All dressed in pink for a great weekend of burlesque!

All the trees are sporting bright pink spring jackets! Its like "Fashion Week" here in Seattle and green leaves (the "new black") are starting to appear. There are a couple of trees by my office that are ready to declare this winter done! Amen! I just wish it was.

This weekend I went the Moisture Festival's Burlesque in the Round at the ACT theater downtown and it was an amazing show! Simply incredible! There were only two "traditional" burlesque acts. There was a "neo-burlesque" act out of Portland that looked like a bunch of raver kids, eating their candy, texting on the phone and chasing after "bunnies" (whose coats they stole). There was a group called Duo Madrona - the only trapeze act invited ever invited to the circus competition in Paris. Their strength was astonishing and their act barely made the trapeze move at all. Amazing. Then there were my favorite The Aerialistas! They are an incredible group of women, who do these amazing acrobatics in the air - with huge drapes, hoops and other objects. They were dressed as the cutest cupcakes in the world! They wore cute blond wigs, with cupcakes, and did their act with smiles on their faces as they held each other by their ankles. Nanda was a group of male performers much in the vain of "Crouching Tiger". All of their movement was choreographed (with sound effects) and as they would bounce off a pole and rip off a shirt. It was fantastic. There was Chica Boom, a Latina burlesquer, who had this great "Mexican wrestler" story and ended up fisting a donkey penata (a long story for later.) There was this award winning cabaret very psychedelic show and a few "cute" burlesque act. Nothing could beat it - such super creative, high energy, live theater. I loved it. And I loved Seattle for giving me the opportunity to experience it.

Tonight, I raced the spring sunshine home hoping to beat the impending rainstorm that had come rolling in off the coast. The clouds were dark and low and I was sure it would start raining any minute (much like this weekend had been - rain, sun, rain, clouds, rain, rain, sun.) I popped on my outdoor wheels and headed to Greenlake to get some outdoor skating in before rain. And it was great - the stress of the work day rolled off like sweat and it seemed to only sprinkle at one end of the lake. It was a great was to end the work day... and start the week.