Too Much

Random thoughts here since it's been several days since I last posted.

The Great Hamentaschen Project rapidly expanded on Saturday morning. The boys and I made over 7 dozen cookies: poppyseed, prune, apricot, cherry, Nutella and lingonberry. They are almost all gone 3 days later! WineGuy's fave is the poppy, so he's eaten a bunch of those; he also took some into the office. The prune and apricot came out delicious. The cherry was forgettable: Solo's cherry filling is goopy. Next year, I'll try some cherry filling with more fruit in it. The Nutella baked up into a chocolate, hazelnut wonder. They were unbelievably good. The surprise this year were the lingonberry hamentaschen. Now, I know those of you of Swedish heritage are probably scratching your heads in confusion, but these berries (in a jar) were the perfect sweet amd tart combination to make the hamentaschen sing. Oh, and apparently the kugel was the hit of the synagogue's kiddush Saturday morning.

It was a weekend packed with diverse culture. I took the boys to see "The Lion King" musical at a local auditorium. The costumes and sets were amazing. The songs were forgettable, except for the few favorites from the movie – Circle of Life, I Just Can't Wait To Be King, Hakuna Matata, Can You Feel The Love Tonight. The actors and dancers were completely engaged with the audience . . . we had aisle seats in center orchestra and were captivated by the puppets and the actors' faces. The acoustics in this auditorium suck. Truly suck. The epitome of all suckiness: if anyone at Barbara B. Mann Hall in Fort Myers ever reads this blog, here is my advice. Hire professional sound engineers to completely gut and re-do that auditorium or blow the damn thing up. The seats and décor are dated, and the acoustical engineering must have been done by a trade-school dropout. But otherwise, the performance was magical, and the boys loved it. They sat and behaved like perfect gentlemen.

Our other weekend outing was a Spring Training baseball game: Boston Red Sox v. Minnesota Twins. Red Sox tix are impossible to get at their small, broken-down home stadium, so we usually opt for whatever we can see at the Twins stadium, which is new and beautiful. I was really hoping to see Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch that day, but he was off. The skies were overcast, the day was breezy. It was America's pastime at its finest.

More later ... off to chorale.