Last Friday, Mer and I went to the annual CVCA Choir Spaghetti Dinner fund raiser. Every year, the choir raises funds by serving a simple but good pasta supper, and the various choral groups perform, rotating in every half hour or so. This year, soloists performed until 5:30, and then the groups took over. We got there about 5:00, ate, and then cleared out of the table area to allow for more people to sit and eat. There were chairs set up in front of the performing area, so Mer and I moved to those. We got to see two choirs sing, but we had to leave at about 6:15 or so because I was taking Mer on a date.

There was one little hitch, though. In the late afternoon, a storm moved in. This was the back side of the storm that dumped all over the east coast, and I was worried we would have trouble driving in it. I decided that if the roads were too bad, we would turn around. We headed off south, heading to Canton, which is normally a 35-40-minute drive. I had allotted about an hour to get there. Through Cuyahoga Falls and Akron, there was snow on the roads, but it was manageable. I decided to press on. Once south of Akron, in the part of the interstate that the state takes care of, the roads got quite a bit worse, and visibility was poor at times. It was a bit tense, but we made it to the Canton exit and got off, only to discover that the main roads were not plowed. We actually looked as if we were going to slide into an intersection at a red light. I honked and got other people’s attention, but happily we stopped just at the edge of the intersection.

We did make it to the Canton Cultural Center, where the Canton Players Guild performs. It was not clear where we should park, so I parked in a handicapped space and left Mer in the car so I could go to the box office to see what we should do. While I was on my way to the door, a van pulled into the parking lot, and a woman rolled down a window and yelled at me for parking in a handicapped spot. I explained that Mer was in the car and went inside. I was a bit miffed that she would yell at me, but I also admired that she would call me out on parking in a handicapped spot. That is, until I came out and saw that the van had moved to the drive of a pay-for parking lot. It would seem the concern of the woman was that she wanted her $5. Happily, I got in the car and pulled across the street and parked there for free.

We were at the Cultural Center to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams. Neither Mer nor I knew anything about the play at all, except that Williams wrote it and he is well respected. It was a very rare “pure viewing” for both of us.

The stage was set up very simply with a bed, a couple of door frames, two couches, and a small make-up table. The entire (what turned out to be) three-hour play took place in this one bedroom. The set worked well – it was functional without distracting from the characters who were jaw-droppingly intense.

What a magnificent play and a great production of it. I told Mer at one point that Williams stomps on the gas pedal and never lets up. The play focuses on one very dysfunctional family, especially a husband/wife team where the husband loathes his wife, but she loves him deeply. Why this is the case takes up most of the first two acts (out of three). The reasoning is slowly and masterfully revealed. The husband/wife plot takes place in the bigger plot where the father, Big Daddy, is trying to find out what is going on with his favorite son, while rejoicing that he has been told he is cancer free. Big Daddy is rich, and a major issue is how he will eventually leave his wealth. Big Daddy despises his wife and has no respect for the less-loved older son and his wife, and they only want Big Daddy’s money. The entire family is very screwed up.

The characters of the play are all people who should not be emulated – they are selfish and destructive. Still, the play was extremely captivating. It ended up being three hours long (including intermissions), but never dragged. I was blown away by the play. It was fantastic, and is among the best theater I have seen in a long time.

Part of this was carried by the three main characters. Canton Players Guild is a community theater, and so you might expect good amateur theater. The three main characters – the husband, his wife, and the father – were all amazing. The father was black and the son was white, but the father was so good, you forgot the improbability of that casting (in the 1950s South). Within just a few minutes, the father ceased being a black father of a white child, and simply became Big Daddy, trying to forcefully draw out his son and to understand his son’s sudden alcoholism. The wife carries the entire first act, almost making it a monologue (her husband does not want to talk to her). All three were just amazing. What a cast.

As an added bonus, the first Friday of a month (like last Friday) is “Chocolate Dream Friday,” where chocolates are served during the intermissions. Nice, indeed.

After a marvelous theater time, Mer and I came out to a winter wonderland. It had continued to snow pretty heavily, and was still snowing. I figured we would be okay since it was 11:00, but I was wrong. For a sloppy late night, there turned out to be a lot of people on the roads. Go figure. The major highway home had not been plowed, and there were no more lanes – you just followed the car in front of you and muttered at the aggressive drivers who passed you in the “lane” next to you. It was a very tense hour to get home, and we slid slightly once, causing my heart to jump, but with much prayer and taking it slowly, we got home a little after midnight. I was very relieved to get home safely (with much thanksgiving to God). I’m glad I did not know how bad the roads were going to get, or we would not have gone to the play. That would have been a shame, because it was really well done. Bravo (and lots of snow)!

Last Sunday was a nice and mellow day. We went to church and then came home and slept a good chunk of the afternoon. Then we headed southward to North Canton to meet Aunt Mary at Cheeseburger in Paradise for supper. We had not seen Aunt Mary in a bit, and she wanted to treat us to supper for our joint birthdays, so that was most agreeable. We had good food and a good time getting caught up, and we even got a couple of Christmas gifts that had not made their way to Maine at the time.

After supper, we headed over to Aunt Mary’s church. They were having a concert by a classical guitarist. To be honest, I thought it would be okay – my mind tends to wander during classical music, so while I was sure it would be a nice concert, I did not know hoe engaged I would be. Turns out, quite a bit. The guitarist is going to the University of Akron, finishing up his Master’s degree in performance. He was a quiet but engaging stage personality. He kept his introductions to the songs and longer works short and focused, and that was helpful. He had an understated sense of humor, which I liked very much.

