i was dancing at the lesbian bar

This weekend was chock-full of family fun. It was the first weekend in a while that neither Ed nor I had any work to do, so we packed in a whole lot of action.

Friday night, Ed and I had a date night, while Elian stayed home with Ed's friend Mary (on whom I think Elian may have a wee crush). We ate fancy-pants Mexican food at Masa followed by a Jonathan Richman show. This took me back to when our love was young. Ed introduced me to Jonathan Richman when we first started dating and we have seen him perform a few times. But now that I'm as old as the hills, I was having trouble staying awake until the end of the show. Nonetheless, it was very enjoyable.

If you've never seen Jonathan Richman perform, here's what you're missing.



Saturday morning we enjoyed piping hot pancakes (or "panks" as we call them in our family). Elian was a tad bit on the emotional side all morning -- crying for no apparent reason. So we were a little bit nervous to take him to the Minnesota Orchestra performance we had tickets for: Maya Angelou reading "On the Day You Were Born" with orchestra and visual accompaniment. It was a Free Target Family performance so I figured we could leave if we had to and Ed threw in an M&M bribe for good behavior. Before the performance, they had a hands-on music factory and Elian got to try a violin and some other instruments out. I sort of thought he would enjoy the orchestra given his love for classical music, but I really wasn't sure if he was going to be able to sit through the whole thing. His reaction to the performance didn't disappoint. He sat on the edge of his seat gasping as the music reached a crescendo. Having him sit on my lap as we listened and watched Maya Angelou read a children's book was beyond awesome. I'm so glad we went.

After the orchestra, we went out to dinner at Conga, a "Latin Bistro." Luckily they had white paper over the tablecloths so little e could draw to his heart's content. I wish we would've saved this piece of paper given the elaborate drawings on it -- marble runs, a picture of Norman -- with Elian hair, an ice cream cone, cherry, bird, loaf of bread, Christmas tree, basketball -- all on his head. Not to mention a hysterical family flow chart. After watching Papa perform impressive magic tricks putting crayons up his nose and pulling them out of his mouth, the whole family was in a fit of giggles which culminated in Ed knocking his coke off the table. We wrapped up the dinner with some delicious flan that Elian devoured almost entirely on his own.

As if the carb-loading pancake breakfast yesterday wasn't enough, this morning we had homemade waffles. Elian enjoyed the comparison of the batter oozing into the squares as a marble going down a marble run. Next it was a family walk. Then, in the afternoon, Elian's friend Emma had her birthday party at a Ballroom Dance studio where we received dance lessons from a baby ballroom dance instructor. What a hoot that was.

The End.