Funny Bone

I've never been one to turn down free tickets...especially to a comedy show. When I was told there was a ticket for me I jumped at the chance to go. I always appreciate a chance to laugh..who doesn't?


I was a little surprised at how tightly they packed the crowd into the place...our table for 4 would sit 2 people comfortably. But that was just me being naive. Of course they would try to pack in as many people as possible...especially if you are handing out free tickets...they'd need as many people as possible to buy their average tasting yet over priced food and the slightly smaller than average drinks with the sky's the limit pricing. Ok, having slammed them on the food and drinks I'll stop there because the comedians were great!


The first guy up was quite good but it turned out that he was the MC for the night. If it was his job to warm up the crowd he did a fine job. The headliner was Robert Kelly...he was good...definitely made me laugh..but actually the sexual jokes got a little tired for me after awhile. More to my taste was the middle guy (better known as Tom Dustin). We all agreed that he was the best comedian of the night and should have been the headliner. How do they pick the headliner anyway?


I can't begin to do justice to Tom Dustin's humor...it's sarcastic and offbeat....and possibly a little mean if you're inclined to be easily offended. I'm not...easily offended that is. I thought he was wonderful! I didn't want him to leave the stage.
He's non-assuming in his person and throws you off a bit by seeming to be a normal guy...but I certainly can't call his humor normal...it's inspired! My face and stomach muscles actually HURT by the time he was done with his act.


After the show I joined the herd of women stampeding the bathroom and when I joined my group outside they told me I just missed meeting all the comics. I was so disappointed! But as luck would have it Tom came back out and I noticed him lallygagging against the wall...back to being non-assuming I suppose. We weren't really sure it was him so I told Justin to yell 'Tom' at him. Justin did and we got his attention..probably scared the hell out of him too because we descended on him like locust at that point to get our pictures taken with him. He seemed surprised that we thought he was the best comedian of the night...so of course we told him repeatedly...hey, it was the truth!


I'll be keeping tabs on Tom from hear on in...waiting for him to come back to Ct. If you'd like to check out his face book page here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/tomdustin


Send him a friend request and tell him Elaine sent you. :)

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

When I was invited to go see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra I thought it was an actual orchestra. You know, the kind that has a nice white haired conductor, with a tux and tails, that stands in front of the orchestra waving his arms rhythmically while the oh so dignified orchestra plays beautiful music. I couldn't be more wrong! TSO (as they are known) is an orchestra in the very broadest sense of the word....but they are so much more! The show turned out to be more like a rock show with instruments from an orchestra on crack!

I was pleasantly surprised to see everyone in this 'orchestra' was young and had long hair. I have to admit I fell immediately in love with the guys with the long blond hair. I couldn't help myself. I was mesmerized by the way they tossed their heads in beat with the music...never missed a beat all night. And the backup singers were no slouches either. When they weren't singing they were dancing to the music, bodies swaying and gyrating just as perfectly as the rest of them. It was a thing of beauty and perfection to watch.

But it was the light show that topped it all off...that made it fantastic...that really wowed me. It's been some time since I've been to a real rock concert and my first thought were this reminds me of The Who from the 70's. (which I didn't really care for if truth be known). But this show was so far beyond anything that I've seen before that it felt reminiscent and yet completely different at the same time. They didn't just have a light show. They had a perfectly timed explosion of light, sound, sensation and emotions all at the same time. It was quite overwhelming and I'd gladly go see them again.

They used fog machines to the max...rolling out huge amounts of fog to encase the entire lower region of people sitting front and center. They had multiple video screens display images while lightening blasted through the air. They showed us waves of color changing with the tempo and beams of piercing lights throbbing with the drum beats. They had fire yes...fire, bursting so high I could feel the heat from my perch high up in my chair and rolling across the stage to encase the drummer. They even created snow gently filtering down upon the crowd below and then made it seem like a gift from heaven by piercing it with rapidly changing tiny beams of light to make it twinkle. Awesome to say the least! And this wasn't their grand finally..this was through out the entire performance, which lasted about 3 hrs.

But I can't neglect to mention the energy they all displayed throughout the concert. The lead guitarists and the lead violinist (who was also the conductor) continually raced from one side of the stage to the other so all sections of seating could get a good look at them. Then they had huge mechanical 'arms', which became part of the stage, extend out over the crowd and several members of the band walked or danced out on them to play their instruments as well. This was certainly NOT grandma's type of orchestra!

During a brief intermission of sorts the lead man introduced the band members and stated that the string section were all members of a Ct orchestra. They hire orchestra members locally wherever they play. I thought that was a nice touch and probably saves them money as they travel all over the world.
This was their Christmas show and I did vaguely recognize some Christmas melodies in the mix but it was so far above and beyond what we've come to expect of Christmas music. They were amazing and absorbing and so very precise at their craft that I fear I'll be ruined for any other concert from now on. Easily the best concert I've ever been to in my life.

Veterans Day

This year for Veteran's Day I'm making oatmeal cookies and pumpkin pie bars for our troops. I'm so grateful for the Cookies for Camouflage campaign being run by EnfieldHooah.org. They will be gathering all the homemade cookies from Enfield residents at the American Legion post and sending them out to troops from Enfield, Ct. to share in time for the holidays.

