Hmm; am I a mom or not?

My sister K called last night about a Mother's Day gift my siblings were plotting. (Mom doesn't read my blog, and is getting back from Lourdes today and will be too jetlagged to read it if she were a faithful reader, so this shouldn't be a spoiler.) They're getting (something - it went by so fast, it didn't really register) that includes 5/8" plastic disks that can hold pictures. The others are all submitting pics of their kids and K wanted to know if I wanted to include one of my daughter, who died in Jan '97 at the ripe old age of 4 days. So this afternoon I swung by Kinko's w/ the 5x7 version of the hospital photo, scanned it to a CD, then e-mailed it to K.

She's the only one of my siblings who mentions Colleen to me. I suppose the others are afraid to touch on a sore subject. I also get the impression that some parents are superstitiously reluctant to raise the subject, as if talking about it could make it happen to one of their children.

K always sends me a Mother's Day card. At first that was really, really painful, but now I'm glad to know that someone remembers. A former roommate and very dear friend, and my mother-in-law also send me Mother's Day cards. The first time TW's mom sent me one, I was surprised, but we share a bond in that her 2nd daughter died of Hodgkin's disease at the age of 21. She's asked me about Colleen once or twice, and spoken of Barbara on occasion; I think she appreciates having someone who knows what it's like to bury a child.

Since I don't have any surviving children, I feel almost like a "stealth mom"; are you still a mom if you never got to raise a child? One friend, a single mother of six (and going to school while working full time - I don't know how she does it!), commented recently that "none of your children live with you". As the oldest of 5, I've always had a mile-wide mother hen streak. In college my roommates and I mothered each other, then I mothered my husbands, doing domestic things for them, friends have seen that mother hen in me come out, and now the folks I do shows with reap the benefits - I'm forever tweaking their costumes, working on sets, etc. Some of it even leaks out at work, though I do try to maintain a professional demeanor. ;)

Having had 20 years to get used to my situation, I'm usually OK with it, but sometimes when I see families together, I get really wistful, and holding baby girls is guaranteed to get me all teary-eyed.

Can you stand more thoughts on our opening weekend?

No? Then why are you reading this? :)

Striking the set and stashing everything (set pieces, props, costumes, sound equipment - everything!) didn't take nearly as long as I feared Saturday night - the last of us left by 12:30 Sunday morning. We also got the church back to a stage set in fairly good time Sunday afternoon, although some of the masking flats ended up in slightly different places, which created sightline problems stage right.

The work isn't so much strenuous as tedious, although it is not without risk. I have any number of little scrapes & bruises, and quite a bruise on the nailbed of one finger that didn't get out from between riser and frame quite fast enough. Naturally, it's on my dominant hand, and because it's the last section (joint? finger tip?), the pressure sensitivity means I notice every time I use that finger for a keystroke. Not painful, but certainly a nuisance.

Another eccentricity of performing in a church nave is that you can never bring the house lights down completely at the matinee because you get sunlight streaming in through the stained glass. This meant, among other things, that the black scrim masking the stage right "backstage" area didn't really hide us all that well because we're backlit.

Saturday I ended up running out to a mom-and-pop fabric store to pick up some daisy-sprigged gingham for windows in Ursula's and Kim's "bedrooms". (Sure beats doing housework.) I was going for "girly" curtains and they turned out even better than I'd hoped. I took a few pictures of the curtains once I got them mounted on the window frame piece and will post them if I can ever figure out why our computer flatly refuses to run Photo Shop any more.

Despite not getting to bed until 1:30 Sunday morning, I went ahead & set my alarm for church. It went off, I got up, realized I had another migraine, took some imitrex and went right back to bed. When I finally got up for good shortly after 11, I felt so much better that I can't help but wonder if God was giving me a bye - "sleep in, kid; you need that more than you need to get to church."

Did I mention that the principals are miked for this show? Seems to me from "stage" (standing on the lovely old hardwood floor) that the acoustics are good, but the walls are all brick and the ceiling is quite high in the center but much lower along the sides, so maybe the quality of the acoustics varies widely depending on where you sit. My costume is pretty well suited for the mike. The first dress has a back tie the power pack can clip onto and the second dress has pockets (yes, I actually have a costume with usable pockets!) which are just the right size for it. I can clip the mic to the neckline of the dress, the coat covers the cord from the mic to the power pack, and its neckline is open enough not to block the mic. The only tricky part is not to hit the mic when Mae clutches at her heart dramatically.

