drwex | The best sick weekend I have ever had

I'm home sick today and trying to get Much Done so not reading so much LJ. If you want me to see something, drop me a pointer please?

I took half a day Thu and half a day Fri off from work trying to beat this cold. Fail. Tried to sleep it off. Fail. So I had a sick weekend, with care and loving from Pygment. It was a very good weekend. I tried to score the weekend but there was so much good I couldn't really rate it.

Friday dinner with the relatives I was agonizing over canceling when we got an email saying one of THEM was sick and needed to punt. Win! for no-guilt rescheduling. Home time and cuddles and tea and relaxation re-watching Big Trouble in Little China. It's all in the reflexes.

Saturday I avoided the restaurant foo (I will not take my cold germs into a food establishment) in favor of stressing about L's birthday party. Fortunately the ever-capable Pygment had planned things well. I went along for the party, and hung out in the back so as not to cough on people. I took pictures, and stopped a random child from slicing his hand open on a knife left carelessly in reach. Dad-of-child's only comment was "He'll learn." I did not respond "...by getting a trip to the ER and 15 stitches?" Bonus points for using the inside voice.

The party involved people painting pre-made clay chotchkes - it was enjoyable and mercifully short. I got home in time to rest up before going downtown to see Laurie Anderson. I've lost count of how many times I've seen her live - six I think - and her shows are always good.

This is the second time I've seen her perform live with other musicians - the first time I didn't think it worked so well. This time was much better. Sadly the playbill for the show, named Homeland, is full of mostly meaningless trivia about the performers and didn't really discuss the show or the purpose for them being on stage. One of the musicians was a bass guitarist (Skuli Sverrisson), one a cellist (Okkyung Lee), and one a keyboard/synth player (Peter Scherer). All were excellent and blended in with Anderson's trademark keyboards, modified violin, and voice.

As you'd expect from the show name it was highly political, containing references to current personalities and events. Anderson's delivery is always somewhat minimalist and direct. In this show she had a lot of darker material, and much less of the allegorical/folklorist storytelling I remember from past shows. She did a couple of humorous bits that stuck with me, one about Giant Underwear Gods who live on billboards in NYC and one about "only the experts" pointing out how conditioned we've become to having the problems, solutions, and terms of debate defined for us by "experts" rather than our own consideration.

I can't avoid commenting on the lighting design for this show, by Aaron Copp, because it was so good. Given that you have four people dressed in black, standing or sitting in place for the entire show on a flat stage with no set pieces, it's really up to the lighting to transform the space. Copp's design was brilliant, using depth and angle and color to make the stage much more alive than it would have been otherwise. At the same time, I felt the design respected and worked with Anderson's minimalist aesthetic. No flashing, no robot lights. Just solid key, back, and fill working with a smoky haze that solidified the light beams.

My only complaint about the show was that it was too short. One set, no intermission and it just zoomed past. Anderson has done encores in past shows but not this time. Ah well - when the worst thing you can say about a performance is that it ended too quickly that's pretty darned good.

We came home to find that meadmaker, our substitute babysitter, had not only coped with the kids' stubborn but had gone above and beyond the call in dealing with the kitchen mess. No, really. Wow. He hung out with us while the tub heated up and we got to worship the God of Soaking in Very Hot Water together.

Sunday I tried again to sleep off the cold (fail) and so ended up running a low-key gaming session. Three weeks in a row of nobody rolling dice is pretty unusual for my campaigns. My sole goal for this session was to make sure the notes included the sentence "We leave town..." which it did, finally. So that was good, and the players seemed to enjoy the chance to roleplay some fun things that didn't have Momentous Consequences. And next time we'll get back to bashing things about, which everyone enjoys.

I also managed to remember to call my dad, whose birthday dinner we did not travel to, and have the kids sing Happy Birthday to him over the phone. I know he was disappointed we didn't travel, but as things worked out I'm glad we made the choice we did.