October Back in the Daze

      The morning after Krista's wedding we headed back to Durham.  We went the interior route, which for the most part follows I-81 down through Pa and the Shenandoah Valley.  The first part of the trip was rainy and pretty miserable.  It cleared out a bit from Maryland south.  The foliage had not started in earnest, but it is a pretty trip anyway.  Unfortunately, it is also a long trip, and seems to get longer every time we take it.  We settled quickly into our normal patterns, although the school calendar gave us a 5 day break with a Fall Break around Columbus Day.
      A friend of Nan's has a vacation house up at Kerr Lake(pronounced "Car" Lake) in Virginia.  They were kind enough to offer the place to us for the weekend.  A very enjoyable get away. 

      The house sits on a hill above the lake.  Nan was brave enough to go swimming.  I preferred the Hot Tub. A short walk through the woods took us down to the showline.  The lake itself is part of the Army Corp of Engineers projects and this year is at a record low.  It was a nice get away.

       We've also been to a couple of concerts and shows since we've been back.  The first concert we went to was by Lizz Wright.  A native of Georgia now living in Hendersonville, NC(that's out by the Smokies) her music is an enthralling mix of genres - part r & b, part soul, part jazz, and part gospel.
Her first album, Salt, was released in 2003 and rose to #2 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz chart.  Her second, Dreaming Wide Awake, made it to #1.  The concert was a mixture of the various styles, the high point for me being the gospel medley.  She was accompanied by 4 talented musicians.  I've never seen a drum solo in the middle of a ballad. It was amazing.  We bought a copy of her new album Fellowship, which is more gospel than jazz, but great just the same.
      We went down to Playmakers(the resident theater company at UNC) to see a Caryl Churchill play A Number, which was performed in their small theater.  The two person, hour long play explores the relationships between a father and his cloned sons - Bernard 1, Bernard 2, and Michael Black(all played by the same actor - obviously if they're supposed to be cloned)  The surface issue is nature v. nurture, but to me the concept of a disposable child rang through.  All too often in my legal career I ran into cases where unwanted children were dumped into the care and custody of DSS. In this play you essentially have a father who doesn't like how his son turned-out and just clones another, maybe he can get parenting right this time.  Both concepts are interesting and thought-provoking and the acting was very good.  After the play ended, there was a 20 minute "talk-back" which started, believe it or not, with a comment about how real the characters seemed.  "How did you do that?" the imbecile asked the actors.  I would have said. "It's called 'acting',stupid", but they were much kinder.
      I continue to be a Duke sport's groupie, attending men's and women's soccer games and volleyball.  The women's soccer team is excellent and highly ranked.  They have a couple of women who are on the under 20 US team roster.  It's been fun and we missed the snowstorm.