On Friday, Mer and I headed down to Canton to see Aunt Mary. It was a low-key evening, but that is a good thing oftentimes. We got Chinese take-out, which was very good, and then we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! on TV while I puttered on Aunt Mary’s laptop to see if I could fix some minor issues she was having. Good company, good food, and the bonus of being useful make for a good time.

Saturday morning was noteworthy in a couple of ways – I set a personal record, and Mer participated in her first 5k race. CVCA was hosting a 5k race called the “Run4Perry,” which was the first annual race to honor Perry Carroscia, a CVCA parent and active member of his church. Perry passed away unexpectedly last year, and the race was designed as a fundraiser, with part of the funds going to the family to help with college costs, and with part of the money going to a scholarship for CVCA. It was a good cause, and was in my backyard (indeed, the course ran though my neighborhood, giving me a true “home field” advantage), so it was a perfect race to run.

Mer had been asked to walk the race by a CVCA administrative colleague, and Mer decided to give it a try. She was shorter than the two women (the administrator and a staff member of CVCA) with whom she walked, but she was also a decade younger, so she hoped that would even things out. She said she was winded a few times, but she finished in 45:45, which is over 4 mph, which is amazing for a walk.

I had a really great race, helped out some by my familiarity with the course. I ended up running a personal-best 19:24, which made me tenth overall (out of 236 finishers), and I won my age bracket (forty to forty-nine years old). The weather was perfect for running, and the after-race party was very well organized. I won a small medal and a Bible for winning my age bracket; I went home very happy (and full from the excellent food). I was very pleased for Mer as well – she did quite well, especially for her first 5k.

In the evening, based on my fortunate discovery on the internet, I took Mer to Cleveland, to Playhouse Square, to see the musical Once. We were in the ten-dollar nosebleed seats, but since the main attraction of Once is the music, that worked out fine.

Once is the story of a discouraged Irish musician who meets up with a Czech woman who encourages him to make an album, on which she plays piano and sings with him. The play features lots of original music that is very good, and the chemistry between the Irish musician and the Czech woman was obvious even from the back seats. The play is not deep – it is about the music – but it does have some thought-provoking moments, and it does not end in any typical Hollywood fashion. That was a pleasant surprise.

The set was like the inside of a pub, dominated by a giant curved bar across the back of the stage. All the other spaces needed in the play were created using lighting; if they needed a bedroom, they would light a square on the stage and put some chairs in it. It worked very well.

One very interesting thing Mer and I had never seen: the show used super-titles a few times. Usually, super-titles are projected to translate a foreign language into English. In this production, when the Czech characters were speaking Czech, they would speak in English with accents, and the super-titles read in Czech to let us know the characters were speaking in Czech. It was also very effective.

I loved the play – the music alone was worth going to hear, and the ten-dollar tickets were an amazing bargain. Mer enjoyed the evening as well, and it was a good evening out on the town. It is still fun, even six years after moving closer to Cleveland, to skip up to Cleveland almost on a whim.