Cool title eh? This refers to the saga of my 70th birthday.

Original Plan

My birthday occurs in early November which is close to Halloween and the epic Halloween Rocky Horror Picture Show performance. This year Halloween was on a Friday which led to a great plan for attending the Rocky Horror Picture performance (now on at 10pm instead of midnight) followed by all of us leaving for St. Catharines for a weekend of birthday celebrations.

So What Happened?

In an eerie replay of late last year, Sam picked up a serious sinus infection a couple of days before Halloween. Mumtaz and I with friends Maureen and Rick attended the Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th anniversary performance without Sam and Trevor. Just as the preliminaries were over and movie finally started, the fire alarm went off and we were required to evacuate the theatre until the Fire Department could arrive for the system reset. Click on each photo to view it full size.

Here you see Mumtaz looking happier than usual at a Rocky Horror Picture Show performance as she returns to the theatre with her prop bag. Also Maureen, Rick and me outside waiting to return to the theatre.

My Actual 70th Birthday

A few days later on my birthday, Mumtaz and I have dinner at the Hilton where aside from a fabulous meal, we run into many old friends. The restaurant lighting was muted due to falls view; I hope that I didn’t overprocess the photos. You may click on each photo to view it full size.

November Rocky Horror Picture Show Performance

It was disappointing for Sam to miss the October 31 RHPS performance. It was styled as the 50th anniversary performance and it is also the 20th anniversary of Sam’s first performance. The cast also went out of their way to celebrate my 70th birthday (and the fact that I was probably the only person in the theatre that was older than the movie). In late November, Sam and I attended the next RHPS performance in a different and more amenable theater where much of the fun was replicated.

And Finally My 70th Birthday Party

About a month after my actual birth date, we gathered for my birthday weekend consisting of 3 carefully selected movies and a carefully curated menu. Sam worked hard to find me a full DVD set of Strange Paradise; an obscure reference to most of you, I’m sure. Suffice to say that this goes back to a fun craze from high school days which you can explore a little more by clicking here for the Wikipedia article. As I write this, we are watching episode 91 of 195. Not many photos from this event, you may click on each one to view it full size.

And Some Technical Notes

I have upgraded to WordPress 6.9; always quite simple but I’m somehow still relieved when it works successfully. I was aware that Abelfamily.ca was not functioning as quickly as it could but the difference didn’t seem worth addressing. After the upgrade, WordPress diagnostics signaled pretty strongly that this needs to be addressed so I have installed a Page Cache and I believe that the site is performing better.