Cabaret

A little recap about getting to Cabaret.

We get off the bus at 1:35. The show starts at 2. The theater is 27 blocks from where the bus dropped us off. We get to the theater with about 5 minutes to spare. Thankfully they didn’t start exactly at 2.

The seating area was set up like a cabaret! It was very neat. We were in the back bar area. Essentially the last row. We had bar seats which means we had more room to stretch out. That was really nice after the long bus ride. Also the extra room meant it was easier to recover from our sprint up to the theater.

There were small lamps at each of the tables and there were lamps along the bar in front of us. When they were performing in the cabaret this lights would light up. When they were not at the cabaret they would slowly dim out. It was such a cool effect and a great way to delineate the cabaret from the other sets.

Here’s a little from the USA Today review:

But even if you saw it last time, you are strongly advised — no, urged — to return. The reasons to do so include both a familiar face in the cast and a few new ones. Alan Cumming, whose indelibly naughty, biting performance redefined the role of the Klub’s Emcee, revisits the character with renewed senses of mischief and urgency that will leave you riveted, from the moment he introduces a deliciously bawdy Willkommen to his final, chilling adieu.

The Scottish Cumming is joined by two of today’s finest American stage actors, Linda Emond and Danny Burstein, who lend fresh insights to the key parts of Fraulein Schneider, a down-on-her-luck spinster running a boarding house where Sally briefly holes up, and Herr Schultz, the Jewish fruit vendor who wishes to marry her. Their doomed romance is more than a subplot; it underlines the horrors that lurk in Germany as Hitler takes his first steps toward assuming power.

The start of the second act Cumming picked two people out of the audience to dance with. One woman and one man. With the man he said well you’ve done this before. The implication was dancing with another man. It was funny the audience laughed and so did the guy.

Another interesting thing was the band:

Played by a 19-piece brass-heavy band whose members double as Kit Kat performers, the superlative score -- there’s not a weak number in the show -- has rarely sounded better. Credit goes to Patrick Vaccariello’s music direction and Michael Gibson’s punchy orchestrations. Just hearing the entr’acte instrumental of “Cabaret” performed with such verve by the disreputable-looking bunch, crammed into designer Brill’s crooked frame, is a joy.

The end of the show is very symbolic. Cumming appears on stage in a large trench coat. One that Hitler could have worn. The other members of the cast are far upstage. You can't see there faces because there is bright light coming from behind them. Cumming then takes off the coat revealing a concentration camp uniform with the Jewish Star of David and the pink triangle noting what he was in the camp for. Essentially everyone in the show would have died in the camp except for Cliff who went back to America. It is a very sad reminder of what was about to happen.

This is Evan D. Siegel he plays Rudy and is part of the band where he plays alto and tenor sax

Danny Burstein who plays Herr Schultz

Alan Cumming as the Emcee

Bill Heck is Cliff Bradshaw

Michelle Williams plays Sally Bowles

I got a Fitbit

I'm not sure why this never got posted because I did this over a week ago. So here it is finally



I got this for my birthday. I have the Fit Bit Zip model. It is very small. Certainly is a step up from the regular pedometer I’ve been using. There are all sorts of things the Fit Bit monitors. Calories, distance, steps (of course) all of which a regular pedometer keeps track of but the Fit Bit sets up an account on-line. This way you can keep track of all these things over a much longer period of time.

It also has a category called very active minutes. This is when you are doing exercise at a higher level. In walking it means when you are really out for walk as opposed to walking around the house or office. So when I walk from my house to the subway and the subway to my office these are counted as active minutes. I haven’t found out exactly when very active minutes kicks in. I’m assuming after you’ve walked so much time without stopping that’s considered active minutes. It’s very easy for me to meet that goal because of the walking I do to and from the subway.

The program sends you emails in the course of the day as you start reaching your goals. Usually with around 2,000 steps to go is an email telling you that. Then one when you reach the goal. Then if you surpass the goal by a large margin you get another email. My step goal started at 10,000 steps a day. I can usually reach that by the time I get home from work. I’ve raised it to 11,000. I still think that will not be too hard to reach.

