On The Road With IPB: Chapter Seven

Today marked the last full day of our epic journey, as we’ll be packing up and returning to real life on Sunday, leaving behind good friends, great hockey and, well, Chef’s. OK, we can’t really get away from Chef’s fast enough now that we think about it. We decided to live it up this afternoon, ensconcing ourselves in the hotel room chowing on chocolaty snack food, engaging in a deep and far-reaching discussion about NY metro area sports fans and playing round after round of Lumines II on our PSPs. So, if you took away the chocolaty snacks and the intelligent conversation, we were doing pretty much exactly the same thing the Devils were before tonight’s game against the Isles (which we will never speak of again). Katebits, our personal chauffeur for the week, saved us from ourselves and took us out for a delightful lunch at Betty’s in downtown Buffalo. The warm brie with hot pepper jelly appetizer briefly had us worried we were going to be facing down the barrel of another Chef’s situation when it arrived at our table accompanied by a handful of Town House crackers, just like our grandmothers used to serve us when we were kids. Fortunately the worry was all for naught as the food was quite tasty.

After lunch we all trucked back to Casa Katebits where we marveled over seeing the stained glass buffalo and pencil props from TWC, as well as the goggles made famous by Oh For Fun. It was like being in a Katebits Blogging Museum; she really should have a Plexiglas box by her front door with a sign reading “Suggested Donation: $20”. We proceeded to do what we all do best – talk about blogging. For hours. The only reason we didn’t talk about blogging all night was that Katebits had a concert to play. Since Schnookie had expressed doubt that she actually plays viola – none of us actually believe we all do what we say we do, right? This is the internet, after all – Katebits offered us the once in a lifetime opportunity to see the BPO in action.

Since Katebits had to go “get ready to perform” (i.e. watch the Sabres game in the orchestra’s lounge) we headed in to our comped seats, which were (tellingly?) the worst seats in the house – front row, on the far side. Leaving Schnookie to fend for herself in an uninvited grilling of her educational background by the frumpy Buffalo kindergarten teacher seated behind her, Pookie headed to the ladies room, feeling more and more underdressed the more people she passed bedecked in formal wear. She reached breaking point while standing in line at the restroom when the women behind began grousing about the long wait. “They should open the men’ room, this is ridiculous!” huffed one woman. The other replied with a distinct sneer, “Well, these days no one dresses nicely at all, so at least you don’t have to wait for people to, you know, pull up their hose. I mean, when everyone wears pants…” She trailed off pointedly, her words so dripping with scorn Pookie nearly turned around to explain, “I’m not from around here, I didn’t know you should expect meat sauce on a chicken parm, and I certainly didn’t know you aren’t supposed to wear pajama bottoms and a Devils sweater to a Saturday night concert at the Philharmonic!” Seriously, if it weren’t for the handful of other people wearing jeans and t-shirts, we might have been just shamed enough to never travel without our opera gowns again.

Just before the concert began we got a surprise visit from the violist herself (it was looking more likely that she was a performer and not part of the bevy of ptarmigan elderly ushers who seemed not to want to let us into the show) who informed us the Sabres were already losing. Back when Pookie was in college, she had two seasons of subscription tickets to the Metropolitan Opera. During her tenure there they introduced a revolutionary subtitle system called “MetTitles”, which featured a little LCD screen embedded in the back of every seat that displayed the translations. A small red button allowed each individual seat holder to toggle the titles on and off. Pookie always thought a third option should be introduced: on, off, and ESPN’s Bottom Line. It seems we had our own personal score updater in Katebits. It was much appreciated.

We’ll mention now that Katebits does in fact play the viola and quite well. Well, we’re assuming she’s good; at no point did the conductor point at her and scowl, she moved her bow when the other violists did and plucked her strings when the other violists did. Seriously, the orchestra was fantastic! The program featured the biggies from “West Side Story” interspersed with other works that spoke thematically to the inspirations for the musical.

We moved seats for the second half, after getting the KatebitsTitles scoreboard update that the Slugs were tied 2-2. The balcony seats were far better and offered a much more interesting view than the back of the bass section. And being a wee bit farther away from the speaker for the singer’s mics let us hear the orchestra better. All in all, it was a great show and the audience loved it. Katebits was telling us that the BPO dates back to the days when Buffalo was a thriving city. So, it’s like Chef’s. But waaaaaaay better! Seriously, Gentle Reader, if you get a chance to attend the BPO, go for it! Even if your team is playing that night. As we learned when we saw the finals for the Devils and Sabres games, you don’t need to worry about missing anything good.