Last Friday, we had the first Royal Fools improv show of this school year. I had no idea what to expect, even above the nature of improv shows, in that fourteen of my fifteen students were new this year, and so this was their first show.

The kids were excited in warm-ups, and it took some patience to get through all my notes, but it was worth it. They listened to me and did all my guidelines in the show. I was very pleased with that. I always tell the Fools to greet the audience as they come in, and my charges ran out to do so. I was setting up the stage and making sure everything was ready to go when I realized the students were all singing made-up songs as guests came in. That made me smile.

We were performing against the opening night of boys’ basketball, so I was not sure about how the crowd would be. People came and went between our show and the game, but I’m guessing we had about eighty people in attendance. That is fifteen or twenty people smaller than some of our shows, but the crowd was very responsive and fun to play to.

The show went very well. The students did a great job, and followed the “rules” of improv for each skit. The show ran about an hour and fifteen minutes, and we had a huge buffet of desserts to share with the audience. There had been a junior high girls’ “fun night” earlier in the evening, and they donated the food to our dessert table. We had a lot left over. Sadly, I had been fighting a mild migraine during the evening, and so I went home pretty quickly after the show. Mer went out with her friend Marie, who had come to see Mer and the show. They went out to Friday’s for some light food. I went to bed.

I was very happy with and for my new Fools. They should be proud. Some of the things that happened during the show:

– an expert explanation of three paintings from the “nervous era” of art
– a recitation of an original poem about playing with Barbie dolls, that was simultaneously danced out
– a very bumpy ride to China
– a cat washing service
– a mother playing favorites by giving her son’s teeth to her daughter
– a debate about unicorns and one about stuffed animal health insurance
– a singing competition with a song about air pumps

CVCA has “Connections Groups,” which are groups of eight to twelve students who are assigned faculty or staff to meet with the groups once per week, opposite chapel service. The idea is to connect with the students and to give them an adult to whom they can go for advice or help. I have a Connections group that I have been with since last school year, and I like to offer social get-togethers once in awhile. So, last Monday we got together at Cici’s Pizza.

Cici’s is a pizza buffet, which is always a good thing with teenaged guys. Two of the guys faced off in an eating contest, and the final count (with proper conversions of pasta-to-pizza) was something like twenty-four pieces to twenty-two. I did not try to eat competitively, but I still enjoyed three or four plates of pizza and one plate of dessert. Not all the guys could make it, but it was still a fun group of five of the eight guys. We played or watched people play a few video games and called it a successful night.

On Tuesday, CVCA gave its annual administration Christmas party. While no one (including myself) ever really knows what category I fall under, I have been invited to the admin party every year, and Mer and I have gone every year except when we have been sick. The evening is very casual now. We mill around and chat and eat finger foods and desserts. Mer and I are not the best at the stand-and-eat skill set, so we sat at a table. People came over and said hello, and a couple of people joined us for much of the evening. We ate and chatted for a little over an hour, and then we went to the band Christmas concert in the chapel.

The band concert was short, featuring the junior high band playing four songs and the high school band playing four songs. Mer and I sat in the front row, and had a very good time. Our high school band is especially good, and they did a couple of difficult pieces. We like knowing the students, and we enjoy being part of a community in the audience, since there are always multiple people whom we know and to whom we can say hello.

On Wednesday, Mer and I had both scheduled haircuts, but separately. Normally this is not a blog-worthy event, but the place at which I get my hair cut is next to the Cheesecake Factory. Since Mer and I are trying hard to be good this holiday season, I actually skipped getting dessert to bring home. I was both proud and sad.

I have been training for a longer-run race for some months now, without really having a race in mind. I thought I had putzed around too long and missed my opportunity for a local race, and I did not really want to travel to run. Happily, on a website dedicated to listing half-marathons, I stumbled across the Tour de Ashland run. It took place, not surprisingly, in Ashland, Ohio, which is about seventy-five minutes away from our house. It was a fund-raiser run that benefited the Ashland High School cross country teams. It was scheduled to take place on December 3rd, and it had same-day registration (which I liked, in case the weather was bad). I had a race.