The actual music was pretty amazing to see him play. The pieces were mostly difficult, including some by Bach, who did not write for guitar, making his works hard to play on the guitar. We sat up front, probably only 10 feet away from the artist (Jonathan Crissman), and it was amazing to watch both of his hands. What a performance. He played for about two 45-minute sets, and mixed in classical pieces with his own arrangements of hymns, including a wonderful New Orleans-style blues-influenced “Amazing Grace.” Quite wonderful.

One of the things I like about small concerts is that you usually get access to the musician. Mer and I chatted with Jonathan for about 10 minutes after the concert, and then Jonathan sat with us at our table as we went to the fellowship hall to eat cookies and drink punch. We continued to chat with him for another 20 minutes or more. I like talking to people who are good at what they do – I find it intriguing. As an aside, the pastor prayed that the food we would eat would give us strength; the food was cookies and bars. I like a church that prays for desserts!

I told Mer that I figured that we were pretty special for having heard metal/screamo music on Thursday, having done Shrew on Saturday, and then hearing Bach on the guitar on Sunday. It was an artistically diverse weekend!

Saturday was my day, and I decided to spend much of it cooking. I made four loaves of bread, two pizzas, and a pan of chocolate-peanut butter bars. I had invited a slew of people over for 6:00 for “Supper and Shakespeare,” or “Breaking Bread with the Bard.” We were to have dinner and then do our Shakespeare in a Box: Taming of the Shrew party game. It’s Taming of the Shrew edited down to be done by a small group of people in 45 minutes to an hour. It’s a really good time, and we had not done it in about 3 years. It was time.

I have a lot of game and wacky friends who thought doing Shrew was a great idea. Some admitted to me later that they were not sure, but it was gratifying to have them tell me what a great time they had. It was a grand group of people: Zach and Londa, Nate and Rachel (and their young son Jack!), Ami, our colleague (and English teacher) Joy, and a former CVCA teacher and fun person (and quite pregnant), Lis. Ami’s husband, Nate, was able to make it later to mess around with the Wii. So, for Shrew, we had nine people, counting me and Mer.

We had a grand supper – people added to my food with cookies, broccoli salad, banana bread, and apple pie. We had plenty of food, and we ate and chatted for about an hour and a half. Then, we did some warm up games to get our thespian sides moving – these games are suggested by the Shakespeare in a Box guide, and they are very funny. They consist of delivering lines in fun ways (sing the line as opera, or say it like a dirty joke), and in exercises of building a longer speech. Rachel had Jack say her lines, which was pretty darn cute. Raise that nerd child!

We assigned roles randomly, and some fun parts came out of it. Zach was Kate (the main female character), and Ami was Petrucchio (the main male character). The pregnant Lis was a male suitor to Kate’s younger sister (played by Londa, who also played an old man). Mer was Kate’s father. We have open-minded casting in the play.

At any rate, the play itself was a huge hit. We laughed and laughed. Ami (as Petrucchio) smacked Zach (as Kate) on the butt at one point, stopping the play for a few minutes while we roared. The game itself supplies corny props, like Groucho Marx glasses as a disguise and a pretty bad wig (that I got to wear as “the lusty widow”). There was much mirth when Londa and Rachel had to speak in Latin with two Latin teachers in the room (Lis and Ami). We had a great time.

After the play was over, we went back to the food, and with Nate showing up, I broke out the Wii and “Sports Resort” – a game where you try different sports. We focused on archery and sword fighting. Most people had never tried a Wii before, and so we got more than a few laughs watching people fling themselves about.

Another fun entertainment if the evening was a book Mer got me for Christmas. The book Cake Wrecks is based on the website of the same name, where the author shows pictures of commercial cakes gone badly wrong. The cakes usually have funny misspellings or bad drawings on them or the cake failed and fell apart. It is a very funny book, and it made the rounds getting chuckles out of everyone who saw it.

So, our first major party in our “new” house (that we have been in for two-and-a-half years) was a major success. I had a great time, and it seems as if everyone else did too. We’ll have to have more people over, and soon.

We have a friend and colleague at school who is uber cool because he is in a band. Eric (our friend), invited us and a bunch of faculty to his band’s second CD-release party. Mer and I were free, so we decided to go.

The release party was last Thursday, and was held at a music club/bar called Musica in downtown Akron. Mer and I actually managed to find it with little trouble, but we were about 10 minutes early (the doors opened at 7:30 for the 8:00 show). We passed the time getting warm in the coffee bar next door to Musica, and I thanked them by later buying a hot chocolate once we got our seats. I also thanked Musica by buying a Sprite, so I felt okay sitting on my stool for what turned out to be 4 hours.

Musica is set up as a band-centered place. There is a large open space in front of the stage, and high stools and tables are set around the perimeter and at the back (where we sat). The bar is off to one side in an obvious but not dominating place.

We got our table right around 7:30. We knew there was an opening act, starting at 8:00. We chatted with Eric and got to meet his wife, Shanna. Shanna is the lead singer of the band (Bethesda), as well as being an English teacher at a different high school. She seems great, and we want to see if we can go out to eat with Eric and Shanna soon.

The first band did come on at 8:00, and it was made up of a female guitar player/singer, a lead guitarist, and a violin player. They were okay. The music was good (I like acoustic music). The singer had an alternative style, so she seemed to be off the melody (she wasn’t – it was just the style). It was hard to hear the lyrics over the chatting going on around the room. It had been over 10 years since I had been to a bar concert, and I had forgotten that people talk during the music. It is not a great situation for hearing the music, but I guess it helps to bring out the people.

