Last Tuesday, Mer and I headed up to Macedonia to go to Chick-fil-A. Normally, we do not need much of an excuse to eat at Chick-fil-A because we like the food, but this was also a fundraiser for a CVCA family that has medical needs. So, we like to eat and we wanted to be supportive, so we went up.

It was cool – not only was the food good (as it always is), but the place was also full of CVCA folks. We ran into and sat with Dubbs and another CVCA teacher, Liz. We saw multiple CVCA students and other teachers, and we had a good time catching up with Dubbs and Liz (Liz has a very dry sense of humor, so she fits in quite well).

Last Thursday, Mer had parent-teacher conferences, which I do not have to go to. For several years, my officemate, Phil, has been wanting me to go golfing with him, and I always put it off because of the double-house situation we had for three years. Well, we finally sold the other house last summer, so I agreed to go golfing for the first time in about 17 years. I did ask that it be a par-3 pitch-and-putt, though, which Phil agreed to. Somewhere along the way, CVCA’s president, RT, found out we were going and “wanted in” on things, so we had three of us going.

I still had Ceili Club on Thursday, so Phil went to drive a bucket of balls at a nearby driving range, and then he picked me up at about 4:30. We met RT at the golf course, which was a par-3 called Leisure Time. RT insisted on paying for my round of golf (we decided on 9 holes), and I told him that if he beat me, I would buy him an iced tea. RT is a pretty good golfer, so there was no doubt there. Phil lent me a bag of clubs, some tees, and some balls, so we were good to go.

Leisure Time has a pretty little course. It has a surprising amount of walking between holes for a small course, but it was a pretty day, and warm (about 80), and we literally had the entire course to ourselves for the entire evening. I golfed about as I expected – poorly, but not terribye. It was good enough that I had a good time. Phil and RT made for great company, and RT was pulling for everyone on pretty much every shot. I was the only one to find a water trap, which was remarkable since I was deliberately aiming away from it.

I started well, shooting 8 on the first two holes (2 over par). I thought that I would do okay, but then hit some trouble, especially on 4, 5, and 6, all of which I “shot” the maximum 6 strokes. Ooops. I did get one par, which was pretty cool. Phil got the only birdie of the day, on hole 6 (where I shot a 6). Overall, I think I shot a 43-45, which Phil told me I should let people know about without telling them it was a par-3 course.

On the last hole, Phil told me he wanted to see me belt the ball (I was using a hesitant swing), so I tried it and whacked out a chunk of turf, while sending the ball about 50 yards. Not too impressive. RT made the shot of the day on 9 – he was under a fir tree and could not get a clean swing on the ball, but still managed to whack it onto the green to save a par. RT shot all 3s and 4s for the day – as I said, a pretty good golfer.

I do not think I am about to rush out and get a set of clubs, but I did have a good time and can see myself enjoying the fellowship 2-3 times a year. Oh – and although I lost two balls on the day, I found one, so I only cost Phil one ball.

Oddly, now that we are back to school and are doing fewer social outings, I seem to have less time to blog. So, I have once again let myself get over a week behind. Bad blogger!

Last weekend was a happily puttery one, which was fitting for a puttery week. Saturday (the 18th) I went for a 16-mile run with Jason, and we ran a northern section of the Towpath that I rarely run. It was pretty, and I feel as if we clipped along at a good pace. The marathon is now (as of today) less than two weeks away, and I feel pretty good about it.

After the run, I went home and showered. It was Mer’s day, so after she got ready, we headed north to Brecksville, where Mer took me to a fairly large family-run restaurant called Coco’s. The food was pretty good and very welcome (it was 1:00 by the time we sat down to eat). After we finished our brunch, Mer took me to the nearby Brecksville Reservation, which is a pretty big Cleveland Metropark. We were quite a bit south of Cleveland, but they take caer of parks over quite a wide area.

We entered the park near a very pretty waterfall and small gorge. We spent several minutes watching the water, and then Mer wanted to take a leisurely walk along a path in the woods that joined up with a trail that led to a scenic overlook a little over a mile away. The walk in the woods was pleasant, with the gorge and stream running alongside it for a good ways. Once we joined up with the other trail, the path climbed pretty steeply, and then ran along a ridge where the path was only a few feet wide. We did make it to the overlook, but at this time of year it was pretty obscured by the leaves on the trees. We both agreed it would be a pretty spot later in the fall when the leaves thinned out some. We sat on a bench at the overlook for several minutes, and then headed back down the trail until we came to a road. Mer had some evening plans, so we walked along the roadside path for a less scenic but more direct path back to the car. Along the way we saw a couple of skateboarders using the road as a speed run, since it was a good-sized hill to go down. They had a chase vehicle behind them to keep them from being overtaken by other cars. They must have had some measure of skill since the speed was pretty impressive.

