High Tea and Ballet

Well, Summer appears to have arrived early. Which is totally unfair, because I have to muscle through another two months of some very demanding classes before I get to enjoy it. I haven't had time to write (or really breathe, for that matter) in the past couple weeks because literally every second of my day is set aside for something, whether it be coding, textbook-reading, GDP-calculating, running, having a teensy little bit of a social life, sleeping, eating...you get the idea.

I did have a chance this past sunday to go on a wonderful little day trip to the city with my mother, father and little sister. I didn't have a chance to snap any photos (sigh), so here's some plagiarism from the interweb.

We had high tea (!) at the DarTealing Lounge in SoMa, which looks like a little hole in the wall from the street...



but becomes a fantasy land as soon as you walk in the door.





We ate all sorts of little tea sandwiches (all kinds--sundried tomato pesto with turkey, classic cucumber, shrimp, some other delicious stuff that I couldn't recognize and didn't care) and a yummy yummy coconut rooibos tea served with coconut milk. Then, of course, dessert came, and we got to feast on mini peanut butter fudge squares and tiny fruit tarts. Mmmm.

I felt so classy, and at the same time not classy enough for such a scene. The place was entirely filled with women (my dad was one of three guys in the whole place) and there were two baby showers going on, and all of them were dressed to a tee in rather modest, lady-like tea-wear. Aka, what you would wear to tea with the Queen. I was wearing jeans, four and a half inch platform heels (that I rarely whip out) and a see-through shirt. Needless to say I got some looks from the ladies-who-have-high-tea. I tried not to let it bother me and stuffed my face with tiny sandwiches.

After tea, we headed over a couple blocks to see the Spring program of Alonzo King's Line's Ballet at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. My mom pointed out later that we were super hip for doing all this and running with the crowd of uber-cool city-dwelling art-and-theater-majors. I have no objection.

I had never been to a dance performance for the sake of dance before. The ballets I've been to are pretty much just, well, The Nutcracker. I under-exaggerate a tad; I've seen Swan Lake, and then plenty of dancing musicals that aren't strictly ballet. But this was ballet for the sake of art, two hours of dancing with no storyline except that which you formed in your own mind.



This was about mesmerizing visuals and entrancing music and the astonishing limits of how far the human body can bend in every direction.



At one point they brought three musicians on stage--a cellist, violinist, and bassist--and they proceeded to up the wow factor, dazzling the audience's ears as well as their eyes. For one piece, the bassist (the famed Edgar Meyer, no less) moved to the piano to accompany a moving duet between a man and a woman. It was so tender, so honest, so incredibly raw, that I found myself crying.



Although we all agreed that for us, the show could have done without the last act (it was so long and the music so unvarying that I found myself a) hypnotized and then b) falling asleep), it was a spectacular show. I would recommend it to anyone but the tiniest of humans (my poor 9-year-old sister kept saying, where's the story?? I don't get it!).

In other news:

- My parsley has flowered.

- To my dismay, I found out that my favorite guilty pleasure show, The Tudors, which I discovered on Netflix a couple months ago, stopped running in 2010. I just watched the last episode and now I don't know what to do with my spare time.
I also found out that this man:



Henry Cavill, the love of my life, who played Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk in the Tudors, will be playing Superman in the upcoming blockbuster. So, soon he'll be uber-famous and everyone will be drooling over his gorgeousness. I just wanted to point out, before that movie releases, that I loved him before his Superman fame.

- If you're ever in the bay area on a hot day, and are near a Philz, get the Mint Mojito Iced Coffee. Despite having been a loyal Philz drinker for the past four years, I tried it for the first time this past weekend and was blown away by its complete and utter deliciousness.

- I've been having the strangest dreams lately. Example 1: riding around on various buses in a strange coastal town with no idea where I'm going, and when I ask the bus driver, all the passengers laugh at me. Example 2: swimming with whales. Example 3: being solicited for sex by all my neighbors. What? T says he needs to make me a dreamcatcher. I agree.

- I found out that two of my friends who I once respected have never read or seen the Lord of the Rings. I have never death stared anyone so hard. To redeem them, I've scheduled a marathon weekend where they will watch all of the *extended* versions (all of which I own, of course). I had a mind to force them to read the books first, but I suppose that's a little too optimistic. Am I the only one who considers it sacrilege for any literate person with access to a television or computer or bookstore or library to have NOT read or seen LOTR?

And, if you've made the connection that I live in Santa Cruz and 4/20 has just passed, no, I did not attend. However, I did hear several first-hand accounts of the 2-pound-joint story. Mhm, two. Pounds.



Enjoy that :)

Anyways, there is an update on my life, sans the schoolwork that's driving me nuts.

Happy Spring Summer Spring? Who knows, with this weather.

xoxo
Maralah

Parsley Forest

Please observe the ridiculousness of my parsley.

6 months ago:



Today:



I came back from Spring break two days ago and it had literally grown a foot in a week. A FOOT.

Yes, you can also see all the weeds that have grown. However, like I said in an earlier post, I can't bring myself to pull them just yet: I gave them a home, and it seems cruel to tear them from it. My chives, rosemary, and sage are still thriving, along with a little plant whose seed I extracted from a colorful little fruit and planted in order to see what grew from it. It's about two inches tall now with bright, deep green leaves, the baby of the bunch.

I stepped outside to take these photos and, to my delight, found these little friends hiding in my garden from the lawn mowers blaring just outside of it.



I was so happy they had found shelter in the little wilderness I helped to create.



The parsley has grown up and westward, reaching with its stems (more like branches now) towards the sun. It's starting to flower, which means I have to actually get on harvesting it, or it'll turn bitter soon.



Anyone want some parsley?

I keep thinking of a certain picture book I loved as a child. All I remember of it is that a boy planted a seed in his front yard, and from it grew an entire wilderness that he and his friends proceeded to have many an adventure in. I'm almost sure it's this book:



But I can't be sure. I feel like he planted squash, or something like that. Anyone remember a book like this?

The point is, seeing these birdies hanging out in my patio just made me melt, as if I had created my own little green world, and ushered in life to this once grey patch of dirt. Stay birdies, stay snails, stay spiders, stay butterflies; enjoy this oasis protected from lawn mowers and trimmers and the scary gardener men from the Outside that wield them. Stay as long as you wish. Here you are neighbors, co-residents, not pests. Here you can spin and flutter and play in peace. And feel free to eat my parsley seeds.

xoxo
Maralah