Trivia Tuesday

~ You know it's going to be a rough evening when you can't even manage to get the first question right.  In our defense, we answered the question we thought we read correctly, just not the question that was asked.  (A single dice has 21 black dots on it - too bad they asked how many a pair of dice have...)

~ It's always fun - and by always I mean never - to narrow down a question to 2 correct answers, and have the actual answer be C - none of the above.  Yep, it was that type of evening.

~ To be "The Best Roadtrip Ever!" you must have a roadtrip playlist.  It's not certain though if that playlist should be broken up by days, portions of the country or not at all.  Oh the things that are debated between questions!

~ A league is 3 miles (Not 5, 10, or 15) and the only reason we were reasonably sure of this is that there's a book called 20,000 leagues under the sea and 60,000 seemed a reasonable number of miles to be under the sea.  

~ Bahia de Cochinas translates to Bay of Pigs - not Area of Restaurants as I orginally thought.  I have no excuse for Bahia but before seeing Cochinas, I just thought the quiz-dude was mispronouncing Cocinas.

~ There are 3 categories in which our team can't catch a break: Sports, Geography and the Periodic Table.  Care to guess which categories we had tonight? (Sports was an entire round, and Geography was the final question, while the Periodic Table was just one little question strategically placed to taunt us...)

~ In an entire round of Patriotic Quotes, Hamilton didn't come up once. That's just unfortunate.

~ Born in the USA is considered a "not so patriotic song." I'm going to need to re-listen to that song.  I'm skeptical.

~ Phoenix is the only US capital with more than 1 million people in it.  I totally said that.  Of course I also said Austin, and Sacramento too.  Everyone totally agreed with me - when I said Sacramento.

~ File this one under Things you Learn: Pennsylvania is mispelled on the Liberty Bell.  You'd think someone who enjoys finding typos as much as me would have known that.

~ And saying Mozambique because that's the only African nation you can think of, after the team has already turned in the answer to their final question is one thing.  But when the answer actually is Mozambique, everyone yells at you.  I feel they should be more impressed by my answering capacity rather than my speed  : )

Happy Independence Day!

Happy 4th of July! Hope your holiday was full of fun, family, friends and a whole lot less rain than we had here in Maryland!

Raise a glass to freedom, something they can never take away...

New Food

I very much like to eat.  It's a thing - let's move on, shall we?  Anyway, because of this, finding new restaurants is one of my most favorite things to do.  This weekend, we found not one but 2 fabulous places to eat - one in Virginia and one in Maryland.

First up was FireWorks Pizza in Leesburg.  It's a brick-fire pizza joint in a super-cute hipster area of Leesburg.  There are about 5 other restaurants in the area that I also want to go back and try too.  Because it's a hipster area of town, everything was organic and very fresh.  We started with garlic cheesy ciabatta and it was delicious.  I decided on a flat-bread with garlic and fresh marinara dipping sauce. Also, quite yummy!  The best part was sitting outside on their deck - it was such a beautiful day! There was supposed to be a bakery around, but we could not find it anywhere.  Other than that, it was the perfect lunch!

Then after a few hours - when lunch had worn off - we had dinner back in Maryland, at Volt's Family Meal.  Now technically this wasn't new for me, since I had eaten at the Family Meal in Baltimore.  However, since it was the first time I had eaten at the one in Frederick, I'm calling it new. This time was better than the time in Baltimore too, because we sat at the counter.  It wasn't my first choice at all, but after getting the chance I've decided it's pretty darn fun.  We were able to chat with the bar-tenders and watch all the hustle and bustle of food and drinks coming out of the kitchen.

And the food, oh my goodness, it was delicious!  For appetizers, we had deviled eggs - not my favorite (because deviled eggs in general are not my favorite) - and Chicken Pot Pie Fritters, which are just as to die for as they sound.  Dinner was fried chicken and a biscuit and catfish.  And dessert were chocolate earl grey donuts - so delish!  Though, I'm pretty excited to get back there again, and try the giant plain donuts that were being made for today's brunch.  

New food days are just so much fun!

