Welcome Spring!

Riddle: A man gave his older son fifteen cents and his younger son ten cents. What time is it?

A few months ago we had a good snowstorm, lots of moist snow fell, excellent for making snowmen. In the front yard of a house on Minnetonka Boulevard someone built a really tall one, probably nine feet tall, complete with cap, red scarf, carrot nose, and tree branches for arms with branching twigs for fingers.

Then March came, with warmer temperatures and at last some rain. And the snowman got thinner and started to lean backwards. But in this one's case, the effect was to make him appear to be welcoming the early signs of spring, arms spread. I'll attach a photo of him. Isn't he great?

I'm going to post this Monday night, because early Tuesday morning I'm going for a colonoscopy. I've already drunk the doctored Gatorade and so am staying close to the bathroom. For a hilarious look at what it's like, see http://accidentalamazon.com/dave_barry_colonoscopy.pdf.

I thought that was really funny when I first read it, but am finding it less so at present. Presumably my sense of humor will recover late tomorrow morning.

This weekend I'm going to go see Gilbert and Sullivan's “Yeomen of the Guard,” my second-favorite of their plays. (Number One, obviously: “Micado.”) Spoiler alert: Their plays always offer complicated love stories, young men and women finding the customs of their time and place barriers to true love. “Yeomen” at first appears no different, but as the play progresses, the audience begins to notice that there is one more young man than there are young women. How are they going to work this one out? The answer is, they don't. One young man is left bereft at the end. Since these plays feature happy endings – arrived at via some amusing trickery, usually – this exception is really startling. But the music is particularly fine, especially, “I Have A Song To Sing.”

The players, members of the Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company, are amazing, very talented singers and actors. The costumes are beautiful, the theater small and intimate. Tickets are very reasonable in price. They do one play a year, and all performances are sold out within hours of going on sale.

There are lots of theaters in the Twin Cities area, including out in Excelsior.  I've done a little backstage work, I'd love to set a mystery at The Old Log Theater out there.

Answer: The man gave away a total of twenty-five cents, divided between two people. Therefore, he gave a quarter to two.