My Dad was a veteran of two wars and now that he's gone Veteran's Day takes on even more meaning for me. I'm not just doing it for the soldiers that won't be home for Christmas. I'm doing it for Dad....because it may not have been done for him when he needed it. And because every Veteran's Day Dad would go to the local cemeteries and place small flags on all the graves of the fallen soldiers. My Dad was deeply respectful of the veterans and he cried when he put those flags on those graves...remembering his own experiences of war and missing the friends he saw die, never having the chance to grow old surrounded by a loving family like he did.

Dad suffered the rest of his life carrying the horrors of war with him every day. He rarely spoke of any of it as is typical of most veterans that have seen and lived through things that we can never even imagine. He buried it like the rest of them do and struggled for years to keep the ugly truth from his family. The truth that war is not glorious...killing is not something you forget...and innocence is the price you pay to defend your country. You enter the service a fresh faced innocent boy pumped full of patriotic feelings and determination to prove yourself. You come home a man with the horrors of war ingrained in your memory and a gritty resolve to get beyond the nightmarish memories and fit back in to society...if you're lucky enough to come back at all.

I thank God I had my father in my life. He so easily could have been a casualty of war. And if he had, I wouldn't be here today to make these cookies at all.

Ghosts, ghouls and all manner of things...

Halloween is supposed to be for kids, right? Well I haven't appreciated Halloween as much as I do now. I always enjoyed gathering a pile of candy as a small child but it seems like as I got older I learned to have so much more fun...usually at someone else's expense unfortunately.

As a older child when you know instinctively that you are too old to go door to door for candy, it's natural to start thinking of other ways to have fun. And looking back now I think we were moderately bad kids on Halloween. We didn't do any real damage but we certainly raised hell.
There was the year that we gathered an incredible amount of acorns from the old oak tree and pelted cars passing by...not with just one or two. Oh no, we dumped hundreds of acorns on those poor cars and then ran like our butts were on fire for the cover of the nearby woods. One guy actually slammed on his brakes; got out of his car and gave chase. He never had a chance of catching us..we knew the woods too well. But he certainly gave us a good scare. We decided not to do that one again. Unfortunately we got worse from there.

The following year we made a dummy...a sort of scarecrow I suppose. My parents didn't object. It got rid of a lot of the leaves in the yard and it seemed like harmless fun. They had no idea what we would eventually do with that dummy.
Back to the hill with the huge oak tree we went. And I'm a little ashamed to say we threw that dummy high into the air, timing it just right so it would land on some poor woman's windshield as she was driving by. Thankfully she didn't have an accident but she might have come close to having a heart attack. As soon as we did it we knew it was the worse thing we could have done. Once again the driver got out of the car and we started running for the woods. She didn't chase us however, she just clutched the side of her car and looked like she was going to cry or faint or something. I'm sure she thought she had just run over a person. That was a terrible thing to do to someone I know that now. But at the time we were stupid kids and thought it would be funny. We never did that again.

A few years later (I think I was a Freshman in high school) in art class I had a friend of mine help me make some gigantic wings. They were beautiful...made with heavy gauge wire and multi-colored tissue with glitter on them. They were a magnificent pair of wings if I do say so myself. The only problem with them was that they had a very small wooden block for a base and I had to attach straps to actually wear them. Eventually I came up with a plan for them. It involved wearing an old black graduation gown with the wings strapped on top. I don't know what I was supposed to be but I hit the streets dressed like that as soon as it got dark.
It wasn't long before I realized that all the kids out trick or treating were terrified of me. They never got close enough to see that I was human, they just ran...some of them screaming. It was great! I walked all over town with that outfit on and a couple of friends in tow...keeping to the shadows and suddenly looming out of the darkness when people showed up. I even had my friends hunch over and walk a little crap like while making a moaning noise. I guess I was still a rotten little kid at heart.

Many years went by and my Halloween consisted of taking my own kids out to trick or treat. Some of the magic went out of Halloween when I became an adult. I still enjoyed seeing some of the really imaginative costumes but there were no more pranks left in me. We had fun...but it was of the harmless type.

Now that my kids are grown I'm feeling a stirring again....a desire to really enjoy Halloween again. No, I'm not going to bombard anyone's car with acorns or throw a dummy on someone's car. I doubt the law would have much tolerance for that kind of stunt these days. I'm more into making cute costumes for my granddaughter and dressing up myself for Halloween parties. And I've discovered that most of the clubs/bars around have some sort of Halloween party going on, usually with costume judging and prizes as well. The past two years I've gone to two places and had a great time at each place...still seeing all kinds of costumes and also having fun dancing and getting reacquainted with some ghouls; witches; vampires and all manner of scary creatures that I grew up with. As it turns out I'm not the only one that enjoys Halloween as an adult. Maybe we're all just a bunch of kids at heart.

This year I was dressed as Maid Marion and my side kick was a flapper from the roaring 20's. And we met the piggy that said weeeee all the way home; a ghoul; a few gangsters; a criminal and a cop; and all manner of witches; devils; vampires and even little old ladies with toilet paper stuck on their shoe. There were fairies and cowboys dancing with wrestlers and snake charmers. It was nothing like the old days but it was just as much fun...and nobody got pelted with acorns. :)