Spamelot!

For Christmas (which for me is a celebration of family/commercialism, and decidedly not the birth of the Christian Savior) I went to Lake Forest in Illinois where my aunt and uncle live, along with one of my numerous cousins and his two children, Jack and Lilly. We had a lovely xmas dinner of pork roast, some of which now resides in my fridge, and I bagged much loot, including several books, a Ralph Lauren shirt, a cat toy which Casper is currently and loudly engrossed in, and a round-trip ticked anywhere in the states (hooray!).

Sunday, after a lazy morning and afternoon, we went into Chicago to catch Spamelot!, Eric Idle's new musical lovingly ripped off from the Holy Grail movie. It was FANTASTIC, I loved it, it was simply smashing. The cast included Tim Curry as Arthur, Hank Azaria as Lancelot / French Taunter / Various Other Silly Characters, and David Hyde-Pierce as Robin / Etc. (I have a soft spot in my heart for actors with hyphenated last names, aye, so I do.) The best part, which none of you will ever see even if you go to the show, was when the set broke halfway through the second act and the producer threw Hank Azaria to the wolves, aka the audience. Hank came out and entertained us ad lib for about 10 minutes. At one point he invited questions from the audience. Inevitably someone in the front row made a horribly geeky simpsons reference that about 3 people got, to which Mr. Azaria replied in full Comic Book Guy form "Worst Reference Ever." He also did a bit of Moe, and laughingly commented "Well, this is great. I'm living the actor's nightmare."

I also got to spend a lot of time with my cousins once-removed, Jack (3) and Lilly (1). Jack is currently fascinated with Pirates, so we fought several mock battles and build a Lego pirate ship and played Peter Pan vs. Captain Hook until I was exhausted and had to take a nap. Lilly was patently adorable, which is why I let her get away with crayoning my pants.

On the whole, a wonderful weekend. Now if you'll excuse me, I have 3 days of work to do before I jet out to New York for New Year's with my sister.