A Surprisingly Good Weekend

[shannon_a]

Why a surprise? Because Kimberly and I were talking about whether we need to put Cobweb to sleep just before the weekend opened.

The biggest problem has been her regularly peeing outside of the litter box. What I hadn't realized was that Kimberly was interpreting that as Cobweb doing very badly internally, which I'm not certain is the case. However, I must acknowledge that she's also largely stopped purring in the last month or two. On the other hand, she doesn't seem to be hiding. After some back and forth, we eventually decided to do what one of Kimberly's friends suggested, which was to talk to our vet and see if she might be able to offer any pointers as to how our cat might be doing.

While I love Cobweb dearly, I do not want to keep her around if she's at a point where she's not happy living. I actually have a lot of trouble ever accepting death as a better state than life, but in the case of an animal largely driven by instincts and not intelligent enough to understand why she might be sick, I can kinda see why that animal might prefer to not be around. So, I want to do my best to keep Cobweb around if she wants to be, but not just because we want her to be. It's just tough to figure that out.

Hopefully Kimberly's talk with our vet tomorrow will help.

Anyway, on to the nice part of the weekend.

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Yesterday, my normal RPG group got canceled and so I decided to do something that I do just once or twice a year: I went to Endgame's monthly last-Saturday boardgame day.

Also unusually, I took BART due to rain. I can't remember the last time I did that, but I'd gotten plenty soaked already in March. It was a nice change of pace, and it allowed me to drag along an entire suit case full of games for the upcoming auction (part of my multi-pronged clean-the-house plan, now underway).

I got to play two longer games while there, the new Lords of Waterdeep (a great D&D/euro, which has gone on my must-buy list, though I have some qualms over the valuation of the quests) and the older western Homesteaders (which I'd brought). I don't think I won a damned thing, but I quite enjoyed the games and the chance to game with some different folks than I usually do (Josh, Brad, a different Eric). 

I stayed about four hours and headed out around 4pm, which still gave me plenty of day left. When I got home I went out and biked about 3 miles (as the sun had come out and the day was nicer if not glorious) and then had a restful evening of Chuck,Once Upon a Time and plenty of reading (Captain Britain Volume 1, A Game of Throne [for the third time or so], Stephen King's 11/22/63).

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Which brings us to today and our noon tickets to see The Pirates of Penzanze at the Berkeley Playhouse. I think it was my first Gilbert & Sullivan and I found it generally enjoyable, if at times puzzling.

The puzzling mainly came from the fact that there's plenty of satire in this work, and that doesn't always survive the test of time. I also found the music not as easy to understand as in most musicals, I suspect because of the operatic elements.

The directing was absolutely wonderful. I especially loved the rock-and-roll sensibilities brought to the show which gave it a great energy. The pirates themes in particular were heavy metal, which made "I am a Pirate King" in the first act the best song in the entire production. Lots of thumping and guitar riffs -- totally awesome. (Though the heavy rock & roll was part of what made the music hard to follow at times because it sometimes ended up louder than the voices).

As always, there were lots of good actors in the play too, especially the Frederic (who was quite funny) and the Mabel (who was a great singer with a stunning range).

Overall, another fun musical at the Berkeley Playhouse, though Seussical remains my favorite.

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Let's see, what else did I miss? How about a picnic lunch of Subway sandwiches before the play. It was a bit chilly, with the wind up, but we got to watch dogs having lots of fun.

We also watched the last three episodes of Chuck season 3 over the last two days. It was another great series finale. One of the things that particularly impresses me about the show is how they ended each season (so far, for us) with real growth and change for the main characters, and then didn't walk any of those changes back in later seasons. Seeing what appears to be a whole new MO opening up for Chuck reminds me of the whiplash changes that that-other-spy show, Alias underwent. Alias was never graceful at all while Chuck has been three years (so far, for us) of believable, graceful, and elegant evolution.

And now it's back to the various clean-ups ongoing (games for the auction, old books for eBay) and probably to A Game of Thrones (with Chuck season 3 done, season 1 of the HBO series is next on our list, so I'll get a double-dose very soon!).

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to your Lords of Waterdeep review. Looks like a nice meld of Euro mechanics with a silly D&D theme...