Danielle Blog

Cats!

As I’ve mentioned before, my friend, who I met when I was a post-doc at the U, and I went out for one last supper. This time, we coupled it with going to see Cats.
We had a great supper. It had been raining all week and the sun came out and the weather was beautiful for walking down the sidewalk to Rock Bottom and then to the theater. We almost sat outside, but were a bit concerned that the temp would get too cool once the sun went down more. And she and I are both prone to being cold. The food was great – as always – I got the Jambalaya with no shrimp & extra sausage. It is one of my favorite dishes that I discovered when I was in grad school in Boston and they stopped making their fish and chips out of smoked salmon. I really haven’t had it since then. It was even better than I remembered. Maybe it is because I haven’t had sausage for weeks and weeks….
… well, regardless, it was great.

Cats was interesting. I had no idea that the performers would do sooooooooooooooooooo much dancing while singing! It involved a lot of balletic/contemporary dancing. I was much more interested in the dancing than the singing, oddly enough. I just didn’t find the songs very melodic and the lyrics seemed sort of simple or goofy at times. They are taken from poems by T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.” The playbill says that they have not been altered, except for minor revisions of tense or pronoun. “Memory” is a bit of a mash-up of a few poems. I suppose that says more about me and poetry than anything else!

The storyline is basically going through each of these different kinds of cats who each have their own little song and section of the show to describe their characteristics. I, of course, loved the big fat 25 lb black (with small bits of white) cat Bustopher Jones. Girle-girl was 20+ lbs, so I felt particularly heart warmed by this big fat cat.

Here she is, in all of her chubby glory. I had woken her up taking her photo, so this is her irritable look.

None of them were masked cats, which I thought was a bit odd, since it is such a common feature of a lot of house cats. But of course, I’m biased.

I love that last one, because it really shows off her use of her claws of her back feet when she played. That and she loooooooooooved to rip into tissue paper.

… I suppose this is why I don’t have much tissue paper stored up for packing…

Anyway, back to the show. Mr. Mistoffelees had his big number with the recognizable song, so that was fun.
And Grizabella singing Memory was terrific on the reprise. I wasn’t too sure about her singing during the first act, but she really nailed it when she sang the more complete version at the end.

All in all, it was entertaining, and if I hadn’t seen it, I always would have wondered what I was missing. Now, the only show that is left on my I-really-want-to-see-this-someday is Les Miserables. At least, for now.

As for packing and moving details. I finally managed to deal with some stuff and get my utilities set up. And I packed two massive boxes of all of the decorative stuff that was hanging or setting out in the entire house. The framed pieces took up a huge box all of their own. And that doesn’t include the breakables that I’m having them pack.
Once again, I didn’t get as far as I’d hoped; I suspect that this trend will continue, unfortunately. But I suppose it is good to set my goals high, because it keeps me motivated to keep moving. The weather this week is supposed to be in the 70s and 80s and mostly sunny, so doing the garage won’t be as miserable as I was starting to think it might be (when it was raining all week).

Also, since I sent some friends my new name and address, I’ve received a few emails of friends with whom I haven’t spoken in a while. It is nice to get to read those during my breaks and respond over breakfast or lunch. Speaking of, I should email another one of my friends whom I know from the U.

A couple more pics are on Flickr if you have access.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It is Christmas morning and HB is still asleep, so we haven’t had our usual Christmas morning cinnamon rolls yet.

Christmas Eve was so very special yesterday.

Even with the snowstorm, all of us on the Worship Team made it to the services. The quartet that I was in practiced our 4 songs really briefly. They were a capella, so it was important to “remember” the songs. Once everyone arrived, we had a chance to run through the first verse of each of the main songs in the service. But we ran out of time for the worship leader and I to practice our duet. Thus, at the first service it wasn’t quite as relaxed as the 2nd and third, but I’ll get to that in just a minute.

Here is how the evening progressed once we finished practices.