My costume is rather a mismatch: I have a feathered black hat that prompted chuckles from my fellow castmembers at the first dress rehearsal and lots of "that's a Mae hat!" comments. Poor thing's needed a bit of repair, though - the cluster of feathers on top has started to disintegrate on me twice. Elmer's glue got me halfway thru opening night, but I had to borrow the producer's glue gun to repair it more securely. I braid my hair and twist it into a bun, wear the hat pretty far forward above that, and nail it to my head with a pair of deadly hatpins that were my aunt's. Good & sturdy (I've had to warn people not to get too close when I've got the hat on) and tipped w/ tiny amethysts, they've served me well in more than one show. I wear the hat at all times, as well as a long (almost midcalf) real fur coat, pearl earrings & necklace, a plain white-gold wedding band (left over from my first marriage), and a pair of obviously well-worn shoes (my own, kept for running errands or wearing in messy weather). Mae's first dress is a black-and-cream check, the second is a brown floral w/ a bit of lace at the neckline; both are suitable frumpy. The only problem I have with the costume is that a genuine fur coat over a polyester dress is a very warm combination! As soon as I come off stage into the wings, I generally catch the coat in the crook of my elbows or take it off entirely, then stand over an a/c grate. Kinda like Marilyn Monroe doing the 7-year-itch thing at, oh, 55 or 60. :D

Naturally, Mae carries a purse at all times, even walking around the Macafee's house. No telling what Queen Elizabeth carries in her purse, but Mama's purse contains: some plain paper to bulk it out; a worn tapestry coin purse holding the large coin (a 2-shilling piece) she gives Albert to buy some candy; a dark green hankie, used as a hand prop; the gloves she wears for the Penn Station scene; the letter from which she wrings out "only a mother's tears" upon arriving in Sweet Apple, OH; the cats-eye glasses Conrad wears when he makes his escape in disguise; a tin of wintergreen Altoids so she can chew Albert out without blasting him with the fumes of whatever she had for dinner; a watch w/ a light-up dial; a tiny flashlight so I can check the list of scene change assignments posted backstage; and a tin of foreign change for weight, so it moves like a real mama's purse. For a while, I even had my swiss army knife in there. When I first added the tin of change, I didn't have much else in the purse, but now I've got so much in there that it'll have the right weight even without all that change. :D

So far I've had people I know at each performance. My neighbors came Friday night and sent a congratulatory "Sweet Apple telegram" backstage. This is a cute idea; for $1, the company will give you a piece of "telegram paper" (bordered in the Bye Bye Birdie logo) on which you can write a note and send it backstage to a cast or crew member. A tenor with whom I've done time in the chorus of many a G&S brought his wife to Saturday's show. He e-mailed me Sunday and, among other comments on the show, described my performance as "outstanding and very entertaining". What a lovely man! :) Sunday a Jewish friend from work came; if she didn't think much of my Jewish mother shtick, she was too polite to say so. I've joked with friends that the acid test of my accent will be the "native speakers" - my Jewish friends who grew up with that accent either themselves or in their family.

Another couple, whom I've known for years, also made it Sunday. They live rather a distance from where most of my shows have been performed so this is the first time they've made it to one of my shows. Our schedules make it hard for us to get together more than a few times a year, so the fact that they not only made it to the show (which I thought was my best performance to date) but were able to stick around so we could have dinner together was a lovely finish to the day.

Now I'm going thru the usual post-opening let-down. After nearly two weeks of rehearsing almost daily with everybody, now we won't see each other until Friday; feels weird to come home, have a leisurely dinner, and not go running out the door again.

God forbid!!!!

TW called me early this morning (before I left for work, instead of midmorning my time) to warn me that, due to some realignments in their section, there's a slight chance he might not get to rotate home on time! The supervisor who told him about the staffing changes also told him that no one has yet been involuntarily extended, but I'm already asking people to pray that TW gets to come home as scheduled. Yes, I'm well aware of all the military families whose father/mother/spouse/loved one is deployed for 12 or 18 months while TW is doing 6, but when you're missing someone terribly, every day added on is painful no matter how long or short the separation.

