Friday, November 11, 2011

Gratitude - Day Ten

Today I'm giving thanks for silly, spontaneous celebrations (and alliteration, apparently). When I was listening to, you guessed it..., NPR this morning, I heard a short piece that inspired me to throw a mini 11/11/11 party. The only guests were Tom and myself, and he left early, but still... Spontaneous parties for no real reason are fun!

Anyway, the NPR piece was commemorating 11/11/11 by choosing eleven songs that are meant to be played "at eleven." This is, of course, a reference to the scene in Spinal Tap where Christopher Guest's character talks about how his amps "go to eleven" instead of the standard ten volume setting.

     

The NPR broadcasters then continued to talk about songs (their choices and those sent in by listeners) that have to be cranked up to full volume - songs that when they come on, you reflexively reach for the volume control. In addition to being proof (in my mind at least) that NPR is not as stuffy as some people (coughTomcough) would make it out to be, I thought that this would be a super-fun basis for an evening's festivities. It had not previously occurred to me to celebrate this auspicious date, but I do love a holiday and this seemed like as good an excuse as any to drink wine and make a special meal. I headed to the store for some wine and the fixings for chile rellenos. [I'm not sure why chile rellenos are an appropriate choice for this particular celebration, but given enough time, I'm sure I could come up with some sort of connection to the Mayan calendar's prediction that we won't see 12/12/12.]

When Tom got home, I told him to start thinking about songs that have to be played at full volume. After some serious consideration, he made our party playlist. I was allowed to contribute three songs to the eleven (obviously) song playlist. Here's what we came up with...I'm sure you won't be able to guess which ones I contributed...

{If I had been allowed more than three selections, I might have also included I Wanna Be Sedated - Ramones, Music is the Victim - Scissor Sisters, Paradise City - Guns N' Roses, and Con te Partiro - Andrea Bocelli. I'm only partially kidding about that last one, which I suppose, is why I was not allowed more selections...}
So, that was it. We put on our eleven song playlist, cranked the stereo up (to a level that was respectful of both the neighbors and the songs), poured ourselves some ($11, now that I think about it!) wine, and chowed down on some chile rellenos. Happy 11/11/11!

{Apologies for the truly horrific picture, but it was getting cold; I promise it tasted much better than it looked!}
In case you haven't had the pleasure, I give you Con te Partiro...


             

You can't tell me that doesn't deserve to be played loudly... It also makes me want to speak Italian...and possibly cry. So, in closing, I am thankful for silly celebrations and Andrea Bocelli.

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