Maryland Ice Cream Trail Stop #1: Rocky Point Creamery

I've basically been wanting to do the Maryland Ice Cream Trail, since I discovered there was one - about 5 months ago.  I'm not sure how I have lived in Maryland all my life, and never knew our creameries were so good, there was a trail of them dotted around the state.  But after a few clicks a few months ago, I was hooked on the idea.  The only issue is that most are pretty far away from where I live.  

I had planned to conquer the easy peasy one today in Baltimore County.  But plans changed and I crossed it off the list.  However, the plans changed for the better.  Because it just so happened we were close to another creamery on the list - Rocky Point Creamery.  So off we went!  Let's just say, if the rest of the places on the trail are this good, it's going to be quite the fabulous summer. 

For some reason, I had assumed they'd just have a few flavors - pretty much the usual, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.  But I was very wrong, they had a list of about 20 different flavors, even a no sugar added option.  The 3 of us had 4 different flavors and each was better than the last!  We sampled Banana Pudding (out of this world!), Chocolate Marshmallow, Peach (Delish!) and Caramel Pecan.  All were super yummy!  

Even the spot itself was lovely, full of very happy people (and puppies - they have a puppy sundae too!) all enjoying a gorgeous day, lounging about on some very stylish (ha!) benches. One stop down - 7 more to go! 

 Banana Pudding with Hot Fudge that I was so excited to eat, I forgot to take a picture of it until I was half way done...

 We're Mooing if you can't tell - you know, because of the cow...

Friday Five

1. There will never be a better representation of Boris Johnson in the middle of this #Brexit madness.  I love it!

Boris pops in to see how the #brexit plan is coming along pic.twitter.com/bfSfnssRd4

— Hilly (@HillyFoz) June 27, 2016

2. Word of warning, this montage is heartbreaking.  But Ryan Murphy and Friends created a beautiful tribute to the 49 Orlando victims, as well as a call to action to outlaw the guns that killed these people.  


3. This week on Twitter, not only did I discover that a local newsman was following me (I have NO idea why seeing as I post nothing about Baltimore or Maryland), but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Stephanie Block who is going to play Trina in Falsettos actually liked my tweet about reading Falsettos. First Fully Committed commented to me and now Stephanie Block?  I'm famous! : )

4. BookDepository.com - Do you have any idea how amazing this website is?  Thousands upon thousands of books from all over the world - including all the British ones I adore - for absolutely, positively free shipping!  Apparently they come at the pace of a snail but if you can wait for them, you'll get a great deal.  I may or may not have bought 11 books that I've been wanting for the last year...

5. The best thing I learned all week was all about my godforsaken computer.  A few weeks ago, after 2 years of ignoring the calls to update to Windows 10, my dumb computer decided to auto-update to 10.  That caused all sorts of issues - we're talking 10 minutes just to log on, having to restart 8-10 times just to log on, crazy ghost like moving of my cursor and windows.  So after a bit of googling - thank goodness for Google! - I learned you can roll back to what you had before within 30 days of the update.  Thankfully it hadn't been 30 days yet and in a matter of a half hour, my computer was back to working well again.  Now I just have to figure out why 24 hours later, I can't launch Chrome...

Live Blogging a Live Stream

Tonight history is being made.  Broadway HD is live streaming a current Broadway show - She Loves Me.  This is the first time something like this has happened, and for theatre junkies, it's a dream come true.  Because hopefully it will be such a rousing success that it will continue to happen.  Unfortunately, She Loves Me is a show I've seen live already.  Don't get me wrong, I loved it.  The set and cast was fabulous.  However, it would have been much more fun to see something new.  But nonetheless, I'm sitting here with my bestie smiling like a nut getting ready to have vanilla ice cream and signing along.  It really is a fabulous thing!

And these are my thoughts - thoughts I pretty much had when I saw it live, but it's rude to blog when you're in a theatre : )

~ It didn't start out well.  There were definitely some technical difficulties.  Thank goodness for Twitter, where we learned that everyone was having the same issues.  Since then, it's been absolutely perfect!

~ This set is gorgeous! I'm so happy they won the Tony for set design.  It looks like a beautiful parfumerie that I would love to shop in.

