Last weekend was Homecoming weekend for CVCA, and Mer and I partook in the festivities. On Friday was the big Homecoming football game, and as part of that the school always sets up an alumni tent to welcome back alumni. Since Mer is an alum, we got to go. It is not super splashy or anything – hot dogs, soup, and cookies – but it is still a free meal and a chance to catch up with former students, which Mer and I did for about 45 minutes while we ate. I then ran off to do my usual cheer-madly-for-the-band while Mer stayed at the tent.

I followed the band inside the stadium, and for the first time ever at a CVCA game, I went up into the stands, as high up as I could go (second row from the top). You could actually see the football game pretty well, and I still got to sit next to the band. Mer joined me, and a few minutes later, Mer’s friend Marie joined us as well. One of my former Fools made his way over to us, and later still, some of Mer’s former students joined us. It was a pleasant gathering. I was interested in the game and watched it pretty intently, while Mer kept one eye on the game and chatted with the folks around her.

At halftime, the other team’s huge and impressive band did a great show, including spelling “Ohio” in script, which involved many crossing lines of marching students. It was well done. Our portion of halftime was spent announcing the homecoming court. One of my former Fools won queen, which was very cool. She is a nice girl, and I am happy she won. I did not know the boy who won king very well, but everything I hear about him is positive.

After halftime, Mer’s friend wanted to go on a building tour, so Mer joined her. I was feeling hungry, so I walked home and grabbed some of my homemade pizza. I do enjoy living so close to school. I was back in time to see the fourth quarter, and Mer joined me partway through it. We ended up winning the game, something like 30-14 or some such. Our team played well once we settled down. Then, our band came on the field for their “halftime” show which was put off because of Homecoming court. Mer and I stayed and cheered and enjoyed the entire show, and then we walked home.

On Saturday, Mer had a busy day, while I did not. Mer went to CVCA for CVCA’s “spa day.” The school was encouraging the girls of the school to spend less money on Homecoming this year, and to give the money to a family to help the family defray adoption costs – it was called “Bring a Baby Home” and was a nice addition to the Homecoming festivities this year. Anyway, CVCA had a bunch of women volunteer to help the girls do hair and nails for a donation, and so Mer went to the spa at CVCA. She said it was fun – she got pampered a little while getting to chat with good friends and students. She had a good time. I think I may have napped – I don’t remember for sure.

Then, Mer went to a friend’s baby shower. Jen is about to have her first baby, and Mer wanted to support her. When Mer came back, she said about half the people there were CVCA people, even though Jen does not work at CVCA (her husband does, and Jen is an alum). Mer had won a contest at the shower by saying the word “baby” the fewest number of times during the party. Again, she had a good time.

We then got all dressed up – me in my suit and Mer in her new shoes and dress, and we headed down into the Valley to go to Todaro’s Party Center for the Homecoming banquet and dance. The outside of the building was nondescript, but the inside was very nice. We got there at about 5:30 (the dinner started at 6:00), and the place was already humming with activity. We went inside, found our table, and then started mingling with students. I am pretty close to this year’s senior class, so I was happy I could make this Homecoming. I got to chat with several of my students while Mer and I munched on appetizers. Happily, the banquet hall’s idea of appetizers was cookies and brownie bites. That was good.

We spent a fair amount of time chatting, and then we sat back at our table with other CVCA teachers and administrators. We had a fine time talking, and Mer and I compared notes on which dresses we liked the most. Supper was a buffet, and was very fine – the chicken and potatoes were very good. After supper, there were numerous announcements for various teams and clubs to get together for photos. Dessert (cake and more cookies) was served, and then at about 9:00 the line dancing started.

Dancing at a Christian school is a tricky thing, so a few years ago the administration decided that various line dances would be okay at Homecoming. So, you see things like the Macarena, the Chicken Dance, and so on. It does mean that we got to hear the amusing announcement “If there is too much dancing during the dance, we will have to stop.” That made me smile.

Mer went out on the floor with students for two dances, but then we both decided we were pretty tired – it had been a long evening the night before and was a long day Saturday. So, we headed back out to the car and headed home. It had been a good evening, and I was happy to have gotten to see the students all dressed up.

I forgot to blog about an important even from last week – silly me. On Monday (the 27th) of last week, I went to the vets’ to get cat food since one of our cats eats prescription cat food. Anyway, I came home with the cat food and a cat. Oooops.