We got back to the car and headed home for a short bit. Then, we headed a short distance over to Bob Evans, where we met up with our colleagues Chrissy and Dave Kamp. I was delighted – I like Dave and Chrissy quite a bit, and we rarely get to hang out with them. Dave and Chrissy had invited us out, and Mer had accepted. Bob Evans has lots of hearty food, so that aspect of the meal was fine. But the real joy was getting to chat with Dave and Chrissy. They are leading a trip to Space Camp for J-term, and that seems to have come together very well. We also talked some about our J-term trip to London and how that is coming, and generally had a very nice meal. After we said goodbye to the Kamps, we headed home.

Mer had no elaborate evening plans; she wanted to watch a movie. So, we watched the first two hours of a three-hour adaptation of Sense and Sensibility that was very good. The actress playing the woman with sense did a marvelous job. She had amazing control over her face and body language, and often was able to show complex emotions playing across her features. It was a delightful way to end the evening.

Sunday (the 19th), we headed over to Aunt Mary’s to give her a hand with some projects associated with moving into her new house over the summer. First things first, though – we went to Dairy Queen for lunch. I love going anywhere where I can get ice cream as my main meal’s “drink.” After lunch, I helped Aunt Mary organize her garage while Mer graded. We made good progress, and made good use of the new shelves I had put together the week before.

We finished the day with typical Sunday chores – I cleaned and cooked while listening to football on the internet. Mer graded and cooked her lunches for the week. I made some frosted brownies to give away and later delivered them, and we finished up the third part of Sense and Sensibility while eating supper.

This last week was a puttery little week. Last Sunday, Mer and I went over to Aunt Mary’s house for lunch. While Mer graded, I got all manly and put together steel shelving for Aunt Mary’s garage. Since there were no tools involved, things went pretty well, and I only pinched my hand once. Aunt Mary made us some excellent chicken and made cupcakes for dessert. It was nice out, so we ate out on the patio.

Once we got home, I used the new laptop to stream NFL games via online radio stations, and while that was playing, I cleaned and cooked. I stole the idea from my brother Shannon – if you clean while listening to the NFL, you actually make your wife a fan of football season. Mer is pleased with the results.

Wednesday we headed over to Matt and Clarice’s apartment, where we met up with friends Josh and Kristen, and we played a very cool game called Wise and Otherwise. It’s a game about obscure proverbs from other languages and cultures. It was much fun, and was helped out by the fact that we played a full game and a short game, and I won them both. Actually, I am a big enough fan that I would have enjoyed the game even if I had lost, but winning twice certainly did not hurt. Mer came up with a beauty of a fake proverb by completing “While you still have the old bucket” with “drink the milk of strong camels.” I fell for it.

We got together with Dubbs on Friday and went out to an early supper at Aladdin’s. Dubbs is completely nuts, so we had a good time with her, and then we all headed over to Coldstone Creamery for ice cream. Mer and I followed supper with catching the second home football game at CVCA, where we cheered on the team and especially the band. We left at the start of the third quarter because we were both pretty tired, but I still got to see the band’s pregame and halftime shows, as well as two quarters of pretty good football, so it was a good time.

Last Friday we were going to have a mellow at-home evening, and then I checked my Facebook news feed and saw that our friends’ band, Bethesda, was playing a set at the DIT (Do It Together) Festival in Kent. We had not seen Bethesda in months, and this was an opportunity to see them at a venue that was not the Akron club Musica, which Mer and I are cool on. So, we suddenly had Friday plans.

The DIT festival is in its fifth or sixth year, and it is a small two-day festival of music and poetry held at the Vineyard Church in Kent. The Vineyard is a very contemporary church that targets the 20-something group that is in Kent. The building was one medium-sized room, and people had brought food to share. It was a good scene. We got there around 6:00, which was when Bethesda was supposed to go on, but these things seem to run behind, and the first band had not yet gone on. We were able to use that time to visit with our friends Eric and Shanna, which was grand since we had not seen them much over the summer.