At this point we've now been married 6 years and a couple of weeks. Of that time, the chunks of time we've been 2 continents apart add up to nearly 2 years. I can't help but think of all those families in WWII and earlier who sent loved ones off to war not knowing when they'd be back - months, years, or only in a box. They didn't have the telecommunications advantages we do, either. Phone calls and e-mail will never replace being able to hold someone's hand, but at least TW & I have been able to talk pretty much every day. Not bad at all, especially given the 7-hour time difference.

On our way to a fully sold-out run!

They were adding seats for all 3 performances this weekend; today they even had some poor souls seated way over in the nave's choir area, where they probably couldn't see very much. They were even turning people away at the door yesterday & today, and at intermission today, the producer asked the cast if we'd be able to add a matinee the last Saturday of the run. Nothing like that kind of ticket sales to make you feel good about how your show is going! Granted, we can't squeeze in all that many chairs (I'd be shocked if they could manage 130), but it's still far better than playing to audience that are outnumbered by the cast.

Random thoughts on another opening night

Well, we survived Opening Night. Some of the glitches weren't all that minor, but the audience really seemed to enjoy the show, and that's what counts.

Still to do when I arrived at the church yesterday afternoon - masking for the upstage entrances and for the stage-right area where we were stashing props, set pieces, and people (including access to the men's changing area). We also still needed platforms to go behind the scrim for Telephone Hour, and a frame to hold the windows "defining" Kim's & Ursula's bedrooms for their first scene. I think all that got finished by 6:30 - yes, that's right, only about 1 1/2 hours before downbeat! (Can't say "curtain", as we don't have any, given that we're performing in a church nave.)

While I took my sewing machine & kit with me, I ended up using only my tape measure and shears. I still got to have fun with fabric, though. Our director had bought a huge bolt of theatrical fabric (that black stuff used for curtain legs) for 99 cents/yard on E-bay, so I meaured off pieces of that to drape a couple of the masking flats (one was painted red and the other had a huge tear in it which showed white against the black paint). He also had a bolt of very good quality muslin (no slubs, straight grain, fine weave), which we used to make curtains for Kim's & Ursula's bedroom windows. I think our director started bulding that window piece around 5 p.m., I finished using white duct tape to pleat & hang the curtains around 6, and someone else swathed the base of the window piece with more muslin.

This is the first time I've done a show where we were still building the set so close to downbeat. Last-minute set dressing, yes, but set building, no. Every time someone would start to say "I can't believe we open in (VERY short amount of time) and we're still ...", I'd shush them and tell them I was trying desperately not to think about that, as my nerves were quite bad enough already!

Another stressor was that our props runner sent out a new list of scene change assignments yesterday. I don't know that everyone had a chance to look it over, as I ended up striking a couple of things alone or for someone else. Certainly more than one scene change took longer than it needed to because of the confusion. I found that the very first of my new assignments was going to have to go. Because I was striking a few pieces off left after the opening scene, I wasn't able to get stage right in time to come on for Telephone Hour - I missed that scene completely! Not a disaster for the show, as I'm just one more adult behind the scrim, but I was so upset about it that I spent the scene in the ladies' changing area swearing a blue streak. Poor Rosie was back there changing and had to listen to me. I need to apologize to her; she didn't need that aggravation.

On the up side, "Ann O'Nymous" is gone. After being even later for that costume change last night, I asked the director if I could just sing from the wings and he said yes. Hallelujah! Not having to worry about that change makes my life much easier.

By now you may be wondering "So how did the show go?!?" Judging from the audience reaction, I think it went very well. Typical of a Friday-night audience, they were a little slow warming up, but quickly got into it. There were certainly wide awake by the time I came on for my first scene - they chuckled at much of Mae's dialogue and seemed a bit shocked at some of the nastier things she says to Rosie. ("What does Rosie need a job for? In a year or two she'll be getting Social Security.") It was interesting and a little weird to play Mae for an audience, at long last. Having "real people" out there certainly changed the chemistry of my performance; in my very first scene, when Mae is talking about how "a mother can ride crowded in a dirty subway...", I found myself almost confiding in the audience, not merely kvetching to Albert.

