For All He Knows Hamlet Gets The Girl And Godot Shows Up!

That's how one character in the MSU Summer Theatre production of The Nerd refers to another character's profession of a drama critic. Because he writes for the early edition on a local newspaper, he has to leave an evening show thirty minutes before the show ends to write his review – and for the non-thespians among you, Hamlet and Waiting for Godot are the two plays referenced in the title today. Anyway, The Nerd was mine and Martha's show for our “dinner and a show” date on Saturday celebrating our anniversary! Although our actual tenth wedding anniversary is this coming Friday the twelfth, we'll both be working that day so lunch/dinner (trust me, Primo's was quite filling, she had the six ounce sirloin and I had a six ounce chicken with vegetables with an appetizer of the biggest garlic bread I've ever seen!) was at Minot's Grand Hotel, and well worth it!

Let's see now … yesterday was just me with my in laws Robert and Sharon at church for our family because everybody who'd gone to the lake to celebrate Martha's uncle Roger's retirement – he started and has operated a bar in Bismarck/Mandan for decades, and now one of his sons runs it – was so tired (ESPECIALLY the kids; our Sarah and Jeffrey, and Breanna and Josceline who are now living with Robert and Sharon), and I was asked to read as I often am, everything but the Gospel lessons which are the pastor's task. And I only had two readings that morning, the Old Testament reading from Isaiah and the Psalm we read responsively. The New Testament reading for yesterday dealt with circumcision (it was Galatians 6:7-16) and it would take another sermon to deal with that. I think Pastor Janet chose the better course, expounding from Luke 10 where Jesus sends the seventy disciples out two by two.

That afternoon I walked with the kids (actually, they rode their bikes while I walked) to Main Street Books where we got to read a few books – Sarah's getting great at finding Waldo! – and played some games of checkers on a homemade cloth covering a glass table there. Jeffrey beat me, and Sarah gave me a good run for my money! The way Jeffrey kept saying “chess” and “checkmate” (chess terms) when he made a jump, I may want to renew his acquaintance with the game. We have a glass game set we got as a wedding present ten years ago good for checkers, chess, and backgammon. And I may have the only first grader this fall in our area who can play 'em! Jeffrey's ambitious enough, I assure you … and so is Sarah in her own right. This morning I was especially tested on it when the kids were getting ready for me to bring them to Grandma's and chose that moment. To fight. Over crayons.

 

Over this Fourth of July weekend (when you couldn't actually shoot fireworks off within the city limits, though the kids and I saw some behind our house as well as over the treetops anyway) Martha spent a good deal of relaxation time – for her, anyway – clipping the points off Campbell's Soup labels that your school redeems for cash. She volunteered to do this for Longfellow Elementary's PTA, so I can't begrudge her that and I've helped as much as she'll let me (seriously) and that day the four of us went to the matinee showing of Monsters University, the movie that shows how Mike and Sully first met in college and … this was a good movie, but not a great one. And as it seems Pixar is hitting middle-age with its recent slate of offerings, I think we'll wait for the DVDs more often or the happenstance appearance of a movie on TV. Ticket prices climbing and climbing …

I would say that Pierre Boulle's original novel Planet of the Apes (ISBN 0345447980, first appeared in 1963) is better than the movie as nearly 98% of books to film are, but that would be a stretch. One, the novel itself is a little more cerebral, with the main character being a journalist accompanying this expedition and not an astronaut, and by proving he is intelligent integrates himself into ape society … as well as an intelligent specimen can, for humans in that world are little more than savages. Throws the nature vs. nurture argument into a cocked hat, but you'll recognize many of the characters and this twist ending makes the action-fest this novel turns out to be (I'd almost say evolves into) well worth a read. And then there's a twist on THAT …

So now I'm dizzy writing this, but Martha still loves her truffles!

 

Have an awesome day, David