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 Saturday we had tickets to see Mamma Mia at the Wintergarden Theater on Broadway. And so we went.
But first we had to get a Christmas tree. We weren't sure where to go. When Claudine and I were dating andI was living in Freehold, we would drive out to a Christmas tree farm and cut down our own. It was one of those fun traditions we had that we jettisoned as soon as we had kids. You would think that it would be more fun when you had kids, but in reality the prospect is rather grim. Let's look at the situation. 1. You have to drive a long way into the "country" to get to the tree farm. Fun with your girlfriend, but not fun with a 2 year old who will either scream all the time or fall asleep for an hour, thereby messing up his nap for later and further messing up his bedtime at night. 2. New Jersey is generally cold in December. Your child will accept this for about 20 minutes. If you can't find an acceptable tree within that time, you will grab any scrawny, piece of crap tree just to get out of there. 3. It is usually really muddy at these farms so you have to carry said child who usually can't walk very well anyway at that age. I'm hoping that as the kids get older (and in the case of the third one, it needs to be born first) we may be able to revive that custom.
So this year as we did for most years since Jake was born, we went to a Christmas tree lot run by the Madison Jaycees. We have always been able to get good trees there and this year was no exception. We brought it home and put it in the stand, but didn't decorate it because of the aforementioned Broadway tickets.
Gen (Claudine's mom) offered to have the boys sleep over at her house Saturday night. The woman is really a saint because she is also dealing with her newlywed husband returning home from the rehab hospital following his stroke. He needs almost constant attention, because no really has a handle yet on how much everyday knowledge he has lost andhow much he has retained. what if he just randomly sets the microwave for 8 hours and walks away? I don't think he will, he seems remarkable lucid. Physically he is walking find and doesn't seem weak at all. The only thing that is noticable to me is that he has trouble recalling the proper words at times. I think he knows what he wants to say, he just can't always come up with the word. It must be terribly frustrating. So anyway, he came home last Tuesday and know she offers to have both kids sleep over. A saint, I tells ya.
One problem with this offer is that we have to drive the kids to her house. We live about 30 miles due west of New York City. And Gen and Dennis live about 21 miles due west of us. So we had to drive about 70 miles to be able to get to the play - 21 miles of it in the wrong direction and 21 miles to correct that. I'm so glad I'm taking advantage of living close to New York. Of course, I can't really complain. But I have to if there is going to be anything for you to read.
We stopped for dinner after dropping the kids off. We went to a place called The Banzai Steakhouse. It is a local Benihana kind of place where the chefs prepare your meal in front of you while flipping shrimp and scallops onto their hats for added entertainment. Even though we sat at one of those big cooking table things, I opted for the sushi. I got the sushi and sashimi combination dinner and was very happy with it.
As for the play itself, it was "ok". I wasn't thrilled with it. Many others at the theater including Claudine liked it. It is a play based around the music of ABBA. If you don't like or aren't familiar with the music of ABBA, well then the play has to stand on its own merits. And it was merely "ok". It was had of a throwaway plot, a plot that served to feature ABBA songs in the proper context. I would assume (although I really don't know) that most musical playwrites come up with a complete story or at least a basic plot outline before writing the appropriate music for the chracters and situations. This was the complete opposite. These were ABBA hits that were written over the course of their career that were suddenly thrown together loosely connected by the plot. I am oversimplifying here, but imagine a Broadway play based on the songs of the Beatles (no, not Beatlemania) where the main character is a race car driver that is being audited by the IRS just so they could use the songs Baby, You Can Drive My Car and Taxman. The play had its enjoyable moments but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. This was in contrast to the last Broadway play I saw. We were given tickets to Riverdance which I thought I would hate, but ended up loving.
After the play we walked over to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas Tree. Such tourists, I know. Claudine remarked that the did a good job with the patriotic theme. She said only using red, white and blue lights could have looked much worse. I don't know if you can make it out in the picture.
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