the Russian ballet, we never miss it!

I was lucky enough to go to not one but two professional ballets last year! I took ballet from age 5 through age 16 and did about 4 years of that on pointe shoes. I appreciate good ballet. Not that I was ever really good (we'll blame my body type), but I still like to watch. Before last year I have seen three other professional ballets, Swan Lake at the Pacific Northwest Ballet, a random grouping of three ballets at PNB, and La Fille Mal Gardee at the Royal Ballet in London. (That last part was pretty snooty wasn't it!)

In November, when I went to Jessica's wedding, my sister took me to see Ballet West's production of Giselle. I enjoyed it and learned about that story. Since seeing it I've read a book about the history of ballet, which was like a stinking textbook, and learned that Giselle is important because it is one of the very very first story ballets. It was first performed by a French ballet company and then imported to Russia and from there spun off many of the important classic Russian ballets we know today like Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. It's kinda simple in its choreography but I like the ghost story aspect of it. I just remember that the Ballet West production had live greyhounds come out on stage at one point (the nobility came to town and therefore brought their dogs), and I thought that was kind of crazy. 'Twas good.

In December I got to see the Nutcracker danced professionally for the first time, with my mom.  It was so much better than my local ballet academy production-they don't really dance too much, just run around. We saw the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. Their version has sets and costumes designed by Maurice Sendak (who wrote "Where the Wild Things Are") and has been around since the 80's. I used to watch the Patricia Barker (Richland Native!) version each year in ballet class the last class before Christmas. 2014 was the last year they were going to do this version because they want to be snooty and produce a Balanchine version for 2015, but they are continuing the theme of having a children's book illustrator do the costumes and sets so they have the guy who does the Olivia pig books, Ian Falconer. The old version doesn't do all the "candy" dances that the Balanchine version does, ie coffee, marzipan, grandma ginger, etc, instead they set the second act in a kind of an Arabian country with exotic animals and plants. Which I kind of didn't get because they still had rats there, and I thought the Nutcracker had just beaten them in a fierce battle...???

 I really liked this version and liked how it was different than the "candy" version. I loved the huge grandfather clock that turns into Drosselmeyer and the base splits apart into legs. The Arabian/bird dance was pretty wild and had an exotic costume.

 Instead of grandma ginger they had this "Wild Thing"-esque puppet thing that jumped around, it was cute and fun.

Instead of a sleigh that takes Clara and the Nutcracker to the magic kingdom, they had a pirate-looking ship that sailed to the exotic land, complete with jumping dolphins! I kinda missed the Sugar Plum Fairy because I like her solo, they just had Clara do another solo for that song. But I did like how Clara got to dance a lot more in the second act than she normally does. I think my favorite part was the pas de deux that Clara and the Nutcracker did right after he kills off the rat king. I love the music for that part and the dancing was just amazing. I was so moved. And the thing that gets me is that the leads weren't even principal dancers with PNB, they were soloists or corps members. They were the "second tier" and they were amazing!! The whole thing was just wonderful, the ballet mixed with the Christmastime was magical. Mom and I just loved it and wanted to go again.

Of course our trip to Seattle wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Dahlia Bakery and Nancy's Sewing Basket in Queen Anne.

They make the best soft molasses cookies and a kind of chocolate truffle cookie that takes like heaven.

Nancy's Sewing Basket provides a lot of stuff costume-wise to PNB, I liked this window display, they made doll costumes that look like ones from the show!

And then in the lobby at the ballet, to tease and tempt us, costumes from the upcoming Swan Lake. Gorgeous.
So now that I've been to a few professional ballets I need to see more and more and more.

so you think you can dance

My review of the So You Think You Can Dance performance!

The day of the show I was in a grouchy mood all day. Things were not going my way, I was tired, and I got frustrated at a coworker. I had lunch with Mom at the cancer center and she was tired. I was also closing at work—which I thought I wouldn’t be that week—so I was anxious to get out the door at a decent time. And then they added on a 5:20 MRI. It was a tiring week already and I was worried that I’d have a headache at the concert and not be able to enjoy it. The only good thing is that I work right next door to the Toyota center so even if I got off at 7, I’d still be able to make it. I got off about 6, drove home, took a 10 minute nap and then drove back with mom over to Kennewck. 

