Last Saturday was “my” day, and it was not too exciting during much of the day – we mostly took it easy around the house. That evening, though, I took Mer to see the movie The King’s Speech. We had first heard about The King’s Speech from a student who was on our J-term London trip. He had seen it just before coming to London, and he highly recommended it. I figured it was time, and that an artsy movie two months after it came out would let us have an uncrowded theater mostly to ourselves.

Boy, was I wrong about that – the theater was packed. Mer offered the theory that people wanted to see it before the Oscars next week, and that sounds right to me. I’d say the theater was over 75% full, for a 7:00 showing of a movie two months after it came out.

Anyway, the movie was excellent. It stars three actors whom I like very much – Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter. They were pretty fantastic. The movie is based on the historical settings around the time that George VI came to the throne, after his brother Edward abdicated. George VI had a stammer, which I had not known, and the movie follows his attempts to rid himself of the speech defect. It does not sound like much for a movie, but it was riveting. I highly recommend the film, and I would be very pleased if it won Best Picture and if Colin Firth won Best Actor.

Last night, Mer took me to Weathervane Community Playhouse to see the musical Quilters. We joined several of our colleagues that are in Mer’s Bible study at work, so there were six of us in all (me and five ladies!). Quilters is a play about the history of an entire family for four or five generations, as told though the making of a giant quilt. The play is an all-women cast of six, but they do occasionally play men for brief times as the play requires.

I had seen Quilters at Actors’ Summit Theater a few years ago, and although I though it was well done, I had come away feeling rather flat about the play – it did not grab me. I was originally going to pass on going this time, but my friend Brandon designed the lights and told me he thought it was excellent. So, I decided to give it another try.

Weathervane’s production was very impressive – they played up both the humor and the sorrow more than I had remembered at Actors’ Summit. The pit orchestra was excellent, and the acting was very good as well. The simple harmonies the women sang were beautiful. I’m really not sure what more the theater could have done to produce the play better. Still, while I enjoyed parts of the play very much, the overall experience left me feeling flat again. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not into the play, as has happened on occasion with other plays (most notably, Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona). Still, I am glad I gave the play another chance, and it was fun being with our colleagues.

So, Mer and I are over halfway done with our February diet. It has been an interesting trip. As of today (Thursday), I weighed in at 162 pounds, which means I have lost 12.5 pounds in 16 days. That is very impressive to me, and I feel pretty good.

I also very often used to get very sleepy between 1:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon. That “dip” in my energy seems to have gone away, even though I have been getting up around 4:15 a.m. in order to cook our meals for the day.

On the downside, the cravings for my favorite foods have not subsided; I still look longingly at various foods I see on TV or see other people eating. Also, although I am not hungry very often, when I am hungry I am very, very hungry. The hunger issue tends to go away as soon as I drink my breakfast smoothie or eat my lunch.

The weekends have been very difficult, especially Saturdays. Prior to this month, we’d almost always go out for at least one meal on Saturday, so being strict on our eating on Saturday makes us both edgy. It would seem we are borderline food addicts, especially for desserts.

We have another twelve days to go. I am probably going to change around the one big meal for the weekend – we’ll eat the one big meal for supper and have the supper smoothie for lunch. I’m hoping that will make it a little easier to deny ourselves the joy of pizza and ice cream.

The weekend was pretty mellow, but that was in large part because Mer had done something to her hip that caused her a fair amount of pain if she moved too much. Since it was “her” Saturday, she decided a homebody day was in order. It was quite an ambitious homebody day, though – she wanted to watch all four hours of Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, which is the only full-text version of the play available on film. It is not for the faint of heart!

I enjoyed it; the film-making was amazing, with a literal cast of thousands. There were famous actors everywhere, even in bit roles: Judy Dench appeared in a scene with no lines, Billy Crystal was a gravedigger, Robin Williams was a minor courtier, Charlton Heston was an actor in the players’ troupe, and so on. It was also good to see the scenes that no one ever does – it gave the play a fresh feel for me. Kenneth Branagh was excellent as Hamlet. The ending had some “oh, come on” kinds of moments, but the film overall is quite excellent.

