The flowers that bloom in the spring (tra la) have nothing to do with the case--

I know that it is the kind of thing you either love or loathe, and that it makes me an irredeemable geek that I love it so much, but I was inordinately cheered up by seeing the local Savoyard production of The Mikado last night. For approximately three hours, it made me forget how pissed I was that my eight-year-old had spilled water on my laptop and shorted out the keypad, and how guilty I felt when my four-year-old wailed inconsolably when I left him with a sitter. Because, no matter how much the mire of domesticity has felt like quicksand lately, you can always get a USB mouse, and, if you are four, be instantly consoled by a battle between the forces of Lego and Playmobil. And it was the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan to write an operetta that actually works better when it is performed with a fair amount of amateurishness and campiness—as long as the love and gusto is still there.

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