New grill

The Chief & I bought a new grill for the cabin last weekend. We hadn't planned to, but it seems they're ALL on sale the weekend before Father's Day, and the one we have out there now is a good size for two but inadequate for the company we're expecting this summer (his cousin & her family, my friends & daughters, another couple, friends w/ their toddler, maybe my sister and her family). The new one is another Weber, but this one has a whole cart arrangement, not just the grill, so we now have a convenient place to put things instead of pressing a folding chair or other non-grill furniture into service. We even bought a cover for it; it's what all the well-dressed grills are wearing this year. ;-)

Playing in the dirt

More "garden as gym" this weekend. I finally got my new ice plants in the ground, planted the tulip bulbs from the pots I bought back in April (the original 6 bulbs in each of 2 pots yielded over a dozen more - EACH!), set my ground covers in the heavily shaded bed the Chief made back by the shed... My "digging muscles" were talking to me Monday!

Tuesday I finished up: dug up some spiderwort that was trying to surround one corner of the deck, separated some of the irises there and replanted them, and put an oregano and a basil plant in the resulting hole. To give you an idea of how solid the ground was, I had to soak the spot with the hose a few times and let the water sink in before I could get the shovel to get a good bite.

The new "residents" seem to be happy, though; the two original ice plants already have volunteers (!) and the basil & oregano looked quite healthy when I watered them after work yesterday. The transplanted irises don't look quite as good, but they'd been in the same spot since before I bought the house years ago, so I expect they'll take a bit longer to resign themselves to their new neighborhood.

Going Apple

Sunday I finally took the plunge and bought an iPad. The Chief and I went into the Apple store, I found someone to answer my questions, one of the sales folks rang me up (on her iPhone!) and e-mailed the receipt to my home. Then came the challenging part.

The sales person walked me over to the Personal Set-up table and handed me off to a lovely young lady who proceeded to help me get my iPad up and running. However, we ran into trouble almost immediately when my verizon and netscape e-mail addresses wouldn't synch up. It took about half an hour before they finally found the right documentation for the verizon set-up, and they never did find good instructions for getting the netscape address added to my iPad account. The whole set-up had me sitting there for nearly an hour and a half on Sunday - and we didn't even finish! - while various Apple staffers tried to solve the problem. The manager even came over and apologized, thanked me (more than once) for my patience, and let me have my choice of their spiffy magnetic covers for free.

We went back last night so that one of "my" techs from Sunday could redo my iTunes id, which we'd originally set up to the netscape address that the iPad wouldn't take. When we tried to change it to my verizon address, up popped the info - name, address and phone numbers - of somebody in Pittsburgh! Not wanting to mess up his account, the tech called him, explained the problem, got his e-mail - NOT the same as mine, despite what iTunes seemed to think - and gave him her info so he could be sure she was legit and was trying to make sure his iTunes account was secure. Murphy was obviously iPad shopping with me!

After about an hour, we finally got my iPad up & running and the tech gave us a demo of Apple TV. One of the other customers who was watching the demo declared it "Awesome!" I gotta agree; you plug the iPad into the Apple TV box, which connects to your flatscreen TV, and you can pull up TV shows or movies (hulu, netflix, itunes...) on the iPad and watch them on the TV. You can also use the tv as a computer monitor if you want to surf the web or watch embedded videos, and even enlarge those videos to full-screen - way cool!

The Chief studied laptops while I was getting my iPad worked on and was pretty impressed with a lot of what he saw. The Apple TV, though, really blew him away - he's been looking at flatscreen TVs off and on for a year or more, but I think this is gonna push him to buy one sooner rather than later. I may have to lock up my iPad so he can't "adopt" it from me. :D

Payment-free!

We are now free of car payments - WAHOO!!! The Chief & I both made final payments on our respective vehicles this month. Going from two car payments to none is a beautiful thing - we're looking forward to next month, when we won't have those taken out of our paychecks any more. That's gonna free up a lotta money that we can throw at things like Christmas presents and doing some repairs and upgrades at the house & the cabin a little sooner than we thought we could. It'll also mean that buying Christmas plane tickets won't be quite as painful as usual. (Though looking at airfares the other night still induced a gasp - have you seen how they've jumped?!?)

