jazzing it up in the town

my title for this post makes me giggle a little bit.

i've been told recently i need to slow down...but i can't. i've no time to slow down. only to do laundry every once in a while!

my friend hannah treated me to a night of jazz and blues at ronnie scott's in soho. what a great night that was! after a quick bite at a nearby pub, we hopped into the jazz club, took our seats and prepared ourselves for some movin' and shakin'. the first trio on stage at 7:30 sharp played some duke ellington classics, but what really caught our attention was drummer pedro segundo. wow...he was so cute!

but wow, there was a total psycho sitting behind us! apparently a regular (everyone knew his name) and potentially a celeb in the jazz set, he drank pot of tea after pot of tea, banging on the table behind my head, and singling along (um, there weren't even any words) in a foreign language. we couldn't decide if he was a freak, drunk, or 'normal'. ha ha. we sipped our sassy cocktails (they were called sassy, i promise) and waited for the next band to come along and play. but until then, we stared at pedro as he sat at the bar, eating his dinner after his set. sigh... ;)

soon we were treated to the Ronnie Scott's Blues Experience - the house band lead by tony remy, featuring guests marcus bonfanti and joe louis walker. now i don't know who these people are aside from playing music on stage but they were fantastic. tony's a demon on the g-tar, and there's quite an imposing voice coming out of marcus, a guy who looks quite small and unassuming in comparison. joe louis, you can tell that man has had a life (he said between himself, his manager and sound tech - i think - they all had been married 14 times). i guess they have to get their inspiration from somewhere.

tuesday had me running over to laura's house to cook dinner (i really felt like cooking) so we can talk about our upcoming weekends. so this weekend we have a day in bath, a day in oxford and the weekend after that we're off to amsterdam. she was telling me about her upcoming trip in april to s. africa and i got sad. i won't be able to go with her. mind you, she's also losing her travel buddy...but i'm still so happy to go home!

after a rare night home on wednesday, i went to go see the town with my friend chris. what a great film...i highly recommend it. i love those films where somehow...without any force feeding or ridiculous theatrics. you cheer for the bad guy, and want the feds to go to hell. but aren't they supposed to be the good guy?

for the longest time, i felt ben affleck ruined his acting career...bad movie choices, horrific girlfriends, and highly publicized gambling and drinking problems. he strayed so far from the path his buddy matt damon chose, but he's slowly building his cred back up. after a great directorial debut with gone baby gone, its like he's gotten his arts mojo back. he co-wrote, directs and stars in the town and he does a real good job. will the acadamy honour him with recognition...hopefully yes at minimum with a nomination in either category.

but tonight...yes tonight...its the 3rd of 4 come dine with me's (season 2). we all seem to be kicking off with home comfort food...mine was southern american inspired with pulled pork sandwiches, ceasar salads and the like. jo stuffed us full with a full english breakfast (in fact if you recall, i didn't eat for the rest of the day)...and tonight is karen's turn. i wonder what she'll dazzle us with.

so have a great weekend. i'm sure i'll have pictures to post on monday and stories to tell. but until then, i think of these few things....that i booked my harry potter tickets for november 19th, and in 29 sleeps, i'm going home.

xoxo