Mother's Day with Susan

Happy Mother's Day to Susan! Today's celebration included going to Lady J's Catering for their special Mother's Day brunch and then to Caribou Coffee for a little more visiting with Abigail before we took her to the airport. She is on her way to Florida for a vacation with some of her friends.

Then Susan and I attended an afternoon performance of the musical Bright Star at Dakota Stage. We were not familiar with the musical beforehand, although we knew that it was written by Edie Brickell, an '80s musician whose music Susan and I recall, and by Steve Martin, famous for his comedy and acting but maybe less so for his bluegrass music as a banjo player. The musical was very good, the singers and musicians were great--we really enjoyed it.

Afterward we went out for supper at the Blarney Stone Pub, right next door to the theater. They have a large garage door that opens to the sidewalk when the weather is nice ... and it was nice enough: about 65° with a light breeze. It was a lovely ending to a great day with a terrific mother!

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Posing after stuffing our tummies at brunch. Abigail snapped this picture of us before we took her to coffee and then the airport.

Celebrating Susan, Part II

The restaurants in downtown Bismarck, ND, have been raking in the profits lately, thanks to the Mobergs. Read on for the details.

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One of Susan's birthday gifts from me last month was a date night in downtown Bismarck, which she redeemed on February 7. We started with a delicious seafood meal at Pirogue Grille. Then we stopped by Blarney Stone for a cocktail before going next door to Dakota Stage to see a play: Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson -- Apt 2B, a version of Sherlock Holmes with contemporary women as the pair of sleuths. Afterward we went to Shakers on 3rd for a post-show martini.

We spent this weekend, too, in downtown Bismarck to celebrate Valentine's Day.

A couple weeks ago, we read about a Valentine's Day weekend special at The Fire Pit and couldn't resist--so I got us reservations for last night.

• 1st course: steak-and-lobster pizza to share
• 2nd course: Louisiana gumbo for Susan and a chop salad for me
• 3rd course: surf and turf (lobster tail and steak) and a Cajun stuffed smoked salmon (we shared both)
• 4th course: Louisiana bread pudding and a chocolate cookie brownie, both drizzled with bourbon caramel sauce (we shared both)

Today is the 35th anniversary of our first date! I worked at the Ground Round in Grand Forks during college, so that's where I took Susan out for supper on that first date. In honor of that, we ate dinner today at the Ground Round in Bismarck. The menu has changed a lot since 1991, but the Long Island teas are still tasty.

Before learning of the Valentine special at The Fire Pit, I had already made reservations for us for tonight at Anima Cucina. They were offering a special four-course meal with a wine pairing for each course.

• 1st course: a Spanish tapas plate (fried artichoke, Serrano ham, and Manchego cream on bread crisps) with a Spanish sparkling wine
• 2nd course: a salad served with a German semi-sparkling wine
• 3rd course: (1) lobster tail and balanzoni, a pasta stuffed with mascarpone in a saffron butter sauce (wine = a Californian chenin blanc); and (2) prime rib rolled in Italian herbs with horseradish cream and garlic mashed potatoes (wine = a Tuscan chianti) ... and we shared both
• 4th course: chocolate ganache tart with strawberry jam and a cocoa shortbread crust (wine = an Italian sweet red)

And because we enjoyed Shakers on 3rd so much last weekend, we returned there tonight to end our Valentine evening downtown.

We have a couple more treats on the agenda for this weekend: tomorrow afternoon we will attend a performance of the play Our Town by the Capitol Shakespeare troupe followed by supper at La Cantina in Mandan, ND. Then we'd better stop galivanting around the BisMan restaurants for a while and actually cook our own food again!

Surprising a Long-Time Friend

Susan and I haven't seen our friend Susan Koozin in around 25 years. We all used to live in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where we did theatre (acting together, being directed in plays by one another) and became great friends. When Susan K.'s husband, Tim, a music professor, got a job at the University of Houston, they moved to Houston. We have stayed in touch via social media, but we haven't visited in person since they moved away.

Until this weekend.

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Susan K. has made quite a name for herself on the theatre scene in Houston. Recently Susan M. and I saw on Facebook that Susan K. would be playing the lead role in a play at the Alley Theatre, a major regional theater in Houston. She and I looked at each other, paused, and said, "Should we go?"

