Drunken chicken

Also known as "beer can chicken", in which you stand a chicken over a 3/4-full can of beer and grill or bake it. The Chief and I tried this for the first time over the weekend. It took a bit longer than we'd expected, but the results were WELL worth the wait - even the breast meat was very moist and juicy. We went with a mesquite marinade mix and added mesquite chips to the charcoal. Can't wait to experiment with other marinades or spice rubs.

I've also learned that a mesquite-grilled chicken carcass makes for some rather funky-smelling but very tasty chicken soup.

"I don't want minions; I want accomplices"

I rather like this view of auditions from the director's side of the table.

Nice little nap

I rarely nap - kinda frowned on at work, and by the time I get home, there's no time. Today, though, I came home with a migraine. I'd taken some medication for it, but it hadn't reLly kicked in yet, so I lay down for a bit when I got home. Boy, was that the right thing to do! When I got up, not only was the migraine gone but I actually felt rested. (A "migraine nap" usually just chases the migraine without actually being restful.). Here's hoping I'm able to sleep tonight...

Guinness bread

Made a second batch of Guinness bread tonight.  BOY, does the house smell fantastic!  I find I love making soda breads - you get that fantastic baking-bread aroma without the hours a yeast bread requires.

Last time I made a free-form loaf; this time I used a loaf pan.  We'll find out tomorrow at breakfast whether it affects the taste, or merely the shape of the final product.

Spending the weekend in the garden (or trying to)

The Chief and I spent most of the weekend in the yard.  He spent yesterday afternoon making a bit more progress in the shed, while I hit the nursery and came home with a coupla trays of bedding plants and a head full of ideas.

It seems the seed impatiens that have been the mainstay of the bed by the front door are victims of a downy mildew.  Apparently this nasty little bug is airborne and can spread for miles; worse, it can last in the soil for 5 years!  The nursery staffer who told me about it said that's why they wouldn't be carrying seed impatiens.  The good news, however, is that new guinea impatiens isn't bothered by this plague, so we can still have vivid color in our shady spots.  I'm also trying begonias for the first time.

The Chief and I are also trying something else new - roses.  We bought 2 climbers for the north side of the house.  Since a few nearby trees have been trimmed a LOT over the years, between storms and arborists, I think we'll get enough light that they'll do OK. The Chief put in a little arbor on that side of the house a few years ago, so this afternoon we planted on rose on either side.  He let me pick the colors.  The nursery didn't offer a lot of color choices in climbers, but I decided to get 2 different roses.  Valentine's Day promises a profusion of small, vivid-red flowers, while Purple Splash should have larger, very fragrant flowers.  We also have a bracket on the arbor for a hummingbird feeder - with any luck, we'll get more hummingbirds this summer, attracted by the roses.

What else are we growing?  The "impatiens bed" is getting one new guinea impatiens, some begonias, and a low, foliage plant called hypoestes.  It'll be interesting to see how they do.  It may be too sunny for them until the trees leaf out; I hope they don't get sunburned.

The planters for the deck railing are getting a geranium, 2 white cosmos flowers, lobelia, a couple of really lovely coleus varieties (colei?) - finger paint and kiwi fern - some miniature sweet william ("wee willie") and a superbell variety called "lemon slice".  I'm looking forward to seeing how those look once they get established.  I had bought a spreading torinia but decided the planters would be too crowded, so the torinia is now nestled between a couple of azaleas, where it should get enough shade to protect it.

I was delighted to see that one of the 2 peonies we planted last year and which didn't do well at all is coming back this year.  We've got our fingers crossed that it'll actually manage to bloom this year.

Also back for a return engagement:  my oregano (its 3rd summer, so I'm starting to believe it'll be a true perennial), rosemary, spearmint, and parsley.  The spearmint & rosemary spent the winter in planters under the deck, where we secured them before Hurricane Sandy last fall.  The spearmint survived despite a few inches of standing water in the pot - that's some hardy stuff!  The rosemary turned dark reddish when the weather got cold, but it's starting to look a bit greener now and is getting new foliage.

