Stumble-Through

“If there’s an empty space, just fill it with a line, that’s what I like to do. Even if it’s from another show.” Ron Albertson Waiting for Guffman

We ran all of Act II on Saturday and all of Act I last night. In theory, we were off-book, which means that we are allowed to call for lines but not allowed to carry our books around and read our dialogue and blocking from them. Not as smooth as a run-through, these rehearsals are generally known as "stumble-throughs." We'll get through a half a page or so and there will be a pause as at least one of thinks "Is that me? Do I have a line here?" Some lines - no matter how declarative - are delivered as a question to David, who, as our stage manager, is sitting on book for us. I think my favorite thing about stumble-throughs is that one can have this sort of exchange: "Am I here?" "No, you're over there." (Regarding blocking.) Sometimes theater is just that surreal.

Director Eileen has declared a moratorium on what she calls "self-critiquing" - comments like "I'm so stupid - I should know this." It is a given that dialogue that one knows perfectly at one's desk or in the car is gone at rehearsal. This makes perfect sense because all the mental cues for one's next line are in the environment where one learns the lines. Over the run of reheasals the environment changes to the rehearsal hall and one's brain can say "You're standing behind the chair, so you're going to say X." Having gotten through both acts once, the next rehearsal will be smoother as will the one after that. Piece by piece, the jig-saw puzzle is being filled in. So we need to stop calling ourselves names and just assume that we each know the next line. Many times this will actually be true.

A "director" that I worked with once - and I use that term very loosely - (Bill, you know who I mean) once did say something useful. He said "If you forget a line, just say 'line.' Don't beat yourself up, don't drop character, don't say 'fuck.' Just say 'line.' We'll feed you line and we'll move on." I leaned over and whispered to the person next to me that I had thought that "fuck" was German for "line."

Movie trailer

If you happen to be in the Silver Spring area any time soon, buy a ticket at the AFI Silver theater for Vera Drake or whatever plays next in Theater 1. Why? Two reasons.

1. The AFI Silver's Theater 1 is a beautifully and meticulously restored Art Deco theater. Even if you don't care what's playing (and I do recommend Vera Drake), it's worth the $8.50 just to sit in that great big room and look around you for ten minutes.

2. The trailer for Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin, féminin. Lots of scenes of 1960's Paris, lots of loud, energetic pop music. Lots of black and white. Then the text:

A movie about
Paris
Sex
and the Pepsi Generation.

Masculine
Feminine

"Pepsi" and "the Pepsi Generation" are registered trademarks of PepsiCo.

"Paris" and "Sex" are still in the public domain.

Quiet Riot

"The pagans on-stage made pagans of the audience." -- Thomas Kelly

David and I are going to the Kennedy Center on Thursday to admire the dance stylin's of the Washington Ballet. They will be performing The Rite of Spring, which premiered in 1913 with music by Igor Stravinsky (and pretty darned amazing music it is, too) and choreography by Serge Diaghilev. I have informed David that in a nod to the piece's history, I intend to riot.

I suppose a one-person riot won't be all that notable, especially as I have always been a well-behaved, nice, Episcopalian (a religion where the whole transubstantiation thing is optional, but not creating a scene is a pillar of the faith), good girl. So if anyone can provide me with rioting tips, I'd be grateful. Just remember, I'll be wearing my Bob Mackie heels, so nothing too strenuous, please.

A few months ago I asked David why people rioted over .... a ballet? Well, let's just say that the Kennedy Center's website has a caution that The Rite of Spring contains adult material and is not suitable for all audiences. And according to NPR, The Rite followed Les Sylphides, also by Stravinsky and Diaghilev. Les Sylphides was apparently pretty tame, so an audience that saw Oklahoma! as the first piece saw Oh! Calcutta! for the second. (Please don't make me explain Oh! Calcutta!)

Well, no matter how much I do or do not like The Rite and no matter how much or how little I am shocked by it, I can at least report that the Kennedy Center has a decent coffee maker. So at least intermission is assured.

Any Spanish speakers?

One of the guys who cleans our office always smiles at me and greets me with "Hola, Chella." ("Chella" being what I hear. I can't guarantee that's what he says.) My Spanish is pretty limited. I know about three dozen words and most of them are numbers. I also know a couple of basic conversational phrases, and how to say "trash - please throw away." I know how to call someone a woman of retail affection. I know how to ask for the bathroom. I can say that it's cold out or that I'm going home.

I don't know what "Chella" means. Do any of y'all?

Intermission

After I've been sitting in a theater seat for about 55 minutes, my fancy turns lightly to thoughts of getting up, moving around, restoring the flow of blood to my lower regions, and having, maybe a treat. By which I do *not* mean green punch and store-brand cookies, although that is the usual fare at many a theater.

The best intermission in this area has to belong to Rockville Little Theater. They have a nice, large lobby and years ago they turned their intermission concessions over to a local high school band's booster club. So we get cold sodas, hot fresh coffee, and homemade treats! I cannot overemphasize what a good idea this is. Everyone returns for the second act happier when they are outside of a homemade brownie.

My home team, Silver Spring Stage, does okay. We have coffee, splits of wine, sodas, and name brand cookies/snacks in individual serving packages. And until we installed the faboo new seats and nice new carpet, I had removed the "no food or drink in the seating area" notice from the program, so I could have a cup of coffee during the second act. After having had one during the first act. I may have been our own best custumer.

Hard Bargain Players performs in an outdoor ampitheater, so when the weather turns chill they serve very good chili and cornbread. Thank you!!

Elden Street, on the other hand, could use an intermission intervention. Their lobby is teeny-tiny, so we overflow into the parking lot. Not their fault, they work with what they got, I completely understand. But when you're hanging around an industrial campus parking lot, in the dark, in 45 degree weather, well ..... coffee just seems to suggest itself. Everyone even tangentially connected to ESP has heard me say that the one thing that stops them from being a really first class theater is the lack of a coffee maker. Enough of their board members have helpfully told me that they have one in the scene shop (or whatever it is) that I may just start regarding that as an invitation to head on back there and make myself a pot. Or I'll ramp up the joking and flirting I do with Dave-the-House-Manager and talk him into letting me keep a thermos tucked away somewhere handy.

What brings all this to mind? Besides that I've been rabbiting on about it for years? The fact that the New York Times must have been listening to me because they ran a fun piece reviewing some of the intermissions up there. (Thanks to the pedantic nuthatch, who found it first.)

I love my radio

My routine on the weekends - if I'm home - includes puttering around and listening to NPR. Today is one of the day's when my loyalty is rewarded: The Next Big Thing had a short piece with Sam Waterston reciting part of Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union speech against slavery. I've heard the recitation before but I love it. So here I am, sitting at my computer with a hot cup of fresh coffee and a lap full of warm cat listening to Sam Waterston talk. Such bliss.

And a week or so ago, Scott Simon recited Lord Byron's "She walks in beauty, like the night" which made me decide that the only thing more charming than Mr. Simon's warm, happy laugh is the way he reads poetry. I sent Stacey (who works for NPR) an e-mail letting her know that he had read poetry to me on the air, that, yes, other people could hear it, too, but he was really reading to me.

(Stacey has known me long to enough that she can nod-and-smile by return e-mail. All my friends eventually master the nod-and-smile, a sort of voiceless "yes, dear.")

And here's the poem, just for fun.