The first band went on, and they were a bit on the loud-and-angry side for my taste, but I had fun watching the audience, who seemed to be having a good time. There was probably a crowd of about forty people or so, and Mer and I found ourselves in the unusual-to-us position of holding down the old side of the audience. The crowd was almost entirely 20-somethings dressed in alternative-lifestyle fashions, which (amusingly to us) end up looking fairly similar. Mer and I actually laughed that we were the alternative set in the audience, since we did not match anyone. It was a fun-loving group of people, though.

Bethesda went on after the first band, and they did four songs. The DIT Festival had ten or twelve bands lined up just for Friday, so the bands only had 30 minutes to perform, including set-up. Bethesda did a nice job. It was a real pleasure to hear them without fighting bar noise, and to hear them through a sound system that was not geared just for loud music. They sounded really good.

Once Bethesda finished up, we hung out long enough to say good night to Eric and Shanna, but then headed out. I had an early morning long run on Saturday, so I did not want to get home really late, and we had come to hear Bethesda. With that done, it seemed good to head home. On the way home, I swung by a smoothie place on the outskirts of Kent, called Robek’s. I got a strawberry/raspberry smoothie that was huge and very good. I did not really need one, but I just figured it was fuel for the next day’s run. I had hoped that folk music would be on WKSU since it was after 8:00, but it was another music program called American Roots Music. Normally, I am ambivalent about the program, but they were looking in depth at the career of Johnny Cash, whose music I respect and like. Listening to Johnny and sipping on a smoothie made for a good drive home.

On Saturday, I drove down to the Valley and met up with Jason and Nate. Jason and I were scheduled to run 20+ miles, which is supposed to be our last long run before the marathon next month. Nate wanted to run about 14 miles with us. We went out at a good clip, and we did our 7-mile out-and-back and got back to the cars, where we said goodbye to Nate. We really had run pretty hard. Jason and I headed north to finish up with a 3-mile-plus out-and-back, and went out hard. Jason mentioned he wanted to work on speed, so after we turned around, I pushed the pace really really hard for two-plus miles, and we used the last mile to recover. That run was so hard, I am still feeling it today, five days later.

I went home and showered, and just as I was getting dressed, Mer woke up. I am pleased that I can get my runs in without messing up Mer’s Saturdays. I was very tired from the run, and needed a nap later in the day, but Mer was at least able to sleep in. Anyway, Mer got ready quickly at my urging since I was in a 2500-calorie deficit from my run and wanted to get some food. We headed down to Akron to my favorite breakfast place, Wally Waffle, where I ordered the special “Ohio State waffle” – chocolate chips with peanut butter chips, with whipped cream on top. It was pretty good, and hit the spot.

On the way home, we swung by several stores so I could look at laptops. I wanted to get a sub-$500 laptop using the $260 of reward points we had built up on our credit card. I agonized over the various options, and looked in four different stores, and went home without a laptop to think things over. I took a nap, and Mer went to get groceries, and when I woke up, I had decided to get a laptop. We had another concert in Kent that evening, so I had us leave early so I could swing by Best Buy to get a laptop. I ended up getting one I was happy with for $425, so we only spent about $150 for a laptop that has been working very well for us.

We then headed over to Kent in a steady rain. We were going to the Kent Stage, which is an old movie theater that was converted over to host concerts about eight years ago. We parked right next to the Vineyard Church, which had night two of the DIT Festival going on. We walked the half-block over to the Kent Stage in the rain, and we got tickets at the door. It was general admission, and Mer saw two seats in the second row center, so we ended up with great seats. We had about a 30-minute wait for the start of the concert, but we chatted.

We were there to see the Canadian duet of Dala, two 20-something women who had met in high school. One of my colleagues, Pastor Rick, is a huge fan, and strongly recommended them to the point of sending down two students who were mutual fans so they could sing one of Dala’s songs for me. It was convincing, so I took Mer out to see them.

They were really good. They had good stage personalities, and were excellent musicians. They both mostly played guitar, but also both took a few turns on the keyboard, and one of them played three songs with the ukulele. Their harmonies on their songs were superb, reminding me of the Indigo Girls, except Dala probably has a sweeter quality to their voices together. The songs were thoughtful and the melodies were good. Mer and I were both impressed, and Mer liked them so much that she would have even made an impulse purchase of a Dala CD if she had had any disposable money on her at the time. A very strong concert, and I look forward to Dala coming back this way another time.

Early in August I got an e-mail from Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps (Heather’s guitarist) that said that they were coming back through our area and were wondering if we would be willing to host another house concert. I sent off an enthusiastic “Yes!” and ran to tell Meredith. She was equally excited.

