Fried Fish and Bill Cosby

It's been another busy, fun week for Vivian and me and our cluster of fun friends. The deep winter freeze is giving way to spring early this year, with a week or two of gorgeous, unseasonable warmth so far this year.

Last Sunday, a bunch of us gathered to see our friend Sarah Porter perform in the Taffetas at the Chanticleer Theater in Council Bluffs. Sarah and her fellow cast members have been frequenting the Eagle's Lodge on Friday nights the last couple of weeks, singing "shaboom" a capella as the rest of us dance after the Shim Sham to encourage us to come and see the show. The play itself consisted of a medley of songs from the 1950s, and the girls did a great job with their selection of tribute songs. We had a great time, though we unfortunately weren't quite up for the run to Panera afterward — Vivian and I get our fill of America's favorite bread store every Sunday night.

Over this past weekend, we got to attend our first fish fry of the year down at St. John Vianney Catholic Church. Our friend Anna wanted us to come and help out her youth group's bake sale, which we were more than happy to do. We got our fix of warm, carb-laden comfort food, such as grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, and even pancakes. We also got to enjoy putting Eric in jail for a few minutes, and then Lisa won a bunch of pork chops with a raffle ticket. We wrapped up our dinner, naturally, by doing some swing dancing in the middle of the floor as the one-man band played a handful of oldies tunes for us.

We reconvened at the Eagle's Lodge afterward to burn off some of our meal at Jitterbugs Night Out. The Grand Marquis from Omaha were back to play some live music for us once again, which was nice. We also had a handful of birthdays in our group, including David and Robin. I presented Robin with a special jar of Birthday Jam I relabeled just for her.

The lovely weather continued on into the weekend, so on Saturday a few of our mutual friends through an impromptu picnic down in Bellevue. Spring is one of those odd times in Nebraska, where you have to take advantage of the one or two Saturdays when you have both sunshine and temperatures between 50 and 80 degrees.

That evening, Vivian and had I had a much-anticipated date night in downtown Omaha. After getting a few appetizers at the Panda House at 16th and Farnam, we joined a swarm of other patrons at the Orpheum Theater to see Bill Cosby. It was a real treat to be able to see the 71-year-old comedian performing live, and I had been able to secure seats in the third row, so we were up close and personal with one of the greatest stand-up legends of all time. His new material was quite a bit more "adult" than most of the family fare I'd heard before, but he ended his show with the Dentist routine, which was one of my favorites from his 1983 film, Bill Cosby: Himself. I'd seen this bit so many times before that I could probably perform it from memory, and it was quite surreal to see Bill Cosby himself performing it again just a few feet away.