jumpy jumpy vitamins

So I’m picking up where I left off.

McCaskill won in Missouri, Jon Tester won in Montana, and Jim Webb won in Virginia. The Democrats won a majority in both houses. w00t.

The weekend before election day, as promised:

• Saturday night we attended the St. Louis HRC Gala at the Chase Park Plaza. It was a good time — got to meet Joe Solomonese, who is shorter than I pictured him and who enjoyed making jokes about the dramatic centerpieces, and got to meet a few people Fred knows, and got to run amok in a tuxedo and look all suave.

  The theme this year was Vegas, so a (female) volunteer dressed as a showgirl (replete with huge headdress) milled around before the dinner started. As Fred and I milled around the silent auction items, she accosted us and asked if we were single. Apparently, had we replied in the affirmative, she would have given us each an HRC button with a blinking blue LED in the center; we replied in the negative, though, so she said “Oh.” and abruptly moved on. (It’s just as well, those things got annoying FAST. Also, at the end of the night, there was a definite vulture-feel of desperation in the presence of some be-blinkered men. ICK.)

  Kristine W performed at the dinner as well, and she was spot-on and energetic in her songs, but I’d just like to state for the record that the crowd was not very responsive to her exhortations to “get up!” or “dance!”. As was the case with almost every Big Fancy Dinner <tm> I’ve ever attended, people seemed to be chained to their tables. Perhaps a less frenetic act is in order for next year?

• Sunday we went to the UCC ordination of one of the members of our chorus. It was a beautiful affair, held in the vast 1920s sanctuary of a near-North Side congregation. As part of the service, the chorus performed the “Hallelujah” from Beethoven’s “Christus am Ölberge”; we allegedly sounded wonderful even though none of us could hear any other parts.

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Skipping ahead a bit, Thanksgiving… after a bit of family drama (the first EVER regarding this holiday, seriously!), Fred and I agreed to do T-day with my family. We brought some Manchego smashed potatoes, which were a) delicious and b) weighed a freakin’ TON. I think we might get stuck doing those again, but I won’t complain, as the recipe is disturbingly easy.

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Skipping ahead even more, the chorus show (entitled “Fruitcakes”) was a smash hit. We threw in some classical pieces (the aforementioned Beethoven), some irreverent pieces (a song about Mexican food set to Handel’s “Hallelujah” and entitled [what else?] “Jalapeño”), and some more standard holidayish pieces. Then, to finish the first act, Martha Stewart and Julia Child joined us on-stage for a rather raucous song about fruitcake… those two had scripts to follow, but they sort of improvised a few things.

The second act started with the Chipmunks song, performed with the aid of helium-filled balloons, then the Elmer Fudd carols, as mentioned here.

And then the small group performed a naughty version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. Featuring ME.

The song was musically complicated, with lots of tempo changes, key changes, tritones and other odd chords. As far as I’m concerned, though, the highlight was when I pulled a microphone out of my pocket and started commenting on the size of Rudolph’s… nose.

“The antlers are reindeer, yes. But everything else is HORSE.”

Pair that with some suggestive movement, especially around the “you’ll go down in history” part (wink), and we had the place rolling.

And then, a couple songs later, Fred and some rather swarthy chorus members danced balletically to “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”.

In tutus.

One of which was removed at the conclusion of the piece and thrown into the orchestra pit.

I shouldn’t forget to mention the Village People, though, or the sexy rollerskating Santa in red velvet fur-hemmed short-shorts throwing little gifts out into the crowd, or the woman who ran down the aisle on Friday night and threw a comically large red bra at Santa, but yeah, Fred stole the show.

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The holidays were, uh, interesting. We trekked to Fred’s parents’ place for a Yule gathering, and invited my parents who became lost in a shady part of the East Side, and had a brief ritual before dinner and gift exchange. Fred and I did some of the desserts, including a dragon’s layer cake (which turned out damned good, even without the Cointreau).

Next day, we did the whole Christmas Eve service thing at the church of our recent belonging. (Naturally, we sang the cantata with the choir.) Afterwards, to my parents’ for the usual Christmas Eve quiche ‘n’ gifts bit. This year had a different twist; we each drew names for the exchange instead of buying for everyone.

Gift-wise, we are now set for quite some time as far as DVDs go… Also got some nice dishes and such from Fred’s family and some well-chosen gift cards from mine (H&M, w00t). In the exchange, Fred got a gift certificate to his favorite bookstore and the Amazing Race DVD game, and I got an alarm clock with an iPod dock.

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I’ll have to save the next week for another post. More later, including BIG BIG BIG stuff.

In the meantime, would you go update your anti-virus definitions please? Spam is killing the Internet because you won’t keep track of that sort of thing.

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