Monday, March 7 – Sunday, March 20, 2022
The Week in Words: Covering two weeks in this post, and I’m still having a bit of trouble just putting week one into perspective. There was a LOT of minutiae that nevertheless made me quite happy. Silly stuff, really, made up most of the week, like eating Avril Bleh hotdogs all week with my eggs for breakfast, eating lunch with a college friend who was in town for a work event, and walking home through one of the last snow showers of winter. The highlight was a Yola concert (see below) and the juiciest part was a couple fighting at the bar (obviously, see below).
The Week in Music: Newish, genre-defying artist Yola played Cincinnati last week. I’ve been a fan since her first 2020, Grammy nominated album. In fact, I had planned to see her on her 2020 tour with friends in North Carolina. The pandemic upended that, and I thought is was poetic that one of my first shows “post” pandemic was Yola. I like her music because she’s a story teller and I can hear Dolly Parton’s influence. She put on a lovely show.
The Week in Margarita Drama: Friday of week one, that snow shower was blowing in and I decided on a whim, to grab a margarita at my home away from home kitchen, the Taqueria. Well. What a choice. At the bar and clearly way ahead of me on the tequila initiative, were a couple of my acquaintances, friends of friends. We’re all neighborhood folks, and soon enough, the friends we had in common had joined us. And then…the woman decided it was time to launch into a story of something her boyfriend had done to her on vacation that she found rude. She wanted to “tell the truth” to all of us. I should note, none of us asked for the truth.
It became clear very quickly that her story was striking a nerve with the boyfriend. He stormed off and for another 20 minutes we got to hear more of “the truth” from her. Finally, she headed back to her apartment. (She was offered safe haven at our mutual friends apartment if things went south.) Taking a deep breath after her departure, we had a great chat about how fascinating it is to watch couples fight in public. I want to seem like I don’t want to listen, but I really want to pull up a bowl of popcorn and watch and listen intently.
The Day in Pi/Pie: Yes! Though I work in a decidedly not math based office (lawyers!), we went with the Pie pun on March 14 (π, approximately equal to 3.14159) Pie Day. People brought in, and we ate, pie, a lot of pie. We had two quiches (which we called egg pie), but the rest of the pies were sweet tooth heaven! While there were some generic store bought pies, some folks made the effort to stop at real bakeries, and some folks made the effort to make their own pie. I was hyped up on sugar all day, crashed at my desk at 4, and made damn sure to eat a salad for dinner.
The Week in Musical Theater: This week the Temptations Jukebox musical, Ain’t Too Proud, rolled into town. The show got great reviews on Broadway and apparently only shut down due to pandemic related casting issues. Filled with great Temptation hits, plus an appearance from Motown’s other big group, The Supremes, the music and the story intertwine in such an uplifting way, the crowd was on it’s feet before the final song even started, clapping and cheering. A super fun show.
The Week in Soccer/Real Football: The home club FC Cincinnati came into town on the heels of a road win. The smallish crowd on a chilly, damp day, cheered the team onto a 3-1 victory, just their second win at home. The team played well the entire match, not flagging in the second half as has been their sad, sad tendency. It was a thrilling victory.
Also, I was a few minutes late meeting my friend to head to the match. I told her I was going to tell her why I was late without actually telling her why I was late. I said, “I’ll give you a dollar if you can find the FC scarf I bought last year.” LOL! It’s in my apartment somewhere even though my time-consuming search didn’t find it.
Nothing Ever Happens on My Street 