On Monday, we headed down to Aunt Mary’s. It was Valentine’s Day, so we did what any loving couple would do – we played Wii Family Feud and Jeopardy with Aunt Mary. We also watched round one of the real show Jeopardy where the two best players of Jeopardy played against IBM’s “Watson” computer. That was interesting to see. “Watson” won the first day handily (and he actually won the tournament with over three times as much money as Ken Jennings, the second-place finisher). It was good to see Aunt Mary – it had been a few weeks. Sadly, we again had to avoid having supper out on the town. It made the evening slightly less festive, but Aunt Mary was a game soul and supported us by eating before we got there. We headed home around 8:30.

Friday, Mer and I headed down to Akron to the new home of Actors’ Summit Theater, to see a play we had never heard of before, Becky’s New Car. The interesting thing about the play is that it was the sixtieth birthday present of a woman in Seattle, given to her by her husband. He walked into a theater and asked them to write a comedy, and eighteen months later, Becky’s New Car debuted. The Actors’ Summit version was the thirteenth production of the play, and as is their tradition, the couple who commissioned the play was on hand to see the opening. That was pretty cool.

We met up with our friend Nate for the play. Nate’s wife Rachel was supposed to join us, but sadly, she was ill with the flu. We chatted with Nate until the show started, which was a pleasant (and, with Nate, always amusing) way to spend thirty minutes.

The set for Becky’s was interesting – the front of the stage was divided in half, with the left part of the stage being taken up by a desk, and the right part of the stage with a couch and small table. The back of the stage was an elevated platform that looked like a deck. So, for the play, the left part of the stage was Becky’s office, the right part of the stage was Becky’s home, and the back of the stage was a beach house.

The play was very funny, for the most part (the end got a bit serious). It was interesting in that Becky broke out of the theater mold from time to time to talk to us, the audience, or to talk to her lighting technician. She had audience members help her with her paperwork at the office, and asked for the light tech to light up the “home” part of the stage when she was tired of being at work. It took a minute or two to get used to it, but then it worked well and was quite funny.

The actors did a fine job, with most of them being new to Actors’ Summit (or they had not been on stage there for a while). The actors playing Becky and the man who wants to date her were especially good.

The basic plot line revolves around a rich widower who buys some cars from Becky’s dealership. He is fond of Becky and becomes accidentally convinced that she is a widow. The play follows the developments of the entire family as Becky tries to figure out what to do. It makes for some pretty good theater.

Mer and I are on this very strict diet, so that meant not going out before or after the show, which is pretty rare for us. Then, to top it off, this was the opening night of Actors’ Summit’s one hundredth production, so they had cake after the play. Nate quite enjoyed it. Mer and I were left with just enjoying the play.

Last Tuesday, I started my first-ever real actually-mapped-out diet. A couple of weeks ago, I was waiting in my chiropractor’s office. I had some time, so I started reading Outdoor magazine. They had several articles on how to live more healthily (it was the January issue, so I suspect New Year’s resolutions played into the articles). One article was on getting more sleep, one on reducing stress, and such. One article was about a book called Clean. Clean was supposed to show you how to eat for four weeks, with the aim of flushing toxins such as pesticides from the body. The author of the article was an editor, and very skeptical. He tried it, and found it difficult for the first ten days or so, but he achieved dramatic results. Even though he was in shape and only 145 pounds, he lost about ten pounds and lowered his metabolic age from twenty-two to 1seventeen (he is thirty-five years old). He also said he felt much better, and really endorsed the diet. I was also skeptical, but I liked his results, and I liked the fact that the diet only lasts four weeks. So, I decided to give it a try.

I started at 174.0 pounds. I lost weight during the first week at a stunning rate; it was hard to believe the scale some mornings. After one week, I weighed in at 168.5, so I lost six pounds in one week (and my low weight during the week had dipped down to 167.5). I can’t claim any results yet as to feeling younger or seeing my skin look healthier, but it has only been one week. Some of the food cravings are subsiding – I am not feeling desperate for dessert now. That may change come next weekend (weekends are when Mer and I like to go out to eat, which is not really a great option on the Clean diet), but for now, everything is okay. Mer has joined me on the diet – she is a game sport.

