another year, bound for glory

We've wandered up to Vermont for the week: a fairly easy drive with just three of us (the 61). The boys departed on Saturday for the U.P. so they are ensconced in the cold and surrounded by trigger happy potheads* of near Canada. We pulled the all night drive up Saturday (departed at 8:38p) through NYC (hit the GW Bridge at 12:39), and reached the house in Vermont at 3:58a. Absolutely zero traffic. The total, in case you might wonder, was 735 miles in 740 minutes. I almost made the 'Joe DiMaggio' trip. That time include our two short stops - clearly the 735 minute drive is the ultimate goal.

On Friday night the 61 once again journeyed into D.C. for a show at the Redrum Theater - we must be the only people to have spent two evenings there. This was for The Santaland Diaries (Sedaris) staged for the fourth year by a Joe Brack; great stuff, highly entertaining, and something you can watch and simply hear the voice of Sedaris coming straight from Brack's mouth. He has another play from last summer's FringeFestival that he's taking on tour after the new year, My Princess Bride, which is a one-man version of the movie. When he announced that at the end of the show, L and X just about screamed with delight. I, for one, have never even watch The Princess Bride in its entirety, but I'll no doubt book tickets when he brings it back to D.C some time next year. We used this opportunity to venture to Ping Pong Dim Sum for dinner, which yielded some very good dim sum, drinks, and atmosphere for a reasonable (D.C.) price.

I was planning on doing some type of year-end music roundabout, but I don't think I have the time or willpower to get too deep into it. It's been a nice year for music, and even though I wasn't particularly high on Mumford and Sons sophomore release, it's grown on me over the year. In particular, Below My Feet toward the end of the CD sort of brought me back around to the entire disc. It's a great song, and so my offering is this live version:



Oh, wait. If you don't like that one, I'll incorporate them into this ten minutes of bliss:



* citation: H. reported once from the cabin in the U.P. that he was bored because everyone in the house was watching football (Packers' fans), and screaming at the TV. Henry has zero interest in football. And, he reported, he couldn't go wander around outside because it was dark and the land was roamed by "trigger happy potheads."