Meredith got back home from Romania last Tuesday around 8:00 pm after almost 24 hours of traveling. I met her at the airport in Cleveland, and it was a very happy reunion. Mer got off the plane as efficiently as she could so that she could see me, and then as an added bonus, her luggage came out as the third bag on the conveyor, so we were out of the airport pretty quickly. Since Mer was pretty tired, I did not take her out anywhere, but we went home and went to bed right away, where Mer slept for about twelve hours.

Mer was all recovered by Wednesday evening, so I took her out for supper at Aladdin’s, where one of Mer’s favorite former students is a waitress. They had a good time catching up. We sat inside because I had thought it too hot out, and I was glad for that as it started to rain pretty heavily by the end of our meal. Happily, there were enough inside tables to accommodate the outside diners. After supper, we headed down to Clarice’s place, where we met up with Matt and Clarice and Josh and Kristen for a game night. We played a word game where you had to be the last to say a word inspired by a card (like “cars”). I came in last. We then played Celebrity Taboo (celebrity in this case simply meant famous people as opposed to just Hollywood people). Mer and I won, and we are finally at the age where we have an advantage over people in their twenties. We knew a lot of people from the 70s and 80s that our friends were vague on. I broke up the party a little after nine because I had to work Thursday.

Thursday we had a date – we went to Akron’s best mansion, Stan Hywet, to see the Ohio Shakespeare Festival’s production of Taming of the Shrew. The plays happen outside, in an old quarry that has long since been converted into a pond and garden. It is really quite beautiful. The sets for the plays are always simple – this year was a stage in front of a two-story house that was decorated to look Italian and of an older and fancier style. The festival always starts the evening with “the green show” – a 20-minute review of dancing and music and swordplay and the like. It is fun to see, and it gives the actors who have minor roles in the play a chance to show off their skills. This year we had a special treat – one of Mer’s former students was an actress in the production, and had some very good stage time in swordplay during the green show. It was very cool to see someone we knew on stage at a professional production.

Shrew itself was excellent. The actors threw in a lot of body language and large gestures to add to the comedy of the night. This production also added the rarely performed prologue to the play, where a nobleman finds a drunkard and decides to take him home and convince him that he (the drunkard) is a lord who has been mad for years. As part of the cure for madness, some actors then put on a play, which is Taming of the Shrew. Most productions skip all of that, and just do the play of Shrew, but it was fun to see the additional material.

The actors were quite strong, but the best were the leads. Katherine (the shrew) was very good as a fiery not-to-be-tamed spirit. She had lots of anger in her speeches. The man playing Petrucchio (the man who sets out to “tame” Kate) really shone. He spoke the speech trippingly, which is to say he spoke all the lines very naturally, and his physical humor was excellent.

At intermission, it began to rain lightly. This was the first production (of at least five or six that we have been to) where we were caught in the rain. The show continued on, and most people stayed. It did begin to rain harder, and finally lightning rolled in, so they had to stop the play with about 20 minutes left to go. It was a shame, because the production really was entertaining. The director offered to give free tickets to another performance of Shrew or the upcoming production of King Lear to anyone who was still there, which was very kind of him since refunds usually are not given if the play gets to intermission. Despite the rain, we were very happy we were able to see (most of) the production.

Friday, we had the last of the CVCA graduation parties, for one of Mer’s students. We were there for about an hour total, and got to talk with some students of whom we are very fond. Most people spent most of the time inside because it was very hot outside, so we did not get in any cornhole this time (although they had a set outside ready to go).

We went to video store to rent Valentine’s Day. Mer had seen all but the last twenty minutes or so on the plane trip home, and she wanted to finish it. It was a mellow activity, so I was game. It was an okay movie – I did not relate to most of the characters, but it did have some twists at the end of the movie that I had not seen coming. And I got to watch the movie with my own Valentine, so that was well indeed.