The diet had me examine our environment, and since the book calls for drinking clean water, I had a top-of-the-line water filter installed for our drinking water, as well as a charcoal whole-house filter for our shower. Since Mer and I pretty much drink just water even when not on a diet, it seemed like a good investment. As usual, when I launch on a new thing, it costs us money. In addition to the water filter, I have been buying organic everything, which is really expensive. I plan on going back to “normal” food after February, so I think our budget can handle things for one month.

I’ll try to update on how things are going every week.

Last Saturday saw my acting debut, at the tender age of forty. I was given one of four lead parts in our church play, “Go East, Old Men,” a modern retelling of the story of the wise men who visited Jesus and his family sometime after Jesus’ birth. We did one performance on Saturday, and two during the normal service times on Sunday.

The basic storyline is that four Berkley professors are given a sign in that all of their GPS devices tell them to “Go East.” The four men (four in our story instead of the traditional three) gather up some gifts for the Messiah, and head out from Berkley with no idea of where they are going; they simply follow the GPS. Along the way they meet some heavily-adapted Biblical figures, from a rich woman who is too concerned about her upcoming horse race to go see the Messiah, to the mayor of New York City, Mayor Harold (Herod). The play was meant to be light-hearted, and it was very funny for much of the play. The play ends when the professors find the holy family in Bethlehem Trailer Park, and they leave their gifts for the family.

The play was meant to stress how easy it is for people to come up with excuses not to go and see Jesus, and I think it did that in a fun way. Several of the actors improvised lines (they were given permission to) that brought the house down. The play was followed by a short talk by one of the actors about why he follows Jesus, and it was heartfelt and open. All in all, I thought the play went very well, which was by the grace of God, especially since we did not have any really good practices before Saturday (it is very hard to coordinate so many schedules, so often people were not able to make rehearsals).

I got to play the part of Thurston, whom I took to be the department chair of the Ancient History Department. He is the one who hosts the party that welcomes a new professor, and he always drives the vehicle, even though it was not his car. So, I took him to be the elder statesman (and I was the oldest of the professors). I had some liberty in crafting the character, so I based him to a large extent on Mer’s father, Dale. Dale loves words, and very naturally uses large words in normal conversation, so I went through my lines and edited them. I kept the meaning the same, but inserted large words wherever I could. It gave me focus for the part, and it worked pretty well.

Although I have been doing improvisational comedy on stage for the last eight years, I have never actually tried acting (at least not since I was in kindergarten). I was pleased to be given a chance to act in such a welcoming and low-stress environment. The play was about forty-five or fifty minutes long, and my lines totaled about seven minutes of the dialogue. I learned my lines by recording them and then playing them over and over on my iPod while I went running or while I was doing housework. It worked quite well.

It was a moderate amount of work for me to be in the play: it involved staying late at church on Sunday for about two months, with two additional practices thrown in. Altogether, I probably made seven or eight rehearsals – I know I missed one for going to London. I felt for Janet most of all. She is the pastor’s wife, and she wrote and directed (and had a small part in) the play. She had to coordinate everything, and it is not always easy to work with volunteers. She did well, and got a good performance out of us. I am pleased with how the play went, and am also pleased I can go back to the early service now that rehearsals are over!

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, CVCA had snow days. Tuesday was essentially an anticipatory snow day – there was bad weather coming in and no one was quite sure of when it would get here. As it turned out, we could have had school on Tuesday – there were no real weather issues around here until after 4:00. Wednesday was the real deal – there was enough ice around that I had trouble walking in to school.

When we have snow days, Mer gets to stay home, but staff is expected to go to work as long as they can safely do so. Since I can (and do) walk to work, it is hard to use the bad-weather excuse. So, I went in both days to do puttery things around the school. It was quiet, and I had access to any of the rooms that I needed to get in to. It was nice. Mer stayed home, but that does not mean that she was not working. She graded all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Happily, by the time I got home on Wednesday, she had run out of grading that she actually had with her here at the house, and she decided she could spend the evening with me.

