Last Saturday was CVCA’s annual auction, which is a fundraiser for the school. There is an excellent buffet, and there are lots of items to bid on, including about twenty live-auction items that tend to be bigger-ticket items. This was my seventh auction – I am always invited because the check-out and credit card processing systems are computerized, and they like to make sure I am there in case anything stops working.

The theme of the auction this year was “A Royal Safari.” The gym and adjacent hallways were decked out in jungle themes, including a very impressive real jeep out in front of the school; it had been ridden up onto a block and then muddied all over. It made me laugh.

Mer always gets to come along with me for the auction, and I am grateful that CVCA lets her come for free. The company is very nice, and CVCA certainly does not have to allow her to come. I always go in early, and then Mer meets me there. This year, that arrangement caused trouble, or at least worry. Mer had made a hair appointment that she was told would take two hours, and instead it took almost four. So, she was over an hour late in getting to the auction, and by then I was quite worried and actually walking home to see if she had called home. Happily, she was fine.

She was fine enough, in fact, to come home from the auction with a fair amount of goods. I don’t know everything that Mer got because some of it is a secret, but I know she got a very cool Celtic cross batik wall-hanging that I had wanted, and she got some hair care packages and such. She made out all right. Mer normally does not like shopping, but this is for a good cause, and she gets competitive, so she likes to buy things at CVCA’s auction.

The evening went well – no major tech problems. Since it was a CVCA event, there were a lot of people around whom I know, including Dubbs and Nate and Rachel, who sat at our table. The food was fine, and the company better, so it was a fine evening that sounds as if it will keep on giving for awhile yet, depending on Mer’s gift certificate supply.

Last Saturday, Mer and I went to Akron to Actors’ Summit theater, where we met up with our friends Nate and Rachel. We were there to see a French farce play, Ladies’ Man. I have only seen a few farces (comedies that are way-over-the-top ridiculous), but I have enjoyed the ones that I have seen, so I was pretty eager to see this one.

The play started out fairly slowly. For about half of the first act the play was merely amusing, rather than laugh-out-loud funny. It took its time setting things up. Then, once all of the relationships were in place, the play got really, really funny for the rest of Act One and for most of Act Two. There were lots of misunderstandings, innuendos, doors slamming, plays-on-words, funny accents, and more, and I had a great time. The play climaxed about ten minutes before it ended, and the play ended a bit flatly, but the ending was needed to wrap up all the loose ends.

The play was more or less this: an older doctor has problems performing in the bedroom with his young and beautiful wife. So, he goes out to the Moulin Rouge with another woman and contemplates an affair to see if he can get his vigor back. He backs out at the last minute; his would-be mistress is still desperate for him. The would-be mistress has a very jealous husband who thinks his wife is cheating on him. The young wife finds out the husband was out all night and assumes he has a mistress, so she calls in her overbearing mother for help. Add in a couple of servants and a family friend who tries to help, and all the comedic elements are in place.

The actors did quite well. The would-be mistress was amazing – sultry and brazen, she was a lot of fun. The doctor was the same actor who had played the lead in Becky’s New Car, a play he in which he shone. In this role, he was just okay – his slower pacing and speech was great as the older man in Becky’s, but lacked some of the zippy timing this play needed. The butler was played by a wonderful actor who plays Actors’ Summit quite often, and he did a great job as the manservant to the doctor. The young wife was played by a fine actress, but her voice and mannerisms were all very American, and so it was a bit hard to see her as a young French woman from the 1800s.

The set was mostly open with five doors, which allowed for maximum mayhem later in the play. The center of the stage generally held furniture and other items needed for each scene, and there were only two locations – the doctor’s home, and a former dressmaker’s shop, which had recently doubled as a brothel.

All in all, a very fine play. All four of us laughed quite often. After the play, we all walked over to a nearby and fairly fancy restaurant where we had dessert. It was decent food, but the $8 price tag for a brownie with a little ice cream was too steep for me to want to go back on a regular basis – I like Friday’s version better – it is much bigger, and two dollars cheaper. It was still a nice extension of the evening, and we got to catch up with Nate and Rachel, which we hadn’t done in a while. We found out that they are expecting child number two sometime in October, and we got to hear about Nate taking full advantage of a breakfast buffet over the course of an hour and a half. Nate is very funny, and it was a very fun evening. Laughter was the theme of the evening, and that is a great way to spend a Saturday.

