Night at the Musuem 2: Battle of the Smithsonian

Or, in other words, a round-up of the rest of the Washington photos.

Of course we went to the Museum of Natural History. All the cool stuff is there. (Well, all the cool stuff that isn't in the Air and Space Museum or the Museum of American History or any of the other Smithsonian museums.)

I dig this stuffed lion, because it looks like he has armpit hair.

"Mommy, I don't think I want a hippopotamus for Christmas any more."

This is the part where you're supposed to see all these cool pictures of gorgeous jewelry. But they didn't work, so instead, here's a picture of some kind of gilded butterfly brooch that is probably worth more than my house, my parents' house, and my entire family's houses combined. Hope it's worth it!

Five Things About Last Night's "Glee" (S3E2)

Sorry it's been so long, but you guys: SO BUSY, and yet so boring at the same time. So let's talk about last night's "Glee" since everybody else is, OK?

#1. West Side Story is one of my favorite musicals ever, and watching the audition process took me back to a place I never, ever thought I'd want to go again: my freshman year of college. I absolutely hated college (most of it, anyway, definitely major chunks of those four years that weren't spent in a classroom), but one of the few things that I actually enjoyed was being a part of the inaugural company of the First Year Players at Syracuse University. We did West Side Story that year, and I played Anybodys, and it was seriously one of the best times I ever had in my life. Even if you include my falling desperately, helplessly in love with two different cast members and having my heart broken many times over because of it. West Side Story is so much fun to do and I am so glad I had the chance to be in that show - the 1961 movie version with Natalie Wood and Rita Moreno remains, to this day, one of my favorite films.

#2. I hope I am not the only person who mentions this on the Internet or in real life today, but even if you used color-blind casting for the William McKinley High School production, there is no way on God's green Earth that Mercedes could ever play Maria. Sure, she has the vocal chops for it, but she is just not the Maria type. And it's not just because she is the "big girl" or the "black girl" - she is just not THAT girl. I'm not entirely certain that Rachel is quite right for the part, either. If I were casting the show using students from WMHS New Directions, Maria would be played by Tina. Kurt would be absolutely THE most fabulous Riff ever, Mike would be Chino, Puck would be Bernardo, Finn would be one of the Jets (one of the ones in the back who doesn't do much dancing), Quinn and Brittany would be Graziela and Velma. In this scenario, Mercedes would be best cast as Anita, although she would have tough competition from Santana. Blaine, of course, would be Tony. I don't know what to do with Rachel, exactly - she's almost too much for West Side Story. She's really more of a Desiree Armfeldt from A Little Night Music (the part that was recently played on Broadway by Catherine Zeta-Jones).

#3. Oh, that whole adoption thing? Makes me think about things that I'm not entirely sure I want to think about. I wonder sometimes if Shae's biological mother ever wants to see her - if she even remembers that Shae exists. And I worry what would happen if that were the case. Knowing what I know about Shae's birth mom, I don't think it's likely that she'll ever want to make contact, but ... what if? Imagine I am Shelby Corcoran in this scenario - am I in any position to make demands? Can I say, "I won't let you see this person that you gave birth to unless you meet my standards of dress/behavior/lifestyle/sobriety"? Certainly I want to prevent my daughter from being exposed to the kinds of things I know she was exposed to as an infant (i.e., REALLY BAD STUFF, let's leave it at that). Our adoption is closed, and right now I don't have any particular interest in letting Shae's biological parents be a part of our lives, for better or for worse. Maybe I am overprotective or overly possessive or living in denial. All of these things are possible, maybe even probable. I shouldn't have to think about this stuff after watching a silly TV show with lots of singing and dancing in it.

#4. "Somewhere" and "Something's Coming" are my two favorite songs from West Side Story, full stop. I could listen to Lea Michele, Idina Menzel, and Darren Criss sing those songs all day, every day, for the rest of my life, and I would die happy. I do wonder if "Glee" is ever going to do the "Tonight Quintet," and if so, how and when, and whether everything is going to tie back to anything happening in the story arcs for the actual characters, and whether they'll switch up any of the voice parts, or whatever. (I can't find a good video of the song to show it in context from the musical, but go watch the movie version - I can't recommend it enough, and you'll know this song when you see it.)

