Mike's Gone

They announced during Sharing Time in Primary that the Elder's Quorum would be bowling tonight at 9 pm. That's all fine and dandy for them, but Mike and I are on a 30 Rock kick--we're systematically working through all the seasons--and this really puts a damper on my night. But he's always complaining that the Elder's Quorum never does anything ("and the Relief Society is always doing things"--which is true) so he wasn't allowed to stay home, even when the temptation to watch another episode hit us both wicked hard. I've read a few chapters in my book, which I'm almost finished with but haven't felt up to reading lately--I think mostly due to being sick last week. Being sick always puts me off from reading, ironically. I just feel too tired to pay attention and take notes, etc., but I know that if I read it without paying attention or at least jotting some thoughts down I'm probably going to just forget about it and reading that part will have been largely worthless since I don't remember anything from it. It also takes longer 'cause my mind keeps wandering off the page and I end up back-tracking to figure out what's going on.

So, yeah, reading while I'm sick doesn't work out. Moving on.

I'm not sick anymore. Thank heavens. Last week really did a number on me, as demonstrated on Friday when I completely slept through my voice lesson--at 6 pm. That was embarrassing. My email to my teacher that night was just pathetic. Sunday I was well enough to fill in for a friend of mine who leads music for the Primary. Oh, my, she is the luckiest woman on earth! No, leading in Primary is not that great. It can be fun, but the big kids are constantly seeking attention (or avoiding it) and getting the Sunbeams to pass the teddy bear in a game of musical hot potato is like trying to get them to hold still while you saw their legs off.

But then you get to go to nursery. Oh, my! What an AWESOME gig! Man, that is where I'm supposed to be! And the best part is, two of the girls were home sick that day! (Not that them being sick is good, it was just nice to have such a small class.) It was Madie and three boys. They sit on these little carpet squares the teachers pull out for them and just stare up at me like high schoolers who think they'll get As if they stay awake! The three littlest ones--Madie, Ezra, and Weston--all lit up when I pulled out little suns on popsicle sticks for them to hold while we sang Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam. Weston kept running up to me every time I'd pull something out of the bag and clap his hands together until I gave it to him. Hahahaha! I was cracking up! Even Ezra, who has had three hard weeks of nursery so far, calmed right down and smiled when singing time began. Oh my goodness, it made my week, that's for sure.

Speaking of little kids being cute:

Her foot looks huge in this picture. Well, actually, her feet are pretty big. For an 18-month old anyway. I'm planning on sending her to clown school.

And here's a little sumpin'-sumpin' I've been working on for a few days now. Part of me feels like it needs to be longer, but then every time I go to write more nothing sounds right. It all sounds like I'm trying to hard to lengthen it, so I guess this is it. I dedicate it to Tani, since she's always asking to read my stuff. Thanks, Tani! You're too sweet--I'm sure everyone else thinks that too. ;) (P.S. I hate, haaaaaaaate titling things. I'm so bad at it! If you have any suggestions let me know.)

Days pass slowly.

Weeks fly.

Time itself knows not what it does,

But tumbles down as so many beads

Off a broken necklace

Bouncing and scattering,

Then slowly spinning to their stops.

If I Hadn't Shelled Out $1300 at the DMV

I might have accidentally shelled out a healthy chunk on one of these--in fact, maybe ALL of these dresses. But I must say, this would be far more justified. They're pretty awesome.

I love the houndstooth. 

Mike said, "I wouldn't mind seeing you in that dress." How much would you not mind, Dearest?

I love this one! The cut is great!

This one's cute. I like the one with the red top even better, though. (It just wasn't downloading.)

Have you ever visited ShabbyApple?

Paintings I Love, Part II

Today deserves a post. Do you know why? Because (a) I have mostly cleaned up the entire apartment after the mess it was in last night, (b) I have finished shopping for the week and planned the menu with extremely low stress, and (c) the smell of chocolate shortbread wafts through the air and inspires me to write. In fact, after this I think I might keep working on the poem I started Sunday. That's how awesome this day is.

By way of paintings, here's a great one for you. It's an unfinished sketch by da Vinci, presumably meant to be turned into a painting, but never prepped or transferred for it. It was stored away and by what anyone can tell basically preserved itself. Thank heavens! It's one of my favorites--one I would love to have hanging in my house somewhere. It's entitled The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the Infant St. John the Baptist.

For those of you who don't know who St. Anne is, you used to be in excellent company, but no longer since I looked it up. :) We don't know much about her except from apocryphal books. Anne was barren, as any good woman in the Bible is, and prayed to God to bless her to conceive. An angel appeared to her and told her God had heard her prayers and that she would conceive a child who would be known throughout the world. Anne vowed that whether the child was son or daughter, she would raise it unto the Lord. The child Anne bore was Mary, the mother of Jesus. (This makes her the great-aunt of John, just in case you missed that.)

I love the pose of the figures. They all strike me as being real and divine at the same time. But perhaps more than Mary and Jesus, I am drawn to Anne and John. They show devotion, concern, and love for Mary and Jesus that is palpable. I can almost hear Anne teaching her daughter as she gestures toward Heaven. Their faces are both beautiful, but Anne's is animated and engaged. John also, leans in toward his younger cousin with an expression that says, "Send me, I'll go." I love it. I just love it. 

