Sad Bells and Pepperoni

groupy plugger theband

I’m a little late getting home tonight.  So before I nod off for a few hours…. here is the quick recap.

A night at the Cincinnati Symphony. With Mary, Levi and Kayla.  Rachmaninov featuring Conrad Tao, pianist.  And…..  Well….. It all started with a pizza.  From the Pizza Gods.  We were lucky enough to have dinner at the Mellow Mushroom.

If you have never eaten at a Mellow Mushroom, be sure to find your way.  It is a gift to The Kingdom of all Pie.  Royal Cheese.

And, as if that weren’t ENOUGH,  then off to the show.

It was really, truly, amazing.  The entire first part of the symphony was breathtaking at times.  The featured Pianist, Tao was given such an incredible gift.  All of the musicians, really.

Now. After Intermission we heard version of The Bells, featuring the May Festival Chorus.  It was the “musical treatment” of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem by the same name.   Yes, Poe.

I have never, ever, EVER heard a sadder song about bells in my life.

I think Sergei was drinking the Vodka when he wrote this one.  In some Stalag in Siberia.  Or something.  And it was Opera.  Translated American Opera.

I called it a lesson in cultural music exploration.  Mary called it torture.

She was closer in her description than I.

Nonetheless, a beautiful evening with ones that I love.  And of course… that glorious pizza.

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”
― John F. Kennedy

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love—then make that day count!”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
― Seneca