~ Zac Levi is just so darn dreamy and likable!  And so darn talented.  

~ The only issue I have with the show is that Amalia and Georg are supposed to hate each other.  I just don't buy the dislike. 

~ When I saw it, there was another actor playing Ladislav.  The new actor is quite good.  Apparently this dude was on Frasier. So that's cool.

~ Laura Benanti has a beautiful voice, but I'm just not a fan of that Soprano in the middle of a show of non- classically-trained singers.  She just doesn't fit in with the sound.

~ The kid that plays Arpad is so going places.  He's phenomenal!

~ Gavin Creel is such a cutie (Shallow comment of the night...)

~ Jane Krakowski's ability to get her leg up on Gavin Creel's shoulder and then jump into a split is utterly baffling!  I can barely touch my toes and she's splitting across the stage...

~ I'm always shocked by the dark turn and how quick it comes.  Things lighten up pretty quick after but whoa, wasn't expecting it...

~ Knowing when I have to pee at intermission I won't have to wait in line with 332 other people might just be the best thing to come out of this evening.

~ I saw Peter Bartlett - the head waiter - in Something Rotten! and he was just as funny. In only one number, he manages to steal the show and nail every joke.

~ Zac Levi is perfect in this part!

~ Intermission! I'm loving that this is being billed as a Romantic-ish comedy.  So cute!

~ Vanilla Ice Cream Time!!!

~ "Well I'll have a little talk with myself..." : )

~ Where's my shoe?!  - I had this song stuck in my head for weeks after seeing it.

~ I'm more interested at the moment in Where can I get those pajamas?  So cute!

~ A whole song about Vanilla Ice Cream - how can you not love it?  Also, the whole reason we had a vanilla ice cream break - just in case you weren't sure.

~ Just as I was fascinated by Jane Krakowski's split, I'm equally in awe of Zac Levi's ability to do a cartwheel and that clever little hat trick!  I can barely walk down the street without tripping...

~ I have to admit, I've felt the need to sing a song about a library too.  Though, as hard as I've tried, I've never met a dreamy optometrist at the library, unfortunately.

~ I would totally wear every piece of clothing the women in this show wear.  Beautiful!  

~ So clever to do the 12 days of Christmas with carolers narrating!

~ The Christmas shoppers look like me about 3 days before Christmas...I'm stressing just thinking about it.

~ They keep going on and on about how "awful" Georg was - I just don't see it!

~ Hollywood kiss in the snow -  Perfect ending!

~ Using the "Please come again soon" after the curtain call - so perfect!

And that's that - a fabulous way to spend an evening and I'm now hoping all the shows follow their lead.  So exciting!

June Reads in Review

When compared to last month's list of 9 books, June was fairly pathetic.  I'm supposed to be reading more in the summer and based on this stack, I'm reading WAY less.  However, I'm reading less because I'm getting to do WAY more exciting things.  So I'm ok with it.  I achieved the 3 books for the month, which was the goal, and it looks like I'll be back on track to read a few more than 3 this July, considering I'm about half-way through my first book of July already...

"The Weekenders" by Mary Kay Andrews: I'm a big fan of her books because she always releases one just as summer is hitting, and it usually takes place in the South - sometimes on the beach, and sometimes not.  They're perfect for the summer reading list.  This one was good - chick lit mixed with a mystery.  I do feel it could have been about 100 pages shorter.  Overall good as usual, but not as good as my favorite of hers "Deep Dish."

"The Philharmonic Gets Dressed": This is a kids book that I picked up at Lincoln Center because I realized I've never purchased a kids book that was NY themed.  Anyway, this one is a beginner's guide to an orchestra which is just as cute as it sounds.  Such a great book for kids who love music!

"Broadway Nights" by Seth Rudetsky: Can I just say I love Seth Rudetsky?  Can he be the Will to my Grace?  The best thing about reading books written by him, is that you can hear him saying pretty much every single line of the book. His main characters are just a slightly skewed version of him, and since he's so delightful, that's definitely a good thing.  So darn funny and a great guide to insider Broadway terms - I even learned a few things.