Old costume photos

I enjoy studying the people in old photos, especially their clothing. It's interesting to see the fads in photography poses, what people choose to wear, how & whether they accessorize - a little social & cultural anthropology. Old photos of actors in costume are even more interesting. I'm jealous of the detail and apparent weight of the costumes, though perhaps the only ones whose photos have survived are the professionals, who could afford something more substantial and more elaborate.

As we've been in rehearsal for Pirates, I've come across a few old photos of actresses playing Ruth. I'm fascinated to see the vaguely oriental look to the earliest of these, and find myself wondering what kind of dancing or blocking those Ruths were able to do in costumes that look fairly heavy. The lefthand picture is from 1880, the center one dates from 1901 and the one on the right is undated. That last one is rather funny; doesn't she look like she should be holding a tambourine or offering to tell your fortune?

Now check out these costume shots, which are clearly from the 20th century:

This one's dated 1919. Suddenly we see the stereotypical pirate hats on Ruth and the Pirate King. I don't know why Ruth's got one corner of her apron tucked up, unless it's to show off more of her fancy skirt. (I wonder what it looked like up close.)The braid and trim on Frederic's jacket make him look like a military school cadet. Notice the skirt on the PK. I'm assuming this is a picture of the old D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the PK's costume is probably based on that from the original production, or at least an early one. Maybe it's just the way the skirt drapes, but I think it looks vaguely Greek.

In this 1926 pic, look at Fred's Greek-looking pirate costume. (This is a scene from Act I, when Fred's still in pirate costume. In Act II, as above, he changes from "this alarming costume" to "decent clothing".) Looks like the 1926 Ruth is wearing the same costume used in 1919, though that pirate hat sure does look strange seen from the side, doesn't it?

And here's a 1950s Ruth: still with that pirate hat. I do wonder what she's wearing under that skirt to make it that shape - a funny sort of hoop? a petticoat with ruffles that start just below the hips? The vaguely military style of her jacket (note the cuffs & front "placket") is kinda sharp. You definitely get both the nursemaid and the pirate in this costume.

Breathing easily at last!

Finally got in to see the doctor today, after having a lot of breathing problems the past few days. That's not unusual when my cold moves from my head into my chest, but in this case I think it was exacerbated by the high pollen count and increasing humidity since Monday. Anyway, the doc recommended I continue to use my inhalers at the higher dosage for at least a few more days, if not another week. She then had me do a nebulizer treatment. Wow! I hadn't realized just how tight my lungs had become until after that treatment - my lungs felt much more elastic.

Now I can breathe without thinking about it; a welcome change. Even better, I'm no longer worried that I'll be able to take a proper breath to sing or to say my lines come Friday.

messy mango

Tonight we finally got around to cutting up the mango I bought last week. After a good week on the counter, it had gotten rather too soft for TW's mango cutter, which in this case was more of a mango mangler. The mango was also very juicy; so much so that we ended up eating it over the sink. So picture it - two grown adults, leaning over the sink (good thing we'd already done the dishes), trying not to bang elbows as we made sure to get every last bite out of that mango's skin.

Minty fresh

Just added some mint "shoots" (the shortest ones are at least a foot tall!) to the grocery store roses I bought on Saturday. The roses didn't have a perceptible smell when I first brought them home, but after a few days in a warm kitchen, they smell lovely! Now I've added mint to the melange. Wonder if the mint smell, currently very faint, will also grow stronger, especially now that the shoots are in dirt, not damp paper towels.

Devoiced

This cold has moved into my chest and is seriously hindering my voice. When I went to church this evening (so nice to have a church w/ a 5 p.m. mass not 5 minutes from the theater), I found that I could barely sing - so little breath I had to breathe in the middle of phrases, not much volume, and some notes and any intervals across or near my passaggio were difficult to sing, if I managed it at all. This did not bode well for my performance tonight!

I warned our music director that my volume would be limited and that he'd have to listen hard for me. This is an issue because the small space dictates that our musicians be placed behind the set, where we can't see them and they can't see us. There are several places in Pirates where a singer has an a capella pick-up to a measure before the orchestra joins in. Ruth has quite a few of those, so the MD needed to realize that he'd have trouble hearing them tonight.

As it turned out, I was able to get out my lines and my songs, but only just. I think I may have had perhaps half my usual volume. Even speaking required a lot of effort just to produce an audible sound; trying to sing at an audible level seemed to require as much energy as pushing a truck out of the mud. However, it must have sounded OK, because none of my fellow cast members commented on my reduced volume, and as I was working my way through the crowd, a woman came up to me, told me I was great, that she loved the show, thought we were all wonderful. Maybe I should have asked her to come home with me, so she could continue in that vein. No, best not, since TW has come down with my cold and we wouldn't want to infect the nice lady.

"Stage mommy"

A friend of mine somehow acquired the affectionate nickname of "stage mommy" when she was wearing her Stage Manager hat. Quiet and efficient, she could nevertheless be quite loud and ruthless when necessary. She ran a very tight ship, made sure cues happened when they were supposed to, and never let us sing in the dark unless that was supposed to happen.

I may be borrowing her title for the rest of our run. One of our cast members has now called me twice when he's been running late, presumably after calling the director. The second time was last night, as I was sewing on the Sgt's insignia. When I got off the phone, I joked to the room in general, "When did I become the mom of the cast?" But of course, since all the rest of the women and at least half the men in the cast are in their teens and twenties, I am old enough to be their mom. And as our Mabel commented, "you take care of us."

Last night was not our best show but neither was it as bad as we'd feared, given that most of our leads were sick with one thing or another. And one of our poor pirates spent most of Act II in the bathroom emptying his stomach. Which prompted me to load up a first aid kit of sorts with Pepto-Bismol tablets and antacids in addition to the more usual bandaids, antiseptic ointment, throat lozenges and such to take to the theater tonight. Here's hoping we don't need any of it!

Finished!

Mabel now has a hat, just as her sisters do. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and hope to get some pictures tonight of Mabel wearing it, which I'll duly post.

Which means the only costuming left to do for this show is to get the Sgt's stripes sewn onto his coat and to take in said coat so that our Sgt doesn't rattle around in it. To that end, I'm schlepping my sewing machine to the theater tonight. I just hope our Sergeant answers my plea and makes the 6:30 call time so I have plenty of time to pin the stripes and the seams I need to take in.

I had to go thru my receipts so I can tell our Major General Stanley how much I spent for his nightshirt, which he wants to buy from me. I made the mistake of totalling everything - I've spent about $125 on costuming for this show, despite the fact that only 2 of the costumes had to be made from scratch! Granted, that includes the patterns, fabric, trim & notions for those 2 costumes, and at least $20 worth of materials for Mabel's hat. Oh, but it doesn't include the 4 hatpins I ordered for the girls' hats. Guess I won't think about that until the bill comes in.

Oh, crud

This cold has been moving along very quickly. I'm past the head cold stage; it's now moving down into my lungs. Wonderful; now I've got all this crud starting to swim around in there, just in time for this weekend's performances. And wouldn't ya know, Ruth's very first song is the 2nd number in the show, solo, three verses long. I have a feeling those verses may feel very long indeed tonight. I've decided to stay home from work today, lounge around the house, force fluids until I'm about to grow gills, and trim Mabel's hat. With any luck, I might even manage a nap so that I won't feel quite so run-down tonight.

And our Mabel seems to have come down with strep throat, poor thing. Same raw throat I've been having, but with nausea. This weekend's shows could be "interesting"...

Finishing touches

Catching up on e-mail and such after finishing the insignia for the Sgt of Police's sleeves (pictures to come, I hope). They turned out rather well, if I do say so myself. Tomorrow night I plan to take my sewing machine with me, fit the Sgt's coat before downbeat, then stitch it and sew on the rank during my Act I down time. We'll see if things actually work out that way...

However, it's getting close to 9 o'clock and I still have to trim Mabel's hat. I could finish it tomorrow between our office picnic and our 6:30 call, but the more I can get done tonight, the less I'll have to worry about tomorrow. And I would like Mabel to have a hat; her sisters do, and heaven forfend our lead soprano should be left out. :)

Another chuckle from The Onion

Any woman who's dated more than 2 or 3 guys and every woman who's divorced should appreciate today's offering: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_women_increasingly_choosing

Uh oh!

By dinnertime yesterday I had quite a scratchy throat that persists even now, more than 24 hours later. Last night I assumed it was the Code Orange air - I confess, I did break down and open the back door while I ate dinner - but now I'm afraid it's a cold. I've already taken a zinc tablet and downed some orange juice. Maybe I should've had chicken soup for dinner. One way or another, I've gotta get rid of this cold or at least keep it at bay until after this Saturday's performance.

I know all "the usual suspects" - chicken soup, water, hot tea w/ honey & lemon, water, orange juice, water, zinc, water... Echinacea doesn't help because of the allergy factor. Any other homeopathics I can try?