I parked near the Tour buses and joked with mom that maybe we’d see them after the concert. We met Michelle and Whitney at the front and headed in. I think Michelle and Whitney were surprised at how good the seats were. I’m all about getting the good seats at things now. Why be cheap? They were good in that they were close, but sometimes you couldn’t see the dancers’ feet, which you want to. And also the moves where they have to roll around on the ground. But the Toyota center performances are crappy anyway… 

The show was pretty fun. They did a lot of dances and it was longer than I thought it would be. It even had an intermission. They had the top ten dancers and then four more from the season to be kinda like “extras”. I had forgotten some of the good ones and like I usually do at concerts, I was like “Oooo I love this one!” They did group dances, partnering, and solos. There were a couple that were created special for the tour. It was weird because they had a movie screen in the back and Nigel, Mary, Nappy Tabs, Travis, Sonia etc would come on every so often and say a little blurb. I think they were trying to tie in the show. Ricky was my favorite, of course. Tanisha danced in almost every single dance. That girl is a beast. I enjoyed Emilio again. Valerie was cute. I still thought Rudy was annoying. Casey surprised me, I thought he was better than on the show. I thought many of them were better than on the show. I think the practicing helped a lot. Kennewick was like stop number 60 on their 70 city tour. For some reason I didn’t really remember some of the girls. A lot of them looked the same to me.

Some of my favorite routines were: the hip hop: Ricky and Zach-the playing cards, and they did another that was good,

 

also Emilio and the Pharoh that he danced with Jasmine on the show, another gal filled in; the michael jackson songs-the one about the earth, and dirty diana, (they did it better on the show);

 the group routine where they were chess pieces in black and white;

the mens group routine and the women’s group routine were both really good;
valerie and Casey? tap routine to Sing (one of the best routines ever for tap);

Ricky and Valerie broadway-the one where he is supposed to jump through a swing at the beginning, they had to revise the routine for the tour, no swing. So sad!

This is a link to the real dance, it is so sweet and perfect and Ricky has amazing extension. It makes me so happy.

Umm...Oh, the one Jessica did with Ricky-Sonia Tayeh maybe?

Also the guy who looked like David Bowie (Teddy) was there. I don’t remember what he did but I was happy he was hired for the tour. Marquette and Jessica did the fun one that Jessica and tWitch did, oh man, tWitch. They did this Travis Wall routine that was my friend Jenny's favorite. Oh, the group routine they did to One Republic’s “Till the Love Runs Out” was good, the music has a good beat. They did a finale song to T-Swift’s “Shake it off” and it was fun, not the most awesome choreography but a fun closer.

Ricky’s solo was amazing. His extension on his legs and feet!! He is such a good dancer--but he is so short, so the partnering thing doesn’t work as well. There was one point in his dancing I was watching him and thought, “wow, you can tell he is projecting his passion and energy through his entire body, even to his toes.” It was a great moment where I just really connected with him as a dancer and what he was trying to show through his art. And it was art, it was one of those times where I get why people do creative things like dancing, painting, art, drama, etc. It made me wish I was good enough at something. But it also made me realize that even if I’m not good at it I should still try and can still enjoy it. 

just look at that extension!!

 

Michelle forgot her glasses so she couldn’t see too well...I hope she still enjoyed it. The Robinsons were there and Kerilynn and Libbie were really excited to see the dancers. Mom was such a trouper. She was tired and hot, but she was enjoying the show and that was what kept her going. After routines she liked a lot she would cheer “Weeehoooo, weeehooo!” which is like her new cheer now! Hahah. Maybe it was adrenaline, IDK, but she did so good and I was so proud of her for still coming to the show. 

After the show I said good-bye to Whitney and Michelle and we walked to the parking lot and started looking at the tour bus. Sister Robinson and Libby found us and they wanted to wait for the dancers to come out too. (It was like 10:00 by this time). Some others were waiting with us and a girl said she had been to other shows in previous tours and they did sign autographs after. So we waited for like 30 minutes and then this guy came out and asked if we were waiting for autographs, we said we were and he said “Come with me.” So he took us back into the Toyota center and into the hallway where the hockey players go and there was a room and we went in and they were all there!! They had showered after the show and were all in their PJs and sweats. It was kinda weird because they are all young. like 19 & 20 but it was fun. I wasn’t too concerned with meeting them all (honestly, I forgot some of their names) but I talked to Marquette, Valerie, Emilio, Jacque (the ballerina), Tanisha, and Ricky. I got autographs from them. Jacque told me she liked my glasses, I told her we all hated when her ballet dance was dark on the show because we couldn’t see her feet! She said people asked her if something went wrong, like it wasn’t supposed to be dark. I asked if they had gotten job offers or anything from the tour and she said not so much but that some of them were planning on moving to LA to look for work once the tour was over. The only picture I really needed was with Ricky.

