Last year, we went to Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy at the Fox Theatre and absolutely loved it. We were blown away with the set design, the acrobatics, the creativity of the show. When we heard that Cirque Dreams was coming again with a holiday special, there was no hesitation, we were going and were going to be impressed.

We were sorely disappointed. I felt like we needed to smoke a bowl in order to enjoy the spectacle that was Holidaze. The acrobatics were not as impressive, the original holiday songs did not need to be sung and the set designs and characters were downright terrifying. There was no storyline, no cohesion between one thing and another. Even worse, they felt the need to belt out “modern” Christmas carols. I would not recommend this show, don’t waste your money.

The only saving grace was that we went to the Fountain on Locust afterwards for a light dinner. The interior is eclectic and casual with it’s art deco murals and pops of color, a mixture of bar and old school ice cream parlor. The menu has an array of dishes and we all ordered different items. I had the Royal Grille (an adult grilled cheese sandwich with apple slices). It was delicious. Everyone enjoyed what they each ordered.

I was intrigued by the dessert menu, of course, and so I saved some room for some of that. What did I order?

The world’s smallest ice cream cone!!! My sister and Kim each ordered the world’s smallest ice cream sundae. Aren’t they just adorable?

I would definitely recommend the Fountain, we heard about it from friends and now we are passing the recommendation on to you. It’s a fun and different place for you to check out the next time you are down around that area.

I read The Corrections in 2002, after the whole Oprah debacle and was completely blown away. Jen got me his first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City and that book cemented Jonathan Franzen near the top of my list of favorite authors. Imagine my delight then, when it was announced that Franzen would be doing a reading at Christ Church Cathedral in support of his most recent work, Freedom. We got there just before the reading and the place was packed — it had already been moved to Christ Church from a smaller venue to accommodate the crowd. Jen had a seat, but her view was blocked by a pillar. I stood nearby, with a view of the podium and in front of the A/C. Standing was fine, and the room was quite warm, so it probably worked out for the best.

After a glowing introduction, Franzen came out and spoke for a couple minutes about his trepidation when it comes to reading in his hometown. He then read from Freedom for 15 or 20 minutes and took questions for another 30 or 40 minutes. The reading was great, and the questions led to some interesting insights about his writing process and the ordeal of creating and promoting such a thing.

Once the questions wrapped, they started queueing up people for the book signing. Since we were among the last to arrive, we were in group 12. I used the time to start reading, and the book has held up to the incredible hype. Once I got the book signed, we made our way home.

Looking back at my narration of the event, it doesn’t sound that exciting, but it was a great time and the opportunity to meet one of my favorite authors was very cool. Thanks to Left Bank Books for putting this all together.

I know, we’ve been married for eight years and you’re probably thinking that we go out on lots of dates. I hate to burst your bubble, people, we actually don’t. We are the type to make plans to do something date-like and when that time comes, we punk out because we’re too lazy. No, we never punk out on our friends, just each other. On the rare occasions that we can’t punk out, we go out, realize how nice it is, vow to make it happen more often, and then punk out on the vow. See the trend here?

Okay, last Friday, We actually left the house and went to dinner and a show. That’s right, apparently Bob loves me so much and wanted to impress me, he took me to Red Lobster for dinner. Classy, eh? Okay, so we had a $50 gift card and couldn’t let that go to waste. We then headed over to the Muny where we saw Showboat.

I have only seen the movie once and all I remembered from that was “Old Man River.” Now the gentleman who sang it in the show was amazing. It brought tears to my eyes. Although it was hotter than hell that night, I did enjoy the show and music. I do have to say, it’s not one of my favorite musicals but I was glad to have the opportunity to see this classic on stage. And now with Bob’s family connections to awesome seats, I don’t think I could ever sit anywhere but the front boxes. I really am spoiled.

I’m not Catholic but that doesn’t stop me from being fascinated with the history and its artwork. I love the secrecy, the conspiracies, the rituals that go along with this religion. When I had heard that this exhibit was coming to St. Louis, I was all over it (okay, so I really wanted to see the reliquaries, I’m morbid, what can I say?)

Now, an exhibit like this costs a pretty penny ($25) so I was a bit hesitant about paying that price but along comes Groupon which offered a buy-one-get-one free ticket, including an audio tour! Heck yeah! We jumped on that and headed on down to the History Museum.

Quite a few people have told us that it would be hard to obtain tickets: not true. We walked up to the ticket booth, redeemed our tickets and were even able to jump in line for showing at 12:30 (it was almost 1:00).

The exhibit takes you through the years of Catholicism, artistically and historically. The artwork is exquisite, I was just blown away with Michelangelo’s Pieta, the beautiful, intricate gold objects, and the old frescos depicting St. Paul and St. Peter. I think the most fascinating gallery was “Dialogue with the World.” It showed Catholicism throughout the rest of the world.

I don’t care if you’re Catholic or not, you believe or not, I think that you should take advantage of this opportunity to see this exhibition. It impressed me and educated me. I do have one complaint: there were definitely not enough reliquaries. Oh well.

When we found out that Wicked was coming to the Fox this summer, it was decided that we had to make it a girls’ night out with a dinner and a show. We all cleaned ourselves up and away we went!

We started our evening at Kota Wood Fire Grill. We had heard that it had good food, it was right across the street from the Fox and we had a couple of coupons. I was a bit disappointed with the experience. Something in the kitchen prohibited any dishes to be sauteed so half of the menu was off-limits. We also weren’t really that impressed with the service. Our waiter seemed to disappear for long stretches at a time. I do have to say, my food was cooked well (Espresso Rubbed Beef Filet Medallions) so at least I had that. Let’s just say, sometimes the service really overshadows that quality of food.

On to the show! I had already seen Wicked so I decided to go for the cheap seats. Some of us had never seen it and I love going with first-timers, they are just awed and entranced by the story. I recommend seeing this show, it’s an interesting twist on the classic Wizard of Oz.

On to the second show! Afterwards, we headed down to 2720 to check out Kate’s artwork on display for one night only put on by Drawgasmic. It was a pretty neat show and an interesting environment. Let’s just say that we were a bit overdressed at this event. But it was fun and we were exposed to a wide array of artistic works from across the globe. I know it’s a bit late, but Kate, congrats on your piece!