"She walks in beauty, like the night" -- Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

Pictures of me that I don't hate

I generally don't like pictures of me, but here's a strip that either Mom or Aunt Dotty took back in the day. The top row is Sara and me playing in the backyard. The bottom row is pretty self-explanatory. And anyone who doubted how much Sara looked like Dad, well, see for youself - it's Charlie Jr. We must have been around six and three when these were taken because we moved to the Sutherland Road house a few weeks before Sara turned three.

One day I will find a photographic genius who will be able to get rid of the water stain (or whatever it is) and blow these up and then I'll frame them and hang them on the wall. I'll probably even turn the one with the tree in the right direction.

And I think that the next time I'm asked for a headshot, I'll use the last one on the right. Even though most people would say that the first one on the left is much more typical. (I am so put upon.)

Leta & Sara way back when

New words!

Here are two recent additions to my vocabulary. Pity I won't be using them around the office very often, but I'm sure they'll work their way into something. They're too good to let get away.

Metathesis: "Linguistics. Transposition within a word of letters, sounds, or syllables, as in the change from Old English brid to modern English bird or in the confusion of modren for modern." My own example is my habit of saying "foe-wer" instead of "four," something I picked up from my southern relatives. (Thanks to Constantine from Savoynet.)

and

Pleonastic. The use of more words than are required to express an idea; redundancy. Repetition of same sense in different words; " 'a true fact' and 'a free gift' are pleonastic expressions." (Thanks to Ira.)

Of course, "the use of more words than are required" pretty much sums up my approach to life. (Isn't that right, Brent?)

A free evening?

Every now and then even my overbooked calendar has an empty day. I have one such evening tonight. When my calendar has been as full as mine lately and I find a chunk of free time, it literally leaves me standing in the middle of my living room wondering what to do. I have a bit of a cold today, so I cancelled plans to hang with Ira (he has a show opening in a week and doesn't need my germs to make Tech Week even more special) and am now at loose ends.

So.... what to do? What to do?

1. If I ask David or Eileen they will vote for me spending the evening learning my lines. Fair enough.
2. Pekoe, the Fabulous Orange Tabby, will suggest that I sit quietly on the sofa and provide a lap for him. This coordinates well with Option #1.
3. I could stop whining about my condo being too messy and just clean it.
4. I could watch some of the enormous backlog of videos and DVDs that have been waiting for my attention.
5. I could read some of the Terry Pratchett that Deb lent me.
6. I could waste an enormous amount of time on-line and (my favorite time suck of all) playing Freecell.

I suspect that tonight will be a sampling of numbers 1 - 6, going light on #4 and heavy on #1. And I can dump some ingredients into my bread machine and arrange for my place to smell nice tomorrow morning. It's always easier to get up if there's something to get up for.

Tomorrow I have rehearsal in the morning and afternoon and in the evening I'm having dinner with Mitch and Stephanie (hurray!!).

Sunday should include church in the morning and hanging out with John and Mattie in the evening.

Monday is a vast, open, free, uncluttered vista until rehearsal in the evening.

Recently my calendar was up to seven colors, but when The Man Who Came to Dinner closed on Saturday, we dropped back to six. Right now the colors are:

black - normal life
pink - auditions
blue - birthdays (Want to be on my calendar? Tell me your birthday. It doesn't mean you'll get a card - or even an e-mail - but I'll think about you and think "Oh! I should have sent a card!")
orange - David. When my calendar runs out of orange things, we make more plans.
red - Independence. Shows take up a lot of time and, thus, get their own color. My OCD is not yet severe enough to make me color-code based on whether I'm acting, directing, or merely serving as some kind of minion, but I can see that day coming.
green - other people's performances.

How far into the future does my calendar go? Well, Mary Ann asked me to submit a children's show to direct at Elden Street in June 2006, so ..... June of 2006.

So if you've been pining to talk to me, call tonight. I'll be home!

If you like Jason Mraz, try Gertrude Stein

Another find from The Writer's Almanac.

Read it out loud. People will look at you funny if you do it work, but so what. Just let the words roll around in your mouth and fall off your tongue. (Note: carriage returns are mine, not Ms. Stein's, nor Mr. Keillor's).

from Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein

A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday.
What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision
was that notwithstanding many declarations and more
music, not even notwithstanding the choice and a torch
and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and
a vacation and even more noise than cutting,
notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing,
not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion,
not evenwithstanding more cultivation and some seasoning,
not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling,
not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with
terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution,
not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the
rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong,
the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing.
The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness,
all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.

"Didn't suck" -- the Washington Post

Ali's lovely production of The Mikado got a glowing review in today's Washington Post. Nice to see my opinion backed by competent authority, as someone once said.

I'd be looking forward to seeing this production ever since Ali outlined her concept to me. She did what I always love to see a director do: she asked why things happen and then she created a show from the answers to those whys. No one ever did anything in that stage because "it's always done this way." There was energy and brilliance in everything. It was clearly a team effort. Everyone was on board. And Julie got lots of stage time and got kissed and everything.

This time I was the one jumping up and down in the lobby and shrieking like a girl.

If I am lucky and very, very good, one day I'll be in a play that Ali directs.

Way to go, guys!!

Calling my office

The best phone call I ever got here (excluding the ones offering me roles I want) was for one of our engineers. The call bounced from her voicemail to the front desk and I answered.

"Is X in today? I keep getting her voicemail."
"I'm sorry, sir, she's on a different floor than me, I really don't know."
"Oh. That's too bad. This is her parole officer." (Engineer X is about as likely to have a parole officer as I am to have a sky diving instructor.)
"Sir, I can't tell you how very sorry I am right now what we don't have an all-office paging system."

Really improved my day.

Then there are the folks who don't improve my day by calling here. Here's how not to be one of them:

1. Don't call here because our number showed up on your caller ID. We have over 100 people here. I have no idea who called you. And it was probably a wrong number anyway. Just move on.

2. Don't call here from the drive-through and expect me to hold while you finish placing your order. (I wish I was making that one up. Especially as it has happened more than once.)

3. Don't call here and when I answer ask "Is this Y?" Y being some member of management or some other staffer who earns three times what I do and is unlikely - at best - to be answering the phone.

4. Don't call here and give me a long intro paragraph on who you are and why you I are calling. I largely don't need to know. I want to know who you are calling, so that I can put you through and take the next call.

And if you are an automatic dialer for a telemarker or a telemarketer pretending to be the guy who services the copier, then just don't call here.

I should read my own stupid note

I have a Post-It note (a rather fetching Post-It note with Winnie-the-Pooh on it) stuck on my front door that says "Is the heater turned off? How about the stove?" Generally, I read this note on my way out the door - because little notes only work if you read them - and I either answer "Yep!" as I head out or I scamper back and check the heater and the stove and any candles I may have lit. Because if I burn the place down, what with living in a condo and all, it would definitely annoy the rest of my stairwell.

This little note usually works a treat. I read, I check, life is good. And you know why I put that little note there? Because of the time I got to David's and, as I was turning into his neighborhood, thought to myself "Did I turn off the stove?" Keep me awake for hours, that did. And woke me up a couple of times later on. I'd be unconscious and my brain would form a pictures of a smoudering ruin, dead cat, homeless neighbors, the whole deal. The sort of thing that wakes you up faster and more completely than all the espresso in the world.

And it's not like it's an impossible event because when I was a teen-ager, I burned several of my mother's pots dry and I'd cost Mollie a couple of tea kettles when I lived with her. It seems that when Princess Oblivious picks up a book, the whole world - including the tangy smell of burnt metal - goes away.

