Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Elephants on Parade

I probably mentioned that back in February I went to Thailand.  The elephants were one of my favorite parts of Thailand.  We went to a save and rescue elephant park outside Chiang Mai.  I'm really glad that we went somewhere that treats the elephants kindly.  They don't let you ride in seats because it's not comfortable for the elephants.  They didn't make them paint.  In fact, they only let me feed the baby one banana because they said she couldn't have too much sugar.  Since we rode two to an elephant we got the extra large ones which meant we were super high off the ground. 
Moon Pat gave me the ride of my life
Feeding Moon Pat
Feeding the one year old baby
In Phuket we stayed at Le Meridien Beach Resort where they apparently have their own five year old elephant that they traipse around with daily. Unfortunately, I didn't get the impression that it had as nice a life as the ones at the save and rescue. I couldn't resist petting it every chance I got though.

Monday, April 27, 2015

A Revival and an Original

In March, C and I were fortunate enough to score front row tickets to see The King and I on Broadway.  I had never been to Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont theater and it was a real treat.  The stage moves out over top of the orchestra and there is plenty of time before that happens to watch and enjoy the musicians.  I think the live orchestra is one of the biggest reasons I enjoy seeing these musicals so much. The kids in the show were super cute and after visiting Thailand, this was even more fun to go see.  I had never seen Kelli O'Hara in anything before.  She was a great fit for the part of Anna.

Image result for finding neverland broadway
Last week I my friend J took me to see Finding Neverland.  I don't know how I am so blessed to have all these wonderful friends who take me to see shows but I will never get tired of it.  I enjoyed the show immensely.  I didn't know the story because I'd never seen the movie, so I was excited to see it all unfold and it reminded me of Saving Mr. Banks, the story about how Mary Poppins came to be. The story lent itself well to being a musical. Kelsey Grammer was just ok for me but Matthew Morrison was fantastic.  His voice soared through the theater and I found his character so much more likable than Mr. Shue.  

I would recommend both these shows to people as well as others I have seen lately.  Nonetheless, I haven't seen anything in a while that blew me away the way some of the first shows I saw on Broadway did.  I feel like Rent, Les Miserable, The Lion King, Aida, Wicked, and Avenue Q were in a different league than the shows I've seen in the last five years.  I saw some of those shows three or more times and I can't imagine doing that with any I've seen recently.  Were those shows truly on another level or was it my youthful exuberance that caused me to rush out buy soundtracks I could play on an endless loop?

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Recent Reads

I've been so tired lately I haven't really read that much.  I also can't really remember what I've read.  I have fallen in love with this Amish Quilt Shop Mystery series about a woman who moves from Dallas to rural Ohio to run her Amish's Aunt's shop.  In the grand tradition of super sleuth protagonists, Angie is quite the Buttinsky.


I also managed to get my hand on the latest Jenn McKinlay mystery,  This is the third series of books I have read by her.  I like the one about the librarian and the cupcake bakery owner, but this series about hat shop owners is the most interesting.  The love interest is by far the most interesting.