Today was a classically un-hard day at school. After morning school announcements, I got on a bus with 40 of Meredith’s very well-behaved students and headed south to Barberton, Ohio, to go to see the Magical Theatre Company’s production of Beowulf. That isn’t to say it was no work – there is a certain underlying angst for being responsible for 41 students on a bus, and the six chaperons were responsible for about 170 students overall. Still, since our kids are pretty good, it was a nice day away from the office.

Magical Theatre Company does a lot of shows geared toward children and/or schools, so we have been there several times in the past few years. It is an old movie theater that they converted into a theater, which means it can hold a ton of people – all of us, plus students from two other schools (although we did take up 2/3 of the theater with our students). The theater has good sight lines, and okay acoustics – there were a few times where it was a little hard to hear in the back, but not too much, and not more than you could catch by listening carefully.

The company commissioned the work, and the playwright was also an actor in the five-person cast. He managed to cut down the original epic poem to 65 minutes, six people played by four actors, and one actor who played three monsters. It actually worked quite well. He updated the language to modern English, but kept all the key actions and characters.

The acting was very solid. Beowulf himself was quite excellent, and I was impressed at his ripping off his lines effortlessly while doing push-ups (to warm up for his fight against the monster Grendel). The character interactions were just a tad stiff at times, but that was necessary as part of filling in the audience on back-story.

The monsters were very cool. They were all bigger-than-life puppets (costumes, really) that were played by one man. Grendel was about 9 feet tall, and had 6-foot-long arms that ended in claws. He had an arm that was detachable (the story calls for that), and he was a convincing monster that was having his way with Beowulf until Beowulf managed to rip off an arm. Grendel even sat down on a stone at one point and laughed at Beowulf in a gloating manner – it was a nice touch.

Grendel’s mother was about 12 feet tall, with smaller arms and claws, but she made up for it by being armed with a dagger/sword. She snapped Beowulf’s sword with one blow, but then Beowulf wrested her dagger away and used it to cut her head off (the head really came off the puppet). It was a fun moment when the decapitated monster rose back up to attack Beowulf, who was resting, and he had to quickly kill it again.

The last monster was a very impressive dragon. They managed this nice trick by having the actor just play the head sticking out of the cave. They also threw a long length of tail on stage during the fight to give you a sense that this thing was very big. The dragon “breathed fire” by a strobe light in its mouth, and the ear-flaps moved in and out as well. It was a pretty cool dragon.

The play had lots of background music, which I liked and thought added to the mood of the play (except in the very first scene, where the music was too loud to hear the actors easily). Some of the students thought the music was cheesy, but I think high school students are more often concerned with being sophisticated than with giving themselves over to childlike wonder. I liked it.

The set was basic, but very cool – lots of different levels with rocks strewn all over, with a few primitive columns that could be swung about to make different spaces. They had a rope-like netting hung all over to suggest decay, (and to be lit a greenish tint for Beowulf being pulled underwater to fight Grendel’s mother). It worked very well.

There was a good time of questions and answers afterward (despite some questions like “how much can you bench press?” and “what conditioner do you use?”). I like Q and A time in theaters – it gives me an appreciation of the thought process of staging a play.

After the play, we all got back on the bus and headed to Chapel Hill Mall, where we released our hungry charges into the food court. Mer and I got food from the Great Steak and Potato Company, followed up by Dairy Queen. It was a very satisfying lunch. Happily, all the students were back on the buses in time (thanks to some gentle prodding by Meredith), and we got back to school in time for the last two classes (much to the delight of the students, I am sure).

Not a bad day at work, today.

Sunday was my 39th birthday, but Mer was good enough to plan a fun-filled celebration day for me all day Saturday. We both woke up early for no good reason, and Mer took me out for breakfast. She took me to the nearby Doug’s Dinner Bucket, a small diner. It was great. The owner/cook/waitress was super friendly, and there was an older man reading a newspaper in the corner while nursing his coffee. When anyone (other than us) came in, he said hello. By name. He got into a conversation with a friend who came in, and the conversation largely boiled down to how the corporate “man” kept trying to screw them out of money. It was very satisfying.

I ordered a huge breakfast – an egg sandwich, a mound of home fries, and two pieces of French toast. The food was very good, and I’m a fan of breakfast. When the bill came, Mer discovered that she had forgotten all of her money. So, I sat at a stool at the counter, and she ran the 4 miles home to get her money. I had a great time. I got to talk with the owner some, and the man behind me wanted to take bets on if Meredith was coming back. One man came in and looked a little confused and sat at the far end of the counter. The owner got simply asked him “homemade?” (for bread, I assume) and he nodded. As she went off to make his presumably usual breakfast, she asked him if he was okay there, and he nodded. I’m pretty sure I was on his stool. Ooops.

Mer did come back for me and paid the bill. We went home and played some music and sang, which we do not do enough of. Then, I was allowed to nap for a bit. I was roused late morning and told to buff up and get my suit on. After my having done so, we left the house around 12:30 and headed north to Cleveland.

Mer gave me directions, and we ended up at Playhouse Square, the home of most of the very good theater in Cleveland. We parked with some anxiety in the parking garage, because we were running late and the cars in the lot were not parking (everyone was looking for “the” spot instead of just heading to the top of the garage). We did make it, but we sat down as the lights were flashing for the show to start.

