113. Go see musical theater - Stomp

 My mom was in town, which means that we have a reliable and willing baby sitter.  Which... yay!  But also, once again so much pressure to make it a memorable night.  We don't get to go out just the two of us all that often these days, so we need to take advantage.  In all honesty, I don't want to go out more than we currently do; it's fun being home with LP the three of us.  But once in a while we need a break, and it's nice to be out without having to worry about early bedtimes.

Also, my mom is the only person so far we've trusted with LP's bedtime routine.  Someday we might hire a teenager to watch her for the evening like normal people, but that day is not today.  Nor tomorrow.

Anyway, Stomp is one of those shows Nate has always wanted to see.  He's a percussionist, after all, and watching this fulfilled some fantasy of his youth.  It would definitely have been on his 101 list, if he was inclined to make one.

It was also a father's day gift of sorts.  My mom wanted to give us a night out, including babysitting, and I knew that Nate really wanted to see the show.  Win-win for everyone!

Regarding the show, it was so much more fun than I was expecting. And I had pretty high expectations to be wowed.  I mean, I know Stomp was big quite a few years ago, but you don't become a household name without putting on a great show.  So in addition to the expected bucket drums, rhythmic hand clapping, hubcaps and kitchen sink drums (yes, everything and the kitchen sink jokes are appropriate here), they also performed with match boxes, lighters, and were surprisingly funny.  They also encouraged audience participation, going so far as to teach us some different clapping techniques.  All of this without actually uttering a word, their world is one of noises, rhythm, dance and body language.

Highly recommend it.

And as a stroke of luck, the Stomp theater is located right in front of my favorite french fry establishment ever, Pommes Frites.  I know, competition must be stiff. (I wanted that comment to be sarcastic, but then I began to wonder if NYC, with their burger culture, might actually have lots of wonderful french fries... mmmm)    The fries are okay, I could stand them to be a bit crispier, but you go to Pommes Frites for the mayo.  European style mayo and about 20 different types of dips.  We ended up choosing Garlic Rosemary this time, but I've also tried garlic, sun dried tomato, pesto, smoked eggplant, and blue cheese.  So we were able to stop by for a snack before the show.

Actually, our evening kept going.  After leaving the show, we  went to Cafe Orlin, our favorite pre-baby date spot.  Had a glass of wine and talked about the Stomp show, and I think we had a B-celebrity sighting.   Don't want to type his name because I don't want google reader to pick it up, but suffice to say, it's the bearded guy from Bones.  *giggle*     I'm pretty sure it was the actor, but I can't be sure, it could have been a look-alike. (Side story, we met a guy a couple of years ago who looked just like Ry an Gos ling.  I mean, looked just like him, in a spooky way.  And he would get confused for RG all the time, and even saw his own picture of some blogs mislabeled as the celebrity.  So look-alikes do exist.)