And so begins another summer

May has been unseasonably, mercifully cool and incredibly rainy this year, but yesterday the odds caught up with us. The high got to the mid-80s and brought with it the first Code Orange ("unhealthy for sensitive groups") day of the year. So instead of opening the doors & windows and letting the lovely breezes in, I had to leave the house shut up and try to content myself with ceiling fans. This evening, though, the fans just weren't cutting it; we had to break down and turn on the a/c. I consoled myself with the thought that this is probably the latest in the year I've ever gone before having to use the a/c for summer weather, not just tree season.

Waxing piratical

As I had suspected, playing Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance is FUN!!! I don't get to sing "Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry", but as I pour said sherry, I tweak "my" pirates' collars and such, pull one's shirt closed, pat Frederic on the cheek and generally treat them all as my boys. Yes, I have to 'fess up to having messed up big time when I apprenticed Frederic to a pirate instead of a pilot, but then I get to be indignant when Fred tells me I'm plain & old, and clueless that while I'm a "fine woman", at 47 I'm just a wee bit older than he's looking for. And while I'm the only cast member not on stage for "Hail, Poetry" (so I sing it in the wings, along w/ the musicians), and yes, I spend more of Act I offstage than on, my 30 seconds at the end of the Act I finale let me get all upset when Fred & the other pirates reject me, so that I exit practically in tears.

Then comes the good part! In Act II I get to swagger and play w/ a sword and (very nice replica!) ivory-handled pistol, laugh my head off w/ the Pirate King at the paradox of Fred's being only 5 1/4 yrs old, and march with the rest of the pirates in Cat-like Tread. I even get to fight a policeman in the Act II finale, then drop a curtsey when the Sergeant charges us yield in Queen Victoria's name.

My Act I costume is a rather prim nursemaid sorta rig - a mobcap, a blouse w/ a collar, very full-shouldered sleeves, full apron, and a nearly ankle-length skirt that even has a pocket! Imagine - a costume with a pocket! Very handy for stashing my watch w/ the light-up dial so I can check our running time. Every bit of my Act II pirate costume is out of my closet - the full, flowy shirt (a RenFest purchase), the stirrup pants, the boots bought on sale in case I might need them for costume purposes, the headscarf trimmed with tiny silver disks (this is its 2nd Pirates), the blue sash, even the hoop earrings w/ sequin-sized "coins". Both costumes are hot as blazes under the lights, but at least they can go in the washer, instead of needing dry cleaning.

Sold-out house tonight - yee-ha!!! Friends from church were in the audience tonight, along with a couple of folks from work and someone I did a show with a few years back. They all seemed to enjoy it, and one friend of a friend commented that after seeing the show, she now wants to play Ruth too! I don't blame her - I'm having a blast!

Curtain up!

Pirates opened tonight! Best of all, we actually had an audience (I was afraid that, this being the start of Memorial Day weekend, we'd have maybe 5 or 6 people out there), who were vocal in their appreciation. The numbers I'm in generally went quite well, my voice was cooperating nicely, no major costume problems

The performance wasn't without glitches (e.g., I messed up my very first line; "My mind has long been gnawed by the cankering tooth of wisdom"?!?) but on the whole I think it went pretty well.

While I did attempt to costume a show last May, I think this is probably the one I'll leave on my resume. Our Mabel told me her mother loved the costumes, which was nice to hear. Our Kate finished MG Stanley's nightshirt for me (buttonholes & buttons, since the buttonhole foot to my sewing machine is AWOL) yesterday and did a nice job of it. I still want to make sashes for 2 of the daughters, put a hook on my Act I skirt and take in that blouse, and the Sergeant's coat still needs to be taken in, but things are essentially done. Hurray!

Ack!

Learned yesterday that they were going to take publicity pics of the show at this evening's rehearsal, not tomorrow's! There ensued a mad scramble to sew the nightdress & mobcap for the woman who, at 6' tall, is a trifle hard to fit. The fact that the instructions were less than helpful ("do ___ as shown" but no illustration; the Notions list didn't mention fusible interfacing and had a too-low yardage for the trim) both made the assembly take longer and kicked my blood pressure up a few notches. I did get preliminary alterations done to my Act I blouse but it's still too big, even after taking it in 2-3 inches at the shoulder.

So while the costumes weren't complete for the pics, we did have everyone dressed, and the director and the person taking pictures (who also is a major bigwig in the company) both made a point of telling me how much they liked how everyone looked.

While I was still working on the nightdress, with the mobcap still to create and my own costume still untouched, I started thinking about the fact that 3 of my numbers still needed their choreography finished. Despite knowing better, I still got all spun up about it. I had settled somewhat by the time I got to rehearsal and into my Act I costume (that blouse is just huge - still needs much work) but was still spinning enough that one woman made a point of looking me in the eye and saying "Stop spiraling!" :D

Cat-Like Tread still needs to be worked (we've been shown the choreography once), but Frederic, the Pirate King & I ran the Paradox trio and Away, Away a few times, and I got to see that the costuming is actually a lot further along at this point than many shows I've done. (In once case, I didn't get a major costume piece until the night before we opened.) I still have my Act I blouse to take in and the skirt needs to have the hem marked & sewn, I have sashes to make for 2 of the Stanley wards and the nightshirt for the Major General, and the Police Sergeant's jacket was cut for someone more "well rounded", but Samuel finally found a vest that both fits and looks good, the Pirate King & Frederic both have pirate pants that fit, Mabel's sash is perfect, and the other tweaks are similarly looking good.

And once I can relax a bit about the costuming, I desperately need to go back to my lines & music! When we ran the dialogue going into "O False One", I missed a cue entirely, messed up a line, and probably got some of my blocking wrong too. I suppose this is what comes of spending two weeks focusing on costuming the entire show. It's a wonder I haven't dreamt about it yet.

"Maid of all work" indeed!

Oy! Costuming a show I'm also in, and doing it in little more than two weeks, while holding down a full-time job, is a big time-eater! I've already made half a dozen trips to assorted fabric stores, spent an afternoon digging through costume closets while breathing sawdust (the closets are steps away from the scene bay of the company whose costumes I was digging through), made & updated spread sheets of all the bits & pieces each actor needs... Good thing the last few rehearsals have worked numbers that Ruth either isn't in or in which she only has a coupla lines.

Tonight our Major General called me to let me know he'd hit a snag w/ his Act II costume. The folks from whom he was planning to borrow it had a family emergency and hadn't had time to dig out the costume. In fact, they might not manage it until after we open, meaning we now have to scramble to find our MG a nightshirt, nightcap and robe. I did run out to get a pattern and fabric, but if no one volunteers to make it up, it could be Friday (the day we open!) before I have time to sew it.

Catching up

Pirates is getting closer to opening so of course I'm getting busier.

TW ended up not teching that show after all. He felt he hadn't gotten enough time with the equipment to be comfortable with it, and didn't get to go through a full run doing the cues, so rather than mess things up for the cast, he decided it would be better if he just withdrew.

I volunteered my connections to find out what another company (with which I've done lots of shows and for which I've helped with costuming) would charge to rent us Pirates costumes, and even measured the entire cast Monday night in anticipation of a costumer. Guess what - I'm it! It was decided that the rental rates are cheap enough that we're going to costume the whole show that way, and I'm now responsible to for getting everybody rigged out. Tomorrow I'm off to the renting company's scene/costume bay to rummage through their closets and try to find enough things in reasonable sizes for everyone. Good thing it's a small cast! My biggest concern is dressing MG Stanley's wards - the company needs all their bustle dresses for their own production, so I'll have to see what that leaves.

We got a choreographer Wednesday night (we open two weeks from tonight - yike!), who'll be working things up for us this weekend. Next week's gonna be a busy one, as we try to learn what she has for us and I have people try things on when they aren't dancing.

Back to TW's dentist this afternoon. Finally got my teeth cleaned, but probably should have waited. The pollen count has been at toxic levels the past week or so and sneezing fits have had my jaw in spasm. Trying to open my mouth so the hygienist could pick, scrape and spritz my teeth has my jaw aching. Oh, and the next doc to be added to the list will be an oral surgeon once I can find one who deals w/ TMD.

I'm liking Prilosec!

As noted earlier, one of the things the doc has been testing was whether reflux might have caused or at least contributed to my little scare. To that end, she's had me on Prilosec, which I've been taking for a week or two now. So far, so good - tomato sauce is no longer evil! My reaction to the acid in tomato sauce had gotten so bad I'd just about given up on it, which really limits my choices when we go out for Italian! However, I got brave today and had a generous bit of spaghetti sauce on my pasta for lunch with nary a twinge of heartburn - yee-ha! Now I'm ready to try pizza again. Assuming, of course, the crust isn't so chewy my jaw starts shifting & popping like the San Andreas fault.

This should help when I'm trying to decide what to have for dinner on Pirates performance nights. Dairy is still off the pre-show menu, but maybe I can start trying food cooked w/ bell peppers, onions, vinegar (BBQ!), garlic and other good things, instead of plain poultry with some sort of plain side dish. Maybe the kebab place's sampler, with its hummus, tabouleh and grape leaves and that wonderful, made-to-order nan..

Trying not to think about it

Pirates opens 3 weeks from tomorrow and we still have chunks of choreography we haven't seen yet! And places where the blocking is only roughed in or needs tweaking. And no costumer yet. Or rehearsal props (though the foils have been ordered). Last night several of us asked for more rehearsal, especially a 3-4-hour chunk of time in which to learn and drill choreographies. Can you tell I'm not the only one with "We open how soon?!?" nerves? Eeek!

