The Best of All Possible . . . Months

Because it's that time of year, and I'll be out of town when I normally catalog the bests of the year for myself, I decided to do it a little early. It was a pretty wonderful year, so enjoy! More bests of . . . posts to come.

January: After moving to DC, seeing Bradley Whitford and Peter Yarrow singing if I Had a Hammer within one week of moving here ranked as pretty gamazing. Oh, yeah –Inauguration was kind of great, too. Beyonce. Josh Groban, Obama and Shelly O. in one day. Woah.

Feburary included a four day weekend of gloriousness with Matthew S., in which we spent half of the time eating, half of the time watching musicals, and the other half of the time tromping about DC with panache (yes, some of the halves overlap). So that wins the prize.

March’s highlight was a trip to Boston – the fabulous Hilary S. was in town, so I decided to come up for a four day weekend of best friends (we had an almost-complete Octet reunion, minus Mat. S), a little Brandeis, and a lot of wonderful. A. There was a picnic in Boston Commons, and b. I was not longer the sadsad person I was when I visited in November, so March wins! March also included Purim and my first ACEEE Conference, on Market Transformation!

April was a month full of favorites – the month began with a visit by Katherine C. and Sarah K., that somehow got me sunburnt in 65-degree weather, included Pesach at home and at Aunt Amy’s, a trip to visit Prisco in Olean, NY, and . . . my birthday! Hooray! As I said, great month.

May's highlights included my first Founding Farmers experience, my 5-year high school reunion, a trip to explore Virginia’s wine country, and Excel training. You would think that Excel training would not make the list. You would be wrong.

June was busting out all over with goodness – I attended my first TV premiere (the Philanthropist, followed by fabulous reception at CoCo Sala), saw Shrek the Musical and experienced the wonderfulness of Sutton Foster, met Allison Janney (yes, that’s Claudia Jean Cregg to you), and discovered Eastern Market (and subsequently went there four times that month).

July was jam-packed with wonderfulness, all involving either theater (Spring Awakening, the Color Purple, and Candide) or the newly-returned-from-cantorial-school Sarah K. (namely, the Best Berkshires/Boston Road Trip Ever).

August was a beastly and intense work month, but I still somehow managed to go to West Virginia (and experience whitewater rafting for the first time!), attend Signature Theater’s amazing Open House, build a LOT of IKEA furniture for Alli, and get back to NYC for Avenue Q, South Pacific and an Ethel Merman-themed revue, all with the indefatigable Matt S..

September included the release of my first ACEEE paper!, an amazing Labor Day weekend with Katherine C., the High Holidays, AND the my first trip to Chicago for the EER Conference (+ fabulous visiting with Zach S., Matt H., and Mike M.)

October was full of Zoo training, my cousin Josh’s wedding on Long Island, and my first good non-Brandeis Simchat Torah! Other highlights included the High Heel Drag Race in Dupont Circle, Barney Frank at Sixth and I, and Halloween in DC!

November’s highlight was by far the weekend in Annapolis/Baltimore with Mom. Visits by Missy M, Jonathan H., and Sara R. were pretty wonderful as well.

December isn’t over, so it may be too early to tell what it’s highlights were, but I’m sure they include A Little Night Music in NY and catching up with semi-long-lost Gordon 3 girls that weekend. Danny’s surprise 30^th birthday, Showboat at Signature Theater, and, you know COSTA RICA, are definite contenders for the list.

And I'll trip the light fandango!

I began my NYC adventure with a bus ride on Friday afternoon, and I had the good sense to rent a movie on my iPod – I chose The Proposal, because apparently I’m going through a bit of a Sandra Bullock phase after seeing The Blind Side over Thanksgiving. It was great fun, especially the scene where she dances to “Get Low” with Betty White. Priceless.

I arrived at Sarah’s lovely (and conveniently located! So close to Grand Central!) apartment, where I vigorously reunited with Matt and Sarah, then headed out for dinner. We went to this great Japanese place, Umi Sushi, where we all had gorgeous sushi rolls (mine was salmon avocado with spicy salmon + caviar on top = YUM). We galumphed to the Walter Kerr theater (which I had never been to before – such a pretty Grecian-looking ceiling!), where we sat for a bit and got ourselves quite excited for the theater to come.

Said anticipatory excitement hovered on multiple levels. First of all, it was my first Sondheim musical on Broadway. As with many things in life, I appreciate things more when it takes me a little bit to warm up to them (you know when you’re teaching Hebrew school and you finally connect to the kid who’s annoying at the beginning of the year? That’s what Sondheim was like for me.) I spent the majority of college resisting Matt’s vigorous attempts to get me to love Sondheim, but I finally cracked when we watched the Patti LuPone/George Hearn concert of Sweeney Todd. Anyway, since then I’ve fallen in love with Merrily We Roll Along and Sweeney and Follies, and I’ve begun to really appreciate the genius of his lyrics (I like them ALMOST as much as I like Cole Porter, which is really saying something).

So needless to say, I was excited about the Sondheim-ness. Add to that the presence of Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the cast, and I was fit to burst with excitement. From the waltz that began the show to the beautiful reprise of Send in the Clowns at the end, I was entranced. Everything was so artfully done – the staging was clever and fluid, especially in A Weekend in the Country and the Glamorous Life, the costumes were out-of-this-world exquisite, and the acting and singing were really just fabulous.

Matt and I had a little out-of-body holy-crap-is-that-actually-her? moment when Angela Lansbury started singing, and rightly so. Her comic timing was impeccable, and her take on Mme. Armfeldt was spot-on. Catherine Zeta-Jones made Desiree into this wonderful, manipulative, sympathetic character. I never really got the deal with Send in the Clowns before, and I think that’s because it really only makes sense in the context of the scene. Or perhaps she just acted it so well that it finally made sense to me. Either way, it was wonderful. Other favorites – everything that the miserably hilarious Charlotte said had me in stitches, and Frederik was just perfection. I could go on talking about this forever, but I’ll stop for now.

Afterwards, we waited by the stage door, and saw Alexander Hanson and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and then headed to Margarita Murphy’s to meet up with Missy and David for drinks and catching up. That was ridiculously good times, especially since Sarah and I decided to play our game of making themed playlists (remember the very successful Beltin’ Broadway Babes?) Well, we did that, but with Old Lady song and “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist Songs, and Pep Songs . . . great success. Matt and Sarah and I crashed WAY later than my usual bedtime, and woke up semi-early on Saturday morning . . .oy.

We brunched at a cute diner near Sarah’s, where I had an avocado/tomato/cheddar omelette (which I’ve since recreated v successfully at home), and then we said goodbye to Matt (after creating another great Broadway playlist – traveling songs!). Sarah and I spent the afternoon in because it was cold and rainy, and she introduced me to Psych, which is fast becoming my new favorite show, and we watched The American President, one of my top ten favorite movies of all time.

Saturday evening I bundled up for the intense cold, and headed down by NYU for Indian dinner with Mat, Sarah, Katherine and her roommate! The food was a little spicy for me, but it was SO nice to catch up with them. Afterwards, we bundled into Katherine's apartment, watched the Gordon 3 video (oy.), and then went to a bar down the street for Yoni's birthday -- I got to see a bunch of Deis people I haven't seen since graduation, which was really nice.

Alltogether a perfectly wonderful 36 hours of friends and theater and music and food -- NYC is good to me :)