Practice Acting, Practice Prayer and Knights!

Saturday morning I went to a workshop for actors through Redeemer about applying the discipline of acting excercises to our prayer life. It was awesome! Of course, all the attendees were women, 9 of us in all, but it was a great group. Our leader was George, a Jesuit Priest as well as a professional actor. The morning session was mostly a survey of various acting focusing techniques with an extended time for theatre games and improv. A bunch of us went to Whole Foods at Columbus Circle for lunch before returning to the next session where George applied the practical lessons of the morning to how we can approach prayer. Unfortunately I had to leave halfway through a really cool spiritual exercise where he placed us at the Last Supper with Jesus. I was picked up by Jon, Adrienne, Eric and Sara, Sara's sister and two friends, Brigid and Kimmy, for Eric's special surprise 30th birthday party. We were taking him to Jersey for a night at Medieval Times. I hadn't been to Medieval Times since 7th grade when we stopped there on our LA tour with Dan Ferrari. Oh my. I can still see the picture of me and Julia Bell in our paper crowns. We were so lucky to be in the first row of the yellow-red cheering section and of course, our knight won. Highlights included the cheapest and strongest pina-colada near Manhattan (at 3:30 pm!), eating with our hands, hearing 20 minutes of a list honoring every birthday boy and girl in the house, and the sparkly tiaras that Adrienne bought each of us girls. It was a really fun night and because it started so early we were back at Sara and Eric's apartment by 7:30, stuffing our faces more, with lemon bars and the divine chocolate cake that Jon made. Eric was excited by all his gifts, including an amazing chair massager that we all enjoyed soooooooo much.