I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes

(1) Those of you who have heard me talk about the annual Popcorn Festival in my hometown (the Saturday after Labor Day)? This year's headline band is the Spin Doctors. I am so there! (etrace isn't impressed, but hey, he wasn't going to get within 10 miles of the Fest anyway.)

(2) Robert Downey Jr. started a legit personal Twitter feed back in April. Somehow, I only just found out about it this week. Seriously.

I suppose this is also a good time to mention for posterity the loss of Robin Williams on Monday, which hit me in a way that celebrity deaths almost never do. My deep and abiding affection for him dates back to the Mork & Mindy days -- and then particularly Dead Poets Society. This week, every time I saw someone preface a comment or headline with "O Captain, my Captain!", it about broke my heart. If only we could have all gotten up on our desks for him.

(We happened to watch the second half or so of The Birdcage recently, since it turned up on TV one night after our episode of Game of Thrones finished. And while I almost turned it off in the middle because of the aggravation of watching them all try harder and harder to be their false selves... I couldn't actually do it, because both Robin Williams and Nathan Lane are just so charming and brilliant even in the depths of their desperation. And then there was the happy and tolerance-affirming ending, if that's not a spoiler for anyone, so it all came right after all.)

In unrelated news, we finished watching Season 3 of GoT, which means I have now seen all the episodes to date (we watched all of Season 4 as it came out, intermingled with my first time through the series from the beginning). But of course we now have to watch Season 4 over again.

Okay, off to finish making Friday night dinner :-)

The big move took place a few days ago. Huge props to filkerdave for providing enormous moral and logistical support throughout both Saturday (when we basically packed my entire kitchen, then drove over an initial carload of Non-Truckable Things) and Sunday (when the actual movers came). Stats as posted to Facebook on Sunday evening:

Load-out: ~2.75 hrs.
Load-in: ~2.25 hrs.
Grief-related meltdowns: only 1.5.
On the whole, a successful move.

(trowa_barton: "What constitutes half a meltdown?" One full-on, standing out on 116th St. by the truck, to the point where the moving guys asked if everything was OK; one momentary, later, after all the hauling was done, when we made shehecheyanu over well-earned gin and tonics.)

Barbara and Arnold were passing through town and came over Brooklynward just at the right time to see the place and go out for Indian food with us, so that was perfect.

Then two days of work, and then I went on a 2-day work retreat to the Hamptons (which was only mildly eventful, in a nice and not-very-work-related way), so I am now back.

The good news is, as of this afternoon (shortly before I returned), we now have hot & cold running Internet! So I am not just back, but back online. The even better news is, I have a comp day tomorrow, so I will be home to (a) unpack, (a') maybe do laundry, (b) catch up on email, (c) visit with DF, and (d) get the cooking gas installed sometime between noon and 6pm.

But right now, I get to GO TO BED and that is the best news of all.

So on Tuesday night, May 7, justom and I went to see Talley's Folly, featuring Danny Burstein and Sarah Paulson.

As many or most of you know, I was in theatreatfirst's 2005 production of this play back in Boston, so it's very close to my heart.

( not really a review, just some personal commentary )