The quartet that I was in sang 4 songs out in the lobby to welcome people into the church.
Lo How A Rose Ere Blooming – 1st verse only
Angels from the Realms of Glory (chorus is “come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn king”)
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Joy to the World

During the first service (3:15), I didn’t sing up in front with the group. I just went up for the special music. My solo verse was not as good as it had been at practice, but that is sort of how it goes for me when I have to sing solo in front of people. But the harmony part was really terrific and my voice was all it could be.
Between first and second service, there wasn’t much time, but a few people from the Worship Team told me that we sounded good.

During the second service (4:15), I sang up front with the group. The service was as follows (this is more for my sake)
Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful
Litany of Lights (lighting of the Christ candle) and responsive reading
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:1-7
O Little Town of Bethlehem
The Christmas Story – Luke 2: 8-12
Away in a Manger
Children’s message
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:13-20
Our special music – Babe in the Straw by Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong – Caedmon’s Call version from album City on a Hill
(this is the one that was recorded)
Message
Candle Lighting
Silent Night
Scripture Reading John1:1-5
Joy To The World

During the second service (4:15), my voice was right where I wanted it to be during my solo verse. I felt like it went as well as it had ever gone before. Afterward, four people or so from the Worship Team told me how well it went and how great we/I sounded. The sound team also told me that it sounded really great.
The recording is the raw version with the levels not mixed – but I had asked them to put it on a flash drive for me. When I listened to it last night, the keyboard (accordion setting) is overpowering, our vocals are the next loudest part, and you pretty much can’t hear the guitar. So, I am not going to share it until I get a version that has the levels evened out.
I’m hoping they will do that within the next few weeks!

For the third service (5:15), everything went as planned. This time, our song sounded even better!

Now, for this next section, I’m not trying to brag. But this was the first time I did a good-sounding solo for church. And I need to write these things down so that when my confidence is so-so in the future, I can read these. Plus, this is the sort of thing my parents will enjoy reading.
Afterward, I heard from more people. A woman (didn’t know her) specifically came up to the front while I was gathering my things and thanked me for sharing my gift. She said it was a Christmas gift to her to get to hear me sing.
A friend who is in theater found me too to tell me how pure my voice sounded and how beautiful the song was.
The wife of one of the sound people also told me how wonderful it was.
The pastor stopped me and told me how she thought it sounded wonderful and thanked me for singing and for sharing. She mentioned too how the song fit with the children’s message and the main message just perfectly. We hadn’t planned that ahead of time.
Those compliments really had me floating and really made me glad that I stayed here for Christmas Eve. There was a day or so where I’d contemplated flying to TX early to spend this time before Christmas with my sister’s family and my parents. I’ve been sort of weepy these past few days and somewhat regretting my decision to stay, which is a pattern for me at this time of year when I’m away from them. And of course this year, I’ve been missing out on these extra days with my nieces!
But I stayed, and I’m so thankful that I did.
And I fly to TX tomorrow night! (assuming that I can fly out of here with the way the weather is right now)
I’ll be there for 2 weeks! (I come back the weekend before classes start)

I’ll be writing more in the upcoming weeks. And hopefully finding a way to put our song in an accessible place once it is re-mixed. I can guarantee that I’ll be posting tons of photos to Flickr!

May the blessings and joy of Christmas be with you.

I send a hug to you,
Danielle

Valentine’s Day Supper at Zelo

Well, I’d been thinking about posting a recap of our Valentine’s Day dinner at Zelo and then I ended up sick this week.  Not sick enough to miss work, but sick enough that my enthusiasm for pretty much everything was decreased.  Jenski asked about supper too.  So, now that I’m feeling less runny-nose-y and tired, I’ll give you the menu and my impressions.

Overall, it was the best meal I’ve had out probably since our Anniversary supper last July.  So, we were due for a good meal.  And I think this one beats that one hands down.   Thus, I’m hard pressed to come up with a meal that was this good.

