Go ahead, guess. Never mind,  you won’t be able to.  It was nine thirty P. M. That’s right! NINE THIRTY P period M period!

We actually ate earlier than we were supposed to because we went to the Philharmonic and at half time or whatever they call it David decided to leave because he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

It was none too soon too. I had just finished mentally reorganizing my closet for the third time and the violins were beginning to look like turkey drum sticks.

Let me start from the beginning.

I obviously took this as more of an occasion than David did. I curled my hair and tried on several different outfits before I finally decided on the black.

When we met in the hall at 7 he was wearing the same thing he wore to Home Depot earlier in the day to buy roach powder because he saw a bug in his kitchen. He had to go back twice because he had a tragedy. He sent me the following email at about 2 o’clock.

“I was fixing myself a sandwich and had flung a dish towel over my shoulder that I’d just used to dry my hands. Apparently hiding in the towel was a huge roach that crawled out onto the back of my neck. Screaming and cursing like a stevedore I quickly removed and sent him packing to roach hell.

In response I’ve gone back to HD and have significantly dialed up the lethality of my efforts to kill these MF’s. I have some shit now that was developed in a government warfare lab that is capable of taking down an elephant !!”

Anyway I accepted his trauma as an excuse for not spiffing up a bit more and also for not commenting on how lovely I looked. I was forced to say as we waited for the elevator, “I look nice”.

He looked up from his phone seemingly surprised that I was still there and said ” Yeah your hair looks good”.

Now on to Lincoln Center.

We got to our seats. Very good seats, Orchestra Center, and settled in while the hall filled. I know you think that those classical music people are fancy but next to me was a young woman who smelled like she had just run a 10k.

The music began and it was lovely. For about 10 minutes. If you had something to read while you were listening.

I spent 40 years listening to jazz and I think I had used up my “sitting quietly trying to look interested” quota. It isn’t all music.  I will say that I saw “Jersey Boys” and at the end I was on my feet screaming for more.

I get it , I’m a Philistine.

If David hadn’t wanted to leave though, I would have stayed to the end and pretended to enjoy it.

I was saved by the guy sitting next to David who was humming and conducting with his program. David was a bit on edge after his roach happenstance and mumbled that he was just about to offer to put that program in a place where the guy couldn’t direct the horns to play out when the intermission came and we went to eat.

Did I say it was nine thirty by then? Well it was.