So, we had a very rare together-during-the-school-year evening. I made dinner, and then we watched the animated movie Up, which we both like very much. Up is an interesting movie in that it makes you cry after just ten minutes, but then is a very uplifting and clever movie for the rest of the way. I highly recommend it. After dinner and our movie, we played the book-based game Dark and Stormy. Mer beat me eight books to three, so I immediately wanted to play again. For my troubles, I got beaten eight books to two. I still thought it was a great evening, and a little look at how life could be if Mer only worked fifty hours/week instead of sixty-plus. But, Mer is a great teacher, and I am proud of her, so I put up with the schedule.

Meredith and I usually celebrate each others’ birthdays the weekend following them. I had not done anything too special for Mer (although we had a good time – see the previous blog entry). I had been so busy planning for London that her birthday got ignored. I tried to pull together a pretty spectacular weekend at the last minute, but the plans would not work out. So, I told her I’d surprise her some weekend and call it a combination birthday-Valentine’s Day weekend.

I was pleased that Mer had not planned anything for my actual birthday, which was Monday the 24th. I got sick Sunday, and I missed half days of work on Monday and Tuesday. I began to feel better on Wednesday, and happily, by the time Friday rolled around, I was feeling good again. This was my fortieth birthday celebration, and Mer had planned out a huge special weekend for me.

We left from school at around 4:00, and Mer stressed that there was some urgency. We drove south to Amish country, and then turned west. The area was all new to me, and was pretty desolate, and it was starting to snow. There was a stretch of road where it was about five minutes between houses and we did not see another car for about twenty minutes. It has been a long time since I have been somewhere that remote. I began to think that Mer had me just driving around to buy time for a party set-up, but we really were supposed to be out there – we finally came to a very cool and lovely bed and breakfast called The White Oak Inn. Mer had wanted to get me away from the house without an exhausting drive, and The White Oak Inn was a two-hour drive. It did not hurt that the Inn was having a chocolate weekend special. Mer’s urgency to get us there had been rooted in trying to find the place before it got dark, which was very wise.

It was a great little inn, and Meredith had booked us one of the two private cabins at the back of the property. We had a great room with a whirlpool bath, a real wood-burning stove, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The interior of the cabin had vaulted ceilings and lots of woodwork, and it was great. We put our stuff down, and then headed out to get supper. We had been worried that there was not going to be anywhere to eat this far out in the woods, but the innkeeper directed us to a gas station diner, which sounds lame, but it was great. The owners were very friendly, the menu was three full pages long, and the food was excellent (and they had about twenty desserts to choose from).

We headed back to the inn, and were greeted with our choice of hot chocolates. I went for the mint, and Mer went for the raspberry. We drank them in the inn common room, and chatted a bit with both owners. I finished my hot chocolate, and so we went back to the cabin (Mer brought the rest of her hot chocolate with her). While we had been gone, the inn staff had placed eight gourmet chocolates on our pillows. We brought those into the great room and settled in to watch While You Were Sleeping. It was a pretty great way to spend the evening,

Saturday, after a leisurely sleep until past 9:00, we got ready and headed over to the inn for breakfast. There was only one other couple at the 10:30 breakfast – a couple from Cleveland who were there to celebrate the wife getting pregnant with their fifth child. The rest of the kids were with the grandparents. I helped myself to a couple of cups of hot chocolate over breakfast. Mer and I picked out seats where we could look out over what we thought was a frozen lake, but we later discovered to be a low-lying field. The other couple sat across from us, and we were served a stunningly wonderful breakfast. We started with two hot banana-chocolate muffins, a fruit plate, and the main dish, which was Amish-style peppered bacon (which I had never had before but is amazing) with an egg dish that was essentially a personal cheese-egg casserole. What great food. We chatted pleasantly with the other couple over breakfast, and took our time – it was over an hour for the full (and I do mean full) meal.