Saturday was sunny and clear, but quite cold. I told Mer to sleep in because I saw no need for her to freeze “watching” a race that was not very spectator-friendly. I drove to Ashland without incident, and found the start area, and the church where registration was happening. Registration was crowded, but easy, and the only downside was a long wait at the restroom. I walked back to my car to put some stuff in it, and decided to try the nearby high school, to see if it was open. There was a wrestling tournament going on, so it was open, and they were kind enough to let me use the bathroom.

The start of the race was near the high school stadium/track, which was the finish line. We started on the road, and the start was noisy enough with chatter that I never heard the start command; the mass of people in front of us just started moving. We started several hundred feet behind the 5-k runners, but they had instructions to stay on the left side of the road, so even though the road was crowded, it was not too bad. I was able to get to full speed right away. I hit a fast stride, and knew it was fast, but decided to see how things would go.

The course was mostly through housing areas, with a few major streets. The streets were not closed, but major streets had crossing guards at them. I kept up the fast pace, and looked longingly at the finish line, which I passed at mile three before heading out into Ashland itself. I found myself in a bit of a “hole” – I had one runner in sight in front of me, and no one close behind me, and I was closing in on the man in front of me. I caught him at about mile five, and we were not sure where the next turn was. Things looked weird to me as we approached a major road, and I heard someone yelling; I turned and saw the woman behind me turning off the street we were on. I let the man with me know, and we turned around. It was very kind of the woman, and I thanked her when I caught her about a mile further on. I suspect I lost about thirty or forty seconds on the little detour.

The rest of the race was fine. I finally figured out at about mile eight that the race had set out realtor signs with arrows on them, in addition to the arrows painted on the road. That helped. I was keeping up the fast pace, but miles eight to ten were quite hilly, and were very difficult. I tried to just keep running and not worry about the pace. I was passed around mile twelve by a young runner (high school), and by the woman who had warned me that I had missed a turn. I thought about running with them, but I could not – I was too tired.

I made the turn into the stadium, gasping and exhausted, expecting to find the finish line. It came as a major mental blow when I understood from the officials that I had to run three hundred meters around the track. That was very difficult. I made it, though, and when I looked up at the clock as I crossed the finish line, it read about 1:29:00. I had broken my previous best time by over four minutes. As an added bonus, the people at the finish line asked me my age, and when I told them I was forty, they gave me a hat, which was given out to the top three finishers in each age group (in addition to a finisher’s medal). That meant I had come in somewhere in the top three. What a great run.

I checked out the church to see if I could find a phone to let Mer know I was okay. The church was open and had food and drink, so I grabbed a bagel and some water. A kind woman lent me her cell phone, and I called Mer, who had just gotten out of bed. That made me smile. I returned the phone, walked back to the car, and drove back home.

My official stats:
13.1 miles
1:28:56
6:48 per mile
15th place overall, out of 278 people
2nd out of 41 in my age group (40-49 years old)

It was a great run!

I did celebrate with Mer by going out to eat at a burger place in Hudson in the afternoon. Otherwise, we were pretty mellow!

Last Wednesday, Mer took me out on a special midweek date, and we even went up to Cleveland, to Playhouse Square, to the newly renovated and just-opened Allen Theater. Mer had received teacher tickets to go see The Game’s Afoot!, a murder-mystery/comedy about William Gillette, an early twentieth-century stage actor who famously played Sherlock Holmes for over thirty years.

The new theater is magnificent. It is much smaller, since they carved up the old, huge theater into three smaller theaters, but they made it work. There are main-floor seats, and one level of balcony seats, where we sat. All the sight lines are good, and we were able to easily hear, even though the actors were not miked (at least not that I could tell).

The set for the play was jaw-dropping. It was mostly the interior of Gillette’s famous Connecticut mansion, and the set designers went all out. There were exposed beams along the roof-line, wooden floors, a secret room that rotated in the corner, a huge fireplace, a grand staircase and balcony, and ornate doors leading to other rooms. It must have been a set designer’s dream.

The play was very funny. The main death, of an obnoxious theater critic, is played way over-the-top, and is very, very funny. A later death is shown onstage and is very real looking, and I found that disturbing, and very odd in a comedy. Other than the too-realistic death, the play was funny and engaging throughout, and slipped into farce at times, which I enjoyed very much. The combination of really funny humor with a whodunnit plot that engaged the mind (I did not guess correctly) made for a really great, if somewhat late, evening. It was especially worthwhile when Mer told me they were free teacher tickets (which is why we were at a Wednesday showing). A fun play.