Then there are badges you get for reaching a certain number of steps walked. They are in 5,000 increments. I have all of them up to 30,000 steps. I was going to try for 35,000 on Sunday but didn’t make it.

There is also an area on the site where you can record the food you eat. It’s divided up by meals. There are also sections for snacks and then a category called anytime. You type in the food you want to record say banana and it will list all sorts of options for banana. You pick one and the calories are added to you food total. There’s a section called food plan which shows the number of calories you can consume for the rest of the day.

This total varies. It’s based on the amount of activity you do in a day. In fact it goes up as the day progresses because of course you are being active. That seems just a little strange to me. I’ve left a thousand or more calories uneaten, so speak, in the course of the day.

The food plan is very helpful. But some of the totals are a little off. Most of the calorie counts are pretty much spot on. But the amount of sodium seems to be very much a hit or miss proposition. Sometimes being accurate and other times being way off. It took me awhile to find the right listing for tuna because the sodium count for several of the choices were like two to three times the amount on the can.

It's a fun thing to have. Keeping track of the food really helps. I'm hoping it helps enough so that I actually loose some weight and keep it off. Fingers crossed.

New York Trip — Spectacular as Always

It was an amazing trip (but then again all of them seem to be that way).

So very glad I got to see Audra McDonald in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. A performance that all you can say is wow. More details and plenty more pictures to come in the next few days.

A Few New York Pictures

Times Square was jammed with people. In part because of some construction but mostly because it was such am amazing day. And well it is Times Square. 

To New York City

In New York for a couple of days. 

The bus up had a problem. It didn't work so we switched to another one. Ended up leaving about 30 minutes late. 

Did well until we got into New York. The bus driver decided to take a short cut to the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Really didn't work all that well. 

We got off the bus at about 1:35. The show we were going to was 27 blocks away and started at 2. We made it with  a few minutes to spare. 

The show was Cabaret and was fantastic. 

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

And it certainly was. It might not actually rain today which I think would be the first day this week. I can actually leave my umbrella at home. Yeah.

A most incredible morning to say the least. Here's a little of what I saw on my walk on this bright, sunny and cool morning.

Peanuts — Sally's Perspective on Baseball

Another series on baseball from Peanuts. Only this time from Sally's perspective as a pitcher. And what a perspective it is.

Thoughts Political — the Cantor Loss

I haven’t been posting much about politics lately. The main reason is I’m just so disgusted with what’s going on. The usual crap from the Republicans. Stop Obama any way shape and how. Make sure that the fall election breaks their way. As for trying to do something to help the American people well why do that.

Lately I haven’t been all too happy with the Democrats and Obama either. The roll out of the affordable care act web site what a disaster. The only thing working for them there was the moron Republicans shut down the government.

But what’s brought me back to thinking and writing about politics was Eric Cantor’s recent defeat. To say I’m pleased that this pompous, condescending, self-centered, hypocritical jerk lost the election would be an understatement. And we saw all of those traits on display yesterday when he had his press conference. Talking again about that it is important the two parties compromise on issues to get things done. Wow. The gall of this guy. The same guy who was plotting against Obama before he even got into office. They guy who derailed the grand bargain. The guy well I could go on but you get the point.

It is also incredibly pleasing to me to see Cantor be defeated by a Tea Party candidate. The Republicans, Cantor chief among them, saw the Tea Party as a way to gain control of the House and hopefully the Senate too. Once again party before country. They were well aware of the far far far right ideas these candidates had but had no problems with that as long as they defeated Democrats.

The Republicans thought they could control the Tea Party once they were in office. They were wrong. And there’s been one disaster after another with these people. Main stream Republicans only became concern about the Tea Party when the Tea Party started challenging other Republicans. Then all of a sudden their ideas were too extreme and detrimental to the party and country. Give me a break.

Now the cry goes up that any hope of immigration reform is dead with Cantor’s defeat. I have news for you immigration reform was never going to go anywhere. In fact, I would say the only chance of immigration reform will be when the Republicans no longer control the House of Representative. In other words not in the foreseeable future.

