Category Archives: Music and Dance

Uh oh…boobies and bellies ahead!

Posted in Entertainment, Music and Dance by

I had some reservations about posting these next couple of photos on my blog, but I figured that if you’ve been reading Marcilicious this long, well, you probably have a pretty strong stomach and/or good gag reflex control. Don’t worry – you won’t get to see my actual boobies, just my bra, er… bellydancing costume, complete with belly. I started taking a new bellydance class and met a woman (Darcy) who has a henna tattoo business (Lady Henna – check it out!) and she asked if she could henna me up and put the pictures on her website. Woo hoo! Free henna and pictures! So, I headed out to her house and got all fancied up and Darcy applied henna goo to my tum tum and hand, which took about 2 hours. The pictures were taken on Fairview lake, and it was FREEZING (good thing that bra was padded, y’all, or you would’ve gotten to see even more of me than I’d be comfortable with). But I got a couple of good pics out of it, and Darcy is super talented and nice. If you’re in the Portland/Vancouver and want some henna work done for your performance or whatever, please give her a call!

PS – I’m still working on a post for you about spring break, but it’s long and there are a lot of pictures to sort through. And there will be video even! Of chickens and goats being milked! I know you’re excited…I’m working on it, so keep your shirt on (or at least your bra).

The Big Three-Six!

Posted in Entertainment, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance by

Well, I know that turning 36 is a big deal for most people…it’s such a benchmark in one’s life…so when my friend Cecily from Denver wanted to come out for a visit over my birthday weekend I said “woo hoo! Let’s do it!”. And in fact, it was nice to see not just Cecily, but my friend Andrew from San Diego, and Chris (of course). It was an action-packed weekend, which I will attempt to briefly (or not so briefly, it’s all relative) fill you in on here.

Thursday morning (Feb. 25th, my birthday), Chris presented me with a very nice bottle of wine, two gorgeous hand-blown wine glasses, and a fabulous orange Jersey Shore towel (GTL, that’s what happens at the Jersey Shore, baby) (update: a week later he also gave me a purple/magenta dance top that I wanted – so thoughtful!). I had to go to work that day, which was also incredibly awesome (heh heh heh, rolling eyes now), but after work I met Chris at Melt on 21st right by my house for happy hour. Tasty tots and falafel sliders…yum! But that was just an appetizer really – we swung by the airport and picked up Cecily, whom I hadn’t seen since our adventure in the Chiricauhuas, Thanksgiving 2008 (check out pictures here). Of course, Cecily looked exactly the same as always. Chris researched a few dinner places and we ended up at Siam Society – tasty noodles and hand-ground curry all around. When we got back to my place Chris revealed that he had purchased an angel food cake from – wait for it – a bakery. No cheesy grocery store cake for me! It was soooo good – it had a very light buttercream frosting with raspberry glaze over it, and it even said Happy Birthday Marci on it! What a sweetheart Chris is…awww…

I decided to take Friday off so that Cecily and I could try to find trouble exploring the fine city of Portland. We hopped on the streetcar right outside my apartment, which we rode to Powell’s Books. I subsequently spent way too much money there, but then enjoyed some yummy pizza at Rocco’s for lunch. We then got back on the streetcar and rode it down to the aerial tram, which we rode all the way to the top of the hill – even though it was kind of rainy out, the view was still amazing. We rode the tram back down, got on the streetcar again, then looped around and did some shopping at Buffalo Exchange (start: the Great Fedora Quest). We eventually did the entire streetcar circuit, ending up back at my place mid-afternoon.

Chris picked us up and we drove back downtown where we met up with my friend Andrew, who I used to work with in San Diego. He was in town for a conference so it was good to see him; the four of us walked to Henry’s Tavern for dinner and a sampling of their amazing beer menu (over 100 taps!).

One of our prime objectives for Saturday was to find a fedora for Chris to wear that evening. We decided to hit a thrift store on Mississippi Avenue before my dance class, but alas – they were closed until noon. WTF??? Closed until noon on a Saturday? We waited at Fresh Pot in hopes of a surprise early opening, but that did not happen, so I outfitted Cecily in some bellydance garb and dragged her to my Beginning Neo-Tribal Bellydance 2 class. I think she may have been a bit nervous about it at first, but she has a strong dance background (ballet, tap, swing) so I knew she would have no problem…in fact, I envied her belly-roll skills! I just have belly rolls, no skills. But we had a good time there, nonetheless.