Yes, I'm nervous that this is going to be a disaster, but that's normal at this point in the process. Come see me anyway, because of course I'm going to be wonderful. ("I'm going to be wonderful. I'm going to be wonderful. I'm going to be...")

Wino gravy

Well, not really, but that got your attention, didn't it? Anyway, I always make my gravy with a splash of whatever red wine we have on hand. The other night we also had a bit of white left; not enough for a proper glass of wine, so I decided to add it to the gravy, which needed a bit of thinning out. The premise was: I always put wine in the gravy; this gravy is too thick; since I have to thin it anyway, this lovely white wine will taste much better in said gravy than boring old water.

Perhaps because I was mixing red & white, or perhaps not, but we decided that, yes, it is possible to add too much wine to the gravy.

My husband the tech

We got an e-mail this afternoon from a woman I've performed with a couple of times. She and I also costumed each other's shows last year, and we keep running into her & her husband in the audiences of the shows we attend. She has a show opening this weekend and just had one of her techs wash out for the 2nd weekend of the run and one other performance; could TW help? He decided to cover the 2nd weekend, so tomorrow night he'll go to their rehearsal to see what he needs to learn.

I was planning to see the show anyway; guess I know which weekend that'll be. ;)

Still a mystery...

We know it wasn't my heart giving me that nasty scare last week (TW wasn't so worried; said he didn't "get a feeling" that it was anything serious). Now my doc is trying to figure out what it was. The first candidates are stress and acid reflux. She prescribed a couple of days off at the end of this week - really! I've even got the note! a different muscle relaxant in case the 800mg mega-motrin was getting to my stomach, and some prilosec for the reflux. I'm getting pretty darn tired of all the pills - I can't help but wonder when I'm gonna start rattling - but if it solves the mystery, I'll deal with it.

But what I'm really looking forward to is a doctor-prescribed 4-day weekend! That means I can sleep in as late as I like Thursday, for starters, when I've had inexplicable insomnia the past 3 nights. TW and I are off to the cabin that night, leaving from my rehearsal, and since I told him I've got specific instructions to "take it easy!", I've got carte blanche to sit on my duff and read all weekend (and go over my Pirates lines and music) - gotta love it!

So what the heck was it?

The cardiology lab called this afternoon to say that all those tests on Friday showed no problems with my heart, thank God! I've got my follow-up w/ my doc tomorrow; maybe then I'll figure out what the heck it was that did such a good job of impersonating cardiac problems.

Planting in the rain

Managed to get about 1/3 of the flat of impatiens in the ground before the rain resumed. (The rain's been on a rheostat all day - swells to bucketing, backs off to nothing, swells to bucketing, backs off...) Since I was on a roll, I just got an umbrella and kept planting. 19 assorted impatiens are now freshly planted and already looking lovely. TW picked some beauts - a wonderful assortment of colors, and all with very healthy-looking foliage. I also planted one stub of white impatiens, a bit that had broken off when TW was doing some yardwork last fall. He stuck it into some water in a bud vase and it's been hanging in there all winter long (even bloomed, twice, after he put it in the vase). That's it in the close-up; it's the one with no flowers, at least right now. We'll see how it does now that it's outside.

My only concern is that the neighborhood cats have been using that bed as a litter box and in the rain, it smells like a used litter box, when it ought to smell of dirt and flowers. Anyone got any ideas for keeping the cats away? TW likes mothballs (which haven't worked), I've tried liberal sprinklings of cayenne pepper.

Nasty scare!

Wednesday night I had a bit of a stitch in my side throughout rehearsal, that got more persistent and prolonged as the evening wore on. Driving home, I got the added sensations of tightness across the front of my left shoulder and tingling all down my left arm. That got me nervous enough to pull into a grocery store parking lot and call 911! They sent not just one but 2 ambulances, whose crews checked me out, determined I wasn't going to keel over in the next half hour, and asked me what I wanted to do next: drive myself to the nearest ER or let them take me. (Notice that forgetting about it and going home wasn't seriously considered as an option.) The fact that driving myself was an option was reassuring enough that I decided that would be the way to go.

So off I drove to the local hospital. I was relieved to see fewer than a dozen people in the waiting room; "oh good, short wait." Little did I know that chest pains are an automatic pass to the head of the line. I had barely handed in my check-in sheet (name, age, symptoms) when they asked me to come around for preliminary processing. After a few questions and a very quick EKG, they took me back and hooked me up to a monitor. They drew blood, took a chest x-ray, and decided things were stable enough that they sent me home w/ instructions to contact my doctor first thing in the morning to arrange for a stress test.

I didn't get home until nearly 1 a.m., but woke TW, whose first words were "Where have you been?" Seems he'd stayed up until 11, much past his usual bedtime. When I told him what had kept me, he let me have it for not calling him. He didn't yell, just shook his finger at me in mock ferocity and gave me that "look" - you know, the one that says "and what if I'd pulled something like that?"

Thursday morning had me on the phone trying to set up my stress test, which was something of a stress test in itself. (Some days I would cheerfully subject the inventor of voice mail to a very s-l-o-w, excruciating demise!) While I was on the phone, I started getting the pins-and-needles down my left arm again. Since I'd been having the stitch-in-the-side feeling for a while, that had me calling my HMO's advice line; the nurse's verdict - back to the ER.

This time TW drove me to a hospital closer to home (and where my HMO's cardiology department had an office). Once again, chest pains and left arm tingling zipped me to the head of the line and they took me straight back to be EKGed again. This time, when they sat me up to move me to another area, I got a nasty twinge, so they rolled me instead of walking me back. Again with the monitor, which of course didn't use the same leads as the EKG, and the blood draw, and since this was my second "episode" in less than 24 hours, they decided to admit me instead of sending me home while awaiting my stress test the next morning.

If you've ever spent the night in a hospital, you know how hard it is to sleep there. I got to my room around 6:30 or 7 p.m., actually had a halfway decent meal, but still had the IV port in one elbow and all those leads stuck to me, some of which were hooked up to a little box that had some sort of wireless connection to the heart monitor above my bed. As a stomach sleeper, I knew there was no hope of assuming my favorite sleeping position w/ 5 leads stuck to my chest and that little box to try to avoid sleeping on. Then of course there were the interruptions; a roommate wheeled in around 10:30, the nurses who came in around 11:30 to take my blood pressure and do another blood draw, another visit around midnight:30 to ask me yet again my name, date of birth and also such urgent questions as what was important to me and what worried me most about my illness! At 1 a.m., the first answer that came to mind to that one was "getting anything resembling a decent night's sleep!" Oh, and then they told me I could have nothing to eat or drink after midnight, not even water. Seems you have to fast for a stress test.

By the tme they came in around 6:45 a.m. to tell me to get dressed so they could take me for my stress test, I was a wreck. Worse, I was headachey and was resigned to being able to do nothing about it until after my stress test. Imagine my "delight", then, when they told me that could be 4-5 hours! Seems there's more to it than just the treadmill test: first you get a heart dye, which needs an hour to work; then you get "pictures" of the heart; then the treadmill test, then more heart dye and more pictures. So when the tech gave me the first heart dye and told me I needed to drink at least 4 cups of water, I was so thirsty by then, I coulda kissed him! Unfortunately, by this time the headache was definitely becoming a migraine. Only when I went in for the treadmill test and warned them that I was starting to feel migraine nausea did I learn that I hadn't needed to wait to take my imitrex. I took care of that omission immediately, knowing that the imitrex would need hours to kick in but hoping it would work just the same.

I didn't get through the whole business without getting sick, but I did manage to wait until we got home before getting sick again, instead of getting sick in TW's car. By this time, between sleep deprivation, thirst, hunger and one heckuva killer migraine, I was pretty well useless. I went straight to bed, slept for 3 1/2 hours, tried to eat some dinner, lost it, and went back to bed a few hours later. When another blasted migraine woke me around 4 o'clock this morning! At least this time I could hit it with the meds early enough that I was able to get rid of it instead of letting it pick up momentum and completely clobber me.

Today I was still a little wobbly, of course, but I was finally able to eat and to check my e-mail (for the first time since Tuesday!), though nothing else. However, TW bought me a flat of assorted impatiens when he went looking for some log screws. I'm hoping by tomorrow I'll feel up to planting them. And taking a very thorough shower and shampoo afterwards, since the tree pollen count is through the roof right now.

When I'd heard the term "chest pains", I'd always assumed for some reason that they'd be more internal; mine felt subcutaneous. If there's a history of heart problems in your family, pay attention to that symptom - don't assume, as I did, that it's just a stitch in your side.

As if trying to take a stress test w/ an untreated migraine weren't sufficient insult added to injury, the weather's been gorgeous since Wednesday. Worse, we had prepaid, nonrefundable reservations for a B&B weekend starting Thursday as an anniversary present to ourselves. So much for that! We'll have a nice dinner out tomorrow, but I still feel cheated - we both were so looking forward to a nice, long, pampered weekend with nothing to do but some leisurely sightseeing, exploring local eateries, etc. Suddenly we're seeing the point of travel insurance...