To our surprise, a second band that was not Bethesda came on a little after 9:00. There were two guitar players and a drummer. They were…..loud.  Really loud. Cover-your-ears-because-it-causes-pain loud. I know I’m getting old and thus I must think young people’s music is loud, but the music really was causing me pain. Happily, at this time, about six other teachers from CVCA showed up, so we were able to chat in brief stints between songs.

Sometime around 9:30, a third band came on. There were two guitar players, a drum player, and a really wild bass player. I’d always thought that bass players were always mellow. This guy was all over the stage, and I thought he was going to accidentally hit the fans with his guitar neck. He lost his glasses at one point when they flew off his face. Musically, the band was very talented – the two lead guitarists were very, very good. The musical style was loud and rapid and even a bit angry. The lyrics of the songs were largely screamed at us through the microphone. I liked watching the band play their instruments, but I cannot say I enjoyed the music too much.

Finally, around 10:00, Bethesda came on. Shanna sang and played a small xylophone. Eric played rhythm guitar, trumpet, and the small tuba-like euphonium. There were a bass player, a drummer, and a keyboard/dobro/steel pedal guitar player.

They have a good sound. The bigger band let them try to blend the music in more interesting ways than two guitars turned up “to 11.” They all seemed to enjoy being on stage and playing (although the keyboard player was a bit more mellow than the rest of the band). Since Musica seems to be used to mixing really loud bands, they only did a fair job of mixing Bethesda. Sometimes it was hard to hear the lyrics, although you could always hear the notes being sung. It was very difficult to hear the dobro and steel pedal, and even the brass was a little hard to hear from time to time. Over all of this, the now-large crowd was chatting the entire time. It was unfortunate. Still, I enjoyed Eric’s band very much. They have a slightly edgy sound, but do a variety of styles, from acoustic solo guitar to full fledged beat-on-the-guitar music. What makes it good is that the musical art came before the volume. And yes, it helps knowing someone in the band. I’m looking forward to hearing Bethesda in a better venue soon.

Mer and I finally got home after the concert around 11:30. Quite an evening for a school night – loud music in a bar and staying up late.

Today was a classically un-hard day at school. After morning school announcements, I got on a bus with 40 of Meredith’s very well-behaved students and headed south to Barberton, Ohio, to go to see the Magical Theatre Company’s production of Beowulf. That isn’t to say it was no work – there is a certain underlying angst for being responsible for 41 students on a bus, and the six chaperons were responsible for about 170 students overall. Still, since our kids are pretty good, it was a nice day away from the office.

Magical Theatre Company does a lot of shows geared toward children and/or schools, so we have been there several times in the past few years. It is an old movie theater that they converted into a theater, which means it can hold a ton of people – all of us, plus students from two other schools (although we did take up 2/3 of the theater with our students). The theater has good sight lines, and okay acoustics – there were a few times where it was a little hard to hear in the back, but not too much, and not more than you could catch by listening carefully.

The company commissioned the work, and the playwright was also an actor in the five-person cast. He managed to cut down the original epic poem to 65 minutes, six people played by four actors, and one actor who played three monsters. It actually worked quite well. He updated the language to modern English, but kept all the key actions and characters.

The acting was very solid. Beowulf himself was quite excellent, and I was impressed at his ripping off his lines effortlessly while doing push-ups (to warm up for his fight against the monster Grendel). The character interactions were just a tad stiff at times, but that was necessary as part of filling in the audience on back-story.

The monsters were very cool. They were all bigger-than-life puppets (costumes, really) that were played by one man. Grendel was about 9 feet tall, and had 6-foot-long arms that ended in claws. He had an arm that was detachable (the story calls for that), and he was a convincing monster that was having his way with Beowulf until Beowulf managed to rip off an arm. Grendel even sat down on a stone at one point and laughed at Beowulf in a gloating manner – it was a nice touch.

Grendel’s mother was about 12 feet tall, with smaller arms and claws, but she made up for it by being armed with a dagger/sword. She snapped Beowulf’s sword with one blow, but then Beowulf wrested her dagger away and used it to cut her head off (the head really came off the puppet). It was a fun moment when the decapitated monster rose back up to attack Beowulf, who was resting, and he had to quickly kill it again.

The last monster was a very impressive dragon. They managed this nice trick by having the actor just play the head sticking out of the cave. They also threw a long length of tail on stage during the fight to give you a sense that this thing was very big. The dragon “breathed fire” by a strobe light in its mouth, and the ear-flaps moved in and out as well. It was a pretty cool dragon.

The play had lots of background music, which I liked and thought added to the mood of the play (except in the very first scene, where the music was too loud to hear the actors easily). Some of the students thought the music was cheesy, but I think high school students are more often concerned with being sophisticated than with giving themselves over to childlike wonder. I liked it.

The set was basic, but very cool – lots of different levels with rocks strewn all over, with a few primitive columns that could be swung about to make different spaces. They had a rope-like netting hung all over to suggest decay, (and to be lit a greenish tint for Beowulf being pulled underwater to fight Grendel’s mother). It worked very well.

There was a good time of questions and answers afterward (despite some questions like “how much can you bench press?” and “what conditioner do you use?”). I like Q and A time in theaters – it gives me an appreciation of the thought process of staging a play.