Last Friday, CVCA had its fourth talent show in the last five years (we skipped last year because no one decided to organize it). Mer was one of four faculty judges, so she had to go, and I like the talent show, so I went along. Also, I had four of my Ceili Club girls dancing as part of the evening.

I got to sit next to my friend Dubbs, which was fun – she is a loud and enthusiastic audience member. There were twelve acts in all. There were three dance numbers, one interpretive storytelling of doing Monsters, Inc. in eight minutes, and then the rest of the evening was musical groups. The musical groups did include a guy making farting noises with his hands, but he pulled it off as if it were the most serious thing going. There was an eighth grade guy who sang the Pokemon theme song, and while he did not exactly nail it, he had tons of energy and ran down off the stage to interact with the audience, which they loved.

The audience was huge and really into it. I’m guessing that there were over three hundred people there. This was great news since the nominal ticket price was used to support a spring break service trip that is designed to have our students help organizations that help the poor. Between the gate money and the “people’s choice award” (where people vote with money in jars), the event raised over $1,100. I’m glad the Talent Show was pulled off again this year – it went well, and we had a good time.

Mer extended the evening by going up to Hudson with her CVCA Bible study group for dessert at Aladdin’s. I had a migraine headache, so I got some ice cream (it seems to help a little) by myself and then went to bed.

Last Wednesday, Mer and I headed down to Matt and Clarice’s place for a game night. Josh and Kristen were there, which was the first time we had seen them since they got engaged in January. Kristen told us about the event – Josh proposed on New Year’s Eve just after the ball dropped in Times Square. Kristen’s ring is very lovely – lots of small diamonds in swirls around a central diamond, and the whole ring is silver in tone (I’m not sure if it was silver, white gold, or some other metal). So, we all sat around and chatted for awhile, and then the idea of watching a movie came up. That was greeted with some enthusiasm, so after some discussion, we decided to watch the new movie version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with Nicholas Cage and the actor who played Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. It was a marvelously entertaining movie – funny and lots of action. The movie was total fluff, but I really enjoyed it. It had good effects, never took itself too seriously, and starred a geeky physics nerd as the young hero. What is there not to love? The movie took us to about 10:00, so Mer and I took our leave, but it was a very worthwhile evening out on the town.

A few weeks ago, our friend and fellow English teacher Ellen made the mistake of mentioning that she was teaching the modern play Rosecrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,by Tom Stoppard. Until a few years ago, Meredith taught the same play and had me read it. I found in the play lots of evidence of thought inspired by the philosophical implications of the branch of physics called quantum mechanics. I even developed a forty-minute lecture on the thesis, and had given it in Mer’s classes for three years before she stopped teaching the play (to add new material to her classes, not because of my lecture). Well, once I found out that Ellen was teaching the play, I immediatly and graciously invited myself out to her school in Michigan to give the lecture. I would get to share my talk, and Mer could even get ongoing education credit for visiting another teacher’s classroom. Ellen actually agreed to let me talk in her class, so we made a weekend of the trip.

We left Ohio last Friday (the 11th), and we stayed with Ellen all weekend, with visiting her classes last Monday. Mer and I got to Hillsdale, where Ellen lives and teaches, but we were there at about 8:00, and we knew that Ellen was away watching the Hillsdale basketball team in the playoffs. Since we had not eaten, we went to a local restaurant, Johnny T’s, and had a leisurely supper. Ellen was home by the time we got there, a little after 9:00.

