Swingin’ Friday

End of a busy work week? Tired? Ha! All the more reason to go out! Last night after we got home, Mer and I trundled across the Valley (there is NO good way to get to west Akron from our house) to go to the Mustard Seed Market. Not only did we want a decent dinner that was all-natural and that we did not have to cook, but the musical entertainment of the evening was a woman singing songs of the 30’s and 40’s.

We had about a 20 minute wait for a table, but since the music was already flowing, it was just fine to wait. The woman singing had a good voice and she had a nice stage persona. She was backed by a keyboards player (whose keyboard did a mean imitation of an upright bass) and a drum player. The music of the 30’s and 40’s is infectious – lots of jazz and swing rhythms, and fun lyrics that sometimes hint at racy without being tasteless. I literally spent the entire hour-plus swaying back and forth in my chair (Mer and I have a theory that most untrained white people can dance from the waist-up only, so we need to be seated to have any chance at all). The music made me smile – it was wonderful.

The Mustard Seed did alright by us on the food front as well. I got a pretty good shake and a burger (that was a tad over-done, so I need to get medium-well next time) and Mer got a really good looking pasta primavera with broccoli, red peppers, and cauliflower (bleh). We picked up a package of chocolate chip cookies on the way out for dessert, so it was a highly successful evening.

In the on-going birthday irony, this was the sonnet I read to Meredith on the eve of my birthday (it was the next one in line) – Sonnet 65:

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

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