On the way to dinner last week…..

I met some friend’s downtown last Thursday night for dinner at St. Elmo’s Steakhouse. I was actually running ahead of schedule and I drove around the block a few times looking for some street parking with no luck, so I resigned myself to a parking garage. I just hate spending money on parking, but at least it was at one of the $1.50 locations and not $5 or more. I found a spot on the ground floor close to the entrance ramp. I briefly considered walking up the ramp, but I somehow thought that would be considered a dangerous activity.

I began walking around looking for the exit and I saw a sign painted on the wall that indicated stairs. This sign was a bit vague and I wasn’t sure where I should go. As I was craning my neck around looking, I noticed a guy doing the same thing. He was a slim small man and dressed in a black leather jacket with dark dress slacks. He looked at me and wondered aloud about the location of the stairs. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I don’t know”. After a few moments he pointed to the right and indicated that was the correct way to walk. As we both approached the dark corner he began to slow down and said that it looked “scary”. I stopped behind him for a moment and contemplated what to do, so I decided to walk around him and look at the door. If you are acquainted with me, you will know that I will not let small obstacles like scary looking stairs get in the way of my good time. I proceeded through the door and into a dimly lit hallway leading to the stairs. The stranger began to follow me and it appeared to me that he let me precede him to “protect” him. When we arrived at the top of the stairs we encountered another long hallway and it almost appeared to lead to an employee service door. I kept going even thought I had lost confidence that I was walking in the correct direction. When we exited the door I was thankful to be on the correct street in the midst of the evening rush hour. Hurray…I found my way out.

It didn’t occur to me until later that night as I was retelling the tale to my friends to be scared. I just didn’t think about the guy being the dangerous part of the situation. I normalized him by talking to him. It really made me think about smart single women behavior. I will think twice next time before walking ahead of some stranger to enter a dank isolated stairwell. I did just say I would think twice...not that I wouldn't enter the stairwell ;)

Dinner was very tasty and I enjoyed their bi-yearly set menu of $30. On a normal basis I wouldn’t want to go to a fine dining restaurant and spend gobs of money. But, thirty dollars seams to be a good value for me. I always enjoy the Devour Downtown event and try to select different restaurants to enjoy. Click here to get information on the Devour Downtown event.

BTW…as we were about to exit the restaurant we encountered a random sports celebrity. A gigantically tall Asian man (7 foot 6 inches) walked in the restaurant and by us. My friend began to get all excited and pointed out that it was Yao Ming, a famous basketball player for the Houston Rockets. I assure you that I didn’t know who he was…but apparently he is famous. There were people (OK…Men) on the street trying to take photos of him through the windows of St. Elmo’s. When I was in China I did not see one seven foot tall Chinese Man. What an anomaly!

A couple days later I met a friend for dinner at Bella Vita in Geist. I know…I know…two expensive dinners in one week…where do I get my money! My friend Casey sent me a link to a website selling $50 dining certificates for $25. We each paid only $14 (this included a shipping fee) for a GREAT meal. I think that the food at Bella Vita was far superior to St. Elmo’s. They also had a set three course meal on their menu for $30. It included a salad, petite fillet, mashed potatoes, broccoli, scrumptious bread and a piece of German chocolate cake. You should try it, you will not be disappointed.

My teeth…my teeth…my teeth

A couple weeks ago I had my semi-annual dental cleaning appointment at my favorite dentist. She was very nice and gently cleaned the six months worth of stuff that was accumulated. The hygienist also took a full set of dental x-rays for the dentist to review for any new tooth developments. YES…there were new developments.

After the dentist reviewed the x-rays and then my mouth she told me that I needed three new crowns with a potential for a fourth. Whatever! Four new crowns! The bottom line cost on that activity is around $3000 and that doesn’t take into account any potential root canals. Every time that I have had major work like this done, and the dentist had drilled out my teeth, I somehow end up needing root canals. Each root canal costs about $1000, so this could cost me upwards of $7000. I was not a happy camper when I left the dentist office. I am going to wait to do any of this work until May when I can renew my flexible spending account. This will help me budget to pay for these items while not charging any of them. Please have good thought that they will hold up until then.

Later that week I had a conversation with one of my friends about this topic and she gave me rave reviews of her electric toothbrush. Her visit for her teeth cleaning lasted only five minutes...I guess she is doing something right. I had been thinking about getting one for a while and I decided to go for it and spend the money. I went to BB&B to purchase it because I have one of their famous 20% off coupons. They had several different kinds with various attachments as well as price points. I found an employee who seamed knowledge about the topic and he gave me some very helpful and useful information. I chose the basic $40 sonic care version because I didn’t know if I was going to like it or it was going to be useful to me.