After class we met Chris on Hawthorne for some thrift store shopping. Cecily bought a dress for the evening, but even after scouring 3 stores, we couldn’t come up with a fedora. We did, however, eat a slllooooowwww lunch at Por Que No which was quite delish (albeit a little stressful since I had to scarf as soon as the food arrived so I wouldn’t get a parking ticket).

Cecily and I left Chris to come up with a fedora (and other outfit components) on his own, and later that afternoon, my brother Paul, Anne, and Adelaide came for a visit to my apartment. That kid sure is growing fast…and Abbey knows it (or as Adelaide calls her, “Dabby”). Clearly, the biggest draw for her in coming to my place is Dabby and the choo choo (aka the streetcar that runs down my street every 15 minutes).

The weekend highlight for me was definitely Saturday evening. I’ve alluded to us getting prepped for the night…and for good reason…I purchased tickets for me, Cecily, and Chris to go see The Royal Tease, a burlesque show at the Bossanova Ballroom on Burnside. We had reserved seating with dinner, so we decided to get all dressed up for the event. And as The Baroness says, “any occasion to dress is an occasion to over-dress”. Following that advice, I went over the top, wearing a flashy red cocktail dress, short black wig, and very high heels. Cecily looked smashing in her blue dress, and Chris rocked it with a fedora he purchased at a non-thrift store – it was a combination of leather and striped material – an excellent choice!

The performance was pretty fabulous, with lots of tassels, pasties, T, and of course, A. I think my favorite performers were Charlotte Treuse (amazing tattoos), and Inga Ingenue, who did a really cool toy doll routine and an incredible performance with two giant pink feather fans. The only bummer of the night was that we were supposed to get dessert with our dinner (red velvet cake and cinnamon gelato), but that part of the meal never showed up. And my vegetarian polenta was kinda barfy too, but Chris shared his pork loin and yams so it was all good.

The following day was the last of Cecily’s visit, as she had to hop on a plane first thing Monday morning to return to Denver. We enjoyed a nice(?) brunch at Joe’s Cellar diner (mmm…egg yolk!), the ambiance of which was moodily enhanced by a non-stop musical marathon exclusively featuring Queen and Led Zeppelin. Chris then drove us via the Columbia River Scenic Highway to Crown Point State Park where we stopped at the Vista House, then to Multnomah Falls. It was a gorgeous day so there were plenty of people there, but it gave us excellent photo opportunities. We ended up back at Chris’s house for dinner where he cooked up a delicious meal of home-made crab-cakes and put us up for the night (he lives closer to the airport than me). What a sweetheart!

I’m glad I have such good friends, and that they made my 36th birthday one to remember. If you want to see more pictures, click here. Thanks for hanging in there and reading this not-quite-so-brief blog entry!

Bacon Makes Everything Better!

Posted in Entertainment, Music and Dance by

Wow – what a great bellydance show at The Blue Monk on Saturday night! It was quite the turnout to see the Offbeat Bellydancers strut, shimmy, and shake their stuff – Chris and I had a great time, and it was awesome to see my instructor perform along with many other dancers. Everyone definitely had their own style, and I must say that the white Russians were tasty as well.

But you’re probably wondering where the bacon comes in, right? After the show, Chris and I were almost home when we decided to turn back around and head over to Voodoo Doughnut, a Portland institution that I had never been to before. We had to pay $8 for parking (“but the sign says $2 for the first half hour!” “Yes, but that will still be $8, Sir”) and wait in line for about a half hour, but we finally got our donuts and left post haste so that we could devour them in the privacy of my home. Oh – question: do they make hair nets for facial hair? Just wondering…

Anyway, Chris dared me, yes dared me, to get a maple bacon donut, one of Voodoo’s most popular. And damn, if I didn’t take him up on it (and I didn’t even wait for the double dog dare!), although I was scared because the sample maple bacon donut sitting in the display case looked excessively old and crusty. But Beardy pulled out a “fresh”(?) maple bacon delight from the back, bagged it with Chris’ raspberry jelly donut (wimp!) and we were off.

Let me just say that many of you may know that I don’t eat mammals much anymore. For the most part I stick with chicken, turkey, non-mammal seafood, and anything else without nipples. However, sometimes I let my cravings get the better of me and break down when it comes to eating piggy products. Bacon and sausage, mostly, but sometimes ham. I just can’t help myself because it’s so friggin’ delicious. Regardless, I had a bit of trepidation when confronted by the maple bacon donut bar in my dining room. Granted, the bacon looked crispy and not overly fatty or chewy…and I do like McGriddles (my one yearly McDonalds breakfast purchase), so I crossed my fingers and chomped. Hey – it was pretty good! The taste was rather pleasing – a nice combination of salty and sweet, even if the texture was a bit surprising (crunchy bacon with creamy donut??? hmmm…). I’m not sure I’ll get it again, but it was at least an experience.

