7.2.98

    Guess what I did last night? I got to go to the Hollywood Bowl to hear the Los Angeles Philharmonic do music from Bugs Bunny. It was so much fun!

    The Hollywood Bowl is a large, outdoor ampitheatre and has been a fixture in Los Angeles for many, many years. It's set up primarily in "boxes" with little fold-out tables for you to picnic on. T. and I brought a basket and ate like royalty. We had fresh bread, Italian salami, spicy-jack cheese, grey poupon (in a squeeze bottle), green grapes, spinach dip, a bottle of pretty cheap Merlot and After Eight mints. The mints melted somewhere in the grocery store but, other than that, it was delicious. And, what's that about being able to bring your own alcohol? Yes, it's true. How civilized.

    The evening was perfect. A half-moon floated over the stage and barely a breeze stirred the cool, night air. Fireflies flickered overhead and kids tried to stay awake in the arms of their laughing parents. A 50' tall screen projected the creme de la creme of Bugs' cartoons and the band played along. The greatest irony was "Long-haired, Hare" in which Bugs Bunny disguises himself as the great conductor Leopold. The cartoon reaches its finale only when the opera singer literally brings down the house — which just happens to be the Hollywood Bowl.

    The orchestra was absolutely delightful and there's something about seeing those cartoons on that huge screen with live music that really elevated it to a new form. I highly recommend that you check out the Bowl if you ever have the means. T. and I wouldn't have been able to afford to go if we hadn't agreed to housesit in exchange for tickets. Not that arm-twisting needed to be employed to get us in a real house.

    We also saw that guy, Trey, with the shock-blonde hair who created South Park with his buddy. The buddy might have also been there but I didn't notice.

    On the wedding front.... T. and I are idiots. We finally got off around a hundred or so invitations, Tuesday morning. Tuesday night my mom calls and says, "I just went to the post office to send some of the invites and did you know that they are overweight and require an extra 23 cents?" The answer, sadly, is no, no we didn't. Wednesday morning we rushed around trying to see if we could rescue the invitations before the post office voided the stamps and tried to cram them in our mailbox. No such luck and on Thursday we found crammed invitations in our little mailbox. T. was not pleased.

    The upside is that not all of them are ruined and not all of them have voided stamps. We are really upset about the ones that are crumpled up. Since we don't have too many extras left over some people will just get mangled invites. Maybe it's more apropos that way.