So we bought tickets to the play, bought plane tickets, and made hotel reservations. We didn't tell Susan K. that we were coming ... we just went. The Lancaster Hotel is right across the street--so once we had taken a Lyft from the airport to the hotel and checked in (Friday afternoon), we walked only a few yards to supper at Birraporetti's and then just down the sidewalk to the theater.

The play was a new stage adaptation of Agatha Christie's murder mystery The Mirror Crack'd, and Susan K. played the lead role, Miss Marple, the amateur sleuth who solves the mystery. Even had we not known Susan K., Susan M. and I would have loved the show. It had great production values, the acting was impressive, and the mystery was engaging (and new to us because we had never read the novel).

After the show, we went out into the alley and waited by the stage door. When Susan K. emerged, Susan M. called out her name; and when it registered with Susan K. just whom she was looking at (us!), she had the greatest reaction of surprise!

Kevin, Susan K., and Susan M. outside the stage door in the alley of the Alley Theatre. The surprise was a success!

Susan K. autographed our program, signing as "the other Susan Lynn" (both she and Susan M. have the same middle name).

A bonus: our friends Chad and Audrey Donner live just a couple hours north of Houston, so we arranged to see them, too, while we were in the area. In fact, Chad and Audrey reserved a room at the same hotel ... and bought themselves tickets to the show Friday night!

However, we didn't get to see much of them until yesterday. We had breakfast together at the hotel, visited the Downtown Aquarium, and enjoyed cocktails and snacks at the Lyric Bar in the afternoon. In the evening, we joined them for drinks at Gloria's Latin Cuisine.

downtown Houston

Susan M. and Kevin

Ron, Susan K., Kevin, Susan M., and Tim

Susan K. had shows at 2:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. yesterday. When we parted Friday night, she said that we should meet her at the stage door around 4:30 P.M. after her first show the next day (yesterday), and she would take us to a restaurant to meet up with Tim and with Susan K.'s dad, Ron Oltmanns, who happened to be in town from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he now lives. What a treat: Susan M. and I knew Ron, too, from our Grand Forks days because we were all members of the same church.

Susan K. drove us to The Original Ninfa's, where Ron and Tim were already waiting. The food was great, but the company was even better. It was so fun to catch up and notice how easily we picked up right where we had left off a couple decades earlier. The time together was way, way too brief, but it was all a bonus anyway. We're so grateful that Susan K. could make time for us in between shows.

Many thanks to Chad and Audrey for driving us to the airport this morning on their way back home. It was an impromptu vacation that lasted just for a night, a day, and a morning; but it was a terrific weekend with terrific people.

New York City Vacation, Day 5

This morning we walked around Midtown Manhattan a bit before going on a guided walking tour of food trucks and food carts in the area. In the afternoon we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art ("The Met").

We had supper at Gayle's Broadway Rose, where the servers are all talented Broadway performers who take turns singing musical theatre hits while people dine. That was just a few doors down from the Lena Horne Theater, where we saw the musical Six.

We ended the night with cocktails at The Joyce Public House near our hotel.

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This is one of many photos we took of the gorgeous interior of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown. It's situated between Madison Avenue (associated with the advertising industry) and 5th Avenue (famous for fashion and high-end shopping) ... a good location to serve congregants who are battling pride, greed, lust, and gluttony, I'm guessing.

It was drizzling, so others' umbrellas partially obscured the view of Prometheus, the golden statue at the front of Rockefeller Center. Prometheus oversees the area where people ice skate in the winter and where the gigantic Christmas tree stands each year.

This is one of five food carts and food trucks that were part of our guided walking tour. We had half-servings at each spot, and still we were all pretty much full after the second stop! We had South Asian chicken biryani, Indian kati rolls, Greek chicken souvlaki with pita, South American arepas, and Belgian waffles topped with a gingerbread cookie butter (from Wafels and Dinges).