 I told him he was one of my all-time favorites, that his dancing is amazing, that I can’t wait to see what he does next with his career. I didn’t really chat with him, but he was very nice and grateful and willing to be in a photo. Mom said she spoke with Teddy and told him we call him “David Bowie”! I can’t believe she told him that. But he said he gets that a lot. Mom was so funny though, she got really excited and was telling everyone how Libby was a ballerina. I was like, she’s not your kid!! But mom really enjoyed meeting the dancers. I told them thanks for coming to little old Tri-Cities! She was on such a high after the show. We didn’t get home until about 11 pm but it was worth it. And I made it through the concert with enough energy and really enjoyed it. It was so fun that something like that came here. I was also glad that I didn’t spring for the VIP seats with the meet and greet because I ended up meeting the dancers after the show for freeeeeeee!! Good times.

portlandia

I've decided to a little catch up on my recent happenin's but I'm going to start with the most recent and work backwards. Also, I want to give my sis something to read when she's up late at night with pregnancy insomia ;)

A few weeks ago my pal, Stacey, came into town for a few days en route to her brother's wedding. She wanted to go down to Portland to see what there is to see and my friend Michelle and I were on board.

The morning we headed out we drove down the Columbia River Gorge west to Portland. I think the Gorge is just beautiful with the river slicing through. And it was the greenest I've ever seen because everything was starting to grow and hadn't been burned by sun and lack of water yet. We stopped at Multnomah Falls which is like 20 miles outside Portland. It's a little bit of PNW heaven. You can see the falls from the highway but I've only gotten out like one other time to actually check it out. Plus, it's like visiting a National Park or something to me, mostly because it's green and has trees. See, when you grow up in the desert anything that has green and trees feels like camping. The falls were pretty and we saw it from a few viewpoints. I thought the mile hike to the top of the falls would be doable, but halfway though 11 switchbacks I was super sweaty and out of breath. We chalked the failure up to being inside all winter and not getting back in shape yet. Another time!

After our half-hike we drove into Portland and had lunch at a place I've been wanting to try ever since I heard about it. It's called The Waffle Window-they make sweet and savory waffles. And yes, it's heavenly. We each got a sweet and a savory and it was worth it. I had black forest ham with greyere cheese and then banana, nutella, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Oh baby!

A note on Portland: if you've never been let me just tell you it's just as you'd picture it. A ton of hippies sporting dreadlocks and risking their necks just to ride their bicycles through town. Just in the 40 minutes we were at the waffle window I spotted three retro vans. Yep. Keep Portland weird.

After lunch we went up to the Pittock Mansion on top of the hill outside downtown. It was built in the early 1900's by Henry Pittock who was the publisher of The Oregonian, a newspaper. It was cool to look at all the "modern" inventions of the time and learn about the local history. The house wasn't nearly as big as George Eastman's in Rochester (which I toured last year) but I thought it was a good effort for being built on the frontier. My favorite room was probably the breakfast room, it had fun blue/purple wallpaper and a huge window that looks down over the city. You can see Mt Hood in one direction and Mt St Helens in another direction. After the tour we walked the grounds to take in the great views and saw some beautiful trees in bloom.

Then we drove back down the hill to try out the Japanese garden only to find out that it wasn't free and didn't know if what was inside was worth it. We toured the Rose Garden which is across the street but nothing was blooming yet. I kept telling Michelle and Stacey, "It's so pretty when it's in bloom!" They just had to imagine it.

Driving back across the Willamette Michelle asked Stacey what hotel she had booked for us. Stacey said it was the Doubletree by Hilton. I thought for a minute, wait a second....That's the cookie hotel!!!!!! We stayed at a Doubletree when Jillian got married. They give  you a warm cookie when you check into the hotel. Seriously, they have this drawer at the check in desk that keeps the cookies warm and they are actually really good. My life is blessed.

We chilled for awhile and tried to figure out what we wanted to do that evening. What ended up happening is that we rode the light rail into downtown (worked so well!) and tried a place called Mother's Bistro. The concept being that things on the menu are things your mom would make, only posh-er. I got chicken and dumplings and shared that and homemade mac & cheese with Stacey. I liked the dumplings but was a little disappointed when the mac & cheese wasn't the cheesey bread crumb goodness I was expecting. But the atmosphere was cool, I like how it was decorated, and it wasn't too loud. (Holy cow I am old if I can't handle a restaurant being loud!). After dinner it was raining so I suggested Powell's Bookstore.  Powell's is one of my most favorite places in the entire world. It's an entire city block of a bookstore; they have every book you could think of, new and used. I kept getting lost because they have various levels and stairs that lead to more rooms of books. I told Michelle and Stacey to have fun and went to hunt down a few things. Pretty much every book I was looking for was there, plus a few more. And, bonus, no sales tax in Oregon. Booyah! So after picking what I needed I found Michelle and Stacey in the spiritualism section looking up how to interpret dreams and also how to interpret the color of your aura. Seriously, it's Portland. After a stop in a city Target (The escalators supposedly can carry shopping carts) we rode the light rail back to our hotel for the night.

