BEST. DAY. EVAH!

my phone rang at 8am and woke me from a deep sleep. (i'd been out drinking the night before, at an informal scotch-tasting with a group of co-workers.) the phone call was a last-minute invitation to see an HD broadcast from the metropolitan opera. i'd seen several of these last year and really enjoyed them (live opera broadcast into a movie theater? with popcorn and milk duds? i'm there!) so even in my fuzzy consciousness i said "yes!" i rolled out of bed and into the shower, and by 10am was sitting in the cinema watching domingo, netrebko and alagna on the big screen. it was magnificent.

i had prior plans, though, to meet my friend joe at 12:15 for a crazy event downtown. the timing was more or less perfect; intermission for the opera occurred at noon, so i just walked the 100 yards from the theater to the train stop and we headed down to portland's tuba christmas. over 200 tuba and euphonium players belting out holiday carols. i loved it.



(even though the weather looks really grey in that video, it was quite a nice day. only a few sprinkles here and there, but otherwise pretty sunny. i'm just sayin': so far the winter isn't quite as bad as i'd been led to believe. though it *is* friggin' cold here. every day the high seems to be in the upper 30s or lower 40s. brr.)

anyway, i thought this was just a quirky portland thing, but when we got there we learned that there are tuba christmases all over the world.

so after the tuba christmas, i met up with my friend paula. we went to tony starlight's for dinner and a show. and OH MY GOD, what a good time we had. this is totally divaville-type stuff here, and tony's holiday show was a hoot. he did dean martin impersonations, bing crosby, jimmy durante... i swear, EVERYONE who comes to visit me is being taken to tony starlight's. you'll love it.

charlotte, i'm posting this tony starlight video for you:



seriously, this was one of my favorite portland days yet. opera, tubas and tony starlight. yeah, baby. yeah!