After our waffles, we walked through Bryant Park and past the New York Public Library to the historic Grand Central Terminal for a subway ride to The Met. The museum has nearly 500,000 works of art from around the world and spanning 5,000 years, so you can just imagine the many famous artists whose work we were able to view. This bronze statue is Edgar Degas' "The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer," which we have seen over the years recreated on posters and greetings cards. Note, however, the hat on the man who is walking past the statue. A daughter pretended to be getting a good shot of the statue but was actually aiming for a pic of that man's unusual hat. Naughty girl!

Six is a musical comedy performed in the style of a pop concert. It features the six wives of King Henry VIII in a contest to determine which of them had the worst experience as a queen to that notorious king. Each of them sings an autobiographical pop song meant to make her case--and Six did win a Tony Award in 2022 for Best Original Score (and one for Best Costume Design).

New York City Vacation, Day 3

We started the day with a walk to Russ & Daughters Cafe for bagels and lox and then to the Black Fox for coffee.

We were well-fueled for a day of museums: the Guggenheim in the morning and the Museum of Broadway in the afternoon.

The latter is in Times Square, which is just where we needed to be for our supper reservation at Carmine's Italian restaurant. From there, it was a short walk to the James Earl Jones Theater, where we saw the musical Real Women Have Curves.

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The fun building design of the Guggenheim from the ground floor looking up ...

... and from the top floor looking down.

Most floors of the Guggenheim featured works by artist Rashid Johnson, who created paintings, sculptures, videos, and three-dimensional pieces like this one for the museum's current exhibition.

In addition, the Guggenheim has galleries for its permanent collection, such as this oil painting ("Le Palais Ducal vu de Saint-Georges Majeur") by French artist Claude Monet. We saw paintings by other famous artists, too, including Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, and Gaugin.

The Museum of Broadway takes visitors through a timeline of Broadway's history, starting in 1732. Along the way are displays of costumes from notable productions, set pieces, historical documents, photographs, videos, and anecdotes and quotations from people who have shaped the theatre scene in New York City.

Carmine's serves dishes "family-style," big portions that are meant to be passed around the table and shared like at home. We had a salad followed by lasagna, meatballs, eggplant parmigiana, and linguine with clam sauce.

Real Women Have Curves is a new musical based on a play that in 2002 was made into a movie. Its protagonist is a young Latina struggling to balance her dreams for the future with her responsibilities to her immigrant family in Los Angeles in 1987. One of the leads is Justina Machado, who is nominated for a Tony Award for her role. You might know her from the TV shows Six Feet Under, Ugly Betty, and One Day at a Time.

Pride in Daughters and Other Local Entertainers

Our daughters' former piano teacher, Mrs. Vold, moved away last summer, and we were grateful to have found a new piano teacher: Mrs. Arneson, who also plays organ and piano at our church--and who volunteered to come to our house for weekly lessons, which makes our lives much easier (i.e., no more shuttling girls back and forth, one at a time, across town to the piano teacher's house while trying to tend to other appointments and to the making of supper).  There are differences, of course, in how each of those teachers gives lessons; but one thing in common is that both have their students participate in annual piano festivals sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs (the same group that oversaw the annual piano festivals in which my sisters and I performed throughout childhood).

The girls' piano festival was held today at the university, and the results are in:

Much Ado

Tonight we attended a play at the public high school: Much Ado About Will, a collection of scenes from a variety of plays by William Shakespeare.  It appealed to Susan and me due to our backgrounds as actors, directors, and English teachers (whose students read Shakespeare plays); and we've always been keen to have our children watch Shakespeare plays while they're young in order to struggle less when reading them in school in later years.  That approach has worked; cable TV offers well regarded filmed productions of Shakespearean plays, which we have recorded and watched with the girls over the years, and they generally have no trouble figuring out what the characters are saying or what's going on in the plot.

Pride, Prejudice, and Fish

For this week's Scandinavian Saturday supper, Hillary was my helper.  We made a pretty simple meal because we had errands to do during the day and a play to attend right after supper--not a lot of time for multiple recipes or lots of dishes to wash.  So here's what we made:

Sweets and Tunes

Our church is raising funds to update its organ with digital components that will improve its sound, capabilities, and longevity.  The fundraising is going quite well, actually, probably because the committee in charge has been using a variety of approaches to soliciting funds.  Their latest: a night of "Sweets and Tunes," an event held in one of the church's gathering halls this evening.  Organizers had decorated the room with strings of white lights and set the tables with lace tablecloths, fancy centerpieces, and candles.  There was a small stage set up in the middle of the room for the entertainment, which included . . . Susan and me!