Fast forward to last Wednesday, which was the day of the concert. I stayed home and cleaned and cooked and set up all day, so the house was in good shape to welcome people. Mer got home at about 5:00, and Heather and Ben showed up shortly thereafter. We helped them unload the few things they needed, and then we sat down to supper together (pizza) and got caught up on what had been going on with Heather and Ben since we saw them last April.

I had planned a surprise for Heather, which was slightly selfish – CVCA let me borrow an excellent keyboard, so I had it ready for Heather. Many of her prettiest songs are for piano, so I wanted her to be able to do those songs. I was afraid it might be a bit overbearing, but she and Ben were delighted. Ben also wandered down into the music room and was checking things out, and I offered him the use of my bouzouki (an instrument very closely related to an octave mandolin).  I was very pleased when Ben took it down and started tuning it up. He tried it for awhile and decided to use it in the show. That was really cool, and for the record, he played it very, very well. That instrument deserved to have someone good play it for a change.

Heather sat at the keyboard and used it to warm up. She had taken many requests from me and Meredith to help her build her show. She did not end up using them all (there were a lot of songs we suggested), but she did use many of them. During her warm up she played and sang “Miles to Go,” a very pretty song about Queen Guinevere telling Sir Lancelot that she could not be with him after King Arthur had died. I was in the kitchen and started singing because I could. Meredith was in the dining area and also started singing. We both wandered over to where Heather was in the living room, and all three of us sang most of the song together. It was a wonderful moment for me – I love to sing, but am not terribly good. With Heather and Mer singing with me, though, it sounded beautiful, and it meant a lot to me. Mer and Heather then ran through a rare Christmas carol together, a cappella. Mer knew the song from her madrigal singing days in college, and Heather had recorded it on her Christmas album. Heather and Mer share much of the same range, so Heather sang melody and Mer sang harmony, and it was gorgeous. Heather decided to put it in the show.

People started showing up at about 7:00. A friend of Heather’s came, Ian. He works at a pizza place, so he brought four pizzas with him to add to my bread, brownies, and peanut butter bars. That made for a well-loaded table. Another of Heather’s friends came, but otherwise it was all people whom Mer and I know. They were mostly current CVCA people, although we had two former students show up (one brought chocolate chip muffins,) and Janet Baker came (our pastor’s wife and a good friend of ours). It was a smaller crowd than last spring, but we had about 15 or 16 people, so the evening felt festive.

  The concert started at 7:30, and was wonderful. House concerts are very intimate. Ben played guitar and bouzouki and some Irish flute, and Heather played bodhran (Irish drum) and whistles and keyboard. Heather is a great storyteller, and she introduced most of her songs with the story that inspired the song. She mixed up fun songs with poignant ones, and the evening went off very well. There was an intermission, and I think Heather sang for about an hour and a half. She played “Miles to Go” and asked me and Mer to join in, which we did do about a third of the way in to the song. She followed that up with Mer and Heather singing their duet (it is posted on my Facebook page since it is too large a file for Xanga).

Right after the concert was over, I took the keyboard back to CVCA. It would be needed Thursday morning. Ian and a fellow CVCA teacher, Dale, helped me get it back to where it belongs. They then helped me get the chairs back to CVCA. Lots of people helped me load up the chairs, which was nice and saved me a lot of time. After everything was back where it belonged, I spent about thirty minutes cleaning things up. The last couple of guests left, and so we talked with Heather and Ben for a short while and then went off to bed. It was a grand night for singing, and since Heather and Ben tour eight months of the year, I hope to see them again in six months to a year.

Sunday (the 5th) was a fairly mellow day. We went to church, and on the way home I decided we should check out the Goodyear Metro Park near Akron. We had seen the sign for the park for nine years, but had never been. It was a pretty day for a walk, so off we went.

Goodyear Metro park is another excellent park. It has a lit sliding hill (not very useful right now, but looks fun for wintertime), and the hills continued on the walking trails in the woods. We followed signs to a small lake, and walked around it. It was pretty, and I was happy to get out into the area parks again – this was only the second park trip for the summer.

We also started a new Teaching Company series on CD. This one is an excellent English woman professor  lecturing on the tragedies of Shakespeare. We have now heard two of the twenty-four lectures, and I think they are going to be very good.