Happily, Meredith continued the scantily-clad, morally corrupt theme of birthday theater (see post about Nine from last week) by bringing me to see Chicago, the musical based on an adulterous woman murdering her lover. I know it has adultery and murder, but it really is a great musical. It has lots of funny moments and the music is great and the orchestra is right on stage to see and the dancing is jaw-dropping. It is just a good time.

The theater was absolutely packed – keep in mind this was a 2:00 matinee on a Saturday. We were toward the back of the main level, on the left-hand side. Mer apologized for the seats (which she bought before Christmas), but I thought they were pretty good. I could see and hear everything just fine.

Chicago was just flat-out great. I’m not sure how it could have been done better. The orchestra was “on” and it was fun getting to see them, especially the brass section, which was lively. The conductor got to interact with the cast on several occasions, which was funny.

The singing was excellent. The leads had lots of power and clarity, and the chorus blended well. The lead actress was cheek-pinchingly cute. Yes, she was a murderer and an adulteress, but a very coochy-coo murderer and adulteress. The lead man was a now-25-years-older actor best known for playing Luke Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard. He did a nice job as a money-grubbing, sleazy attorney.

What absolutely blew me away in this musical was the dancing. I have not been to a big musical in years, and I had forgotten how beautifully the human body can move. Both the male and female dancers were incredibly graceful in their movements. They had full control of their bodies, right down to how they moved their hands and even fingers as they danced. It was just a joy to see them dancing.

After the show, we headed back to the car. We were on the fifth floor of the garage, which was the roof. We waited for about 5 minutes, and I saw that no cars on our level had moved, so I asked to go back inside to use the bathroom – I figured it beat sitting in the car for 15 minutes or more. We did, and on the way out we were looking around the theater complex when a man opened the front door to the small gallery there.

For years, I have been captivated by a sculpture in the gallery of a woman dancing while playing the fiddle. It just expresses joy to me. Meredith refers to it as my “other woman.” I had never gotten to see the work up close, and we just lucked out that the gallery was opening for the evening performance. We jumped at the chance to go in. The sculpture is fantastic, and I found the best viewing is from about 10 feet away. It is a wonderful piece. The small gallery had a good number of very interesting pieces, and a lot of back and white photos from the 40s. It was a great little art space.

We headed out after a little while, and after some digressions off the beaten path (Mer had misprinted the Mapquest directions, so she was guessing at some roads), we made it to a vary fine Italian restaurant in Solon, Jimmy Dadonna’s. It is a family-affair place, with big portions and really good “bread bites” that are not quite rolls, but really good. We ate quite well, and then Mer let me pick where to go for dessert. Cold Stone sounded good to me, but for some reason was really crowded when we got there. That encouraged us to look in their freezer, and we came away very quickly with a chocolate peanut butter pie. Yum. We went home and ate it while listening to the latest Wait Wait on the computer. It was a great way to celebrate my birthday.

My actual birthday was much fun as well. After church, I got to baking. I made four loaves of bread and a pizza. I had sort of invited myself over to the Churchills’ house to watch football, and they had graciously agreed. Mer was caught up enough on her work to be able to go with me, so we headed over to the house around 3:00. We dove right in to the bread, to the point where we did not bake the pizza until the second game. Londa had made four kinds of dessert – chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, chocolate peanut clusters, and brownies. I had so many cookies (about 15) that I never even got to the brownies. They were really great.

It was much fun getting to eat lots of food and to chat with Zach and Londa and to watch football. It was a pretty ideal way to spend a birthday. We got home late, and I had eaten way too much, but I did not think too much about it. Until the next morning, when I felt ill going in to work. I finally left work early at 1:00 and went home and went back to bed. I finally began to feel like myself again after supper later that night. Lesson probably not learned, but at least the opportunities to be that dumb don’t come along too often.

Happy birthday to me! It was a good one.

We had a three-day weekend this weekend because of Martin Luther King Day, AND it is Mer’s birthday today, so it seemed we should celebrate over the weekend. So, we jumped in the car Friday and drove the three-and-a-half-hour drive to Hillsdale, Michigan, to see our good friend Ellen.

We like to get away for mini-vacations. If we stay home, we tend to fill the hours with chores and errands. Ellen is much fun, and her house is not too far away, and I had many plans for Mer and for Ellen this weekend.

We got to Ellen’s about 8:30. One of Ellen’s friends, Heidi, was there, and had been there all week. She was leaving early the next morning to go back to Texas, but it made for a merry group. Ellen does not have any dull friends (yes, other than me, Shannon), and Heidi had a great sense of humor. One of my early plans for Mer’s birthday weekend was to take her to a restaurant near Ellen’s called Marcella’s. Ellen asked around and the opinion of the place was mixed, but the ice cream was held in very good regard. So, at about 8:31, I suggested we go out for ice cream. Everyone laughed, and we brought our stuff in and settled in to Ellen’s very pretty living room. At about 8:45, I mentioned how good ice cream would be. A story reminded me to speak up about ice cream around 9:00. 9:15 passed, and people seemed to have forgotten about ice cream, so I aired my view that the confection would be pretty good right about now. I think to shut me up, everyone agreed to go get ice cream.

