Free concerts

One of the best things about Washington, DC is the abundance of free cultural activities. The Smithsonian museums are free, and the National Gallery of Art offers an abundance of seasonal musical offerings. Friday evenings in the summer bring hot jazz to the Scultpure Garden while Jazz on Ice during the winter is a great opportunity to strap on your skates and enjoy some cool jazz. In between there's Jazz Brunch (and if you don't love brunch, you have no business with the Happy Funtime Friend Service).

It's not all about the jazz though. For the 64th year the National Gallery of Art presents their Sunday evening concert series. It's free (really free, not you have to buy a ticket through Ticketmaster and still pay a service fee free), first-come, first-seated basis. Seating starts at 6 p.m., concerts begin at 6:30 p.m. The slate is generally classical and often coordinated with the current exhibits in the Gallery. Concert notes are available on line. This Sunday is the second week of the season and brings the Beaux Arts Trio with a program of Martinu, Beethoven, and Schubert.

You are 1038 in line to check out

If you're a member of the Kennedy Center, then you should check out some of the more than thirty performances that went on sale this morning. Okay, so it's 11:30 p.m., and I just managed to purchase the tickets I've been trying to buy since 10 o'clock this morning (when I originally received the message "you are 1038 in line to check out"), but mission accomplished. I even enlisted the assistance of my cohort, coquette cutie, who is still trying to figure out how she went from 759 to 765 in line. (How do people cut electronically?)

If you're not a member, I encourage you to consider joining. Or you can wait until October 11 to buy tickets for these events. I acquired tickets for the Happy Funtime Friend Service to attend NPR's Jazz Piano Christmas, the NSO Pops Holiday Concert with Marvin Hamlisch, the Messiah, and the Washington Choral Arts Society's Christmas concert. This is definitely the part where you have to plan well in advance - most of the holiday events sell out before November when people actually start thinking about the holidays.

I can also recommend the Jazz New Year's Eve. We enjoyed it last year, with the dancing and balloon drop in the Grand Foyer. Funtime Friend Service is looking for New Year's Eve suggestions for this year - let us know your plans.

C-A-P-S! CAPS! CAPS! CAPS!

You may have forgotten over the past year what with the lock out and the excitement of having a baseball team to call our very own, but we also have a professional hockey team. Of course, you'll only recognize a couple of names - Olie Kolzig, Brendan Witt, and Jeff Halpern are still here. Apparently there's an exciting crop of youngsters to build on for the future.

Opening night is Wednesday, 5 October and there are still good seats available.

I'll be there for opening night, but I'm still trying to decide whether to buy a hockey mini-plan, or save my money to improve my baseball seats next year.

Free movies from Loews

The Loews in Georgetown in participating in the free Fan Favorites program. You have to register, but then there are free movies, and who doesn't love that?

Each month has a theme - not surprisingly, October's is horror classics, including Interview with a Vampire and The Exorcist.

September's theme was Back to School and included Old School. November's theme is Coming Home, and December's is Holiday Classics. Expect to see the holiday classics as part of my secular advent calendar.