Last Monday was Labor Day, and after doing house chore sorts of things, we headed down to North Canton to have supper with Aunt Mary. It was nothing too exciting – we got subs from Subway and ate them on the deck – but it was still a very pleasant way to spend the evening. We then went inside and played a Go-Fish sort of game where you had to gather four major cities or sights from a country. It was called Happy Families for some reason (it may have been a weird translation from the German company that made the game). The game had the population of the United States as 176 million people, so it has been around for awhile. The game did not require much in the way of skill or strategy, but it was a fun way to chat and look at the spiffy places on the cards. I think we ended up with a three-way tie of three countries each. I guess we really were just a happy family!

Last weekend, Mer had her 20th high school reunion. Friday was an unofficial and informal reunion at a restaurant in Akron, and Saturday was the real thing at a country club in Uniontown.

Friday (the 3rd) was a Facebook-generated get-together for the class of 1990 to get together before the reunion and have a good time eating and talking. It was held at the Barley House in downtown Akron, and Mer and I are pretty fond of the food there, so it had a promising start. There were about 8 people there by the time Mer and I arrived, and they had strung together a bunch of tables to make a big table. As more people showed up, the group kept adding tables. By the time we were all together, there were about 16 people taking up 4 or 5 tables pushed together. It was an interesting and entertaining group. The eventual large size of the group limited conversation, so I mostly chatted with Eric and his wife, who were holding down my end of the table. Eric and his wife live in Tennessee and had come in for the reunion.  I found out that Eric and his wife have three kids, that Eric has his own practice as an optometrist, his wife has a degree in speech therapy, and they were about to start homeschooling their children.

Mer sat closer to the center of the group and so chatted with more people. She seemed to have a very good time catching up with people. The food was slow to be ordered since we kept having people coming in over time, but when it came, it was good. The evening finally came to an end as the live band started playing, which more or less ended conversation. I had a chance to observe the group as Mer went to the restroom before we left; they were a group of five – two black men who were lead rappers, a white guy on drums and one on guitar, and a white girl on bass. They actually had a really good sound, and the two lead singers were tightly choreographed and had a good show going. On the way home, Mer and I stopped off for ice cream at Handel’s since we did not get dessert at the restaurant.

Saturday, Mer and I started the day off by going to northwest Akron and eating at First Watch, a restaurant that is part of the Summit Mall complex. It is a good breakfast place, and had excellent hot chocolate. It probably will not unseat Wally Waffle as my favorite breakfast place, but it was very good.

Mer then took the afternoon to get her hair done, and we then got dressed for the evening. We swung south of the reunion to pick up Mer’s fellow classmate Trish. Trish was in town from Seattle, and she had combined the reunion with a vacation to see her good friend from childhood who lives in Canton. Trish turned out to be a hoot – lots of fun, energetic, and very funny.

We made our way back to Uniontown to the Prestwick Country Club, where the party was being held. We wandered in and made our way to a ballroom where we realized that everyone in there was quite a bit older than we were (it turned out to be another reunion – their 40th, I think). We beat a hasty retreat and found our reunion room.

The space was nice – there was a reception table and a dining area set up with five tables of eight (forty altogether). There was a separate room that was a bar and dance floor, and that was where the appetizers were served. Not including spouses, there were about 22 or 23 members of the class of 1990 by the time everyone was there, and Mrs. Allen (the class advisor) and her husband were there as well.

I spent much of the early evening talking to Mer’s classmate Jen, who is a heart doctor and turned out to be very funny. She has been unemployed for three months but still was able to laugh about it. I really had a great time chatting with her.

Dinner was buffet-style, and the food was good. The tables only held eight, and I knew two or three of the other people at our table, so that was fun. After supper, we went into the ballroom, and the class members each got a chance to tell people what they had been up to. Mer shared about CVCA and what has changed in the last few years, so that took up her time in the spotlight. After a class photo was taken, there was a drawing for some very nice raffle prizes. Mer had bought five tickets, and managed to win a date night – a $25 gift certificate to PF Chang’s in Akron and two movie tickets. Not bad for a $5 investment!

We took Trish home, and headed homeward ourselves. We were still dressed up, and it had been about three hours since the meal, so I took Mer to Friday’s for dessert. Only the bar area was open, but they were still serving dessert, so we got some of Friday’s excellent brownie obsessions. With a bit of a sweet tooth addiction, here’s hoping we still look good for the 25th reunion.

August started with our Vancouver trip and lots of activity. It ended with some happily puttery outings.