The next day we explored the Northwest neighborhood. I had found a french boulangerie & patiserie on a tourism website and knew it would be worth trying. It was heavenly. The St Honore Boulangerie. You walk in and the smell of bread baking hits you first. One wall has loaves of bread and rolls and there are several cases full of pastries. Legit stuff too, none of this imitation stuff. It was so pretty. I bought a few pain au chocolate for the parentals, a strawberry tarte for mom, apricot tarte for me, and a loaf of french bread. They were all soooooo delicious and a big hit. I wish I had gotten more. Both my friends got paninis for lunch and said it was some of the best food they'd ever had. I can't wait to take my mom there someday.

After that, we were supposedly near some shopping neighborhood so we decided to see what we could find. For awhile it wasn't that great. We found a hippie store that sold all things buddah, krishna, incense, meditation etc. Again, Keep Portland Weird. It was raining again so we were about to give up. We took a detour to look at some of the really cute houses and the blooming trees. An ice cream store someone told me to try was nearby so we hit that up. Salt and Straw. It was the hippie version of ice cream. About half their menu had these strange combos like pear and blue cheese, or strawberry and basalmic oil. It also had other flavors like Lucky Charms, almond chocolate ganache, and snickerdoodle. It was a fun place. We decided to keep going and eventually found some better stores. I visited a legit haberdashery for the first time, it was cool. It had a station at the counter where you can choose which feather you want on your hat. I like hats every once in awhile but these were too rich for my blood, I also found a fancy paper/stationary store that was fun. They had uber fancy paper that was so pretty, and scrapbooking supplies. (side note: my dad said it sounded like some kind of store they would have in Queen Anne Hill {a neighborhood in Seattle} and I looked it up and they have one like two blocks from the fabric store my mom likes to visit each time we go). It was fun looking at the pretty stores.

Then Stacey and Michelle drove me to downtown so I could go see a ballet documentary that I had found out was playing there. By chance, reading through the entertainment section of the paper I noticed it was playing in Portland, actually right across the street from Powell's. I never thought I'd be able to see it as something like that would never show up in the TC, seriously, so blessed. Hahaha, yeah. Anyway, the documentary is called Ballet 422 and follows a young choreographer named Justin Peck. Justin is my age and not only is he a dancer for the New York City Ballet he has been named as only the second in history to the post of Choreographer in Residence. The documentary follows him as he choreographs NYCB's 422nd ballet. It was really interesting to watch and I totally nerded out on the ballet stuff. A criticism I do have is that they never interview Justin or ask him about his thoughts or process. It literally just follows him as he works on the ballet. So I guess that was the movie maker's choice. I did like at the end how you see Justin watch his premiere at the NYCB and then the camera follows him backstage to see him get ready to dance himself in the next ballet. I liked it a lot. And Michelle and Stacey were super sweet to let me go see it even if they themselves weren't interested. They did find the Portland street market and had some interesting experiences there.

After that we tried to have our Aura pictures taken. Stacey had found this lady who takes pictures of your aura and interprets them for you. It is a totally Portland thing to do. But by the time we went to the boutique store she works out of the lady was booked up for the day-(seriously?) so we didn't get to do that. Next time!

Then we walked around downtown for awhile and tried to find one of the famous food trucks that would tempt us. I ended up getting this fancy turkey/grilled cheese sandwich, it was pretty good.

After that we drove home to the TC! It was a fun trip with my peeps. Portland definitely has it's own vibe/flavor for sure. I think it's residents would be a little more cheerful if they got more sun than they do. I enjoyed what I did and found a few new favorites to visit if/when I go back.

catskill house

The Carr family had two sets of family pictures taken last year. The first was at brother's wedding. We call it the Downton Abbey picture because it looks like the family arranged around the fancy living room furniture and we are all in our fancy attire. I was relegated to the floor, however, by the photographer because he had no where to put me. Alas, I had no family dog to pose with on the floor. Where is Isis?

We nicknamed our house Catskill House in honor of the show-because we live on Catskill St.

And then at Christmastime our friend Kira took some regular family pics and did a spanking good job. We took the last ones in 2011 and have since added two peeps to the clan. With one more on the way!