Items of Interest

First of all and most importantly of all, I have joyous news to impart. As of last week, D&W (otherwise a mostly worthless and overpriced grocery, but I say nothing) is carrying a line of stir-fry sauces from Yen Ching. This line includes General Tso sauce - hooray! Now I just have to figure out how to make the tempura chicken. That'll be easy, right?

As my dear Mr B has recorded already, last week found us in Chicago. There, as you will certainly gather from his account, we ate like pigs who had lost interest in life and really let themselves go. Not recorded in his posts are the visits to the Ghiradelli, Hershey, and Lindt stores. To all who anticipate travel to the Windy City, note this: each of these stores offers free samples upon entering the store, and the person handing out free samples never looks up. You can go through again and again and they never catch on. Fun times. All I can say is that the baby wanted chocolate. And as far as the Morton's dinner went... well, clearly the baby wanted beef and lots of it. They say protein is important during pregnancy, right?

We attended the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performance of Mahler's Third Symphony. Firstly, the positives. The building is very beautiful. The symphony orchestra itself is a very talented group, with the brass section in particular getting a chance to shine. Michelle DeYoung was the visiting mezzo-soprano and she does have a very lovely voice (though girlfriend should consider some anti-frizz treatment for her hair). I hadn't been to a symphony performance so far this year, and thoroughly enjoyed going again. I really do enjoy classical music and am always ready to jump at an opportunity to attend a performance.

Now. The negatives. I have two main complaints, neither of which I expect sympathy for, but which I shall share nonetheless. First of all, while flanked on the left by my dear Mr B, seated next to me on the right was a gentleman of considerable girth and not so apparent standards of hygiene. That is to say, he stunk to high heaven. In addition to these considerable disadvantages, he appeared to suffer from emphysema or COPD or some such respiratory distress. This distress he made worse by silently weeping throughout the duration of the performance. The pattern of the evening was then to weep and wheeze, alternately, with some apparently moving sections producing heavier weeping and the resultant desperate wheezing and clutching for air. Strangely, all this silent but copious emotion and pulminary distress seemed to make the stench worse. Most distressing.

The second negative is that the symphony was written by Mahler. Now, it may well be that Herr Mahler was a convivial sort, perhaps even a barrel of laughs. I don't know much about his life. What I do know is that he wrote some really awful music. The 3rd Symphony, which we heard, was apparently based off a work of Nietzsche. Not a good indicator of what was to come. His music is why people think they hate classical music. It's the sort of music that goes on and on and on being quiet and boring only to startle all of the dozing audience by having the trumpets and drums come crashing in pointlessly. If the Symphony we heard was any indication of Mahler's other works, he seemed to be a fan of the endless ending. That's when the music gives every indication that it is coming to an end, and in fact seems to have ended, only to, against all reason, continue and give at least five more false endings before finally, mercifully, coming to a stop. They should consider playing Mahler down at Club Gitmo. While awful in a different way than Britney Spears, it might be just as effective.

That said, it was fun to go and I'm glad we went. We had fun times shopping on Michigan Ave and certainly enjoyed the trip over all. Fun times, y'all.

In other news, the ignitor went out on my oven, but will be replaced tomorrow (let the peasants rejoice).

Last night Mr B and I went to a dismally boring training session on how to be poll challengers. I hope the job isn't as boring as the training and I really hope I don't have to work with some of the yutzes who were asking stupid questions and prolonging the agony for all of us. I am anxious to see which ghetto precinct they're going to put me into and whether or not I'll have to do much challenging. I actually hope I get to challenge something and feel like I did my part to keep election procedures fair, legal, and etc. Also, I think I will bring cookies so the poll workers will like me.

Hmmm... what else? Probably not so much. Mayhap I will write more soon, but I wouldn't count on it if I were you. Also, how is it one updates to this Beta Blogger, and is it worth it? Hmm...