News of the (whoops! past two) Week(s)

We were all set last weekend to spend a night at the sand dunes in west Juab County, but reports of freezing nights scared us off, despite John pish-poshing our pampered city-ness. So instead we met up in SLC for the afternoon before Chris' All-State Choir concert at the tabernacle. Rob, Betsy, Ethan, and Amy came with us to Temple Square and surrounds to look at the flowers and the new construction at City Creek. In the end the flowers were a bit scanty, having just been pulled up for the spring bulbs to be set (I presume), but the visit was still fun.

We spent some time in the two visitors' centers. When Betsy asked Ethan who this person was, he shouted, "JeeJee!"

John was very civilized and appropriate...

..until the urge for a nap overwhelmed him...

...below, in the most public spot in Salt Lake. "Would you lie down on the steps of St. Peter's Cathedral in the Vatican?" I said to him. "Or on the floor of the Taj Mahal? This is just the same." He is shameless.

It was fun to spend time with the kids.

I think maybe my pretty new blue and teal scarf was not quite as cool as I thought it was. No, the scarf is OK, it was the rest of me. Sigh.

Betsy, Ethan, and Snoopy. Snoopy has his own sign. Ethan talks and talks, orally and with his hands (ASL). Maybe we'll learn sign as he does.

Ethan and Auntie Amy:

Rob at one of the new fountains next to Deseret Book at the new City Creek development. While there we saw John's new book (one of a collection of essays on Fathers).

Betsy, Amy, Rob, and Ethan skipped out on the concert, but that was OK because we got to sit by Liz and Alan
and Tana and J.Lynn. In fact we ate dinner before the concert at the nearby JBs with Tana, J.Lynn, and Shane, who was also singing.

They wouldn't let us take photos during the concert, so this one was taken beforehand, and about a third of the choir is missing. J.Lynn took pictures and video during the afternoon practice session, however. Here is a video of part of one of their songs. Pretty impressive!

J.Lynn took this photo of Chris. Liz and Alan's Frost is bottom right.

We did our writing group the next day at Charlotte England's cabin. I took my camera but forgot to take photos. We have been participating in the writing group for twenty years now.

This week was my first chance to swim since surgery (since a long while before that, actually. A side effect of endometrial cancer is that you're not so comfortable swimming). Anyway, it was great! I don't know why the pool is so underused in the evening, but there have only been four or five other people in the pool whenever we've gone. I think it has helped get me off my metabolic plateau. I've now lost 41 lbs. Even though my blood sugar is still above normal, it's much better than it was right after surgery. We'll see how it progresses. My blood pressure is usually between 110-125/70-80. I went to visit mom and dad at the farm on Friday and all we talked about was medical stuff. I am now officially Old.

Several of us, including Sergene, went to see RED on Saturday. Extremely silly. I've still got a crush on Bruce Willis though. Then John, Sergene, and I went to see The Magic Flute at BYU. Here for your listening pleasure, is the Queen of the Night.

Shakespeare in Cedar City

We took a little one-night/two-day trip to Cedar City and saw Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and Pride and Prejudice. Janet was the one who arranged it, leaving John P in Moab and driving over with her giant placid dogs, Lily and Sheba. We stayed in the usual Quality Inn. "Quality!" said Grandma Gene. "They advertised and told us it was one king and two queens!" but it was one queen and two regular sized beds. We (including Grandma Gene) went swimming twice. We saw plays in all three theaters. Our favorite was Macbeth in the Adams Theater, very spooky, bloody, and dramatic. And short. And what woman couldn't appreciate Lady Macbeth and the Weird Sisters as expressions of her own darker side. And the perils of counting on prophecies to plan one's life. I had forgotten (or I was struck again anyway) by the prophecies borrowed by Tolkien for LOTR--the moving trees and "shall not be harmed by man of woman born."

It was great to see Janet. We promised to come visit them in Vermont in October.
We're planning to make our short trip to Costa Rica next week. I haven't had time to think about it, but John and Nicolle are going to talk about and work on the possibility of another wilderness writing Study Abroad program there. That would be fun!

Esplin Reunion

Above is a photo by Cindy (or maybe by Jody) of everybody but us, as we went home Saturday night and then out to Sam's farewell Sunday morning. But we had fun while we were there. It was great to meet Grant's wife Wendy and her three--Gage, Abbie, and Remy.

Friday night we all went to the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti. The Sanpete Turkey Dinner was great!

Quite a lot of the guys took a nap before the show began:

Shakespeare in Cedar City

John and I went down to the Shakespeare Festival with Chris and Grandma Gene. Our friends Bruce and Donna went too (Donna lived with J, C, and me during our UK 2007 trip). We saw a really great production of Cyrano de Bergerac in the Adams Theater, and an OK Two Gentlemen of Verona in the auditorium the next day. Chris said Two Gentlemen is like a sit com, which it is--one of Shakespeare's earlier works and not his best. The dog Crab is cute though.

Hit and Miss at the Theatre

So I admit it, we went to a new musical in the West End called Zorro! (don't forget the exclamation point). It was groaningly awful at the beginning, and I seriously thought about not coming back after the interval, but Time Out said it was good, and we paid a ton of money even at the half-price ticket booth, and the theatre was full, and other people were enjoying it, so we stayed.

Theatre is so interesting. Here is a production created, one senses, by committee--hey, what about all these comic books to TV shows to movies, let's get in on that--something Hispanic, with salsa--and dancing! Like Stomp or Riverdance, but with Latin rhythms--oh yeah, we'll have to hire a writer--maybe a group of writers--no, the script is too long, we have to cut characterization and dialogue to allow more time for the music-- anyway, you get the picture, it was really an unintegrated mess. But, energetic acting, dancing, singing, good staging, goes a long way even with something that hasn't come together yet, and I think if they keep tweaking it, it might be a reliable hit. You heard it first here. On the other hand, it might fold in three weeks.

And the Zorro character reminded me irresistably (or inexorably, or something) of Jack Black, which I couldn't decide helped or hurt.