When I got to the vets’ there was a cute mostly-white cat that was in a 2′ by 3′ cage and had been there the last time I had needed food, a month before. She was very sweet and very friendly, and so I asked about her. She had been abandoned in a holder at the vets’ one morning, and had been living in the cage for six weeks. Since she was not a kitten, no one was adopting her. The idea of her living in the cage got to me, so I brought her home. Without informing Mer. Heh.

I told Mer I had something cute locked in our bedroom. She was suspicious, and was alarmed when I was looking under the bed and calling to a cat. Then she saw the cardboard cat carrier. She gently berated me on getting a cat without talking to her first, but I explained about the six weeks in a cage, and she just shook her head. I told Mer we would take the cat back if she wanted me to, or if the new cat did not get along with the other cats. Mer said she would not make the cat go back as long as the others were okay with her. As such, we waited over a week to even name the new cat since we were not sure she was going to stay.

It turns out she is a very confident cat, and some hissing and one or two fights aside, the cats seem to at least tolerate each other. So, Mer and I finally got around to discussing names. After a few tries, we both agreed on Octava. An octavo is an early form of book, which was folded eight times to make eight pages. Octava is the feminine form of the word, so that is what we named the new kitty. She is Tava for short.

She is very active. She is only about a year old, as far as the vet could guess. She has been spayed and declawed already, so we have no worries about having to take care of getting her “fixed.” Tava loves to jump, and within two or three days of having access to the whole house she had discovered how to get up on the false wall in our living room (floor to counter to refrigerator to top-of-wall), a feat that none of our other cats has figured out. Tava loves to run, and much to the consternation of the older cats, she loves to chase them if they run from her. She is very friendly, and is happy to curl up with us on the couch. She has a tremendously loud purr. So, even though we never planned on being a three-cat household again, let alone a four-cat household, Tava is here to stay. The jump from three cats to four has made the activity of the house go up. Mer tends to use the word “swarm” a lot now. They are cute, but we really need to stop so that we do not become “those cat people.”

Writing about Tava has reminded me of my other kitty shortcoming – I never blogged about the arrival of Jackson, about a year ago. Jackson was another unplanned kitty. People we know developed allergies to Jackson and had to get rid of him. No one was adopting him, but Mer and I were holding firm against becoming a three-cat household again after Bocca’s death just a month before in July. This went on for over a week, but Mer finally caved to the picture that was posted at CVCA – a pretty-eyed, sweet-looking tiger kitty that, as Mer said, kept looking beseechingly at her. So, we went to see Jackson and found him to be sweet and cute, and Mer really missed her tiger kitty, so he came home with us.

Jackson had a harder time with the two other cats, especially Macska. Macska is male, and oddly (for such a fluffy, effeminate-looking cat) is an alpha-male kitty who needs to be at the top of the pecking order, so Jackson did not like him at all. Even now, Jackson will still growl and hiss at Macska if Macska catches him off guard. Emma and Jackson seem to get along pretty well on the whole, with just a few small hissing fights over the year. Oh, we kept Jackson’s name since he was 12 years old when we adopted him. Mer figured that he had been “Jackson” for so long that we should not change it on him.

Anyway, our family has grown much larger than I ever intended it to be. Tava needs to be the last one, at least as long as we have all four cats, which Mer and I both hope will be for five or more years yet to come.

September ended fairly quietly for the Riordans. On Sunday (the 26th), we went to Aunt Mary’s church for lunch and had a very fine potluck dinner. Mer and I also approved that they had pretty much full-sized paper plates next to the massive dessert spread, which was tasty. After lunch, Mer graded while I helped Aunt Mary clean up the cardboard boxes in her old condo – I helped her break them down and loaded them in my car to drop off at her work place’s recycle bin. Mer and I then headed home, where we both cooked, and I was able to deliver some bread to some friends, which I like to do on Sundays. Granted, I had to let myself in Nate and Rachel’s house, but the Bread Fairy must deliver bread.

The only other social action of the week (until the weekend) was on last Thursday. Last week was Spirit/Homecoming Week at CVCA, which is both fun and crazy. A tradition of Spirit Week is that the 11th and 12th grade girls play football; it is called (quite proudly by the girls) the Powder Puff Game. This year was special in that the girls were getting to play in the stadium under the lights, and there was a $5 admission charge, with the admission going to a family who is trying to adopt a baby, to help defray the adoption costs.

