I love late February - early March in this part of California. It rained last week and the hills are a deep emerald green. For me, it was like seeing spring again for the first time. With the removal of the cataracts, the colors around me were so vivid and so clear that it was unbelievable.
We had tickets today for the Lamplighters' Gilbert and Sullivan with a Twist, which traces the history of the writing of all the operettas. They presented this show a couple of years ago and we never saw it, so when Walt read that it was going to be in Santa Rosa today, he jumped at the chance to get tickets.
I forget how far it is to Santa Rosa. Exactly a year (plus one day) ago, I took my friend Mary, who was visiting from Wisconsin, to see the Charles Schulz museum and I forgot then how far Santa Rosa is. It's a long way from here. Well, not a long way--it's under 100 miles--but I keep thinking it should only take us about 45 minutes to get there and it takes and hour and a half, longer if you take the scenic route.
But the scenic route was worth it. This is the height of mustard season and everywhere you looked there was carpets of mustard, mostly connected to small wineries.
It was just a glorious drive.
We arrived at the Wells Fargo Pavilion and realized we were definitely in Santa Rosa when we saw the statues of Snoopy and Woodstock which greeted visitors picking up tickets at the will call booth....
...and we realized that we had found "our people" when we saw the stream of blue haired people, many with walkers, hobbling toward the theatre. It was definitely a Lamplighters Sunday crowd!
We went in and sat down and I saw that the "band" was on the stage. Our friends Diana Dorman and Kathy Conner were hidden behind the violins, but we knew they were there. (hi, Kathy)
The irritation began when a guy came on the stage to make the announcements and introductions. Somewhere near us it sounded like there was a radio playing very softly. I looked around trying to figure out where it was coming from, as did the people in front of us. I thought maybe it was the hearing aid of one of these old geezers which was having some feedback problem, but surely he/she would notice it quickly. Then I thought maybe it was some sort of problem with the theatre's sound system, but it seemed to be more localized in our area. We all kept looking around wondering where it was coming from.
Though I knew I didn't have any noisemakers with me, I mentally went through what was in my purse. It couldn't be my cell phone because I'd turned it to vibrate. It couldn't be the iPod, because even if it somehow was playing, you'd need earpones to hear it. It couldn't be the camera accidentally playing a video I'd recorded because it had gone on much longer than a video would have (and I didn't remember taking any videos on this memory disk anyway).
The show started and the music drowned out the radio, but when it stopped and people on stage just talked, there was that damn radio again. I decided to check my cell phone again--it was the only thing I had that would make noise and I just didn't see how it could be making any sound for all this long.
As I lifted my purse the noise got louder. Then I realized what it was. Somehow the little digital voice recorder in the zippered side pocket of my purse turned itself on. I don't have a clue how it did that because I didn't even know it was there must less have done anything to activate it. But with a sinking feeling in my stomach, I realized that the "radio" was some interview I'd done. Unfortunately, the only way to turn the damn thing off was to open the pocket and inevitably the noise got louder.
"Oh just STOP it!" grumbled the man in front of us, rightfully so. I'm glad the lights were down because my face was firey red. I remembered another incident when I similarly disgraced myself. This wasn't quite as bad as the first incident (which involved a zebra), but pretty bad.
The rest of Act 1 went all right and at intermission, I apologized to the people in front of us and explained what had happened. Three of the four were very gracious, but the guy who'd yelled at me refused to even look at me.
Act 2 was uneventful and we left on a real high, realizing how much we'd missed shows like this.
Since it was dinnertime, we went looking for something to eat. I suggested we see if the Warm Puppy Cafe, attached to the Snoopy Ice Rink (across the street from the Charles Schulz museum) was open, but it was not. However, it did give the opportunity for photos.
We ended up at a wonderful Chinese restaurant, where we had a delicious Mongolian barbeque and then came home to four starving dogs...well two hungry dogs and two impatient and starving puppies, who wolfed down their dinner in about 3 seconds and are now sound asleep under my feet.
It was really a lovely day, and it's hard to know whether the highlight was the show (which was definitely a highlight) or the scenery. Maybe it's a tossup.
Next time I remove all batteries from all electronic gear before I enter a theatre!!!!
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