#5. There were supposed to be five things on this list but I ran out of things, so HOORAY FOR "GLEE!" Or not, if you hate "Glee." I won't judge. I hate the Kardashians and the Real Housewives, so it's not like I don't have my own problems.

Challenge: An Exercise in Self-Acceptance

Shae has been saying things lately that upset me: "I wish I had long blonde hair like Rapunzel." "I wish I were beautiful like Belle." "I wish I could sing like Ariel." "My feet are too big." "I don't want to get old and mean and ugly." "I wish I were perfect like ..."

She has no idea how perfect she already is.

As a feminist, but mostly as a human being who has a working brain, I have an intense dislike for princess culture. We watch Disney movies in our house, because I love the music and the art, but I do worry about the examples that your typical princess movies are setting for my daughter. I don't like the way that physical beauty and passivity are prized characteristics in those women. I understand that they are products of another time, but I don't understand why Snow White and Cinderella are such paragons of feminine virtue.

The world needs more princesses like Leia, is what I am saying.

So to set a good example for her, to encourage her to love all the things about herself that I so admire -- her spunk, her smarts, her take-no-nonsense attitude. And to be a good role model, I need to take ownership of my attitude about myself. Be the change I want to see, and all that. I am following the lead of my online friend and back-haver-in-a-parking-lot-slap-fight, Chibi Jeebs, and accepting this challenge.

Part One: "Think about how your best friend would compliment your best features. I want you to think of five great things about your body. FIVE. And no Christmas-tree ornaments/negative riders on this. Five 100% HONEST, POSITIVE things you love about yourself."

1. I have big, bright, clear, pretty blue eyes that look good in glasses.
2. My hair is healthy and shiny, and I love the color (people pay good money for this color).
3. I love the way I tan gradually, the freckles slowly expanding into one another, like a chocolate chip cookie.
4. My bosoms: They're real, and they're spectacular.
5. I love my laugh lines, because I have earned every one of them.

Part One-A: Extra credit. Five non-physical traits that I love about myself.

1. I am one of the smartest people I know.
2. I am a good singer, and even if I am not, I still love singing and do it every chance I get.
3. I am funny -- I make others laugh, but I crack myself up regularly.
4. I will fight to the death anyone who gets in the way of my family/friends and their happiness.
5. I take commitments seriously, and nobody can make me feel worse about breaking a promise than I make myself feel.

Part Two: "I want you to pick 5 NON PHYSICAL things you can change about yourself (like, read 1 more chapter of a book per day, or take an extra 10 minutes in the shower) to feel better about yourself."

1. Get pedicures regularly. My daughter doesn't want to have "old feet" -- i.e., cracked dry heels and trashy polish -- and neither do I. I resolve to start budgeting $10 from every paycheck so I can get a spa pedicure once every 2 months.
2. Drink more water. I've been trying to drink lots of water, but I don't really like it when it's "plain," so I don't drink as much as I should. I'm going to try to remember to buy limes or lemons or oranges -- maybe even cucumbers -- to cut up and put in my water. I might even buy myself a pretty, fancy glass.
3. Go to bed earlier. I don't need enough sleep, and I am grumpy and irritable and I don't like it. I need to set a firm bedtime and stick to it. Period.
4. Relax. Take a few minutes a few times a day -- a few minutes every hour, if I need to -- to take deep breaths, stretch, stop thinking about whatever and unwind. I am very tightly coiled, generally speaking, and I need to stop that.
5. Make a to-do list, and stick to it. Determine what I need to do, adjust as necessary, and weed out the stuff that can be delegated or rescheduled. (Focusing my energy and efforts better will also help me relax.)

So, who else is in?

Baby, It's Cold Outside

In this, part two of a three-part series (you can read part one here if you haven't already), I reveal yet again more information about myself than my therapist probably requires. You're welcome, Internet.

Today we're discussing the "classic" Christmas songs -- stuff that you hear on the radio and over mall loudspeakers beginning in, like, September and continuing until mid-January or so. Before I get to my list, though, I will start with a complaint: Dear Mall Muzak People, Halloween is really too early to start playing holiday music. Let's wait until after Thanksgiving, k? Thxbai.