After breakfast, we went over to the inn’s barn and fed crackers to their two sheep. We also got to see (but not get near) one of the inn’s barn cats. They have four indoor kitties and four barn cats. The cat we saw very nimbly climbed up into the barn rafters to keep an eye on us.

I then decided we should go up to Amish country, to explore the western part that we had never been to. To keep focused on our drive, we took along the inn’s suggested artisan tour, with the intent of stopping at three places to poke around. The first stop was to see a potter who had a huge wood-fired kiln. The wife of the potter was home, and showed us around the place, and she explained how wood firing (instead of gas) can make interesting patterns on the pottery because of the interaction of the ash. After a good time of conversation, we bought a vase, and moved on.

Our next stop was an artisan who liked to work in welded steel. He specialized in making bells out of old welding gas containers, but he did other welding work as well. His wife does some work in glass, but she was away at an art show in Columbus. The man was quite surprised to see us, as he rarely gets customers in late January. We poked around the shop, bought a bell that I hope will become our new door bell, and talked with the owner for a long while.

Out last stop on the trip was to see another potter. She also had a wood-fired kiln, smaller than the other we had seen. We pulled in to the house/garage/shop yard, but were not sure where the shop was. A man came out of the house with two excited dogs, and asked us if he could help us. We told him we were looking to see pots, and he was a bit surprised. He got his wife, the potter, and they let us into her small showroom. We found out the potter had been in the medical field, but then had gone back to the University of Akron when she turned fifty, to study art. Now, she made pots, and she has even won national awards for them. Mer and I found a very cool pot that we fell in love with, and we wanted to buy it, but the potter could not take credit cards, and we had no cash on us. But, the potter let us have the pot and wrote down our address. She trusts people to mail her checks, and she says she has never been burned by the policy. Mer mailed the check out last Wednesday. I am very fond of people who trust people.

We headed back to the inn, taking every little back road that we could find. We covered some pretty remote roads, but I stayed on track to get us back to the inn and resisted going down the road marked “Use at your own risk.” I must be getting old (actually, I did not want to spend my weekend trying to get my car out of a ditch). It was a very pretty drive – that part of Ohio reminds me very much of Maine, except it has few pine trees. Otherwise, there are lots of trees, lots of hills, lots of water, and small farms all over the place. It was great.

Back at the inn, we were again given the option to have hot chocolate. Mer passed, but I got another mint hot chocolate, which I took back to the cabin. I started a fire in the fireplace (it was all ready to go), and we relaxed in the jet pool (like a whirlpool) while we listened to music.

We wandered back to the inn for supper, and this time we were by ourselves. The other couple had taken supper in their cabin, so we had the entire dining room to ourselves. The innkeepers put on some romantic Italian music, and served us one of the best meals I have ever had. We had fresh hot bread, potato-herb soup, a citrus salad, carrots and sugar snap peas, rice-stuffed chicken, and rosemary roasted potatoes. It was amazing. To really push us over the edge, dessert was chocolate fondue with various things to dip, and a piece of chocolate cake. We had to take the cake back to the room with us because we were so full. What a great meal!

As if the cake were not enough, there were a new eight chocolates on the bed, which we ended up taking home with us on Sunday. We settled back on the couch and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and managed to find room for the cake after about an hour. Mer pointed out that our movie choices had both been romantic films set in Chicago.

Sunday we had to leave, but not until after breakfast at 10:30. The Cleveland couple joined us again, and I again had hot chocolate before and during breakfast. Breakfast was more muffins, this time oat muffins with cherry filling. I was still pretty full, so I gave those to Mer. We again had a fruit plate, and then a maple-flavored sausage patty. I got the French toast filled with Nutella and a piece of white chocolate in the middle. Mer got a half-portion size of that and a half portion of herb scrambled eggs. They certainly know how to cook at the White Oak Inn. After breakfast, we checked out and drove to church so I could practice for the church play. Mer snoozed a bit along the way. But, she deserved it – she had planned a spectacular weekend for me, and I loved it (and her!).

