We Love Lucy

It’s been cold. We got a nice reprieve this weekend, but except for that it’s been cold. We are not “animals in the house” people but it’s been cold enough that we’ve been letting Maggie spend the night in the back hall. That’s saying something right there.

AN EVENING WITH THE RICARDOS. We aren’t plugged in to current culture much. For example, we have an old fashioned TV antenna. The cable company won’t come out this far and we’ve never wanted to get satellite TV service. Suffice it to say we don’t have a large choice of TV stations to watch, though the conversion to digital a few years ago tripled our selection. This isn’t to say we don’t watch live TV--we’re loving the third season of Sherlock right now--but a lot of what our kids watch is on DVD.

Christmas before last (2012) Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob gave our kids the complete set of I Love Lucy on DVD (thank you again Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob). They’ve loved it! Nate in particular has watched those shows over and over (along with Gilligan’s Island and now the Dick Van Dyke Show). Lucy’s antics are playing on our TV most every weekend and in the van when we travel.

This past Christmas Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob were kind enough to share with our kids again. And when we saw the ad that the I Love Lucy stage production was coming to TPAC in January we knew that would be the perfect gift for our kids. We went Friday night, ate supper at the Old Spaghetti Factory on 2nd Avenue, and then took in the show. It was a wonderful evening!

The stage production did a really good job of catching the flavor of the show as if you were back in the 1950s at a taping as part of the live studio audience. There was a host who came out between acts to keep the audience entertained. There were live commercials sung and performed just like they were back in the day. And of course, there was the show itself complete with a blooper and retake just for the fun of it. The script was written to show the “filming” of two episodes: The Benefit and Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined. All in all it was almost two hours of fun with the Ricardos.

CROSSING OVER. It’s official, Nate is now a Boy Scout...and after seven years of Cub Scout meetings we get Monday evenings back. Nate has completed all the requirements and awarded his Arrow of Light last night, and tonight he goes to his first Boy Scout meeting as a Boy Scout. It’s hard to believe he is old enough to move on to bigger things.

BEN’S CHESS MOVE. The boys and I dug out the chess board when Vicki and Jenna were in New York and played several games. Both are decent players but lack the experience to beat me. The last several times I checkmated Ben he pulled a new move out of his hat and claimed victory. I keep telling him the World Chess Federation doesn’t recognize the “double flip jump back” as an official move but he doesn’t listen.

Joe