Masquerade

I went through a phase (at about age 12) where I listened to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack endlessly. And ever since then, I have wanted to go to a masquerade-not only because of the Phantom song, but because what could be better than dressing up in sparkles, feathers and swirly skirts and dancing to music played by a live orchestra and drinking sparkly drinks in long-stemmed glasses? NOTHING.

So when I got the e-mail from the International Club of DC announcing their Fall Masquerade Gala, well...you know what I'm going to say: I signed up. And I bought a mask and I got out my dancing shoes, and I tried really hard to make my un-formal black cocktail dress seem Very Formal. And I think I succeeded:



And not only were there sparkly drinks in long-stemmed glasses, but there was a dinner buffet, a dessert buffet, and gads of tuxedo-ed men who knew how to dance. At first I was a little wobbly on the dances I didn't know, which included...well, everything except salsa and tango. But I picked up on the waltz, hustle, cha cha and foxtrot, which are all pretty straightforward. And FUN. Because how can you not have fun when you are dressed like this



and feel so mysterious and seductive?

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In movie news, I went with some friends to see The Legend of Zorro on Friday, and I Netflix-ed Baran yesterday. Zorro is, as you would expect, full of swords and horses and ragged emotions and beautiful people. The little boy is *adorable*. Catherine Zeta-Jones is gorgeous and wears pretty dresses while fighting bad guys. And Antonio Banderas is dreamy. Who cares that the timeline is historically questionable? See it anyway.

Baran is, well, NOT Zorro. It's an Iranian film about Afghan workers in Iran: a young teenager discovers that his fellow construction worker is actually a girl and he falls in love with her, despite extremely limited circumstances. This movie is beautiful. More is said in Baran's eyes than in the dialogue (Well--I could be wrong about that, since it's subtitled, but I think it's a fair bet) and the film makes subtle points throughout about love, sacrifice, humanity and generosity. Very moving, and very sad, because foreign movies with snow are always sad. Always. And you should see it, too.

The contents of the parcel

Look at what a happy parcel it is!

(And if you don't know about the parcel, you need to read my other post, Misery Loves Company.)

What to do on a glum day when you can't go outside but must keep busy...

Something to do if you find yourself with a lot of Jell-o on hand.

Something to listen to. I really like this--Evangelicals Out of the Box. At last, for those of us who don't want to be lumped in with the popular stereotype. I think I'll write more about this later, when I digest it a little.

And something else, for the bookworms. I think it is the Type A in me that is so fascinated by this.

Misery Loves Company

It has been a rough week. And by "rough," I mean, "often miserable." We need not explore this further, but I would like to mention - and thank - a few people who made my week significantly less miserable:

1. Lisa. Lisa, if you were not aware, is a wonderful human being. The kind of wonderful that makes you glad you are not the only one who thinks that way, and isn't the world full of beautiful and interesting things, and by the way, isn't this a marvelous cup of tea? Moreover, the kind of wonderful that makes you feel that way even if you have puffy eyes and incoherent speech.

2. Rami. A down-to-earth, genuine, encouraging gentleman. When one is feeling complicated and complex and like one can't think about anything anymore because one might collapse into a soggy mess and one won't even have solved any of those complicated problems for all that thinking, all one needs is a visit with Rami. Because Rami will remind you that life is better when you take it at face value and that this, too, shall pass. He will also remind you that true gentlemen are alive and well in the world.

3. A really cool Iraqi Fulbright Scholar that we met at an utterly Washingtonian dinner last night. More about him later. He deserves a whole post.

4. Chocolate and Zucchini. Not the blog, although the blog is great. The forums are what made my day. Let me explain a bit. It was an inspired idea by one of the forum readers to do a "Blog by Mail," sort of a Secret Santa idea, where we each get assigned a name of someone far away, someone who also reads the forum. We go out and spend 10 - 20 dollars on yummy local food items and package it up nicely and pop it in the mail on October 10, and then a week later (give or take) each of us would receive a lovely parcel in the mail filled with good things from far away.

Well, as you know, I used to live in Fritwell. And my package arrived from Birmingham, a mere hour from Fritwell. And my Secret Santa had, ingeniously, googled my name, found my blog, read my Fritwell post, and then GONE TO FRITWELL to collect things for my parcel. YES. Including: beermats from the local pub and autumnal dried leaves from the very streets I grew up on. Also included in the box were: MINI CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS. Scotch whiskey and accompanying truffles. Cadbury's sweets. Organic Bombay snack mix. An orange leaf-shaped candle. A nifty spatula. Rooibos tea bags in a neat little pouch. Lavendar jelly. Blueberry and pansy jam. Homemade pear chutney. And little chocolates shaped like Christmas puddings. And a picture of Fritwell, an assessment of the local pub food (a postive one, I must say), and a homemade CD with autumn flavored tunes. Really! Could it be more delightful?! No, my friend, it could not.

Things That Make You Think

Aha! I'm glad I didn't stop reading Friedman totally, even though I was mad at him for a while and even though NYTimes.com now CHARGES to read op-eds. His most recent contribution, Leading by (Bad) Example, is great. It'll be on Lexis-Nexis, etc, if you, like me, don't want to pay FIVE DOLLARS to read the NYTimes.com post. It's also printed in various other places around the net. I found it via Google.

I was Very Cultured lately and saw not one, but two small-ish movies at the Landmark E Street Cinema: Good Night, and Good Luck, about newsman Murrow's fight against McCarthy, and Innocent Voices, about the civil war in El Salvador. Both very good, although the latter is quite possibly the saddest movie I've seen all year. Don't see it if you don't have a strong constitution: boy soldiers, murders, guerilla warfare, all up close and personal. It's very moving and makes its point effectively. Good Night and Good Luck is worth a see, and no boy soldiers or murders take place (which is nice, sometimes) plus, a heftier George Clooney in suspenders, lots of cigarette smoke, a not-so-subtle commentary on modern politics, and that nice cultured feeling you get after watching a black-and-white movie that inevitably leads to coffeehouse discussions.