Valbirthentine's Day

I had a good birthday + Valentine's Day this year, not least because my birthday was on a Sunday, and I forgot how wonderful it is to get to sleep in on one's birthday!

My birthday fortune in the LA Times. Not sure it makes sense.....

Ari made me birthday muffins! 

FREE Starbucks drink on my birthday! I got a molten chocolate latte with whipped cream. :D

Ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins with mint chocolate ice cream. By special request. Thanks for fulfilling my dreams, Ari! 

 On Valentine's Day, we had dinner in K-town and went to see Angel Olsen perform at the Wiltern Theater. My first time at the Wiltern; it really is a great venue. Unfortunately, we DID have to stand for over 3 hours to see the whole show, and that was pretty tough to do after a full day of work. There were two opening acts: Chris Cohen (psychedelic rock) and Jonathan Richman, a zany, ridiculous singer who is apparently is a living legend. He was definitely a lot of fun to watch!

But wait, there's more! On Thursday 2/16, we had a belated swing dancing birthday party at Lindygroove, which is where Ari and I take swing dancing classes every Thursday night. If it's your birthday, you get invite up to 10 guests for free, AND they give you chocolate cupcakes at a reserved table. So nice! So my parents and sister and my Aunt Liz came out to dance and/or watch people dance. It was really nice. 

We took this after Aunt Liz left. Oops. 

The Utopia of Brooklyn

Tonight, I went with Megan and Carol to see, and dance to, some Latin music in front of the Brooklyn Central Library. I hadn't planned to go (it's been a long week of teaching since Summer C started!), but it was a beautiful evening and the humidity from the last few days finally went away. The air was crisp and a little cool and the sky was totally clear. It seemed like I couldn't waste this nice evening by just going home and watching Netflix. 

So the three of us went to the library and danced a little. 

And I realized that every city should be like Brooklyn. Where else can you see such a mix of races and social classes mixing with an equal amount of joy and abandon? 

OK, OK, the people of Brooklyn don't always mix too easily, and there are definitely still a LOT of problems in this borough. But on nights like this, it's pretty easy to convince yourself that everything's gonna be just fine. 

        

On the way home, I walked through the park and looked at fireflies.

You make me feel like dancing

After work today, I met up with my coworkers Megan and Carol (the same friends who I spent the 4th of July with) to attend "Midsummer Night Swing," an event that happens every summer at Lincoln Center, where they have swing dancing (and other styles of dancing, like salsa) on certain nights of the week. It's fun because they have a dance floor, a live band, and a dance class for the first half hour. The only drawback is that it's a little pricey--$20 for 3 hours, if you stay the whole time, which we didn't. 

So we all went for the first time tonight. We took the dance class and learned the Lindy Hop, and then got to wait around awkwardly for people to ask us to dance. (I wanted Ari to come and be my dance partner, but he thought the price was too steep.) Thankfully, we all ended up dancing quite a bit by the end of the night, either with each other, or with random people who invited us to dance. It was a lot of fun! We plan to come back, and just hang out outside the dance floor -- thus essentially getting the same thing for free! 

This older dude was tearing up the dance floor. 

Our exhilarated walk back to the subway at the end of the night. 

Talkin' Bout My Generation

The cafe at Teachers College always hosts a local music group/singer on Wednesday evenings. Tonight (right now, as I'm posting this) they have a folk pair playing covers on acoustic guitar and harmonica-piano (What is that instrument actually called?).

And they just played "No One Else" by Weezer. YES! So great. I don't think I've ever heard anyone play that live (not even Weezer the one time I saw them). These kids are definitely from my generation.