Marcella’s was only about 15 minutes away, and as it was after 9:30 (the place closed at 10:00), we had the entire restaurant to ourselves. I liked the place. It had wooden floors and a high tin ceiling, and they were playing swing music and other tunes from the 30s and 40s. The overall experience was a bit mixed. The service was a bit slow for us, maybe because of the late hour. Meredith had to ask for a glass of water, and then the waitress only brought one glass, just for Mer. The ice cream was quite excellent, but Mer, Ellen, and I all ordered the same thing, and they came back 5 minutes later with two of them, explaining that they had run out of pecans, and had not made one for Ellen (we all had different flavors of ice cream). That can happen, but I was a tad miffed that they had not asked who would like to change their order (I would have, because I am not that picky with ice cream). Anyway, the atmosphere was great, the service so-so, the ice cream fantastic, and the conversation much fun. Not a bad jaunt out.

We went back to Ellen’s, and Mer opened her birthday gift from Ellen – a game called Bohnanza, where the object is to raise various kinds of beans and cash out the crop for as much money as you can. It sounds exciting, I know, but it turned out to be much fun. However, Mer was not feeling up for a new game (since it was now 10:30), and having three English nerds (and me) all in one room meant that we had to team up and play Dark and Stormy, a game about identifying books by their first line or first few lines. Mer teamed up with Heidi, and I teamed up with Ellen. After a hard-fought game, Ellen won (I mean, Ellen and I won). I actually did contribute 1 out of our 8 books we needed to win. Yay, team! After the game, we all retired and slept.

The next morning, Ellen took Heidi to a town about an hour away to catch the shuttle to the Detroit airport. Mer and I got to sleep in a bit, and we showered and got ready for the exciting birthday day by the time Ellen got back. Ellen, ever hospitable, made us breakfast, and then we broke out and played Bohnanza. It took a bit to figure out some of the basic strategies, but we eventually caught on. In the end, Ellen and Mer tied, and I did not.

We puttered around some, and then all got spiffed up for the big birthday outing. I like surprising people, so I escorted Mer and Ellen to the car and just headed off. About an hour and fifteen minutes later, we drove into downtown Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan. Turns out that Ann Arbor is a good-sized town, and the downtown is very happening. So happening that I had trouble finding a parking place. I circled around the block and was going to let the girls out in front of the restaurant so they could hold our reservation. I was waiting behind two cars at a red light, about a block from the restaurant, when my car lurched forward. We had been hit from behind – not super hard, but enough so that my fedora went flying into the back seat. The next day, Ellen’s back would hurt her a little, and my neck has been stiff yesterday and today, but at the time, everyone seemed just fine. I pulled over and got out and walked back to the car behind me. It was a young woman (20?) who was a crying, shaking, apologizing mess. I felt bad for her. The damage to our car was a scuff on the bumper (and today we found out the locking mechanism on the trunk needs to be treated with much more force than it used to to stay closed). The damage was nothing on a car with 180,000 miles on it, and I did not want to miss our dinner reservations, so I checked that the girl was okay, told her everything was fine, and got back in my car. Incidentally, the girl said she thought I was moving ahead. How that was supposed to happen at a red light with two cars in front of me, I’m not sure. Still, I am very thankful everyone was okay and the cars were fine.

I dropped the girls off at the restaurant – Gratzi. Gratzi is in an old converted theater, and must be fancy since they have paintings of naked people on the main wall which looked as if they were left over from the original theater. After I parked the car (which was easy once I turned left at the end of the block instead of right), I joined Mer and Ellen. I was very pleased – the atmosphere was elegant and the service was friendly, prompt, and very helpful. I’m pretty sure our waitress spoke Italian since she did not bat an eye when Mer ordered her dish using correct Italian pronunciation. If the waitress did not know Italian, she certainly knew the menu. We all had very excellent and very fresh dishes, and Mer got free cannoli for her birthday.

We were on a bit of a schedule, so we walked out to the car to go to the next destination. It was not too far – about 1-2 miles up the road, to the University of Michigan’s campus. Turns out that parking is not super easy there either, but we found a parking garage and found a space on the 5th (out of 6) floor. We walked across the street to a very crowded theater, only to discover it was the wrong one. They directed us to the correct theater a block further into campus.

I had wanted to take Mer and Ellen to see some theater, and I had two choices. The first was K2, a story about two men who were trying to survive on the mountain K2. The website warned of strong language, and the tickets were pretty expensive. I could have handled the expense, but it did not strike me that Mer would love having the F-bomb lobbed about all evening on her birthday. So, instead, I took her to the burlesque show.

Or near enough. We went to see the musical Nine. Nine is based loosely on
8-1/2, by the Italian film director Fellini. Nine takes place at a spa in Venice, where a director named Contini is trying to save his marriage, come up with a plot for his next film, and juggle at least one (and maybe two) mistresses. Reality starts to break down for Contini, and he starts seeing all the women in all of his life everywhere he goes. This goes all the way back to his first encounter with a worldly woman when he was nine (hence the title). Anyway, Contini does find a plot for his movie, where he plays himself as a kind of Casanova, but he loses everything else in the process.

