michelleann68 and I had together and what an amazing city I live in. (You know, the one that I'm still gobsmacked about someone refusing to be happy when they were privileged enough to come and live here.)Shocking Barrowmania News!
michelleann68 showed me an episode of "The Kids Are All Right" and I thought to myself that if this was the only thing I'd ever seen John in, I would absolutely hate him and never want to see him again, no matter how pretty. Seriously awful. The writing, the editing, John's whole demeanour are horrible. I don't get it, because he can be so charming in a game-show situation and we know he loves working with kids. It was just appalling. The best way I can sum it up is ALL SMARM, NO CHARM. As soon as I knew
michelleann68 was coming to town, I'd been trying to line up some kind of show for us to see together. My first choice would have been Beach Blanket Babylon, because it rocks. I also investigated A Midsummer Night's Dream, Coco, and Whistle Down The Wind. Either the dates were wrong, the tickets were too expensive or the bastard booking service wouldn't let me book 3 tickets instead of 2 or 4. Instead I ran into my friend Frank at the Mint about a week before and he reminded me that San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus 30th Anniversary Gala at Davies Symphony Hall was coming up the Friday that my guest was arriving. Whooooo-hoooooo!!!!I managed to keep the outing a secret until the day she got there, even though she's not much on surprises. As soon as I got home and met
michelleann68, I knew it was going to be a great trip. She's absolutely lovely. Totally down to earth, and even though she's part of 2009: A Squeeee Odyssey, we both managed to stay calm enough to keep my hubby from feeling he was in a Nursery School or an Insane Asylum.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Aside from stress on my part getting out of work on time, everything went perfect. We had a heat-wave in progress and walked to symphony from my apartment, had an amazing dinner in Hayes Valley at restaurant called Sauce, which I would never have gone to otherwise. (The mushroom soup was described on the menu as "Love in a bowl" and certainly lived up to the billing.)
The concert was fabulous, and it was an especially emotional experience because everyone was really high and giddy because of the California Supreme Court decision on Gay Marriage that had come down the day before. Just a total celebration of being out and gay and wonderful, with great music, both serious and frivolous. Showtunes and pop music. A world premiere of a piece in Arabic that was absolutely stunning. A totally hysterically pastiche of classical bits called Gay vs Straight that took off on which composers were and weren't. The ending was part of an original work in progress and Frank had an wonderful solo. I don't move easily and I was very close to tears throughout a lot of the show.
Afterwards we took advantage of the heat and walked back to the Mission, including the obligatory nighttime walk around Dolores Park to see the incredible view from the top of the park. So beautiful.
In the AM, we went down to Cafe Petra, where unfortunately, she had trouble hooking up to the high-speed but did have a nice bagel and the ever-lovely Mango Ice-tea, which was perfect as the heat-wave was still in progress.
Our first mission of the day was the Bay To Breakers expo to pick up t-shirts and do some shopping. I tried to keep that to a minimum because the first rule of any race, even something as crazy as Bay to Breakers, is get to the start line with fresh feet.
Once back home we picked up hubby and did a very little bit of Mission Touring. Basically this meant I showed her two murals, the Woman's Building and the "Duck Mural" and then we ditched hubby again, made pilgrimage to Castro Street where we quelled low blood sugar with a purchase at Hot Cookie and proceeded back down Market Street to the Mint.
Great Mint afternoon, including David O, Jim, Yanni, Jim the Bartender, and of course Big Frank who was in good spirits from the concert. I put poor
michelleann68 through about 4 hours of Minty Goodness which included much frivolity, lots of John songs, a Sondheim fest and the highlight which was Jim imitating Yanni, including his accent and distinctive mannerisms. It was a hoot. By the time we left, at 6-ish, the heat-wave had broken. With a vengeance. We could see the fog coming in as we walked down Guerrero street to Il Cantuccio. Yumyumyumyum. I had the Gnocchi, hubby had linguini pomodoro and
michelleann68 had Pumpkin Ravioli. Plus we all gorged on bread and green stuff. Our evening's entertainment was my long-awaited opportunity to see QI. AWESOME. And somewhat shocking because I remember John Sessions from old skool Whose Line and Rich Hall from back in his Real People days and they both looked a helluva lot different. But the whole thing is wonderful and witty and hysterical and OMG the Stephen/Alan slash vibes are really off the charts. Now I can understand a bunch of the catch-phrases flying around the Hugh/Stephen verse many of which tend to go over my head.
I made it through about five episodes before it was Crash Time because we had to get up VERY EARLY the following morning.
TBC