Since we’ve been to this restaurant before, I remembered a little bit about the decor.   But I’d forgotten how beautiful it is inside.  When we walked in, I was struck by the colors and architecture, and the lights which were these wire shapes of different sizes (at least 4 feet long) that had other colored cubes and spheres inside them that had lights inside.  They were really cool and unique. (you should click on the link to just see the photos of the decor which come up and rotate right away)

The menu quickly caught my attention, because they had lump crab cakes for an appetizer.  Which we ordered right away along with a lemonade for me and a martini for HB.

It is funny to mention a drink, but since I don’t drink caffeinated beverages anymore, I usually really don’t like my beverage with supper very much.  Now, there are places with good non-caffeinated drinks, but they are more rare than the wealth of ho-hum ones.  This place had awesome fresh squeezed lemonade.

They served us warm bread with excellent soft butter, and then the crab cakes came out.  OMG, they were so good.  I really love crab.  And these were lump crab cakes with no filler and very little material to even connect the crab pieces together.  They were just incredible.  I fell  in love with crab when we lived in Baltimore, MD which is known for crab.

I ordered a salad with goat cheese and balsamic vinegrette.  The goat cheese was soft and just sharp enough to complement the dressing beautifully.  The greens were mixed organic baby greens and just delicious.

For my entree, I had sea bass (medium well) on a bed of farro mixed with cooked spinach.  It was surrounded by a spicy tomato cream sauce that also had pieces of lump crab in it.  This time, the crab wasn’t as good as the crab cakes, because the sauce diluted the flavor of the crab.  But the sea bass, oh, it was wonderful!  It had some spices on it that I couldn’t really place, but were definitely more middle-eastern than anything else.  It was cooked perfectly and one of the best pieces of sea basses I’ve ever had.  The farro is a grain, kind of like a barley.  Mixing it with the spinach gave it a really great flavor.

I was getting relatively full at this point, but I really wanted dessert, because I remembered how good the molten chocolate cake was….

… so of course, I ordered it.  To choose a tea, they brought out this tea chest that had a really clever design.  It held large test tubes of tea (probably would hold 50-75 ml) so that you could admire the color and composition of the tea.  I chose their special blend that had green tea, peppermint (an interesting combo and not one I’ve had before), and some other flavors – I don’t remember at this point.  Of course, green tea has very low levels of caffeine in it, but I decided it would be fine to drink it.  And it was.   Just like before, they brought it out in a little iron tea pot on an iron trivet.

And then the cake came out and it all came back to me.  It was definitely the best version of molten chocolate cake that I’ve ever had anywhere.  And believe me, I’ve tried a lot.  If a restaurant has it, and I’m ordering dessert, I always get it.  Even cheesecake doesn’t beat it out.  Although, speaking of cheesecake, I think I’ll make one for our B-days this year.  HB’s and my birthdays are separated by one week, so we usually have 1 week of dessert between them.  I haven’t made our chocolate chip cheesecake recipe in quite a while.

Like I said up front, the meal as a whole was just incredible.  I think it might become one of the main restaurants we go to for special occasions.  And just think, our b-days are right around the corner!  (March 12th for me, March 5th for HB)

And that also means a Wii is right around the corner! 

It was a great way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the music.  This restaurant plays the one of the best mixes of music.  Zelo and Outback probably play the most of the songs that we like.  We heard the Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, and others that I can’t remember now that it was a week ago.

And HB and I listened to some Hip Hop on the way to and then  variety of music on the way home from the restaurant.  The Rihanna, the Shakira song – the one about the hips – Beyonce, Britney (yes, a new Britney song), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greenday and I can’t remember the others again.  It was a lot of fun!

pandora

I thought I’d blog about a music feature that is out there on the internet that you may or may have used before.  It is pandora.com.  I looked it over a long time ago to try to find music that was similar to the Corrs, but I wasn’t really interested in the results.  They are a pretty unknown band, which I think makes it not work quite as well.

The idea is that you type in a band that you like, then it creates a “radio” station to play on your computer of music that is similar.  Texas Seestor created one for Christmas music and shared it with me.  It is like having a mix CD that you don’t have to create!  Of course, you can only listen to it on your computer.