So you’ll get no tears from me about Mr. Cantor’s defeat. (I guess Boehner cried up a storm. Big surprise right?) I’m happy he’s gone.

The Leaning Wall

I came home from a quick trip to the store one night recently and noticed something odd about the retaining wall in my front yard. It was leaning. It had also broken away from the side. Not a good thing to say the least.

I panicked a bit. I was afraid that the whole damn thing might collapse at any minute. I know that’s a little over the top. Who knows how long its been like that. But I was concerned. You can get a sense of it from the pictures below.

I’m sure this happened due to all the bad weather we’ve had this year (I would say that the vast of majority of days have been lousy so far this year but that’s for another post).

I made some calls to see if I could get someone to come out and take a look at it. One of the people I talked to said lots of people were calling about similar problems and the weather was the reason. Not only the bad winter but all the rain the DC region has had over the past few weeks.

The first guy showed up this morning. He said he didn’t think it was going to collapse (a relief to me). He said if it was his he would patch it and see how long the patch would hold as opposed to rebuilding the wall. He couldn’t promise how long the patch would last. It could crack in six months or maybe several years. The thing was to watch and see what happens over time. He said he would give me estimates for patching the all and building a new one.

I have someone else coming out on Friday.

The wrinkle in all of this is that I share the front yard with my neighbor and thus I share the wall with them too. I wrote them a note (I’ve been a bad neighbor they’ve lived there for over a year and I’ve never introduced myself but then again neither have they) saying what was going on. Adding we should try and talk about this. The thing is it makes no sense to repair my side of the wall if the other side (which is on their property) isn’t fixed as well.

Singing the Sixities — NoVA Lights Chorale

A great concert from the NoVA Lights Chorale this afternoon. Singing the Sixties. My friend Mark is part of the group.

Instead of coming in as a group, they came in down the isles handing out peace buttons attired appropriately for the 60's. It was great fun. There was even some dancing.

Some of the songs covered Groovin' on a Sunday Afternoon (the song they came in on) Monday, Monday, It's My Party, Stop in the Name of Love and they ended with Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.

There was also a silent auction with old 45s up for sale.

Just a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The Chorale getting ready for the show

Couldn't resist this. I won the bid on this one.

Some of the 45s in the silent auction.

Mark all decked out in his 60s garb.

A Most Incredibly Wonderfully Fantastic Super Cool Birthday

Teddy finding out it's my birthday

Me after the win

The group after the game: Lisa, me, Sue and Karen. We had a blast!

I posted this on Facebook. I'm reposting it on my blog with a few pictures to go along with it. There will be more pictures and maybe some video too!

Every have one of those days when everything seems to align in your favor. You know When the moon is in the Seventh House. And Jupiter aligns with Mars.

OK well not exactly like that. Except well that’s about how the day went.

We had rain Wednesday night. Woke up today to over cast and drizzle. By the time we were heading to the game. Bright sunshine a few clouds. Low humidity and temperatures in the upper 70s.

Got to leave work at 1:30 to head to the game with three friends from work.

Had a little glitch on the drive down to the stadium. But that will be something to be told and smiled and laughed at in the future. It will be remember the time we went down to the Nats game and . . .

Hard to believe the weather could be better but it seemed to when we got to the park.

I got my picture taken with each of the presidents. How cool is that? Had a great lunch (yes there is good food at Nats’ park). At the 7th inning stretch we all went and got Gelato. Can you say yum? I thought you could.

And the Nats won 4-2 against the hated Phillies. Ryan Zimmerman is back from his broken thumb and shows he’s ready for prime time. He singled and drove in a run. Adam LaRoche homers in the 5th inning. In the last three games I’ve been to I’ve seen the Nats hit 7 home runs.

Then it’s the concert after the game by Plain White T’s. We went to the lower level to get a better seat. As we round a corner, we run into a guy we used to work with. We haven’t seen him in a year and a half.