I knew having an audience would affect my timing; you can never predict for sure which lines will get bigger reactions than others. However, this is the first time I've worked in a setting where the audience is so very close, and sitting higher than we are. (We're mostly on the floor, while most of the audience seating is on risers.) Makes for a very different energy, and I felt I was getting more energy from them than usual because of the more intimate setting. Albert even noticed that I adjusted my line readings in a couple of places. I must have looked worried, because he hastened to add that the changes were good. :D

I'm told the audience was shouting & cheering during Honestly Sincere, Conrad Birdie's first number, though I couldn't hear it backstage over all the teenager screams. ;) In fact, the audience seemed to love all the production numbers, and Rosie's last big number, Spanish Rose, got one of the biggest hands of the show. She's been sweating bullets over that one and working very hard on it, so I was delighted to hear how well received it was.

The company had an opening night reception after the show and I heard lots of favorable comments. The woman who founded the company came up to me and complimented me on my performance, even going so far as to say that she'd been asked to audition for Mae. She couldn't because she was going to be out of town for most of the run, but said that, while she'd have loved to do the role, "You were better!" What a generous thing to say!

Pray for us!

Since we couldn't rehearse on the set last night, we reviewed music and blocking. Because the two things I'm in were among the first things we worked on, I was home shortly after 9. However, instead of going straight to bed, I made opening-night cards, threw my costume dresses into the wash, and took care of a few other preparations, so it was midnight by the time I got to bed and turned out the light. For all that, I couldn't sleep past 6:30 this morning. I lay there for nearly half an hour trying to will my body back to sleep, but my brain had already kicked into high gear so I eventually gave up.

Last night I told the director I was willing to bring my sewing machine if he still wanted to rig some kind of masking for the upstage entrances. The look on his face let me know he planned to take me up on that offer, so last night I packed up my sewing stuff and set it by the front door, ready to be loaded into the car. I'm actually looking forward to sewing masking drapes; it'll make me feel in control of the situation, however slightly, and I'm so used to doing some kind of sewing during Tech that I think it'll calm me down. I'll also be there plenty early to help; having that "time cushion" will help my nerves, too.

The dancer who hurt her foot last weekend actually danced on the foot Wednesday night, but the boy with the newly-broken collarbone wasn't there last night. He was obviously still in pain Wednesday, so I'm wondering whether he'll be able to go on tonight, poor kid. He was one of the better male dancers, too, so at least one of the teen dance numbers will suffer for his absence.

I've got a bad case of Opening Night jitters today! Not sure how much of that is due to the last-minute things still to be done (new scene-change assignments, new placement for Telephone Hour, possibly new set masking, insha'allah) and how much is due to the fact that I made the coffee a bit too strong this morning. Two dancers hurt, new set stuff that we won't get to rehearse before we have an audience, I've been dropping lines all week (you'd better believe I plan to drill my lines today!) - is it any wonder I'm nervous? Part of me knows I'll be fine as soon as we have an audience, but just the same, pray for us all, especially our poor, long-suffering director.

Taking it a little easy today.

I had planned to take today off work but ended up having to go in for a meeting (rescheduling would have been more trouble than it was worth). So I warned them I'd come in late and leave early, since I wasn't able to take the whole day.

Good decision; I slept until nearly 7, which felt good. I also left early enough to pick up a color cartridge for the printer and a coupla other things and still get home by 4.

Rehearsals Tuesday night & last night haven't made me feel any more sanguine about our tech. I did have an actual oven to put my head in last night, but the Telephone Hour scrim is still to be rigged, and there's so very little masking around the stage area that I'm afraid we're all gonna hafta stand a few yards from the entrances to avoid being seen. That'll affect timing of entrances, and we won't get another chance to rehearse that before we open, which does not give me warm fuzzies!

We got 2 more musicians Tuesday night, bringing us to 6 - I joked w/ a few folks that we'd be up to a 20+-piece orchestra by Closing! And then at least one of them was missing last night - how the **** are they supposed to learn the show if they aren't there?!?

Tuesday night Albert & I found ourselves reblocking part of a scene on no notice. At that point, Mae is trying to guilt Albert into not going after Rosie by asking him to take her head out of the oven when he gets back from looking for Rosie. All along, we've been told the oven would be up center, but when the "kitchen wagon" finally appeared, it was tall enought that it blocked some other things and got moved down right. However, we didn't find out about this until we got to the scene where I have to stick my head in the oven and he pulls me out again. We ended up reblocking on the fly to pull the scene back into the light. (The lighting isn't quite as wide as the set.)

