Great news, folks: Masque of the Red Death has been extended into April! So if you missed it before, you've got a chance to catch it now. I'd say just jump on it and book your tickets for whenever you're planning on going. This ruins my chances of selling my tickets for a quick 200 on Ebay, but so it goes. Oh, and New Year's eve is available: you could go and still make a party! (I'll be going with a good sized crew on Sunday the 30th: it's going to be a blast!)

Meanwhile, they're having a "Red Death Ceili" on Friday the 7th, this Friday. Would anyone be interested in going with me PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE? It's at 9 PM and I REALLY want to go.

Um. My big accomplishment of the evening was making stacked sour cream green chile chicken enchiladas. I had some frozen sauce, there was unused sour cream from the Thanksgiving creamed corn gratin, and wechsler had bought a roasted chicken for lunch we'd failed to finish off. Oh, and I had a can or two of salade mechouia from our trip to Tunisia to provide the proper green chile kick (for mine, W had the chile free version). Dang, they were good. Also, I had a nice phone chat with bathtubgin. I feel lucky to have such good friends here. My cup runneth over!

Ceili dancing at Hammersmith Town Hall is a BLAST. I rocketed up and down the dance floor for two hours (not quite straight), polka-ing and twirling and do si do-ing and promenading. I did a special basket where we went ultra fast so the girls (me!) got lifted off the ground and swung around with their legs in the air ("Girls, arms on top, and don't let go!"). I asked a man in his early sixties to dance, and when he held my hand up for my turn, I did some kind of hopping skip with my hand behind my back that he thought was marvellous, thanking me later for making his night. Of course the whole time I had an ear-to-ear grin on my face.

My only regret was that I wasn't able to get wechsler out with us, as he was cutting a fine figure at djm's dance (and needs a break from his packing), but I did manage to convince mirrorshard to extract himself from the wilds of Leytonstone to join us, so I did alright. I am bound and determined to do the one they're hosting at Battersea Arts Center as a Masque of the Red Death late night on December 9th - it should be cool.

Work has been utterly packed this week and they've kept me going as fast as they could, though I did managed to have lunch with "the girls" on Monday and a really nice team lunch at Il Tartufo today, plus Pilates yesterday. I'm very happy with my short work week and even more happy with the way the hours fly by. Unfortunately I have to go in tomorrow, but I'm going to pull double time while I'm there, thereby feeding my crack theater habit. I also have to work on December 15th, which is going to play havoc with party co-hosting. Hopefully I can make it work somehow, and hopefully tomorrow I don't have to stay too late so I can catch the 6:15 Wayward Cloud at the BFI.

YAWN. Okay, have to go to bed now so I can be pretty for work tomorrow.

Okay, there is a Ceili in Hammersmith this Friday at the Hammersmith Town Hall (about halfway between Hammersmith and Ravenscourt Park). Does anyone want to go with me? I'll be having drinks beforehand at the William Morris pub on King Street.

Ceili ceili ceili! (And ceilidh too.)

I went to djm4's birthday party tonight and it was DA BOMB. It was EXACTLY why I moved here, because I didn't want to miss out on fun times like this with people I like so much.

Anyway, the deal is/was: a rented hall, yummy Indian food for all of us guests, basically everyone I am friends with (who was in town, anyway, I mean, there were people there I didn't know and plenty of people I know weren't there, but it felt like it was full of great folks) filling the room, an accordian and a guitar and a caller and Ceili Ceili Ceili! WOOOO!

I ended the night with my wrists crossed and julietk's hands in mine, leaning backwards from each other and spinning, and suddenly she looked at me with this excited look in her eyes that was totally, "Let's go for it!" and we just spun as fast as we could and it was a BLAST.

I laughed and laughed and danced and danced and visited with folks while I was cooling off and I had a GREAT time.

Thanks so much to djm4 for throwing a party that I will remember for a long time. :-)

Well, since there's no B-movie (official announcement here), Ceili dancing this Friday is definitely happening. Anyone want to come with? I feel a bit stupid for not going to B-Movie more over the last five months - it's like taking a friend for granted and having them up and join the Peace Corps on you.

Tonight I've been wanting to see a movie, but I'm having a hard time getting excited about the price of The Science of Sleep and the lack of friendly viewing times. Ah, were I only on Orange and getting a two for one deal today! (I would need two other people to make this work were anyone to offer ...) I was also thinking about Volver at the Riverside studios, but since it's two hours long and starts at 8:45 it would have me getting back home way too late. Now I'm thinking, "Ooh, I could see Hot Fuzz just across the street, getting me home half an hour earlier than Volver AND saving me from having to pay for tube travel to see Science," but then maybe what I should do is cough up £12.50 and get a ticket (well, two of them) to see Man of Mode at the National (great deals available through Friday on LastMinute.com) ... Play or movie. What should I do?