You should definitely check out the Voodoo Doughnut menu and perhaps try a taste adventure of your own. Or at least purchase a t-shirt that says “the magic is in the hole”. Yummy!!!

Snowmageddon? Really?

Posted in Career, Entertainment, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance, Travel by

Are we really calling the storm that struck the East Coast over the weekend Snowmageddon now? Come on – yeah, some flights were canceled (uh, mine in fact), but really…I’d hardly say that the storm resulted in an armageddon-like disaster. Maybe we should ask the people of Haiti to chime in on this one? Did their natural disaster get a fancy nickname yet?

Yeah, ok, Dulles got some snow, but it’s not like they’ve never seen snow before. Wimps.

At any rate, yes, I had a flight scheduled on Sunday to Dulles (Washington, D.C.) so that I could take a course entitled “Resource Management Implications of Climate Change” at NCTC (the Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center). NCTC is in Shepherdstown, WV, which is about a 2 hour drive from Dulles and apparently currently inaccessible…so the course was generally canceled as well. About 7 brave souls managed to survive Snowmageddon and reach NCTC mostly unscathed (not sure how many emergency amputation were performed yet…news comes slowly when communications are down), so some of the sessions are being broadcast over the web, which I get to watch from work (which is what I’m doing right now…). On one hand I was really looking forward to the course (and racking up almost 16 hours of travel comp time – woo hoo!!!), but on the other hand, I was really not looking forward to spending almost 16 hours of my own time traveling. Luckily, I found out that my flight and course were canceled Saturday night, so I didn’t have to drive to the airport at 5 am on Sunday to get that bit of news. I was very tempted to just not show up at work this week to see if anyone would figure it out…but in the end, my conscience won the battle and I decided to report for duty.

On an unrelated note, I made my modeling debut a couple of weeks ago for a bellydance-wear company here in Portland. It was a lot of fun, but I think some of my pictures turned out better than others. For most of the photos I was wearing this humongous coin bra that made my boobs look incredibly huge – really, I’m more of a B cup kinda girl, and not the FFF that the coin bra makes me out to be. So, to satisfy your curiosity, here’s a photo that will also be featured on the back cover of Yallah magazine next month.

That’s me with the incredibly goofy look on my face and ginormous-looking boobs in the middle of the bottom row. But in case you’re wondering, I’m still dancing, still love it, and am getting a bit less sucky at it! :o) This is mostly due to the constant encouragement, guidance, and entertainment provided by one of my instructors, Ziggy (top left, yellow skirt).

Fancy New Year, Fancy New Grand Aspirations!

Posted in Animals, Blogging, Cats, Entertainment, Music and Dance by

Ok, first off, let me tell you that I re-read yesterday’s post and I fear that I may have gotten a little overexcited. Whoa, there, cowgirl! I mean, who doesn’t want to read more snarky blog posts, see more scandalous photos, view more titillating videos, and whatever the hell else I led you to believe you’d be seeing more of in A Very Marcilicious Blog in 2010?

Well hold on to your pants, friends, because I’m STILL overexcited and STILL determined to bring you more, better, extra, and super-sized Marcilicious blogging! In fact, you’ll notice that the header now says “An Ultra-Marcilicious Blog”, which I hope it remains. Of course, this is still A Very Marcilicious Blog (how could it be anything else?), so no need to update your links or worry your pretty little head about that. But in my effort to come up with *some* sort of New Year’s resolution (which I hate, because they always end up broken and/or forgotten by January 7, usually entail something to do with weight loss and/or body image, and encourage you – in this case me – to screw with something that ain’t broke in the first place. I mean really, why mess with perfection???) I decided that my blogging could use a little rebirth. So lucky you! Fancy new year, fancy new blogging attitude.

A couple of newish things that you might be interested in. First, shortly before I left San Diego, I started taking belly dance lessons. Woo hoo! Much like crows and woodrats, I am attracted to colorful, sparkly, and jingly things, and belly dance costumes are usually crafted out of materials that exhibit these traits. So while I’m still very much a beginner, I’m also very much enjoying prancing about in colorful, sparkly, and jingly hip scarves, letting my ass do what it does best (uh, that would be jiggle). I’m still having trouble getting my upper half and lower halves to communicate and work in some sort of coordinated fashion (boobs, meet ass; ass, meet boobs – pleased to meet you!), but I’m enjoying taking lessons, laughing at myself, and actually feeling fleeting moments of pride when I get something right. I have also learned that I am *not* actually the least coordinated person on earth! I’ve spent WWAAAYYYYY too much money on belly dance clothing and accessories, but I consider it a Christmas gift to myself, and a way to keep me motivated to continue dancing.

