Will Getting Wigged for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Wolf Trap

Will is performing this weekend as a member of the Arlington Children's Chorus at Wolf Trap in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (review here).  Will loves to sing and he has had a variety of performance experience but this was, by his own report, his biggest challenge.  He was on stage extensively during the three hour opera.  It is his most professional stage experience.  He had a wig (including fiber optics in his hair), makeup and a custom made costume(!).

I attended the matinee performance today, and had a chance to see and photograph the kids getting made up and 'wigged'.  It was a complicated affair, at least to me, with several steps including a white base, tying the hair down to better accept a wig, putting a sort of stocking cap on, then the wig, then blush and lipstick(!).  Will still looked a lot like Will after all the machinations but some of the other kids were completely unrecognizable!

He has one more performance on Tuesday, and continues to enjoy the performances, in spite of the late nights.  I do agree with the WaPo review, especially in wondering why Hermia would have the hots for a guy in long shorts and knee socks. 

More photos to come...

  

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I cannot believe this

It is 7:45 am but it is PITCH BLACK outside, like night, and another storm is starting to rage.  Last week there was a horrible thunderstorm and high winds that knocked devastated areas of Alexandria and people have only just barely recovered.  People had trees through their houses, their cars crushed and overturned, lost power for days.  We were fortunate not to be so affected.  It seems unbelievable that no one was killed or injured.  I cannot believe it is starting again.  I hope it passes quickly without so much damage.  CROSS YOUR FINGERS.

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

Pyramid Valley Vineyards (Central Otago, NZ) and Williams-Selyem (Sonoma Coast) with dinner at Restaurant L'Atelier in Montreal

This is a belated update on a great dinner I recently had in Montreal with wonderful wine and company. I was returning for a day with colleagues and we had agreed I would bring some wine and my Montreal colleagues would pick the restaurant. They did a great job (thanks Nath). We met for dinner at Restaurant L'Atelier and it was excellent. Our server was enthusiastic, helpful and knowledgeable (doing her best for those of us who were French challenged) and the food was delicious. Poutine is a Montreal comfort food traditionally consisting of French Fries with cheese curd and brown gravy. I had L'Atelier's upscale version as an appetizer, and it was French Fries with aged cheddar, confit of rabbit and brown gravy over fresh cut fries. It would have been enough dinner on it's own. For the main course I had seared duck breast and for dessert a nougat. Nougat was new to me, sort of whipped cream or gelatin (I am not sure which) with chocolate chips and candied fruit mixed in. It was great with espresso and would have been even better with a little grappa. Excellent rich food, not subtle and not for the dieter or vegetarian. I brought two wines. We had a New Zealand Pinot Noir first. The Pyramid Valley was dark and concentrated and would have benefited either with more bottle age, or decanting. It was good from the beginning, but the last few sips had really opened up and were far better than the first pours. We learned our lesson and decanted the Williams-Selyem because I expected it to also be a rich wine. Whether from the decanting or just the wine itself, it was more of a 'wow' from the first glass. A strong dried fruit base with a lot of aromatics in the nose. I know Sonoma Cost is high on the Pinot hype scale right now, but the wines I have had from that area have been amazing. I certainly think L'Atelier is worth another visit, and I want to try a more typical downscale poutine next time I am in Montreal, though maybe with another good wine.

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Camp Life - Hansel and Gretel

Eva's class put on a play for the parents last weekend.  It was a poetic version of Hansel and Gretel and it was very cute!  I had to edit waaaaay down to get it short enough for even family and friends to watch.  It ends with Free to Be You and Me.  Anyone who went to Orange Hunt with me will remember singing this in music class. Turns out that I still know the words!

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Camp Life - Diving

Camp Arcadia's lake is Pleasant Lake and it really and truly is pleasant!  There is a dock shaped like an H and the girls have lanes roped off there for swimming and there is a diving board.  Eva learned how to do a regular racing dive which is GREAT because she didn't know how to do that at the beginning of the summer.  She was working on her side dive and is hoping to learn a back dive by the end of the summer.  It was very difficult to capture this on the teeny weeny Flip but I did my best.

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Camp Life - The Horse Show

Bill and I spent last weekend visiting Eva at Camp Arcadia.  She is having a fantastic summer and we enjoyed meeting all of her friends and counselors and seeing the different things at camp that she likes to do.  Bill took care of all the still photographs (which is why I don't have any) and I shot a bit of video.  Here's a short clip of the horse show.  I don't really know anything about riding horses except that you couldn't pay me to wear those tan stretch pants.  Additional video is coming!