We get a good seat for the concert. The Plain White T’s are great. They played for about an hour and were well great. I’ll be downloading their songs from iTunes shortly.

We have a nice leisurely stroll back to the car. The sun is setting. It is a beautiful night out. I get dropped off at 3rd and Independence. I decide I’m going to walk to the Capitol. As I get closer to it I start to hear music. Turns out The President’s Own U.S. Marine Band in giving a concert. I stop and listen and stay until the end. Stars and Stripes fantastic.

After that I walk to Union Station and head home. The night is not over because I stop at the store and pick up a piece of cheese cake. It is after all my birthday and one always has cake on ones birthday.

Could the day have been any better?

Yes, I get to come home to my two wonderful cats Charlie and Linus.

I’m not sure that peace will guide the planets or that love will steer the stars.

But I will say one of the best birthdays ever!

The Presidents Celebrate My Birthday

The Presidents helped me celebrate my birthday!!!

Double Nickel Birthday

I suppose it is a bit much to wish yourself happy birthday but well it is my birthday. In honor Sir Paul sung a song for me.

I'm planning on having a fantastic day. I'm leaving work early to go to a 4pm Nats game with three people from work. Then after the game is a concert from the Plain White Ts.



So far today I played with Linus and Charlie. Took a bath and am having a leisurely time getting ready for work. Have to make sure all my Nats gear gets packed for the game.

So happy double nickel birthday to me!

Ryan Zimmerman Returns

A great night last night at Nats Park with the return of Ryan Zimmerman to the field. It was strange to see him in left filed as opposed to his regular spot at third base. As the players took the filed Zimmerman slowly trotted out to left field and gave a glance at third base.

His attitude toward this change in position is summed up in this quote from the Post:

“Our window is now,” Zimmerman said, sitting alone before a 7-0 victory over Philadelphia. “This team’s good enough to win a World Series, I think. But you just never know. Realistically, we’re only going to be together for this year and next year. You never know. I want to win, and it might have to be now.”

The return did not disappoint. A double at his first at bat unfortunately he was left stranded there. But then came this in the fifth:

With two outs in the fifth inning, Phillies Manager Ryne Sandberg chose to intentionally walk Adam LaRoche. Avoiding the Nationals’ left-handed cleanup hitter meant facing Zimmerman. He fell behind, 0-2, then lashed a curveball into the right field corner for an RBI double.

As for the other Zimmermann, Jordan, he pitched one hell of game. He never seems to get ruffled. He walks off the mound the same way if he retires three batters in a row or if he's had to work for that third out with runners in scoring position. He is just amazing:

He allowed only five hits, walked one and struck out four over eight scoreless innings Tuesday in a 7-0 win over the Phillies. He threw 102 pitches in his longest, start of the season.

“It was big,” he said. “May was a pretty rough month for me. Hopefully June has better things to come. It was good to eight. I wanted to go nine but eight will be good enough.”

After a rough stretch last month, Zimmermann pitched like himself Tuesday thanks to better command and a better feel for his slider, the pitch he pairs with his fastball to neutralize right-handed batters. In past starts, the pitch was “a little flat.” Against the Phillies, it was sharper and, because of the humidity, he said he was able to have a better feel for the pitch in his hands.

What a wonderful night for baseball. A couple of things on obnoxious person sat behind me and talked the entire game. Even better in the last two games I've been to the Nats have hit six home runs. Best of all I'm 5-4 in the games I've gone to.

And even better than best, I get to go to another game tomorrow on my birthday. This will be the third year in a row I've gone on my birthday. I think this will be my new tradition.

Some Pictures from Tuesday's Nats Game

The racing presidents

Zimmerman after the game

Zimmerman at bat

Zimmerman at bat you an just see the ball coming towards the plate

Ian Desmond crossing home plate from his solo home run

Anthony Rendon scoring on his home run a few minutes after Desomond's

 Rendon being congratulated

The final out!

Nats WIN

The stadium with just about everyone gone.

My Surreal Tuesday Morning

Some days start off hectic. Some days start off with me forgetting stuff. Some days are just a little strange. Like Tuesday morning was.