We still don't have our scene changes down yet, either. One of my assignments is to help remove the cart w/ the oven on it, but it's placed down right and I exit up left during that scene, so I can't get over there soon enough. A stool didn't get placed for one scene, the suitcase from the final scene didn't get struck, there were new furniture pieces to contend with in another scene - this has definitely been one of my more stressful tech weeks.

I'm no less nervous about my performance, either - I screwed up my lines again last night, this time in my first scene. Part of me keeps saying "You were doing fine until we got to Tech; you'll be fine again as soon as we have an audience." That's the little voice I need to listen to, not the one that keeps saying "OK, what are ya gonna screw up tonight?" ;)

That quick change of mine is continuing to be a problem. Despite changing to a looser-fitting pair of gloves and drafting "Mrs. Macafee" to help me change coats, I was a little late for my entrance Tuesday and quite late last night. I think tomorrow I'm going to wear a hat instead of a scarf as "Ann". I agree with the costumer that the scarf disguises me better, but the hat goes on in 2 seconds; I just don't have time (3 or 4 lines!) to position and tie the scarf.

Heavy tech week

We've done practically a double tech week for Birdie - rehearsals just about daily last week, though not on Friday. Saturday the director reblocked a coupla numbers to accommodate the performance space, then we ran the show. Sunday was the marathon - 1 p.m. call to set up, then run the show. We finally finished around 9.

Working with this company is unusual for several reasons. First, we perform in the nave of the church, which feels very weird to me. Performing in the nave means that Sunday we spent about 3 1/2 hours removing all the chairs, lecterns, and the altar (!), then setting up the risers that form part of the set and also hold some of the audience seating. That'll stay up until after Saturday night's show, when we have to tear it all down and return the nave to its worship configuration. Sunday we have a 1:30 call for the 4 o'clock matinee so we can turn the nave back into a theater. And repeat the drill the 2nd weekend of the run. Sure explains why there's no matinee the 3rd weekend - that's too much work for a single performance!

The other weird thing is that Thursday is their choir night and the choir rehearses in the nave because that's where the organ is. Which means that we don't get to rehearse on the set the night before we open! =:o Instead, our final rehearsal will be in the parish hall. At least we'll have our musicians for that, instead of having to make do with just a piano. TBD whether it will be a run or just a music/choreo rehearsal.

We never got a Sitzprobe (music-only rehearsal w/ orchestra), either, unless that happens Thursday. We just ran the show Sunday night w/ 3 musicians playing, and last night with 4. We'd been told there'd be 10, but it's probably just as well we don't that many; I don't know how we'd shoehorn them into the space available.

Other things unique to this performing venue: light spill from the stained-glass windows, so we have to rig sthg for the window directly behind the stage so the images projected on the backdrop screen (50s pics, Conrad Birdie, train station, etc.) will show. No green room or backstage dressing rooms, so we have to hang out quietly behind the stage and masking flats and change in improvised areas. The restrooms are reserved for audience members, at least at intermission, which makes me wonder how the cast is supposed to answer nature's call during the show. Because we have no wings or fly space, all the props and set pieces get stashed backstage or behind the masking flats.

Last night we had a 6:30 call to do make-up, hair & costumes, then blocked the curtain call. I was a little surprised to see how many little groups the director has come out - given the size of the cast, and based on my experience, I expected the teens & smaller adult roles to come out in bigger groups to make the bows go more quickly. Except for the teen girls (a group of about 6 or 7, I think), most come out in 2s and 3s. Mae comes out with Hugo Peabody; we're the first principals out. The MacAfees follow us, then Conrad, IIRC. Albert & Rosie get the final bow.

When we finally ran the show last night, we stopped at each scene change to assign responsibility for setting and striking props and set pieces. This obviously added quite a bit to our rehearsal time; I didn't get home until midnight. There are 10 of us in Telephone Hour who are singing and gesturing behind a scrim, but that scrim hadn't appeared by last night. I can't help but think that the scrim won't materialize and the 10 of us will be cut. I wouldn't be sorry to just stand in the back and sing (we were there for added voices and visual interest), but when I think of the rehearsal time spent on it... Ah well, guess it's the theatrical equivalent of ending up on the cutting room floor.

