We Did Not Hear the Fat Lady Sing

The Red Wings won their last regular season game on Saturday night against Dallas, to reach the playoffs for the 22nd consecutive year. The odds were in our favor to make the playoffs even though we could have failed by losing. It came down to the end, but at least we didn't have to count on other teams losing to make it in. Mister and I did not see that game.

Sadly, Mister and I were at the season end of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (AASO). We had great seats. And it isn't that I don't like classical music--in moderate dosages--but the timing wasn't the best. Mister pleaded to not go even though I checked with him before buying the tickets (when it wasn't at all clear that the last game would be critical). The tickets were non-refundable.

And he did need one more concert for his orchestra class, in order to write a report on it. Last year we scrambled at the end of the year to find one and almost missed it because of a rain postponement. This year, I said we aren't waiting until the last moment.

We listened to the first period on the way to the concert and while sitting in the parking structure before the concert started. We heard Detroit go up 1-0, so we had that going for us.

The concert was fine. Mister updated me when the Wings scored. We avoided high fiving and yelling in joy. Nobody seems to do that at classical concerts, so I'm reasonably sure that would be frowned on. It would be less annoying than the constant coughing and throat clearing coming from the seats behind us, but that's the way it is.

And we did not repeat the horror of some years ago of sitting through an opera by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Not hearing the fat lady sing was a bonus, here, at least.

So we won and Mister got his report done. And I got a small dosage of culture.

And as I like to tell Mister, a couple decades ago--when I knew even less about classical music than I do now (if that is possible)--I wrote a retirement tribute to the departing conductor of the AASO for our local state representative that he read aloud on stage. It apparently caused the conductor to well up with tears and for the rep to interrupt and comment, "wow, this is really good." This according to a colleague from another division who was there and stopped by the next day to find out who wrote it.

I mostly like to tell Mister that to impress upon him the need to learn to write well. Learn that and opportunities open up. If a near-Philistine (with apologies to the much maligned Philistine community) like myself can drive someone who knows his business to tears with my low-information words of thanks and congratulations, that is a neat trick to do.

You do what you need to do. And we all did.