Rain in the Bay Area

It's been raining since Thursday, and while the rainfall hasn't been much, it's been enough to delay our solar panel installation. We've been pushed off to tomorrow, Tuesday, when it's expected the weather will finally break. It's kind of a pain, since I've had to get the house ready for each expected day we think the installers will be working, and then move everything back when they cancel for the day. I'm hoping tomorrow's the actual final install date, and I can stop the furniture shuffle at home.

Meanwhile this weekend, I was able to take Lauren to first Broadway show of our season ticket set for Broadway San Jose, which performs at the same theater in San Jose that Lauren used to have her ballet performances at. The performance this weekend was of West Side Story. While West Side Story remains one of my favorite musicals, I think Lauren wasn't quite so enamored of it, but she did stick through the whole show without complaining. I think the next show in the series will entertain her more, as it's the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast.

I was lucky in that I also got introduced to Broadway at a young age. When I was in sixth grade, I went on a school field trip to the Uris Theater (now the Gershwin Theater) to see The King and I. It was a matinee show just for kids, but it starred Yul Brynner and Constance Towers, and after the performance Constance Towers and the actor who portrayed Prince Chulalongkorn (the king's eldest son), came out to do a Q&A session with the kids who came for the performance. I also got Constance Tower's autograph at the Q&A.

Afterwards, I also got to see the Pirates of Penzance in 1981 and David Cassidy in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 1983 at the Royal Theater. I've gone on to see any number of Broadway plays and musicals in my life, but there's still something special about seeing them on Broadway in NYC or the West End in London, where I saw Phantom of the Opera in 1992.