My parents came to visit me this weekend, and I spent hundreds of dollars and several weeks fixing up my apartment to impress them. They only spent about five minutes inside it (I think they didn’t even sit down), but at least I now have a nice apartment. They had never come to visit me before, so it was a special occasion.

As part of the special occasion, my father treated us all to dinner and a night at the theater. I had wanted to see to Wicked, but it was sold out, so we saw something called Bobbi Boland.

Bobbi Boland is a play starring Farrah Fawcett as a former Miss Florida who becomes (in her own mind, at least) a legendary figure in her small Panhandle town during the 1960s. She spends her days teaching charm and comportment to the local girls, and we are led to believe that everything is going fine until her husband’s boss shows up with his young trophy wife, a free-wheeling blonde who challenges Bobbi’s position and ideas.

The promotion for this play has been so pink and sparkly that one is led to believe it is a frothy comedy. It is not. It is sluggish, badly written drama; it featured a few lines that might have been more enjoyable if Ms. Fawcett had displayed more stage presence, but her performance was so oddly tentative that I could barely figure out what she was doing or saying. I think she realized that her Broadway vehicle was a sinking ship, because she looked so miserable during the curtain call that I wanted to cry for her.

I also felt bad for my father, who spent so much money on a show that was deeply flawed at best. I did not get much of a sense of how he felt about the evening. He was more direct this morning when he discovered that, in New York City, “brunch” does not mean “buffet bar,” as it does in suburban Maryland.

All in all, I think they had a good trip. This morning, we went on a carriage ride in Central Park, which I had never done before. When they left and I came home, I found out that a book that Rob and I ghostwrote for one of my clients has been accepted by a major publisher, so that was also heartening.

A good weekend.