New car!

I picked up my new car today - a 2008 Honda Civic. I went with Atomic Blue Metallic; not what I would have chosen, but it's not as though I'll be spending hours gazing lovingly at its shiny new finish. It's got a lot of features I've never splurged on - cruise control, power windows, power mirrors, even an mp3 jack; now if only I could figure out why my iPod output doesn't...

I transferred the plates from my Saturn, which now sits in the driveway until I can arrange for the charity to come fetch it. I had hoped to take it over 100,000 miles, but after spending the equivalent of 4 1/2 car payments in repairs just since February, and with the steering developing a slight but consistent squeal, 99,300 miles will have to do. Maybe my new Civic will make it to the 100K mark; sure hope so.

Engineer's guide to cats

Warning: it might be best to set that drink down before watching. And watch it all the way through; I like the final sentence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4
Two professional engineers illustrate the proper care and practical benefits of cats. None of the kitties, humans, or engineers were mistreated in the making of this film. They were however, slightly annoyed. ...

Car shopping

Yesterday the Chief & I did a bit of preliminary car shopping. I liked the Vibe - nice ride, good visibility, and of course all that hauling capacity. I didn't test the turning radius, but it did OK on the slight hills in the dealer's neighborhood.

Next stop was the Honda dealer down the road. Sounds like Honda has some incredibly intelligent engineers designing their vehicles. I absolutely love the way they've arranged the Fit's cargo capacity - those seats fold 20 ways to Sunday! The gauges are a little tough to read, though, and I dearly wish the Fit were more the size of the Matrix or Vibe. Give me that, Honda, and I'll take two - one for me and one for TW! I also test-drove a Civic. Like the Fit, it had a nice ride and tight turning radius (at least compared to my Saturn). The instrument panel was much easier to read than the Fit's, for a sedan it's got good cargo capacity, and to our surprise, it actually gets slightly better gas mileage than the Fit, due to its more aerodynamic lines. Both of them had an impressive list of standard features, which is giving Honda the edge at the moment. And when the salesman started itemizing all the service features (shuttle to take you anywhere w/in a 20-mile radius, free loaner if your car is in for extended service), well, as I said, Honda's looking really good right now.

Our last stop was a Toyota dealership. This one was pretty crowded, our salesman wasn't a true salesman (or maybe just new), and we were getting tired by then, so I only tested a Matrix. (I'll test a Corolla some other time). The Matrix's acceleration seemed a bit sluggish compared to the other cars, even the Vibe (same size engine - I checked the info the Pontiac dealer gave us), which surprised me. Comfortable enough, though the full power steering would take some getting used to, after driving only power-assist for the past 9 years. We got the books for the Matrix & Corolla and left. I'll check them out at a dealership near work, maybe later this week.

The last candidate is the Mazda3. Haven't even been to a Mazda dealership yet, but there's one near work, so there's one more agenda item for an afternoon this week.

Do you have any of these? What do you like about yours, what do you not like, would you buy it again or go with something else?

Won't be much longer...

... before this day is over at last. Ugh.

I had a follow-up appointment with my new dentist so he could make a recommendation based on the records from the Chief's dentist. (For those of you keeping score, this now makes 6 dentist visits this year, and counting.) He said the jaw itself looks normal and referred me to an oral surgery practice. Turns out they don't do TMJ dysfunction; at least the receptionist warned me over the phone that they'd just give me some exercises (!) and anti-inflammatories. Great - I can't eat without pain and sound effects (joint popping), and singing in my upper register is starting to get problematic, and they don't want to deal with it. Guess I gotta start calling around and see if there's anyone who will try to fix this.

Then, as I was on my way home, my (manual) transmission went out as I was trying to upshift after making a turn. All of a sudden, my gear shift only moved forward and back, much too freely! I had first gear only, nothing higher, which meant the engine revved like crazy if I went more than 10 mph. Worse, I now have no neutral and no reverse. We found a nearby mechanic and I limped my poor car over there, but they're not open Saturdays, so I have to wait until Monday to get a diagnosis for the problem. Will I need a new transmission, or just a shift cable? If it's the 9-yr-old transmission, will they be able to fix it or find a replacement? I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst; that I'll need to rent a car to get to work and rehearsal come Monday, and will need to find a new car mucho pronto.

And of course the transmission went out just after I'd been listening to a particularly depressing NPR piece on job losses and the looming recession and was thinking I'd wait as long as possible to replace my paid-for car (which had 99,099 miles on it when I left it at the mechanic's this evening). Hah!

I'd like some good news, please. Please?

Not your usual crossword

One of my customary "stops" when I get on the computer at night is the Codebreaker Crossword. It differs from standard crosswords in that there are no clues and it uses every letter of the alphabet. Took me a while at first to figure out how it works, but now I can usually finish one pretty quickly. The fun part, at least for me, is building my "expectancy" - given a word this long, with these letters filled in, what words might I expect to be able to fill in? What letters could I expect to see in this position? (In that respect, it sorta resembles an acrostic.) Some of the words used are proper names or foreign words that are relatively common in English, so it's a nice stretch for the vocabulary.

Before and after death

Warning: if the pain of losing a loved one is still raw, you may not want to click on the link.

Dooce posted a link to a feature on the web site of the Guardian newspaper, a series of photos of people taken before and after their deaths. These are all people who learned they had terminal illnesses. The range in the photos is striking - some look no different after death; merely asleep. Others look considerably older, or more at peace. Most unexpected, at least to me, was how few of the post mortem photos show people made gaunt by the disease that killed them.

How amazing that these people were willing to be photographed and to be interviewed for their views on life, however edited, to be preserved. Requiescant in pace.

Down in the mouth

OK, this is getting old. First the pain sent me to the doctor, who sent me to the dentist. Mine couldn't make it, so 2-hour drive to the Chief's dentist. Two wisdom teeth later and lighter, I developed dry socket, so off to my own dentist. That finally cleared up, then the TMD (tycho-mandibular dysfunction, as the dentist instructed the hygienist) began. So, when my dentist didn't answer my phone messages, back to the Chief's dentist, this time to be fitted for a night guard. Went back yet again to pick it up about 10 days ago. Jaw didn't seem to be getting better yet, but he did warn me it could take a while. Then things took a sudden turn for the worse a coupla days ago. When I can't even eat salad (and I mean lettuce and tomatoes, not carrots) without pain, I'd say I've got a problem. So tomorrow I start calling some of the dentists on the list I printed out tonight.

The Chief's been through worse, so I know there are worse problems, but I'm getting royally weary of over 2 months of pain that's here far more than it's gone. And when dropping my jaw to sing in my upper register is a problem, I definitely need to get this fixed! What scares me is that my dentist had mentioned a little plate/bone thingy that sits between the upper and lower jaw plates that can get messed up and needs surgery to correct. I am so very not ready to do that and risk screwing up my jaw. Even if that becomes necessary, I sure as heck ain't doing it until after Pirates closes!

Champing at the bit

Here we are, 6 or 7 weeks into the Pirates rehearsal process, and still no cast list. Our rehearsal schedule only runs through this week, we've had exactly one blocking rehearsal (supposed to have choreography tomorrow night), no clue what anyone's costumes will involve, whether she's got a sub for "Edith" for opening weekend - heck, we haven't even seen the director in two weeks! Heard from her last week only when she e-mailed everyone to tell us that rehearsal was cancelled because we'd been bumped from the space.

It's been frustrating that she just plain doesn't return e-mails. I've had a few questions for her about the show, and even offered help (finding costumes and compiling the cast list) but not a word in response. I don't need to know every last little thing about her plans for the show, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some kind of a response. Is it?

We're now 2 months from opening and I think we're all getting a bit itchy to get this baby on its feet; try the blocking with lines and music and all that. Wonder if there'll be any choreography for Ruth tomorrow night? Sure hope so!

Shopping? or auditions?

Not sure which you'd call this, but I've just begun the hunt for another voice teacher. Not that I've had any problems with my current one, but as she readily admits, after 5-7 years you start repeating yourself, and we've been working together more like 8 years or so. I had a lesson Thursday with someone who'd probably work well, but I want to try at least 1 or 2 more. Even if they all suit, it could come down to whose schedule works best with mine, or whose lessons are more affordable. I've heard of folks spending upwards of $100 per hour for a lesson! That might be a deductible expense for a professional singer, but it's too much for a hobbyist like me.

And while I have a better idea than I did several years ago of what to look for, I'm still not completely sure what kinds of questions to ask or what to look for (beyond a pet-free, smoke-free studio). It doesn't help that I don't know where I want to go vocally, either. I've pretty much figured out that I don't aspire to opera, and I think I'd like to learn to belt, but do I really want to learn a Broadway style? If I'd rather sing Cole Porter, Gershwin, that kinda thing, who can teach me a cabaret style? (Mary Morton's Wooing the Lorelei is just the sort of thing I'd like to be able to "sell"!) And how much technique do I still need to master before I can start that kind of fine-tuning? Tune in next week for the next installment in the continuing saga...

