"There's not a lot of things that she'll take back..."

As those of you on Facebook already know, tonight I saw They Might Be Giants at First Ave! My ears still feel a little fuzzy, and I'm hoarse from singing along, which, in short, means I had a fantastic time.

I hadn't heard anything about the show, and would have missed it completely had David not spotted it and let me know this morning. I love TMBG's album Flood and the songs "Cowtown" and "Ana Ng" (the latter both, I believe, thanks to Ellen), but know next to nothing about what they've been up to for the past 19 years,* despite the fact that I only started listening to them about 10 years ago. However, as luck would have it, tonight was one of a few Flood shows on their tour, so we called the box office for tickets. At 10 a.m. they had only sold about 1000 of 1500 tickets, and said we'd be fine getting tickets right before the show. We were, and it's such a great venue that even though we were near the back (having left after picking up our tickets to grab some Thai food), the views and sound were great.

So. Have I mentioned that I love living in the city, and having David keep me apprised of the cultural happenings? Awesome.

And now, briefly, on to the rest of Halloween!

I recently inherited my mom's 1976 Kitchenaid stand mixer,** which is pretty much the coolest heirloom of all time. Not only do I now have a Real Grownup piece of working kitchen equipment that has the added benefit of keeping the cookie dough in the bowl and off the walls, it brings back all sorts of delightful memories from my childhood (which the friend who repaired it for my mom, after it broke and she bought herself a new one, tells me is actually the smell of ozone).

Anyway, my awesome new mixer (thanks again, Mom!) means that I can now attempt recipes like my mom's amazing cinnamon rolls, which, I immodestly warn the fortunate friends who get to try them, will forever ruin them for other, lesser, imitations. I had never made the cinnamon rolls before, but armed with my mom's recipe, the Kitchenaid, and an irrational and undeserved faith in my baking skills, I went ahead and invited people over for cinnamon rolls after the race.

I only had to call my mom three or four times to have her help me with the recipe. Thankfully, she claimed not to mind, and even more thankfully, she walked me through turning my sad, shrunken, pallid little spirals of dough into delicious cinnamon rolls in a matter of minutes. In fact, four of us ate at least 12 of them at breakfast, and only two of us had run a half marathon. I didn't get any pictures of the baking process, or of the full pan, but this is what they looked like after we had wreaked our breakfast havoc.

After the friends left, I spent most of the afternoon working on my costume for the evening's party, which involved cutting the sleeves and collar off of, taking in, and sewing trim onto, a size 2X thriftstore dress; painting on a plastic clip-on earring to make it a cameo brooch; and straightening my hair. Sadly, this was all at the expense of a nap, which meant that I couldn't even last until midnight at the party, and ultimately spent as long on the costume as in it. Still, I'm really pleased with how it turned out! (Click for larger images)

I did wear the jeans under my dress, although I tucked them into my tall boots. David wore his boots, too.

Oh, and yes, we definitely practiced our pose before we headed out.

Here's a friend's picture of us at the party, which may also offer a closer look at my hair and the brooch (and David's excellent glasses, which were sunglasses until he poked the lenses out).

Oh, and here's one more David snapped with his phone; we actually only got into character for proper photos!


*They actually played "Theme from Flood," and the line "It's a brand new record, for 1990" got a big laugh.

**I Googled it just now to try to find a link, and was unsuccessful, but am further convinced that the 70s model is way cooler-looking than the current ones with that weird, thick base. And where are the arms to hold the bowl??