Well, last night I was heading out for rehearsal and whether I would be on time or late depended on the timing of a few stoplights. And I hate being late. I prefer to be early, but that option was already gone. So I zoomed past my little note, went to rehearsal, rehearsed, followed David back to Virginia, and - as I turned into his neighborhood - thought the bad thought: "Did I turn off the stove?" It's like that moment in The Pirates of Penzance when General Stanley claims to be an orphan and all the pirates cry "Oh, dash it all - here we go again!" (Or something like that; I'm usually not in the men's chorus, so their cries de couer aren't completely memorized.)

I spent the rest of the evening - and random pockets of the night - doing mental re-enactments of dinner. I made toast, I made soup, I sat the computer and checked my mail, got an IM from Amy, went back for the second half of the soup which had cooled, turned the stove on and up to high, warmed up the soup, ladled it into my cup, ..... and headed back to the computer. And there's a nice little mental gap between "ladled it into my cup" and "headed back to the computer."

I figured that because I had turned the stove up to high I must have turned it off. I must have. Because it would have burned dry almost instantly if I set an empty pot on a burner set on high.

Only when I said this to David, I could hear in my voice the same lack of conviction that I have when I say "I'm not tired" at work and Tanya asks how I got all those parts when I am such a lousy actress.

So I drove from David's to my house on my way to work to check the darn thing. Of course, it was off. Don't be silly. And I'd put the pot on a different (and cool) burner anyway. Pity that the traffic was of the sort that induces cardiac arrest (stupid toll road). "I'm not stressed out." (Don't the unconvincing tones just leap off the screen at you?)

Must. Read. Note. // Must. Read. Note. // Must. Read. Note.

(PS - Deb and Julie ~ feel free to laugh your butts off at me. I remember sending you 45 minutes out of your way on the way home from NYC to check my stupid stove.)

My peeps

The Arlington Players (TAP), the producing company for The Man Who Came to Dinner, has a wonderful marketing tool. I don't know if they use it for every show, but they did for this one. They create a post card ad for the show and then do a mail merge for each cast member. Provide Dave the Marketing Guy with names and addresses and TAP will send them a post card for the show that shows your name and headshot.

So I gave them my Christmas card list.

Not the whole thing - Leslie and Naomi are in California, after all - but most of the local names. I'm not very good at telling people "I'm in a show, please come see it" because I used to know someone who started out treating me as a friend and over time just treated me as a potential audience member. I have friends, you know, not ticket holders.

But damn those post cards work. I've had a pretty decent cross section of folks come to see the show, including some who rarely see what I do. (We are fully scheduled people).

So last night John and Mattie came! And this is after I (urk) stood them up for the Redskins/Vikings game. (Not on purpose, I swear.) We haven't seen each other in forever, but they got the post card and said "Let's go!" Color me delighted. And now we have a dinner date for next week. I swear, I will be there.

And Julie & Deb J came with Ali & Pete and Joe & Denise. Julie, bless her, said "Well, you see everything we do, so we thought...." So she gets double friend points. Actually, the whole crowd gets whole handfuls of friend points because when folks who haven't been able to see much of what I've done (and therefore didn't know for sure that I'm one of the finest actresses of my generation) greet me in the lobby by literally jumping up and down and screaming like girls that I was great -- well. How can one not love that? Like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes right then.

And Debbie had a rehearsal last night, but it ended early enough that she came to the theater and saw most of the show. This woman had a rehearsal. She had plausable avoidability. But she came. I love that.

So.... those of you who live in the DC area who thinking "Darn! I missed her show!" (We close tonight, there's still time....) and are regretting not being about to jump and down in the lobby and scream like girls, well -- Independence opens April 1st. Y'all come.

These were a few of my favorite things

Roast beef, medium well; bacon; sausage pizza; cheeseburgers; Mighty Kids Double Cheeseburger meals from Mickey D's; beef barley soup.....

I made my choice. I've been given some wonderful suggestions by the Devoted Readership - and I did consider giving up Law & Order, but as I have rehearsals on Wednesdays that's just collateral damage, not a choice - but I finally selected to give up red meat for Lent. I've gone completely meat-free in the past and trying to combine that with a busy rehearsal schedule is just a bit too daunting. Especially if I'm going to continue going to the gym before rehearsals. (Score on that so far is pretty much three for three. I didn't go to the physical gym, but I did do a long, brisk walk around the neighborhood with my upstairs neighbor, Kathy.)

So sheep (and cows, and pigs, etc) may safely graze for next several weeks. Chickens and turkeys shall continue to live and fear.

Brett suggested I give up auditions. Not likely! Lent is about sacrifice and observance, not about suffering of epic dimensions. Let's have a sense of proportion, shall we?

A good (delivery) man is hard to find

A man delivering luches arrived here a few minutes ago. He pointed to a pile of bills and coins on the desk and asked "Is that for me?"

"I think so," I said, "You're from -- uhmmm, uhmm" as Tip of the Tongue Disease caught me again.

"The hospital," he supplied, helpfully. "At least, that's what my mother told me."

The whole thing - PS

Mind you, if anyone does go back and read every post I've written and then tells me, I'll be deeply flattered. Surprised, of course, but deeply flattered.

I give up

Today is Fat Tuesday and tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the official beginning of Lent.

(Warning: Snotty opinions from the Moral High Ground lie ahead.)

Let's get this part out of the way right at the beginning: Lent is not 40 days anymore. It's 47. But wait, I hear you say, isn't Lent the observance of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert? Why is Lent 47 days? Are you sure?

Of course, I'm sure. Pull out your calendars and count the days between tomorrow and Easter.

Aha! (you say) Jesus's time in the desert ended with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, observed on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. Thus 40 days. Well, that may have been good enough for Jesus, but try finding a Lent Give-Uper who thinks that Palm Sunday is the day when we are released from our Lenten vow. Nope, the chocolate or desserts or what-have-you are gone until Easter Sunday.

Hmmmmm, (you think), but aren't Sundays exempt from Lent? Isn't every Sunday (as I was once told) Easter in miniature and therefore wouldn't it be inappropriate to observe one's Lenten vow on Sundays? One could certainly make an argument for that although I don't remember being taught in Sunday school that Jesus took weekends off. How much moral character does it take to give up doughnuts Monday through Saturday? For most casual dieters that just business as usual.

So - for me anyway, the morally lax crowd can make any decision they want - Lent is 47 days.

Along with several other childhood habits, I observe Lent by giving something up. The question every year is what? What to give up? In different years I've given up bread, chocolate, tea, and meat. I gave up tea several years running until Mollie flatly forbade me to do it again. She claimed that I was challenging to live with when I couldn't have any tea. (Which is ridiculous. I am never anything less than a joy to be around. Ask anyone.) Being Meat-Free for Lent works pretty well, but I did that for several years as well. I followed Gordon's rule of not eating anything that had a face.

I like to give things up that are an inconvenience for me, are a discreet thing, and from which I don't derive a benefit. So giving up dessert, for instance, wouldn't work because I'd derive the benefit of fewer calories and dessert is too easy to slide into the "snack" category. This? This isn't dessert. Dinner was hours ago. This is a snack.

Hmmmmm. What to give up? Suggestions cheerfully accepted, although not necessarily acted upon.

Is it warm in here or is it me?

The amazing Gwyn sent me an e-mail with a link to Vosges Chocolate. After I read the description of the item that caught her eye, I moused around the site a bit and found this description of their La Parisienne Cocoa. Oh my. (Note to self: Vosges retails through Zingermans.... Another reason to visit A2.)

