Tapas Party

You have to be careful about giving out oral invites to a tapas party, because people always end up hearing "topless" instead. And while I'm not one to stifle anyone's self-expression, that just doesn't seem to fit here in Lake Woebegone land. So, no, we did not have that kind of party. But we did have the most people ever over for dinner a few weeks ago. We were a total of lucky 13, and while there were lots of other people we wanted to invite, we decided to keep the numbers to what we had for plates and wine glasses. I ended up having to buy extra forks as it was. Everyone already knew each other and could entertain themselves, which was one less stress-inducement for me. We had a lot of fun and I think we used every serving-related wedding present in the house. One of our friends couldn't stop talking about all the great serving ware- his wife said he never pays attention to that sort of thing. So, thanks everyone who contributed to our evening's success! Here's the pre-party, cold tapas spread: Here it is at another angle with mood lighting:We loosened everyone up with plenty of sangría and just had a ton of food. See how many different kinds of tapas you can spot in the photos. This was right after the most stressful weeks of the semester, so it was really healthy for us to concentrate on something else for a couple of days and to see people we hadn't seen for weeks and weeks. I meant to take pictures at the party, but I was just having too much fun.

Classes are over!

The professors are having a big party tonight. No joke. Walking around town today I ran into half a dozen people asking if I was going. It's going to be quite the bash, I suspect. The poor students are busy studying and finishing up final papers and projects. whahahha....

The Cities

That's what we call Minneapolis/St. Paul here in Minnesota. I've come a long way, considering I used to tell people: "Yeah, we're going to Minnesota for the weekend" when we were already in Winona, Minnesota. I would get some "poor dear" glances and people would smile and nod politely (they're nice here, remember). The vocab was all new, it all sounded the same... Well, anyway, back to the trip.

The Walker Arts Center is having an exhibit of Frida Kahlo through the end of January so we took advantage of a recent long weekend to go up and take a look. We also stopped at some specialty stores to get goods for our tapas party. Photos of THAT event to follow at a later date.

We finally got to see the famous cherry spoon sculpture up close and personal and hence took some touristy photos to write home about.

My So-Called Life

I recently read an article in the New York Times about the tv series My So-Called Life coming out on DVD. I was a little taken aback by the intro of the article: "To a certain sort of woman who is somewhere between late youth and an unacknowledged middle age..."- (oh good god that is me- why does she make that sound so old?!?!).

This show came out in 1994, when I was working at the Wok Inn on Thursday nights and could therefore not watch only the most important tv show of my generation. Well, thanks to the snow storm this weekend and our pulling the tv plug this fall, I was searching the web for free tv shows online last night (yes, I know this is just what the writers are striking about... sue me, I needed knitting accompaniment and I was up to date on all my favorite podcasts). And there it was, under the "full episode" option on abc.com-- the pilot to My So-called Life!!! It resonated with me on many different levels. First, I was struck at the changes from 13 years ago: Angela and Rayanne start the show asking strangers for change to make a phone call (because teenagers didn't have cell phones back then, of course), the girls wear baggy plaid shirts (see Bellafante's quote below,) Angela's dyed hair that so scandalized would barely get a blink in today's world of tattoos and piercings (I sooo wanted hair like that!), not to mention her parents look so young to late youth/unacknowledged middle age me. It may be 13 years later, but I am glad I finally get to see this show. (Assuming ABC is planning on putting all the episodes up in the coming weeks)

Here are a couple of other good quotes from Ginia Bellafante's article that really captured certain aspects of my generation that make me glad I "came of age" when I did:

“My So-Called Life” imagined parents and teenagers operating out of separate and oppositional emotional spheres. It recognized adolescence as a psychological phase with a beginning and an end, and while that might seem a common-sense approach to the show’s subject, contemporary television rarely seems to take it."

As the touchstone examination of adolescence in the ’90s, “My So-Called Life” rejected the Clintonian ethos of ambition: striving, perhaps, wasn’t better. And at the same time it linked itself closely to the feminism of the period, one that prized interiority, self-help and revolutions from within. It was a diluted notion of female advancement, but at least it was a modestly dressed one. Angela wore late-grunge-era flannels and baggy shapes. So there is another way, finally, that “My So-Called Life” looks like no other teenage series that succeeded it: We never saw our heroine’s bellybutton."