Musing with Max

March 29, 2015

I grew up watching musicals.

I have probably seen every Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie at least 10 times, probably more. The King and I, South Pacific, On The Town, Singing In the Rain, Can Can, The Music Man, The Sound of Music...I could go on and on and on. Coming home from school my first thought was what was playing on the 4 o'clock movie, hoping for a musical. During the Summer when there was no school, my friend Maria and I would stay up until all kinds of hours watching the late night movie on PBS, which a lot of times turned out to be a musical. I never ever tire of them. Nothing could transport you for a couple of hours to a magical place where people just broke into song and dance on a whim and there was always a happy ending.

For some strange reason I always resisted "An American in Paris". I think I thought it was some dreary movie about some guy trying to speak French and it was in black and white and it had something to do with war. Then one day there it was on PBS in the late Saturday night movie and my lonely little night owl 10 year old self was wide awake and bored and so I watched...and fell in love. It is perfect. The music, the setting, the cinematography, the costumes, the singing, the dancing, the dancing, the dancing. It is magic.

So imagine my pure delight when poring over my Sunday New York Times a few months ago I read that "An American in Paris" was being mounted into a Broadway musical! I immediately signed up for ticket alerts and once they came bought two for a preview performance which was this past Friday. All day long I fidgeted, couldn't wait to get going, then once in the theater I couldn't believe how perfect our seats were and I was nervous. What if it wasn't any good, what if they couldn't sing (the principals are ballet dancers), what if they couldn't act, what if my perfect fantasy would be deflated forever? And then it started.

Immediately my face broke into a smile, which stayed there during the entire show and I was 10 years old again watching it for the very first time and being transported to another place...

...just where I want to be.

March 20, 2015

It's Spring!

It's snowing-----again. Spring tonight at 6:45 PM. I will fake it!

Happy Vernal Equinox!

March 5, 2015

In a blaze of glory

Winter's last hurrah is here, the biggest storm of the season. Weirdly and wildly predicted by all those meteorologists who seem to have nothing to do but be wrong most of the time. First it was 2 to 3 inches, then 3 to 6, starting last night around 7 pm, over by noon----blah blah blah. It rained all day and night yesterday because the temperatures were a bit high, close to 40, then this morning it turned to snow, a steady beautiful snowfall that just takes your breath away.
Max and I took our walk somewhere around 6 am and all I could think was, "If this were the first snowfall we would all be awestruck by the sheer beauty of it", but it isn't; it is one, two three, four too many and we're tired. At 2:30 PM I thought we were done, went out shoveled and cleared the car only to see it start up again, 6 inches and then some, who knows. Now I look out the window and see cotton candy on my lilac bush when all I crave is lilacs.

Soon.

I admire your resilience and wish I look this beautiful on my last hurrah, but...you really need to go.

(I realize that my friends in New England are saying "what a wimp!" :))

March 2, 2015

Cabin Fever

Winter doesn't want to leave. I'm sick of being in the house. And I'm not the only one.

Lying around gets a little dull so he tries other positions,

other corners,

it's still boring. March roared in yesterday with another dump of fresh snowfall on top of the two feet of ice which makes it hard to walk around, sometimes it's solid, sometimes you go right through,

so it's best to stay inside and not deal with it. Luckily I love to cook so I can spend most of the day on one dish and enjoy it, like my favorite chicken pot pie,

or this incredible pasta Genovese in the New York Times Magazine,

except we served it with polenta.

I've started to experiment with smoothies which is a good thing since I'm a terrible fruit eater and this is one way of getting them,

the one on the right has yogurt, blueberries, pineapple, almond butter and kale. The one on the left I invented, it has chocolate almond milk, raspberries, yogurt and kale. I put the kale in because I think kale and or spinach are a smoothie staple, I guess it's to get people to eat their greens. I don't have a problem there as I am a big greens fan but I like that I'm getting my fruits. I may experiment some more, bananas or something, we'll see.

I have a pile of books I'm trying to get through.

I've, or should I say we've, become addicted to binge TV watching. Have gone through one season of Lillyhammer, one season of The Blacklist, 2 seasons of House of Cards and are now racing through Breaking Bad. We are almost at the end of season 2 and need to step it up to complete then entire 5 seasons because House of Cards season 3 is ready to be streamed!

I'm reminded of a very sad song by Phil Collins, "The Roof is Leaking"

"Spring will soon be here, I hope we can wait"

I think I need an intervention.

February 15, 2015

Frozen

The deep freeze is here, temperatures in the single digits and a scary howling wind which is making the windows in this old house rattle. The wind chimes are loudly playing their song, hopefully they won't fly away. We are surrounded by a foot of solid ice and the snow flurries predicted for yesterday turned into a pretty snowfall that left about an inch on our cleared out walkway and sidewalk, it will stay that way since I don't plan to step foot outside. On weekends Frank has walking duty, which is quick, Max wants no part of this. Shouldn't complain, we could be living in New England (sorry Jen, Shelley and Steve).

I'm not complaining actually, after all it is the weekend; a long one at that. We have food, we have wine, we have music, we have firewood. No need to go anywhere. The Sunday Times is scattered all around me for lazy reading, then I can move on the new Saveur and Travel & Leisure that just arrived. I'll read a few pages of my latest slow read The Expats, which I'm really enjoying but find little time to get to during the week since my brain comes home a bit atrophied from work and Frank and I have found the joys of binge TV watching, we just completed two entire seasons of House of Cards, or as I like to call it Macbeth-Richard III, in two weeks. Breaking Bad may be next, we'll see.

In the meantime we'll take the hint from Mother Nature and do some recharging while icebound with no place to go. I am redecorating in my head, when we finally bought our new TV and hung it on the wall in the TV room the armoire that housed the old one was moved to the guest room which meant the desk needed to move out, put that in the library which is very small so now nothing looks right. All of a sudden I'm looking at pieces I've had for years and I hate them, some things need to go. I want to repaint our bedroom, I'm thinking a light olive, something soothing. The basement needs some serious clean out.

This is why God made Winter.

And, of course, there's cooking!

Frank's favorite lamb dish, which I've written about before and you can find the recipe here.

Beef shank stew over polenta.

And for Valentine's, Frank's favorite meal, Rosemary crusted rack of lamb, garlic mashed potatoes with a simple salad...and of course, something chocolate,

Dark Chocolate pudding from The New York Times food section this Wednesday which was dedicated to Chocolate. A redemption of their declining content if ever I saw one!

No Max you can't have any.

Well OK, if you put it that way.

January 25, 2015

On a Winter's Day

Yesterday morning I woke up, looked out the window and saw this.

Everything covered in a beautiful blanket of fluffy virgin white snow. It fell in that way that somehow looks fake, like if it was painted on, covering every branch, every pine leaf, every surface. It was early enough where no one had yet trudged all over it and no one had gone out to shovel. The world was suddenly black and white. And it was Saturday. The perfect day for a snowstorm since I had no place to go. A friend who moved to California a couple of years ago commented very sarcastically on facebook to his NJ friends that it wasn't too late to move to sunny California. I proceeded to burst his bubble by letting him know that for someone who grew up in Miami I savor my four seasons. No California dreamin' here. So what to do on a day when you've got no place to go, why cook of course.
Preferably something that takes a really long time, like herb and onion focaccia!