June 2013: Alan Cumming's Macbeth

Almost exactly a year ago, D#2 and I went with another friend to New York City to see the great Alan Cumming do an almost-one-man-show of Macbeth.

Theatre "buffs" know that the show is, legendarily "cursed" and the name of the play (and the main character) is not to be spoken inside the theatre.  

Set inside an insane asylum, the performance was a true tour-de-force, with Mr. Cumming playing almost all the characters, including the three witches, Lady Macbeth, and Macduff.   Even after giving a wrenching performance at the matinee, Mr. Cumming appeared at the stage door, signing autographs and posing for photos with amazing generosity.  The curly-haired young woman in the last two photos is D#2.

One of the reasons I love living where (just outside of Philadelphia) I do is the accessibility of Washington DC and New York City, both great cities for different reasons.  To me,  New York has many attractions, but the theatre that is available there is unbelievable.  If only I had an unlimited budget...

May 2013: Myrtle Beach SC

Just over a year ago, my daughters and I did a quickie beach weekend.  D#2 had finished her junior year in college (yeah, I'm really late in writing this up) and had had her 21st birthday.  She had expressed some interest in seeing where her father lives now, so I found a deal on two nights at the Compass Cove resort.  D#1 came along so I had someone to "hang out" with the entire weekend. 

This was the view from the balcony of our room.  It was the weekend before Memorial Day so it had not yet reached summer temps, though it was warm enough to swim (in the pools NOT the ocean) after the sun warmed the water a bit. 

The resort had several pools and two "lazy rivers":. The one below was outdoors and there was a smaller, heated one indoors.

D#1 took a "selfie" of the two of us, sitting by the pool.

Compass Cove was a lovely place to stay. and even included several on-site places to eat, though we preferred to check out the local off-property restaurants.   One nice feature was a "Redbox" type of DVD "rental" (free with room key) which allowed you to pick from a fair number of recent films, take the disc to your room, and view it using the DVD player built into the television.  D#2 and I borrowed "The Impossible"  for a Saturday afternoon movie break. We'd forgotten what it was about -- remembering only that it had been well-reviewed -- until it started playing, and we realized that we were at a beach resort, watching a film about a tsunami striking a beach resort. The film was excellent -- and terrifying.