Playing in the dirt

Yesterday I went home from work by way of the super, serious nursery. The one that's been in business for yoiks, probably employs a hundred or more people in peak season (probably including at least 3 or 4 just to keep everything watered & fed for all us gardeners, landscapers and wannabes), and has all the fancier things, in more varieties and colors than part-timers such as the hardware stores or bigbox retailers.

This early in the season, most of their plants are still indoors. Boy, did those geraniums, begonias, kitchen herbs and such smell wonderful! They did have a few early groundcovers out, though. I came home w/ 5 different colors of phlox subulata, which I'm hoping will do well on the one corner of our front yard that gets enough sun (I hope) for it. I got a red, a pink, a white, a bluish-purple, and a striped one. Only 2 of the plants have any flowers on them right now - gardening requires a lot of faith.

I planted them all this morning because, despite all the forecasts calling for rain, it was bright & sunny. If I could get 'em all in before the rain, I wouldn't have to water, and of course, the sooner you get bedding plants out of their rootbound little plastic pots, the more likely they are to survive.

I sure hope they do better than last year's plants - the drought killed off all my mazus reptans, vinca and pachysandra. Now I need to find another ground cover to go into the driveway and make sure that this one is at least drought-tolerant, if not drought-resistant! I like goldenstar (chrysogonum virginianum), but they do warn you that it is not very drought-tolerant.

I'm considering sedges (carex species) to go over the septic field out at the cabin. The deer got the lilies of the valley and most of the ferns and the drought killed the euonymus and the ferns the deer left; only the pachysandra survived, and even that is looking a bit sickly. Maybe the sedges will do better; it looks like most of them are drought-tolerant or -resistant, which is what we need out there.

The Chief has mentioned putting in a long, narrow raised bed along the fence on the north side of the house. When he asked if I'd mind, I jumped on it - maybe then, in a bed of dirt, not clay & rocks, I'd finally be able to grow lilies of the valley. I don't know that we'll do that this year, but it's fun to think about.

Another project, for this fall - I want to use the tiller to work some topsoil into either a curving line or several patches in the back yard and plant more crocuses and some snowdrops. The Chief may want to try to do the whole back yard (that'd mean spending a fortune on topsoil!) so he can put down either grass seed or sod once I've got my bulbs in. We'll see.

Oh yeah, we've got a bad case of spring fever!

Trying to do too many things at once?

Probably. I'm in rehearsal for Pirates, adjudicated 2 more shows this past weekend, entertaining my folks this weekend out at the cabin, preparing for Holy Week and Easter, trying to see other people's shows, taking voice lessons, oh, and keeping up at work. So what do I do when my former belly dance teacher offers me a 3-minute slot in her student recital, less than 3 weeks from now? Why, grab it, of course!

The biggest challenge to be met? - finding time to practice! Not having danced in years, I definitely need to work on my stamina, and I'll need to redevelop the arm and hand muscles for playing finger cymbals. Then there's the challenge of finding music - she wants everything on CD, but all my dance music is on cassette and vinyl! (I picked up this dance habit rather a while ago.) At least I have a costume that still fits; I just need to figure out where the matching hip scarf has hidden itself and dig out the flashy silver heels I bought to wear with the dress.

The Chief is all for this - he'd love to see me start dancing again. Which is a relief - when I first mentioned doing this, he looked at me like I was crazy and asked me whether I'd have time to do it. Now he thinks it's a great idea, is all set to come along and sample the food (it's at an Indian restaurant that's laying on a buffet for the occasion), and probably have fun watching all the dancers, though he didn't mention that part. Maybe he'll want to tech... :D

RIP, Martin

A friend called earlier this evening to pass the word that Martin had died this afternoon. Martin would have been 97 next month. When I joined my church choir 16 years ago, he was already one of the longest-serving members and was often the entire bass section. (Ours is a small group.) Born in the Austro-Hungarian empire, he grew up speaking German, Hungarian and at least one or two other languages. He subsequently acquired enough English to serve as a translator to the US Army after WWII, and later worked for the Supreme Court, translating German.

Whenever we'd sing a hymn that had been translated from German, he'd always oblige me with a verse or two of the original. Physically small, his voice was quite strong until a few years ago. There was one hymn we used to sing for the first Sunday in Advent that had a declamatory introduction. That intro was the only solo Martin would ever sing, but he always made it compelling.

We'll miss him, but I'm sure the basses in the angel choir welcomed him with open arms.

My first flan

No, not the first time I've tasted it, but the first time I've tried to make it. I'd give myself a B or B+, depending on how much you want to take off for the caramelized sugar. The custard part was easy, of course, and turned out just right.

I'd never tried to caramelize sugar and the directions in my Joy of Cooking apparently weren't quite specific enough because it never did turn brown. When I finally gave up and poured it into the casserole dish, it hardened almost immediately; I barely had a chance to spread it around the bottom, and none on the sides. L, who works in food service and is an excellent cook, later told me that I had cooked it too long. He also reassured me that caramelizing sugar is a tricky process. I told him that next time I try this, I'll make him come over and talk me through it.

I had made flan for last night's Godspell cast party because it was a reference to a sanctioned ad lib in the show, and because L, for all his cooking experience, hadn't realized it was actual food and not just a made-up word. While the caramelized sugar didn't turn out, that was largely a cosmetic problem; as I noted above, the custard part turned out just fine. And it was a bigger success than the snickerdoodles I'd made for opening night, also because someone thought "snickerdoodles" was just a made-up word. The recipe was one of those that calls for multiple leavening agents, so I'd pulled them all out of the cabinet - cream of tartar, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Unfortunately, it was only after I'd measured in the baking powder that I realized I was supposed to have used baking soda. It didn't affect the taste much, but the cookies didn't rise as well as they should have. L made some a few nights later that turned out much better; not only did he use the right ingredients, but he substituted shortening for butter so they didn't spread as much but were nice and thick and chewy.

His 'n' hers techs

The Chief has occasionally helped build or strike sets for shows I've been in and was on the scene change crew when I did Magic Flute, but this is the first time we've both teched a show. It was nice learning very rudimentary lighting stuff together, and when he finished his "spot op" (spotlight operator) duties at the end of each act, he'd come down to my spot in the stage right wings and wait until the end of the act, when we could start striking props. That was fun - at the end of Act I we'd usually boogie to "Light of the World".

I also enjoyed having company on the ride to and from the theater, chatting about the previous night's performance, technical glitches or things that went well, what a delight the director was, and so on. When it came to strike, he was very take-charge about which of us would take which props (we both drive Saturns; needed both of 'em to accommodate the old door and the beat-up trash can), set to work right away pulling gels as soon as the house lights came up after that last matinee, then got to business w/ his drill dismantling the set. Taking things apart, hauling pieces out to the loading dock, loading props into our cars - he probably worked at least as hard as any of the (much younger) cast members. We both crashed & burned once we finally got home after strike, but it was nice working together for a change.

The Producers

Monday and yesterday it was researching into where in our area he might be able to find classes on the tech aspects of theater. (As it happens, our county's community college has a certificate program.) Tonight I came home from work and the Chief was full of questions about what a producer does. I could guess at a few answers, but that of course was woefully inadequate. Fortunately for him, I could refer him to 3 or 4 producers of shows I've been in or companies I've worked with. I'm hoping they'll be able to satisfy his curiosity. He said he was thinking this might be fun (!). I warned him that if that proved true, he'd have people appearing on the doorstep with candy & flowers, trying to convince him to produce for their company.

I'm glad he's getting interested in this; I had felt a bit guilty at how hard he was working on Godspell when that's not something he's ever shown much interest in. And losing sleep over it into the bargain. He works a very early day, getting up at 0440 to get to work around 0600. Not getting to bed until 11 or midnight is hard enough for me (my alarm doesn't go off until 0530); it's an hour worse for him. I don't know how long he'll sustain this interest, but you can bet I'll be encouraging it! That's me - theater habit enabler. :D

Hmmm; yep, the calendar does say "February"

We've had a winter that for the most part has been unseasonably mild. So mild that nearly all my crocuses have their shoots up, and today I had several of them actually in full bloom! This kind of weather in February always makes me nervous, as if Mother Nature were setting us up for a sucker punch, be it a snowstorm or, worse, an ice storm. But when I went out to get the paper and realized that, at 9:30 a.m., it was warmer outside (70 degrees!) than inside, I actually opened up the back door and several windows. In February!

Will he become a techie?

Yesterday was the last performance of Godspell. After the Chief spent the rest of the evening climbing around up in the catwalks pulling gels & gobos during strike, then helping dismantle the set and load it out (I sorted props, helped pull gels, and also hauled lumber to the loading dock - a LOT of lumber!), we're both very glad today is a federal holiday so we could sleep in and be lazy for a welcome change.

He got interested in the mechanics of running his spotlight and developed an appreciation for how complicated lighting design can be. Today he was pondering hunting up classes on the technical aspects of theater - lighting, sound, set design and so on. Given the plethora of community theater groups in the area, he'd be greeted by any of them with open arms anyway (it's always much easier to find folks willing to perform than to tech). If he had an actual certificate or degree or whatever in this stuff, they'd probably start actively wooing him with free tickets, free beer, power tools, etc. He may not pursue it, but if he does, I suspect he'll find himself very much in demand. Who knows - maybe instead of being a Theater Widower while I'm doing a show, he may make me a Theater Widow when he's doing one.