Last Friday, Mer and I went down to Actors’ Summit Theater and saw their production Romantic Fools. The play is a set of loosely tied together scenes – if I remember correctly, there were eleven scenes in all. It is a two-person show of one man and one woman, and the whole play is tied together by exploring the theme of the differences in men and women, and the relationship issues that come of it. It is a comedy, and is meant for adult audiences because it deals with some (not explicitly shown) sex issues. I found it quite funny and enjoyed it quite a lot. My burst-out-laughing moment was when the man told us, “Women make me feel……and that’s the problem.” On the whole, Meredith thought I laughed too much.

I was impressed at the show – in my opinion it did not take cheap shots at each gender – or at least, in the places it did, it took cheap shots at both. There were scenes of a woman dating a literal caveman, a man dating an obsessed woman, a man looking for “boring sex,” a engagement dinner that goes slightly wrong, a bar scene where a simple offer of a drink leads to a long reason of why they would never work out as a couple, and more. The play was well acted by two actors I admire a lot, although it was hard to see an actress who I think is sweet and cute drop the f-bomb a few times. The set was very simple – the backdrop was of an apartment kitchen with doors on both sides, and the living space (and bar in some scenes) was set up toward the front of the stage. It was a very entertaining evening, and had the good timing to be right between Meredith’s birthday (January 18th) and mine (January 24th), so it was a mini birthday celebration as well.

Saturday, Mer was game enough to join me in helping out a former colleague named Brittian. Brittian is building a house, mostly by himself (with Nate’s help), and he had gotten to the point where he was ready to paint inside the house. He saw me in the hallway at CVCA, and asked if I could help out. Brittian has always been kind to me and lent me his roofing equipment when I needed to re-roof my house, so I was delighted to get a chance to pay him back, after a fashion. Mer and I got to the house at around 8:30, and Brittian gave us the tour. It is a very cool house; lots of thought went into how Brittian and his family want to live. So, the space on the main floor is large and open, so the family will want to spend time there together. The bedrooms are smaller than normal by today’s standards, but that is the point – the family wants to be together and so put the house spaces toward that goal. Mer and I painted for about two hours, and it was a nice time getting caught up with Brittian. We had previously made plans to see our first CVCA hockey game, so we had to leave at 11:00.

CVCA has a hockey program, and I have two of my Connections students and one of my Fools on the team. Mer has a student on the team as well, so we wanted to see a game. The games are held at Kent State University’s ice rink, and we got there at around 11:30, after having a little trouble finding it. We still were there in time to see the start of the game. Our guys have recently (in the last couple of years) gotten really good, and they were playing a really good team, so it seemed as if it should be a good game. It was, too – all tied up at 1-1 after two periods, but then the other team scored a freak goal (it went all the way around the back of the goal because it was spinning, and then went in), and that broke the game open – we lost 5-2. Still, I had a good time watching the game.

The social aspect was fun too – one of my Connections guys is a huge hockey fan and goes to every game, so I hung out with him. Jim Gaul showed up right before the game started, and Mer was able to happily spend the game chatting with our colleague Amy. I also was able to get a really good cup of hot chocolate and a bunch of mozzarella sticks.

After the game, Mer and I were hungry, so we decided to try the burger chain Five Guys Burgers and Fries. It turned out that Amy and her husband and a friend were all there, so we got to visit more. Five Guys really only makes burgers and fries (except for two items that I do not remember), but they do them really well. I’m sure we will be back.

After the late lunch, we headed home. We finished the evening later by watching the movie The Brothers Grimm, which came out a few years ago. While not a tremendously deep movie, it was entertaining, well shot with good special effects, and had some interesting twists, and it was fun to catch all the references to various folk tales.

You would think that would make for a full weekend, but on Sunday, after church, we went over to the Churchills’ house to watch the football since it was the playoffs. I love spending time with the Churchills, and I was able to bring over my homemade pizza, brownies, and a quart of Handel’s “Spouse like a House” ice cream. Londa had also made her chocolate chip cookies, which are probably the best cookies on the planet. It was a very good eating night! The games were also entertaining, and we got to visit with Zach and Londa, who were kind enough to help set Mer up with her own grading station of desk and lamp.

Not a bad little birthday weekend.