Out and About...

David and I tend to be homebodies. We like curling up on the couch and watching DVDs on the weekend evenings. But then we start thinking there's something wrong with us -- like we "should" be out doing something wild and crazy. Then we start blaming each other for not planning something. Neither of us are "planners." We like to just let life unfold. It works most of the time, but then there are the times we get sick of the couch and we've seen every DVD we want to see and we look at each other and say "Why didn't YOU plan something this weekend?"

My nephew Drew is one antidote to our lack of social life. He's in town this summer for a couple of internships and we love hanging out with him. On Friday night he wanted to go hear Page France....an alternative band which, of course, I've never heard of. They were playing at Beat Kitchen. So we met him at Beat Kitchen at 9:30 -- my typical bedtime(!). WE WERE OUT HEARING A BAND AT 9:30 ON A FRIDAY NIGHT! WHOO-HOOO! Okay, we were the oldest people there by about 20 years. We wore our hippest clothes and tried to look young. I even got ID'd at the door (it made my day). But still, it was obvious we weren't 20. I like when my young nephews and nieces introduce me to cool new things. Here are the lyrics to a Page France song, "Chariot":

Swing, like a chariot
At the trumpet call
When we're all unsaved,
Swing like a wrecking ball
Like the heart of god
What a mystery
Filled with the wedding feast
For the snakes and bees
With the angel teeth, swing
Come and carry us
Come and marry us
To the blushing circus king
And dance like elephants as he comes to us
Through a fiery golden ring
With a violin and a song to sing
As he brings for us our wings
Now he's one of us
Plays the tambourine
Breaks the bread for us
And sings
Will you wait for us
Will you stay for us
Will you grace us everything
You're a wrecking ball
With a heart of gold
People wait for it, swing
Like a chariot
Swing it low for us
Come and carry us away
So we will become a happy ending
So we will become a happy ending
Fire come and carry us
Make us shine or make us rust
Tell us that you care for us
We need to hear a word for us
Let your body stand with us
Or let our rags be turned to dust
Chariot you swing for us
We think that you can carry all of us
So we will become a happy ending
So we will become a happy ending
So we will become a happy ending
So we will become a happy ending

Thanks, Drew, for introducing me to this cool new band, and for hanging out with your old aunt and uncle.

Saturday night we went to see our good friend, John Judd, who played Iago in a production of Othello. Okay, I haven't seen Shakespeare in a while, and I was blown away by this production. If you're in the Chicago area, it's running until July 15 at the Writer's Theatre in Glencoe.

Finally, on Sunday night we DID stay in and watch a DVD -- The Painted Veil. Highly recommended. I loved the character of Kitty, who's transformed by living in rural China during a Cholera epidemic. At first, she's shallow and unfaithful. Why her doctor husband (played by Edward Norton) wanted to marry her, I have no idea....well, she's beautiful. But that's the only thing she has going for her. So, to punish her for her unfaithfulness, he volunteers to go to a village where there's a cholera epidemic. He drags her along, and in the course of trying to save this village, they're both transformed. It's all about my favorite things: Grace, forgiveness, spiritual love, and transformation.

Anyway, it was a good weekend, and we only spent one night watching a DVD, and a good one at that.