So You Think You Can Dance

So I always thought I could dance, but oh my goodness not like this. If you love to dance or love watching dance then I highly recommend the reality dance contest television show, "So You Think You Can Dance". The choreography is amazing! What a compelling artform!



This is one of my favorites from this season.



This is one of my favorites from the season before. They call this lyrical hip hop.

Happy Friday!

I love Louie CK! He tickles my funny bone!

Happy Friday

This video makes me soooooooooooooo happy!

Do the happy dance with me!

Esperanza Spalding

Esperanza Spalding's Chamber music is another album I recently purchased that I can't stop listening to.

At age 20 she became a professor at the Berklee College of Music at age 20!

As a rule, I am not a jazz fan, but I am in love with Esperanza! David Letterman said that she was the coolest guest he has ever had on his show. Her birthday is the day before mine, this fact alone makes her cool in my book! Gorgeous beauty, gorgeous music and mad talent, what's not to love?

Florence + The Machine

Cover art for Florence + The Machine's new CD Lungs

I bought the Florence + The Machine CD Lungs last weekend. I love it when I find a CD that I can play straight through and enjoy every single song! You may already be familiar with the song "Dog Days are Over", due to the prolific airplay it has been receiving on the radio. I also love the songs, "Rabbit Heart" and "Kiss With a Fist", but I have to say that I hate the video for "Kiss With a Fist". It makes light of the heavy topic of domestic violence. The words are so powerful and the video is playful, low tech and trivial. The images may go with the music, but not the content of the song. I am pissed off by it.

My daughter and I were listening to it in the car this morning. She asked me what Florence meant by "A kiss with a fist is better than none." I explained to her that unfortunately, some people have violent relationships and sometimes people do not love themselves enough and/or feel powerless to end the relationship that is hurting them. I took this opportunity to plant the seed that she should never be with someone who hurts her. She nodded her head vigorously in a "no duh" kind of way. I could tell that she found the concept horrific and I hated to diminish her childhood innocence, but the message is too important, to pass on such a teachable moment.

The Help

I just finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett, a recommendation from Alisa of Daily Violets. I am thankful to my friend for turning me on to such a wonderful book and I am so glad I finished it before the movie came out.

A few weeks ago, I learned that a friend and colleague was reading the book too. I squealled and asked her, "How far along are you?". A moment later another co-worker walked up and asked my friend if she was pregnant. We had to laugh when we realized the miscommunication. This is how rumors get started, right!

The Help is the best book I have read in quite a long time. I rank it up there with The Secret Life of Bees. The voices of the characters are so authentic. I applaud Kathryn Stockett the bravery it took to write about issues of race as a white woman. She is a masterful story teller.

Now that I live in the South, race is on the forefront of my mind. One of the reasons I moved to Savannah, Georgia, was to live in a city that was more ethnically diverse than my former city of fifteen years, Santa Cruz, California. Santa Cruz, while being a very liberal town, is ironically pretty darn white. I want my daughter to grow up with friends of different cultures and races. We live in a global society and it is long past time for all of us to learn to play together nicely.

I work in an office building and there is a woman who works here with me. She empties my trash can twice a day, vacuums my cubicle and cleans the office bathroom, amongst other duties. I heard that her predecessor was fired for being caught sitting down on the job.

As a green freak I will empty my trash into my neighbor's, so that another plastic bag isn't put into the landfill on my watch. I think she thinks I am just trying to help her. She laughs at me. I can't stand sitting at my computer while she cleans around me.

I asked her what her mother did for work and she said she comes from a long line of janitorial workers. I told her about the book and movie. I am so curious what she will think about it. I thank her every day and we make small talk. I wonder if I annoy her.

Stockett's book, while based in the early sixties, is extremely relevant today. It makes you think about how far we have come, when it comes to race relations, and how far we still have to go.

My Favorite Tree

My husband took this picture yesterday of a baby raccoon getting caught stealing figs out of our tree. The raccoon was thinking, "Oh shit, what do I do now?"

Do you have a favorite tree? I don't mean a favorite kind of tree, but rather an individual tree that you have loved?

We planted this fig tree when we first moved to Savannah. It was only about two feet tall then and now look at it five years later. It is busting with figs! There is nothing like a fresh fig with a bit of Gorgonzola stuffed in the middle. Yummy sweet and cheesy goodness - it is so simple and yet so gourmet!

I planted this tree in our new home in honor of my favorite tree of all time. It was a giant fig tree that was in the backyard of the "Collective" that my family lived in with two other families in Berkeley, in the seventies. I know this explains a lot....

I used to climb this tree daily. The bark was smooth and the limbs were huge and spread out, making it a perfect tree to climb. I would climb up to the center of the tree and just hang out.

I remember my first ever bout with insomnia being the night that I spent fantasizing about building a tree house in this wonderful tree. My fantasy tree house was so cool! I was inspired by this television episode of "Zoom", where this teenage boy built this amazing multi-level tree house. I think it even had a bathroom, or if it didn't my fantasy tree house certainly did. I could not get it out of my head. This must have been my first house fantasy. Perhaps this has something to with why I am compelled to troll real estate websites, when I actually love my current home very much. Is this a pathology?

I hear that in Florida there are tree houses that you can go camping in. Learn more about them here.

I am sad to say that I do not believe that my daughter has ever climbed a tree. How can this be possible? It makes me want to run outside this very minute and scout out some good tree climbing trees for her. She needs to have this simple childhood experience before it is too late.