We added musician #4 last night (who was sight-reading), and we still don't have all our stage masking, or lights, the Telephone Hour scrim & back lighting, or the kitchen appliances. (Mae will look pretty silly sticking her head in a non-existent gas oven.) Part of me keeps saying "don't worry, it'll happen", but part of me is also nervous about how ready we'll be for opening night, especially as we don't get to rehearse on the set Thursday night.

We worked in full costumes, hair & make-up last night, so I did get to try my one quick change (from Mae to "Ann O'Nymous"). I was still buttoning my coat after I got on stage, but of course that was only the first time; it should be a little better tonight. The costumer pointed out today that I forgot Mae's supposed to wear gloves in that first scene. Fortunately, "Ann" doesn't have to, or that costume change would be even tighter. I'm expecting the make-up guy to tell me my make-up needs to be less understated, too - he seemed a bit unsure when I presented myself for his approval before we started, saying he thought it might be too pale but he'd have to see how it looked under the lights.

I'll have to get a picture of my Mae hat; when I put it on last night, people would look at me and chuckle or even laugh! And I'm sure that when I combine it with the fur coat, I'm a vision. Of what, I couldn't say. The fur coat produced some interesting reactions from a few of the others in the cast. When asked if it was real, I said "yes". A couple of the cast members are vegetarians and actually recoiled when they learned it was real, after they'd just been petting it.

Forced break

Woke up w/ another migraine today - that's 3 in a week! Yesterday's was soon subdued w/ meds and a can of Dew, but that didn't work today, so I ended up calling in sick again. I was blaming it on the pollen count (allergies can be a migraine trigger), but I can't help wondering how much stress might have contributed, given that I didn't get home from rehearsal last night until midnight. So I slept in and was relieved to find the migraine was completely gone by mid-morning. Didn't go in to work at all, which gave me time to starch & iron a shirt for one of the Birdie teens, load a wooden office chair for the opening scene into the car, and generally just sit and do nothing for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch. I'll have time to eat at a normal pace, take a nice, long shower, and still get to rehearsal with plenty of time to find a parking place. I'm even taking time to do a bit of blogging.

I'm choosing to take this latest migraine as a sneaky gift of some down time. Much needed, as this has been a tough tech week and it's only Tuesday.

For the theater-addicted

I subscribe to Savoynet, a Gilbert & Sullivan listserve and the source of probably 90% of my G&S knowledge. (It can also be a fun fount of wordplay, but that's another matter.) A recent post solicited reactions to http://otslmikado.blogspot.com/, where the director of the Opera Theater of St. Louis' production of The Mikado is writing up his impressions on the production process. I checked it out and found that he includes teaser pictures of the rehearsals & production stages of the show in addition to his impressions on pulling it all together. There are several things I like about it: it's well written and proofread; it lets me peek into how the process works at the professional level; and it's another look into The Mikado, the show that got me started blogging.

Anyone who's done or even seen more than one production of any show knows it's different every time. Change just one element, be it as small as a single cast member or the characterization of a minor role, and you get a different result. Change more than that - the director, the "concept", even the instrumentation, for musicals - and you have an entirely new show. Not being a chemist, I wouldn't consider attempting to analyze why or how that works, but it's what makes it possible to see the "same" show over and over again. "Haven't you seen Show X umpteen times already?" "Yes, but not with this director/lead/concept..."

Rain, rain, come and stay

Rain in the forecast, to start sometime today or tonight, with "risk" (why "risk"? what happened to "chance"?) of thunderstorms tomorrow. I can already feel the front moving in; I woke up w/ a migraine that came on like a freight train. In the 15 minutes between the alarm going off and bringing in the morning paper, it went from "migraine imminent" to "lie down before my eye explodes" - never good! I took my imitrex as soon as I got up, followed it w/ a can of Dew, but quickly realized that my usual procedure of going to work and doing brainless things while waiting for the meds & caffeine to kick in wasn't going to cut it. So instead, I cut my losses - called in sick, then went right back to bed.

TW called (and woke me up) around 7:30 but quickly got off the phone with a promise to call back a few hours later when I told him I was down w/ a migraine. Smart move - he's seen just how pointless it is to try to talk to me when I can't bear to open my eyes.

The migraine isn't helped by the pollen-induced sneezing fits and other miseries, which is why I find myself cheering on the weatherman when he predicts rain. "Rain, rain, come and stay - wash this pollen all away!"