Fickle February

When we loaded the Godspell set into the theater 10 days ago, we were blessed with mild weather, and only slightly overcast. Temps in the upper 50s are just the thing when you're loading piece after piece onto a truck in an unheated set bay, then loading off the truck into the theater's unheated loading dock.

Today, however, it's definitely winter - sharp, gusty winds, much colder, and freezing rain and sleet that arrived just in time for the evening commute home. I cancelled my voice lesson - it just wasn't worth the risk. I heard nothing but accident reports on the traffic news and knew it would only get worse. The forecast for tomorrow doesn't sound too promising, either. I do hope this all passes us by or ends by mid-day, or we won't have more than a handful of people in the Godspell audience tomorrow night. That's always a nightmare - you never want your cast to outnumber the audience, especially when your cast is only 10 people!

Pirates!

Had my first Pirates rehearsal last night. (They had a couple last week, but because I was up to my eyeballs in Godspell, I couldn't make any of them.) We ran thru most of the music in Act I. I happened to be sitting next to our Mabel, who has already done the role twice since July. We had a great time singing everything together (yes, even the men's parts; we just turned the volume down) and clowning. Our ladies sound lovely, better than the men, but none of the men have done the show before while half the ladies have, and I think most of them have never done any G&S, making it that much harder to sightread the music. Once the men get the music under their belt (and we manage to find another tenor or two for the chorus), they'll be just fine.

I had been getting very nervous because I hadn't heard a peep out of the director in two whole weeks. No tentative rehearsal schedule, not even a "hang in there; they took the space away from us again". Finally I e-mailed her wondering what was up. I didn't see her response until yesterday evening, barely 2 hours before rehearsal. And she forgot to include the location - yike! Fortunately, she had e-mailed the cast a couple of weeks ago, so I spammed everyone asking where rehearsal was. I got a response, made it on time, and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Our Major General, upon receiving the initial cast e-mail, sent out a short note introducing himself and some of the rest of us decided we liked that idea so much that we followed suit. I haven't seen that done before, but I liked it and will certainly remember it for future productions. I thought I knew no one else in the cast, but our Samuel reminded me that we'd done another production together a few years back: one of those experiences that was so grueling that it brought to mind the phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". This won't be like that - while they're still auditioning Frederics, the cast we do have promises a good experience, and I liked the way our MD ran last night's rehearsal. (And the fact that he started w/ stretches before the vocal warm-ups.)

Next week we start blocking Act I - I'm looking forward to seeing what our director has up her sleeve.

Another open of another show

Tonight's the night the Chief makes his debut on light crew, running follow-spot #1. He's occasionally helped build sets and once was on crew to help w/ scene changes, but this is his first lighting job and his first program credit. He'll have to save one for his scrapbook. ;)

It's been a rough tech week - "Jesus" has been fighting a cold or sinus infection or some such all week long, which has made it hard for the sound tech to get his mic levels right. The lighting has been particularly problematic - we finally did our lighting cue-to-cue only last night!

I "get" to ride herd on 2 bins full of props, a trunk and 2 milk crates full of props, plus a dozen or more larger bits and pieces (scooters, a trash can, a skateboard, a stool... - it's a very long list!). I have thus taken to calling myself a "prop-herder". The cast does help some, of course, as does Ray when he gets down from the light balcony - otherwise it'd take me an hour to put everything away at the end of the night. I've also gotten better at consolidating how it all gets stored. Our theater tech rep even commented last night that we seem to have a bit more room to get the door closed every night. And that despite the fact that last night we added 3 large boxes of programs to the inventory.

Tonight we do this for real!

"Dropping color" and other lighting terms

The Chief & I reported for duty to the theater last night to help w/ lights. Neither one of us has ever worked lights before. Closest I've come was being one of the bodies told to "stand here" or "now move over there" when the lighting techs have been focussing and setting levels, while the Chief has occasionally helped w/ a set build while the lights were being worked on.

Spare some pity for the lighting tech who was saddled with 2 utter beginners and found herself explaining basic terms & procedures to us while we worked last night. "This is a gel; we generally get 9 to a sheet when we're cutting for leakos (sp???)." She was very patient and not at all condescending as she explained what she was doing and having us do, showed us how to "drop color" (insert framed pieces of colored plastic, aka "gels") into lights, and focus and otherwise adjust said lights.

Last night we learned all kinds of lighting terminology and some basic techniques. It was interesting to see how the lighting designer (or LD) had the gobos (templates which throw a design onto whatever the light is pointed at) positioned. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works on the set.

I now have a pretty good idea I wouldn't make a good LD. Ours had a lot of lights to work with, meaning a lot of decisions to be made about each. Do I want to use all of them? If not, which ones get turned off? What colors do I want where? Do I want to throw any designs on the stage? And which color combinations do I need to use to get the desired effect? An incredible amount of detail involved. I have a new appreciation for lighting design, even if I still don't have a clue how to go about it.

What's that smell?

I walked in the door after work this afternoon and coulda sworn I smelled nail polish. Turns out I was right. The Chief was getting ready to go back to the set bay tonight and had just used a bottle of bright pink polish to mark all the tools he was taking. He told me he'd started w/ the "chrome copper" but it didn't show up well enough, so he tried the pink.

This is a weird experience, not seeing much of him in the run-up to Tech Week because both of us are busy with the show - him at the set bay, me at the rehearsal site. Once we load in this weekend, though, that'll change. We'll be in different parts of the theater, but at least we'll be in the same building.

Domestic god

No, not goddess. Tonight it was TW who was slaving away in the kitchen. Steak, homemade mashed potatoes & nuked veggies for dinner; homemade applesauce to use up the aging apples in the fridge; and spaghetti sauce! Not only does the kitchen smell fantastic, but we now have dinner and a nice, healthy nosh for the rest of the week. Good thing, since he'll be spending at least one night at the set bay and I'll have rehearsals every night from tomorrow until after the first weekend. (Wonder if this theater has a microwave backstage so we can nuke leftovers...?)

What a trouper

Mentioned to TW tonight that the Godspell director asked if he might be willing to help finish the set, or maybe learn to run the light board or follow spot. Having worked on sets before, TW agreed to help out one night this week. And once I explained about light boards and follow spots - as much as I can, given that I've never touched either one - he said sure, he'd be willing to learn how to do one or the other.

How adorable - "his 'n' hers techs". ;) This means he'll be at the back of the house while I'm backstage in the wings, but at least we'll be at the theater together.

Busy, busy, busy!

This is when it starts to get exciting. Godspell opens a week from Thursday. The cast members have all their important costume pieces already and all but one or two accessories. Nearly all the umpty-gazillion props are ready & waiting, the set is close to finished, we start hanging lights on Thursday, load-in is Saturday and our first tech rehearsal is a week from today. No rehearsal tomorrow, but that's the last night off until after the first weekend. Starting Tuesday, it's rehearsal every night, folding in more & more tech until after load-in. Once we put this baby on the set, that's when the magic really starts to happen. It's when you're out of the rehearsal space and finally in the theater, with seats that will shortly be filled (we hope!) with appreciative audience members, that you realize this isn't just something to fill your time. This is gonna be an actual, living, breathing show!

I think this is gonna be good. Godspell is very demanding, in that all 10 performers are on stage the entire time. Lots of music, nearly all of it choreographed (there are 1 or 2 numbers that are more blocked than choreographed), and the blocking is very physical - a lot of crawling, reaching, running, jumping... I've joked with several of the cast members that this is such a good workout, they won't need to hit a gym until after we close.

As assistant stage manager, I'll be in the wings, helping our propmistress ride herd on the plethora of props for this show. The cast members take care of many of their own, and many will be preset, but that still leaves a LOT of props to worry about.

As if that weren't enough, the theater adjudication year has begun (it's on a calendar year). TW and I saw an Albee play a couple of weeks ago that he didn't much care for (he's not into absurdism), and last night it was a comedy with rather a Twilight Zone twist. One of the further-from-us theater companies, but my online search turned up a nice little Persian restaurant nearby where we had a lovely dinner. They won me when they brought out mast o khiyar and bread with the menus. The baklava was pretty bad - mostly dried-out filo - but the entrees were good enough to keep us happy, and TW loved the tea (some Persian blend w/ a touch of cardamom). I've got 2 or 3 more shows to cram into my schedule between Pirates rehearsals, along with 1 or 2 shows friends are doing that I also want to see. It can be crazy-making, but in small doses it's a lot of fun. And this year I've got TW home, not overseas, so he can come with me and help me try the new restaurants, discuss the show, and so on.

Too soon to tell

... whether my mouth is fixed yet. I ended up getting 2 wisdom teeth extracted Friday. Ouch ouch ouch! The joint on the right side of my jaw is finally considering forgiving me, but the pain is still very much present. It's just a different one. I saw my own dentist this afternoon for a follow-up appointment and learned that I've developed dry socket (or "dry rot", as TW likes to laugh at me). My dentist gave me chapter & verse on what it is, what happens and all that, but for me there are 2 main problems: first & foremost, that it can add 2-3 weeks to the healing process (and in the meantime it hurts like blazes when the motrin is wearing off) and that the "baby it" restrictions include stretching the mouth as little as possible, which is gonna make singing a bit difficult.

