Monday, October 29, 2007

So, you think you had a busy weekend?

My weekends are usually rather uneventful. Typically, I go to a couple/few restaurants, catch up on my sleep, run some errands, etc, etc. This past weekend, however, I had not one, but two special events and am now tired and a wee bit cranky because I missed the whole "catch up on my sleep" part of the weekend. That, and my allergies are driving me freaking insane but I can't take a Benedryl because it will make me even sleepier. I love Fall and I hate Fall. More love than hate, but allergies are a bitch. Anyway...

Friday night I left work and headed 100 miles north toward Albany, Missouri to attend Sue's (my ex-stepmom) 50th birthday party. The party was held at the Spitfire Grill, one of a handful of restaurants in Albany. Since Sue's birthday is on Halloween, the birthday party was also a Halloween party/costume contest. Sue and the Spitfire went all out with Halloween decorations and the place looked incredible. There were pumpkins on all the tables, and lots of cobwebs and bats and hay bales and ghosts and witches and even an inflatable spider and an inflatable Frankenstein monster.

I didn't dress up for two reasons. One, I had to drive an hour and a half to get there and didn't want to wear a costume for that long, and two, I don't know what I would have been, anyway. My sister and her friend dressed up as Wayne and Garth.

Overall, the party was a huge success and everyone had a great time. Thank you Sue, for turning 50 and throwing a heckuva good party!

Now on to Saturday. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm a sucker for So You Think You Can Dance and was so excited to get tickets to the tour stopover at the Sprint Center. We began our evening with dinner at Eden Alley, where I had the best curry dahl I've ever had. As we left the restaurant, this was going on across the street:

Yes, those are bear and cat costumes. Yes, they were dancing. No, I don't know what in the hell they were doing there.

We headed to the Sprint Center and parked for $5 in a well-lit garage two blocks north of the venue. So much for the parking worries. Being close to the Sprint Center, I felt like I was somewhere other than Kansas City. The light shining from within the structure is quite striking:

I didn't see much art inside the building, but this was really impressive:

As we entered the arena, I was surprised at how the place felt big and intimate at the same time. We had really good seats for the show, but I think that 90% of the seats could be considered really good.

My favorite part of the Sprint Center is something I forgot to take a picture of, probably because I was too excited. There are food counters all around the arena, most of which serve the typical overpriced arena fare - for example, $3.50 for a cup of hot chocolate or chocolate chip cookie. I'm not gonna pay that unless I'm literally starving to death. But the good people at Quik Trip understand me, and that's why there's a Quik Trip in the Sprint Center. Instead of spending $7 on hot chocolate and a cookie, we got a cappuccino and two donuts (really good donuts, I must say) for $2.72. That made me so happy!

My happiness continued as the show began. As I said, we had good seats, and could see the dancing really well. All of my favorite dances from the 2007 season were performed, and overall, they were more impressive in person. Some of them lost a little without full make-up (like the Wade Robson choreographed good/evil number for Neil and Lauren) but others, like practically every Danny number, were better than on the original show.

Only flash photography was prohibited, so I got a few pictures. Here's most of the cast, minus Jesus, Hok and Shauna, who were waiting in the wings:

Here's Neil and Sabra during their amazing pasa doble:


  1. Which one was Wayne and which one was Garth (just kidding)?

    The Sprint Center looks badass- now we need that hockey team!

  2. Oh, and we had a casserole last night with leeks...