Yesterday Hugh Laurie (aka Dr. House) told me: “You smell great.“

Ha! How great would that have been if I could just stop right there? Of course, he didn’t tell it to me personally. While opening his concert with The Copper Bottom Band at the outdoor stage of the Montalvo Arts Center at Saratoga, Hugh Laurie said referring to performing in the daylight (citing from memory):

You have no idea how unnerving it is being able to look out and see all your faces. Not that you have unnerving faces — not at all. In fact, you are uniformly chiseled and well moisturized. And you smell great.

I would love to say that Fleur de Chine by Tom Ford that I wore has contributed to the collective perfumed aura at the concert but in reality the wonderful aroma that filled up the evening was coming from a couple of big linden trees in bloom. It was … breathtaking.

House M.D. is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. And the main reason I went to the concert was to see Hugh Laurie live. I got much more than I expected: the concert was glorious and Mr. Laurie was charming, witty and scintillating. He plays piano and guitar, sings, dances tango and drinks whiskey (he said he’d invented the tradition for the band: mid-concert they were served a shot of whiskey – right on stage).

If all that weren’t enough for me to be completely enchanted by the artist, there was more: during the concert Hugh Laurie made my vSO laugh several times (which doesn’t happen too often!). Also he invited me for a dance of Argentine tango… Wait… That part wasn’t real. I went to bed thinking about the concert and this post and in my dream Hugh Laurie and I just happened to be at the same milonga. Cabeceo, I nodded, he smiled – and we started dancing. None of it – dancing or dreaming about people I do not know – happens to me too often. But that was how much that performance influenced me. See the tango that made such a strong impression on me (video isn’t mine):

Image: my own