On the plus side, though, Friday & Saturday it felt as though I had a filling on the healthy side that was starting to wiggle loose. My dentist checked out all my fillings on that side, just to be sure, and found no problems, chalking it up to "weirdness" resulting from the jaw trauma and change in my chewing motion.

Friday I couldn't help but remember all the people I knew in college who had their wisdom teeth out over spring break. Even then we thought they'd gotten a raw deal. Now, however, I have a new, much fuller appreciation for how very thoroughly their spring break was ruined!

"Wait" is a 4-letter word

Especially when you're hurting. My dentist called late this morning to say he was cancelling his afternoon appointments and closing up shop for the day because of the weather (snowing like crazy, forecast predicting snow to be followed by sleet, ice or some other disastrous form of precipitation by mid-afternoon). I was welcome to leave a message with days & times I could reschedule for next week.

Um, sorry, can't wait that long. When I woke up this morning (after calling my office to say I wouldn't be in), it took the "mega-motrin" fully an hour to bring me back from the brink of the rocking-and-whimpering stage. No, waiting until next week is not an option here. So now I have an appointment for tomorrow morning (more waiting and trying not to whimper) with an associate of TW's dentist, who's about an hour and a half away from here. But close to the cabin, which is why TW goes to that guy (long, uninteresting story). I won't be seeing the dentist TW likes so much, and he doesn't take my dental coverage, but he can take me first thing in the morning. I don't have to hurt until sometime next week? For this I'm willing to pay!

We were planning to spend the weekend at the cabin anyway; now we're going out one night sooner, so we have a shorter trip to the dentist in the morning.

Looking forward to the dentist

This is the first time I've ever been eager to get to the dentist. I started having jaw pain Monday night - felt like bone pain, symmetrical across the upper jaw, and bad enough that I wasn't able to fall asleep until I got up and took something for it. Yesterday it came back sufficiently persistently that I ended up going to my HMO's after-hours care, so you know I was getting fed up. The physician's assistant was helpful, but the best advice he gave me was to call my dentist. Unfortunately, he didn't have anything available until tomorrow.

So now I'm sitting here w/ Rx-strength motrin in my system and pain that's decided to localize on one side of my jaw, counting the hours until I get to go to the dentist.

Success at last

I went into Sunday's audition for a production of Pirates of Penzance 0 for 3 but was optimistic when I found that I was the only woman auditioning who looked older than 20-something - no competition for the role of Ruth that night, at any rate. My song felt good, I thought I read well, so I went home thinking that even if I got the role by default, I'd still earned it.

This is very much a community theater company. They perform in a converted storefront in an old downtown. The place is small enough that it seats only 50, the stage is probably only 15 or 20 feet square and perhaps 6" off the floor. No orchestra pit and precious little backstage area. Which means we'll have an unusual intimacy w/ the audience and get great energy from them because even the back row will be so very close. This is gonna be fun!

Now if we can just find a Frederic and 3 more men for the chorus...

Some corners should never be cut.

Made some pumpkin pies this weekend to use up the half-and-half I'd bought. I had one carton of fat-free and one of "real" half-and-half in hopes of producing a less-guilty pleasure. Big mistake! The fat-free stuff did nasty things to the texture of the pie in the cooking process: instead of the usual smooth custardy texture, it ended up kind of pebbly, and separated a lot more than usual, producing quite a lot of "water".

Sometimes you can make these calorie-shaving recipe changes without a qualm. But fat-free "half-and-half"? In your coffee, maybe, but definitely not in pumpkin pie or anything else custardy.

Experiences of an English soldier in WWI

Just learned of this blog from yesterday's paper. Apparently someone came across letters Pvt. Harry Lamin wrote to his family while he was serving in World War I and Harry's grandson is posting the letters on the 90th anniversary of each letter's writing. (For example, the letter Harry wrote on 3 Jan 1918 was posted to the blog on 3 Jan 2008.) I plan to go back to the beginning (about a year and a half ago) and start reading a few at a time until I get caught up. The grandson is dropping no hints about Pvt Lamin's fate, aside from referring readers to Lamin's Brigade's diary. Aside from a bit of commentary explaining references, and the addition of some family photos (Harry's grade school class picture is a study!), the letters have not been edited; the spellings & grammar are Harry's own. I'm looking forward to digging into it...

Another Locks of Love donation

Because the furnace guy came early and therefore was gone by noon, I was able to fit in a haircut for another Locks of Love donation. Notice the before and after shots - hard to believe I only donated 12 inches.

Uh oh!

Words you never want to hear from the person about to fix your, well, anything: "This is gonna be hell!"

I stayed home today because we had someone coming to check a furnace leak (the Chief had noticed water around one of the seals the other day). Turned out he needed to replace a section of pipe in order to replace the seal and I think the comment referred to the anticipated trials & tribulations involved in cutting the PVC to fit. I never heard any uncouth language emanating from the basement, no explosions or anything like that, and so far the repair is holding, but he did have me worried for a bit there!

Bad news

Mom called last night to let us know that my sister just learned she's miscarried. After 2 pregnancies & 2 thriving babies, the possibility of miscarriage had probably receded. Now she and my brother-in-law have to deal with the loss of all their hopes and dreams for this little one. I know exactly how much that hurts, so I feel bad for them, poor things. And none of this "At least they have 2 healthy ones" stuff. While it might make their loss easier to bear, the fact remains that it is a loss.

Good news for Christmas

At Christmas dinner, my youngest sister & her husband announced that their 3rd baby would be arriving "probably sometime in August". Little Bit's 2 sisters are utterly adorable and, at 14 and 28 months, already very distinct personalities. (One's a performer, the other's an adventurer.) Can't wait to see how #3 turns out.

The next day, P got a long-awaited phone call offering him the job he'd interviewed for nearly a month ago. After getting laid off nearly 2 years ago, this was very good news indeed!

The Chief & I were very pleased to see how great both my parents looked. They've improved remarkably since they visited us in October. Mom has nearly all her strength back and Dad is actually, finally walking without a cane nearly all the time, for the first time in over 2 years. Hallelujah!

I love this description of English!

Why did I never hear this before? James Nicoll has said of English that

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

The Flibbertigibbet recently saw this quote paraphrased on a T-shirt as

English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

Fits better on a T-shirt than the original, but dropping the cracks about the "purity" of English is a tragic loss.

Once more into the breach

Yesterday I agreed to be assistant stage manager (ASM hereafter) for a local production of Godspell with many of the same folks I did Birdie with - same director and stage manager, several of the same cast members, and one of the Birdie cast members is doing the costumes. I'm looking forward to working with them again, and to learning more backstage techie tricks. Among other things, I have to go to the lighting rehearsals; I've never done a lick of stage lighting so I'm hoping I'll learn a bit about hanging, aiming and designing stage lighting.

The Chief has offered to help with load-in and maybe with set building. He has no desire whatsoever to set foot on a stage in front of an audience, but working on sets is something we can do together. Maybe he'll even let me play with his power tools. Well, maybe the driver drill; I don't think he's ready to share the miter saw or table saw yet. :D

Quite the social butterflies, we are

It certainly is the party season! We had 4 parties in 3 days - one Sunday, 2 last night, and one today. Last night was kind of funny because the first party was fairly casual while the 2nd was black tie optional because the singers in the crowd like to wear their tuxes & recital wear for something other than "work". The Chief has a tux he had made by a local tailor on one of his deployments and I've got a ballgown he bought me a few years ago (Nordstrom's was having a post-holiday formalwear clearance) and gold jewelry bought on various trips to the Middle East. So the Chief donned his tux and I my ballgown & gold for both. We got lots of compliments at the first party, a few photos of us in our gladrags, and comments such as "you look like you're ready for a concert". If I'd thought of it, I'd've worn the dress without the matching jacket and instead worn my vintage opera gloves; the bangle bracelets would have shown up better without sleeves to obscure them. ;)

Poor Chief - 3 of these parties were given by people I've done shows with, so he knew few or no people at most of them. Today's was the best for him, though. The hosts have an older home they've slowly been starting to work on and we not only got to talk antiques and remodeling but learned of a local architectural salvage place. Now we're looking forward to swinging by there this weekend to browse their warehouse.

A choral glossary of music

From my e-mail (no lightbulb jokes, just daffynitions)

TONIC - a smooth liquid generally enjoyed over ice after a choir rehearsal.
DOMINANT - in a choral relationship, usually the soprano.
AUGMENTATION - delicate surgery for altos involving the implantation of "falsettos."
LEITMOTIF - like a regular motif, but less filling.
SCORE - Basses 8, Tenors 0
CONTRALTO - an alto who has been convicted of a felony.
POLYCHORAL MOTET - six parrots singing "Exultate Justi"
ALEATORIC MUSIC - music composed by the random selection of pitches and rhythms. Frequently found in the choir anthem.
BASSO CONTINUO - when the conductor can't get the fools to stop singing.
CASTRATO - the highest male voice (some alteration required).
ETUDE - what comes right before the Beatitudes.
GLISSANDO - what directly precedes the highest note of the soprano part.
THEME - we hate this anthem.
THEME AND VARIATIONS - we hate this anthem, the composer and all of his/her relatives.
SMORZANDO - the "all-you-can-eat" buffet at Luciano's.
GRAND PAUSE - when the conductor loses his or her place.
ANTIPHONAL - leaving your answering machine on all the time.