So anyway. Most of the music I actually listen to falls into this "Christmas classics" category, because (1) there are only so many times you can listen to the Hallelujah Chorus and Trepak before you want to stab yourself in the eye with an umbrella, and (2) let's just come right out and admit that a lot of "modern" holiday songs are kind of ass. I mean, really, if I never hear "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" again in my life, I will still have heard it far too many times already.

What I tend to like about this group of songs, generally from the 1940's-1950's-1960's or so (I believe one of the latest of these was first recorded in 1970, which is about where I draw the line between "classic" and "contemporary"), is that they are generally festive and happy and light (with only a few exceptions) and -- this is where I get myself into trouble -- are usually more about the holiday spirit and less about the religious background of the season. Some of these songs don't even specifically mention Christmas, so if you are racked with liberal Catholic guilt at this time of year, as I often am, you don't have to feel "ashamed" of singing these tunes loud and proud and terribly off-key.

(What do they call these? First-world problems?)

Without further ado, here is my list of the Top Ten Classic Christmas songs on my iPod right now (again, in no particular order):

1. "Baby, It's Cold Outside" -- We'll start here because this one is in very heavy rotation right now. I think that at this very moment, this is Shae's favorite Christmas song. She likes to sing the "girl" part and she always wants me to "be that boy," and I'm totally okay with that because I usually think the traditionally "male" part is more funner, anyway. I have two versions that I rely on: the one that features Dean Martin and whoever, and lately the version from the Elf soundtrack sung by Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone. (Oh and by the way, I hope my kid is good and old before she realizes that this song is actually about secret Christmas Eve nookie.)
2. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" -- Oh, sweet cracker sandwich. The loveliest and most depressing of all Christmas songs ever known to man, isn't it? Positively heartbreaking, especially if you are prone to bouts of seasonal affective disorder and general maudlin-ness, as I am. "But at least we all will be together, if the fates allow / From now on we'll have to muddle through somehow." Another song where I have multiple favorite renditions: the Frank Sinatra one, the Rowlf-and-John-Denver one, and of course the Judy Garland version.
3. "Christmas Time Is Here" -- Again with the "Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack, but it keeps appearing because it's so damned good. I prefer the instrumental version of this song, but the original children's vocal version is great too, as is the cover by Sarah McLachlan. This one is just so perfectly bittersweet.
4. "The Christmas Song" -- We grew up listening to the Nat "King" Cole version of this song, so it will always and forever be my favorite, but if you haven't already, check out a Mel Tormé recording. They didn't call that dude the "Velvet Fog" for nothing.
5. "Mele Kalikimaka" -- I know all the words to this song, of course, and at one point I even had a little dance made up to go with it, a silly fake hula. This song rocks my world, and every year I wonder what it would be like to wake up on Christmas morning and go surfing at sunrise before opening my presents underneath a big palm terr. The Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters version is the best known, and probably the best ever.
6. "I'll Be Home For Christmas" -- "If only in my dreams ..." I can't ever hear this song without crying. If you have sisters who live out of state that you think about every day in the month of December and beyond, then you probably can't listen to the Doris Day version without collapsing into a weeping heap. (What? Just me?)
7. "Blue Christmas" -- Elvis Presley. Duuuuuuh.
8. "Everybody's Waiting (For the Man with the Bag)" -- Thanks to Target commercials a few years ago, before there was even a Target store in my area, I discovered this little gem (along with the Brian Setzer Orchestra). I totally do the seat-butt dance when this one comes on. I am particularly partial to the Kay Starr version, even though I will totally 'fess up that the BSO version KICKS ELEVENTY KINDS OF ASS.
9. "Merry Christmas Darling" -- True story: one year, when he was still at his old job, my husband had to spend basically the entire three weeks before Christmas in Rochester, working with designers and engineers and builders on some kind of auto-part-related waste-water-treatment something-or-other, and I seriously though I was going to DIE OF LONELINESS. Because Christmas can be TEH SUCK when it's a special time of year for the two of you, and one of you is out of town. (We started dating over Christmas Break from college in 1993, and have been together ever since.) I swear to God, if it were not for Karen Carpenter, I would never have made it through. I don't even bother listening to anybody's else's versions, because Karen's perfect.
10. "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" -- That same year my husband and I started dating? We shared our first kiss on New Year's Eve. Even though I usually know what he's doing on New Year's Eve, I still like it when Ella Fitzgerald just goes ahead and asks the question.