But this week, we found it really useful in lab.  Labs usually play music during them, but the radio reception is pretty spotty at school – and who wants to listen to commercials anyway?  Instead, we typed in bands and created our own Pandora stations.  The first one we did was Jack Johnson.  That first go around was good.  But in a different lab, when we listened to it, it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too mellow and depressing.  In the 3rd lab for the week, we tried Dave Matthews.  But for that, every song was Dave Matthews!  I had hoped to hear different artists other than Dave Matthews.  After about 4 songs, we brainstormed for a new station.  We came up with the Goo Goo Dolls – a pretty current rock group.  All of that music was really good!  It was rock that wasn’t hard rock, and again, a lot of current music.

I’m sure it would work for classic rock, or 80′s music, or anything else you’d be interested in.  But for lab, we need to keep it pretty current.

In other news, I’ve learned all of the names in my 2 lecture sections.  Well, there was one girl that I wasn’t sure about, but hopefully now I’ll get her name right.  So, that takes care of about 60 of the names I needed to learn. Now, I just have to get those last 10 in lab which is on Monday.  I think I’ll get there!

Walking Music – for exercise – bpm of songs in my iTunes library

This is one of those blog posts that I am putting up as a resource for the internet. Here’s the story: I have been listening to the same playlist on my iPod for about 2 years when I walk for exercise, because I never bothered to find other music at the right tempo. Cut to a day about a year ago, when this post-doc came into a class we had together all excited, because she had found a website that would make playlists for running at a certain tempo. Well, I tried to find the same thing for walking and really came up short. I found a couple of blog posts about walking mixes here and here and somewhere else that I can’t find again, but they weren’t enough of the right speed and the types of music that I like. I also found instructions on how to get a software program to calculate the tempo for you, but if you use iTunes, it is kind of an annoying process to use MixMeister or to download software that won’t work for every song in your library like beaTunes. So, I resorted to the old fashioned way of getting a bpm count for songs in my iTunes library.

Here’s what I did: I took 3 songs that were the “perfect” pace on my original walking mix, I calculated the beats per minute (bpm) by listening to the song and tapping a key to the beat using this great website. And lo’ and behold, they were 125, 126 and 127 bpm. I also calculated that one song that was almost too fast for me was 138. And thus, my range was born. 120-124 for slightly slower. 125-127 for perfect. 128-130ish for really-cooking power-walking.

And now, the list. It is huge. But I am typing it out here for posterity. And in case anyone comes along looking for songs for walking at a certain bpm rate/tempo. (like I had done, using google)

Warm-up and cool-down songs that I just like even though they are slow – very random/mostly new, or really old songs that I’ve always liked:
80 Celine Dion – Taking Chances
90 Marie Digby – Say It Again
90 One Republic – Stop and Stare
92 Crowded House – Better Be Home Soon
103 Rascal Flatts – Life Is a Highway
109 10,000 Maniacs – These Are the Days
110 Survivor – Eye of the Tiger
115 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – I Won’t Back Down
117 Crowded House – Something So Strong
118 Steve Winwood – Roll With It

Moving into songs that are a tad slow, but good for variation:
120 Elton John – Sad Songs Say So Much
120 Five for Fighting – 100 Years
120 Maroon 5 – Not Falling Apart
120 Sheryl Crow – Soak Up the Sun
121 Bob Seger – Night Moves
121 Corrs – Even If
121 Corrs – Radio
121 Dixie Chicks – I Can Love You Much Better
121 INXS – Suicide Blong
121 Shania Twain – When
121 Sting – Fortress Around Your Heart
122 Corrs – Summer Sunshine
122 Creedence Clearwater Revival – Proud Mary
122 Dixie Chicks – If I Fall, You’re Going Down With Me
122 Dixie Chicks – Tonight the Heartache Is On Me
122 Electric Light Orchestra – Livin’ Thing
122 Gladys Knight – I Got To Use My Imagination
122 Phil Collins – Sussudio
123 Creedence Clearwater Revival – Who’ll Stop the Rain
123 Depeche Mode – World In My Eyes
123 Dixie Chicks – Goodbye Earl
123 Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
123 Fleetwood Mac – Don’t Stop
123 John Cougar – China Girl
123 Shania Twain – Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)
123 The Beatles – Get Back
124 Bob Seger – Old Time Rock and Roll
124 Dixie Chicks – Tortured, Tangled Hearts
124 Faith Hill – If My Heart Had Wings
124 Martina McBride – Love’s the Only House
124 Shania Twain – Love Gets Me Every Time
124 Shania Twain – I’m Gonna Getcha Good

