Saturday, November 29, 2008

Laughter and Tears

Friday night my niece and I met in Minneapolis and went to see "All I Want For Christmas Is 700 Billion Dollars," Brave New Workshop's latest, and 50th, holiday comedy show. If you're in Minneapolis, you should get tickets now. It was a great performance. This troop of performers never fails to make us laugh hysterically - and rather loudly apparently. It seems one of the performers, Mike Fotis, mentioned to my niece in a Facebook conversation that they noticed the crazy laughter coming from the piano section.

One of my favorite bits was a video they had produced portraying parents learning how to use their webcam. It ended in a rather, well, a situation you wouldn't want to see your parents in - computer screen or not. It brought me to that crazy silent air laugh with tears streaming down my face. You know, when you laugh so hard all that comes out is air and you have to cover your face with hands to hide the weird distorted facial gestures and the only way you can tell you're laughing is by the shaking of your shoulders and the tears ruining your eye makeup? Um, no? Oh. Well then. That's just me I guess. There were a few other skits that did the same. Then there was the one where I did the crazy laugh and no one else did. It involved a dolphin voice imitation and the troop singing a version of the 12 days of Christmas. Laughed 'til I cried.

But those aren't the tears I'm talking about in my title. This was our last get-together before Rose moves to Portland next week. I've convinced her to start a blog to document her new adventures and will link to it when she gets it up and running. I've also decided I need to learn about iChat as there's a built-in camera in my iMac. (I promise to put a post-it over the lens if things get a bit jiggy in the office with your uncle and I.) Oh dear. Too much information yet again.

(Rose - have a great trip to Portland and thanks again for last night.)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm so , in tears, Jealous.
Love,
the real MOM

ArtSparker said...

Sounds like a great time. Portland is a lovely city to visit. What part is you niece moving to?

Prunella Jones said...

I love Portland. What a lucky girl!

Anonymous said...

It a long way from Norway to Minneapolis you know :-)

I hope your friend follow your advice - a great way to keep in touch!

Balou said...

Jeanne - you raised good daughters.

actonbell - lol @ "good times, you have them"

ArtSparker - I'm not sure exactly where in Portland. I think she said north and east of downtown.

Prunella - I look forward to visiting some day.

Renny - Only half-way round the world.

KFarmer said...

When you mentioned the laughing but no sound coming out... I started laughing, remembering that dizzy, hysterical laugh my sister and I sometimes share~ OMG, that beautiful womans green eyes get me everytime ;)

So happy to hear you had a nice time and good soul cleaning laugh~ it's the best medicine in the whole wide world :)

Rose said...

Hi! Ahhh! Thanks for the mention! I had a wonderful time too! :)

To those wondering, I'm moving to the SE area of Portland...about five minutes from downtown. I'm super pumped. Two more days! :)

Love you Balou! ;)

Balou said...

kfarmer - I like that "soul cleaning laugh." It does feel like that.

Rose - NE...SE...I'll probably be directionally challenged there too. Have a great trip and Artsparkers Art Stick is on the way.