Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Last weekend we used another of my fabulous Enjoy the Arts vouchers to go see the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at Music Hall.

front entrance

It's almost the end of their season, so we had to make sure to use the voucher in time. With Peter's schedule/winter inertia/Peter's incredibly bad cough the last time we tried to go, we missed several of the concerts I was more interested in. For this one, I was looking forward to the Beethoven portion of the program at least, but felt a little meh about the Richard Strauss portion - but it turned out to be great.

entrance hall/balcony

It was fun to see the building - we walked around beforehand a bit. Our vouchers were good for seats anywhere (though we couldn't get the tickets till day of performance); the box office guy suggested a balcony section on the side, which actually feels very close to the stage, but you still get a great (profile) view of the whole orchestra.

inside auditorium

We used to go the symphony in college (they have amazing super cheap student tickets in Grand Rapids), so it was fun to be able to do it again on the cheap - made me feel quite pleased that the value of our tickets exceeded the amount I paid for the Enjoy the Arts membership in the first place.

weekend galore

Peter had both days (and Friday night) off this past weekend, which doesn't happen all that often - and this was the second weekend in a row! The weekend before we had done a lot of relaxing (plus car buying, which took up half a day), so this weekend we were up for lots of going out and productivity.

Friday night we finally tried one of the restaurants downtown we were interested in - Via Vite - with one of the other interns and his fiance. It was quite lovely. Then Saturday we got to do some sleeping in and taking Ginger to the park before Peter got a bunch of medical-y reading done and I did some errands.

Sunday we decided to use one of my Enjoy the Arts vouchers to visit the Contemporary Arts Center. But we needed a little lunch after church, so first we went to Nada - another restaurant we've been wanting to try - which is across the street from the museum. It's quite hip, but the food turns out to be really great too... We got the pork belly tacos and the mahi mahi tacos and split them. And raved about them during and after. Wow.

At the museum, I had wanted to see the Keith Haring exhibit, so we spent most of our time looking at that, but it was also great to see the building.

no jeans day 11 - pants & blouse: Loft; trench: Gap; flats: Kenneth Cole via DSW

Then, since it turned out to be such a nice day (predicted mid-sixties and cloudy, reality about 70 and sunny!), we got some ice cream (from Graeter's of course) in Fountain Square and got to bask in the sun, eat ice cream, and see the Reds hit a couple home runs on the big screen in the square.

And then, since there was still plenty of afternoon left and it was so lovely, we let Ginger sniff around and chew on some sticks (a favorite past time) while we did some work in the yard. I got the flower beds all cleaned up while Peter transplanted a big grass from the back to the front, and then he got inspired to deal with our horribly pot-holed and patchy backyard. So when he came home with the supplies I helped him till, spread some seeds, and cover with straw. Here's hoping it works.

It's a good thing the flowers on the kitchen windowsill are so pretty, because the view of the backyard is not - yet!

Sunshine and warm temperatures seriously do wonders for productivity and desire to be out and about! So lovely.

self improvement

I'm starting a little bit of a self-improvement campaign around here. Every once in a while when I feel like I've been watching too much TV I do such a thing... And with Peter's nights schedule last month, I had ample time for television watching (and ample good stuff to watch: Top Chef, Glee, Real Policewomen of Cincinnati [yes, seriously], American Idol, Clean House, my new Sense & Sensibility dvd). I have nothing against TV, but sometimes it turns me into a lame couch potato.

Books:
No light reading around here - currently working on Wolf Hall for bookclub, and then I'll be reading Tender Is the Night for the other bookclub. Certifiably self-improving, as the former is a Booker Prize winner and the latter is on a list of classics I should have read.

Wolf Hall is really good, but hefty (contentwise and pagewise, all 604 of em). It took me rather a while to get into, partly because everyone in 16th century England either had two names (e.g. Thomas Howard and Duke of Norfolk = same guy) or was named Thomas. Confusing.

Music:
Until the other day, I hadn't sat down at the piano since before Christmas. Time to get back at it - half hour a day, at least. I have a couple of pieces I'm determined to be good at.

Culture:
This was one of my winter-blah fighting items - I seriously need to make use of my Enjoy the Arts subscription. I have passes for several museums, plus tickets to the symphony, chamber orchestra, Shakespeare theater, and some others. Unfortunately my date has been somewhat unreliable for the evenings (well, unless it's work - he's very reliable at that), so I've been sitting on these vouchers... No more! He has a good schedule this month, and warmer weather makes me want to go out and do stuff. (But if anybody wants to come be my plus one for on-call days, that'll be great.)

Skills:
I found Photoshop and sewing classes to sign up for, so I can work on my skills in those areas. Currently my skills are minimal and tend to lead to frustration...