Cats and a candlelight dinner

My MIL took the kids so that Fred and I could have dinner and go to a
concert last night. Yeah!

I visited the cheese monger and got some gourmet cheese, crackers, and a
sour cherry lemon compote that was spectacular with the goat cheese. Yum.

Victor Martinez...

Sounds delicious. Here in Central Texas, a local company produces a
raspberry chipotle preserve that goes great with cheese.

We had other nibblies and Fred enjoyed a nice glass of wine (I miss my
wine). Both boys were intrigued by the set up but completely repelled by

Victor Martinez...

Aren't you allowed to have a 2oz serving of wine? My friend Sherry
(she's 7 months pregnant now) said her doctor allows for a tiny bit of
wine. Not sure if it's only during a certain part of the pregnancy or
throughout.

the candles. Both lept onto the table, bent over to sniff, got a whiff of
hot air and retreated from the tabletop. For quite some time, Fred and I
sat accross from each other and had Otis stationed at one end of the table
and Chester on the other. They were sitting on the chairs, with their heads
coming up just above the tabletop looking like invited guests! We didn't
really need chaperones (too late for that) but their company was enjoyed in
any event :-)

Marina...

LOL! I can imagine that (just transpose the heads from the picture you
posted to a dinner table).

Susan M...

Good imagery! That's exactly what it looked like :-)

Susan M
Otis and Chester

sriddles...

Ha! That sounds so cute, sitting proper in their chairs. Glad you had a
nice evening. What concert did you attend?

Susan M...

It was a solo series concert that featured the principal trombonist of the
Calgary Philharmonic and some pieces with trombone quartet. It's amazing
when you look at the training of these guys - Julliard, Eastman, McGill, and
variety of graduate studies as well. It's so hard to make a living and such
a demanding job after all that time and energy. I don't regret leaving
music in that sense at all. He did a great job and the quartet was
particularly good. Years ago, I went to music school with one of them and
dated him for a while too. It's such a close-knit group - musicians. No
matter who it is in the field that you run into there is no doubt that they
will know at least 10 people that you do in Canada!

He talked about how the trombone has all kinds of ancient repertoire written
for it (sagbutt, or sackbutt, depending on who you talk to) because it was
the first brass instrument that was able to play chromatics due to its
slide. My instrument, the french horn, didn't get valves and easy
chromatics until the late 1800's and they didn't catch on really until the
1900's. Watching them flail around with their slides on the weekend made me
think that valves were worth waiting for :-)

Susan M
Otis and Chester

polonca12000...

What a great anecdote! Thanks.
Best wishes,
Polonca and Soncek

Susan M
Otis and Chester