The other new item is the acquisition of a new kitten!!! Even as I type, she is attacking my hands, trying to eat the laptop power cord, scratching at the mouse as it moves across my monitor, and performing other simultaneous feats of mayhem. I named her Abbey, after Edward Abbey, who famously wrote The Monkey Wrench Gang. Abbey, I quickly learned, is quite the monkey wrencher, and I’m certain that if I were to let her loose in the desert southwest there would be numerous dam breachings, construction accidents, and general chaos in rapid time. So we’ll just try to keep her contained in this here little apartment in Portland, ‘kay? I got her from the Portland Humane Society when she was just a little thing – maybe 10 weeks old – and she was so tiny and cute. Below is the picture of her they posted on their website – I immediately called and placed a hold on her. Doesn’t she look innocent and precious? Who knew that such a menacing evil lurked within??? Let me tell you who knew: Jesse. Although, within two days, Jesse was letting her curl up with him to sleep, and even suckle off of him (as the below video shows). He looks at me and says, “why? why? why does this kitten think I’m her mother??? why did you do this to me???”

Anyway, happy new year – I hope that the new one brings you happiness, contentment, adventure, good health, and more things to read on this blog, dammit.

Random Acts of Kindness…or…Internet Stalking?

Posted in Entertainment, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance by

So something kind of odd happened to me last weekend. I came home to find an Amazon.com package sitting on my doorstep, which I thought was strange considering that I hadn’t ordered anything in a while, yet the package was addressed to me. And when I opened it, there were six CD’s in it that I had on my Amazon music wishlist. Apparently, the CD’s were a gift order from someone in Florida who appreciated a review I wrote for Amazon, and the CD’s were a “thanks for participating” gesture. In fact, the note on the packing list read “Hi Marci. You don’t know me, but I appreciate your reviews on amazon.com. This is just a “thank you” gift for your participation – Jim”. Kind of weird, huh? I mean, I only wrote one review, for a product that cost about $40. And the CD’s he sent totaled about $65, not including shipping. But, he picked out some good CD’s from my wishlist – a couple of Prince’s earlier albums that I didn’t have, the latest Black Eyed Peas, K.T. Tunstall, and the soundtracks to 50 First Dates and Napoleon Dynamite. Sweet! I’ve popped a little thank-you note in the mail for the CD’s, but am still a little perplexed.

So what gives? Is this a genuinely nice person who randomly does cool things to brighten complete strangers’ days? If so, that’s awesome. I aspire to be similar in nature. Or is this an Internet stalker who was attracted to my exquisite taste in movies and music, as defined by my Amazon wishlists? I’m not difficult to locate, on the Internet or otherwise. He could be reading this RIGHT NOW. Anyone have some insight? Anyone? Anyone???

P.S. – If you’d like to see for yourself how exquisite my taste in movies and music actually is, there’s a link to my Amazon wishlists to the right. And speaking of easy to find on the Internet, I just opened a MySpace account, also linked at right (yes, I finally caved under peer-pressure!).

Hakuna matada, man…hakuna matada.

Posted in Entertainment, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance by

Yesterday I went to see the Lion King with Bre and her family for her birthday. It was such an amazing show – it was performed live in downtown San Diego in the huge “broadway” theatre, which I had never been to before. The costumes and sets were absolutely incredible – they had antelopes, elephants, a rhino, zebra, and giraffes which were operated by people walking on all-fours using stilts! The costumes were a combination of makeup, clothing, and puppetry – the people actually had the body shapes of the animals, after they were all made up. We had seats in the very back, about as high up as you could possibly go, but it didn’t really matter because it was such a good show (although I wish I could’ve seen the detail on the costumes a bit better). It has been a while since I’ve done something cultural like that, and I’m so glad Bre invited me to go with her – we got all fancied up, and I liked seeing all the little kids there in their cute little outfits, too. Bre’s mom treated us to drinks (try carrying two full glasses up to the third floor balcony amidst screaming kids and women waiting in line for the restroom without spilling…) and dinner afterwards at the Olive Garden. I had my standard sausage and peppers with penne pasta – yum!

Thought you’d like the update – oh – and I finished my Christmas shopping for the year, too! But don’t get too excited – I’m rather poor this go-round, so I didn’t have very many presents to buy 😦

Back to work…