good morning Baltimore

I just got back from seeing Hairspray at the Kennedy Center - my parents know someone who ushers there, and sometimes she gets offers to buy last-minute tickets for $15. Fifteen bucks for orchestra seats - can't beat that! I thought, what the heck, I'll see a musical I know nothing about. The crazy thing about these last-minute offers is I often can't find anyone to go with me. I mean, come on, people, it's almost-free theater. Fortunately, Beaker was available and wanted to see it. (Apparently she brought it up once, but Mr. Beaker laughed.) It was good silly fun. Beaker taught me a variation on the time step while we waited for the metro at Foggy Bottom. I first learned the time step from a fantastic dance teacher in college who died my junior year - I believe she had cancer. After she died, her husband organized a little fundraiser where you could donate money to the local food bank and get one of her t-shirts. I still have mine. It says "The more you complain, the longer God lets you live." It took me weeks to learn the time step...I practiced it while I sat in my incredibly, painfully dull philosophy of science class, fall term freshman year. Stomp hop jump shuffle stomp hop jump shuffle. So I was very happy tonight when the entire cast broke it out in the first scene of the second act.