Weekend For Two
We just did that rare thing that parents do occasionally; we took a weekend away to ourselves in celebration of our seventeenth wedding anniversary, abandoning the children to the care of a beloved babysitter. It’s always the onrush of stillness that surprises me at first. Having reached our destination, we both sit and look at one another quizzically; what to do first when there’s nothing that really must be done at all?
As it happened we’d planned a fairly lively weekend. Our Friday evening happily coincided with the opening night of Bob Dylan’s American Fall Tour and we made our way to the Irvine venue after a great meal at Cucina Enoteca. We hadn’t seen Bob since 2016 and reports of recent performances had been varied so we weren’t sure exactly what to expect. It was, as it turned out, a simply lovely night, no other way to describe it really. The first night energy was evident everywhere - in the newness of some arrangements, the strength of Bob’s voice and the enthusiasm and commitment of his performance and of the band’s. We enjoyed every minute. If I had to pick a favourite I’d say that each time he sat at the piano and played with minimal accompaniment, as he did particularly notably on Lenny Bruce and Girl from the North Country, you could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium. It was the feeling of being in his living room while he played with such understated power that was the highlight; mannequins and all!
We Stayed at the Fashion Island Hotel in Newport Beach which afforded us some much needed time for retail and restaurant therapy and we whiled away the Saturday peacefully. As we wandered, popping in and out of various stores, our sitter regaled us by text message with pictures of all the wonderful activities our youngest was partaking of back home. After an early dinner we settled down at the Lot to watch Todd Phillip’s Joker. Joaquin Phoenix in the title role held us spellbound from the beginning. His performance of Arthur Fleck, the mentally unstable loner, was deeply nuanced and terrifying in its ability to convey glimpses of tenderness, mental agony and sheer evil and psychopathy. The movie’s wider themes of the dangers of moral relativism and the destructive power of unbridled hatred make for extremely interesting watching. Needless to say, having deliberately chosen an early showing, we spent the rest of the evening discussing and debating the finer points of the film!
We took time in Laguna gift shopping before we drove home on Sunday afternoon. It’s been a while since we visited this luxuriously quaint beach town. The style was the same as ever with the mix of crazy art, charming boutiques and great restaurants all held within an atmosphere of comfortable calm. We ate lunch at the usual oceanside haunt, the Cliff, gazing into the endless blue distance. A perfect end to a great weekend.
