Wow! It's been a crazy couple of days here in the east. Lot's of stuff going on since the weekend started last Friday. Most of Friday was pretty routine in that I spent some time outside cleaning up trees and moving wood that I had already cut down. Rima worked until a little after 5:00 when I picked her up and we headed out for some dinner. We ended up at Micky G's, a local Italian restaurant here in Floyd, and had a wonderful dinner together.
   We were in a bit of a hurry unfortunately because we had tickets to a performance of the Roanoke Opera Company over at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts later in the evening. The performance was just a serious of vignettes of a couple of operas rather than a full single opera performance, but it was fun to see and hear what the Roanoke Company could do. They had several short performances from Operas written by Mozart and Handel during the first half of the show. It's funny how even though they are singing in Italian, it is still pretty easy to understand what is going on in the story. The second half was comprised of a short performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's first Opera, 'Trial by Jury', one I had never seen before. A rather raucous performance of a man accused of  cruel indifference for leaving his girlfriend at the alter. What followed was a wonderful comedic performance with some really satiric lyrics sung in the usual G & S style. It was great.
    Rima and I  worked hard for most of Saturday. She had some jobs to do around the house while I spent the day out by the driveway entrance clearing out brush and trees along the old fence line. The idea is to eventually replace the fence there that has fallen into sad repair. By the time the day was over there was a new stack of tree trunks to cut into firewood later on, as well as a brush pile taller than me. We hope to be able to burn it all down sometime next spring when it has had time to dry out and compact down.
   We were both pretty tired after that so it was back into town again for dinner as we were both too tired to think about actually making anything to eat. So it was back to Mick G's for another wonderful meal. Rima had one of the specials that night, a whole fish baked with onions and olives in a little olive oil while I had a 'Steak Gorgonzola', steak with a blue cheese dressing, some onions and olives. What a nice meal!
    We headed for Roanoke yesterday afternoon. Rima had tickets to the Symphony again and we went down to have a listen. Two selections this time around. The first half was Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor, also known as his 'Unfinished Symphony''. A lovely piece, which didn't sound unfinished at all to me. Then after the intermission they did Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68. Done in 5 parts it was really fun to watch and hear the orchestra performing. It is also quite fun to watch the conductor, David Wiley, as he goes about his business of conducting each piece of music. He is very expressive in his approach.
    We went and had Mexican food at a little place we know of in downtown Roanoke. Good food and at least a dozen salsa's that you can pick from. There was also at least 4 glasses of ice cold tea to go with it, so I was a happy camper for sure.
   I'm hoping to get some much needed work on the truck done later on today. Just stuff that I have been putting off for far too long, but it is time to be getting it done now. That is... if it doesn't start raining before I get out there.


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