Emily IRL

On Saturday my mom, sister, and I met up with my aunt, cousin and her husband and two little girls at the American Girl store at the Mall of America. Some notes on the experience:

1. Samantha (my sister’s doll) no longer exists and has been replaced by some blond punk that gets the same awesome black and white boots!? (I have looked it up and apparently Kirsten and Felicity have also been “retired.” What is my childhood coming to?!?)

2. My doll, Molly, is still alive and kickin’.

3. You can buy a tepee for your doll for $125. I suggest you buy this for a child right when they’re born, in lieu of a crib, so they can live in it before the doll does.

4. The dolls can have “pierced” ears now? What the eff?

Anyway, after that we did some shopping. I got a top and winter coat at Torrid and these sweet boots at DSW-

They kind of made me think of Alex Day’s shoes-

Then that night my friends and I partied! We played board games (including Apples to Apples, Timeline: Inventions, Payday) and did a Harry Potter drinking game, which I won. Slytherin for the win! Then my friend and I noticed the video games! We snuck away from the others and tried to find a two-player game. First we played DDR, but with controllers because we’re lazy. Then we played two different versions of Soul Caliber (II and III, I think). I very proudly kicked ass as Ivy in one, where I beat my friend and then they guy whose game it was, one of the rounds he didn’t even get a hit in. And then I bit the dust a few times in the other version, but won before we left. However, we were unable to figure out if the character we call “Fan Girl” was in either version of the game. She was the character my friend always played in high school. Anyway, then I crashed at my sister’s place where I slept like the dead. It was awesome. 

The first thing I did on spring break was go to see Yellow Fever, a production put on by Mu Performing Arts at The Guthrie. It was my first time seeing a show in the new building’s Dowling Studio and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a noir story, about a detective in a Japanese community in Canada during the 70’s. The set was split, stage left being the old detective office, featuring one grimy desk, filing cabinet and sink. Stage right want from being the nearby restaurant run by the friendly and gossiping Rosie during act one, to being used as a variety of locations in act two.The detective, Sam, is a solitary character who likes to act tough and do things on his own, but likes to stay tied to the run-down area that use to be the thriving center of the city’s Japanese community before WWII. I like to think if this guy had a theme song it would be a 1940’s jazz version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock.” As happens in all good noir stories, the detective gets tied up in the middle of a mystery, finding unexpected romance with a young, nosy reporter on the way. In the end he solves the crime with the help of “His Girl Sunday” and his best friend, a young, slick lawyer. The acting of the three protagonists was great, with the lead being adept and aloof, the reporter being bold and adventurous, and the lawyer friend being sly and witty. Overall, a very enjoyable production. I hope to see more Mu performances in the future.