One week on...

Now that I've had a week to get used to the new haircut, I've noticed a few things:
- It feels weird, not because of all the fluff in the ear-to-chin zone but because it's in my face. For the first time in YEARS I'm not wearing it pulled back (in barrette, braid or bun) every day. I could pull it back in a barrette, but then it would look like a shorter version of the same 'do I've worn for over 2 decades. That would rather defeat the purpose of the new cut.
- Probably because it's not pulled back now, I regularly catch my hair in my reading glasses. I may soon have a bald spot on one side of my face...
- If I want to pull it out of my face, I've resorted to a very short ponytail or a knit headband. And sunglasses make a pretty stylin' headband too. ;)
- It's going to take me a while to get used to the fact that I don't need nearly as much shampoo or conditioner as I used to.
- The reviews have been very favorable indeed. From raves to telling me it makes me look younger, and of course all the folks who are still adjusting to me with short hair (from a colleague as we approached each other from opposite ends of a long hall: "I'm still not quite sure it's you").
- Still trying to figure out how to brush my hair so it doesn't frizz so badly that I look like a brunette dandelion that's gone to seed. Finger-combing leaves it still looking a bit messy; wide-tooth comb is next, I guess.

ROCKED my recital pieces this afternoon!

Or rather, Doug rocked the piano and I went along for the ride. It was SO much fun to have as my accompanist a specialist in music of the era, who knows it so well that he can improvise to a faretheewell and, as if that weren't enough, is a singer & voice teacher so he knows how to follow me or help me along as needed. My voice teacher's husband told me my pieces w/ Doug were more like a duet. My teacher (who joked about my being a "true diva" because I had not just one but two accompanists) told me afterwards, "You were on fire! He woke you up!" :D

That energy carried over from my "blue songs" into my G&S piece too. I told my fellow recitalists the scary story of Sir Rupert Murgatroyd, they looked suitably rapt or horrified, and we all had a great time.

That was fun - can we do it again soon? Actually, I just might. There's an open-mic cabaret night downtown in a couple of weeks; I'm definitely going! I just have to decide whether I want to sing, or just sit in the audience and see how these work.

Recital this weekend!

This Sunday is my voice teacher's studio recital. This year I'm doing 3 pieces: Blues in the Night, Blue Skies, and Dame Hannah's first aria from Ruddigore. Definitely a different program, especially as the Ruddigore piece includes chorus; the plan is to teach the chorus parts to the other recitalists at tomorrow's dress rehearsal, then let them sing from their seats on Sunday.

What I'm really excited about is the 2 blue pieces. I took them over to Doug's Tuesday night for some coaching, as he has a swing band (they played our wedding reception) and he's an expert in music of the 1920s-1940s. As I'd expected, he was able to give me some coaching in a more period way to deliver the music, and his accompaniment was so much fun, it completely changed how I sang. When I told him I wished he could accompany me on those 2 pieces for the recital, he said "Let me check my schedule." Turns out I'm going to get some world-class musicianship playing for me on Sunday! We won't get much time to rehearse - just a quick run-through that afternoon - but Doug's such a pro, I can trust him to follow me. What a thrill! This is going to be as much fun as singing with the brilliant accompanist we had for the cabaret class I took a couple of years ago.

Small disappointment

Lately I've been on something of a smoothie kick in an effort to get more dairy in my diet (1 c. skim milk, 1/2 c. fat-free yogurt of one flavor or another, plus 2 c. of frozen fruit). I've found that strawberries, peaches & blueberries make really good smoothies; bananas are ok if they're ripe, but not if they're even the tiniest bit green. Tonight I tried frozen mango and was a little disappointed. I love mango, but the frozen version makes the smoothie seem a bit, oh, powdery or something; weird texture, at any rate. Not enough to make me throw it out, only enough that I won't do that again.

