Better than the Book!

I finally saw Wicked!!! I gave my mom a ticket for Mother's Day, which considering she'd already seen it twice, might have been more a gift for me than for her. Regardless, I finally got to go and I loved it!!!! When I read the book about four years ago, I seriously disliked it. I have a rule that I never stop reading a book I've started (Moby Dick is the only exception), so I kept reading it even though the first 3/4's were really hard to get in to (and it's not short). By the last 1/4, I finally cared about the characters and wanted to find out what happened, so it read a little quicker towards the end. But, when I heard that it was a musical, I was shocked. My first thought was "oh, it's so terrible, who would want to see it?". But people who had seen it, and whose opinions I trust, told me it was fabulous and that I would love it. I had a hard time picturing this...the book is long, and philosophical, and not entertaining. I just couldn't picture how it could be a great musical. I sure was wrong!!

The music is fun, fast-moving, and up beat. The story also moves along quickly. I feel that a lot of musicals have random songs that serve absolutely no purpose. They're just there to be another song. That isn't the case with Wicked at all. Every song advances the plot in some way. Plus, all the philosophy which bogs down the book is touched on and presented in the musical, but without having to suffer through a long-winded author's preachiness. The viewer can think about the issues and come to his own conclusions. Plus, it's cool to see how some of the elements from "The Wizard of Oz" tie in or came to be. Overall, it's one of my top two favorite musicals of all time! If you ever have the chance, go to Wicked!!! And tell me, so I can go with you!!!

Productive Weekend

I love weekends! I especially love weekends that are both fun and productive. Some weekends fall into the mostly-fun, not-that-productive category. I ennjoy weekends like that...but afterwards, I sometimes feel like I'm slightly behind in life-maintenance activites. Some weekends are mostly-productive, not-much fun. I relish the sense of accomplishment after such a weekend, but I prefer to have at least a few moments of escape from must-do activities.

This weekend has been the perfect combination of both. Activites on the fun side include:
~ Seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exhibit is a fascinating glimpse in to life in ancient Israel. Seeing the actual scrolls themselves is amazing! I love that the words I read in my Bible, published just a few years ago, are the same words that were written on those scrolls 2000 years ago.
~ Having lunch at Boulangerie Philippe . We tried to go to a couple of different restaurants in the Crossroads District that are on my list of places to try, but it turns out that neither place is open for lunch on the weekends. So, we headed to a restaurant that I love but don't get to very often.
~ Watching the KU basketball team beat up on Iowa State.
~ Watching The Guardian . It's a kind of cheesy movie, but I liked it. It's about swimming, after all. How could I not enjoy it?

Things knocked off my to-do list:
~Donated an old TV. It's been sitting on the floor of the yellow room, where it's been getting in the way of my sit-up routine for three weeks.
~Grocery shopping. Some people love to grocery shop. I am not one of them.
~ Vacuuming my car! I can count on one hand (without using all of my fingers) the number of times I vacuumed my old car. It's amazing how my new car can motivate me to keep it clean inside. In the 13 months I've owned it, I've vacuumed it more than the 9 years I owned the other one.
~Touching up the paint on the windows in my study. I just got new windows in here and some of the paint got chipped in the installation process. Also, the holes left by the old blinds were screaming at me to fill them in and paint over them. Done!

A weekend like this one is definitely a little thing that brings me a lot of happiness.