Last Monday, we said goodbye to the foster kittens. One of Mer’s students has a mother who is a vet, and she was kind enough to offer to try to place the kittens in homes, and she even had several leads before the kittens even were sent along.

We had the kittens for twenty-nine days, and they were noticeably bigger, but still very much kittens. They were not quite fully social cats, but they were no longer terrified of people, so I am hoping they will adjust to new homes in just a few weeks. They were very cute, but it is good to be back to five cats again, and I am happy to have the use of the spare bedroom, if only to hang my clothes in the closet. I had been piling my clothes in a pile in our library while the kittens were in residence. I hope they find good homes.

Last Saturday was Mer’s day. We slept in, and I went running in the morning. We ate lunch, and then headed down to the First Ladies’ Museum in Canton. Neither of us had ever been.

The museum is right downtown in Canton, and is in two buildings. One building is an old bank that now houses the First Ladies’ Library, as well as rotating exhibits. Mer and I were there early, so we wandered down the street for twenty minutes or so (it was a lovely day), and we returned to watch several short films on various First Ladies and how they handled crises like the burning of the White House in the War of 1812, or how Mrs. Roosevelt helped out by visiting troops in WW2. We then toured the current exhibit, which was on First Lady dresses, especially their Inaugural Ball gowns. Some of the First Ladies were tiny, even in their forties and fifties. There were some displays of the White House china, which the First Ladies selected, and in the basement there was an exhibit on women in the Red Cross. The exhibits were not extensive, but they were interesting.

We then made our way over to the second building of the museum, which is the Stanton House, which belonged to Mrs. McKinley’s sister’s family. William and Mrs. McKinney often stayed at the Stanton House, so it has a definite tie-in to a real First Lady. The house had been restored to how it would have looked around 1900, and the third floor’s major room is lined with the portraits and short bios of all the First Ladies. I had not known that the White House always has a First Lady, even if it is not the President’s wife. In the case where the President’s wife is dead, usually the oldest daughter would become the First Lady and act as hostess at White House functions. It was an interesting display. The museum is small, but well done, and the house is in very good shape now.

After the museum, we headed south toward Amish country. We went to The Amish Door bakery and restaurant, largely because Mer had a coupon for a free piece of pie. It was great – there was a buffet that we both took advantage of, and we both got pie for dessert (my peanut butter pie was only okay – I need to go for the Amish Door sundae next time!). As a bonus, there was a man playing the piano for entertainment – mostly playing Christmas carols, although he did a few hymns as well. It was very atmospheric and helped both me and Mer start to get in the holiday spirit.

The day after Thanksgiving has become known as “Black Friday,” and is largely dedicated to consumers buying lots of things. I’m not sure what would make me go out to stores on Black Friday, but sales are not enough. Instead, Mer and I took advantage of the day off to finally go through our basement storage room, and clean it out of all the stuff we have accumulated over thirteen-plus years of marriage. Much of the stuff in there was still packed in boxes from when we moved four and a half years ago. It was time to be pretty ruthless with this stuff. We enjoyed the irony of getting rid of stuff on a day dedicated to the acquiring of more things.

We were. I hauled the stuff up from the basement and emptied the boxes to make sure they were bug-free. Mer then sported the contents into “keep,” “pitch,” and “give away” piles. It took all day, and we did not quite finish; we still had five small boxes to go through, which we finished up on Saturday. We both ran out of steam, and we had a play to go to anyway.

In the evening, we got to go see Actors’ Summit’s latest production, a Christmas-season play called Winter Wonderettes. It was basically a musical review, with a loose storyline of a group of four women singing in a small hardware store for the store’s Christmas celebration. The play was set in the early 1960s, so the music was largely from the 50s. I am often skeptical about musical reviews – they usually are just glorified concerts. So, I was pleased when I enjoyed this one. I liked the characters of the four women, and there was quite a bit of humor involved, including pulling random men out of the audience to help out with the Christmas presentation. The music was recorded and played over speakers, but the singing was excellent, and the set was festive (simple holiday decorations). The lighting for the play was extensive, with various lighting effects for the songs, and that was new (at least to me). It was not a deeply moving play, but I had a good time with it.