I hope that wasn't too cheesy for anyone. I'm not really a sappy person, but this one really gets me.

Paintings I Love, Part I

A friend of mine just did a post on some of her favorite works of art. My comment was getting so ridiculously long I just decided to come over here and do my own art post, so here we go.

In my Russian Cultural class I took a couple years ago we spent some time on Russian art. There's a lot going on over there, I'll tell ya. Those Russians...

One of the pieces that has stayed with me since then is Ivan the Terrible Killing His Son by Ilya Repin. Here's the short version of the back story: the man we know as Ivan the Terrible was known by his people as Иван Грозный. That second word, groznei, doesn't exactly mean terrible in the modern sense. Synonyms for it might be awesome, awe-inspiring, or terrific. However, Ivan suffered from what we think was mercury poisoning--no one is quite sure--resulting in a mercurial disposition; in short, he was very beloved of his people and seen as a man who did incredible things for his country, but his mood was very quickly shifted when provoked. This became worse and eventually turned to paranoia as he aged.

One night Ivan was pacing his hallways and the wife of his son and heir passed in front of him in her night gown. He took this as an offense and hit her so hard it caused her to miscarry her baby within hours. His son was obviously angered about it and went into Ivan to take it up with him. Ivan was, again, enraged and lashed out at his son with the large staff he always carried and hit him on the temple. His son died a couple of days later, leaving as the only heir to the throne his incompetent and imbecilic brother. Repin's painting depicts Ivan and his son just moments after the strike. The fear and concern in Ivan's eyes make the painting as tragic as the story.

Source

Other works by Ilya Repin include Barge Haulers on the Volga--one I'm sure many of you have seen--also awesome, and Sadko, which I just think is a cool painting. You can find them all at the source link under the image above.

This post is already really long, so maybe I'll just break this up into a bit of a series. I'll keep mine to just paintings, as difficult as that may be. I'll ask Mike if he'd like to participate too! Let's just get a Blog Art Festival going! And we can all thank Jessica!

Wicked Good

Forgive the cheesy pun. I just had to.

On Friday night Mike and I dropped Madie-Fi off at some friends and went into San Francisco to watch Wicked--the musical version of Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. It was soooooooooooooooo good. And it's only showing in four cities in the world right now: New York (of course), London, Sydney, and San Francisco. The woman who played Elphaba (aka WWoftheW) had played her on Broadway at some point too, and she was phenomenal! The woman who played Galinda (aka Glinda) was also excellent! She was so funny--and again I am drawn: who would I wish to play more? I've always had the same dilemma with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. If given the chance, would I pick sarcastic, smart-mouth Dorothy, or over-the-top glamorous and hilariously ditzy Lorelei Lee? Oh, choices, choices.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the stage-room of the theater. We had front-row balcony seats, which proved to have a great view of the stage for a good price!

I had to steal the camera from the paparazzi to get this picture from him.

It was an incredible show. We are so glad we went! Elphaba's voice was amazing! Mike even confessed that all the hair on his body (since he doesn't have any on his neck or head) stood on end when she sang "Defying Gravity."

Needless to say, we bought the cd.

l'Chiam!

Tonight Mum and I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley. It was sssssssooooooooooo good. I mean, really, really, very good. I don't know if it's a professional acting company or what, but regardless, it was awesome!

Mum and I were in the third row, so we were really close. But no matter what, it would have been a great seat since it's a round (and revolving) stage! The set was great, the lighting was great, and the fiddler was incredible! The whole theatre was beautiful.

The acting was really good. This is Ariana Escalante, who played Hodel. I told her afterwards that she has an incredible voice. It's as clear and sweet as a chime. All the daughters did great with their emotional scenes, which I think is one of the hardest things to do, since so often an emotional scene can be way over acted. The girl who play Chava (Ali Bennet) did one of the most heartbreaking roles I've seen, and it just seemed so real.

Tevye was, surprisingly, not a disappointment. I was excited to see him, but at the same time skeptical that he would be disappointing after seeing Topol in the movie, since he's kind of created the Tevye we all know and love. But this guy was great! He did the shimmies, and had a great voice, and (my favorite part) a natural, easy laugh. Again, I think acting things that we do as reflexes (like laughing) is really difficult, but this man just had it down. It sounded so--Tevye-ish.

In short, it was all excellent. I'm so glad we got to go! My only regret is that we didn't know there was a Hale Centre Theatre this close to us earlier! Mike and I could have gone to see earlier!

On a side note, as we were walking out to the car, a young man in jeans ran over to us across the lawn and pantingly called, "HEY! Are you the Bensons?" I looked at him and immediately recognized him, but couldn't remember his name. "No, we're the Conners," I said. "Oh! The Conners! Wow!" "I know you, though..." "Yeah! I'm Elder Brown!"

WOAH! Flashback! Elder Brown went to Lisa's and my graduation in 2005! It's always hard to place old missionaries in their natural habitat and camouflage, but Elder Brown has also packed on a healthy winter insulation. (Don't worry, he's not obese or anything, but he's certainly not suffering from missionary starvation either.)