OK, so let's ring in that new year already!

I know a lot of folks who've had a really rotten 2007. There are the families & friends of those who've lost loved ones prematurely or watched them die a painful death, my ex (who had not one but two friends die too soon of nasty cancers), the ones who've had jobs yanked out from under them, and all those who've just had a whole bunch of little things start piling on until they amounted to one helluva big thing.

I've got a lot to be grateful for, and we got some lovely news last week, but I sure hope the folks around me who haven't been so blessed have a better time of it soon.

0 for 3

Got a group e-mail today from the director I auditioned for the other night. She's scheduling callbacks: "The following people are called back for the following roles..." Try as I might, I just couldn't make my name appear on the list.

I was one of three reading for the mom. For some reason, I ended up reading a different scene from the others, one in which "Mom" had very little to say. So I just tried to look engaged in what the other 2 characters were saying and hoped for the best. The only other person who was a contender (the 3rd woman was much too young) is a big wheel in the company and, probably more to the point, has appeared on stage with them before. Her name is on the callback list where I'd hoped mine would be.

I don't know whether to be cynical and think "She & the director know each other, may well be best friends, she probably meant to cast her all along," blah blah blah. Or to be charitable and think "her reading must have been closer to what the director wanted." Naturally I think I gave a good, solid reading but I'm hardly in a position to be objective. It's easy to be catty about the situation, but I haven't worked with the company yet and don't know how close X and the director are, so I'll reserve judgment.

This makes 3 auditions this month and no callbacks, let alone roles. Ah well, there are 3 or 4 shows auditioning next month that I'm interested in. Hope springs eternal...

Peter Pan syndrome?

As the 2 or 3 of you who read this know, I recently hit the half-century mark. (Sounds more impressive that way, don't you agree?) Not something I'm ashamed of or try to hide, but I don't exactly advertise it when I go to auditions.

After years of performing in G&S choruses, in which the women's chorus are nearly always girls (The Mikado's chorus singing "schoolgirls we, 18 and under" is only the most flagrant example), I think I've developed a rather distorted view of how old I "read" on stage. This despite all the gray in my hair. Among other things that says about me, it should tell you I don't spend a lot of time gazing, enraptured, upon my reflection. ;) There's also the fact that, being fair-skinned and freckled, I've long since grown accustomed to people underestimating my age. Hence, I'm still adjusting to the fact that apparently I no longer read in my 30s.

I think the wake-up call was when I auditioned for Bye Bye Birdie. I asked to be considered for Rosie (realizing that was a long shot), Mrs. Macafee or Mae Peterson. The only role the director had me read for was Mae, easily the oldest of the three. The demographics of the audition pool (only 2 or 3 women who looked older than their 30s) probably figured into his decision, but I guess auditioning with my hair down doesn't outweigh the gray and the crow's feet. :D

Sure, I could cover the gray; I've done it before. However, it's messy and a pain in the rear to do it myself, expensive if I go to a salon (can easily run $100; more if I want a trim as well), and has to be touched up every month or so. I'm cheap, I'm lazy, and I'm rather proud of the gray - kinda like hashmarks.

So I'm trying to resign myself to playing moms and grandes dames - I fully accept there are no more sweet young things in my future, but had hoped for the occasional sadder but wiser girl. Ah well, a Lady Bracknell (Importance of Being Earnest) or Desiree (A Little Night Music) would be fun to sink my teeth into, or Dolly in The Matchmaker. Now if I could only get cast....

On a lighter note

Found the Daily Coyote in someone's blog roll. It's all about one woman in Wyoming raising an orphaned coyote. Fortunately for the blog-reading world, she's a good storyteller and gifted photographer. The photography is gorgeous, Charlie is adorable, and the tales of Charlie and his feline "big brother" are always fun.

Public service announcement

I've been enjoying Dooce's blog for quite some time now. It can be very funny, but today she gets serious. If you have ever suffered from mental illness or love someone who has or does, you need to read today's entry.

More FreeRice and other good sites

I checked in at FreeRice.com again today. I got all new words, and it seemed to remember my vocab level from last time. The words were a lot harder this time; I got 40 out of 42, but only because they give you 4 fairly different options for each word, making it easy to rule out at least 1 or 2 right off the bat. Some of the words I'd never even heard of before - delict and hyson are just 2 examples. I'll have to go back every so often and play again, if only to collect new words and stretch at least my recognition vocabulary. And the fact that I can help donate rice is a nice perq, too.

I think I've already mentioned the site where you can click to help fund mammograms. Turns out there's a related site that works similarly, but this time you click to fund food programs. This click-and-donate stuff seems almost too easy and painless to be for real, but snopes.com says they're legit.

And of course Locks of Love is another unusual charity in that it takes donations in the form of hair. I'm about due to make another donation, probably after the holidays when things slow down a bit.

Looks like I'll be 0 for 2 this week

Two auditions at the beginning of this week. At the G&S were the 2 mezzos I most hoped wouldn't show, as both of them have not only done leads w/ the company, but have been hand-picked for special chamber productions. Worse, they're both lovely people, so I can't even hate 'em! Anyway, they both got called back, I didn't, and as I specifically said I wouldn't do chorus (I've already done chorus twice for this show), I won't be doing that show.

Monday was the new musical. The accompanist was having a difficult time settling on a tempo, though he generally erred in favor of too slow. I hope that was was the cause of the rather strained-looking polite smiles on the panel's face, and not my singing. I think I sang pretty well, given the accompaniment, but wasn't asked to last night's callbacks. I overheard someone say they would cast the show almost immediately, offering roles as early as this morning. I've heard nothing, haven't even been offered chorus, so I won't be surprised if I end up getting a "thanks but no thanks" e-mail. Hearing the woman ahead of me, and the guy ahead of her, both of whom had been in the ensemble of the last show I saw the group do, I wondered if perhaps I should hold off on auditioning for these folks until I can belt. Or maybe I just won't worry about it.

Auditioning is a funny thing. I look forward to it, perhaps because of the "hope" factor - "I hope they ask me to play X; she gets to sing all that great music", "I'd love to do this show", "I want to break into this company"; that sorta thing. If I'm less than satisfied with how I did, I start with the "shoulda woulda"s. If I think I did well, then I start dreaming about getting this or that juicy role, only to be disappointed when they don't cast me, or offer me chorus when I was hoping for something meatier.

Not getting cast also makes me wonder how my voice sounds to others, how I come across - is there something I still need to work on, or is it just a matter of taste or something else out of my control. Maybe they don't like my freckles, or they want someone who's older, younger, thinner, fatter, taller, shorter...

New stuff!

Mission accomplished! I set out with no particular expectation of finding much clothing that would fit me, but came home w/ three pairs of trousers and 5 tops, with 2 silk-blend turtlenecks to be shipped to the house (from another store in the same chain). The process was relatively painless, too. Only found one sweater in Macy's, found nothing in Nordstrom's for which I was willing to pay designer prices, though I saved myself a lotta money when I tried on a sweater that was perfect, except that I learned that my skin won't tolerate cashmere, no matter how cuddly soft it is. Talbot's was where I hit the jackpot - all 3 pairs of trousers, 2 of 'em on sale, and 4 sweaters, also on sale.

The Chief & I will still hit the outlet mall tomorrow so I can fill a gap or two, but I can no longer complain that I have no decent winter clothes to wear to work. Whew!

Snow: a 4-letter word? Discuss

Got our first snowfall of the season today. It was snowing when I left for work around 6:15 this morning, it snowed lightly or not so lightly pretty much all day, and it's finally tapering off at 9:30 at night. It was quite a while before it started to stick, at least where I had to drive, so we aren't buried, but a few schools let out an hour early, just about everyone's cancelled evening activities, and the evening traffic reports were twice as long as usual because of all the weather-related accidents.

And why so many accidents? I once heard someone deride the way the idiot factor seems to skyrocket whenever we get any form of precipitation: "They see a drip, they drive like one. They see a flake, they drive like one."

And from a friend's blog:

From "Ancient Music" by American poet Ezra Pound (Lustra collection,
1913-1915)

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Are you a Cosmo girl?

Wonder if she's drinking a cosmopolitan...?

To every season and all that

This weekend I finally managed to pack up my summer clothes and put them away, replacing them in the dresser with winter clothing. I also realized that every single item of is at least a coupla seasons old and looks it. Sigh; I really hate clothes shopping, but I'm gonna bite the bullet and do a bit of shopping Thursday and see if I can find a few decent things to wear to work.

This weekend I also put away the everyday china and put the Christmas china in the cabinets. I won't do much decorating, since we'll be out of town for Christmas, but we still enjoy using the Christmas china for a month or so every year.