Getting into the best paced songs for my walking speed (14.5 to 15 minutes per mile)
125 Commitments – Bye Bye Baby
125 Good Charlotte – I Don’t Wanna Be In Love <-- one of my new favorite songs
125 Harry Nilsson - Everybody's Talkin'
125 John Mellencamp - Rain On the Scarecrow
125 Shania Twain - Man, I Feel Like a Woman ** This was one of the original songs **
125 Shania Twain - Up! **This was one of the original songs**
126 Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice
126 Corrs - Dreams
126 Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself
126 Gary Numan - Cars
126 John Mellencamp - I Need a Lover
126 Kelly Clarkson - Gone
126 Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head
126 R.E.M. - Losing My Religion
126 Shania Twain - That Don't Impress Me Much
126 The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn! (There Is a Season)
127 Commitments - Take Me To the River
127 Corrs - Irresistible
127 Corrs - Breathless **This was one of the original songs**
127 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Lodi
127 Dixie Chicks - There's Your Trouble
127 Phil Collins - Both Sides Of the Story
127 Sting - All This Time
127 Supremes - Come See About Me
127 Train - Respect

Crankin' On
128 Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man
128 Corrs - Angel
128 Fleetwood Mac - Say You Love Me
128 Huey Lewis & The News - She's Some Kind Of Wonderful
128 R.E.M. - The One I Love
128 Sheryl Crow - A Change Would Do You Good
129 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Up Around the Bend
129 Cranberries - Dreams
129 Ongo Bongo (wasn't this Oingo Boingo?) - Weird Science
129 Shania Twain - Rock This Country
129 Steve Miller Band - Abracadabra
129 Supremes - You Keep Me Hangin' On
129 Three Dog Night - Joy To the World
130 Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
130 Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
130 Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun
130 Genesis - Invisible Touch
130 John Mellencamp - Shy
130 John Mellencamp - Rumble Seat
130 Martina McBride - Safe In the Arms Of Love
130 Shania Twain - In My Car (I'll Be the Driver)
131 Coldplay - Clocks
131 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
131 Ronettes - Be My Baby
131 Rooftop Singers - Walk Right In
131 The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
132 Doobie Brothers - It Keeps You Running
132 Elton John - Philadelphia Freedom
132 Erasure - Breath of Life
132 Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup
132 Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink
132 Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
133 B-52's - Love Shack
133 Elton John - Don't Go Breaking My Heart
138 Shania Twain - What a Way to Want To Be **This was the original crankin' along song**

So there you have it. A sampling of my music tastes. Or at least, the ones that are the 'right' tempo for walking.

2011 postscript: as of Oct 2011, the website I linked to that has the capacity to tap on your keyboard and calculate the BPM is still up and running. It is all8.com --> tools –> Taps for beats per minute by Rich Reel (and was updated 17 May 2011)
FYI: Lady Gaga’s Born this Way is 124!!! a perfect match! No wonder I love that song. Also has a great message.

Mornings – yesterday and today

Yesterday morning, I spent some time sitting in the sun and singing to music.

Mom actually took this picture of me today, but replace the laptop with my journal, and you can imagine about what I looked like yesterday.

Yesterday, I started off my music listening with Ginny Owens – Without Condition. Her music really speaks to me at a very deep, faith-based level. And better yet, we both have a similar range, so I can sing almost all of the songs without straining at all.