Last night shadowdaddy and wechsler and I ate the gigantic turkey pie I made with my Thanksgiving leftovers (I kept it next to Walt Disney's body for the last four months), then broke in my copy of Pirate's Cove. It seemed like the strategy would be to be the biggest, baddest, ass-kicking-est pirate around, but it turned out that skulking around and trying to go to less desirable treasure islands worked pretty well, too, as the Dread Pirate Wechsler and I were tied at the end of the game and had to have a cannon-off. I've got two other games I've added to my collection since January (Lunch Money and, er, a horse racing game, Winner's Circle?) and I can't wait to try them ...

Meanwhile, shadowdaddy hears back about his interview today. My fingers are crossed.

Just back from the Ceili dancing adventure at the Hammersmith town hall ("a sprung-wood dance floor, one of the most outstanding in the country") where shadowdaddy and I spent some three hours wearing ourselves out and having a damned good time. There must have been some 400 (he says 5) people there, eating the Burn's day neeps and taties (and haggis, it was pretty good and I'm pretty sure it was cooked authentically) and drinking and chatting. Rather than the Irish theme I'm used to, this was a very Scottish dance, with lots of men in full Highland formals, complete with merkin-on-a-chain and sock flags. (They were really handsome, though the most vigorous of the dancers showed a LOT of thigh from the back when he was spinning his partner around.) It was a younger crowd than the Seattle contra dances and fairly dressed up by Seattle standards, but still full of lots of people who didn't really know what they were doing (mostly men) and very friendly and jolly. We mostly danced two and sat out one (to catch our breath), for about four or five sets of dances (with a half hour break for the musicians to get drinks and someone to recite a poem about haggis), going from 8 to 11 - so quite a lot of time on the dance floor!

shadowdaddy danced all the but one of the dances I danced, and all but one of those with me, and looked damned handsome on the dance floor - plus he helped me with all of my left-right (and occasional counting) confusion. The final dance, which he sat out, had the first couple in a line of about 100 or more couples start swinging themselves, then spinning each with a member of the outside couple and returning to each other in the middle, then moving on so each person swung a person on the line, then add in another couple when the first got to about the fourth couple ... until EVERYONE had a chance to be the top couple and go dance and swing and dance and swing, over and over again, arms reaching out and turning you and spinning you back into the middle where you tried to grab your partner's arm before you were flung back out at ... is it this person? ... and back in the middle, turn with the friendly face, back to the line and grab the arm, get sweated on, over and over again and it was just madness!

Needless to say I had a great night and I do really need a shower, which I'm going to have now, and I'm pleased to say my knees don't hurt and the new boots were actually great dance shoes. Yay!

At work today, and I'm bored again and feeling lazy to boot. shadowdaddy came to join me for lunch, and we walked up to King Street and got £3.50 tiffins from Sagar (near the Ravenscourt Park tube station). Their takeout boxes are pretty good - vegetarian, of course, with rice/chappathi/raita/daal and today a garbanzo bean curry entree and some kind of lettuce/cucumber side dish. I do wish it came with a dessert and a wee dosa like the place down the road makes 'em, but this is still very, very good, filling, AND has the advantage of being closer to my office. In fact, we were able to walk up there (along the Thames path, a very nice walk), call in the order on the way, pick it up and go back to the park and eat all in time for me to make it back to work before an hour had gone by. Now, that's convenient, and God only knows it will be quite a bit nicer to do when it's not still winter. I'll be here in about two weeks, though (provided I get the reservation in this weekend), so I do at least have a break from the chill coming to me.

No one else seems to want to go Ceili dancing, so I could save the money and stay home, but I really want to kick up my heels and shadowdaddy is semi-game, so off we go. Tomorrow, a lovely ballet with bathtubgin (12:30!), then maybe a museum and then karaoke.

Right, so who in LJ land has a copy of the soundtrack to Starlight Express and can give it to me, say via email? I want to be able to sing those silly songs to myself while I'm cleaning the house. Ditto The Point. I don't have my vinyl anymore and that is not extant in my digital music collection. Help?

I'm also thinking about going Ceili (ceilidh?) dancing on Friday the 19th - anyone else interested?