Mer and I try to go on opening nights because there are small desserts served, and you can chat with the cast. I got to talk to the oldest sister of one of Mer’s best students (who graduated in 2007), and it was a great conversation. We chatted about her role in this play, as well as her role in the production of Rosecrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead that Mer and I saw at Kent State a few years ago. In fact, Mer and I pretty much closed out the place, as we were the last guests to leave. It helped redeem the day spent pawing through boxes of stuff.

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, and Mer and I have much to be thankful about, although we often forget that in the business of our lives. We have a great family (Shannon notwithstanding), good jobs, a nice house, our health, wonderful friends, a good church, family living in cool places to visit, and on and on. I think we take these things for granted too often – God has been good to us just out of grace, and I am glad we set aside a little time to remember this.

For the actual day of Thanksgiving, we took a mellow morning. We headed down to Aunt Mary’s house in the afternoon, where we had a satisfying meal involving lots of whipped potatoes (as well as meat, and jello, and bread, and pumpkin roll, and more). I certainly got enough to eat.

After supper, we sat in the living room and played a fiercely-fought game of the original 1983 Trivial Pursuit. Aunt Mary has only ever lost to Mer, and even then only once. I have never won. In this game, I was up 4 pieces to 2, and Aunt Mary still won 6-5-4 (I had five and Mer had four). I knew a 4-2 lead was not safe. I guess I need to be thankful for a smart aunt. After the game, Mer and I headed home for an early evening to bed for our big anti-Black Friday where we were planning on cleaning out our basement of years’ worth of material goods.

Last weekend, on Saturday, it was “my” day, and it was beautiful out, so I wanted to make sure we got outside some. After a mellow morning and a short run, I took Mer to Peninsula, a nearby cute town that reminds us both of Vermont. We got lunch at Fisher’s Restaurant, an eatery to which we had not been before. We got a great set in a bay window that looked out on the town, and we got excellent food.

After lunch, we drove (with a fairly good-sized detour because of one wrong turn) to Horseshoe Pond, one of the many parks in the Valley. We had tried hiking Horseshoe Pond before, but were driven off by aggressive deer flies. I figured that would not be a problem this late in the year, and I was right. We did have to traverse several large muddy areas along the trail. The trail was pleasant, and it was great being outside, but the trail did not offer too many “wow” spots – it was nice along the way, but no vistas or water, except for the pond at the end of the trail. Still, it was a good walk.

In the evening, we swung by Matt and Clarice’s place. They were out of town, so we fed and watered the kitties. Clarice has quite a movie collection, so we borrowed Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Inception. I had not see Roger Rabbit since I had seen it in the theater twenty years ago, and it was one of my favorite movies at the time; I had found it magical with its use of real people and animations. We watched it after we got home, and it has stood up well. The effects still work, and the story is still entertaining. It was good to see it again. We saved Inception for another evening.

Last Wednesday, Mer and I got to go out to dinner with Aunt Mary. She came up to our neck of the woods, and we went out to eat at Rockne’s, a local restaurant chain. We got to see some other CVCA people there, so it felt homey.

After supper, we went back to CVCA, where we had front-row seats for the opening night of The Diary of Anne Frank, the fall play. I knew the basic story of Anne Frank, but I had never read the book or seen the play, so I was looking forward to the performance (in a depressing sort of way).

I love CVCA’s theater program. It is not perfect, but I would stand it up against any high school theater program, and many college programs. They just do a great job, and the tradition continued. The set was a suggestive set, with multiple levels and partial walls to suggest rooms. It was plain and simple, but it was supposed to be spare rooms in the back of a factory, so it should not have been fancy.

The acting ranged from solid to excellent. The young lady playing Anne was outstanding, bringing a young girl’s wonder and optimism to the role. She was winsome, and just sparkled in the the role. The young woman playing the wife of Mr. Frank’s friend was very natural in her role, and it did not seem as if she was acting, which is always a good thing.

One of the cool things that Brandon (the director) did was to interject several true stories of Holocaust survivors to open the show, to open the second act, and to be interspersed with the final soliloquy of Mr. Frank. It allowed more kids to get some stage time, and seemed perfectly natural in the play. It worked well and was very moving.

Mer has several of the students in her classes, and three of the actors in the play are in Royal Fools. It is always pretty neat to know the kids who are in the plays, and I was impressed at how they did. I also got to see several alumni during the intermission and after the play, so it was a pretty great evening (allowing for the depressing nature of the play).