It was an odd little play. I did not like most of the characters. The acting was excellent, but Contini was a self-involved adulterer. His mistress was married and looking for a divorce. Most of the women in his life were just there as sex objects, and dressed down for the part. I did like Contini’s wife and his mother – both strong and interesting women. Even though I did not like the characters, and much of the music was average (or even forgettable), I still found the play interesting. I was not riveted, and I do not need to see it again, but it somehow held my attention, which surprised me. Usually if I do not like the main characters, I have no interest in what happens to them. And Nine is not short – it came in at a full two-and-a-half hours.

The lead actors were strong, and had very good voices. The choreography was also well done, and the orchestra did a fine job. Some of the technical things were a bit off – there was some over-driving of speakers on some songs, but not too many. The staging was simple, but effective – three levels of marble blocks and pillars to suggest a spa.

So, Nine was okay. I’m not sure taking your wife to see a play with a dozen barely clothed women in it qualifies me for Husband of the Year, but Mer says she is glad she saw it, and had a similar reaction of being interested without being grabbed by the plot. Ellen was not overly impressed, but was still happy to have a night out on the town. I’m pleased that this gave us all a chance to scout out Ann Arbor, which looks very worthwhile, especially when the weather gets better (or when they put on a safer play!).

Sunday we all slept late, and then went to Ellen’s church. I wish I had taken pictures of the church – it is small, but beautiful inside. It is all wood and post-and-beam construction and very pleasing to the eye. The service is very formal and liturgical, and I did get a bit lost flipping around in books trying to figure out where we were. The music was simple (just organ and voices) and very pretty, and the homily (short sermon) was very solid, being on remaining in God’s will in the circumstances you are in, and not making God’s will all about you and your interests, but about what God wants.

After church we went back to Ellen’s, where we had some of my homemade bread (I set it to rising before church), followed by brownie sundaes and then long naps. After we all got up around five, Ellen made us a good supper of grilled turkey sandwiches and cheesy potatoes, and then we played Bohnanza again. Mer won, Ellen came in second, and I lost again. Oddly, I seemed to spend too much on getting the beans I wanted, while Ellen and Mer saved up for theirs. There is probably a lifestyle correlation in here somewhere.

Mer also graded quite a lot on Sunday, and I read my homework. We were going to see Ellen teach today, so I wanted to read what was going to be covered. So, I read the first four Cantos of the Hell part of the Divine Comedy. It surprised me – I found it quite interesting. I had to read it out loud (Mer was very patient with that) in order to understand it since the line breaks ran all over the place, but it really is quite interesting stuff. I then followed Hell up with the first three chapters of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Who says English majors can’t have a good time? I found the first chapter of The Jungle hard – it was in present tense and had lots of foreign names and words. The second and third chapters were much easier, but were starting to foreshadow the inhumane treatment of both the people and animals of the book. I was not sorry to put it down.

I also made myself useful in trying to help Ellen around the house. She had a screw loose on a light switch, so I thought I would fix it for her. Turns out the screw was too long for the socket. In the process of figuring that out, I managed to strip the other screw and had the screw driver slip and gouge Ellen’s fairly new paint job. I’m always glad to help where I can.

Today we did go in to Ellen’s school, the private Hillsdale Academy. The Academy is the K-12 school associated with Hillsdale College, noted for being one of two schools that will not take any government money (they do not want any government regulations). The Academy is fairly small, with about 20 students per grade. The building is a very nice red brick, and the inside is all carpeted. There are no bells – the teachers dismiss the students (more or less) when they are supposed to. It all makes for a very quiet school.

Ellen runs a very good and tight classroom. She lectures from the front of the class, with the students in a “U” around her. She lectures, but does ask the students a lot of questions – she even called on me in one class and Mer in another class! Ellen calls all of her students by their last names (Mr. or Miss So-and-so), and it gives the class a very formal feel. It works pretty well.

The discussions of the literature were much fun. I had forgotten how much I like analyzing great literature. I had strong, text-based opinions, and it was hard for me not to blurt out a bunch of my ideas during both of the classes I sat in on. Miss Condict would have reprimanded me, so I behaved myself. The students did pretty well, although the class discussing The Jungle was a bit subdued. Ellen thought it was because it was a Monday, and said they are usually livelier.

Ellen had an hour for lunch, so she took us to a sandwich place, where we had good food and talked more about the books and about teaching. I know it was nerdy to go to school on a day off, but I enjoyed it and I think it helped Mer out to see another classroom.

So, after the afternoon class, Mer and I took our leave from Ellen and headed home around 2:00 or so. We were home by 6:00, after stopping for supper on the road. I’m not sure this would have been a great birthday weekend for everyone, but it was a darn good one for Mer. Happy birthday, love!

Last Friday, Mer and I actually invited some friends to go out. We have not done that in a very long time because of financial constraints, but we had some money set aside for social purposes, so out we went!

Jerry and Linda are our friends, and they both work at CVCA, so there was always plenty to talk about. I would not tell them what I had in mind for the evening, but they were game souls about it. The roads were a bit sloppy (school had actually been canceled that day), so we stayed close to home for eating out – we went to Rockne’s, a restaurant that is a local chain, and it is only about 2 miles away. We had an excellent supper (I had a cheesesteak for the first time in years), but we did skip dessert because of time constraints.

We then headed the short distance up to Hudson, to (where else?) Actors’ Summit theater. Mer and I know not everyone is a theater nut, but Jerry is CVCA’s baseball coach, and the theater was doing Nobody Don’t Like Yogi, a one-man play based on Yogi Berra’s life.