Saturday, I actually went running on Hillsdale’s walking trail. It goes by a very pretty lake that I had not known was in the town, and it was a nice run (although very windy on the way back). Before we left Ohio, I had set out Mer’s bag o’ grading on the rocking chair by the door, which we both promptly forgot. Mer had a ton of grading and reading to do, so to be helpful, I went out in the vast metropolis that is Hillsdale to try to find her a copy of The Kite Runner, which she was about to teach and needed to finish reading. I found and unsuccessfully tried a used book store in town, although I walked out with three other books. My favorite part of the used book store – as part of the organization of the store, in the travel section, they had a section called “cold countries.” After the used book store, I actually tried WalMart, setting foot in one for the first time in my life. Happily I did not have to patronize the store since I was not interested in vampire books. Near WalMart was a Blockbuster store that was going out of business. I popped in to see if they had anything interesting, and about an hour later walked out with seven or eight movies, mostly literature-based films, including the film version of The Kite Runner. I am afraid by this time I had taken way longer than Mer had expected me to be gone, so I tried to call her, but could not get any signal. So, I drove back to Hillsdale proper and pulled over and called her as soon as the phone started working. I then tried two last stores in town to see if they had the book, with no luck.

Once back at Ellen’s, we ate lunch, and then Mer and I napped. When we woke up, Ellen had procured a copy of The Kite Runner from the library, so Mer was able to finish her book over the course of the weekend. We spent the rest of Saturday puttering and eating and being mellow.

Sunday, we went to Ellen’s new church, which is a Presbyterian church that recently started meeting in Hillsdale. It was a good service, with a very solid sermon on the suffering Jesus felt as he prayed in the garden the night before he was crucified. After church, we had lunch, and I took yet another nap. Mer and I also ventured out to the lake to see it, but the wind was very cold, so we did not stay long. In the evening, we went to the next town over to The Saucy Dog barbecue restaurant, which was very good.

Monday, we followed Ellen to the school – she had to be there at 8:00, but did not start teaching until 9:25, so we got to the school at about 9:15. We got to see Ellen teach a very good and interesting class on sonnets, including a couple of George Herbert sonnets that I had not seen before that were excellent. Ellen then had a class on Dante’s Paradiso, which was also very good. Mer went along with Ellen to her Latin class, but I stayed in the lounge and read, since I have no background in Latin at all.

Then, in the afternoon, I got to give my talk on Rosecrantz and quantum mechanics. The students were very well behaved, and I thought things went very well. The basic gist of the lecture is that quantum mechanics influenced postmodern thought, and that postmodern thought shows up in droves in Rosencrantz. So, things that are important in quantum mechanics, like location of objects, movement of objects, objects being governed by probability, objects “popping up” in strange locations, objects existing in two modes at the same time, and so on, all show up in various forms in Rosecrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The students asked some very good questions at the end of the lecture, and Ellen was very excited about the ideas. She rebuked her students for not showing more enthusiasm, which led to a student replying with the great quotation “Just because we aren’t yelling doesn’t mean we aren’t interested.” It was a good time.

Mer and I left pretty directly after that class, and we got home at around 5:30, which left Mer with plenty of time to jump into her grading. We lecture people don’t do grading.

Last Thursday, I got to go out with my Connections guys and our sister group, along with Mer and Dubbs, to go have an evening of laser tag. Laser tag is a sport/pastime where you go into a fog-filled arena and shoot at each other with laser guns. If your laser hits any of the five targets on the vests everyone wears, you get points. After fifteen minutes, the game ends, and you get results of how well you did.

Mer, Dubbs, and I went to Swenson’s before laser tag. It is a drive-in burger joint, and is really good. You do have to eat in your car, but that was okay.

We got to LaserQuest at 6:30, and the students trickled in. We eventually had ten students, me, Mer, Dubbs, and the girls’ Connections leader, Mrs. Clason, who is in her early sixties and had a hurt hand, but wanted to give the game a try. Mrs. Clason was only able to play one game because of her hand, but I think the kids loved the fact that she gave it a go.

We played four games in all – three individual free-for-all games, and one team-vs.-team game. I love laser tag, and had a great time. Mer beat me once (by one hit), so she was pleased. I finished 10th (out of 14), 10th (out of 13), 9th (out of 12), and 6th (out of 12). I love heading to high ground and picking people off, and was very gratified by the number of people yelling “Riordan!” The German exchange student in my group had never played before, but he finished 1st in three of the four games. The Norwegian in my group finished in the top three most games. The four games took about two hours to play (we alternated with another group for some of the evening). I was very pleased with the outing, and I hope to organize a CVCA faculty laser tag event soon.