Next, I sang along to a compilation CD that we used for practicing when I was in the Praise Chorus at my church back in MA. I jotted down the titles of the songs and some of the lyrics in my journal.

I attached a beeded bookmark to my journal that I made as my craft project at my church’s Women’s Retreat a couple of years ago.

I like how the rays of the sun shining through the beeds refracted and also created interesting shadows.

I am not quite up to full-blown storytelling yet, but I wanted to share some of the other pictures I’ve taken lately.

Mom gave me this angel and I hung it up in the window yesterday.

This morning, HB left before sunrise, and he looked pretty sharp and sexy with his blue shirt, red tie and matching cufflinks, chunky watch, and live strong bracelet.

And the sunrise this morning, was comforting.

Mom and I are going to go for a walk today, but right now, I’m enjoying the sun on my face and legs and am listening to Joshua Kadison’s album.

What Wondrous Love

(music stuck in my head) What wondrous love is this, oh my soul, oh my soul.

Ginny Owens – Without Condition

I woke up with this phrase stuck in my head

And I
don’t wanna be a flame,
I wanna be a raging fire

It is a line from the song by Ginny Owens, I Wanna Be Moved (2nd track on the Without Condition album).

I am currently infatuated with Ginny Owens, after a friend loaned me a couple of her albums last Sunday.

I am definitely putting these on my birthday wish list. She reminds me most of Dar Williams, but if that name doesn’t ring a bell, I guess she has a style that reminds me of Sarah McLachlin and maybe a less angry version of Alanis Morissette. I’ve seen her compared to Tori Amos, but I don’t know Tori Amos’s work well enough to comment on that.

I also keep listening to track 7 – I Am Nothing – which has the following line:

If I do not love, I am nothing

And track 8 – Springs of Life

Rain down Your love upon me
Pour out Your mercy on me
Please won’t You take me to Your springs of life

Dixie Chicks – Home

I woke up this morning with Long Time Gone running around my head. So when I got in my car, I put in the Dixie Chicks – Home for my soundtrack to my drive into Boston today. Yup, you heard me right. Alllllllllll the way in today. Not just my little happy drive to the train station.

Anyway, not to get side-tracked by an almost-tangent.

It is such a good album. Long Time Gone is now competing in my head with Travelin’ Soldier, A Home, and I Believe in Love.

Cue the Casey Kasem voice:

“And now, a dedication going out to HB. Danielle wants to tell you congratulations on your job promotion, HB. Here’s I Believe in Love by the Dixie Chicks.”

Love that’s real.
Love that’s strong.
Love that lifts
on and on.
Yes, I Believe in Love.

We have an exciting year ahead of us.

Def Leppard and Information Society

This morning, I woke up with Pour Some Sugar On Me running through my head. And I thought, “That’s odd. I don’t remember hearing it lately.” You see, usually the stuck songs are ones I’ve heard recently.

So, I get in my car and my CD from last night comes on. (I was bad and left my stereo on when I turned my car off, don’t scold me if you read this, Dad). And the end of a Jimmy Buffet song is playing… Margaritaville. Seems fitting for a friday!!! hmmm?

And lo’ and behold! the very next song on my mix CD is Pour Some Sugar On Me. HA! I guess my brain was ready for the next song when I got up, even if I haven’t heard that CD since sometime before Christmas.

mind like a sieve I tell you! oH wait, steel trap.

yeah… that’s it.

But now, I’ve got Information Society – Pure Energy running around.

I wanna know, what you’re thinkin’.
There are some things you can’t hide.
I wanna know, what you’re feelin’.
Tell me what’s on your mind.

Pure Energy.

The irony of that particular set of lyrics, does not escape me. Believe me. There are many levels to this one.
blogging… comments… HB and me…

I think I prefer Pure Energy to Pour Some Sugar On Me. Although PSSOM reminds me of my friend from my growing-up years. Another D. Hi D, if you are out there! She is the one who introduced me to Def Leppard.