The occasion for the play was Yogi’s coming back to manage the Yankees after having been gone for 14 years (after being fired by the owner). He was in the locker room, and talking out loud about a speech he had to give to the fans. From starting the speech and getting sidetracked, Yogi told us about his childhood, playing baseball, managing baseball, his wife and family, and more. He had lots of good “Yogisms” thrown in, which were very funny (Yogi was known for saying funny things in all seriousness, and coined “It ain’t over till it’s over”).

The actor playing Yogi did a magnificent job. We talked with the director and the actor after the play, and the script is 60 pages long, of just Yogi talking. Incredible. The actor played a range of emotions from joy to nostalgia to very real anger about being fired.

During the performance, when Yogi would mention a player or a stadium, a projected picture of what he was talking about was shown above the stage. It was very helpful to those of us who are not so familiar with baseball as real fans are.

Jerry and Linda seemed to enjoy the show very much, and since it was opening night, there were desserts after the show and a chance to talk to the director and actor. Both were very affable, and we learned quite a bit about the process of putting on a one-man show. Apparently, position on the stage helps you to remember where you are in the script.

Saturday, the socializing continued. It was Mer’s day, and we ran a few errands, and then our friends Zach and Londa came over and we all headed out to the Cheesecake Factory. Yum! The wait was quite long (75 minutes), even at 8:00, but we used the time to run over to the local non-Borders bookstore to browse for awhile. I lost myself in a book by an English comedian who toured all 50 states here in the U.S. I spent about 15 minutes reading his entry on Maine, which is where he started his tour. He was very favorable, describing Mainers as friendly and hard working.

We finally got our seats in the restaurant, and ordered. I got a breakfast sandwich – it was not too much, and I had a taste for it. It left me feeling less bloated than usual at the Cheesecake Factory, so I had room for my favorite dessert – the factory mudpie. The mudpie is a good-sized piece of chocolate cake with chocolate chips, ice cream, whipped cream, and hot fudge sauce. Wow, is it good.

Zach and Londa are very fun people, so we had a great time. Throw in good food, and the evening was just about perfect (it would have been perfect if the bookstore had been carrying C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, but sadly they did not have it in stock).

So, a good couple of evenings. The problem with the weekend is that it gets late so early.

You have probably noticed that 2009 is over and we have started 2010. I ran much of 2009, and kept track of my running using a Nike+ system hooked to my iPod. It kept track of distance and speed and calories. It did miss some runs – there were a few weeks when my old iPod was broken and I had not gotten the replacement yet. There were some runs during which the battery ran out or the Nike+ just froze. I had two races that were 39 miles just in themselves during which I did not wear my iPod. Still, the Nike+ system logged everything that I did record, and the 2009 results are:

905 miles for 102,000 calories with an average pace of 7:40 per mile.

102,000 calories is about 29 pounds burned off. Over the year, I lost about 10-15 pounds. It is a bit intimidating to think that I ate about 15 pounds worth of food that the running simply kept off, as opposed to actually losing it. If I did not run, I would be tipping the scales at over 190 pounds. I think I’ll keep running.

But not yet. I decided to take 7 weeks off from running in hopes that a nagging injury to my left knee will heal. So far, it has been four weeks since my last run on the treadmill, and I am aiming to try running again on February 1st, just one day shy of 7 weeks off. What a shame – I hate not running. Running is how I manage stress, control my weight, and generally feel good about myself. I also expect I will be in pretty lousy shape come February. After my marathon in late September, I got sick for three weeks, and it took about three weeks of running to get my lungs back to where they did not hurt when I ran. I can only imagine that taking 7 weeks off will be harder. Still, I’d like my knee to heal, and in a very un-Riordan like way, I’m trying to be patient AND sensible. Maybe 2010 will be the year I run 1000 miles, in only 11 months.

The second part of our vacation in Maine was even more mellow than the first part, believe it or not. Christmas day opened with my waking up early, and my convincing Mer that we should go to the breakwater to see the sunrise. It stuck me that it would be beautiful, and it probably was, somewhere. This particular day in Rockland, however, it was quite cloudy, so we did not really see a sunrise per se. Happily, it was much milder than the day I had tromped out on the breakwater earlier in the week. We finally gave up on seeing a sunrise (well after the sun was up), and we went back home. We munched and puttered, and we eventually got around to opening gifts (it is surprisingly hard to corral six adults used to their own disparate schedules). Later in the day there was continuing Skip-bo action, but that was about it for the day.

The next day (Saturday), we headed out around 10:00 am to head over to Dad’s in East Livermore. The drive is a little over 1.5 hours long, so we got to Dad’s a little before 12:00. We might have gone hungry, except Kellee is a great and prodigious cook. She had made three different kinds of whoopie pies in addition to a large Christmas dinner. Plus, I spent the afternoon making bread, which turned out well and disappeared quickly. So, the day was spent eating, watching some TV, and having Mer beat me at Dark and Stormy and Trivial Pursuit. Late in the evening, we watched an hour-long 1930s animated version of Gulliver’s Travels. Gulliver’s Travels is one of my all-time favorite books, but I was suspicious of the movie from the packaging. Words almost fail me at how bad it was – Gulliver only goes to Lilliput, and he does not appear until 25 minutes through an hour- long film. The first 25 minutes was a cooked-up story about two kingdoms having a marriage go bad. It included every stereotypical gag from 1930s animation – it creaked and groaned through a poor plot for what seemed a very long time. Yikes. After the film, we went to bed.