After the play, we all got back on the bus and headed to Chapel Hill Mall, where we released our hungry charges into the food court. Mer and I got food from the Great Steak and Potato Company, followed up by Dairy Queen. It was a very satisfying lunch. Happily, all the students were back on the buses in time (thanks to some gentle prodding by Meredith), and we got back to school in time for the last two classes (much to the delight of the students, I am sure).

Not a bad day at work, today.

Sunday was my 39th birthday, but Mer was good enough to plan a fun-filled celebration day for me all day Saturday. We both woke up early for no good reason, and Mer took me out for breakfast. She took me to the nearby Doug’s Dinner Bucket, a small diner. It was great. The owner/cook/waitress was super friendly, and there was an older man reading a newspaper in the corner while nursing his coffee. When anyone (other than us) came in, he said hello. By name. He got into a conversation with a friend who came in, and the conversation largely boiled down to how the corporate “man” kept trying to screw them out of money. It was very satisfying.

I ordered a huge breakfast – an egg sandwich, a mound of home fries, and two pieces of French toast. The food was very good, and I’m a fan of breakfast. When the bill came, Mer discovered that she had forgotten all of her money. So, I sat at a stool at the counter, and she ran the 4 miles home to get her money. I had a great time. I got to talk with the owner some, and the man behind me wanted to take bets on if Meredith was coming back. One man came in and looked a little confused and sat at the far end of the counter. The owner got simply asked him “homemade?” (for bread, I assume) and he nodded. As she went off to make his presumably usual breakfast, she asked him if he was okay there, and he nodded. I’m pretty sure I was on his stool. Ooops.

Mer did come back for me and paid the bill. We went home and played some music and sang, which we do not do enough of. Then, I was allowed to nap for a bit. I was roused late morning and told to buff up and get my suit on. After my having done so, we left the house around 12:30 and headed north to Cleveland.

Mer gave me directions, and we ended up at Playhouse Square, the home of most of the very good theater in Cleveland. We parked with some anxiety in the parking garage, because we were running late and the cars in the lot were not parking (everyone was looking for “the” spot instead of just heading to the top of the garage). We did make it, but we sat down as the lights were flashing for the show to start.

Happily, Meredith continued the scantily-clad, morally corrupt theme of birthday theater (see post about Nine from last week) by bringing me to see Chicago, the musical based on an adulterous woman murdering her lover. I know it has adultery and murder, but it really is a great musical. It has lots of funny moments and the music is great and the orchestra is right on stage to see and the dancing is jaw-dropping. It is just a good time.

The theater was absolutely packed – keep in mind this was a 2:00 matinee on a Saturday. We were toward the back of the main level, on the left-hand side. Mer apologized for the seats (which she bought before Christmas), but I thought they were pretty good. I could see and hear everything just fine.

Chicago was just flat-out great. I’m not sure how it could have been done better. The orchestra was “on” and it was fun getting to see them, especially the brass section, which was lively. The conductor got to interact with the cast on several occasions, which was funny.

The singing was excellent. The leads had lots of power and clarity, and the chorus blended well. The lead actress was cheek-pinchingly cute. Yes, she was a murderer and an adulteress, but a very coochy-coo murderer and adulteress. The lead man was a now-25-years-older actor best known for playing Luke Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard. He did a nice job as a money-grubbing, sleazy attorney.

What absolutely blew me away in this musical was the dancing. I have not been to a big musical in years, and I had forgotten how beautifully the human body can move. Both the male and female dancers were incredibly graceful in their movements. They had full control of their bodies, right down to how they moved their hands and even fingers as they danced. It was just a joy to see them dancing.

After the show, we headed back to the car. We were on the fifth floor of the garage, which was the roof. We waited for about 5 minutes, and I saw that no cars on our level had moved, so I asked to go back inside to use the bathroom – I figured it beat sitting in the car for 15 minutes or more. We did, and on the way out we were looking around the theater complex when a man opened the front door to the small gallery there.

For years, I have been captivated by a sculpture in the gallery of a woman dancing while playing the fiddle. It just expresses joy to me. Meredith refers to it as my “other woman.” I had never gotten to see the work up close, and we just lucked out that the gallery was opening for the evening performance. We jumped at the chance to go in. The sculpture is fantastic, and I found the best viewing is from about 10 feet away. It is a wonderful piece. The small gallery had a good number of very interesting pieces, and a lot of back and white photos from the 40s. It was a great little art space.

We headed out after a little while, and after some digressions off the beaten path (Mer had misprinted the Mapquest directions, so she was guessing at some roads), we made it to a vary fine Italian restaurant in Solon, Jimmy Dadonna’s. It is a family-affair place, with big portions and really good “bread bites” that are not quite rolls, but really good. We ate quite well, and then Mer let me pick where to go for dessert. Cold Stone sounded good to me, but for some reason was really crowded when we got there. That encouraged us to look in their freezer, and we came away very quickly with a chocolate peanut butter pie. Yum. We went home and ate it while listening to the latest Wait Wait on the computer. It was a great way to celebrate my birthday.

My actual birthday was much fun as well. After church, I got to baking. I made four loaves of bread and a pizza. I had sort of invited myself over to the Churchills’ house to watch football, and they had graciously agreed. Mer was caught up enough on her work to be able to go with me, so we headed over to the house around 3:00. We dove right in to the bread, to the point where we did not bake the pizza until the second game. Londa had made four kinds of dessert – chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, chocolate peanut clusters, and brownies. I had so many cookies (about 15) that I never even got to the brownies. They were really great.