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

One Man Lord of the Rings - Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

> Will and I went to see One Man LOTR tonight at Woolly Mammoth in DC. This was a performance by Charles Ross who also developed and performed One Man Star Wars (which we have also seen). > > While I would say it was amazingly creative and well performed, I think Star Wars lent itself better to the 'one man' hour long format. LOTR is a much more complicated story, with many more characters, plot threads and nuance. This performance was developed from the movies, and if you had not seen the movies - multiple times - it would have been hard to follow. > > In fact, Charles Ross asked for a show of hands of people who had seen the movie and/or read the books, then those who had done neither. About six people had neither read the books nor seen the movies. He was a bit incredulous and kept poking fun at them for even coming to the show.
> > Overall Will and I enjoyed it, I think Will more so given his superior memory for the movies. >

>

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Eva Learning to Dive at Arcadia

Eva is much more enthusiastic about swimming this summer than she has been in the recent past. She is also learning to dive, and we saw great improvement even in just the couple of days we visited. She did very well diving off the side of the dock, and even went off the 1 meter diving board (which looks more like 4 - 5 feet off water).

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Best. Breakfast. Hot Suppa! - Portland, Maine

We were visiting Eva this weekend at Arcadia in Casco, Maine. We stayed near Portland and made it into the city for breakfast on Saturday. Two years ago we randomly discovered Hot Suppa! and were instantly addicted. We have since discovered that it is deservedly a foodie institution.

I would not expect great biscuits and gravy north of Virginia, but Hot Suppa! has them. Also (of course) blueberry pancakes, great omelets and the signature corn beef hash with eggs. Currently they are only open for breakfast and lunch, but after some renovation in August they will be opening for dinner in September. It is definitely worth a detour if you are near Portland.

We drove up to Portland from Logan Airport, and stopped for lunch at Giuseppe's in Newburyport, just off 95N. It should be in any guide to 'just off 95' restaurants. Any trip to New England requires seeking out local pizza and subs, Giuseppe's exceeded expectations. We split an Italian sausage sub that tasted fresh and homemade from the bun to the sauce to the sausage.

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Lyra - Master Baker

Lyra loves to help cook, and cinnamon rolls are a special favorite both for eating and helping. Lyra gets to mix the cinnamon brown sugar filling and then scrape the leftover filling off the pastry cloth and eat it. She enjoys kneading the dough, although she gets annoyed about it sticking to her hands (as do I).  

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Fresh Joseph's - Alexandria Farmers Market

No trip to the Alexandria Farmers Market is complete without fresh squeezed orange juice from Fresh Joseph.  He also sells great fresh mozzarella and bread, but the juice is the best, and all hand pressed.

We are having a discussion about whether the farmers in farmers market is plural or possessive (or both).  I can make an argument either way.

Cath wanted me to try and Photoshop out the rope running top to bottom through this photo. I decided that was in the 'too hard' category.     

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Alexandria, VA Fireworks Photos

We attended the Alexandria fireworks last night at Oronoco Bay Park to watch the fireworks and listen to the Alexandria Symphony. We can walk to this event, which makes it a lot easier than the National Mall fireworks and they actually have vendors selling lemonade and stuff, which for some reason the Park Service does not permit at Iwo Jima where we saw the July 4th fireworks. As I suspect others will write, this was not a great year for the fireworks. For some reason the fireworks kept starting and stopping, to the point that when the music stopped for good someone came on stage and said the crowd needed to wait because the fireworks were not over yet. Fireworks should be a logical progression toward a finale, not a series of 5 - 10 minute pauses to watch planes fly by (which seemed to be the reason for the delays). We don't remember the air traffic control causing problems in the past, and if that was the reason it was not well planned for, because the choreography between the music and the fireworks was not as smooth as in prior years.

Will was generally is a bad mood, but one understandable issue that really set him off was a nearby cigar smoker. I think a letter to the city will be forthcoming about banning smoking at public events. Cigar smoke smells foul, and I can't comprehend the level of selfishness and bad manners required for someone to smoke one in a crowd, especially a crowd of mostly families with children. A number of people sitting near us were also disgusted. The smell eventually drove Will to leave early.

The constant delays and my bad choice on where to stand made photography challenging. I thought shooting over the bandstand would create some context for the photos, but it was not a good angle and the bandstand was too bright in relation to the fireworks and is over exposed. I had initially thought of shooting near the water, and that would have been the right move, except I did not figure it out soon enough. I also had my tripod packed up when the music stopped and people started to leave, and had to scramble to get it set up again when the announcer finally said the fireworks were not in fact over. I do think the last couple of photos I took over the water, while not great, were the bast of the evening. All of these photos are processed with Photogene on my iPad. It is GREAT software. It is not as powerful as Aperture (by a wide margin) but it is a lot better than 'good enough' for quick edits. I did try one of the Photogene pre configured 'effects' on an overexposed photo, and I like the result.

