We went to see a play Friday night – the second in the season for the local theater company from which we purchased season tickets. The first play was Chess, which we really enjoyed. This one, however, was a different story. They did Oliver. Or perhaps I should say, they *tried* to do Oliver. My dad, with his musical background, was wincing at the fact that not only was the violin accompanist horribly off beat and all over the score, but they hadn’t even bothered to tune the piano – and it was obvious. I started to cringe as soon as the little boy playing the main character started to sing, and it didn’t get much better. Richard summed it up rather nicely afterwards. “Self direction and self-choreography usually doesn’t work”.

The good thing, I suppose, is that at the very least, a bad play certainly gives you something to talk about. We headed out to dinner afterwards with my parents (since they’ve got tickets for seats right next to us), where we alternated between joking about how truly bad that production really was, rolling our eyes at the current state of the election, and breaking into helpless giggles about a certain Snickers commercial that’s been running these past few weeks.

We went to a Bed and Breakfast this weekend down in Monterey – a trip that was eagerly anticipated, and proved to be definitely worth the wait. The inn was more beautiful than the pictures gave credit, and we both desperately needed the chance to relax and just spend some time with each other, whether in companionable silence while reading beside the open windows, strolling through Cannery Row hand in hand, or chatting with a tableful of strangers at breakfast. We fell asleep to the sound of seals barking, and woke up to a beautiful clear, sunny day. On the way back home, we stopped off at Richard’s parents’ place so that they could see Spiff (and experience the Seatbelts of Doom in the backseat). It was a weekend of fun and relaxation, and a chance to learn some new things:

• Richard and his father will try anything if you dip it in BBQ sauce and then dare them (cinnamon rolls and pecan pie, for example).
• Artichoke plants look sort of like ferns, and brussel sprouts don’t.
• There are people out there who will eat deep-fried artichokes. I am basing this on the fact that we saw several signs advertising them at little produce stands along the way.
• Feather beds are much more comfortable than I’d expected.
• They ran out of imagination when naming the cities on Highway 1, shortly before Monterey. We passed through Seaside, Seascape, and Marina, for example.
• We can live for two days without access to our computers, but that’s the first thing we headed for when we got home.
• If the Charlie’s Angels movie was accurately based on the TV show (which I never did see), then the TV show was incredibly stupid. The movie was wonderful – delightfully campy and fun – but the I shudder to think of how inane that TV show must really have been.

And lastly, and most important, for anyone who has seen that particular Snickers commercial mentioned above, all you have to do to incite hysterical giggles is to put some small object on their shoulder, and then in a cartoony sort of voice, babble out “I invented pants!”