The new ferns and their neighbors

A few pictures of the bed my oldest nephew engineered and which he & the Chief built. I've got my fingers crossed that we don't lose more plants this winter, since our nurseryman is going out of business. :(

More goodies for the garden!

We spent the weekend out at the cabin and I ended up buying a lot more than I'd intended at our nurseryman's going-out-of-business sale. I came home with 6 ferns (Japanese painted, running lady, mexican male, Virginia chain) and 6 miniature hostas. The ferns went into the beds at the cabin, filling holes left by plants that didn't survive the winter, while the hostas will go into the bed at home where the Chief first planted calladiums, not realizing they would survive winter only if brought indoors. Maybe the hostas will get planted tomorrow, more likely they'll have to be coddled aboveground until the weekend. One way or another, though, I'll get something sturdy in that now-empty bed.

My first new 'do in YEARS!

I'd been getting itchy to change my hair, after wearing it long (sometimes "only" mid-back, sometimes down to my hips) for 25+ years. However, I had to wait until after Thebes closed, as I used my hair as a character prop. We closed last weekend, so today was the big day; Locks of Love gets another donation, and I have my first new hairstyle (styles I've worn for shows don't count) since the 1980s! The hairdresser whacked off my donation, then evened things out, then gave me some "long layers" so the end result wouldn't be "triangular". It'll take some getting used to - I have all this fluff around my neck but no hair even on my shoulders, because whacking off all that hair freed up my natural curl.




I can't help but wonder what I'll do with my hair the next time I'm in a show, but I'll worry about that when I'm cast in something. I may well grow it out again at some later date, if only to make use of all the hair "tools" (rollers of several different kinds, curling irons, that Vintage Hairstyles book) I've accumulated, but I expect I'll stick with this for a while, since the initial reviews have been favorable. ;)

Big plans for the weekend

Now that Thebes has closed and my weekends are my own again, I've got big plans for this weekend:

• First of all, I'm making the long weekend even longer - I'm taking Friday & Tuesday off work.
  
• Friday I plan to hit an outlet mall to replace the summer sandals that gave up the ghost last year, and maybe find a dress to wear for my voice teacher's studio recital next weekend.
• We're getting a new storm door installed at the cabin. This one will have a full-door screen for more ventilation; I'm looking forward to sitting in "my" chair and enjoying the additional breezes.
  
• The Chief & I will go window shopping, as in shopping for windows to replace the contractor-grade junk in the bedroom.
• I'm getting a massage! Maybe J can work her magic on my arthritic shoulder and get it to leave me alone.
• The Chief & I will probably hit the gym at least once or twice over the weekend, maybe more.
• I need to visit our nurseryman to pick up some ferns and hellebores, maybe a few other shade-loving plants.
• Tuesday I've got an appointment for a consultation w/ a hairdresser to decide what to do with my hair. After wearing it long and straight for 25+ years, I'm overdue for a change (and Locks of Love will get another donation).

Now to draft the list of "provisions" for the Chief to take to the cabin this weekend...

Goodbye to "Thebes"

The Burial at Thebes had its final performance last night. Definitely one of my top theater experiences. It was my first tragedy, and in modern language, in a very intimate space, so I had to learn more "normal" reactions than you would use in a larger space, such as where I just did La Belle Helene. Last night during my long backstage break, I finally counted up my lines - 32 in the whole show, including the unison lines in the choral odes. I spent a lot of time on stage in this show, but with so few lines, I obviously was spending most of that stage time reacting to what others were saying and doing. All that time I've spent doing just that in ensembles was good preparation! ;-)

But nothing prepared me for crying real tears on stage. I've done a fair bit of mock crying, but this was different. I always ended up crying at least a little during the Haemon-Creon scene but last night was the soggiest. At one point Haemon came up to me during one of his speeches (I spent nearly all my stage time at the back of the set on one of the platforms), which he'd never done before, and we held hands briefly. As he turned to go back to his increasingly heated exchange with Creon, I squeezed his hand, then raised one hand toward his cheek. That little exchange "primed the pump", as it were, choking me up. The tears came more readily then, as Haemon & Creon got more & more upset, to the point where I had to make a conscious effort not to cry audibly. By the time I exited on Creon's heels, the tears were running so freely that I had to check a mirror in the dressing room to see whether my eye make-up was running. (It wasn't. Maybelline Ultra-Liner - good stuff!)