I used it for the first time the next day and it was wild. It was so weird having this moving object in my mouth. It felt nothing like the $5 throw away versions. It was very powerful and made an interesting vibrating noise as it touched my teeth. The literature that came with it said that the first twelve times that you used the toothbrush it would work on a slower level to let your teeth and mouth get used to the sensation. I am glad that they included that feature. The instructions also recommended brushing for two minutes and that the toothbrush would beep every thirty seconds it indicate a quadrant change. I have not heard a beep yet, perhaps it is a user error?

How did I get such rotten teeth? I guess I have bad luck!

Patti Austin pays tribute to Ella Fitzgerald at the ISO

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra has redeemed itself from the Christmas Show horror.

My friend MooreWrites invited me to see Patti Austin on Friday night. She invited me in retaliation of me requesting her presence at the live telecast of the Glenn Beck stage show in the fall. She grudgingly went with me but informed me that I would be requested to do some unknown activity in the future that I might not like, but I would be obligated to attend due to her having to endure Glenn Beck.

Her plan backfired because I really liked the show. I wasn't familiar with Patti Austin or Ella Fitzgerald, so I arrived with no preconceived notions. The show started with the band playing six classic songs. I enjoyed sitting there listening. I think music is so much more enjoyable in person and allows you to focus solely on that one activity. It allows me to shut off my brain and just exist in the moment.

After a twenty minute intermission the band came back and Patti Austin was introduced. She was very personable and entertained us with stories of Ella Fitzgerald and herself in between the songs. She almost had a little comedy routine going. I wasn't familiar with most of the songs that she sang and it was nice to experience something new, even though most of this music is about 80 years old. Moorewrites wrote a review of her experience here, and I think that it complements my story.

I am glad to have discovered this new entertainment at the ISO as well as found so many willing participants in experiencing it. The ISO has a special on their remaining concert tickets in 2009 and all seats are selling for $25 until 01/20/09. I was very excited because I LOVE a great deal. I have tickets to see the following four performances this spring and I hope that they live up to the Patti Austin concert:

February 20 - Biss performs Mozart
February 27 - Sounds of the City - Gershwin & Bernstein
March 20 - Beethoven's Eroica
March 28 - Cirque De La Symphonie

GIVEAWAY: Fabulous black bag

I have been reading this blog called "Musings of a Fat Chick". I think that she is very amusing and entertaining. She is giving away a free bag on her website and request knowledge of what one would put in the bag. So this is my list:

Pen
Calender
Wallet
Chap Stick
IPOD
Earphones
Magazine (Rolling Stone, National Geographic or Mental Floss)
Mints
Brush
Allegra
Coke Bottle Caps
Book
Key's
Key Card for Work

Comedy Night at Crackers

I belong to a group from meetup.com called Ladies Night. This is a group of ladies who like to do fun stuff together and is a way to make new friends. There hasn't been any events in a long time...I think since last fall and I was happy when one of the organizers decided to have an event this week at the Crackers Comedy club downtown. It was on Wednesday night which is ladies night at the club and all women get in for free.



Wednesdays weather was fairly dreary, it snowed in the morning and it took me an hour and a half to get to work. But, by the end of the day the roads were fairly cleared so I decided to drudge downtown to meet the group at 7:45. I was not prepared for parking when I arrive downtown and I decided to park in the garage next to the building since there wasn't any street parking available. When I pulled up the the attendant, I realized that I didn't have any cash so I had to write a check for the $5 parking. Apparently, this caused a bit of a traffic mess on Meridian as people waited for me to enter the garage.



I was not acquainted with any of the other ladies attending and that was nice to to meet some new people, consequently that is the purpose of the meet-up group. There wasn't very many people in the club on Wednesday night, I would say about 30 and it looks like the place holds about 100. As a bonus to it being so slow, every patron got a front row seat. The comedians were funny but it was a little off because the atmosphere was odd. With the room so empty, even when everyone was laughing, it still seamed like the jokes were bombing.

This is smoking facility and it appeared that 75% of the audience was enjoying this privilege. I don't want to sound like an old lady but I wasn't digging the smoke. They have a couple non-smoking performance each week but they are not on the free nights. So if I go back I will have to decide weather I care more for my lungs or wallet???? It will be a hard choice. BTW...I am fairly certain that the first comedian was high while he was on the stage and there was someone smoking pot in the room.

I would go again but it would be more fun with a full audience. I think that the atmosphere of a full audience adds significantly to the ambiance of the facility and therefore to my overall enjoyment.

The Reader

No...I don't mean my Amazon Kindle. I went to see this movie on Tuesday night and I LOVED it. It was great and it kept my rapt attention.

Last week I put out an APB to my friends to see if they wanted to go for beers and a movie on Monday or Tuesday night, only one of them accepted the challenge (isn't that sad ;). (BTW...as I am composing this blog I am listing to my new Jason Mraz album for the twenty time since I have downloaded it on Sunday...I think that it is great) I met her at one of my favorite restaurants, PF Chang's, for an overindulgent meal and great conversation.

With fifteen minutes to spare we headed over to the theatre to catch the movie. We had decided to see Rachel Getting Married, and as we are in line to pay I realized that the movie isn't playing the time we were there. I had checked the movie times on Monday and it listed it as 6:45 and I had assumed that it would be the same for Tuesday night. Really is it ever different? The answer is Yes...it is. The theatre was showing a special preview of a new Showtime series (check out moorewrites blog for a description of this event) and this preempted the showing of Rachel Getting Married at 6:45.

We had to make a quick decision on what to see. I had researched my two movie choices and now I didn't know what to see, and my friend is a voracious movie goer and she had already seen most of the available movies so the actual choices were very small. We chose The Reader basically because neither of us had seen it, and I wasn't familiar with the plot or even the actors. Sometimes that makes the move extra good because you don't know what to expect.

The movie was split into two separate sections. The first part dealt with the 15 year old male character having a relationship with an older women in her 30's. We were about fifteen minutes into the movie when I leaned over and asked my companion if the lead actress famous. She gave me a "are you dumb look" and said it was Kate Winslet. I was shocked because she looked so old and haggard. After I thought about it I decided that this was done on purpose to represent the hard life of the character. I thought I had a handle on where the movie was going...an illicit affair with an older women that ends badly. I was right but then sooooo wrong.

The affair does end and badly but goes in a direction I certainly didn't expect. Eight years later while the boy is now in law school he attends a Nazi trial and there is his old girlfriend on trial for war atrocities. During the last hour of the movie I was glued to my chair. I was so enthralled with the story. This was unusual for me because I have a rather small attention span and I am easily distracted.

I really liked how this story was told and how the director put the movie together. The lead actors did an exceptional job and I was impressed. I urge you to see it, even if you are not a person who would normally frequent the art theatre. Enjoy!

Jason Mraz

I was lucky enough to receive two gift cards to itunes for Christmas, so I was looking at their website this weekend and I discovered this artist. I downloaded a few of his songs and listened to them on Saturday and Sunday. Then on Sunday night I decided to download the entire album. I didn't regret it. I am enjoying his voice and his music.

Listen and Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYhrYHmUPn0

Electric Bill

This Christmas season has been enormously expensive for me. I knew about the direct expenses and I was in control of how much I spent for gifts. I am an accountant...so you can imagine how detailed my list of spending was...per person...by gift name...and by amount. I had two sets of relatives up over the holidays, and my food bill tripled.

So this week the soft expenses started rolling in. First, I received my water bill. It was only $10 more than my usual bill, but it was double my normal consumption. Usually, Joanne and I don't use that much water and I pay a minimum fee each month. In the summer, I may use more when I water the grass but mother nature was kind to us and we had a very wet summer. I normally use 1500 gallons per month, in December we used over 3000. Ok...OK...$10 more isn't so bad.

Then I received the electric bill. It normally ranges $80-$100, and my highest bill last winter was $130. Keep in mind that I like my house to be fairly cool and I keep the heat on 66 degrees. My December bill was a whopping $200. My eyes nearly popped out of my head! I couldn't believe it when I opened the bill. So I decorated my yard for six weeks, and I had all of the outside lights on timers that came on at dusk and turned off at 7am. Then, I decorated the living room and also had those lights on timers for about five hours each day. In my head I couldn't imagine the lights costing me so much extra money, and I loved them. It was so nice to come home every night and enjoy the beautiful decorations.

I had an extra four people at my house for 10 days as well as another four people there for two days. When they were there I had to run the dishwasher two to three times each day and also do the overflow the manual way. We also had extra showers every day as well as extra laundry. It really is expensive to have relatives over for a visit. I will have to remember that for the future. It is going to hurt me to have to pay that gigantic electric bill!

Love Person at the Phoenix Theatre

I went to see this play at the Phoenix Theatre on Thursday night and I LOVED IT! LOVED IT! LOVED IT! I think that it gets Candy's highest rating!

I met my fellow theatre going friend Gretchen at Subway for dinner before the show and we rushed thinking we were very late. We gobbled up our subs and salads and rushed out to the Theatre. We were surprised when we arrived because we found a prime parking spot exactly in front of the Theatre doors. We thought that was odd, but congratulated ourselves on our good luck and rushed inside to discover that not only were we not late, but we were the first patrons to arrive. I guess neither of us as any ability to tell time as we were 30 minutes early.

