Don't Cry For Me Argentina

Last night I hostessed an Evita party with my friends. They came over right before Landon went to bed so they could applaud his new rolling skills, and then after he went down, we watched Evita, drank wine, ordered Chinese, and ate cookies. It was fabulous.

I know I've said this 1,000 times, and you will probably be forced to read about it 1,000 more, but I am going to miss my UChicago friends so much I can barely stand it. I knew I had made some good ones, but I figured that when I had Landon I'd probably fade from the social scene almost completely. I couldn't have been more wrong- my calendar is busier now than it was during my pre-baby days. Whenever someone has a party, Landon is invited. When it's a nighttime, grown-up thing, I put the port-a-crib in the host's room and he sleeps through the festivities. We have permanent offers to babysit and as far as my friends are concerned, JP and I don't give them nearly enough opportunities to hang out with Landon on their own. I think it helps that I was the first one to have a baby. Landon's a novelty and there's no sense of wanting to "get away" from the kids for a night out, they want the baby to come! And besides how baby-friendly they are, they're also strong and brilliant and on their way to prestigious and successful careers. There will be many reunions in our future.

Anyway, back to Evita. I love that movie. Madonna is fantastic, even if she is too old for the part, and Antonio Banderas is perfect. I'm a big fan of musicals- we grew up watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Meet Me in St. Louis, Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, and so many others, over and over again. And our three-day family car trips up to Wisconsin in the summer involved listening to all the soundtracks (my 19-year-old brother would probably be horrified if his friends knew that he could sing every song for every one of the movies listed above). I found out a week ago that none of my friends had seen Evita, so a party was immediately planned. I gave out advanced copies of the CD and I tried my very hardest not to sing along during the movie. I think they liked it - although they probably wouldn't have told me otherwise.

Since I wasn't singing along, I found myself thinking about Eva Peron's story and appreciating her strength and passion in a way I hadn't before. Sure, she may have slept her way to the top, and she was nowhere near the saint she was called by some, but she spearheaded a political movement for the labor unions and got her husband elected president by her mid-20's. By the time she died at 33 she had "become powerful within the Pro-Peronist trade unions; ran the Ministries of Labor and Health; founded and ran the charitable Eva Peron Foundation; and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party." An impressive female historical figure. And who doesn't love a movie with great costumes and lots of unnecessarily sung lines?