I liked the way our director broke up the chorus bits, assigning most of the lines to individuals and designating other lines to be spoken by smaller groups or all of us, instead of the more traditional method of having everyone in the chorus say every chorus line. Having a choreographer block the choral odes was another choice that I hadn't expected but which I liked. It certainly set the odes apart from the rest of the action and made sure that they didn't stop the action dead in its tracks.

This was a good stretch - I got to work with a director whose process was very different from anything I'd encountered before, I got another straight play under my belt, I learned how to cry on stage, and I got to do a show I'm proud to say I was part of.

Spending our 10th in different states

The Chief and I marked our 10th anniversary a couple of weeks ago. We were in different parts of the country, but that's OK. We spent our first anniversary on different continents (he was deployed to the Middle East at the time), so this was certainly an improvement; we'll just celebrate when it's convenient.

The reason we weren't together was that I went west on "godmother duty" - my godson was being confirmed at the Easter vigil Mass at the Newman Center on his college campus. I stayed with Dad, which he loved, and got to spend a lot of time with most of my family.

The Chief went north to spend Easter with a cousin who's currently going thru chemo. While there, he also managed to visit a couple of very senior aunts, one of whom is on hospice care, the other of whom is suffering from heart trouble but is so old that the doctors can't risk surgery.

I made someone cry! :-)

Tonight we all had a really good night - great energy and our timing was spot on. We were all keenly aware of the others' reactions and really hanging on each speaker's every word. I don't know whether it was because we were all eager to get back to Thebes after having to do without for nearly a week or for some other reason, but I think this was our best performance to date.

The Burial at Thebes, being a Greek tragedy, involves a lot of anguish before the bodies start piling up. Eurydice, my character, has very few lines but I spend a lot of time on stage reacting to what others are saying. One such scene involves Creon, my husband and the new king, and Haemon, our son, arguing about Creon's verdict that Antigone, Haemon's fiancee, must die for defying the decree not to bury Polyneices' body (her brother). It starts out tense and gets worse, with Haemon saying all the wrong things, Creon flying off the handle, and Haemon essentially threatening to kill himself if Creon executes Antigone. Eurydice gets more & more upset as things escalate, gasping when it looks like Haemon's about to do either himself or his father an injury, then flings off in a rage.

The first night we rehearsed the whole show, I was surprised to find myself actually getting a bit misty-eyed in this scene. Some nights the tears have been reluctant to flow, others they've come more readily. Tonight I was more into that scene than I ever have been, so that the tears started sooner and just kept rolling. I don't wipe them away, but leave them alone until I get offstage. Until tonight, I never knew whether the audience could see any of that.

Tonight our director decided to have a post-show discussion for any interested audience members, with the cast joining as we got out of costume. Those patrons who stayed to participate were very complimentary. One woman commented that she & her husband are regular patrons of community theater and had observed that nearly every show had at least one performer who didn't quite get into it or stay in character throughout. Not so tonight - she said we all were completely engaged and solid in our characters.

Our Antigone's mother had some good questions for the cast, then looked straight at me (!) and said that she cried easily and seeing me cry during the Creon-Haemon scene had her crying too. Another woman told me something similar afterwards, that she thought my reactions were very moving and completely believable. She also found my final scene, when I learn Antigone & Haemon are both dead, "very powerful". In fact, our Antigone said the same - that when she peeked out one night during that scene, I looked so very bleak upon hearing the bad news that it was quite moving.

Perhaps because mine is such a tiny role (if our director hadn't decided to include me in some of the chorus stuff, I'd only be on for one tiny scene near the end), the director hasn't had much to say to me about what I've been doing. Now all of a sudden, in one night I get all kinds of feedback, all positive. Yep, I'm feeling the love! :D

Two lush-ous Lumps

Another goody for certain friends: