Yearly Archives: 2012

This weekend was all about the Fringe Festival! I took advantage of a free weekend – something that has always been a precious rarity for me in the business of theatre, but has only recently become a fairly attainable and welcome ritual – to take in as many free Fringe events as I could cram in. To be clear, there were a ton of Fringe shows I was intrigued by and would have loved to see. There were a ton of artists I would have loved to support financially…but that’s the beast of Fringe, isn’t it? 180 shows in five days is virtually impossible to start with, but generally those of us who are most excited to get out there and see these shows and support the arts – we’re artists ourselves, and at $8-$16+ a pop, it just wasn’t in the cards for me this year. So I did the next best thing. I traipsed myself to free event after free event and signed myself up to volunteer for a few Fringe box office shifts at Writers & Books – one of the Fringe venues (and a totally fantastic place in general!), for which I was rewarded with a nifty shirt, the opportunity to peek in on a few more shows, and a free ticket to one of the headliner shows.

I saw Bandaloop – the gravity-defying skyscraper wall dancers, a wearable technology fashion show, a comedy improv troupe comprised of both deaf and hearing actors who signed their performance, a children’s fairytale musical storyteller, a harmonious grass-roots all-Amerian banjo band, a stunningly touching multi-disciplinary collaboration between a writer, a dancer and a musician, a theatrical piece featuring the poetry (and ghosts) of Emily Dickens and H. P. Lovecraft, a rhythm and blues tap dance trio, a modern dance group, a whole tap dance show featuring a band, free-styled tap jams, and a tap dance tango, and the headliner show I collected a free ticket to – comedian Patton Oswalt (you may know his comedy work or remember him as Remy from Ratatouille or Spence from the TV show King of Queens), who is hilarious live and really does his best comedy work when he’s interacting with the audience and sign interpreter.

Between enjoying Fringe shows and volunteering for Fringe shows, I tried out mass at a new church, savored an authentic beef and onion empanada and  “French Artichokes” (flour and egg washed pipping hot artichoke hearts sauteed in olive oil, lemon, wine, and Romano cheese), worked in a luxurious nap, met and made a new friend, learned about a fantastic new place for me to hang out and write, joined a book club for fun-loving young professionals, and learned the absolute joys of the public market…which is out-of-this-world incredible. I will be going back every Saturday morning. It easily could have been an all morning event – a cross between Cincinnati’s Findlay Market and Pike’s Market in Seattle. Though I drooled over baked goods, Polish and German eats, gorgeous blooms, fall pumpkins, corn and gourds, thousands of varieties of apples, sweet peppers of all shapes and colors, and the biggest squash and zucchini I have ever laid eyes on, I only walked away with a beautiful bunch of home-grown basil, a bundle of asparagus, a bushel of plums, and a bin of fresh cheese curds – which I consider a testament to my willpower. I may have to be bribed out of that market with kittens in the future.

All of this and beautiful fall weather too!

How was your weekend?

Wall dancers…and a tap dancin’ flash mob, for good measure.

Fried squid, rare steak pho, and an independent documentary – The Queen of Versailles. Sounds superficial, but leaves a lasting impression. It’s a funny…and a thinker.

Not bad for a lonely Tuesday.

Hope you had a great Tuesday too. How’s everyone enjoying the crisp, cool, cloudy, blustery autumn air?

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I love it!

This Labor Day weekend we took a grand journey.

A 9-hour road trip…to Rochester, NY!

We left the house irrationally early in the morning (like, 4 a.m. early) so on our way through Ohio we stopped for breakfast around 8 at an Amish bakery and Dutch restaurant in a tiny Amish country town. The breakfast buffet we indulged in included homemade sausage, egg and cheese casserole, biscuits and gravy, potatoes, fresh fruit, bacon, sausage, eggs, oatmeal, and freshly baked donuts, muffins, danishes, pastries, and APPLE CRISP. We ate heaping bowls of hot apple crisp for breakfast in a sweet little restaurant surrounded by green rolling hills and cold morning fog…I cannot even fathom a more amazing start to a weekend! Apple crisp…for breakfast!!! We were like kids again! A few hours down the road, still in Ohio, we stopped to leave an unexpected note on the door of some dear family members saying that we “were in the area and just dropped by to say hi!” We hope they enjoyed the surprise since we live 5 hours away and are never “just in the area.” It was a last minute decision as we drove past the exit for their home near Cleveland…spontaneous fun is the best kind of fun!

We drove through Pennsylvania too, and decided that since we were driving right through Erie, PA, right along Lake Erie (which made for quite the pretty trip!) that we might as well surprise somebody else too – Ted’s cousin Michaela who’d just started college as a freshman at Mercyhurst that very week. So we texted her, “What are you doing in an hour?” “Uhhh, nothing. Who is this?” “Ted & Lara. Want to grab lunch? We’re passing through!” “…..passing through Erie?” “Yup! See you soon!” So we took her out for a quick surprise lunch at an Italian deli near campus. Another totally fun spontaneous adventure and the opportunity to see family? Sold! And on we continued…

While scanning the radio waves we randomly came across and enjoyed listening to (and, uh, loudly and obnoxiously singing along to) an epic, hour-long, commercial-free, non-stop montage of 5-second blips of hundreds of songs from the 50s-present day that were strung together into one musical masterpiece as we entered New York, passing signs for Niagara Falls and lots of wineries along the way.

We saw an adorable BEAVER (of all creatures) by an apartment complex a few miles from the Genesee River while on our Rochester explorations.

We strolled the boardwalk, pier, and sandy shores of Lake Ontario while we got familiar with Ontario Beach Park. It was a completely lovely afternoon, breezy and sunny with temperatures in the mid 70s. It was so refreshing and relaxing!

(Shakespeare rubber ducky!)

And we made a point to visit the National Museum of Play and the Manhattan Square Park & ice rink in downtown Rochester. The National Museum of Play was just awesome. We spent several hours playing with loads of fun, interactive toys, games, and devises (no doubt intended for children, but we’re big children, so we took advantage of the opportunity). They also had a whole video game arcade with video games spanning across several decades (which Ted loved), a 1,700 gallon coral reef aquarium and outdoor garden (which I loved), and a mammoth collection of toys from every age and decade…many of which we fondly remembered from our own childhoods. We also loved driving around the city and parking at old buildings – mainly huge, old churches and theatres – and sizing up all the great architecture. It was a wonderful Sunday!

And, of course, we tried a tasty local New York diner for breakfast AND ordered a pizza from a local pizza hotspot for dinner. There were about a million pizza parlors in Rochester, so we scoured the internet until we found the local “best of” pizza blog and picked ourselves a great little New York Pizza Parlor to try. I’m happy to report that it was, in fact, delicious.

Overall, it was an excellent weekend full of lots of adventure, explorations, spontaneity, and quality time together.

Did you do anything special for Labor Day weekend?