Hot Times

Thursday night we went to the Cardinals game.  It was, let's see, around 105F at game time, which was 7:15pm.  The temperature dropped during the game, of course, to about 90F by the time we left (the city retains heat).  But it was a fun time. The ballpark here has a great family atmosphere.  We had tons of little kids sitting around us; behind us we had a grandpa who brought his 6 year old grandson for the second ever time he (the child) had been to a game.  Grandpa was explaining things as they went along. 

Plus we got frozen lemonade.  The ballpark has great frozen lemonade.  It's Minute Maid brand, and tastes better than the stuff you buy at the grocery.  It's definitely better than the stuff they sell at the Muny.

Speaking of which, Friday night we went to the Muny.  Temperature at the beginning of the show, 8:15pm, was ... hot.  Around 105F again, perhaps.  The show was Aladdin.

For the record, you're not supposed to take pictures of the set like this one.  Even if you wore your princess outfit and want to pose with that as the background and you're way up in B section and no one's on stage, you're still not supposed to take the picture.  Which is really crushingly disappointing when you're 5 years old.

We didn't have any Aladdin/Jasmine attire, unlike others in the audience.  Although Annabeth did wear an armband and lots of bangles.  Also, she chose aqua for her dress.

And we took some of our fancier fans for cooling purposes.

Not that the fans made us "cool".  It was too hot for that.

Anyway, it was a fun show.  Jasmine was good as the princess -- she had the Disney princess voice, and carried herself just as Jasmine should.  The genie was was great.  The three narrators were outstanding.  The blocking and choreography was well done, and really fun in parts.  The "magic" was well-staged.

On the other hand, the script dragged in parts -- I think they need to do some rewrites (this is an early performance, apparently).    Annabeth thought they broke "the fourth wall" way too often (i.e., the narrators and the genie talked directly to the audience with awareness that they were staging a show).  And Aladdin himself ... um ... would have been really good as Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors -- he had the perfect speaking voice, physique, and body language for that.  As a Disney prince?  Not so much.  As a character whose picture "magically" appeared on that big screen in the back?  Big mistake in the staging -- back in our section we could at least pretend that just because he sounded more like Rick Moreno than a prince he didn't necessarily look like him ... until they flashed those big photos up.  Cringe.

But, over all, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND you go and see it if you're in town.  It was Rick's favorite show so far this year.

Saturday morning we opted for a cooler place to sit, so we saw Spiderman 3D.

And then Saturday the rain came, the temperature dropped about 30 degrees in a very short time, and a new era began, so to speak.  More about that later.