Great food and a wonderful thought-provoking musical

The lovely Carol lured me out last night to Mountain View last night to see Snapshots in Mountain View. I'm not a big fan of musicals, unless they're good :), which this was. Can I summarize it?

Hmmm... a troubled marriage ("troubled" as defined by the wife) is saved (at least for now) through reflection (reviewing their history and remembering good times and bad), and risk-taking (he finally says how much she means to him) and confession (she finally admits that she chose this life too). We saw Judy Cronin and her husband and two of their daughters (all of whose names have escaped me, except "Libbe" -- "Libby"?) during the intermission -- the daughters said they were enjoying the musical even though it was about something still in their future.

I liked the musical because, well, of the truth and confession. I'm a big fan of truth, even though it sometimes gets rather close to home (this is how I get to grow -- and truth be told, I'm sometimes a little slow to embrace it).

So for example, as Susan and Dan are remembering their past, their younger selves come out on stage. The younger Dan asked the younger Susan to move in with him, and the older Susan says to her, "Don't give up your career in the arts to have a life with him; you'll wind up with neither!"

To which her younger self replies, "I don't want a career in the arts -- I want a life with him!"

"No you don't!"

And her younger prophetic self says: "Why didn't you go back (to art school) then?" -- leaving today's Susan nonplussed, face to face with the truth that she really was in love back then, that the choices were theirs, not just his.

What about the food?

Right. The lovely Carol was napping before we went out, and we got a bit of a late start. We parked near the theater and walked out to Castro and saw the Maru Ichi noodle shop. Reviews from yelp are here. Good food, served quickly, with the Big Four flavors found in Japan (iirc: miso, shio, shoyu, ton-kotsu (that is not a typo)). Kim chee is free! I had the "B" combo: ramen (I chose the pork-bone soup), California Roll, gyoza. Like some reviewers, I found the volume of noodles somewhat lacking. But the prices were very good, the food was great, it came out quickly (we didn't finish the Jumble™), and by the way the food was great.

It was also quick, so we moseyed over to the theater, picked up our will-call tickets, and had plenty of time to sit down in the theater café for a piece of strawberry Napoleon cake ($2.95) and a decaf coffee. Both were adequate, the setting was great, the staff were friendly, it was quick, and of course the location was stellar, being just a few steps away from the ticket window.