Better than sex

E had a great weekend. First, one of our college kids stopped by late last week and emptied two rooms of furniture. He and a couple roommates filled the small moving truck with stuff and took it to their new off-campus rental house. One of the empty rooms will be our home office. E placed the order for the custom cherry wood furniture. The other room will be a guest room. Furnishing it will have to wait a couple months. Until then, guests will have to sleep on an air mattress.

But the big day for E was Saturday. That was the day we agreed that we would clean the garage. It was not going to be a simple sweep out and dusting. I am a packrat. I hate to throw anything out. I often have emotional attachments to my stuff, even if I don’t use it any longer. E is just the opposite. If it has not been used in a year, then out it goes. Cleanouts tend to be the most stressful activity we do together. Fortunately, I have been preparing for this day for a couple months. We had postponed the garage cleaning several times. I was finally emotionally ready for it. We got rid of a lot of stuff. A large pile was donated to Goodwill. A second big pile was hauled off to the dump. We didn’t have any full-size arguments. I didn’t cry about throwing anything out like I have done in the past. And E was ecstatic and overjoyed by the time we finished. Having such a clean garage was better then sex he said!

The day was topped off by going out to see a wonderful musical. One of my favorite musicals is “Grand Hotel, The Musical”. It is not done very often. Set in Berlin 1928, it features a cast of characters intertwined in a series of fateful encounters: the fading ballerina on her last tour, the charming but cash desperate Baron, the dying bookkeeper looking for life, the typist that longs to be a star, and the failing businessman who foreshadows the coming Depression. I saw a good production of it about 10 years ago but E has never seen it. A local, amateur theatre company just opened their season with it. We were not expecting much other than getting a flavor of the show, seeing how the plot plays out with the songs we knew from the CD. However, we were totally blown away by the production. The singing and acting was great and the choreography and direction was excellent. It was as good, if not better then some of the professional shows we’ve seen. It is playing in Foster City until October 1^st at the Hillbarn Theatre.