Dark Chocolate + Tahitian vanilla bean. A traditional dark chocolate cocoa. Silky swirls of cream gliding, intoxicating and arousing. A winter warming, rich and flowing with Cacao and vanilla. Melting drips of chocolate intertwined with Glorious Vanilla. C’est la Vie! The perfect Hot Chocolate / Chocolat Chaud.

The whole thing?

A couple of different people have recently told me that they found this blog and went back to the archives and read the whole thing. So as an experiment, I did, too. OMG! That takes hours! I don't find me that interesting......

So I told that story to Brent, who immediately agreed. He said (and this is why I adore Brent), "Oh, I know! I only read, like, three posts before I got bor --- before I, uh, had to get back to work."

Rule announcement

I didn't want to have to make this a rule - I was hoping a guideline would suffice - but I am left with no choice. Henceforth the following shall be known as Theater Rule #1:

If you get cast in a show, I must be told about it. I want to know what company, what show, what role, when you go up, how long you run, and any other pertinent details. Production gossip also cheerfully accepted. (Why, yes, Amy - this means you!)

I'm glad we had this little talk.

Thought question

I've been thinking about it anyway.....

Are the e-mails and IMs that get you into the most trouble the ones you type while frowning or the ones you type while laughing?

In my case, definitely the latter. Only I don't LOL, really, I giggle.

I've been pretty lucky because nothing I've e-mailed or IMed has ever really bit me on the butt, but it's probably only a matter of time. Hmmmm. Delete that "probably"; it is only a matter of time.

I mean, I *like* NPR and all

The Washington Post announced on Wednesday that WETA, Washington DC's classical music and public radio station, is planning to eliminate the classical music portion of their programming. Over the last several years WETA and WAMU (a college-based station at American University that played blue grass and hot jazz) have been in a race to see who can have the most news/talk programming. Several years ago WETA dumped their morning music in order to run "Morning Edition," annoying the people who actually wanted to hear Brahms with their coffee instead of news and news analysis.

Right now WETA and WAMU run in parallel at lot of the time. The only NPR-based or APM-based (American Public Media) shows that I can think of off the top of my head that they don't both carry (except for the programs that WAMU generates) are "A Prairie Home Companion" (WETA) and "This American Life" (WAMU).

Frankly, radio in the DC area is pretty crappy. There is a better selection and wider choices in Cleveland than here. (I'm not making that up. There really is.) After the programming change goes through, there will be one DC-based classical music station. WHFS, which back in the day was an alternative rock station that would play stuff you couldn't hear anywhere else, recently changed to a Spanish-language station and the only other alternative station in the area, WRNR (?), has a signal that doesn't carry past its own building. 'HFS was a shadow of its former self and we don't have any Spanish-language stations to speak of, so I can't get too worked up about that one, although they could have given their remaining listeners more than .0001 seconds notice.

The definition of business, as I learned it in my Introduction to Banking course years ago, is "to generate profits while providing a service." And the fact that "generate profits" is at the front of the definition and "provide service" at the back wasn't lost on me. If we won't support classical music, it will go away. Ratings were down and so were pledges.

I listen to NPR a lot. I really like it. Heck, my pal Stacey works for them. But in a listening area with so little diversity, it seems counterproductive for stations to simply ditto each other.

Oh, Sherry, you know I never read notices...

I haven't posted a recent picture of David's Henry V beard, but y'all can see it for yourself because the show got a nice review in the Washington Post.

Michael Toscano said good things and the Post ran a good picture. And even though Maura is yards prettier than David, it's his picture they ran. Well, him and several other people. The permanently delightful Sally can be seen second from the left. (She's yards prettier than David, too.)

To describe it in "yearbook caption speak": While Mistress Quickly and the Chorus look on, Bardolph comes between belligerents Nym and Pistol.

{Sad comment on our modern society - I was heading for Google to double check the spelling of Mistress Quickly's name until it occured to me that my big, heavy book of Shakespeare is less than 10 feet away from me. Sigh.}

We'll see how long this lasts

My office and Silver Spring Stage are just about 2.5 miles apart. I leave for the day around 5:00 and rehearsals will begin at 7:30. Between the office and the Stage is ..... Gold's Gym. So my plan is to hit the gym on Mondays and Wednesdays before rehearsal. The only exercise I got rehearsing The Man Who Came to Dinner was drumming my fingers on the steering wheel and shifting in and out of first gear on the beltway, so it'll be nice to get back into a "good for me" routine.

Another reason to like Gwen Stefani

"If I was a rich girl (na, na, na, na, na....)
See, I'd have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl"

I never really listened closely to the lyrics to Rich Girl - and couldn't even have told you title before today - but every time I heard it, I notice how much it reminded me of "If I were a rich man" from Fiddler on the Roof. So having looked at the lyrics and actually listened this time, it is "If I were a rich man."

Pretty cool to hear Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock among the pop music.

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Rich-Girl-lyrics-Gwen-Stefani/C532066176D4FAD148256F500007265C

Nope, not a homonym

I found it! The phrase for which I was looking, that is. Sarah Caudwell's The Shortest Way to Hades, a lovely, literary, murder mystery, has several plot points based on textual criticism. For all I know, Ms. Caudwell made this one up because I can't find it in any of the references I have at hand, but here goes:

"I could understand it," she said in the tone of one trying hard to be reasonable, "if I had been dictating. Muriel has been typing for us, after all, for only six months, and cannot be expected to be familiar with technical terms. But how does she manage to do it when she's simply copying from manuscript?"
It was, I explained, an instance of the phenomenon known to students of textual criticism as dictation interne: the copyist, mentally repeating the words of the original, copies them not as he sees thems but as he imagines hearing them -- it is a fruitful source of error.
"Most interesting," said Selena. "Some day, Hilary, you must tell me all about it. Some day, that is, when I don't have a plane to catch and three sets of papers to finish."

From the same book I got "haplography": the accidental omission of letters or lines that should be repeated, such as 'mispell' instead of 'misspell'

Tossed Mickey

Pointless Theater Anecdote:

Long years ago (but not as many as 14), I ordered some lingerie from the Disney catalogue. I got a set they called "Tossed Mickey," which was a white bra and underpinnings with lots of Mickey Mouses on them and I used to wear them for good luck or something on opening nights. So I was doing a show with my G&S family, VLOC, and changing in the women's dressing room, when someone complimented on my cute undies. I said I was wearing them for luck.

"Oh, will you wear them every night?" she asked brightly.

"No...... I intend to change my underthings during the run. I was kind of hoping that would be a general thing that everyone would do."

I think of this story every time I wear my Tossed Mickeys.

Headaches *and* insomnia

For some reason, I've been having a lot of headaches lately. I wake up with a headache about once a week or so.

I've had a few headache episodes over the last dozen years, where I would have an intense headache every day. They'd kick in around 9:00 and persist through anything I could think of to take for them. After about a month, they'd stop coming and would stay away for several years. These aren't those because they aren't every day and they're nearly so bad, but waking up headachy is annoying.

And over the years I've had random intermittent insomnia. I'll just wake up around 3:00 AM and be unable to get back to sleep for two or three hours. The new twist is that I now sometimes can't get to sleep to begin with. Last night I was bright and alert and chatty until around 2:00, which would have been fine if it hadn't been a school night.

So today I feel draggy and I have a headache. Whee.