Mer and I showed up at halftime. This year, because of a rash of injuries over the last few years, the game was changed to flag football, about which I was a little disappointed (I like to see people break tackles, which is hard to do in flag football). The stadium crew was funny – the announcers had very little idea about football, and the scoreboard often said things like “1st and 23” or “1st and 3” with no real pattern to it. Mer and I wandered about and chatted with a few fellow teachers who were there, and we laughed at the commentary. Sadly, the game ended after 40 minutes of play in a 0-0 tie, which I’m of the opinion is the fault of the flags – I’m quite sure the game would have been much higher scoring if it had been tackle. While I would not necessarily want a humorous-style game every year, it was novel and fun this time around, and it was for a good cause.

That, of course, still left the Homecoming game on Friday and the Homecoming Dinner/Dance on Saturday.

As I have mentioned in ye olde blog over the last few months, I have been training for a marathon to run with my friend and training partner Jason. The goal is to help Jason qualify for the Boston Marathon, which means we need to run the marathon in 3:20:59 or faster, which is fast but not impossible. Anyway, the marathon is next week (October 10th), so over the last few weeks I have been making my Saturday “long runs” shorter. I also wanted a good run with a known distance so I could work on the steady pace of 7:40/mile that Jason and I will need to run. To this end, I decided to enter the Akron Roadrunner Half-marathon (13.1 miles) which was last Saturday (the 25th).

I told Mer to sleep in last Saturday since there was no need for her to come and cheer me on in a training run. She needed the sleep, and I was please to let her get some rest. I drove down to Akron by myself, getting there about 5:30 am to avoid the rush of traffic. The race did not start until 7:00, so I had some time on my hands. I made frequent use of the restrooms, and sat on the curb to conserve energy. My friend and boss, Jim Gaul, was running the race as well, so I met up with him around 6:00. Jim had hooked up with three other friends of his, so we had a merry little group. We were all planning on running roughly 7:40/mile, which is a half-marathon time of 1:40 or so. It was a perfect day for running, with temperatures in the low 50’s and clear skies. We lined up in the starting chute with a lot of other people (there were 14,000 people running last Saturday). The race officials said a prayer and sang the national anthem, and we cheered on the wheelchair racers who started one minute ahead of the rest of us. Our race started with the Akron tradition of ringing a bell, and we walked and then trotted to the starting line (it took about 25 seconds for me to get to the starting line). Once I got to the line, I took off running and started weaving around lots of people. The start of the race is fast, with most of the first mile being down hill. I got to the first mile marker with a time of 7:44-7:48, and I got worried that I was going slow. I had hit a comfortable pace, and I kept at it and kept passing people. I had left Jim and his friends behind in the rush of the start, but I pushed on by myself. I got to mile two quicker than I thought, but I wrote that off to trying to make up time.

Anyway, I finally realized around mile six (out of thirteen) that I was running pretty fast. I did some quick math and realized I might have a shot at a personal record (a “PR” in running-lingo). I figured that since I had already run at a fast pace over some hilly parts of the course that my legs were going to be shot anyway, so I might as well try to keep my fast pace.

My legs started to hurt some around mile nine, but that is just as the race enters the University of Akron campus, which is a high point on the course, so the uphills were done for two miles so my legs could rest some, plus the crowds of people came back to cheer us on for over a mile along the course. The race ran down into the valley, and the half-marathon course split off from the marathon course at that point. We then had to climb a long hill that was a five-percent grade, and that made my legs burn, but I had done a fair amount of hill training this summer, so I held on to my pace. Just past the top of the long hill was the twelve-mile mark, so that was a boost to a tired body. I was able to keep the pace and finished well. I had a great run, and was pretty wiped out. I had finished in 1:33:07, or 7:07/mile, which was a personal record by over two minutes. I had failed to run a good training run, but I was pretty happy with my results. So, my results were:

1:33:07
7:07/mile
125th finisher out of 3,212 finishers (top 4%)
115th finisher out of 1,578 men (top 8%)
13th finisher out 262 men in my age group (35-39) (top 5%)

I got home and showered, and got dressed just as Mer was waking up. She was sad to have missed me having a good race, but I’m still happy she got a good sleep. I went back to bed for a couple of hours while Mer puttered online and did her exercise on the treadmill. We had a quick lunch, and then I took Mer up to Brecksville to the Towpath Trail. Brecksville is near the northern turn-around point of the Towpath Marathon, and it has some cool bridges to see and is a pretty walk, which I wanted to take Mer on.