Sunday was spent reading and eating and using the computer and watching Mer grade papers. Monday we were social – we went all the way up to Jay (about 20 miles) to see my high school friend, John. John has been a good friend of mine for 25+ years. I had not seen John in about 5 years – his 8-year-old son is now 13, and he has a 4-year-old daughter who is very cute. John and his girlfriend Linda are friendly folks, and we spent a good amount of time chatting. John had also just gotten a Wii for Linda for Christmas, so we played The Price Is Right, through which I learned that I have no idea what things cost anymore. I still won both games because John “went over” in one game and in the other Mer was way under on prices. It was a good time. We had to cut the visit short because the roads were getting messy from snow, and Mer had to get home to grade. Back at Dad’s we watched a very interesting BBC series on nature with Dad and Kellee. We watched a show on the Arctic (focusing on bears), one on the Pacific salmon run, and one on wildebeest migration and the great cats that feed on them. The shows were beautifully done.

Tuesday’s highlights were twofold – my getting my butt kicked by Mer in Dark and Stormy, followed by seeing The Nightmare before Christmas. Neither of us had seen Nightmare before, and it had been lent to Mer by one of her students. It was excellent – original and entertaining, and the music was fun (in a twisted sort of way). My sister-in-law, Jo, loves the film, and I can see why.

Mer and I had originally planned on going home from Maine Friday-Saturday, but there was a very large storm forecast for the entire weekend. So, we made the decision to travel Wednesday-Thursday to stay ahead of the snow. But, to draw the vacation out a bit, we decided to go the scenic route. We went back to Rockland to see Gramps. I had bought him a new CD/tape player (his old one had broken), and I wanted to give it to him. I also had a gift certificate to The Boathouse, a Rockland restaurant, so we figured we would grab lunch there. Carleton’s great-grandsons were there, so Mer and I took on Carleton and Logan in a game of Skip-bo. Mer and I then went to lunch at The Boathouse. It is right on the water, and the front is all glass. It was breathtaking. The restaurant served mostly seafood (no surprise there), but I got a decent burger while Mer got some scallops. We dashed back to Rankin Street for one more game of Skip-bo (we split the two games), and then we headed south.

We were aiming for York, for a B and B on the coast. Along the way, we swung through Brunswick to stop by and see one of Mer’s college friends, Julie. Julie has twin four-year-old girls, whom we had not seen in 3 years – quite a change! Julie was just heading out to walk one of her dogs when we stopped by, so we left the girls in the care of Julie’s husband, Paul, and walked with her over to Bowdoin College. It was very cold, but it was cool to wander around the college. It is a pretty campus. After the 30-minute walk, we stopped by the house for another 20 minutes or so, but then had to go so that we could get a decent rest before the 12-hour drive on Thursday.

We got to the B and B in York about 7:30 and checked in. It is a pretty B and B, and is called The York Harbor Inn. It looked as if it had 30-40 rooms, all told. Our room had cool slanty ceilings, but I did crack my head on them a few times. We went to the restaurant to get something to eat, and we were disappointed that it took about 40 minutes to get our food, even though the place was not busy. We headed back up to the room and went to sleep, but I woke up in the wee hours to the heater in the room making noise. I turned it off, but it took me about 2 hours to fall back asleep. So much for a good night’s rest. In the morning, the heater no longer would throw out heat, which was too bad. We were on the third floor (where heat rises to), so we were not too cold, but it was a little frustrating. After a good continental breakfast, we checked out and were on the road about 9:00.

We did manage to avoid the big storm coming to Maine, but we did hit a smaller storm for much of the western half of Massachusetts. We were always able to go at least 35 mph, but it did slow us down quite a bit, and I was not sad to drive out of it once we reached New York. We drove back into another storm a few hours later, but by then it had changed to rain. We were very lucky. We stopped outside of Buffalo to grab supper at Denny’s (not a happening stop on New Year’s Eve at 6:00), and then made it safely home around 10:00. We could have gone to one of two New Year’s Eve parties, but we were pretty wiped. Mer rang in the new year while reading next to my sleeping form.

We spent the last three days of vacation at home catching up on life. It was not a bad way to transition back out of vacation and back into school.

Mer and I both had two weeks off for Christmas, so we jumped in the car on Friday the 18th. We had booked a resort room at Woodcliff Resort in western Rochester, about 4.5 hours away from home. We have done the Maine trip a bunch of times, and Mer was tired of shelling out $85-95 for a bland motel room that often was not very good. She asked me to look for something better, and after some online research, I stumbled across Woodcliff. Woodcliff is a very nice spa and resort hotel, but December must be a very slow month for them, because the room we booked was really amazing, but only $105. The resort is on a hill, and the room looked out over the hills around Rochester. The room was big and the bathroom was nice, and it was just soul-soothing (as Mer observed the next morning). We relaxed in the room – we watched a 30-minute collection of Pixar short films that was on the Disney channel. I slept like a rock, and since check-out time was not until noon, we slept in. We also took advantage of the $15 (for both of us) breakfast buffet that was elegant and very tasty. The dining room had tons of windows that overlooked the snowy hills. Quite wonderful. Sadly, the return trip would not take us here, as the January room rates jumped up to $135/night. Ah, well. It was a great stay. We were well rested and well fed, and we did not need to stop for food until we got to Maine.