Pollen poisoning

Friday we finally got some wonderful weather - sunny, cloudless skies and temps in the 70s, after not seeing the sun since the previous Saturday and enduring highs only in the 40s. Gorgeous! And the beautiful weather lasted right through the weekend - the joggers, gardeners, walkers and stroller brigade were out in force. The dogwoods, azaleas and other late-spring flowering trees and shrubs have really popped out - looks wonderful.

Unfortunately, the tree pollen was out in force, too. Monday's pollen count was 2000 and yesterday's was even higher - two thousand two hundred! To put this in perspective, the non-allergic start feeling it when the count gets to 150-200, and the allergy sufferers start feeling miserable when it's as low as 50. As a result, I've been walking around with what feels like the granddaddy of all head colds, eyes that are swollen and itchy, a sore throat that extends halfway down my sternum, I've been sneezing my head off, and I even ache all over. This is the time of year I want to move into a nice, sterile bubble until the trees quit spreading their pollen indiscriminately over all & sundry.

I just hope and pray the pollen count backs off a bit by the time we open next Friday. I always lose my voice for a day or two around this time of year; the last thing I need is to have laryngitis on opening night! =:o

Chipping away at the backlog

So this is what back-to-back tech weeks is like...

Saturday I had a day off!, so I caught up on some dishes & laundry and even stole some time to play in the dirt - watered my impatiens and dumped several bags of topsoil in the eroded spots in the driveway and the spot by the basement steps where the clay settled after the sewer reconstruction of a year and a half ago. Saturday night a fellow Birdie cast member and I went to see Thoroughly Modern Millie and absolutely loved it. Good show, well cast and well performed - wonderful!

Sunday started the marathon - from work I went straight to Murder rehearsal. Costumes are not where I'd like, but given the time constraints I was working against, well, I'll have to live with the results. (Poor little theater company - they're getting what they paid for.)

This week might as well be tech week, as we have rehearsals every night except Friday (opening night for Murder; guess where I'll be that night)! Saturday is our last "normal rehearsal"; Sunday is load-in and run-thru w/ tech. Gonna be a long one; call is at 1, and we're scheduled to run until 9. It'll be interesting to see if we actually do a cue-to-cue, or if they'll still be pointing lights and such. Tuesday is when it'll start to get real - that'll be our first rehearsal w/ costumes & orchestra.

Not even tech week and I'm already tired. I may leave work early on Friday and go home to take a nap.

Enough already!

When I called home Sunday, Dad answered and obviously had a very bad cold. Serious head congestion and at one point he had to hold the phone away while he coughed. Long and hard. At which point I told him I'd get off so he didn't have to try to talk. Mom took him to the doctor yesterday (with her immune system still recovering from the chemo, they weren't taking any chances) and called me later to say Dad was in the hospital w/ pneumonia! Apparently they took him off the IV (meds & rehydration) earlier today and, if all goes well, he'll get to go home in the morning.

Sounds like it was never all that serious, but Dad's 79 and not in the best of shape, so when Mom told me he was in the hospital, well, I was a wee bit worried.

The Illness section of my prayer list is getting so long, I may have to subdivide it - parents, breast cancer, other cancer, other illness...

Happy anniversary

... to us! TW sent me an anniversary present, which arrived Friday. However, because it was insured, the carrier left me a pick-up slip instead of the package. Saturday I was at the post office and had just given one of the staffers my ticket when TW called. He was surprised I'd gotten the package so quickly and told me he'd call back in about 10 minutes, once I got home and had opened the box! When I told him he'd better give me more time, as I'd only just given them my slip, he stayed on the line until I actually got the box. I had only just gotten home and pulled out the scissors to start opening when he called back (he doesn't know the meaning of the word "patience" when he's giving presents). Turns out he'd sent me a set of pearl jewelry - necklace, post earrings, and bracelet. Freshwater pearls, very white, and small, so they're subtle. Very pretty, and I really like the bracelet because it has a section, set off by a gold spacer bead on either side, with graduated pearls, so that the centermost is nearly twice as large as the "regular" pearls.