I was going to a game Tuesday night but also going to a training session Tuesday morning and going to the gym on Wednesday morning. I have to use a different backpack than my usual one. I also have to create another set of toiletries to take with since I’m leaving everything at the office.

I get up and head out and realize I’ve forgotten my lunch but decide just to leave it for tomorrow because I’m running a little late. I get to my training session a little early so I have time to warm up on the tread mill. I have good session (as I always do) and then the strangeness of the day started.

I need to get some money so I can buy something for dinner while I’m at the game. There just so happens to be an ATM right by the gym. I figure I’ll get money from there. There’s a woman at the ATM. I wait awhile and she is still there. I’m not sure what she is doing but it certainly seems she’s not getting done anytime soon. I decided I’ll head to CVS and pick up my chocolate milk. I figure by the time I get back (because the ATM machine is right by the subway) she will be done. I go get my milk and head back. But she is still there doing who knows what.

I head into the subway. I know there is an ATM that I can use there. I get my money and head for the Metro platform.

There’s a train in the station that is actually going in the direction I want to go. But I don’t make it in time. The reason is that a woman is going down the steps to the platform and is standing just about dead center in the steps. She is slowly walking down while looking at her cell phone. Completely and totally oblivious to what is going on around her. The guy behind her says excuse me attempting to get around her. He says it again and she finally moves just enough so the guy can get by. He makes the train I decide it’s not worth the bother. My mistake.

I get on the platform figuring the next train will come shortly. Well I wait and wait and wait. Almost ten minutes later along comes a train.

The escalator from the platform to the mezzanine level at Bethesda is being repaired. It was supposed to be done in May at least that’s what the sign said until yesterday when it was changed to June. (I have a feeling it will be changed again at the end of this month). So there are stairs to walk up. As I’m going up today someone is coming down. Then slam into the guy in front of me. No apology no acknowledgement of what they did. And here’s the thing there was no train on the platform. There weren’t even any lights flashing nothing to indicate the need to rush down to the platform. Nothing.

I shook my head and went up the rest of the stairs and then through the fare gate.

Bethesda has one of the longest escalators to the street in the Metro system. I decided I would walk up. As I’m going up I start hearing music. I can’t figure out exactly where it is coming from but the father I go up the escalator the louder it gets. At the top, there is another candidate for some office greeting people. Off to one side is a guy playing the accordion. For some reason it seemed so appropriate for the strange morning I had.

More Baseball and Peanuts

Another very funny series from Peanuts about baseball. This covers the trials and tribulations of Charlie Brown has as manager of his team. Enjoy.

Nats Bats Blast on Saturday

What a display on Saturday. There was no shortage of scoring for the second day in a row. No waiting until the 6th inning to put runs on the board. It started in the first with Anthony Rendon hit a home run putting the Nats up 1-0. It could have been 2-0 but Denard Span had been throw out while trying to steal second. That got me a little concerned. The Nats have had trouble scoring runs in the last few games. I hoped this missed opportunity would not come back and haunt them. Turned out it didn’t. There were plenty of more home runs to come.

In the second Jose Lobaton homered with Danny Espinosa on base (Espinosa had doubled). In the 4th inning Adam LaRoche homers with Doug Fister and Jayson Werth on base. Then Scott Harriston homers in the 6th with Rendon on base.

The Post summed up the game really well:

Saturday afternoon, the Nationals moved back to .500 by thrashing the Rangers, 10-2, their second consecutive blowout and an emphatic departure from just two days ago, when they had lost six of seven games and their offense posted run totals in binary code — 1s and 0s. They knocked out Rangers starter Nick Tepesch after two innings, swatted a dozen hits, bashed four home runs to match their season high and won for the fourth straight start made by Doug Fister, whose presence has served as a team-wide elixir. Rather than wasting the momentum from Friday night, they added to it.

A great results on a great day to watch baseball!

Tom wins the presidents race

Adam LaRoche is greeted at home plate.

Scott Harriston crosses home plate.