As I wrote on Friday, it was a pretty busy weekend... one of those where you seem to need a weekend to recover from it... so I guess it only makes sense if I tell you all about it (whether you like it or not).
Friday
... it was off to see Valerie Harper starring in the one-woman play Golda's Balcony. I figured it would be pretty good and it was all that and more. With season tickets we often see quite a few clunkers, but this was most certainly a nice case of where we saw a really good show that we probably would not have seen if it wasn't part of season ticket package. As with most one-person shows, I am constantly impressed how the heck these folks memorize the material.
From the minute Valerie (I guess I should add... playing Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir) took the stage and opened her mouth, she rarely took a breath for the next 95 minutes (no intermission!) -- and she voiced 30+ other characters! Truly amazing... a tour de force, I would say. The show was compelling, sad, funny, and educational... I couldn't even begin to create a list out things that I never knew about Israel and Meir (and I consider myself to be a fairly educated person!).
And it was a thrill to see "TV's Rhoda"... even thru the heavy make-up and a prosthetic nose, you still had the essence of Rhoda Morgenstern in there. Harper's encores were a bit odd... she came back twice, but left the stage for maybe 2 seconds before running back to the stage. Seems like it would have been a better strategy to at least "counted to 10" before returning... I think she missed that thunderous wave of applause by returning so soon.
Saturday
... was our first Diamondbacks game of the season. We have new seats this season and while we had our doubts about "upgrade" ... they are really quite good (pretty much right off home plate on the first base line... row 30). Alas, the actual baseball game was not much to talk about ... the hometeam got shellacked by the Houston Astros 10-0... yikes!
Unfortunately someone tipped off Brad Ausmus, the scrumptious Astros catcher and latest object of my lust affection... he played on Friday and Sunday, but not our game. That was really not fair... and we even missed the equally do-able Andy Pettitte by one day. But enough of this catcher and pitcher talk... instead, I drowned my sorrow a brand new food option at the ballpark this season... Cold Stone Creamery... yum!
Sunday
... was time to head down to Tucson and return Lucy the pug to Todd's parents... and this served as Toby's first major road trip (probably his previous longest car ride was 15-20 minutes). He was pretty whiny for a good part of the trip, but settled down after some time on I-10, but then got a little more agitated back on the local roads. He really did a good job at Todd's parent's house... but I think part of that was just that he was in unfamiliar territory and that he was pretty wiped out from the car trip (and hosting Lucy for a little over a week)!
Needless to say, it was pretty strange when we got back... with the exception of the first 10 weeks or so, for 4+ years we were a two dog house... heck, now that I think of it the 3 pets that we moved into this house with are now all gone... but anyhow, it was very weird to be down a dog... which arguably is a much bigger presence in the house than a cat. We definitely had our twinges of sadness throughout the evening and certainly this morning...
Toby, who views eating a doggie meal as some form of competition and/or endurance challenge, was without an "opponent" for the first time this morning. He eventually mosied on over and finished his breakfast... 25 minutes after it was served! He's been pretty much crashed out this morning... so I'll try not to read any "human emotion" into that... but I know it is now absolutely essential that I get him out for walks... he certainly won't be running around on his own... and I am guessing the cats are not going to be helpful filling the exercise gap either.
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