Quiet Ride

We were driving down L Street around 11 p.m. tonight and Walt said, "This is the first time I've driven down this street at night without hearing either Jeff or Arnie Riesman."

We had gone to the latest Music Circus production (Funny Girl). We often carpool with my colleague Jeff Hudson, who does radio reviews for the local PBS station. Jeff is one of these guys who has been a newsman for decades, knows everybody, has seen everything, has lots of opinions, and lots of background information for any show we go to see, so he usually carries the conversation when he rides with us.

But he doesn't like musical theatre. He'd rather see Shakespeare or a straight play. He does occasionally do a musical, but usually not, so on the nights when Jeff doesn't ride with us, we get to indulge in listening to the latest episode of our favorite radio show, Says You. Arnie Riesman is one of the panelists, who knows everybody, has seen everything, has lots of opinions and lots of background information...and is a very funny guy. Sometimes I think we listen to Says You just to listen to Arnie and my friend Tony Kahn, another panelist.

But I had done something stupid...or, rather, NOT done something. Apparently I had forgotten to make sure that the battery in my iPod was fully charged and when I plugged it into the car speaker and prepared to call up the latest Says You, I got a message that the battery was dead. (As I write this, it is sitting at my elbow recharging!) We do have a car charger, but apparently it won't recharge a fully dead battery. At least it wouldn't do it tonight.

We hardly knew what to do with no Jeff and no Says You. Well, that's not really true. I knew what to do. I am almost finished with the current book I'm reading ("Flying Carpet of Small Miracles") and the battery in my iPod TOUCH was fully charged, so I zoned out and read all the way to and from Sacramento, while Walt sang quietly to himself. (I also read before the show started and during intermission. I was terrible company because I was so engrossed in the book.)

Though I have seen the movie Funny Girl many times, I realized that I had not seen the stage show, which is quite different...at least as far as the songs included in the show. I don't know how you can't get caught up in the show, if it has a good cast and is a good production, which this was.

I couldn't figure out if Vicki Lewis, who plays Fanny Brice, was channeling Brice herself, or Streisand. She's a real "belter" and had kind of strange breathing patterns in her songs, but this performance was right out of the Barbra Streisand playbook. Which is not a bad thing, over all. Good show. Now I have to write the review.

Midway through the evening, I realized that I had absolutely nothing to write about in this journal entry tonight. I had gotten myself involved in a computer project today which so engrossed me that the hours flew by and it was 4 p.m. before I even realized it.

I did take time out to go to the grocery store to get good smelling stuff to take to Cousins Day tomorrow.

It's my turn to bring dinner and I found this amazing sounding recipe for spicy chicken thighs with apricots and olives. I don't even like green olives, but it sounded so good I had to try it. The marinade consists of lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, crushed red pepper flakes, kosher salt, pepper (I used multi colored pepper corns and ground them...smelled amazing). It also calls for my favorite spice, cumin, and smoked Spanish paprika (which I didn't realize existed). To all that you add chopped green olives, chopped dried apricots, and chopped cilantro.

Then you let boneless, skinless chicken thighs marinate in this stuff for 24 hours before baking. The smell of that marinade is amazing.

I'm serving it with couscous with dried fruit and feta, which also sounds pretty amazing. If nothing else it is going to be a flavorful dinner.

So this is a forewarning that tomorrow's entry will be late because of being at Cousins Day. At least I know that our ride down and back will not be a quiet ride, because we always have a lot of chattering to do to catch up.

Now I have to go write the Funny Girl review--but I'm so close to finishing my book that I will probably do that first. Heck, it's only 12:30 a.m. I have loads of time to get a review written, right?