I bought another basil and a thyme plant today.  Those will go into one or two planters; haven't decided yet.  I want to give the basil plenty of room to spread, so maybe I'll put the thyme in the other end of the rectangular planter the rosemary is in.

The windowboxes on the shed will get begonias, a new guinea impatiens, a dahlia and a spreading torinia.  I may let the Chief plant those himself so he can have the fun of playing in the dirt too.

Missing Mom

This is the time of year I used to call Mom most often, with updates on the latest signs of spring in the neighborhood - first the early bulbs, then the bradford pears, forsythia, etc.  And of course telling her about my latest purchases for the garden - which flowers I was planting where, how they were doing.

This year's purchases include the "obligatory" red flowers - a geranium for one of the railing planters and a new guinea impatiens as one of the flowers for the front bed (which is getting an assortment this year).

Finally playing in the dirt

Yesterday it was finally mild enough that the Chief and I could go out and play in the dirt.  We dug up the patch where I tried to grow squash last year, sifting through the dirt to look for and remove squash borer grubs.  I've got some seeds saved from a butternut squash that I'm trying to start indoors.  If they germinate, they'll go into that patch. Now that I have a better idea of what to look for, I'm hoping the squash borers will leave my plants alone this year.

We also did some cleaning up - raking up leaves, cutting back ivy & vinca, doing a good bit of weeding.  I also planted one little phlox plant in the bed next to the driveway.  I hope the ice plant doesn't crowd it out.

The Chief has some anemone (bulbs? corms?) that he bought a couple of years ago.  We'll finally get those babies into the ground sometime this week and hope they grow.

I've had a pretty high mortality rate among my bulbs.  I don't know if something ate them or they died of thirst, but we plan to buy a big batch this fall and hope they come up next spring.

Soup, soup and more soup

I've made quite a lot of soup over the past couple of weeks - 2 batches of pea soup for the Chief, 1 batch of an "Italian-inspired" veggie soup into which I like to dump a bag or 2 of frozen salad shrimp, and a couple of batches of the veggie-beef soup that's oh, so good made w/ oxtails instead of stew beef.  This time, because I didn't have any of the cabbage the recipe calls for, I substituted a bag of frozen chopped spinach.  I've been making this soup and improvising on it for years & years; I can't believe I never thought to dump spinach in it until now.  You can't really taste it, but I rather like seeing all those bits of spinach swimming around in it.  (I'm a spinach fan; what can I say?)

Oh, and I can't forget the awesome batch of pumpkin soup I threw together a couple of weeks ago for an ailing neighbor, and just "happened" to make so much that there was plenty for me, too.  (The Chief isn't a fan so I had it all to myself.)  It was definitely one of my better batches; not only was it nice & thick, but the last-minute decision to throw in 1 tsp of cumin was a very good one.

Still to be made: my nephew's boeuf bourguignon, now that I have a dutch oven to make it in.

Happy birthday, Pride & Prejudice!

I first discovered Pride & Prejudice on a high school summer reading list and have revisited it repeatedly.  I've read the other extant Austen novels, of course, but P&P remains my favorite, with Emma in second place.  I've read several of the take-offs (the novels about other characters, about Elizabeth & Darcy's children, etc.) and while I don't consider myself a full-fledged "Janehead" or "Janeite", I have been enjoying the articles about Jane & her works.  Here's a good one:  http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article12211202.aspx

*When* is that audition?

I just realized tonight that one audition is next week, not 2 weeks away as I'd thought.  Less time than I thought I had to learn this new piece; I need to get busy!

Lesson learned: Use scissors!

Yesterday I was opening a warehouse-club bundle of toilet paper.  The usual method is hook a thumb under an end flap and pop open.  Not anymore:  yesterday all that popped was my thumb - ouch!  EARLY this morning I was in my HMO's after-hours care, getting said digit x-rayed, prodded, probed and taped.

Next time, I'll either make the Chief open that package or use scissors - no more sprains, please!