The trip on Saturday was uneventful. There was a huge storm that was moving up the east coast, but we managed to get through Massachusetts about three hours before the storm arrived. We were happily furnished with lots of trip food thanks to the generosity of Mer’s students bringing in good things for Christmas gifts. We called Carleton (Mer’s grandfather) once we got to the bridge at Kittery, and found out that Mer’s parents had missed their flight due to misreading the tickets. That was sad, but it would only result in a two-day delay for Dale and Carlene, so no great harm.

As we proceeded up the coast, we started to get hungry (it was pushing 8:00), and Mer needed a bathroom. We were just north of Bath, so we stopped at the Taste of Maine restaurant in Woolwich. I had grown up seeing the commercials, and Mer had gone by the restaurant most of her life (on trips to Maine), but neither of us had ever been before. We split a pizza (in a seafood restaurant), and then I was a little sad when we passed Moody’s Diner 30 miles later and saw that it was still open. Ah, well. We arrived in Rockland safely around 9:30, where Carleton and Aunt Mary were waiting for us.

Sunday was off to church with Gramps and Aunt Mary. I really like Pastor Gabe of the First Baptist Church in Rockland – a very good and passionate and thoughtful preacher. We were mellow for much of the day Sunday, but went back to the church for the evening service, which was taking the place of a Christmas Eve service this year. I love Christmas services – I would find it very strange and incomplete now not to sing “Silent Night” by candlelight during the Christmas season. The evening service featured a pastor-in-training  who gave a short sermon, and he did very well. After the service, there were refreshments in the gym, and I got to chat with the newer pastor. He is an interesting man who got a Master’s degree in marine biology before feeling he should go into ministry. I ate too much food, and then decided to tromp through the 3-4 inches of new snow to go back home, which is about a mile. One of my favorite pastimes in Rockland is to walk. I love the town, and I like looking at the houses. With the new snow, it was very pretty.

On Monday, Mer and Aunt Mary went off to Bangor to pick up Dale and Carlene. That left me alone with Carleton, so I took the opportunity to take him to lunch at the Owl’s Head General Store, a store in the next town that has the best burgers in the greater Rockland area. I really treasured that lunch – I admire Carleton and like him very much, and it was good to get to talk with him one on one. We chatted quite awhile about his service in the Pacific in World War 2, at my instigation. While Carleton does not shy away from talking about his service, he does not bring it up on his own. He spent 2.5 years in the jungles of New Guinea and other Pacific islands. He was attached to the field HQ of an artillery unit. It was very very interesting. Mer and Aunt Mary and Mer’s parents made it back safe and sound in the late afternoon.

Tuesday was another pretty mellow day. Mer and I had lunch at Bricks, a restaurant in town that serves $5 lunches. After lunch, we headed over to the cemetery to see Gram’s grave (Gram passed away last October). It is still a very pretty place to be buried. We headed back home, and later that day, three of Mer’s relatives came over for pizza. It was a pleasant meal.

Wednesday was an exciting day – in the morning I went over to the breakwater to walk out on it, but it was bitterly cold. It was very beautiful, but it was painful to be in the wind on the breakwater, so I only made it about 100 years out on the the mile-long breakwater. Whew, was it cold. Around 11:00 or so, Mer and I took everyone to lunch at Bricks. We have been the charity cases for 2.5 years now (because of the two-house situation), but we had a little money set aside for this occasion, and we were pleased we could finally treat everyone. We headed back home after a good meal, and we watched a couple of videos about Alaska that Aunt Mary had. She had been on a cruise to Alaska in September, and had brought these back. Alaska is beautiful – what amazing county. Later that evening, we broke out the Skip-Bo cards. Gram and Gramps were huge Skip-Bo players while Gram was still alive, and Skip-Bo was always a highlight of visits to Rockland. It was me and Carleton versus Mer and Aunt Mary (it is always guys versus girls when the numbers work out right). The games spread out over several days, but I won’t keep you in suspense. Carleton and I triumphed, 5 games to 4. I made some mistakes, but not enough to lose everything. I corrected a very minor play of Carleton’s, and he talked about it for the rest of the day (in good humor). It was very funny – I believe he claimed he had not been “yelled at” like that even in the army. What was especially great was that I made a pretty obvious mistake right after I showed him his very minor one. Ah, the joys of Skip-Bo.

That evening, Mer and Carlene and I went to see The Blind Side. I knew nothing about the move, and I was very pleased that it was about football and it had Sandra Bullock in it. Then, on top of that, it actually portrayed Christians in a decent light, and on top of that it was an inspiring story, and it was (mostly) true. What a great movie. I am glad that I got to see it.

