With Great Bitterness

This is an actual personal ad from the Austin Chronicle, which I have had  taped to a card at the back of my Rolodex for at least 20 years.  It reads: "Bitter, disillusioned SWM seeks cynical SWF for mutual disappointment."  Kind of sums up much of my dating experiences, now that I think about it.

My husband and I went on a Date Night on Friday night.

I hesitate to call it a "date" night per se, because A) we were both recovering from having been remarkably ill for much of the week and B) we went to see a play by Henrik Ibsen, who isn't exactly a champion of the "Feel Good" movement. Not really feeling the love, old Ibsen.  (After I saw his picture on Wikipedia, I realized that this has to (almost entirely) be due to those muttonchops.  Seriously, how can you even hope to be happy if you're walking around looking like you've epoxied two squirrels to the sides of your face?)

PLUS, it was quite a snow-and-cold-drenched trek to get to the theater, which was in Brooklyn.  Brooklyn, you know, received every bit as much snow as we did here on the Island (Yes, Brooklyn is technically ON Long Island but Brooklynites do not claim that) and Brooklyn has far less room to stash that much snow overflow. Everywhere we walked we were stepping over huge snow drifts or down into deceptively deep slush puddles... (I'm not sure I can say this enough: I take back every nice thing I ever said about the snow.) (Also, I lost one of my Knitpicks Harmony double pointed needles between the first and second train into Brooklyn, which left me bitter AND idle.)

Anyway, the play we saw, John Gabriel Borkman, was a bitter story about bitter people doing bitter things to themselves and others. With great bitterness. Oh, and it was bitterly, bitterly COLD because it's apparently set in Norway, where people keep large drifts of snow inside their houses.  (Not true; I am joking.  But there was a lot of snow on this particular set, including a full-on snow storm at the end of the second act and it was incredible.  Truly, I wish I had the mind of a set designer --some of the most creative work going.)

We went to this particular production because it was starring Alan Rickman and I feel certain that, somewhere, there is a law that states, "Should Alan Rickman appear in any sort of creative endeavor within possible traveling distance, even if the creative endeavor is the Reading of the Telephone Book, thou are commanded to go."  Holy cow, there is star power and then there is THAT guy.  And, what was truly an unexpected bonus, the two female leads opposite of him were incredibly strong and fine actors. It was a remarkable experience to see that kind of acting --really breathtaking.

So, then we slogged through the snow and ice back to our house.

Where it was snowing.

And it occurred to me that maybe the Powers That Be ought to try to convince Mr. Rickman to appear in something like, say, "South Pacific." If he does one more theatrical run in an Ibsen play, we may NEVER thaw out.