It was much fun getting to eat lots of food and to chat with Zach and Londa and to watch football. It was a pretty ideal way to spend a birthday. We got home late, and I had eaten way too much, but I did not think too much about it. Until the next morning, when I felt ill going in to work. I finally left work early at 1:00 and went home and went back to bed. I finally began to feel like myself again after supper later that night. Lesson probably not learned, but at least the opportunities to be that dumb don’t come along too often.

Happy birthday to me! It was a good one.

We had a three-day weekend this weekend because of Martin Luther King Day, AND it is Mer’s birthday today, so it seemed we should celebrate over the weekend. So, we jumped in the car Friday and drove the three-and-a-half-hour drive to Hillsdale, Michigan, to see our good friend Ellen.

We like to get away for mini-vacations. If we stay home, we tend to fill the hours with chores and errands. Ellen is much fun, and her house is not too far away, and I had many plans for Mer and for Ellen this weekend.

We got to Ellen’s about 8:30. One of Ellen’s friends, Heidi, was there, and had been there all week. She was leaving early the next morning to go back to Texas, but it made for a merry group. Ellen does not have any dull friends (yes, other than me, Shannon), and Heidi had a great sense of humor. One of my early plans for Mer’s birthday weekend was to take her to a restaurant near Ellen’s called Marcella’s. Ellen asked around and the opinion of the place was mixed, but the ice cream was held in very good regard. So, at about 8:31, I suggested we go out for ice cream. Everyone laughed, and we brought our stuff in and settled in to Ellen’s very pretty living room. At about 8:45, I mentioned how good ice cream would be. A story reminded me to speak up about ice cream around 9:00. 9:15 passed, and people seemed to have forgotten about ice cream, so I aired my view that the confection would be pretty good right about now. I think to shut me up, everyone agreed to go get ice cream.

Marcella’s was only about 15 minutes away, and as it was after 9:30 (the place closed at 10:00), we had the entire restaurant to ourselves. I liked the place. It had wooden floors and a high tin ceiling, and they were playing swing music and other tunes from the 30s and 40s. The overall experience was a bit mixed. The service was a bit slow for us, maybe because of the late hour. Meredith had to ask for a glass of water, and then the waitress only brought one glass, just for Mer. The ice cream was quite excellent, but Mer, Ellen, and I all ordered the same thing, and they came back 5 minutes later with two of them, explaining that they had run out of pecans, and had not made one for Ellen (we all had different flavors of ice cream). That can happen, but I was a tad miffed that they had not asked who would like to change their order (I would have, because I am not that picky with ice cream). Anyway, the atmosphere was great, the service so-so, the ice cream fantastic, and the conversation much fun. Not a bad jaunt out.

We went back to Ellen’s, and Mer opened her birthday gift from Ellen – a game called Bohnanza, where the object is to raise various kinds of beans and cash out the crop for as much money as you can. It sounds exciting, I know, but it turned out to be much fun. However, Mer was not feeling up for a new game (since it was now 10:30), and having three English nerds (and me) all in one room meant that we had to team up and play Dark and Stormy, a game about identifying books by their first line or first few lines. Mer teamed up with Heidi, and I teamed up with Ellen. After a hard-fought game, Ellen won (I mean, Ellen and I won). I actually did contribute 1 out of our 8 books we needed to win. Yay, team! After the game, we all retired and slept.

The next morning, Ellen took Heidi to a town about an hour away to catch the shuttle to the Detroit airport. Mer and I got to sleep in a bit, and we showered and got ready for the exciting birthday day by the time Ellen got back. Ellen, ever hospitable, made us breakfast, and then we broke out and played Bohnanza. It took a bit to figure out some of the basic strategies, but we eventually caught on. In the end, Ellen and Mer tied, and I did not.

We puttered around some, and then all got spiffed up for the big birthday outing. I like surprising people, so I escorted Mer and Ellen to the car and just headed off. About an hour and fifteen minutes later, we drove into downtown Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan. Turns out that Ann Arbor is a good-sized town, and the downtown is very happening. So happening that I had trouble finding a parking place. I circled around the block and was going to let the girls out in front of the restaurant so they could hold our reservation. I was waiting behind two cars at a red light, about a block from the restaurant, when my car lurched forward. We had been hit from behind – not super hard, but enough so that my fedora went flying into the back seat. The next day, Ellen’s back would hurt her a little, and my neck has been stiff yesterday and today, but at the time, everyone seemed just fine. I pulled over and got out and walked back to the car behind me. It was a young woman (20?) who was a crying, shaking, apologizing mess. I felt bad for her. The damage to our car was a scuff on the bumper (and today we found out the locking mechanism on the trunk needs to be treated with much more force than it used to to stay closed). The damage was nothing on a car with 180,000 miles on it, and I did not want to miss our dinner reservations, so I checked that the girl was okay, told her everything was fine, and got back in my car. Incidentally, the girl said she thought I was moving ahead. How that was supposed to happen at a red light with two cars in front of me, I’m not sure. Still, I am very thankful everyone was okay and the cars were fine.

I dropped the girls off at the restaurant – Gratzi. Gratzi is in an old converted theater, and must be fancy since they have paintings of naked people on the main wall which looked as if they were left over from the original theater. After I parked the car (which was easy once I turned left at the end of the block instead of right), I joined Mer and Ellen. I was very pleased – the atmosphere was elegant and the service was friendly, prompt, and very helpful. I’m pretty sure our waitress spoke Italian since she did not bat an eye when Mer ordered her dish using correct Italian pronunciation. If the waitress did not know Italian, she certainly knew the menu. We all had very excellent and very fresh dishes, and Mer got free cannoli for her birthday.