We enjoyed spending that 30 minutes catching up and having a very fast moving and intense conversation. All of a sudden we looked up and the lobby was full of people and they began letting people in to the theatre. This theatre only has open seating so there is an advantage to arriving early to get the prime real estate. However, due to our ability to block out the outside world we were actually last in line to get our seats.

This was our second visit to the Phoenix Theatre and we discovered that they have two stages. One on the main floor that is traditional and one that is downstairs that is a big room and most of the patrons sit at round tables almost like a bar setting without all of the smoke. There were two rows of chairs lined up in the back of the room and that is where we chose to sit. AKA...we were the last one's in and there were no tables left. The chairs were the high bar stool variety so my feet didn't touch the ground and dangled throughout the evening.

So about the play. It was a love story between two couples. One was a lesbian couple and one of the characters used ASL (American Sign Language) to speak. When she and her partner were having conversations the entire room was quiet and you would read what they were saying on one of three screens located around the room. It was interesting to go through such periods of silence in a play, but it did keep my attention.

The second couple was in the stages of first meeting and first love and the male characters job was to read and translate poetry from Sanskrit to English. There were times when the actor was speaking in Sanskrit and the poem he was reading was projected upon the screen in Sanskrit. You didn't always know what the poems were about.

The love story portion had an interesting twist as the non speaking lesbian sister started emailing the other sisters (Vic) new boyfriend pretending to be Vic. It became very complicated and an interesting twist.

Go and see this play and you will not be disappointed.




About Love Person from their Website:

by Aditi Brennan Kapil
JANUARY 8 - 31, 2009 — The Frank & Katrina Basile Theatre
Love Person is a riveting and spirited love story about language as a portal and barrier to human connection in which love transcends sexual orientation, physical attraction, and social structure, and rests instead on the ways in which people communicate. It is performed in American Sign Language (ASL), Sanskrit, spoken English, and projected text for a multi-lingual experience.
Presented as a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere with Mixed Blood Theatre (Minneapolis) and Marin Theatre Company (Mill Valley, CA)

This Wonderful Life at the IRT

I finally went to see this play at the IRT on Sunday afternoon. I have season tickets and they are for the first or second Thursday of the show. Gretchen (the friend who I have the tickets with) had to cancel for our designated time and Sunday ended up being our fourth rescheduled date. BTW…Sunday was the last performance and we just barely were able to see it.

I am glad that we chose to purchase the season tickets. It has been nice to know what I am going to see as well as paying a good price when the tickets were offered. I think that the IRT has good productions as well as a variety of types of shows.

This production was based upon the Jimmy Stewart movie and basically retold the famous Christmas story. The play was told in a story telling format. It gave me the feeling of the older generations passing down stories to the children. There was only one actor who carried the entire show. I was impressed with his ability to capture our rapt attention for an hour and a half. The actor had good charisma with the audience as well as endurance, as he was quite physical throughout the show. One of the nice things about this show was that the actor was strong enough to bring forth an emotional connection with the audience (including me).

I enjoyed this production and it was a nice way to end the Holiday season.

Christmas Decorations

Today I spend two hours taking down the inside and outside Christmas Decorations. It was nice that I had my family to help me. The kids made the task go very fast and I think we completely finished in two hours. We even got the stuff back into the attic.

However, there was one disaster. As we picked up the stuff from the tree I found a that the carpet got burned. I think on of the lights was under the tree blanket. OMG...I cannot believe that it happened. How am I going to fix this? This imperfection in the living room is going to drive me CRAZY!

Happy Frickin New Year

I left work on Tuesday and Wednesday evening with irritated, itching, watering and painful eyes. When I was playing games with my family on Wednesday night my right eye was painful so I decided to go to CVS to get some drops. I consulted the pharmacist and she thought that I have pick eye. As if....how could I get pink eye. She gave me some over the counter homeopathic eye drops but suggested that I see a doctor the next day.

I just returned from the urgent care center at Wal Mart with an official diagnosis of Pink Eye AKA...Conjunctivitis. As an added bonus my ears were clogged with ear wax and the nurse practitioner had to torture me for fifteen minutes squirting water into them to clean them out, just so she could see my ear drum. I was able to use my insurance there and only pay the $25 co-pay as well as get a $4 prescription.

The most expensive thing is that I have to replace all of my eye make up. That sucks but it was fun to shop for more.

I will be OK. But, how did I get it? What a way to start the new year!