First fruits

Or rather, first fruitcake.  I've rather come under the spell of the King Arther Flour (KAF) catalog lately - bought eggnog extract and eggnog cake mixes at Christmas, sent one sister & family gluten-free pancake mix and other gf goodies, bought a "king cake kit" that I'll be using tomorrow (cake will go to work on Tuesday), some gf flour I used for my first attempt at gf baking from a recipe, not a mix... And a fruitcake mix, which I finally made today. 

The fruitcakes were supposed to be Christmas gifts to neighbors.  Valentine fruitcake, anyone? This particular mix calls for nearly 2 pounds of dried fruit!  I brushed one with simple syrup (and a touch of that eggnog extract) for a neighbor who can't have alcohol, and used Grand Marnier on the rest.  This takes a bit of time; marinate the dried fruit overnight in syrup or liquor, then after the baking (in a slow oven, so longer cooking time), you have to let it cool completely, then wrap it up and let it sit at least 24 hrs before serving.  In other words, I'll be making my fruitcake deliveries tomorrow.  This has been quite the process.  If the results are good enough, though, I may do this again.

Getting the fruit was more involved than I expected.  I didn't like the look of the dried fruit available in grocery stores, so I went to Whole Foods and bought 6 or 7 different kinds of dried fruit, nearly all of which had to be chopped into bite-size pieces, and bought a pound of glazed cherries online to get the 10 oz. the recipe calls for.  (Tip: spraying your knife with Pam before you start makes things go a little more quickly.)  I'll find out tomorrow whether the dried fruit combo - apricots, dates, mango, blueberries, cherries and 1 more - was a success.  However, I'm optimistic - when I called the KAF baker's hotline to ask which of the fruits I'd bought would be best to use, the gentleman who answered thought they all sounded good, and was particularly intrigued that I'd found dried blueberries.

Plotting & planning

... for more auditions.  Decisions, decisions:  Next week, Ragtime - trying to decide what to sing.  Next decision: do I want to audition for Six Degrees of Separation?  And I almost don't want to get cast in Ragtime so I can audition a few weeks later for a Cole Porter show I'd never heard of.  I haven't heard the music yet (it's on order), but it's Cole Porter - what's not to love, right? ;)  If I don't get cast in any of these, then it'll be late fall before I'll be able to do another show.  I'm missing doing a musical - not sure if I want Ragtime (I'd be seriously chuffed (and quite surprised - I expect LOTS of competition) if I were cast as Mother) or want to take my chances on the Cole Porter.  It has only 2 roles I'd be considered for, and one of those is iffy.  Would I take ensemble?  Depends on how much singing & dancing they'd let me do - the more, the better!

In the meantime, I'm gong thru music, planning to cover my gray, trying to get my voice back into training, and looking forward to singing & dancing a few bars for people.  (My last audition, while not a disaster, wasn't all that great; I knew I'd be getting one of those "thanks but no thanks" e-mails.)

On to the next...

One show closes, must be time to find another one to do.  Tonight I'll be checking to see who's got spring shows and find out which ones I want to audition for.  Musicals, straight plays - as long as it's not too far or runs into or past Memorial Day weekend, I'll consider it.  First step is to pick an audition song and get it ready.  My resume's current, and I have headshots; now to decide at whose auditions I'll leave 'em...

So what did I learn?

... from doing this show? 

• First & foremost, that I can do more than I thought I could.  My memorization was never quite where I wanted it to be, but I did manage to pull off the role.
• I found that I was usually able to cry when I needed to, something that I'm sure will be useful in subsequent roles.
• When I have a LOT of lines to learn, I'll set mini-deadlines for memorizing X number of pages or certain scenes. ("I have to be completely off book by this date, so I'll get this scene down by date A, pages 20-30 down by date B...")
• With a lot of thought and focus, I can shift from one mood to another in a single scene and make it believable.  That is, if one friend's comments weren't meant only to protect my feelings... ;)
• I can "smoke" onstage pretty realistically with fake cigarettes.
• With enough practice and patience, my "opponent" and I can pull off a scuffle.
• I'm a Del Shores fan - I love the way he writes for women, at least in this play.

