jaimes

My family was invited to the premier of Lookingglass Alice at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. It was an 8 o’clock show, which is pretty late for the kids. They made it through the whole thing, which gives you some idea of how good this show is.

Lookingglass Alice is written and directed by David Catlin of Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company. The play is adapted from both Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. The Lookingglass Theatre Company has put on this show since 1987 when David Catlin and David Schwimmer scraped together enough cash to start a theatre group.

Lookingglass Alice is every bit as magical as the Lewis Carroll stories that inspired the play. It is a musical, but also a circus. It is childlike, but also philosophical. It is funny, and also tragic. It is full of special effects, but reveals its own secrets. As Alice travels through time, desperate to become queen, the audience is both mesmerized by the make-believe wonderland and rudely jolted back to reality, over and over again. (more…)

The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta transformed itself into an Ancient Chinese playground last weekend with the premier of Disney’s Mulan. This Families Centerstage production included a festival in between shows with crafts tables and demonstrations of Chinese music, dancing and Kung Fu. The decorations, dancing dragon and pounding drums definitely set the mood for the adventurous story of Mulan. I had the opportunity to take my kids (who are 4 and 5) and my mom, who was visiting from Virginia, to the show.
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I am not the craftiest of mamas. I have some very crafty friends who have Etsy shops and handmade window treatments in their faux-finished living rooms, and I SO admire their skills. I’m just very lazy in the crafts department. But this morning when I looked at the growing by the second hole in my favorite pair of jeans, I decided to do something about it. I busted out the old sewing box my mom gave me years ago and fished around for a solution. And what did I find? A Led Zeppelin patch I got from the record store I worked in 15 YEARS AGO. Here’s what went through my head at this discovery…

Holy crap, I’m one of those old people with band patches from decades ago!

Would I look totally ridiculous if I sewed this patch on my jeans?

I don’t freaking care if I do look ridiculous. I have to act fast or my favorite jeans will be no more.

And then I looked at that nasty hole in my jeans and said, “I’m about to get crafty on your ass.”

And so I did. It’s not perfect, and if you look at the sewing from inside the jeans, it’s a hot mess. But, I’m proud of myself for being somewhat domestic. I even took a picture of myself with the end result. Notice the urban graffiti background to enhance the rock-n-roll jeans experience. This was taken near the infamous Krog Street tunnel in Atlanta.

I went to Them Crooked Vultures on February 11^th at The Tabernacle here in Atlanta. For those of you who don’t know, this band is made up of Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones.

How excited was I to see this band play? Imagine your kid on Christmas morning and then throw in the anticipation of a birthday, a trip to Disney World, ice cream for breakfast, and a free-for-all shopping spree at Toys R Us.  In full disclosure, I thought the band’s debut album was good, not the best thing I’ve ever heard. It’s nothing new or different, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But these are guys from Led Zeppelin, Queens of the Stone Age, and Nirvana, so live they have to be pretty damn good, right? (more…)

I just took an online stress test and scored a 431. Anything over 300 means a high probability of stress-related illness. My probability was 80 percent. Is bitchiness considered a stress-related illness? Cause my forecast is showing a slight chance of bitching with a very good chance of sarcasm. So, this test doesn’t reveal how stressed a person is, but rather quantifies the level of stress related to life events, such as marriage, divorce, job change, relocation, death in the family, etc. Let’s see in the past year, my husband’s company in Virginia closed, and we moved to a new state, where I remain not gainfully employed, but stylishly unemployed. With only one income and two children, it’s become increasingly difficult to keep up financially, especially with Christmas on the horizon. We’ve had four emergency room visits since moving here, including my daughter breaking and re-breaking her arm. At this point, we may be stuffing our stockings with unpaid medical bills. Last month my grandfather passed away. And, this month, my landlord pulled a very unnecessary power play, revealing herself to be the devil disguised as a chiropractor. I’d say I have reason to be stressed.
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