On Thursday, we got a chance to go out with Zach and Londa. They took us up to Cleveland, first to go to supper at Piada. Piada is a fast food Italian place that is made-to-order Italian food along the lines of Subway for sandwiches or Chipotle for Mexican food. It was really good, and both Mer and I were pleased to be introduced to a new restaurant.
After supper, we headed over to Cain Park, which is a public park on the west side of Cleveland. The park has two amphitheaters for various performances, and we went to the bigger one; we were there to see the dance company Inlet Dance. Inlet Dance was started by a man who used to go to Zach and Londa’s church, and they had seen several performances by the group and thought we would like them. They were right. We saw several smaller groups perform, and all were excellent. They even had the entire group dance a fully improvised dance to the audience suggestion “escape from the zoo.” It was hard to know where to look on that one, there were so many impressive dancers on stage at once.
Normally, when I see dance, I am impressed by the women because they are beautiful and graceful, and that was true with Inlet; however, on this night I was blown away by the men. There were two pieces danced by a trio of men and a pair of men, and both were jaw-dropping for the controlled power. I actually gasped a couple of times at the strength displayed, and it was all done slowly and with grace. Amazing.
We headed right home after the show, which is not normal for us – we love dessert, and usually go out for some after an evening out. Zach and Londa tried to take us to a tavern that had wonderful chocolate beet cake (really – they swore by it), but sadly, the tavern had gone out of business. We could have stopped at the Cheesecake Factory, since we went right by it, but I felt we had to get home to give some medication to our recovering sick kitty. I’m sure the lack of calories did not hurt me at all.
Friday, after school, Mer wanted to go see Oliver Twist, the CVCA youth drama camp musical production for this summer. The play is only performed once, and is the result of just two-and-a-half weeks of rehearsal. It is for ages of about five to about twelve, and they did a creditable job. There were no major gaffes of lines, and the musical numbers often had as many as twenty-five kids on stage at once, and they did well. Mer and I knew three of the children in the production, as they are the kids of colleagues, so that was fun. Also, the camp counselors are made up of recently graduated CVCA drama students, and it was good to see them.
After the show, Mer and I chatted with some of the folks we ran into. One was Skyler, a student who just graduated. Skyler had seen a recent Facebook post of mine talking about games, and he suggested a game night. I told him I thought that was a great idea, and told him to organize it, which he said he would. We agreed on getting together on Monday. So, a social evening out led to a social evening in.