite - Country Bear Jamboree!

On another new ride for me -- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!



We got caught for harassing Mickey Mouse (I guess I violated the restraining order from way back in 1983), so we had to spend some time in the stocks. We narrowly escaped!

We saw this show while walking through the park, but it was weird because they suddenly stopped in the middle, all the characters ran off stage, and they said they had to stop the show and hoped we could come back later.


So in addition to the old classics, they had also added some new things and my favorite of those was the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor in Tomorrowland. It was a stand-up comedy show where the cartoons interacted live with the audience. It was really funny and the best part was that John got on the screen for one of the acts. They were telling a story and would shine a spotlight on audience members to be the characters in the story. He was picked as "Randall". So of course, I have been calling him Randall every so often since then.


One of the last rides of the night. You gotta do it...Small World!


And for your distinct listening pleasure, I recorded the song during part of the ride! Mwa ha ha!

They had "extra magic hours" that night, which means the park was open until 11. So we stuck around till the very end and saw a great fireworks show along with some of the SpectroMagic parade. Plus, we had one more ride to go on -- the Teacups!











A view of Main St. from the castle. This was just before the parade started.

A view of the castle. It constantly changed colors, and we tried to wait for it to change to another more appealing, less evil color, but it stayed on red for the longest time. So this is, as I like to put it, Cinderella's castle...in HELL!

Before we went on our trip, John and I saw a couple specials on Disney. In one of them, they talked about the elaborate technology of the SpectroMagic Parade. It is pretty cool.





On our way out, these people were standing above the exit, waving signs.


On the tram back to the parking, our driver had a fairly thick accent, so we cracked up at his announcements of the parking areas, "Meenie, Pludo, and Goopy". All in all, we had an awesome time, joking around and laughing, feeling like kids again. And I felt like I had truly accomplished something by going on Space Mountain after all these years. And it was awesome! Not scary at all. I really felt like I was piloting a rocket through space, which cracked John and Kate up to no end. But it was true! My parents told me afterwards that my great-grandfather who lived in Orlando as Disney World was being built apparently went on that roller coaster when it first opened.

It was really good to know that I will never outgrow Disney World. It will always be as magical to me as when I first walked through those gates.

I hope you have enjoyed this trip. Stay tuned for the next installment, "The Adventure"!