Thursday (Christmas Eve) was spent getting ready to have the entire family over. We all made food (I made homemade bread that turned out well), and all the kids and grandkids and great-grandkids showed up early that evening – I think there were 15 of us in all. We ate a ton of food (and still had lots left over), and then exchanged gifts (not counting immediate family gifts, which waited until Christmas itself). I ducked out at one point – I had a headache coming on, and I wanted some fresh air, so I went for another walk around Rockland. Again, it is much fun to admire the houses there – many of them are very beautiful. Once I got back from my walk, the gift exchange was over and the party was starting to break up. I went upstairs to finish off The Great Gatsby, which Mer had been encouraging me to reread, since she had just finished teaching it.

That brought us to the about the half-way point of our vacation in Maine, so I’ll wrap this up here. Maine is a pretty great place to spend Christmas.

We had two Christmas get-togethers this year (besides the ones held at CVCA). The first was at my boss’s house on Saturday the 12th. Jim is also my running partner, so it is easy to hang out with him. There were several other CVCA folks there with spouses, but there were only 10 people all told, and I knew 8 of them (including me and Mer), so it was the right size for shy ol’ me.

I do like my coworkers, and this was a fun time. My colleagues are funny people, and I especially enjoy hanging out with the president of CVCA, RT. He is an outgoing and funny man, and it was nice to be outside of work with him.

There was food, and a music game. The music game was to guess the name of the Christmas carol based on the reading of a less-used verse from the song. It was delightful to see Mer enter “competition mode” – she sat straight up and focused entirely on the reader. I love my wife. On the other end was RT and his wife, where they kept throwing out random names of songs, much to the amusement of everyone in the room (even Mer). The women beat the men 1-0 (it was -1 for each wrong answer).

After the song game, we had a white elephant gift exchange. There were a number of funny gifts, like an inflatable SpongeBob Squarepants, and the required singing mounted fish. But, my favorite moment involved our gift. We thought we were being fairly nice – we brought our old 26″ television, since we’d been given a new one. I took a picture of the TV and put the picture in a gift bag. My co-worker Vicki picked it, and had the strangest expression on her face, and she called her husband back into the room to see the gift. A minute later it became clear why – when RT opened the gift from Vicki, it was a 12″ television. So, Vicki traded up, I guess.

Sunday we also had a get-together. We met up with Aunt Mary and we took her to Macaroni Grill for lunch. After an excellent lunch, we headed over to Mt. Pleasant Church (Aunt Mary’s church), where we joined up with a group of about 8 others to go caroling at a couple of nursing homes and a hospital. The group was about half youth (under 20), which was fun to see. Getting to sing to older and some sick people was very moving and gratifying. The people seemed really very grateful. We wandered up and down halls in the buildings singing, and people came to the doors of their rooms and sang with us. One lady followed us around in her wheelchair. It was quite wonderful.

After the singing, we went back to the church, and they served us a light supper, which was generous on the desserts. Yum! A weekend mixture of family, friends, and total strangers seemed a good way to spend a Christmas time weekend.

Our first Royal Fools show of the year was back on December 11th. Royal Fools is my improv comedy group that I coach at CVCA, and this marked the sixth year of Fools being around. Amazing to me, but I am glad of it.

My assistant coach (and Founding Fool), Clarice, came over to the house before the show. Mer made a very good casserole, and we chatted about the show. I headed over a tad early to get things set up (make sure we have enough chairs on stage, get a table for refreshments, that sort of thing).

We have a good group of Fools this year – a group of 12, which is the biggest ensemble yet. I actually limited the group to grades 10-12 (I used to allow ninth graders to join) because the group is as big as I would want it to be. I’ve turned away 2-3 people who wanted to join after the year had started as well. I feel like we are getting pretty established as a group.

This particular Friday was busy – there was a home basketball game, and there had been a sophomore class skating party, and I think something else was going on as well. So, I was very pleased when we ended up with an estimated audience of about 80 people. As usual, the audience was very supportive and good-natured.

The show itself went well. We made a few mistakes here and there (yes, you can make mistakes in improv), but we did not tank any games. There were some pretty spectacular moments as well:
– a political debate about Santa Claus, and the revelation that the red-wearing guy is really “Commie Claus”
– a superhero called Concrete Boy, who filled in the San Andreas Fault using himself (and in the process falling on his chest without catching himself at all)
– a proposal of marriage voiced by “Do I have to?”
– a dancing wombat

We debuted two new (to us) games. One is called “Showdown at the Improv Corral” (or Showdown for short). In this game, two teams of three square off against each other, and go back and forth trying to outdo the other team by creating more interest in saying a single phrase over and over. It’s a concept in improv called “heightening.” The game went over quite well, but Clarice and I need to figure out a good, short way to explain to the audience what is going on.

We also introduced a game called “Salesman” where a Fool tries to sell a random object to two separate people who really don’t need it. In this instance, the salesman had to sell a nosehair trimmer to a yo-yo expert and then to a soccer star. The audience enjoyed it, and I think we will do even better next time (now that we have seen how it will work on stage).

The Fools came through with food this time, and so the hanging out after the show was festive. That was a good thing, because the show came in pretty short for us (just under an hour). Most of our shows are about 75-85 minutes long, so I was glad to have food available for people to hang out and chat.

Once everyone was gone and we had cleaned up (about 9:00), Mer and I grabbed our friend Dubbs, and met our friends Rachel and Nate at Coldstone Creamery up in Hudson. We ate too much ice cream and had a good time chatting. All in all, a very successful evening.