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Amtrak Worker, Union Station, Washington

There is a plaque at Union Station in Washington honoring Amtrak employees killed on the job. This is from the bronze above the plaque.

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Washington, DC Fireworks Photo Series - No. 3

> This is taken at the beginning of the finale. I like the layering of the blasts, from the blurrier background to the sharp foreground, and the red streaks falling at the bottom in what looks like a bird foot pattern. >

>

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Washington, DC Fireworks Photo Series - No. 2

> This photo was taken about two thirds of the way through the fireworks display. As soon as I saw it on the camera back I knew I had a keeper. I love how you can see the rocket trails showing the launch path of the rockets carrying the fireworks. >

>

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Washington, DC Fireworks Photo Series - No. 1

We went to watch the DC fireworks this evening at the Marine Corp War Memorial in Arlington. This is the park with the Iwo Jima Memorial and the Netherlands Carillon. All of the fireworks photos are taken from base of the Netherlands Carillon.  

I took several photos that I really like. On this one I think it is cool that you can see that the fireworks are being shot in front of the Washington Monument, but behind the Lincoln Memorial as the fireworks 'rain' down obscuring the Washington Monument. 

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Eva's Writing Blog - http://livelearnlovewrite.wordpress.com/

Eva loves to write and her facility with words is amazing, at least to me. She started a blog and I was afraid it would be dormant for the summer while she is off at Camp Arcadia. So far though she has been mailing poems and stories to us that Cathleen posts for her on the blog. Hopefully at some point Eva will have access to the Net and can see the results of her work. Via iPad

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Licking Up the Eton Mess Leftovers - Photos of Lyra

I love the Australian food and wine magazines. The June 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller had a recipe for a desert called Eton Mess I have been wanting to make. Eton Mess is essentially strawberries tossed in whipped cream mixed with crumbled meringue. I had fresh peaches not strawberries, so made a peach version. It was good but strawberries would have been even better.

I gave Lyra what I thought was going to be a small sample of the uncooked meringue. She wanted the spatula, beater and bowl to herself. We made a deal that she could lick the beater if she would let me take photos. I think it was a good deal.

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Eva is at camp!

This week I took Eva up to Camp Arcadia in Maine and left her there.  WAH!  (That's me crying, not Eva.)  It rained the morning of drop off but things cleared up quickly and she was so happy to be back and to see all of her friends.  The returning counselors were surprised by how much she had grown.  I cannot believe that I made that trip and took NO CAMERA.  Here are a couple of photos taken with my cruddy Blackberry camera.  The indoor photo is terrible but it shows Eva in her cabin with Emmie, her good friend from camp last year.  The girls have kept in touch all year long and were so excited to see each other.  The outdoor photo is Eva in front her cabin, Plebe 2.  This has a much less picturesque name than last year's cabin (Chickadee) and I do not recall seeing any electricity in this cabin. 

Today we received our first letters from Eva. One was to the family and one was specifically to Lyra.  Let me tell you Lyra was positively ecstatic to get her own mail personally addressed to her.  Similar to last year, the water is cold.  But it sounds like she has settled in nicely; there was no immediate request for us to go up there and bring her home.

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The Salad Bar

We have some pretty flowers blooming out back as well as mint that is
threatening to overtake the garden, so I finally cut some to bring in
the house. The cats immediately came to check out what they believe
to be their "Salad Bar." Perhaps the mint is a close enough relative
to catnip to be interesting. We don't have any catnip growing because
Sabu, our previous cat, was a teetotaler. But maybe I should plant
some for KC and Noelle to enjoy.

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

Lyra Learns to Swim

Here is Lyra at the end of her second week of swimming lessons and it's going really well! This is much better than last year's experience at the pool. Lyra is learning to swim for the wall, flip to her back to rest and float, and then flip back to swim. And this from a girl who, two weeks ago, refused to put her face in the water. Kudos to Miss Sarah!

Sorry the video is a bit long. I personally do not have the patience to sit through videos at all but this is cute and the length of the video actually matches the song (that never happens!)

A Chip Off the Old Block - Lyra Under My Desk Playing On Keyboards

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Photo: Blue Tongued Alien (Lyra after a blue rasberry lollipop)

Lyra loves lollipops that turn her tongue bright colors. She just finished a blue raspberry pop. The photo is processed through Plastic Bullet for added spookiness.

