Peabody and Chicago
Yesterday was my day off and I walked downtown to the main library on Cathedral St. I walked through Monument Square, which has a big monument to Washington in the center and then smaller parks radiating from it. I liked the one I walked through, with a fountain with a statue of a naiad, contorted in an odd pose, and George Peabody sitting in a chair. I didn't know who he was, but it sounded like I should, so when I got to the library I looked him up.
Then after I went to the library I returned to the park to read. Three older gentlemen walked by. "Say, do you know who the Peabody over there is?" one said.
"Yes," I said. "He was a great philanthropist. He founded the conservatory of music over there," I said, gesturing across the street where I could hear a clarinet going up and down the scales.
"Oh, so he was famous for making a lot of money and then giving some of it away," another said. "See, Bill, I told you it had nothing to do with the hotel."
"No, it was the same Peabody," Bill insisted. Then he turned to me and said, "There's a Peabody hotel in Memphis that has seven ducks living in the penthouse. They have a duck-keeper up there too to take care of them. Every day at 5 o'clock they roll out the red carpet in the lobby and everybody gathers around to watch them waddle to the elevator up to their penthouse. It must be tough being that duck-keeper, eh?" he said. Then the three southern gentlemen walked off. I looked it up today, and I found out that it really was the same Peabody.
So on Wednesday I went to see Chicago with my free tickets I won from the Baltimore Sun Emily said she wanted me to dress up really nice, which I was planning on anyway, and she got dressed up in overalls and a torn t-shirt. I was a little worried that they were going to throw her out of the Opera House, but she only got a few odd stares. My e-mail said I was going to get a gift bag, but all it had in it was a lousy key-chain. Now, I wasn't expecting a gift bag until they told me I was getting one, but I was expecting at least some chocolates. Most of the actors were from the original (revival) Broadway cast. Roxie was played by a Mexican actress, Bianca Marroquin, who was awesome, and Brenda Braxton as Velma was great too, though I still like Catherine Zeta-Jones. And at the end of the performance, Gregory Harrison asked all of us to donate to Broadway Cares on our way out. It's an organization that donates money to AIDS charities around the nation, including my own. But of course I didn't have any money to give them, since I'm working as a volunteer on stipend.
