Mynee's Musings

Blue Man Group & Dressels

We saw Blue Man Group on Saturday, the second show in The Fox Broadway Series.  We had seen the show in Vegas about 15 years ago but of course, each show is different since there is audience participation.  They also updated it with references to cell phones, texting, etc.  It was really funny.

If you've never seen a Blue Man Group show, it's hard to imagine just from a description so check out this video I found on Youtube...

 

After the show, we headed to Dressel's for dinner.  It was recently featured on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on The Food Network.  We started with the pretzel with rarebit and then Bill ordered the Porchetta Louey and I had the truffled grilled cheese with tomato bisque, all of which were featured on the show.  Oh my goodness, it was all good.  They have a great selection of beer on tap too.  We're definitely going to eat there again soon.

I have a few more Christmas cards to make and then I'll start posting them here.  Stay tuned...

Lindsey Buckingham

We saw Lindsey Buckingham at The Pageant in University City on Friday.  We had considered eating at Blueberry Hill before the concert but figured it would be really crowded since it's within walking distance of The Pageant so we opted for Bottleworks instead.  It was almost warm enough to sit outside on their patio but we played it safe and ate inside and enjoyed yummy hummus, gnocchi (me) and crab cakes (Bill).  To quench our thirst, we enjoyed a Tasmanian IPA and a Hop Harvest.  

The concert began at 8:30 and there was no opening group.  Here's the setlist...

1. Cast Away Dreams
2. Bleed to Love Her
3. Not Too Late
4. Stephanie
5. Come
6. Shute Us Down 
7. Go Insane 
8. Never Going Back Again
9. Big Love
10. I'm So Afriad
11. Go Your Own Way
    Encore:
12. Trouble 
13. Seeds We Sow 

We had really great seats, 7th row on the floor.  It's a small venue so really all of the seats are great.  The only person on stage was Lindsey.  He didn't bring his band, just his guitars.  It was so cool to listen to him and realize that he is one of the singers in the biggest rock bands of all time yet he doesn't hesitate to do small shows and, in fact, seems to enjoy performing for a small audience.  He talked about the "Big Machine" (meaning Fleetwood Mac) and the "Small Machine" meaning Lindsey on his own and how neither could exist without the other.  

Rumor has it that Fleetwood Mac will be touring in 2013.  It would be the 10th anniversary of our "Summer of Fleetwood Mac."  I can't wait.  :)

St. Louis Tourists

Bill and I both took a vacation day last Friday and we pretended to be tourists...hee hee hee.  This is how the day evolved.  When we decided arlier in the week that we were going to take Friday off, we started planning our day.  At first it was just going to be the History Museum and dinner but it evolved from there.  Bill had been wanting to see the Civil War exhibit at the Missouri History Museum so that was a definite on our list.  We also had been wanting to eat breakfast at a pancake place in the Chesterfield Valley so I suggested we start there.  Bill was then checking the hours at the History Museum and they don't open until 10:00 so Bill suggested that we go to the Botanical Garden first because they open at 9:00.  For dinner, we wanted to eat at a restaurant that we had been wanting to try for some time and it's close to the Anheuser Busch Brewery so I suggested that we try to squeeze in a tour there too.Whew.  OK, so here's how the day went...

We left the house around 7:45 and headed to The Original Pancake House in the valley.  They have all sorts of yummy pancakes and it was really hard to choose just one.  Bill had the Georgia pecan pancakes and I had the bacon pancakes!  Oh yum, there was bacon in the pancakes.  Oh yeah, and we split a side of bacon because you can never have too much bacon.  :)

After breakfast, we headed down to the Missouri Botanical Garden.   We haven't been to the Botanical Garden since we were in grade school.  I know, shame on us.  Sometimes when you live in an area all your life, you take the attractions for granted.  I will say that after our visit last Friday, we will definitely be visiting again, in fact, I'd like to visit at least once every season.  I was amazed at how many flowers were still in bloom.  I figured that most of the flowers would be done for the year which was still ok because we knew that there would be plants and flowers in the climatron.   Anyway, we walked around the grounds outside first and then headed into the Climatron.  It was about 48 degrees outside and 80 degrees inside with 85% humidity.   Yes, it felt quite tropical and felt quite good actually.  We walked around outside a little more and I noticed this chair that was just calling my name, wink!

Our next stop was the Missouri History Museum, another place that we haven't visited since grade school.  We spent more than an hour in the Civil War exhibit and then ate lunch at Bixby's, the restaurant in the museum.  It is only open for lunch Monday through Saturday and brunch on Sunday.  The food was delicious.  We chose three "small plates"; pumpkin and rosemary hummus, mini crab cakes and the steak and blue cheese flatbread...