Program typos I didn't make

I do the programs for most of the shows at the Stage and VLOC and I've had my fair share of typos. I ask people to proofread for me and, as far as I can tell, they read their own bios and then say the entire program is fine. Then, on opening night, they bring me the program and point out typos. This drives me nuts. I hate having typos in my programs. On the other hand, typos in other people's programs cheer me right up.

If you do enough programs, you can head a few typos off early. For instance, I get bios that say the actor recently performed in The Sea Gull or Sea Gull. Correct title? The Seagull. When Dave turned in his bio for "Art" he misspelled his own character's name, Marc, substituting a "k" for a "c". Easy to fix. Lots of folks puts a "the" or an "a" in titles that don't actually contain them, or leave them out of titles that do. According to French's Mr. Stoppard's play is correctly titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I get lots of variations on that one.

And if a bio is dictated over the phone, the typist may hear something something different from what the speaker said. For instance, the speaker said "Son and heir" and the typist types "sun and air" (Anyone besides Larry recognize where I got that example?). There's a name for this, which I'll look up when I get home.

So anyway, I'm sitting in Elden Street's theater last night, leafing through the program, randomly reading bios and I come across this: "Michael .... has been performing in this area for the past 14 years having appeared last at ESP as Yvonne in Art." Two typos for the price of one. The correct title for "Art" contains quote marks. Easy to miss. But the character's name is Yvan. Because he's, you know, a guy. So now I'm going to think of that show and think of tall and bearded Mike playing that role in drag. Perked up my whole evening.

What's your theater job?

Everyone has a theater job. All you have to do to figure out yours is to notice whose choices you second guess.

I redeliver a lot of the dialogue in my head - I'm an actor. (Duh.)

Directors reblock things.

Set designers move the walls and furniture around. Or eliminate most of it altogether.

Costumers redress everyone.

Etc, etc, etc.

I took young Samantha to see Cinderella at Elden Street's Theater for Young Audiences on Saturday morning. She spent the pre-show asking me what people were doing and why. How would the house be changed to a castle? And she critiqued the set changes. "Why are they taking so long?" "There are still chicken feathers on the floor." And the nano-second the last actor hit his mark she said "Lights - camera - action!" That's right, folks, Sam was calling cues. She's a stage manager.

I told her that we don't say "camera" in theater, but other than that, she's obviously ready to go. This is good news in Stacey's view because actors are usually unemployed but stage managers are much sought after and professional stage managers are decently paid.

She had a wonderful time at the show and collected autographs from the whole cast. ESP's next kids theater project is in April. I'm going to see if Miss Samantha Jane Stage Manager is available.

Oh, I can't... I have rehearsal

This works best if you read it in a sing-song-y voice:

I got cast in "Independence"! I got cast in "Independence"!

I am playing Kess, the oldest sister and a pedagogue. Our first rehearsal is tomorrow and the very spiffy David is our stage manager.

Leta's Calendar Bingo

This past summer I was dividing my time between three projects: remounting the Stage's production of "Art" at the Gaithersburg Arts Barn, directing 21 Pairs of Sneakers for the Stage's One-Act Festival, and rehearsing The Vagina Monologues for a Stage fundraiser.

Eventually my schedule got so crowded that I could no longer use the little calendar I carry in my purse. So I made a two-page, two-column document that listed everything. In order to prioritize I color-coded stuff. When I was talking to David later that day I told him that my calendar was in five colors. "Oh," he said, "what color am I?" At which point we welcomed our sixth color.

I still keep pretty busy, so my informal rule is when someone asks if I'm free on such-and-such a day, if I am uncommited that day, it's theirs.

Now, let's all follow the logic and figure out why I am so overbooked...

The F Word and Me

Oh, Lord, set a watch before my lips...

I can go for years and years without using what I call "harsh language." Unfortunately, none of those years have been any time recently. And I'm finding that language inappropriate for the underage crowd seems to slip out before I can catch it. So I'm going to try to clean up a bit. I'm going to emulate some of the teachers I know who, while masters of invective, never use words that would bring the blush of shame to the check of modesty. Obviously, this change won't be immediate. I expect to go through many cycles of "Oh, f- darn" for a while. Optional words of dismay, regret, excitement, etc. may include:

Jeepers
Oh, dear
Rats!
And of course: tons of bits. I can't give up tons of bits. When my college friend Mary was about 3, her father hammered his thumb. He was making all sorts of untranscibable noises until Mary, who was playing near by, suggested "ton of bits." "What?" "Tons of bits, Daddy. Mommy says it to the vacuum cleaner all the time." So tons of bits stays. If a 3-year-old can use it, so can I.

Other suggestions cheerfully accepted.

And because this is now running through all our heads:

Interjections (Well!) show excitement (Oh!) or emotion (Hey!).
They're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point,
Or a by a comma when the feeling's not as strong.

So when you're happy (Hurray!) or sad (Aw!)
Or frightened (Eeek!) or mad (Rats!)
Or excited (Wow!) or glad (Hey!)
An interjection starts a sentence right.

http://www.school-house-rock.com/Int.html

You're welcome.

Another iTunes target

This song always seems to get my attention right near the very end. Probably because of the line about the telephone working both ways. People have said it to me, I've said it to people. And they will again. And I will again.

Looking at the lyrics, two things come to mind: how much I like the sounds of the words outside of their meaning and how much they remind me of my own (vastly inferior) poetry.


You and I Both - Jason Mraz

Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me
Oh things are gonna happen naturally
And taking your advice I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing
But often times those words get tangled up in lines
And the bright lights turn to night
Until the dawn it brings
A little bird who'll sing about the magic that was you and me

Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
What you and I spoke of
Others only dream of the love that I love

See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive
Now you and I, you and I
Not so little you and I anymore
And with this silence brings a moral story
more importantly evolving is the glory of a boy

you and I both loved what you and I spoke of
and others just read of and if you could see now
well I'm already finally out of

and it's okay if you have go away
just remember the telephone works both ways
and if I never ever hear it ring
if nothing else I'll think the bells inside
have finally found you someone else and that's okay
cause I'll remember everything you sang

you and I both loved what you and I spoke of
and others just read of and if you could see now
well I'm already finally out of words.

© Jason Mraz :: All Rights Reserved
from www.JasonMraz.com

Audition Prep

Here's how I prepare for a (non-singing) audition. I read the play. A lot. When I was prepping for auditions for The Pavilion, I said something to David that contained a quote he mostly recognized.

"How many times have you read that play?" he asked
"Once --" I said slowly
"Well, that's not too bad."
"---a week."

I had read the play often enough to be off book for certain bits of it. Audrey, the director, has what I like to call "Let's Admire My OCD" when it comes to auditions, which I greatly respect and appreciate. The better prepared a director is going in and the more prep she expects from her cast, the stronger the chance that very little of anyone's time will be wasted.

Audrey was especially smart as she included in her auditions a scene that appears to be just more pages, but is actually pretty pivotal. Nail that scene if you want to get cast. And in order to nail that scene, you have to know the play.

By the time a play is up, you know a character well enough to know what music they listen to on the car radio. You don't need that much for auditions, but you'd better know why they're in the car and where they're going.

I didn't get the role in The Pavilion because someone else was better than me. No amount of prep will change that. But when I loose a part to someone who was better, I can hold my head up. Loose the part becuase I didn't know what I was doing in there and I'll feel like an idiot.

Keeping in Contact

I have two answers for "What was - so far - the worst day of your life?"

