Moose Margaritas and Community Theater
Apr. 12th, 2022 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo I went on an outing with my dad on Saturday night. We went to the dinner theater at the local Moose Lodge (community center? family center? whatever they're calling it nowadays since "Moose Lodge" was too exclusive and male-gendered and scented of... domestic beer and musk. I do not know why there are so many things of this nature named after forest ungulates -- the elks, the moose, whatever. And which one is the off-brand one? Who knows? But anyway, this was local community theater AT THE MOOSE.) and the theater that we saw was Southern Fried Funeral, a comedy.
Dinner theater at the Moose is a thing where it is entirely possible to have an awesome time provided one's expectations are in line with what one receives. Moderate your expectations and you will have a good time. So, I did that.
We are north of the Mason Dixon, so Southern Fried anything is going to be... relatively cartoonish accents, but y'know, this is a comedy and not Mourning Becomes Electra, so that is OK. It's community theater in my relatively small town, so No Swears and No Controversial Themes because those generate angry letters from the base which is largely eighty year old churchgoing women. It's at the Moose, so expect very competent church-supper level cuisine.
I did risk ordering a rocks margarita at the open bar because they had no hard cider and only uninspiring domestic beers. There was wine, but ... meh. Following the bartender's two-minute search for the tequila (Jose Cuervo gold, which was both passable and also entirely in line with what I expected from the Moose), I received a rather stiff rocks margarita, including a wedge of real lime and a salted rim. Yay! I took it back to our table where the other theater-goers inquired as to how it was. "It's quite drinkable and does what it says on the tin." Damning with faint praise? Maybe. But also it was a six dollar margarita from the Moose. Honestly, given the circumstances, it exceeded expectations. Fresh lime wedge was a nice touch. I mean, was it as good as I'd get from a fancy and dimly lit cocktail bar in the downtown section of the nearest (hour and a half away) big city? No. It also didn't cost fifteen dollars and I didn't have to balance on an uncomfortable and overly-narrow stool or endure piped in jazz. Was it as good as I can make at home with my dad's dead wife's reposado tequila imported from Mexico and entirely fresh lime juice? No. Was it way better than a slushy sugar fest like you'd get in a college bar? Yes. Also, I have the olds.
Dinner was a solid ham-green beans-chicken tetra-potato salad-coleslaw-roll affair. Very edible, no complaints. Met the bar on all marks. If you have, at some point in your life, attended a church supper or firehall dinner in central Pennsylvania, you know what sort of dinner we had.
It was fine, quite edible. Dessert was hummingbird cupcakes, box mix and bought frosting with sprinkles. There were none without sprinkles, so I scraped the sprinkles off. Once upon a time I would have worried about what other people thought of me scraping the sprinkles off and either NOT had a cupcake or forced myself to eat the sprinkles and been pissy about that. But now I am old and I scrape off the damn sprinkles and eat the cupcake I want, not the cupcake life hands me.
The play was enjoyable. Whoever wrote the dialog for the women was pretty on-point with doing catty. There was a bit with cereal (Lucky Charms) that was absolutely wonderful. The villain of the piece was scenery-chewing Snidely Whiplash evil, which, yeah, it kinda worked. And a pie to the face in live community theater is never ever not funny.
Also for some reason (in the play) they tossed about hard candies and some of them landed close enough that I could steal two butterscotch ones off the floor after the show so I did that. (Some days I do not human real well.) Dad wanted one, so I shared my ill-gotten hard candy with him. And then we drove home.
Dinner theater at the Moose is a thing where it is entirely possible to have an awesome time provided one's expectations are in line with what one receives. Moderate your expectations and you will have a good time. So, I did that.
We are north of the Mason Dixon, so Southern Fried anything is going to be... relatively cartoonish accents, but y'know, this is a comedy and not Mourning Becomes Electra, so that is OK. It's community theater in my relatively small town, so No Swears and No Controversial Themes because those generate angry letters from the base which is largely eighty year old churchgoing women. It's at the Moose, so expect very competent church-supper level cuisine.
I did risk ordering a rocks margarita at the open bar because they had no hard cider and only uninspiring domestic beers. There was wine, but ... meh. Following the bartender's two-minute search for the tequila (Jose Cuervo gold, which was both passable and also entirely in line with what I expected from the Moose), I received a rather stiff rocks margarita, including a wedge of real lime and a salted rim. Yay! I took it back to our table where the other theater-goers inquired as to how it was. "It's quite drinkable and does what it says on the tin." Damning with faint praise? Maybe. But also it was a six dollar margarita from the Moose. Honestly, given the circumstances, it exceeded expectations. Fresh lime wedge was a nice touch. I mean, was it as good as I'd get from a fancy and dimly lit cocktail bar in the downtown section of the nearest (hour and a half away) big city? No. It also didn't cost fifteen dollars and I didn't have to balance on an uncomfortable and overly-narrow stool or endure piped in jazz. Was it as good as I can make at home with my dad's dead wife's reposado tequila imported from Mexico and entirely fresh lime juice? No. Was it way better than a slushy sugar fest like you'd get in a college bar? Yes. Also, I have the olds.
Dinner was a solid ham-green beans-chicken tetra-potato salad-coleslaw-roll affair. Very edible, no complaints. Met the bar on all marks. If you have, at some point in your life, attended a church supper or firehall dinner in central Pennsylvania, you know what sort of dinner we had.
It was fine, quite edible. Dessert was hummingbird cupcakes, box mix and bought frosting with sprinkles. There were none without sprinkles, so I scraped the sprinkles off. Once upon a time I would have worried about what other people thought of me scraping the sprinkles off and either NOT had a cupcake or forced myself to eat the sprinkles and been pissy about that. But now I am old and I scrape off the damn sprinkles and eat the cupcake I want, not the cupcake life hands me.
The play was enjoyable. Whoever wrote the dialog for the women was pretty on-point with doing catty. There was a bit with cereal (Lucky Charms) that was absolutely wonderful. The villain of the piece was scenery-chewing Snidely Whiplash evil, which, yeah, it kinda worked. And a pie to the face in live community theater is never ever not funny.
Also for some reason (in the play) they tossed about hard candies and some of them landed close enough that I could steal two butterscotch ones off the floor after the show so I did that. (Some days I do not human real well.) Dad wanted one, so I shared my ill-gotten hard candy with him. And then we drove home.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-13 02:30 am (UTC)