An Evening in the Underworld

Susan and I attended a play tonight at the university.  It was a production of Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, an imaginative retelling of the myth that usually features Orpheus as its focus.  He is a character in Ruhl's play, too, but Eurydice is definitely the main character.  The production took place in the Backstage Theater, a flexible space that's ideal for more intimate productions than those done on the mainstage.  Susan and I had front-row seats; the actors were literally mere inches away from us at times.  We had a great perspective from which to take in the interesting set choices (an elevator in which people got rained on and a water pump, both of which used real water; a room established in the Underworld by lacing string through loopholes on the floors and walls; the river Lethe represented by a length of blue fabric that emerged from a sewage drainpipe).  Although each actor had his/her moments, my favorite performers were the three women portraying talking stones in the Underworld, commenting on the action to us and to the characters and serving as a sort of Greek chorus.  It was a creative production of an inventive play that reminded me of something our friend Darin would direct.

Music, Sculpture, Theatre, and a Bonus Video

Abigail got up early with me this morning to clear out the driveway so that she, her sisters, and Susan could get to church at 7:30 A.M. for choir rehearsals, Sunday school, and church.  I stayed behind and finished the snowblowing and shoveling, which turned out to be a two-hour job.  Fun.  Then I did some school work, knowing that I'd have no time to finish it this afternoon or evening due to our jam-packed schedule of three main events:

Multimedia

Three interesting arts/cultural events from our week:

(1) Monday night, Susan and I attended a book reading by the author of Under the Twisted Cross, an historical fiction novel based on her father's experience as a WWII prisoner of war in German territory.  The author, Margaret Barnhart, happens to be a university colleague of mine.  A good-sized crowd gathered in the Alumni and Foundation House across from the campus to listen to Margaret read a chapter from the book.  It was a compelling section that ended in suspense; and before we left, we ordered a copy of the novel.

Sacred Drum and School Daze

Well, first it was Abigail, and now it is Hillary.  Abigail had one impromptu and one planned musical performance a few days ago; and Hillary just had a planned musical performance only a few days after an impromptu one herself.  Allow me to explain:

Live on Stage: Susan and Kevin!

Susan and I attended a performance of Lettice and Lovage, a comedy presented by Sneak Pique Productions, the local community theatre group.  Sneak Pique just started last year, and I have been involved on the periphery, attending organizational meetings and coordinating a play reading group as part of Sneak Pique.  Susan and I haven't directed or acted  yet, but we're sure that we will someday.  In the meantime, we attend the productions and always enjoy them.

Outdoor Concert

Each summer, Arts on the Prairie sponsors free outdoor concerts at the Phil Patterson Memorial Bandshell in a hillside park just a few minutes' walk from our house.  We often forget each week that those concerts are happening, but we have attended several of them over the past few summers.  Last summer we tried to attend one featuring the male a capella group aka'Fellas, but it was canceled after just one or two songs on account of rain!  Not so this year, though, so we were at the bandshell tonight to hear them sing.

Chicago, Days 3 and 4

Status update: still loving Chicago!  The conference continues to be informative and enjoyable (with delicious food), and there is time each evening for fun in the city.  Faithful Reader, you know you want to know what I've been doing each night . . . and to see the photos!

Theatre Reunion

A couple months ago, we went out to dinner in Bismarck with Travis, a friend from our university days.  He, his wife Sedie, and their son Vladimir live in MA, but Travis and Vlad have been spending the summer outside Mandan with Travis' parents.  Travis has been writing, and Vlad has been enjoying living in the country, playing with the animals, swimming, and generally being carefree.  Sedie stayed behind to work but has now joined them, although they will all be returning to MA together shortly.  But first, Travis arranged for us to join them for an afternoon of fun!

