Weekend: Beethoven, long run, crawfish boil

We kicked off the weekend with a Friday night Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra concert, an exhilarating performance of Beethoven's Concerto Number 3 for Piano and Orchestra. It's a beautiful piece, but we were blown away by guest pianist Jon Kimura Parker. His emotional performance was completed with an orchestra he'd only rehearsed with briefly, and without a score, but was the best piano I've heard in years. And then the concerto was followed up by a dismal Shostakovich symphony that made me want to go jump off a bridge. Well, you can't win 'em all.

Saturday I was up early in the rain for a longish run. After my run, we headed to the church office for a really interesting presentation on the theology of cities. Our pastor is kind of big on cities, and our church tries to focus our missions on the city and neighborhood we are in. The main point of the talk was, "The church exists for the city, not for itself" - a far cry from "The church serves the needs of the saints", which I've heard taught before. It was really interesting and thought-provoking.

My afternoon was sucked up with chores and groceries, since we've been out of town. I stopped at the new Michael's. Normally I'm not a fan of chain stores moving into the city (see discussion about cities above...), but I was thrilled that the dilapidated, lonely, crack-house buildings on Claiborne Ave were razed for this shopping center: not only because they were a nuisance, but also because I really wanted a place to buy yarn!

I'm making another doll - this one for my cute niece, who is obsessed with "BABIES", her favorite word.

Then I headed to the gym, to practice swimming. It was a total disaster. The pool was full of fit, fast swimmers, and I waited for an empty lane because I didn't want to ruin someone else's workout. But then I was just totally intimidated. That is not like me! I guess I just didn't want to create a scene if I started flailing about and someone thought I was drowning - because honestly, I am such a poor swimmer right now, that it just about looks like I am drowning when it's my best effort. I ended up with just one swim across the length of the pool, after 15 minutes of breathing and stroke practice while standing in the shallow end. It was a complete waste of time.

Sunday's plans were up in the air because of the chance of rain. But I had a dry pair of shoes, so I got out for my recovery run. I'm still doing Soft Surface Sunday, which left me squelching through mud all the way around Audubon's outside dirt track, but it kept my hips feeling comfortable, so no complaints. Then it was church and - our church crawfish boil!

Photo courtesy of Ray Cannata

Luckily the rain stopped, the sun came out, and it turned into a beautiful day. I met another church member who is a big triathlete - we know a lot of the same people, so it was fun to talk to her.

Before the weekend ended, we wound down with a good documentary during dinner. We watched "The Thin Blue Line", which was a little unsettling for a number of reasons. Any recommendations for good documentaries for me to add to my Netflix queue?