TW also very generously solved my dilemma of an anniversary gift for him by buying himself a set of 4 woodworking DVDs. I didn't have to shop, wrap or mail - all I have to do is pay for them when the credit card bill comes in. :D

Garden update

The daffodils are pretty well spent, the tulips are starting to open, yet I still have crocuses in the driveway! For all that I planted them all at the same time and to the same depth, I got a few new purple ones popping up last week.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of the mazus I planted in the driveway last year is coming back. Not very thick, but it's making an effort, and yesterday I noticed that the one closest to the street actually has a few flowers on it!

Yesterday I stole some time to run over to the nearest nursery and get my annual "fix" of impatiens. Three colors this year - white, pink & purple, which I planted in the bed under the mailbox, where they always do so well. Instead of mixing them up, this year I planted the white in the back and along the front steps, the purple along the front of the bed, and the pink in the middle. Very conveniently, it started raining yesterday evening, so I didn't have to water the new residents. (Although I will have to water the one little impatiens which is so sheltered by the house and a corner column that it got almost nothing from the drenching we got.)

Thanks, I needed that!

Ooh, just had 2 wonderful shows in 4 days! My voice teacher & I went to Merry Widow Thursday night. Some quibbles about the costumes & make-up, and some of the blocking wasn't as lively as I could have wished, but the music was absolutely GLORIOUS!!! I love pretty much every note in the show, and hearing it live had me blissed out every time they got to one of the hits from the show. Work had been particularly aggravating that day; knowing I had Merry Widow to look forward to helped me get through the day, and the music most definitely did not disappoint!

Then this afternoon we saw a Condensed Mikado - no chorus, most of the chorus numbers and verses to all the remaining songs cut, Pish-Tush' material given to Go-To, so the show fit into an hour and a half. I was surprised at how very much I liked it. Perhaps because it was in a black box theater and the players were therefore that much closer to the audience, the actors' faces seemed much more mobile. It was certainly one of the most playful Mikados I've ever seen, and I've seen plenty - the actors were obviously having a lot of fun, which made it fun for us in the audience. I loved the characterizations, which might have seemed over the top in a traditional production but which were absolutely perfect in this context.

Tax time

With Birdie & Murder eating my evenings & weekends, I had to take a day off work to do the taxes. With TW deployed, we're eligible for a 6-month filing extension, but that doesn't mean an extension if you owe the IRS any money, so I had to at least rough in the numbers to learn whether we'd have to pay.

Lotsa problems, mostly because for some reason a few key things weren't in the "2006 Taxes" folder. For starters, if TW printed a copy of last year's return before e-filing, I couldn't find it. And the softcopy was lost in the Great Computer Crash of September 06, so in the morning I'll mail off the forms to request a "transcript" of last year's federal return (free, whereas a copy of the actual forms runs $39!) and a copy of the state return. I also couldn't find a couple of our year-end statements. Had all the documentation been where I expected to find it, this would have been pretty easy. As it was, a padded cell was starting to look pretty good...

It didn't help that it took me at least an hour and a half to get the miserable computer ready to start; seemed as if every time I tried to do something, I'd get a pop-up telling me I needed to update one application or another.

I can't help but wonder how much it'll slow things down that TW isn't here to sign the forms. I've got copies of his orders and hold power of attorney, so I can always submit copies to the IRS and the state, but - correct me if I'm wrong - doesn't that sorta seem to defeat the point of e-filing?

Not again!

We got yet another Birdie rehearsal sked yesterday! That's it; I'm gonna hafta tell the Murder director & producer that I just can't do it. When I can't count on off days staying off days and I'm therefore not able to plan thrift shopping, I don't see how I can finish costuming Murder. Not if I want to stay employed or avoid booking a room at the local mental facility. Although, now that I think about it, it'd probably be nice & quiet there, no responsibilities... Nah, the other inmates would probably get on my nerves. ;)

Now there's a stage direction I never expected to get!

Running one of the Act II scenes Wednesday night, the director was trying to get me to play a particular exit ever bigger and told me "Try to steal the show"!!! Talk about a stage direction I never expected to receive! After all the years I've spent in the chorus, where pulling focus is a capital offense, I just had to laugh. I can play big, I just have to unlearn that "never pull focus!" habit.

I must be starting to get it, though. When we ran the scene Thursday where Albert tells Mae he doesn't need her any more, I played Mae in what I thought was a ridiculously melodramatic, over-the-top way and the director didn't bat an eyelash. This is gonna be fun! :D