We were on a bit of a schedule, so we walked out to the car to go to the next destination. It was not too far – about 1-2 miles up the road, to the University of Michigan’s campus. Turns out that parking is not super easy there either, but we found a parking garage and found a space on the 5th (out of 6) floor. We walked across the street to a very crowded theater, only to discover it was the wrong one. They directed us to the correct theater a block further into campus.

I had wanted to take Mer and Ellen to see some theater, and I had two choices. The first was K2, a story about two men who were trying to survive on the mountain K2. The website warned of strong language, and the tickets were pretty expensive. I could have handled the expense, but it did not strike me that Mer would love having the F-bomb lobbed about all evening on her birthday. So, instead, I took her to the burlesque show.

Or near enough. We went to see the musical Nine. Nine is based loosely on
8-1/2, by the Italian film director Fellini. Nine takes place at a spa in Venice, where a director named Contini is trying to save his marriage, come up with a plot for his next film, and juggle at least one (and maybe two) mistresses. Reality starts to break down for Contini, and he starts seeing all the women in all of his life everywhere he goes. This goes all the way back to his first encounter with a worldly woman when he was nine (hence the title). Anyway, Contini does find a plot for his movie, where he plays himself as a kind of Casanova, but he loses everything else in the process.

It was an odd little play. I did not like most of the characters. The acting was excellent, but Contini was a self-involved adulterer. His mistress was married and looking for a divorce. Most of the women in his life were just there as sex objects, and dressed down for the part. I did like Contini’s wife and his mother – both strong and interesting women. Even though I did not like the characters, and much of the music was average (or even forgettable), I still found the play interesting. I was not riveted, and I do not need to see it again, but it somehow held my attention, which surprised me. Usually if I do not like the main characters, I have no interest in what happens to them. And Nine is not short – it came in at a full two-and-a-half hours.

The lead actors were strong, and had very good voices. The choreography was also well done, and the orchestra did a fine job. Some of the technical things were a bit off – there was some over-driving of speakers on some songs, but not too many. The staging was simple, but effective – three levels of marble blocks and pillars to suggest a spa.

So, Nine was okay. I’m not sure taking your wife to see a play with a dozen barely clothed women in it qualifies me for Husband of the Year, but Mer says she is glad she saw it, and had a similar reaction of being interested without being grabbed by the plot. Ellen was not overly impressed, but was still happy to have a night out on the town. I’m pleased that this gave us all a chance to scout out Ann Arbor, which looks very worthwhile, especially when the weather gets better (or when they put on a safer play!).

Sunday we all slept late, and then went to Ellen’s church. I wish I had taken pictures of the church – it is small, but beautiful inside. It is all wood and post-and-beam construction and very pleasing to the eye. The service is very formal and liturgical, and I did get a bit lost flipping around in books trying to figure out where we were. The music was simple (just organ and voices) and very pretty, and the homily (short sermon) was very solid, being on remaining in God’s will in the circumstances you are in, and not making God’s will all about you and your interests, but about what God wants.

After church we went back to Ellen’s, where we had some of my homemade bread (I set it to rising before church), followed by brownie sundaes and then long naps. After we all got up around five, Ellen made us a good supper of grilled turkey sandwiches and cheesy potatoes, and then we played Bohnanza again. Mer won, Ellen came in second, and I lost again. Oddly, I seemed to spend too much on getting the beans I wanted, while Ellen and Mer saved up for theirs. There is probably a lifestyle correlation in here somewhere.

Mer also graded quite a lot on Sunday, and I read my homework. We were going to see Ellen teach today, so I wanted to read what was going to be covered. So, I read the first four Cantos of the Hell part of the Divine Comedy. It surprised me – I found it quite interesting. I had to read it out loud (Mer was very patient with that) in order to understand it since the line breaks ran all over the place, but it really is quite interesting stuff. I then followed Hell up with the first three chapters of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Who says English majors can’t have a good time? I found the first chapter of The Jungle hard – it was in present tense and had lots of foreign names and words. The second and third chapters were much easier, but were starting to foreshadow the inhumane treatment of both the people and animals of the book. I was not sorry to put it down.

I also made myself useful in trying to help Ellen around the house. She had a screw loose on a light switch, so I thought I would fix it for her. Turns out the screw was too long for the socket. In the process of figuring that out, I managed to strip the other screw and had the screw driver slip and gouge Ellen’s fairly new paint job. I’m always glad to help where I can.

Today we did go in to Ellen’s school, the private Hillsdale Academy. The Academy is the K-12 school associated with Hillsdale College, noted for being one of two schools that will not take any government money (they do not want any government regulations). The Academy is fairly small, with about 20 students per grade. The building is a very nice red brick, and the inside is all carpeted. There are no bells – the teachers dismiss the students (more or less) when they are supposed to. It all makes for a very quiet school.

Ellen runs a very good and tight classroom. She lectures from the front of the class, with the students in a “U” around her. She lectures, but does ask the students a lot of questions – she even called on me in one class and Mer in another class! Ellen calls all of her students by their last names (Mr. or Miss So-and-so), and it gives the class a very formal feel. It works pretty well.

The discussions of the literature were much fun. I had forgotten how much I like analyzing great literature. I had strong, text-based opinions, and it was hard for me not to blurt out a bunch of my ideas during both of the classes I sat in on. Miss Condict would have reprimanded me, so I behaved myself. The students did pretty well, although the class discussing The Jungle was a bit subdued. Ellen thought it was because it was a Monday, and said they are usually livelier.