Number one was Christmas Day 2003 when, after hearing the news from Audrey, David and I drove out to Mom's to tell her that Sara was dead. On the All Time List of Sucky Jobs, telling your Mother that your sister is dead ranks right up there at the top.

(As far as can be determined, Sara died from a reaction to some medication she had been prescribed. It's not uncommon for patients to have to try several different meds before the one is found that solves the problem the best with the fewest unfriendly side effects. At least two meds had given Sara seizures. She was also a pretty heavy smoker. Since she was 9 years old. She tried quitting once or twice but never made it stick. She told me once when she was in a quitting phase how interesting it was to run until your legs hurt instead of running until your lungs hurt.)

Horrible Day #2: Jenny (my then roommate) was out for the evening and her friend Katsi called. I said Jenny was out and Katsi asked me to a pass on a message - that she had seen an item in the paper that Tom (a college friend) was dead. She wasn't positive it was the same Tom, but the last name is pretty unusual and the town was right, so she thought Jenny ought to know. I agreed to tell her, hung up, and got to work. There was absolutely no way I was going to pass that news on without finding a way to verify it.

To make a long story short, I tracked down Tom's mother and called her. I said I was a friend (I'd met him once) and had heard something odd about Tom and was he okay? She said no, he had been killed in an accident the day before. The funeral was scheduled for the following day and she was going crazy because she didn't have any information on Tom's friends outside of first names. Could I help her? I gave her the names of the people I knew that Tom knew and said I'd call them. I spent the rest of the evening on the phone, making people unhappy. Before I went to bed, I left notes all over the house Jenny, asking her to wake me up when she got it in.

The only upside to that story is that if Katsi hadn't called me and I hadn't called everyone else, none of them would have known about the funeral in time to say good-bye to their friend. Or lend their support to his family and each other.

So I keep a copy of my Christmas card list in the same file with my will. If anything happens to me, people who are far away can be notified. And someone will post a comment here, I hope. I'm in good health and I look before I cross the street, so I expect to be around for quite a while, but fate is capricious.

I suggest y'all do something similar.

Academy Award nominations

David and I see a fair number of movies. The announcement of the Academy Awards nominations was made this morning and for the first time that I can remember, I've seen most of the nominees. And David filled in most of the ones I missed.

We saw: The Aviator, Closer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Incredibles, Ray, Sideways, Super Size Me.

He saw: Being Julia, Collateral, Hotel Rwanda, The Passion of the Christ, Maria Full of Grace.

I saw: Finding Neverland, Kinsey.

We missed (or skipped): House of Flying Daggers, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Million Dollar Baby, The Phantom of the Opera, Shark Tale, Shrek 2, Troy, Vera Drake (I still want to see it), A Very Long Engagement.

Snow update & snow memory

Still no snow. The ground is bone dry. Good thing we've got the whole area in pretty much a lock down. The winter storm warning runs from 7:00 am today to 7:00 am tomorrow. DC has declared a snow emergency starting at 8:00 am.

Now they're calling for sleet and freezing rain. I hate those things.

Anyway, in 1996 (?) I was working for a different company in downtown Silver Spring. Our president, Dr. B, was out of the country - a native of Somalia, he took occasional trips back there - and Rick had been left in charge in his absence. (Dr. B's snow policy was simple: It snows, we come in. After being raised in Africa, he lived in Boston for 20 years, so snow was just part of American winter.) So we were under a winter storm warning with several inches expected. It was a Sunday afternoon and the snow was coming down pretty thick and fast. Rick called me at home to get my opinion because closing the office is a huuuuge overhead expense but keeping the office open creates a sort of pressure on people to come in. I'm one of those folks who likes long phone cords and I pace when I talk on the phone. So I was patrolling between the kitchen windows and the sliding glass door as we talked. We reviewed all the pros and cons and weren't really reaching a conclusion when I noticed something.

Then I said, "You know, Rick, there's a wrought iron chair in our backyard that I like to sit in when I study during nice weather." "Yeah?" he replied, puzzled by the non-sequitor but used to my anecdotal style of communication. "Well, that chair is gone now. It's completely covered in snow." "Okay, we're closed."

We got 24 inches of snow that day. Our office was closed on Monday. It was open on Tuesday.

It just started snowing here. Sure is pretty.

Excuse me, aren't you ----?

Lorraine: "Who does your hair, Maggie?
Maggie: "A little Frenchwoman named Maggie Culter comes in every morning."
Lorraine: "You know, your hair *could* be so nice. I've always wanted to get my hands on it."
Maggie: "And I've always wanted to get mine on yours, Lorraine."

I get my hair cut from time to time. About twice a year, actually, much to the eye-rolling and sarcastic comment of Stephen the genius who gets to do those semi-annual clippings. One of the things I love about Stephen is that he's a director and a hair and make-up designer for several community theaters in the area, so I just tell him what show I'm doing and he makes me look beautiful and appropriate. (He got nominated this year for a WATCH award for the hair design in "Ragtime" at Rockville Musical Theater. Huzzah!) Only once have I ever said "Oh, I'm not in anything right now, so let's just make me look good." When I was working with Sally on "The Hen Gets a Flag," I said that I wanted something light, something fun, something "Cherry Ames, Student Nurse," something Laura Petrie. Snip, snip, snip, et voila! I showed it to Sally, we screamed like teen-age girls that it was *perfect,* and it was.

My hair is pretty thick, thank goodness, and has a decent amount of body, thank goodness, because I am completely hair incompetent. I can brush it and use a curling iron without hurting myself or others. I can put it in a knot on the back of my head and use a pencil to secure it (I've stolen more pencils from work that way......). I can do this weird sort of French Braid thing. That's about it. ( Stephen told me that he told the front desk to leave extra time for my appointments because it takes so darn long to get my hair dry and because we need the time for gossip.) It's also a really nice color that my genes can still take the credit for - a dark chestnut brown with red highlights. The more time I spend in the sun in the summer (last summer, approximately 20 minutes), the more the red comes out. I have a few grey hairs - what Leslie calls "crones" - and every now and then I flirt with the idea of coloring it, but I'm also bone lazy and coloring means upkeep.

So Tuesday was the day. I told Stephen that I'm playing Maggie again (1939, secretary). I said I planned on having a side part and pulling it back and clipping it just behind my ears with the ends curving under to make what I call a "hair tunnel." He cut off about four inches and it's now above my shoulders for the first time since I was 10 and it looks **beautiful.** It has shine! It has bounce! I look five years younger and 10 pounds lighter. I feel like Mary Tyler Moore. David said that when I told the story about getting pulled over on the Toll Road and hyperventilating (how I adore having a new audience), I was a perfect Laura Petrie.

I look - pause for modesty's sake, oh the the hell with it - Fabulous. Thank you, Stephen!

Cleanliness

I start this on January 14th and set it aside for a while. Nothing has changed, so I thought I'd finish and post it.

Which comedian said "Everyone says that cleanliness is next to godliness. Well, I checked. In my dictionary, cleanliness is next to cleaning and cleanser."? I don't remember, but I'm going through another of my semi-occasional spates of deep cleaning.

(In an interesting serendipity, Casey wrote a post about spring cleaning which I saw right after I decided to write this one. Pretty nifty.)

Anyway, I would like to believe that I am a tidy person, but as I look around me I realize that that ain't necessarily so. My desk at work is cluttered and my entire condo is cluttered. My car is tidy.

