Les Miserables

Last night the good wife and I gave each other our Christmas present early - a trip to Grand Rapids Devos Performing Arts Center to watch Les Miserables!! It was nothing short of great ..... first, because I was enjoying the evening with the person I love the very most; second we were sharing together the production we love most!

A few brief sketches that precluded the theater. We had gone in early to the city to have supper at a restaurant the good wife had always wanted to eat at. First let me clear the air of negative vibes so they don't sneak thru later.....we had to wait an hour to get our food, which put us in a very precarious situation to get to the theatre in time, and our waitress profusely kept apologizing despite our recognition it wasn't her fault. Finally we had to tell her we would have to skip the meal, but she promised to have the food in a few minutes .... it reminded me of the final two minutes of a football game where a team performs far above the level they have the whole game and one wonders why all of a sudden they do so well; why when we threatened to leave does our food so magically appear. The good wife enjoyed the meal she got, and insisted the time factor didn't play into her not being able to finish the meal - but I suspect it did. My soft crab sandwich was a real mystery, but finally have shredding the half head of lettuce, and lay aside the two huge anemic slices of tomato, I found it .... it looked like they had robbed a sea bed nursery, and on top of that they had possibly paninied [that's my word for flattened]
the crab. Someday I am going to try soft crab again, this time with one large enough to taste .... I've never had soft shell crab before - eating the shell and everything, but I enjoy new experiences.

Waiting for our meal was not however without blessing; matter of fact it was better than the food. Sitting next to our table was a party of about 12 people, and so the good wife was a little upset ..... and their communication was a bit noisey ... however it turned out to be really neat. There was a mother and her two young daughters that seemed to hold court at this gathering; and a grandfather who seemed to be the 'don' for when he spoke everyone listened, literally. Come to find out the youngest daughter was little Cosette in the play, and her real life father, who was not with them in the restaurant was the star of the play, Jean Valjean!! The mom eventually had to take her daughters to backstage and then she was returning as we passed her on the way to the theatre! It was really neat to see her in the play and watch the interaction between her and her father, having got to see her so up close in the restaurant!!!

As I was preparing to write this 'memory' this morning, I took out the playbills from previous events the good wife and I have attended down thru the years and came across the first Les Miserable playbill we had ever attended back in 1989, as a pastors appreciation gift from our congregation. I remember it well, I had read the book, the good wife hadn't, and so it was hard for her to follow. But that troupe was straight from Broadway NY and had performed around the world. We saw it at the Universi ty of Illinois, and it was the only revolving stage I've ever seen in my life ..... it slowly revolved so that a stage was constantly circling in front of you. Then I came across the high school production we had seen earlier this year.
We've seen at least six different productions of Les Miserable. Two from High Schools, one from Jr.College, and at least two professionals ... and there is a time or two I'm sure I've forgotten.

Had a wonderful evening with the most wonderful person in my life ........ 'the good wife!'