January 5th: The Book of Mormon
Matt Stone and Trey Parker have hands down been my favorite comedic writers of all time. They've been able to challenge all that is politically correct on cable television with South Park, attacking individual religions and organizations in almost every episode in a way that no others have attempted. It's not that they just attack the flaws of nearly every group, but they are able to consistently do it in a way that makes make everyone from the outside looking in realize how crazy some people really are. With their unique and rather offensive sense of humor, Matt and Trey created the Tony Award winning "The Book of Mormon," which (luckily) my parents were able to get tickets to.
Just to make one thing clear about the play: it was potentially the funniest piece of entertainment (movie, book, or television show) that I have seen in my entire life. The theatrics and songs were so eloquently performed in a way that there may have been 2 minutes of the 2 hour play that I wasn't smiling. The play is constructed to bash Mormonism and organized religion by blatantly stating their beliefs in delightfully catchy tunes. The story, the characters, and everything about it was so good that I can only understate the brilliance of Matt and Trey. I fear to give away any of the information about why specifically it was so great, as the surprise and originality of it all was part of the enjoyment. If you have an opportunity to see this in your lifetime, you need to make it happen.
January 12th: The wedding of Alex and Caitlin Wentz
This being my first Catholic wedding, I was told to expect the worst. Everyone let me know there would be a lot of standing, a lot of prayer and a lot of boring (which, for the most part was true). The real bang was the reception, and man was it beautiful. It was very stereotypical; great food, open bar, first dance, bride tossed the bouquet, and more dancing. The majority of the evening was spent with my cycling teammates, but as they left I began to transition myself more on to the dance floor. Personally, I've never considered myself that great of a dancer, but after comparison to a few of my peers... I'm really not that bad. I actually got a few compliments, which led me to dance with more people than I normally would. The feel of this room was one of generally the happiest places you could be in at once. It really was a fun time.
I've found a few photos of me from the wedding, from which I've stolen from facebook
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| I managed to perfectly ruin this photo |
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| I may have over embellished my actual dancing skills |
As my fathers financial success continues with the rise of his law side of his practice, he is simultaneously becoming increasingly more charitable. Approximately 2 months ago, my parents both went to a charity auction for Water Watch; a non profit organization aimed to keep Oregon riverbeds as clean as possible. The specific item that my dad won was a prized dinner for 8 with chef and cook book author Janie Hibler, with Mariel Zagunis as the guest of honor.
It was a bit of a coincidence for me with Mariel being the guest, as I have never in my life been in to fencing as much as I am now. By no means am I trying to say that I follow the sport, but I generally understand the rules and regulations better than most people in the United States. Dan was a NCAA fencer (a relatively good one but still pretty bad on the grand scale), and I've been pestering him with questions for the past two years or so whenever I have them. The one thing I've recently learned not to do is, when talking about fencing, to not wave your hands in a gesturing fashion like you are waving a fake sword... you know, swishing your hand back and forth quickly. I'll get more to this later.
We arrived for the dinner as a family to meet the hosts/chefs at their lavish house in the South Hills in Portland, later to be accompanied by a few family friends. After we shook hands with everyone, questions became immediately about the olympics and fencing. It was safe to say that I was the 2nd most knowledgeable person about fencing there, as question after question I felt like I could have also answered (only because I've also been curious about the sport in the past, and I've just asked Dan when I'm curious). Mariel took it like a champ. She answered very politely, was very smooth with her words, and also had a hint of humor thrown in that I wasn't quite expecting. There were questions you know were bound to come up (the party life in the olympic village), and questions I was generally curious about (how she shops for pants/how asymmetrical her legs are). And although we were not asking the most demanding questions, there was never a hint of opaqueness to her answers; she answered everything in a way that portrayed that she was a nice person in general. To be honest, I had relatively low expectations going in to the dinner about her intelligence/personality... mostly because athletes of the highest caliber in the world don't need to also be the smartest or the nicest, but she really did leave a nice impression. As a side note, I was also impressed with how perfect her teeth were. Here are just a few pictures from the evening:
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| The kitchen setting |
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| Mariel decided to bring out her medals at the end of the night |
The dinner itself of course was magnificent, and the chefs were great company too. Oh, and that hand wavy motion that I previously mentioned as something that all fencers hate? Yeah, that came up 26 times in the evening.
