Friday, January 13, 2006

Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady

I should point out that last night was part 1 of Mr. & Mrs. Skinny's Annual Cultural Adventure. Which is to say that the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) are back with their annual shows in Manhattan.

Not that you couldn't tell, but we don't get out much. The G & S shows are about it for pure adult entertainment (we need not discuss impure adult entertainment), and I think once a year is about all we can reasonably afford.

Given that yesterday started out with another child sick day - strep for youngest, accompanied by throwing up in the car - and went downhill from there, a night out was definitely in order for the Mrs. So she got to me at work late, we hit some traffic, made it to Manhattan in plenty of time (with VERY little gas in the car, I might point out), and promptly got stuck behind a garbage truck for 15 minutes. Things were not going well, but happily it moved eventually, we got to our favorite kosher Indian restaurant and found a FREE!!! parking spot. Skipped the appetizers, got the mains, poori, & a mango lassi to share, ate without rushing too much, and headed for the theater.

As an aside, may I point out how much I DETEST driving in Manhattan.

Found a street parking spot with the fancy muni-meters they have nowadays. Someone actually figured out to allow credit cards on the thing so I didn't have to feed a million quarters in. The truth is, it cost us $7 to park for three & a half hours, which I think is a bargain. A lot probably would have been $25 or more.

Anyway, went to the theater, went to the special members "room" (Mrs. called it more of a hallway) where we actually got to hang up our coats. Went in for the show, which was a little different. This was "NYGASP ala Carte", (allowing for puns on the original producer of the G & S operas) including a selection of songs as well as the full performance of Trial by Jury, a shorter piece. I think that was the best part, and Mrs. agreed. The rest was fun, but she & I felt you don't get the full impact when it's a bit of this and a bit of that.

A few patter songs, some romantic bits, and other stuff. Fun, but now we can look forward to tomorrow night when we go back, this time with friends, to see HMS Pinafore (What Never? No Never).

Oh. And the kidlets are off to gramma & grampa's for the weekend, so we get a little quiet time.