 

 

 

We ate every bite and will definitely be visiting again!  After lunch, we walked through the museum and saw 1904 World's Fair and baseball exhibits.  We stayed until about 2:30 and then headed to our next stop.

We have lived in St. Louis all of our lives and have NEVER taken a tour at the Anheuser Busch Brewery, ever!  That is until last Friday.  The tour started at 3:00 and lasted until about 4:45 included 2 beers at the end. The size of the brewing tanks was amazing and it would take 1 person over 130 years to drink just one tank at the rate of 1 beer per hour.  Whew!  We're planning on going back to take the Beer School Tour or the Brewmaster Tour.  Anyway, after the tour, we walked through the AB shop and I bought a little wooden box that will live in our TV room.  It's so cute and you know how much I love boxes...hee hee hee.  By this time it was a little after 5:00 so we walked to our car, programmed the GPS and headed to our next stop.

Iron Barley had been on our list of restaurants to try for quite some time.  I would look at the menu online and it looked good but not fantastic.  Well, I started reading the reviews and everyone said that they are known for their specials and that they don't just have one or two each day but more like 8 or 10.  Well, they were right.  We started with one of the appetizer specials which was potato pancakes with apples and slaw.  Oh my goodness, I could have made a meal of just the appetizer.  For our main course, we each choose one of the specials.  Bill chose the shrimp and "grits" which was roasted red pepper polenta and it was really good.  I chose the chicken paprika with spaetzle.  Yum!  

After dinner, we stopped by Six Row for a brew; their chocolate vanilla porter.  It was a small batch but I'm sure hoping that they brew it again.  Anyway, it was a great ending to a fantastic day!  We need to be St. Louis tourists more often...hee hee hee!

A Really Bad Dream

I was hoping that I would wake up this morning to find that I just had a bad dream and Obama had actually lost the election.  I honestly thought that Romney was going to win because I didn't think that people could be so blind to what Obama has done.  It just makes me sick and sad and nervous and worried and pissed.  Right now, I'm mostly pissed. 

Bill decided on Monday that he was taking a vacation day today and I thought about doing the same but I didn't and I'm glad.  If I had been home, I would have just been watching Fox News and arguing with people on Facebook all day and I would have ended up exploding.  Going to work kept my mind off of the election results at least for a while.  I was ok until I got home, pulled into our driveway and noticed that our idiot neighbors across the street (he is a life-long democrat and she was a Republican until 2008) still had their Obama and McCaskill signs in their yard.  I pulled into our garage, got out of my car, opened our door, walked in the house and burst into tears saying, "If they still have that sign in their yard in the morning, I'm going to go over there, rip it out of the ground and shove it up her ass."  Pretty childish, I know, but it made me feel better.  Kind of like the part in Steel Magnolias where Sally Field's character wants to "hit something and hit it hard."  Hee hee hee...  

So before dinner, I'm checking Facebook and notice that an individual, who shall remain nameless, made some pretty stupid remarks to me on Facebook.  I was going to post them here for all to enjoy but she has since removed them, I assume because she was losing the argument.  I used to work with her.  Correction, I hired AND fired her about 12 years ago and I think she's still angry.  Once she realized that I knew who she was, she disappeared.  Ha!

I didn't post much at all about the election here on my blog this year.  I did most of my posting on Facebook since there's a wider audience there (wink) but just wait.  Obama may have four more years...but so do I.  It's my blog and I'll post whatever I like, unless of course he's going to try to take away that freedom too.

Saddest Little Cardinal Fan

If the World Series had gone 7 games, it would have ended today.  Baseball in November?  That's crazy.  The other thing that is crazy is the Giants winning 4 straight against the Tigers.  That made 7 wins in a row.  Oh well, at least the Giants didn't win in their stadium.  Oh and what's up with their fans?  The Giants win and some fans riot.  Seriously, I've never understood that.  We didn't have any riots here in St. Louis when the Cardinals won the World Series last year.  Heck, we didn't have any riots here this year when they lost to the Giants.  It's just stupid.

Now for a video of the saddest little Cardinal fan.  His name is Cy (named after Cy Young) and he was just so upset when his beloved Cardinals were about to lose game 7 of the playoffs...

  

He was on Fox 2 in the morning earlier this week and he's doing fine now.  Fredbird even made an appearance and that made little Cy smile.  

Bill and I are both taking a vacation tomorrow and have some fun planned acting like tourists.  Be sure to check back for details.