Two Holidays for the Price of One

Faithful Reader, you will recall that we spent Father's Day in a vehicle driving home from Missoula, MT--almost 12 hours, what with stops for food and gasoline and restroom breaks.  I got some great gifts in the morning and enjoyed spending the entire day with my four blondes, but we didn't find a day's worth of driving to be an especially fun thing to do for Father's Day.  So we had a "re-do" today!

University-Days Friend and University-Bound Nephew

We had three important reasons to go to Bismarck and Mandan, ND today:

1. shop for summer clothes for Abigail and Suzanna (Hillary has plenty, inherited from her older sisters),


2. visit our friend Travis, and


3. attend an open house for our nephew Arron, who is graduating from high school on Sunday.

Travis, his wife Sedie, and their son Vladimir live in MA, but Travis and Vlad are currently spending several weeks in ND visiting his family outside Mandan, where Travis grew up. We met during our university days when we were in plays together. We also have directed each other in plays, and Travis acted with me in a serial theatre production that I co-wrote; he played Ole Bubke, the husband to my character Peggy Bubka-Bubke (which must sound especially odd to anyone who never saw Blood Red River!).

Now Travis is a professor and screenwriter, and he's getting in some peaceful writing time in ND while his son enjoys the attention of his doting grandparents and the freedom to play with all the animals in the wide-open space and the fresh air. We arranged to meet Travis and Vlad today for dinner at Carino's Italian. With our delicious food, we enjoyed easy conversation, hearing stories about Travis and Sedie's jobs, their new home, their adventures with Vlad . . . just generally catching up. Sedie will come to ND later this summer, so we plan to meet up again and see her, too, before they all return to MA.

Vlad and his daddy, Travis

It took Vlad awhile to "warm up" to us strangers, but after eating, he and the girls played together outside while waiting for the adults to finish visiting. Here he is with (from top to bottom) Suzanna, Abigail, and Hillary.

As we waited for our table, the ladies posed for some photos. Do you see a family resemblance?!

We did more shopping in the afternoon and then headed to the home of Arron, the stepson of Susan's brother Jerrett. Arron's mom Cheryl held an open house for Arron today, freeing him to attend his classmates' open houses after the graduation ceremony on Sunday. They had the garage set up with tables and chairs and a buffet with tons of food and beverages. The temperature was in the 90s, but the east-facing garage provided shade on the driveway, and there was a nice breeze, making it a fine day for this event.

It had been awhile since we had all seen each other, so we parents made several "Oh my, how they've grown!" comments about the children, sounding thoroughly like grownups. Cheryl had a special table set up with memorabilia and scrapbooks and photos of Arron from throughout his childhood, and perusing those items made it all the clearer just how much he has changed in the years that we've known him--he's a young man now! And, of course, we have photos for proof:

Arron with his proud aunt and uncle.

Arron and Cheryl with his cousins/her nieces: Abigail, Hillary, and Suzanna

Congratulations on your upcoming graduation, Arron, and best wishes for the start of your university years in the fall!

Treachery and Philately

Susan and I attended a play at the university tonight. It was a production of Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck. Mauritius is an island nation east of Madagascar, which itself is off the eastern coast of Africa--but the play does not take place in Mauritius, nor does it have much to do at all with the country. The play is about two sisters who inherit a stamp collection after the death of their mother, and in that stamp collection are two extremely rare stamps to philatelists (stamp collectors): the one-penny and two-pence "post office" stamps from Mauritius in 1847.

Enjoying the play doesn't depend upon one's being a philatelist oneself or even knowing anything about philately. One need only understand that these stamps are so rare that they're worth millions of dollars apiece, and immediately the context of the play is set. We watched characters engage in treachery to get the stamps for themselves, to get paid as much as possible for them or to pay as little as possible for them, destroying relationships and inflicting physical harm when thought necessary to possess those stamps.

We really enjoyed the play. The characters' acts of deception kept us guessing at what would happen next, and the ending offered a few surprises that I hadn't seen coming. The actors did a fine job, too, portraying characters that seemed distinctly different from characters I've seen them play in previous plays . . . so I was impressed with the range that I saw from them. The technical elements were spot-on, including a set that rotated to reveal two different settings as well as appropriate costumes and transitional music.