State Ballet of Georgia

I went to see a performance of Giselle yesterday at Royce Hall with Joan (ballet teacher) and Peggy (fellow student). This company was rebuilt with the help of Nina Ananiashvilli who is a renowned dancer with ABT and Bolshoi. She is also a native of Georgia (the country in Eurasia, not the state). She performed the role of Giselle last night and was the primary draw. Her dancing is superb, very fluid, clean, beautiful. The rest of the company were very good but needed a final bit of polish (landings were a little hard, feet not pointed all the way through). We all thoroughly enjoyed it though, and Nina got a standing O and many bravos throughout the night. As usual, she was presented with a bouquet of flowers. In addition many audience members gave her single roses. She moved from one side of the stage to the other in her bows (nice gesture to cover the audience) and gave 'Myrtha' a couple of the flowers (nice gesture to acknowledge your fellow performers even though you are far and away the big star).

Cats on the lot

Anyone who owns cats knows they have an uncanny knack for finding the warmest place to hang out. There is a community of cats who live on the lot (descendants of critters that were brought in decades ago for pest control) and are cared for by employee/volunteers. These two found a nice warm car hood to hang out on on this chilly overcast morning.

My favourite ingredient is flour

I spent the long weekend up in Mountain View to celebrate my and Mei's February birthdays. Cooking seemed like a good way to spend time together without requiring a lot of logistics (to get two kids out the door). Everything we made had flour in it. We made dumplings (shui jiao) from my mom's recipe. Turned out pretty darn good, although we decided the filling needed to be a little saltier and could have used more napa cabbage. We baked a chocolate cake from a Cook's Illustrated recipe, which was sooooo good, chocolate with whipped cream frosting. And finally we made pizza with fresh made dough, which makes such a difference. I love baking and making dough, there is something so satisfying about seeing something double in size all on its own! And since I love almost all dough based products, the eating is fun too!

I also got a chance to visit Tegan and Patrick at their new home in San Rafael. Annette and Toshi were also there for a wonderful dinner and the conversation was amazing, fun, deep, grownup, silly. We were there until quite late and could have continued talking for hours more (if it wasn't for needing our beauty sleep).

Last but in no way least, the kids were great. Mason is fully alert and really curious about his surroundings. He really doesn't like to be left out of the action and wants to be able to see what everyone is doing. Neve is talking a blue streak, loves playing with her various baby dolls and doing puzzles. She's still shy around new people, but I think she remembered me from Christmas, because she warmed up very quickly.