Lift Up Your Hearts!

Last night we attended a very enjoyable performance of The Pirates of Penzance, proceeds of which were earmarked for a much-needed upgrade to the sound system at the Lake Brantley High School auditorium.  Our choir director and several people from our church were involved.  We almost joined the chorus, but demured after remembering that being involved in a theatrical performance is synonymous with having no outside life.  Daily rehearsals were more than we could handle.  Still, I regret somewhat losing the opportunity to be able to say that every member of our family had sat, however briefly, under the direction of Cindy Berry.

The show was great!  Everyone from the principals (local arts educators) to the middle-school policemen did wonderfully well.  The Pirate King was played by Christopher McCabe, Brantley alumnus and now the theater director at a local private school.  (I believe he was a freshman when Janet was a senior and no longer spending much time on campus, so don't wrack your brains trying to remember him.)  If his performance owed just a little too much to Johnny Depp, that didn't stop him from stealing the show.

Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry, fill, oh fill the pirate glass—and raise it in a toast to Joyce K., who taught us to love Gilbert & Sullivan.

Happy Swiss National Day to our family and friends across the sea!

Here are sixteen-plus minutes of this year's fireworks in Basel, in case you missed them in person.  I didn't sit through the whole show, but what I did see was very impressive.