Charleston

The weather was beautiful for our visit to the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston yesterday. Tom and I left home late-morning in order to arrive close to opening time. Upon arrival, we walked through the outdoor art show in the park, followed by the displays at the courtyard of the Presbyterian Church on Meeting Street. We saw lots of really good stuff along with lots of stuff we just don't 'get.' Other people get it, though, as we could hear them exclaiming over the pieces. Tom seemed to especially like the work of one particular photographer. He did a lot of 'macro' stuff - close ups of flowers and the like. The effects were gorgeous. I didn't find anything I couldn't live without, though. We also shared a soft pretzel with mustard. Yummy.

After that we did some window shopping along Meeting and Church Sts. I didn't realize it, but Tom was looking for a drugstore or someplace to buy sunscreen, or, as Tom called it, 'slime.' I had asked him at home to do the top of my back exposed above my shirt; he planned to do it when he finished what he was doing...but we both forgot. Tom was feeling guilty -- he felt if I got sunburn it was his fault. I just stayed in the shade as much as possible. I'm fine. Anyway, we stopped in at a few shops, among them one called "Oops" which sold overstock and discontinued items, and "Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville." Fun place. We found the theater where we had reservations for the 5:00pm performance of "52 Pick Up." The play is described like this: "There are 52 scenes from a relationship in this play. There are 52 playing cards in a deck. On our deck, we've written the title of one scene on each card. The performance you see today will be unique, as the order of scenes will be dictated by random chance -- however we happen to pick up the cards this time. REALLY. There is no effort on our part to control the order of the performance. We can, and do, jump in any of the 52 directions at any moment. So, hold on and enjoy." Tom and I were both intrigued by the challenge presented to the actors by the format. In the end, we both thought the actors did a wonderful job. They were g r e a t. Tom wasn't thrilled with the play itself, though. He felt it showed too much of the negativity of a relationship. They didn't show the sunshine and flowers of a relationship, but the problems? I thought they nailed it! Heck, in some instances, they were pretty close to portraying us up there!

The drive home was a bit long. I guess we were tired. We are going back Wednesday for another play--"Tristan and Yseult." Two and a half hour play that starts at 8:00. I'd better come up with something to relieve the boredom of the long drive home...