Townhalls and homemade sushi

Things were pretty hectic last week, without much time for a blog update. As an early birthday present, Jonathan came down to take me to an evening with the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a la RiffTrax live. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett got together for a live event broadcast to theaters around the country, ridiculing Plan 9 from Outer Space live from Nashville. I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time.

August seems to be a popular month for Jitterbug birthdays, since we celebrated Ben Peet's at JNO last Friday, and we still have three more to go before the end of the month (yours truly included). It was also a pretty popular weekend for swing dancing, as we had a swing dance at GAMe downtown on Saturday night as well as a spontaneous outdoor dance in Papillion Park. A couple of our jitterbug cohorts had the bright idea of having their own "Lindy in the Park" at different locations around Omaha, and the weather had certainly been just perfect for such an event.

I got to keep busy this week as well. On Tuesday, our congressman Lee Terry hosted a "come yell at your elected representative event," formerly called a Town Hall meeting. It was actually quite civil, without any of the Swastikas, rifle-toting militia types, or shouting matches that certain politicians seem to think come naturally people those who dare question their government. There were some amusing fringe types on both sides, however, including one guy babbling about the Illuminati and the New World Order, as well as several people who seemed to think a Single Payer Health Care system was a good idea. It was one of those moments you got to enjoy feeling like you had a voice, since people were all welcome to line up and give Rep. Terry their own unscripted, unplanted questions. Democracy as its best. I think.

On Thursday, Vivian decided to make sushi for the first time. Our mutual friend Onionboy inspired her with some photos on his blog, so we stopped by an Asian food store on Sunday to get the necessary ingredients. She turned out some very tasty maki rolls with tuna, cucumber, and avocado, and we got to eat them while watching Hayao Miyazaki's "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind." It only seemed to fitting to watch one of my favorite anime films while eating homemade sushi.