Another show closed

Last performance last night, followed by strike (because another company was loading into the theater this morning), followed by a cast party at a nearby diner.  Our marvel of a stage manager (SM) loved her gift (2 season tix to the company's new season and a poster signed by the cast & director), and the director loved his so much he actually teared up!  (Texas-shaped frame with just enough openings for pictures of each cast member, the SM and director)  The director also had all of us sign the lobby poster of the show logo.

Very well organized strike - we were outta there by midnight!  It helps that it was a one-set show and we had plenty of volunteers in addition to the cast & crew, but there were still truckloads of props to take care of, as well as furniture that included an actual upright piano.  Maybe the fact that so much of the stuff was loaned to the company helped a little - that meant those things went home with their owners instead of needing to be shoehorned into the truck.

What a great theater experience this turned out to be.  I learned a lot, both about acting and about my own abilities, got to meet and work with some great people, and learned about a playwright who writes GREAT roles for women and is still writing.  (I've already ordered copies of 5 more of his plays.)  Del Shores is only 55; may he continue to have a productive career!

Before I have to go thru theater withdrawal

Here my show has barely opened and I'm already looking at auditioning for spring shows.  I'll probably go tomorrow for a company I've been trying to break into (they get scores of people at their auditions - VERY stiff competition), another company is doing Ragtime, and a 3rd is doing a Cole Porter show that sounds like fun. The music director and choreographer for that one are both people I've worked with before and would enjoy working with again; only the stage director is an unknown.  Pity my poor theater widower. ;)

A 4-footed audience member?!?

Yesterday when we came out for the curtain call, I heard this strange sound over the music.  Eventually, I realized that odd silhouette I was seeing was a dog roughly the size of a spaniel that had its front paws on the armrest and was barking its head off.  (I imagine the music and clapping were hurting its ears.)  This was no service dog - a working dog would be bigger and better-behaved.  Who brings their dog to the theater?  I can't imagine the poor beastie enjoyed the show, and it may have bothered some of the patrons, especially if they had allergies.

Now I understand why actors don't read reviews until after they close

Opening weekend went pretty well - the house was at least 2/3 full each night and the audiences all seemed to enjoy the show.  The fight scene went very easily - finally felt smooth & natural.  I stumbled a little on my opening speech, but in general I think I did pretty well.  Hardly an award-winning performance, but nothing to be ashamed of, either.  I was a bit thrown when the audience was laughing at points throughout my big, emotional scene, but given the way Shores has other characters throwing in non sequiturs and other interjections to lighten the mood, I can understand it.  I may never know whether I made anyone cry, but at least I know the wig made 'em laugh. :)

We've gotten 2 reviews so far.  The first reviewer gave us 5 stars out of 5, went into great detail (starting with the costumes - my kinda reviewer :D), and had absolutely nothing negative to say.  The 2nd reviewer was less glowing; didn't like the costumes the first reviewer did, mentioned only 2 performers (though both reviewers had the same favorite), and generally said it was fun, but not great.  Funny how 2 people can see the same production so differently.  This sort of thing tends to remind me of The Six Blind Men of Indostan - everyone encountering the same thing, but in very different ways.

How did that happen?

All along I've been a bit in awe of the size of my role in this play.  The other night, one of my (very experienced and eminently talented) castmates confirmed what I'd been trying not to think about, that mine is the largest role in the show.  How did that happen?!? 

I've always considered myself a singer who acts, rather than an actor who sings, and I only auditioned for this show for the practice.  I never expected to make callbacks, let alone get cast in the lead!  Quite a change for someone who's used to ensemble and featured roles.  I've been trying not to think too much about how big the role is and how much other people's cues and things rely on my getting my lines right. Sometimes, though, it's hard not to stress out, simply because I've never had such a big role before.  I think it would have been less stressful had it been a musical role - I've had plenty of experience learning music and choreography.

TW has been after me for years to audition for straight plays, not just musicals.  I've been doing that, but the demographics have generally been against me (fewer roles for women than for men, fewer roles for "women of a certain age" than for younger women, more women than men auditioning).  Now, though, I'll be auditioning for plays with a new confidence, knowing that at least one director believes in my ability to deliver a huge, meaty role.  Starting Friday, I have 8 chances to do just that.  And in cotton-candy-blue hair! :D