Rowan's Round of Days

Tuesday dinner was particularly fun this month for some reason. Stephanie's figures on inflation had calmed my anxiety about charging more than I did when I started 15 years ago. *laugh* I have been teetering on the edge of burnout and, at least for this month, I felt like I'd taken a big step back from the edge. I really love having my friends over, but it is a great deal of work to cook for 14-15 every month. This month we had a stuffed pork roast, spaghetti squash in pasanda sauce. I always do Indian cuisine in November - partly since it usually falls the same week as Thanksgiving and mostly because I like to celebrate Divali. But the pasanda sauce I had bought cheap in Monterey Monday because was hitting its expiration date needed to be used. It was great! Along with our usual green salad and bread we had a fruit salad liberated from the farewell party for Shin. It was greatly appreciated!

Yesterday WorkerofWood, a local geocacher with over 3,000 caches to his name, came by at lunch to take me caching. mr_kurt joined us and we went and did a couple of multicaches in Palo Alto and the replacement of one we hadn't found a few weeks ago and one near our office that we snagged on the way back because we just couldn't stand to stop caching! I really like going out with multiple GPSrs.

In the evening Kurt & Marina and I had our SJ Rep season tickets. The current show is The Tricky Part, written and performed by Martin Moran. It is hard to review this show, as it was hard to watch it. Martin Moran is utterly gripping as a monologist but the subject is a difficult one. The stage was built out so that rather than our usual 3d row seats were were in the front row. Mr. Moran stood or sat on a tall stool. He started out with reminiscences of growing up Catholic, elicting from the audience the names of the Catholic schools they attended and generally building a rapport. Gradually the subject of his abuse beginning at age 12 by a camp counselor he originally met at church camp starts to dominate his recollections. His youthful experiences alternate with his adult encounter with his then elderly abuser. He lets us in to his feeling of abuse and ambivalence. Bob, the perpetrator, was also a mentor who brought new and amazing things into Martin's young life. Martin Moran is an amazing actor. I can't imagine retelling this autobiographical story every night on stage. The play is brutally honest and not at all easy, but I have to believe that it is healing. And it is certainly something I will think about for a long time to come.