Ellen had an hour for lunch, so she took us to a sandwich place, where we had good food and talked more about the books and about teaching. I know it was nerdy to go to school on a day off, but I enjoyed it and I think it helped Mer out to see another classroom.

So, after the afternoon class, Mer and I took our leave from Ellen and headed home around 2:00 or so. We were home by 6:00, after stopping for supper on the road. I’m not sure this would have been a great birthday weekend for everyone, but it was a darn good one for Mer. Happy birthday, love!

Last Friday, Mer and I actually invited some friends to go out. We have not done that in a very long time because of financial constraints, but we had some money set aside for social purposes, so out we went!

Jerry and Linda are our friends, and they both work at CVCA, so there was always plenty to talk about. I would not tell them what I had in mind for the evening, but they were game souls about it. The roads were a bit sloppy (school had actually been canceled that day), so we stayed close to home for eating out – we went to Rockne’s, a restaurant that is a local chain, and it is only about 2 miles away. We had an excellent supper (I had a cheesesteak for the first time in years), but we did skip dessert because of time constraints.

We then headed the short distance up to Hudson, to (where else?) Actors’ Summit theater. Mer and I know not everyone is a theater nut, but Jerry is CVCA’s baseball coach, and the theater was doing Nobody Don’t Like Yogi, a one-man play based on Yogi Berra’s life.

The occasion for the play was Yogi’s coming back to manage the Yankees after having been gone for 14 years (after being fired by the owner). He was in the locker room, and talking out loud about a speech he had to give to the fans. From starting the speech and getting sidetracked, Yogi told us about his childhood, playing baseball, managing baseball, his wife and family, and more. He had lots of good “Yogisms” thrown in, which were very funny (Yogi was known for saying funny things in all seriousness, and coined “It ain’t over till it’s over”).

The actor playing Yogi did a magnificent job. We talked with the director and the actor after the play, and the script is 60 pages long, of just Yogi talking. Incredible. The actor played a range of emotions from joy to nostalgia to very real anger about being fired.

During the performance, when Yogi would mention a player or a stadium, a projected picture of what he was talking about was shown above the stage. It was very helpful to those of us who are not so familiar with baseball as real fans are.

Jerry and Linda seemed to enjoy the show very much, and since it was opening night, there were desserts after the show and a chance to talk to the director and actor. Both were very affable, and we learned quite a bit about the process of putting on a one-man show. Apparently, position on the stage helps you to remember where you are in the script.

Saturday, the socializing continued. It was Mer’s day, and we ran a few errands, and then our friends Zach and Londa came over and we all headed out to the Cheesecake Factory. Yum! The wait was quite long (75 minutes), even at 8:00, but we used the time to run over to the local non-Borders bookstore to browse for awhile. I lost myself in a book by an English comedian who toured all 50 states here in the U.S. I spent about 15 minutes reading his entry on Maine, which is where he started his tour. He was very favorable, describing Mainers as friendly and hard working.

We finally got our seats in the restaurant, and ordered. I got a breakfast sandwich – it was not too much, and I had a taste for it. It left me feeling less bloated than usual at the Cheesecake Factory, so I had room for my favorite dessert – the factory mudpie. The mudpie is a good-sized piece of chocolate cake with chocolate chips, ice cream, whipped cream, and hot fudge sauce. Wow, is it good.

Zach and Londa are very fun people, so we had a great time. Throw in good food, and the evening was just about perfect (it would have been perfect if the bookstore had been carrying C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, but sadly they did not have it in stock).

So, a good couple of evenings. The problem with the weekend is that it gets late so early.

You have probably noticed that 2009 is over and we have started 2010. I ran much of 2009, and kept track of my running using a Nike+ system hooked to my iPod. It kept track of distance and speed and calories. It did miss some runs – there were a few weeks when my old iPod was broken and I had not gotten the replacement yet. There were some runs during which the battery ran out or the Nike+ just froze. I had two races that were 39 miles just in themselves during which I did not wear my iPod. Still, the Nike+ system logged everything that I did record, and the 2009 results are:

905 miles for 102,000 calories with an average pace of 7:40 per mile.

102,000 calories is about 29 pounds burned off. Over the year, I lost about 10-15 pounds. It is a bit intimidating to think that I ate about 15 pounds worth of food that the running simply kept off, as opposed to actually losing it. If I did not run, I would be tipping the scales at over 190 pounds. I think I’ll keep running.

But not yet. I decided to take 7 weeks off from running in hopes that a nagging injury to my left knee will heal. So far, it has been four weeks since my last run on the treadmill, and I am aiming to try running again on February 1st, just one day shy of 7 weeks off. What a shame – I hate not running. Running is how I manage stress, control my weight, and generally feel good about myself. I also expect I will be in pretty lousy shape come February. After my marathon in late September, I got sick for three weeks, and it took about three weeks of running to get my lungs back to where they did not hurt when I ran. I can only imagine that taking 7 weeks off will be harder. Still, I’d like my knee to heal, and in a very un-Riordan like way, I’m trying to be patient AND sensible. Maybe 2010 will be the year I run 1000 miles, in only 11 months.

The second part of our vacation in Maine was even more mellow than the first part, believe it or not. Christmas day opened with my waking up early, and my convincing Mer that we should go to the breakwater to see the sunrise. It stuck me that it would be beautiful, and it probably was, somewhere. This particular day in Rockland, however, it was quite cloudy, so we did not really see a sunrise per se. Happily, it was much milder than the day I had tromped out on the breakwater earlier in the week. We finally gave up on seeing a sunrise (well after the sun was up), and we went back home. We munched and puttered, and we eventually got around to opening gifts (it is surprisingly hard to corral six adults used to their own disparate schedules). Later in the day there was continuing Skip-bo action, but that was about it for the day.