I figured out some time ago that the price of tidiness is eternal vigilance, so every Saturday or Sunday, I empty out the car of the books, magazines, scripts, steno pads, and pieces of paper that seem to follow me everywhere I go. Which means that when I offer someone a lift, I don't have to gather up an armload of junk and throw it into the backseat before they can get in, which makes me feel like a good person. I keep a basket on the floor behind the driver's seat and it contains things like Silver Spring Stage brochures and more scripts and more books. I drag that inside and empty it out, but it never stays empty and isn't supposed to.

Until recently I had been using the wire basket from a set Mom's wheels (sort of a walker with a seat and - duh - a wire basket because walker-using-folks need a way to carry stuff while they are being mobile), but Mom sold the wheels - an excellent idea, as she no longer uses it - and I couldn't in good conscience keep the basket. David gave me a nice wicker replacement which is very pretty, so I'm still basket-enabled, thank goodness.

But my desks - both home and work - are another story. My desk at work stays fairly under control, but every so often, I clean out a drawer or my inbox and then it looks much nicer. My inbox is a sort of suspended animation for pieces of paper. I have a pretty small desk and almost no surface area on which to work because I also have a big ol' monitor that takes up about 20% of the desk. Add the phone, the inbox, and the keyboard, and even a tiny amount of clutter renders my desk useless. So it ain't beautiful like Cathy's, but it is functional. I cleaned out a drawer day before yesterday and I keep opening it and admiring it's "Real Simple" understated beauty and calm. It's like a tiny zen garden in that drawer.

My desk at home is a total disaster. That's because it's in my study, which is also a total disaster. I used to believe that I am a potentially tidy person who is frustrated and irritated by clutter. I believed this when I had roommates with lots of clutter. It turns out that I am only frustrated and irritated by other people's clutter. I seem to have a pretty high tolerance for my own.

My goal over time is to fit into my own condo, so I usually spend an hour or so every Saturday morning listening to public radio and putting away/throwing away. On a good Saturday I can fill a trash bag. I started this process because every time I said to myself "Okay, I'm going in there and I'm going to make that room tidy and attractive!" I got through the door, looked around, threw up my hands in dispair, and abandoned any cleaning plans. It's just too overwhelming. I'm a packrat, like my mother before me. I have too much stuff. I'm a "just in case" saver and that habit has been rewarded more often than is good for me.

So Fly Lady like, I nibble away at the junk in the study. One day, if even for an hour, it wil be tidy and uncluttered and I shall love it. I'll also take a picture of it and maybe seal it in amber, because just as nature abhores a vacuum, my world seems to abhor an absence of clutter.

I did a bad, bad thing

We had lots of treats at the office today. Lots. Jill made two kinds of cookies, Francois brought in a very, very rich cake for Robin's birthday, and we had two more cakes for Amy's baby shower. And I had some of everything. Small pieces of cake, yes, and the cookies were not too large, but I had a total of three pieces of cake. And two cookies - chocolate with peanut butter chip and oatmeal raisin. (Jill still rules! She is the Undisputed Queen of Baking. The Fabulous Baking Michael is the Undisputed King of Cookies. Life here is good.)

So 3 pieces of cake + 2 cookies will probably = 5 pounds of Leta. I'm suffering consumer's remorse in a big way. And all that sugar should keep me bouncing around almost all through Henry V. It'll probably bottom out somewhere in Act IV. Oh, boy.

Stupid weather

How beautifully blue the sky, the glass is rising very high, continue fine I hope it may, and yet it snowed but yesterday..... (W.S. Gilbert, more or less)

Let's start this by pointing out that the sun is shining. The sky is largly blue. But this is Maryland after all. Snow is predicted, so we need to start panicking now. My rehearsal for tomorrow has already been cancelled - no snow has fallen. At least two of the theaters I'd hoped to spend time in are located in schools and the folks who close schools are complete weather wienies. Now, admittedly, considering how poorly people around here drive, getting them off the road prophylactically is probably a good idea. And even I'm not particularly anxious to die for a community theater musical. But jeez!!

I want my rehearsals! I want my performances! Snow, snow, go away! Come again some other day!

Regression to the mean

Hanging with engineers is fun, but one cannot presume that it doesn't rub off. For instance, Carroll told me the following story:

Kenny, my 10-year-old son was talking to our dental hygienist who remarked that since both his parents had Ph.D's he would probably be pretty smart himself. Kenny replied that he probably would unless regression to the mean kicked in. He then had to explain what regression to the mean was.

I can't spell in English either

From an e-mail from David:

You have always pronounced S.J.K.T.S.B.'s name as kay-ah-low-ha, but the spelling you've given suggests kah-ah-low-ha.

So I checked with Stacey and she says:

In Hawaiian, the vowels are pronounced slightly different. 'E' is pronounced as 'ay' while the 'A' has a soft 'ah' sound. 'I' has the 'ee' sound, so Garrett is Alohilani [Ah low hee lah nee]. Samantha's name also has a glottal stop, just to be confusing. Her name is Ke'aloha or [Kay' Ah low ha].

Garrett is the adorable Samatha's charming and mischievious brother. She's Samantha Jane Ke'aloha and he's James Garrett Alohilani.

I know other Hawaiian words (spelling entirely my own). The first definition is the one supplied by Brett. The one in parens is one that pedants will insist on mentioning.

Lanai - Stacey's room. (screened porch)
Aloha - Hello, tourguide. ("Hello," "good-bye," and other meanings as needed)
Mahalo - trash. ("Thank you." But all the trash cans say "Mahalo" on them. So there.)

So -- mahaloa and aloha!!

Another opening, another show

I'm going to see Henry V tonight. Sadly, I have not memorized The Agincourt Carol, so I've limited my chances (but really only slightly) to look like a geeky idiot in front of strangers. Tomorrow I'm going to see Ruthless and on Sunday (GLW and the ice don't rise) I've got a reservation for Tea and Sympathy.

Remember I said that I see a lot of theater? I made a list recently of what I'd seen, putting together stuff from my calendar going back to about the middle of March. In a given year, there are 156 possible weekend nights and I spent at least 75 of them sitting in theaters. (This doesn't count the nights I spent performing in theaters either.) I see shows for all kinds of reasons - I like the script, I've never seen the show performed before, I'm adjudicating it for WATCH, just being social, or because a friend is in it or directed it or lit it or what-have-you.

I call going to a show because I know someone connected to it collecting a friend point. I have a huge (okay, imaginary) jar in my bedroom where I store all the friend points I've collected. It's really full. It's not a quid-pro-quo thing - there are many people I've seen in many shows who have never come to see something I've done.

Unfortunately, because our shows run concurrently, I'm going to miss seeing Maureen in A Comedy of Errors, which sucks because it's her Shakespeare debut. She opens on February 4th. Break a leg, Maureen!

I've lit a candle on my desk (I really have) to the weather gods asking for two things: Please, please let the theaters stay open this weekend so that I can actually get to Ruthless and Tea and Sympathy. And please let there be a good hard freeze in Lander, Wyoming. I need theater and Chad needs hockey.

Hello, my baby! Hello, my darlin'!

I like nick-names. I've been called by several and I hand them out with great enthusiasm. Some of the names to which I have answered:

Peach. I was born in California and Mom put my playpen out in the sunshine and I got all golden and peachy colored. (Now, of course, decades later, I'm pale and pasty. Oh, well.) I have several books inscribed "To Peach, with love from _______". This nick-name lasted until someone pointed out to Mom that "Peaches" is a common stage name for strippers. Very long sigh.

