Date Night!

We had a very productive work-around-the-house day: hit up the farmers' market and the bread store (warm cinnamon raisin bread, yum), chopped up a ton of broccoli to freeze, ripped out all the dying annuals from the front flowerbeds, planted the new iris, got the leaves from the yard to the city compost lot, and worked on changing the dormer in our room upstairs from a study nook to a reading nook.

Once Alex got home from a quick trip into the lab to check on a spinal model-in-progress, we decided to celebrate our productiveness, or our dating anniversary (a couple weeks late), or the first week of my rotation, or some other yet-to-be-determined occasion, by heading out to dinner and the symphony.

We called the Redwood Room, our favorite spot, and were excited to hear that there was no wait. By the time we arrived 20 minutes later, though, the wait was up to 45 minutes, so we had to try elsewhere. We eventually had a delicious, if slightly rushed, dinner at City Cafe. Falafel, actually, which made us reminisce about the last time we had falafel, which was at the state fair (even though it wasn't on a stick, so I'm not sure it counted as official state fair food).

The symphony was spectacular this evening! This was our first chance to use our season tickets, since we were away for the opening concert, and we were happily surprised by how good our seats are. Tonight's program was titled "Best of Enemies," featuring Brahms and Tchaikovsky, who shared a birthday but apparently loathed each other's work. Maestro Lantz had chosen Brahms' Concerto No.2 for Piano and Orchestra and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, and both were wonderfully played. He always writes great program notes, which makes the music extra interesting. (Sorry, I am not as clever as Alex at this computer stuff and so do not know how to link to these two pieces in iTunes. I can tell you that in addition to the amazingly fast piano work, the Brahms has some beautiful cello. The Tchaikovsky featured a lovely horn solo and then some oboe in the second movement. But you'll have to find them yourselves.)