On Friday night instead of taking my own advice and taking two cars, we drove in one car to see Joel McHale from The Soup. My daughter had gotten the tickets and our seats were way up high in the upper rows. But this didn't even bother us as we blithely started out at quarter to four for an eight o'clock show at Mohegan Sun Casino and Hotel, which is about two hours away from us if there isn't any traffic.
One thing you have to know about my husband is that he hates being late to anything! I mean he has to be at least an hour early to feel comfortable. That is why we started out so early. However, we ran into traffic on I-95 due to it being Friday and also construction. He had on the radio a folk station and it was driving my daughters in the back seat crazy. This trip was meant to be a family trip so they refrained from listening to their IPods and tried to placate him. As the traffic continued to slow us down and my husband refused to change the channel, tempers started to rise inside our car. My husband refused to budge and I worried that we'd have a horrible argument with the girls screaming and my husband getting red in the face. So after he'd shown that he was going to be stubborn, I'd had enough, and though he kept pushing my hand away from the button to change the channel I found an opening and changed the station! With a stop for refreshment at the rest stop, which on this stretch of road is almost always just a McDonald's and a coffee place, we spent the rest of the trip in relative comfort.
But this two hour trip had stretched into a three hour trip and we arrived with only about forty minutes to spare. Mohegan Sun is a huge casino and hotel owned by the Mohegan Indian nation and set on their reservation. You have no idea that it is there until you turn a corner and see these two massive metallic structures rising into the Connecticut sky.:) We opted for Valet parking and soon we were inside the place.
We'd been there before for my younger daughter's twenty-first birthday so we knew our way around a little. There is a central area where there is a huge waterfall against one of the walls. A restaurant, Todd English's Tuscany, sits right in front of the waterfall with seating on both sides. From this spot you can see the upper floor where most of the restaurants are. There is a promenade on the first floor where you can find anything from handbags to HD Individual TV's for the executive who has everything. Seriously they fit on a desktop with plenty of room to spare.:) We found this at Brookstone, which also has other amazing gadgets designed to make life easier. I wanted to grab the entire store and fit it into my pocket!:) We browsed around in here and then decided it was time to go.
This was to be a night to celebrate my husband's birthday. It's on May 19th, but that would be a weekday and he's usually so tired. So we made reservations at Michael Jordan's Steakhouse for after the performance. We figured if he didn't like it, there were other places to go, but at least we would have a reservation.
If you've never seen The Soup, I linked you in the first paragraph to information about it. You need to have a weird sense of humor and it makes fun of reality shows, celebrities, and any other crazy stuff that's happening on TV. "Soup" fans enjoy making fun of these crazy reality shows and don't take them seriously. So if you like these new reality shows, such as "The Hills" or "Rock of Love", you won't like the humor of Joel McHale. My older daughter is the one who turned us onto it. She loves satire and has loved it since she was a little girl. Kids aren't even supposed to know about satire, but she started watching TV with shows like: "Not Necessarily the News", which was one of the first shows to satirize the news. She was only about four. She graduated to "Fraggle Rock" and "The Muppet Show" and when she got older it was "Mystery Science Theater 3000", "X-Files" and finally "24". The last two shows probably don't need a weird sense of humor, but she liked them anyway:)
My own penchant for satire began when I saw "Monty Python" and it was honed by shows like "The Smothers Brothers", who we recently saw, and "Second City TV". All of these are the forerunners for the news segment on "Saturday Night Live" and the two blockbuster shows: "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report". We also watched the first "Talk Soup" with Greg Kenear. So we love satiric humor as a family. The night was great and we laughed so much. We were sitting so far up I worried that if we laughed too much we might fall onto the floor below and the comedians were small. They had two large screens on either side of the stage so we could see them and this was good. You really felt connected to the person on stage even though we were so far away. The sound was great too. All in all the evening was great, including the dinner afterward. Joel McHale was so funny. He's also way more physical in his comedy in person than on TV.
If you go to Michael Jordan's Steakhouse you have to get their macaroni and cheese. We were four people and this little skillet they served us was a perfect accompaniment to their delicious steak. But you also have to order the 23 layer chocolate cake. It's like a tower made of cake and icing. We four couldn't finish it and we had to bring some home. It was that huge.:) The prices are fairly good for such great food and service. All in all a great birthday celebration. We made it home in two hours with no traffic! We also were very disciplined and didn't gamble at all!
Until the next time. Happy Sunday! We'll probably go see the new "Star Trek" movie. Enjoy yourselves.:) Thank you to my readers and any new readers. Sorry about the lack of posts this week. It's been very, very busy.:)
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