The next day (Saturday), we headed out around 10:00 am to head over to Dad’s in East Livermore. The drive is a little over 1.5 hours long, so we got to Dad’s a little before 12:00. We might have gone hungry, except Kellee is a great and prodigious cook. She had made three different kinds of whoopie pies in addition to a large Christmas dinner. Plus, I spent the afternoon making bread, which turned out well and disappeared quickly. So, the day was spent eating, watching some TV, and having Mer beat me at Dark and Stormy and Trivial Pursuit. Late in the evening, we watched an hour-long 1930s animated version of Gulliver’s Travels. Gulliver’s Travels is one of my all-time favorite books, but I was suspicious of the movie from the packaging. Words almost fail me at how bad it was – Gulliver only goes to Lilliput, and he does not appear until 25 minutes through an hour- long film. The first 25 minutes was a cooked-up story about two kingdoms having a marriage go bad. It included every stereotypical gag from 1930s animation – it creaked and groaned through a poor plot for what seemed a very long time. Yikes. After the film, we went to bed.

Sunday was spent reading and eating and using the computer and watching Mer grade papers. Monday we were social – we went all the way up to Jay (about 20 miles) to see my high school friend, John. John has been a good friend of mine for 25+ years. I had not seen John in about 5 years – his 8-year-old son is now 13, and he has a 4-year-old daughter who is very cute. John and his girlfriend Linda are friendly folks, and we spent a good amount of time chatting. John had also just gotten a Wii for Linda for Christmas, so we played The Price Is Right, through which I learned that I have no idea what things cost anymore. I still won both games because John “went over” in one game and in the other Mer was way under on prices. It was a good time. We had to cut the visit short because the roads were getting messy from snow, and Mer had to get home to grade. Back at Dad’s we watched a very interesting BBC series on nature with Dad and Kellee. We watched a show on the Arctic (focusing on bears), one on the Pacific salmon run, and one on wildebeest migration and the great cats that feed on them. The shows were beautifully done.

Tuesday’s highlights were twofold – my getting my butt kicked by Mer in Dark and Stormy, followed by seeing The Nightmare before Christmas. Neither of us had seen Nightmare before, and it had been lent to Mer by one of her students. It was excellent – original and entertaining, and the music was fun (in a twisted sort of way). My sister-in-law, Jo, loves the film, and I can see why.

Mer and I had originally planned on going home from Maine Friday-Saturday, but there was a very large storm forecast for the entire weekend. So, we made the decision to travel Wednesday-Thursday to stay ahead of the snow. But, to draw the vacation out a bit, we decided to go the scenic route. We went back to Rockland to see Gramps. I had bought him a new CD/tape player (his old one had broken), and I wanted to give it to him. I also had a gift certificate to The Boathouse, a Rockland restaurant, so we figured we would grab lunch there. Carleton’s great-grandsons were there, so Mer and I took on Carleton and Logan in a game of Skip-bo. Mer and I then went to lunch at The Boathouse. It is right on the water, and the front is all glass. It was breathtaking. The restaurant served mostly seafood (no surprise there), but I got a decent burger while Mer got some scallops. We dashed back to Rankin Street for one more game of Skip-bo (we split the two games), and then we headed south.

We were aiming for York, for a B and B on the coast. Along the way, we swung through Brunswick to stop by and see one of Mer’s college friends, Julie. Julie has twin four-year-old girls, whom we had not seen in 3 years – quite a change! Julie was just heading out to walk one of her dogs when we stopped by, so we left the girls in the care of Julie’s husband, Paul, and walked with her over to Bowdoin College. It was very cold, but it was cool to wander around the college. It is a pretty campus. After the 30-minute walk, we stopped by the house for another 20 minutes or so, but then had to go so that we could get a decent rest before the 12-hour drive on Thursday.

We got to the B and B in York about 7:30 and checked in. It is a pretty B and B, and is called The York Harbor Inn. It looked as if it had 30-40 rooms, all told. Our room had cool slanty ceilings, but I did crack my head on them a few times. We went to the restaurant to get something to eat, and we were disappointed that it took about 40 minutes to get our food, even though the place was not busy. We headed back up to the room and went to sleep, but I woke up in the wee hours to the heater in the room making noise. I turned it off, but it took me about 2 hours to fall back asleep. So much for a good night’s rest. In the morning, the heater no longer would throw out heat, which was too bad. We were on the third floor (where heat rises to), so we were not too cold, but it was a little frustrating. After a good continental breakfast, we checked out and were on the road about 9:00.

We did manage to avoid the big storm coming to Maine, but we did hit a smaller storm for much of the western half of Massachusetts. We were always able to go at least 35 mph, but it did slow us down quite a bit, and I was not sad to drive out of it once we reached New York. We drove back into another storm a few hours later, but by then it had changed to rain. We were very lucky. We stopped outside of Buffalo to grab supper at Denny’s (not a happening stop on New Year’s Eve at 6:00), and then made it safely home around 10:00. We could have gone to one of two New Year’s Eve parties, but we were pretty wiped. Mer rang in the new year while reading next to my sleeping form.

We spent the last three days of vacation at home catching up on life. It was not a bad way to transition back out of vacation and back into school.