We walked to a side trail, called the Carriage Trail, which is supposed to be a three-mile loop trail that I wanted to investigate. Shortly after we got on the trail, it warned the bridge on the trail was shut to foot traffic, and there was no way around. I scoffed at the idea and figured that someone had figured a way around, so we kept going. It was a fairly long walk up a hill, but then the trail leveled out. We walked about a mile into the woods, and came up on the bridge. The bridge was indeed shut up with a locked gate, and it was easy to see why since the supports were badly rusted. It was a very cool bridge, but there was no way across or down. We turned around and made our way back along the trail. We later read that the loop trail had three such bridges that were all shut down, so I was happy there was no way across.

It was a very pretty day for a walk, with lots of sun and temperatures around 60. We walked back to the car, and were treated to seeing a huge wedding party get off a bus for pictures. I think we counted twelve bridesmaids. Still, it was festive.

We got back in the car, and I drove back to downtown Akron. Along the way, we kept seeing people pulled over alongside the road. I finally got curious, so we stopped and asked. It turns out all these people we waiting for the once/day running of the Cuyahoga Scenic Railroad’s steam engine train. We decided to hang out to see that, and it was fun. It was surprising to see how many people turned out at every road to see the train go by.

Once in Akron, we went to the Barley House restaurant, and sat on the patio. That turned out to be pretty cool, so I had to run back to the car for my jacket for Meredith, and I took her long-sleeved over-shirt (which is my shirt anyway). We had a very good meal, but did not mind when it was over because it was warmer in the car.

I then took Mer dress shopping. I had asked Mer out to CVCA’s Homecoming dinner which was the following Saturday, and she wanted a new dress. I was excited because I had not gone shopping for Mer in three years because of the double-mortgage issue. I like shopping for dresses for Mer because I find her easy to shop for. I just imagine what she would look good in, and that seems to work. As an aside, to ask her out to Homecoming, I went into her 8th period English class with my guitar, and I sang for her two poems that I had set to music. The poems were “She Walks In Beauty” by Lord Byron and “Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her” by Christopher Brennan. It worked well, and Mer said yes, so it was a great success.

Anyway, we had to try a couple of stores, but I found a fun and pretty blue dress that Mer liked at a Macy’s at Chapel Hill Mall. She bought it, and then she found a pair of cheap but nice shoes and a purse to match at a Payless, and then I bought us frosted chocolate chip cookies from a cookie place in the mall. We went home and ate them, and I was very pleased with a very good day.

This month (October), Mer is leading a field trip for all the 11th grade and her AP English classes to go up to Cleveland to see Great Lakes Theater’s production of Othello. Othello is the Shakespeare play of choice for all 11th grade English classes, and Mer likes to let her AP students in on any literary field trips that she organizes. Last year, we went to Great Lakes to see Twelfth Night, and the production was very good, but had a few moments of crude or sexual gestures in the production that were not mandated by the text. Since we are accountable to CVCA parents, Mer mentioned those issues from last year to the box office when she arranged for the trip to see Othello. The theater people assured her this production would be fine, and sent her two tickets to see a preview performance of the play so that Mer could make sure. That preview performance was last week on Friday (the 24th), and I got to go along.

We headed up early because there was a talk-back with the producer and the director, and Mer and I enjoy those things. The producer talked about how the company wanted to do Othello, but that it depended on finding an actor who could play Othello, and how that came about (short version – the producer saw an actor he admired in Arizona). The director talked about some of the challenges of directing Othello, and brought out two of her main ideas for the play. She made the decision that the villain of the play, Iago, was going to be motivated to be evil by his being passed up for a promotion by Othello. Iago gives at least five or six reasons during the play as to why he is so twisted, and being passed up is given as only one reason, which the director choose to emphasize. She also wanted to stress Othello’s being human, and fallible, and to make him a sympathetic character, even at the end of the play after he has murdered Desdemona because he thinks she was unfaithful to him. It was interesting to hear the director bring these out, because I could then watch for those themes in the play. I thought her vision for Othello being sympathetic was more obvious on stage and so worked better; the motivation for Iago did not seem to hold so well since Iago himself contradicts it at several points.