You will be happy to see that there are a lot more women represented here. But I'm sure I missed something, right? Maybe what you were expecting will appear tomorrow, when I do the contemporary stuff, but feel free to tell me why I'm a total butthead with a tin ear in the comments.

Please Touch Museum

My Thanksgiving vacation started yesterday, so we celebrated by spending some quality time with the kids (my daughter and my nephew) at the Please Touch Museum.

I'd never been there before, even though I've been to Philadelphia a hundred times before. It's really, really awesome at the PTM -- everything is designed specifically for little kids, and everything is interactive in some way. You can pretend to drive a SEPTA bus, you can sit in a kid-sized monorail, you can be a race car driver.

You can explore space and fire foam rockets and paint and splash in a big water thing and play cloud hopscotch and learn about Van der Graaff generators.

You can pretend to go grocery shopping in a tiny little supermarket and identify different kinds of fruits and vegetables and fill your grocery cart with all the stuff that Mommy doesn't buy any more because she's on a diet, like frozen meatball sandwiches and both chocolate AND strawberry syrup.

You can dress up all kinds of different costumes and pretend to be anything you want, like a construction worker or a baker or an astronaut or the head of the Department of Orthopaedics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

If you really wanted to, you could spend all day long in an "Alice in Wonderland" exhibit, where you can put on that iconic blue-and-white pinafore and wander through a hedge maze and kiss a fiberglass dodo and instantly become a giant and investigate optical illusions and have a tea party with the March Hare.

And you will know you had a most excellent time when you sleep until after 8:00 the next morning, and then wake up ready to take on the world again.

Downtownphilly

Not to be confused with that Boyz II Men classic, "Motownphilly," on account of the only music you're going to hear here is the banging of the drummer in your own head (or your own personal calliope music, if you're me).

While we were on Broad Street for the "Wait Wait" taping last week, wandering aimlessly around the Kimmel Center trying to figure out why there was nobody there (answer: because they were all AT THE RIGHT PLACE), I managed to take some pictures. Not GOOD pictures, because it was dark and I used my cellphone, but STILL. Even the bathrooms are funky (and not in the "stinky" sort of way).

The Kimmel Center is lovely, all modern and iron and ramps and no steps and lots of glass windows that look out over the neon lights and gaslamps and traffic of the Avenue of the Arts. We made our way up to the rooftop garden -- sixth floor, maybe, or seventh -- and I actually looked down and didn't drop my phone or fall to my death or anything.

Although my knees did buckle when I looked down to the little "patio" on the main level, and I had to sit down for a while until the room stopped spinning.

There were these neat creepy statues on one of the levels, of these naked female forms with limbs missing. I never understand this kind of art -- like, for the LOVE OF GOD, why doesn't the Venus de Milo have all of her body parts? -- but I can at least appreciate it. I think.

That picture really is terrible -- you should go to the Kimmel and check them out for yourself. They're quite interesting. Tell 'em I sent you.

This giant, gorgeous old church is right across the street. Now it's a Baptist ministry that does a lot of community outreach, but it used to be a Presbyterian church that was completed in 1901. They don't make churches like this any more, unfortunately. I love old churches.

We finally made it up the street about a block or so to the Academy of Music, and let me just tell you that my pictures DO NOT do this place justice. HOLY MAN. What a spectacular theater that is, all bas-relief and gilding and Rococo-ish details and ... just wow. Imagine "Phantom of the Opera" -- this is exactly the kind of theater I always thought the Phantom might haunt. (Better pictures, by professionals with real equipment and proper lighting, here.)

It's weird being a tourist in a town you know and love. I mean, Philadelphia has so much history and culture and stuff, but most of what I know involves the Vet and the Rocky statue, so it's nice to be able to wander around downtown and see the little things. Like the real live gaslight lamps along the Avenue. I take the city for granted. I really need to visit more.