Last Sunday Mer and I were supposed to go to Aunt Mary’s to get together with some family friends to have a birthday celebration for Aunt Mary. We were to arrive at 2:00, so we slept in and went to the late service at church. Once we got to Aunt Mary’s house, we were joined by the Georges and the George family members who live in the area, “Aunt” Zovie and her son Michael, and eventually Pastor Ken and Janet. I think we had about fifteen or sixteen people in all – it was a rather festive crowd.

Mer and I brought a cake for Aunt Mary, but she had supplied a ton of food – sloppy joes, cupcakes, cookies, chips, and more. It was all comfort food, and quite good, and a lot of it. We all gathered around to sing happy birthday to Aunt Mary, except when we got to the “Happy Birthday, dear Aunt Mary,” I was the only one who sang that. Everyone else sang, “Happy Birthday, dear Matthew.” Aunt Mary, with help from Meredith, had planned all of this as a belated fortieth birthday part for me. Needless to say, I was quite surprised and honored. Aunt Mary had even arranged for Dale and Carlene to call and then for Kelly to call. Mom tried calling, but somehow got the wrong number.

We ate and chatted and had a good and sociable time. After we ate, I was handed tons of bags of presents and cards. The cards were sweet, but I was confused when the first bag present contained women’s clothing. Everyone laughed, and I kept opening more and more assortments of clothing, some men’s and some women’s. I finally figured out that these presents were all donations to The Haven of Rest, a charity for homeless people in Akron. I was delighted that my birthday was a reason to help the poor. That was one of the best gifts I have ever been given.

Mer and I left the party around 5:15. I was touched and very pleased. We then headed back north all the way to Cleveland, to Severance Hall. Severance Hall is the home to the Cleveland Orchestra and, in this case, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. One of Mer’s students plays harp and is in the choir of the Youth Chorus, and her family had given us tickets to see her in a concert last Sunday evening.

The concert was made up of two pieces – Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” and Carl Orff’s cantata “Carmina Burana.” The first piece featured harp and the jaw-droppingly good first chair violin player, who is only a junior in high school. So, we got to see a good bit of Mer’s student on harp. The sound produced by a group of high school students was amazing. While I am not a classical music guy, I would have put their performance up against most regional orchestras – they just nailed the performance.

After the intermission, the choir came in, with about eighty members. They sang “Carmina Burana,” which is well known through movies and some TV commercials. Again, they did a fabulous job. The soloists both had great voices, although the second vocalist still needs to work on his power, since I could not always hear him. The full choir kept up with the orchestra with no problems. It was a well-done concert, and was a good end to a good day.

The birthday event kept on giving – last Tuesday, Mer and I were able to go back to Aunt Mary’s for tons of leftovers and an evening of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.

Last Friday was our second Royal Fools improv show of the year. I scheduled the date about six or eight weeks ago, and I had looked at the calendar to make sure we were not going up against anything else that evening. The date got approved and everything was set, and then I found out that the boys’ basketball team had the opening game of the playoffs that evening. So much for the best-laid plans. So, we had a smaller crowd than we have had for a while, but it was still big enough to feel festive – we probably had about seventy people (we have been up around a hundred for the last four or five shows), and they were an active crowd.

The show was solid, with some shining moments, as well as a few mistakes (there were several times where the students said “no” on stage, and that is never supposed to happen). The show included:

– An art review of art inspired by an artist’s “happy” period.
– A man who made a new type of apple and then had to do the scene again in slow motion and then again while breakdancing.
– A dating game where the candidates were Frodo, Steven Hawking, and Hilary Clinton.
– A political debate over the merits of Coca-Cola and over the existence of unicorns.
– A girl caught in her dastardly crime of enjoying the book Twilight, with her accomplice Yoda, while at the North Pole.
– A group of students who silently had to act out going to the moon to catch bees, where they died after having foot surgery that went wrong.
– An improv showdown that included variations on how to say “That’s my hippopotamus!”
– A skit about being scared of words while being in a library.
– The Fools’ recreation of the 1980s film Dark Crystal.
– A paperback skit where a coach was playing favorites with one of his athletes.
– A musical chairs game about a birthday party that was interrupted by a snow storm and a Yeti.
– A skit about invading Mars and then feeling bad about doing so.
– A game where the kids had their hands removed in order to have muppets implanted on the ends of their arms.
– A Foolish Idol competition where the contestants sang about a Shamwow and carrots.