The director made the decision to set Othello in modern times, and for the most part this worked quite well. Othello and his troops wore modern-day military uniforms. Instead of swords, most of the men carried long knives. Desdemona’s father, an important senator, was guarded by sunglasses-wearing bodyguards with retractable batons. That forced the director to lose a wonderful set of lines of Othello’s, where he tells his men and the bodyguards to “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust ’em.” Still, since the director wanted to make Othello more approachable as a man, the updating helped that very much.

The set of the play was simple but effective. There was a background that changed so you knew where the setting of the play was. In the middle of the stage was a frame of steel that took up most of the middle of the stage. The framework held up a second level that was used to add dimensions to the play, and became whatever was called for (a second floor, battlements, etc.). It also defined a space inside the frame that became Othello and Desdemona’s bedroom for the last part of the play.

The actors did very well, especially the big three roles – Othello, Desdemona, and Iago. Those three were excellent. Desdemona was encouraged by the director to always be hopeful, even at the end of the play. Sometimes I saw that and sometimes I did not, but her character was still convincing. Othello was warm and likable for half the play, until he gets turned by Iago, and then his anger was deeply disturbing, as it supposed to be. Iago was convincing, taking delight in his evil plans, and then risking much to carry them out, although I’m still not convinced that his being passed over for promotion would make him quite so vicious. (I’m of the opinion that Shakespeare did not worry too much about Iago’s backstory and just presented him as a very competent but evil man).

I thought the end of the play was particularly strong. Desdemona’s friend and the wife of Iago, Emilia, was finally played as a tortured woman. Mer wrote a long paper on how usually Emilia is presented as a good and loving and faithful friend to Desdemona, and they have a long scene together which most productions present as almost fun-loving “girl talk.” Mer’s point is that Emilia knows that much trouble has come from her finding an important handkerchief of Desdemona’s, and she gave that handkerchief to her husband, which unknown to her he uses for his own destructive purposes. Othello then later demands it (he has become convinced that his wife has given it to her lover), and Emilia sees Othello get enraged by the lack of the handkerchief, and yet she says nothing. She has several opportunities to say something to Desdemona, and never does. This production choose to have that doubt and guilt play out in an Emilia who has quick mood swings and is quick to tears in the final “girl talk” scene. It worked wonderfully and was much more compelling than other productions I have seen. Desdemona has a premonition that bad things are coming, and Emilia keeps trying to distract her from those feelings, all the while trying to keep her own emotions and thoughts under control.

The final bedroom scene was very effective. As Othello enters, the back wall of the stage moves with him, which makes the bedroom get even more claustrophobic. The entire play has been working to this point, and the director pulls the space in even more. The actors playing Othello and Desdemona both poured much emotion into the final scene, and it was as emotionally painful as it always has been in every production I have ever seen. I find Othello to be Shakespeare’s most desperate tragedy, and it may very well be because Othello is approachable and so human. Anyway, as an interesting text-based action that I had never seen before, Othello wraps his wife in her wedding sheets and puts her on the floor at the front of the stage. Desdemona had asked Emilia to wrap her in her sheets if she should die soon. When Emilia comes in and finds her friend dead, she raises the alarm, people rush in, and everything is exposed. Emilia is killed by her husband Iago, and Emilia falls down next to Desdemona, also at the front of the stage. This is unusual in that the text suggests strongly that they die on the bed and stay there, but this left the bed empty. Iago flees, and in an effective and unusual move, everyone chases him except Othello. He is left completely alone with the bodies of his wife and of Emilia. It was the most practical moment of the director’s vision to have us focus on Othello. All the people return with the captured Iago, and the play ends with Othello killing himself very suddenly with a pistol he had hidden in his shoe, the only firearm in the entire play. Othello falls back onto the bed (which is why it was empty), and he landed in the form of a cross, which I’m pretty sure was deliberate. While Othello is not a traditional Christ-figure in that he does not sacrifice himself for the main characters, who were already dead, he does kill himself to protect “the state” of Venice and to protect his own honor. What is odd for me is that the director cut the lines that suggest that Othello needed to protect the state from people like himself. My guess is that the director wanted Othello to be very human at the end and not to make mention of his exalted military history.

So, the play was excellent. I am glad I got to see it, although I told Mer I would not go see a preview and go to see the field trip production. I find Othello too emotionally engaging to see it twice in four weeks. This production also wrapped up my and Mer’s Summer o’ Shakespeare – this is the seventh and final production of Shakespeare that we have seen in the last three months.

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.