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Cherry Fest - Eight Quarts of Sour Cherries Pitted this Weekend

>> We picked up eight quarts of sour cherries at the farmers market yesterday, and they spoil very quickly. We could not find our cherry pitter (last used a week ago) so we had to buy a new one. Of course now we have found the old one and have two. My sister Edie is in town and she helped, as did Eva and even Lyra pitted about a dozen cherries. We now have seven quarts of pitted cherries in the freezer and a fresh cherry crisp to have for desert tonight with vanilla ice cream. >>

> >>

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Alexandria Farmers' Market, June 19th - A Bountiful Harvest

My sister Edie is in town for a visit and we all went to the market this morning while Cathleen went on a long run. One of the many, many, joys of living in Old Town is being about three blocks away from one of the oldest farm markets in the country. We have been going to this market for over 15 years and it has really improved in the last five years. Far more vendors selling their own produce, more organic produce and more vendors selling meat in addition to fruit and vegetables. This is a year round market, but it is obviously at its best in the summer and fall. The market is just hitting it's summer stride now. Today was the first time this season there have been local peaches, and the early summer vegetables like summer squash and greens are incredible. Most exciting, sour cherries are in the midst of their (very brief) season. I bought two quarts last week and we made cherry sauce for cheese cake and a cherry cobbler. This week I brought home EIGHT quarts. We will freeze six and makes a big crisp with the others. Of course this means we have eight quarts of cherries to pit. At this point we have three quarts down and five to go. Somehow after last weekend we lost our cherry pitter and had to buy a new one. The new one is an Oxo Good Grips cherry/olive pitter and it is no where near as effective as the old one. Don't the people who make products like that ever actually use them? It has a couple of very basic design flaws.

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Eva's Birthday - Entering Double Digits

Eva had a great tenth birthday celebration yesterday.  We were joined by her friend Sarah and Anders, their parents Eric and Leigh, and of course Eva's grandmother Emily.  

Eva carefully planned a menu of her favorite foods, and dinner turned out extremely well.  We had pulled pork BBQ, Eastern North Carolina cole slaw (e.g. spicy), potato salad, fruit salad and tossed salad.  It sounds like a lot of salad, but it all worked well.  Eva had asked Cathleen to make her a cheese cake for her birthday cake, and it came out fantastic.  As a last minute bonus I had gotten sour cherries at the farmers' market, and made a cherry sauce for the cake.  It was amazing.  I think everyone faced a battle between how much cheese cake they wanted to eat (a lot) and how much would fit in their stomach after the rest of the meal.

Grownups of course also had some good wine, an Amisfield Pinot Noir I brought back from Australia and a Coturri Zinfandel.  These will be covered in more detail in later blog notes. 

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City Wine Shop - Spring Street, Melbourne

One of my favorite spots in Melbourne for a casual bite to eat. Open early to late with a bar menu and a few main dishes. I had roast tomato and fennel soup for Sunday lunch. Good by-the-glass wine selection and bottles for drink in or take away. Staff is knowledgeable and quick to offer good advice. I have received many good wine suggestions and education on Australian vineyards.

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AVRO 504K - Australian War Memorial

This is the oldest surviving plane from the Royal Australian Air Force. It was built in the UK and arrived in Australia in 1919. 8,000 of this plane were built, and used mostly as trainers.

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Hawker Sea Fury - Australian War Memorial

This fighter bomber was one of the last propeller driven naval aircraft. This one flew in the Korean War.

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Australian War Memorial - Canberra

I had several hours yesterday afternoon after my workshop ended in Canberra, and the War Memorial was highly recommended as a place to visit in Canberra.  That was good advice and I was not disappointed.  The War Memorial is a large and comprehensive shrine and museum commemorating Australian soldiers across all the wars in which they have fought.  I spent most of my time in the Gallipoli and broader WWI exhibits.  It would have been easy to spend most of a day going through the museum thoroughly. 

Gallipoli, a battle and siege in Turkey during WWI is fundamental to Australian history.  One of the Australian Prime Ministers said that Australia established itself as a nation through its role and valor at Gallipoli.  ANZAC Day (25 April) was originally established in 1916 to commemorate the battle at Gallipoli.  ANZAC Day is now officially a commemoration of soldiers from all wars (much like the US Memorial Day), and is one of Australia's most important holidays.

I liked the number of exhibits that were actual art, not just documentary material.  Australia had a number of artists who are designated as official war artists (they continue this tradition today - see paintings from Iraq and Afghanistan here).  Many of the photos I took were of bronzes made of scenes in the war. 

I am having some technical problems with blog formatting and will do an update later with more info on some of the specific photos.

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