So, I was pretty pleased with the show. It was a long one – it went a full hour and a half (most shows are an hour and ten minutes or so), but I did not feel as if the show dragged on too long. There were two games I should have ended sooner than I did, but that happens in improv – sometimes I think things are going to keep on getting better and I miss the spot where I should have ended things.

We have one more show to do this year, which should be in early May. Then, I will lose a stunning twelve of my fourteen Fools to graduation, including one student who has been in the group for four years, and another four students who have been with me for three years. This is going to be a very hard act to follow next year, but we still have two more months of improv wackiness to go this year. It should be fun.

Last Thursday, Mer took me on another mid-week date. This one was to a small theater at the University of Akron, where the Music and Dance Departments teamed up to put on a cabaret musical review. Normally, Mer and I are not too crazy about musical reviews, but this one was not trying to pretend to be a theatrical story; they covered love songs (including break-up songs), and kept the evening lighthearted, so we were both quite charmed by the performances. In addition, one of CVCA’s former students was a major singer for the evening, and it was grand fun to get to hear him sing again. As a final bonus, one of my former Fools and one of Mer’s favorite students, Mary, came to the show, so we were able to sit with her and get caught up on her life.

The show lasted about ninety minutes, not counting an intermission, and it was fun to see the mixture of songs and dances. There was a piano player providing the music (and he was really good – I forget how good even an undergraduate can be), eight male and female singers, and six female dancers. The singers did some dancing and the dancers did some singing as well. I had forgotten how fun it is to see an informal college show – there were cheers from the audience from time to time, and some of the lyrics to some of the songs were tweaked to include names of friends. While I did not understand the inside jokes, it was still a festive atmosphere. I’m glad Mer took me to the show – it is a good reminder that we need to take more advantage of the three major colleges in our area (Akron, Kent, and Malone).

Last Monday was our last full day on the Clean Diet (Tuesday we could eat what we wanted). So, here are some final thoughts of a four-week diet:

– It’s expensive to eat healthily: I think our weekly grocery bill about tripled. Mer and I have long noticed that college students from wealthy families are rarely fat, and I think at least some of that is because upper-middle-class families and rich families can eat better.

– My knee and back felt better: This may just be from losing weight (that helps my back) and from not pounding on my knee (I did not have the energy to run much during February), so the jury is out on the restorative effects of the diet.

– My energy levels did level out: Most days during February I did not have my early-afternoon energy fade, and that may be from the diet. Also, when I was tired, I tended to be tired all day, and that was generally from too little sleep.

– I lost a ton of weight: For the four weeks of February that we were on the diet, I lost 17 pounds, which is remarkable.

All in all, I would not do the exact diet again – it was very difficult, especially having to turn away social offers because we could not be sure if food was involved. If I start to put the weight back on, I would do a modified Clean diet since the weight loss was so drastic. I would eat the big meal in the evening, which is more enjoyable for me, and I would allow exceptions on the diet when invited out to eat by my friends and families.

The diet also made “normal” food taste really really good. That was a nice perk. I have also decided to keep making and drinking smoothies so that I can get more fruit in my diet. I also am back to being able to run normally – I had a good-feeling ten-mile run today (Saturday) for the first time since last December. Not having the extra holiday-birthday weight to carry around is helpful with the longer runs.

I am glad I tried the diet, and although I would not do the strict diet again, it has made me reevaluate my diet. I am trying to eat more organic foods, and we still have our drinking water filtering system, so that cannot hurt. The experiment was successful.