Thursday, August 26th
On Thursday, we headed down to North Canton to visit with Aunt Mary. We ordered take-out Chinese food, and my portion was huge but very good. We watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and had a good visit. Mer’s father called Aunt Mary just after Jeopardy, so Aunt Mary chatted for about 15 minutes with the TV on mute. Mer and I were rather fascinated to watch some bizarre show where contestants tried to race to a finish line while various active obstacles tried to knock the people into water or mud or the like. It was especially strange to watch it with the sound off. Not anything we’re going to make a habit of watching, but it was amusing once.

Friday, August 27th
Friday was the start of the high school football season, and we had a home game. It is tradition for CVCA to throw a potluck dinner for the staff and faculty the evening of the first football game, and so Mer and I had a very good time visiting with fellow colleagues and eating too much. I went out early for my personal tradition of cheering on the band as they walked by the school, and then I followed them into the stadium for the game. Mer joined me toward the end of the first quarter. It was an entertaining game, and I had a very good time hanging out down near the band. Mer and I left during the third quarter since I was getting up early the next day, but the game was pretty well in hand since we were leading 21-0. I later heard that we won 28-7.

Saturday, August 28th
Saturday I went running with Jason, and this time Jim and Nate were able to join us. Jim and Nate are not in active training for a full marathon, so they turned around at about mile 7 (for a 14-mile run), and Jason and I pushed on to a little over 10 miles (for a 20+-mile run). It was a cool morning, and the run felt very good. It was great to have Jim and Nate along.

Around noon, Mer and I headed up to University Circle in Cleveland. Three years ago, Mer had told a former student, Elizabeth, that after our house sold, we would come up to Case Western University and take her out to lunch. Well, the house finally sold, so we took Elizabeth out to lunch. She picked a small restaurant called Tommy’s that has a huge menu and is known for its milkshakes. I had the cookies and cream shake, and Elizabeth had the malt shake. We got a closed-on-three sides booth, so we had lots of privacy and the conversation flowed nicely. We caught up on Elizabeth’s life, and ate some very good food.  After we finished eating, we drove back to Case Western, and Elizabeth took us on a 30-minute tour of the campus, which is very pretty.

To finish Saturday up, Mer wanted to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, which we had been given on VHS as a white elephant gift last Christmas. I had not seen the film in years, and it is still excellent. It has held up very well, and the effects are still pretty good. The only thing that looked dated to me was the film quality – the 30-year-old film looked really grainy to me now.

Tuesday, August 31st (last Tuesday! I’m caught up on blogging!)
This year, Mer wants to make a concerted effort to get to more extracurricular activities at CVCA, so she can support her students. On last Tuesday, we drove the 3 miles or so to Silver Lake Country Club to watch our men’s golf team in action. I was not expecting much because I know almost nothing about golf, but I had a good time. We are pretty good friends with  the golf team’s coach, “Booch” (a nickname based on a shortened version of Jon’s last name, Bucciarelli), and it was a beautiful day to be outside, and we got to drive around the place in a golf cart, which is a surprisingly fun thing to do. We stayed and watched the last three holes, which took about an hour, and it was a pleasant way to spend an hour. Our guys won, which was a bonus, and Mer got to support one of her students and I got to encourage one of the guys in my Connections Group.

It was almost 7:00 once we got away from the links, so I decided to take Mer to eat at Aladdin’s in Hudson. Sadly, our favorite server, and Mer’s former student, Cara, was not working that night. We take Cara’s good service for granted, but she stood out. We did not have terrible service, but everything took a long time – between a long delay in ordering and in getting the check, we were at our table for an hour to eat a single wrap (me) and a bowl of soup (Mer). We need to not take Cara’s good service for granted anymore!

August was an interesting month between the Vancouver trip, an early start to school, really hot days for much of the month with some perfect days toward the end, and a settling back into a routine. The Vancouver trip already seems like a long time ago, and it is really strange to think we already have three full weeks of school done.

Friday, August 20th
On Friday, CVCA held its first annual ConnectFest. New this year, all faculty members and some staff have a “Connections Group” of 8-12 students. The idea is that we want to give students a place to connect with an adult and with their peers. Connections meets once a week on Thursdays for 45 minutes, and we talk about issues that are of concerns to the group, whatever those things may be. I have a group of ten 11th-grade guys, and Mer has a group of 12th-grade girls. I am very impressed with my guys – they have been much fun to be with the last few weeks.

Anyway, to launch the Connections experience, CVCA held ConnectFest – an afternoon of organized mayhem, designed to break the ice with the groups. We played goofy games, like sitting-down volleyball, dodgeball, odd relay races (like having to track down your own shoes in a pile of shoes). We also filled out getting-to-know-you forms while eating snacks, and also served together as a group as we put together supply bags for a homeless shelter. The weather worked out, and I think most people had a good time. It certainly was a change of pace from the normal school day.

Our friends Matt and Clarice were on vacation, and while they were gone we had agreed to stop by and look in on their cats. Mer and I feel that cats are pretty social creatures and like having people around, so we headed over to Clarice’s apartment and settled in to watch one of her movies (after a quick stop at a drive-in food place, the B and K Drive-in). Mer wanted to watch the musical Hairspray. I was pleasantly surprised by the film. It was fluff, but it was fun fluff. Add in four attention-starved kitties that wanted to snuggle, and it was a pretty great evening.

Saturday, August 21st
Saturday started as many Saturdays of late have started – a long run with my friend Jason. We put in 16-17 miles on the Towpath, and I felt as if that gave me permission to take Mer out to breakfast. On Jason’s recommendation, we headed over to the far northwest side of Akron, to a diner called Egg Castle. I had hoped we would run into Jason there with his daughter, but they were gone by the time we got there. I ordered a huge breakfast that was satisfying, and Mer seemed to enjoy her breakfast as well. I don’t think Egg Castle will surpass Wally Waffle anytime soon, but it was a good place to eat.

Since we were right in the area, and it was my day to be in charge of the fun, we headed over to Summit Mall. I had not been in Summit Mall in years and years, and I wanted to check it out. I was quickly reminded of why I don’t go to traditional malls much anymore – most stores were clothes and not of my taste. There were no bookstores, and the only gadget store was a Brookstone, where things are cool but way too expensive. Oddly, probably in an attempt to compete with open-air malls, Summit Mall had added half a dozen stores to the front of the mall, as a facade that made the place look more like an open-air mall. The outside stores were not even accessible from inside the mall.

It was not a wasted trip, though – we found two restaurants that we did not know we had in the area. The mall had added a PF Chang’s restaurant, and there was a breakfast/lunch place called First Watch that Mer had been to in Florida and had liked very much. Although we are both trying to curb back on eating out some, these were good finds for the future.

We went home and puttered around after the mall trip. That evening, we headed over to Nate and Rachel’s house, and then headed over to Strickland’s ice cream. Nate had fixed Mer’s car, and I wanted to thank him. Plus, it was a great excuse to get ice cream. It was raining lightly, so after we ate our ice cream under the overhang of Strickland’s, we headed back to Nate and Rachel’s house. They put their son to bed, and then we all sat on the front porch in candlelight, talking and listening to the rain fall. Mer and I left at about 9:30, but it was a nice way to spend an evening – good food and good friends.

Sorry for the prolonged absence. We are just about to finish up our third week of school, and the back-to-school time has been busy enough that I ignored ye olde blog for too long. On the up side, blog-wise, Mer and I have been so busy that we have not done too much, so I’m really only three or four entries behind.

Thursday, August 19th
On this Thursday, we cheated the weekend of our first week back to school by going out on a Thursday (a school night!). Mer and I collected our friend and colleague Brandon at school, and we headed northward to an Italian restaurant named Jimmy Dadonna’s. We were to meet Brandon’s wife, Jen, there and have supper before heading the rest of the way to Cleveland to see the musical The Scarlet Pimpernel. Jen had to work a tad late, but met us at the restaurant just a few minutes after we sat down. We had a really good meal (the rolls there are drool-worthy) and a great time talking. The service was leisurely, but we did not mind since the play was only 30 minutes away and we had almost 50 minutes to get there by the time dinner was over.

Then Mer asked me if I was sure that the play was at Playhouse Square in Cleveland. I said I had checked a couple of times, but she had the tickets and could check them. She did, and found out that the play was actually at the Cleveland Playhouse. Brandon quickly looked up the directions on his iPhone and found out that we were 45 minutes away. Not good. Things were going to be very tight.

Jen gave us her iPhone so we could stay in touch, and we got in our car and Jen and Brandon got in their car. Somehow, our car ended up in front, but I knew how to get to the highway, so I figured that would be okay. That is, until I got to the highway and the only ramp sent us east and we needed to go west. We quickly called Jen and we decided to keep going on Riverside Road, which is a major road that we knew eventually led to the highway. Except we did not know that Riverside was under construction and was stop-and-go for about 2-3 miles. Mer and I gave up on making the play on time since we were now less than 30 minutes to curtain, and we just hoped we might get there for intermission. During this time, Brandon’s phone ran out of battery, so we could not call him anymore. Happily, Mer figured out how to use the iPhone to find directions to the Cleveland Playhouse on their website, so we had a way to go if we could get there.

Riverside Road is normally four lanes, and it was down to two lanes. We were traveling in the wrong lane (the one normally for oncoming traffic), and were separated from the normal lanes by orange barrels. We came to a major intersection, and the sun was in my eyes, but I could see the barrels continued, so I kept on going. After a few seconds, Mer pointed out (rather calmly, I thought) that the cars a little ways ahead of us were coming at us. I concurred, and quickly made a three-point turn in the middle of the road, with Brandon doing the same right behind me. Apparently, at the major intersection, our lanes went back to normal, but I hadn’t seen that because of the sun.

I got back to the major intersection and turned left with the idea of turning around and continuing along the correct side of Riverside. While waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so I could turn in to a parking lot, I saw a green highway sign in the distance. I figured we were going to be late anyway, so I decided to chance it. It turned out to be an on-ramp for the highway we needed, so we got on it. As I approached the highway at 65 mph, the car in the lane I needed to get into did not slow down or move over, and I think he even sped up. I had to slow down and ride in the break-down lane for a few seconds. In my very frazzled, we-are-late and I-almost-got-us-killed and I-just-want-to-merge state, I was not on my best game, so to speak. I’m afraid when I saw that the car ahead of me had a Massachusetts license plate, I reacted poorly, in Maine fashion, by calling the driver a nasty name that starts with the state and ends with “hole.” I felt terrible immediatly, but Mer found it rather amusing.

Anyway, we got on all the connecting highways and onto the regular Cleveland roads without further incident. Somehow, by the grace of God having mercy on idiot me, and with Mer’s good directions from the website, we actually made it to the theater with about five minutes to spare. It took all of those minutes to relax after that ride.

The Cleveland Playhouse is a major theater, all made of brick and looking like a cross between a cathedral and a castle, including a tower. It is a pleasing building. It had a huge mainstage, but our production of The Scarlet Pimpernel was in a small theater in one wing of the building. I’m guessing the theater could hold maybe about 150 people. The stage was long and narrow, being maybe 30 feet wide and maybe 60 feet long, with a huge ceiling that turned out to be a very useful fly space for the simple scenery that was used.

This production of Pimpernel was being produced by Mercury Summer Stock, which is an amateur acting company with the mission to keep talented artists in Cleveland. They did very well for themselves this night. The stage was mostly bare, with the five or six musicians at the back of the stage. The actors, when not involved in the action, usually sat on chairs on the sides on the stage. The scene was set by use of simple props like a dressing privacy screen for a dressing room or a couch for a den, and France was signified by a guillotine that was dropped from the fly space above. The orchestra was quite good, and did a flawless job all night.

I was not sure about the main leads at first. The hero, Percy, was fairly short and a little thin. He quickly won me over with his acting and charm, though. He even stayed in character when a front-row audience member said the last rhyming word to a song; Percy just waggled his finger at the man in a foppish way, and told him, “Not yet!” It was a fine moment.

The villain of the play did a nice job of always being unpleasant. He never smiled and always wore a scowl on his face. He was very tall, thin, and dark, and it worked.

The love interest in the story, Marguerite, also won me over after my initial skepticism. I’m afraid I was originally swayed by looks – the actress was of Asian decent, so it was a little hard to imagine her as an 18th century  French actress. Still, after a few minutes, I forgot about that, and she did a very good job.

The actors did very well, and the major difference I could see (hear) in this production from the professional production I saw was two-fold: the actors in this version could not sing so loudly as the professionals, and for some of the more difficult notes, the actors in this version had to “slide” into them to hit them. It did not detract from the music at all – just a point of interest for me.

Percy and his friends all pretend to be fops, or men more concerned with fashion and fine living than anything else. This is to deflect any suspicion from them that they might be the Scarlet Pimpernel and his men. This is the basis for much of the play’s humor, including a wonderful scene where all the men come out dressed to the nines in very tacky clothes, and do a long song-and-dance number about how men were created by God to be the pretty ones of our race. This production played this scene up, and it was great.

This play is one of Brandon’s favorites, and Jen had never seen it before. Mer and I love the music and the play,  and all of us agreed it was worth the effort to get to see it.