Hee-top. When my sister, Sara, was learning to speak, she couldn't say Leta. (Nor can many other people. All together now: Lee-dah. Not Let-uh.) So she got as close as she could and my Dad was so charmed by her efforts that he called me Hee-top for the next couple of years. I actually liked Hee-top a lot (but only my Dad gets to call me that). I got off more easily than my nieces, Cheryl and Angela, who at 21 and 18 are still sometimes called Sherbul and An-juh-wuh because that's how Angela said it. Making fun of the way children talk is one of the perks of not being a child any more. "What's your name, little girl"? "An-juh-wuh." "Really? An-juh-wuh?" "No! An-juh-wuh!" Big laffs!

Leta-Bug. Everyone out there have a Mom? Then everyone out there had a silly nick-name. Mom also gave me stuff with Lady Bugs on it. Sara was "Sara-Bear." 'Nuff said.

Leisl of the Revolution. When I was in college I started doing Medieval re-enactment. (Yes! I am one of those geeky people who wandered around the University of Maryland dressed like an extra from The Lord of the Rings.) I have a picture of me in a Bog Dress. Maybe I'll post it. Anyway, after college, I drifted into Revolutionary War re-enactment. So, yes, there are also pictures of me in 18th Century dresses as well. (Actually, I'm kind of an 18th C ideal - pale skin, small waist, generous hips - I would have done very well on Are You Hot 1776. Renoir would have thought I was a total babe, too. But that's not the point.) Right. Okay. So my re-enactor pals, well, Brett mainly, one day started greeting me with "Ach! 'Tis Liesl! Jah, 'tis Liesl of der Revolution." How cool is that? Many re-enactors still call me Liesl. Some may actually believe it is my name.

Let's remember that it is Brett who started telling people that his niece's name is Samantha Jane Ka'aloha Treefrog Squirrelbutt. Two of those names are not actually on her birth certificate, but the adults she knows will call her by those names for the rest of our days.

And when Todd introduced his new girlfriend Kristin to Brett, he said, "This is Kristin, Brett." And Brett said "Kristin Brett. What in interesting name." I heard about it and introduced her to Mila. "This is Kristin Brett, Mila." Soon her name took up three typewritten lines. That was, like, 10 years ago. And we still call her KB instead of Kristin. Well, Todd calls her Kristin but he's her husband now, so he probably has to.

I generally call people "Sweetheart," and "Honey," and "Dear" so that I don't accidentally call them by the name of their, oh, I dunno, current boyfriend's ex-wife or something. Except at work, of course. Work people look at me funny when I call them "Sweetie."

I call David "David." (Or Sweetie. Or Honey. Or Darlin'.) I don't call him Dave, which is probably why he likes me so much. I also call him "Major Pedantic." He used to be "Captain Pedantic," but he got promoted when it was noticed that everyone in my "army" is a Captain. There's Captain Intensity and Captain Corrosive and a few others.

Lee. Steve called me Lee. So did his Dad. I like Steve and his Dad, so I like being call "Lee" by them.

And so on. I have other nick-names, but I'm not putting them here. I mean, come on, I released "Leta-Bug" to the entire internet, that's probably crazy enough.

Singing the Snow Song

It's snowing, It's snowing, It's snowing, It's snowing!!!

We're supposed to get a couple of inches of the cold white stuff today. Yay!!! I love snow! Of course, there are some downsides to DC area snow:

1. No one can drive in it. Otherwise fine upstanding individuals completely lose their minds when it snows. Michael reporting actually witnessing the DC snow legend - someone shutting off their car while on the beltway, getting out, and walking away. No attempts to pull over and get off the road. Just walk away.

2. No one can drive in it. Our snow isn't the dry, powdery stuff you get at expensive ski resorts. Our snow is wet and slippery and basically just sleet dressed for a party.

3. No one can drive in it. Here's how to drive in snow. A. Treat the accelerator as though it were made from your grandmother's crystal. B. Treat the brake as though it didn't exist. C. Treat the steering wheel as though you have to pay in cash for every degree of turn. D. Treat all other vehicles as if they are being driven by dangerous maniacs. (Trust me, they are.) So just drive at a moderate speed, avoid braking, don't turn sharply, and avoid other cars. Inertia will get you where you're going. If you disregrard this advice, inertia will get you into nasty accidents.

4. The intensity of the snow is in proportion to the closeness of opening night for a show and directly related to how much losing a late rehearsal would hurt. David's show opens day after tomorrow. They acquired a new cast member a couple of days ago. I'm guessing Director Dave does not want to lose a rehearsal. My show opens in 9 days, but we're supposed to rehearse on the actual stage tonight, which is the size of a football field and we really want to get used to it. We don't want to lose that reheasal. Our theater is located in a school. Schools around here close if it looks like snow. If they close the school, we're locked out.

5. There are people who believe that shoveling is optional. It's not. And around here snow is followed by warmer days and colder nights, so snow leads to ice. I HATE ICE. The worst of all possible worlds (and Dr. Pangloss would agree with me on this) is snow + ice + snow, so that the hated ice is disguised by pretty snow.

But so what? It's snowing! It's snowing!

It's not snowing

I have a little song I like to sing when it snows. The lyrics are pretty simple: "It's snowing, it's snowing, it's snowing, it's snowing" repeat as needed. The tune is equally uncomplicated.

But I can't sing it now. Because it stopped snowing. It did snow a little tiny bit about 9:00, just enough to get my hopes up. But then it stopped. It's not snowing. So no snow song.

Brett!!!

Brett's in town! He's one of my favorite people and I get to hang out with him tomorrow night. He's the sarcstic and mocking friend against whom all my other sarcastic and mocking friends are judged. He introduced me to a lot of people who are some of the best people I know (like his wonderful sister, Stacey).

Brett and his lovely wife, Cate, and their adorable son Chahls (okay, it says Charles on his birth certificate) have been living in England for the past couple of years and I didn't manage to get over there to visit them once. So in order to see more of me (or for his job or something), they are moving to Memphis. I can drive to Memphis. And I've never been there. But I'm going.

I've known Brett ever since Freshman year of college. He would drive 50 miles through sleet to pick me up if my car broke down and then he'd make fun of me the whole way home. He's kind and generous and did I mention sarcastic? Let's not forget sarcastic. He makes fun of me and I giggle. Of course, he makes fun of everyone. Once someone told me very solemnly that Brett only makes fun of people he likes, so him making fun of you means that he likes you. I considered some of the things he'd said to people that very day and said that if making fun of people means he likes them, God help the people he loves. God does.

Brett's in town!

To dream the impossible dream.

Oh, pshaw. According to the dictionary - and David - this word is pronounced "shô." But according to me; many other women who read girl's lit, like "Little Women" and the Little House books as girls; and all the people I've infected with my choice, it's "puh-shah." Sally says that she said "p-shaw" until her mother corrected her. David told me that he believes that eventually I will pronounce it the way he and the dictionary do. So let's compare his potential eye rolling to my many years of habit -- does anyone really think I'm going to change the way I say it? How about a show of hands?

And David believes that I'm going to stop referring to Venn diagrams and start saying things like "a little exercise in set theory." Oh definitely. The only thing I remember from junior high school math is going to be jettisoned in favor of what is probably a more accurate but far less fun phrase like "a little exercise in set theory."

And now he's threatening to take away my computer privledges at his house. I'm living on the edge here, but my Devoted Readers deserve the truth.

Reporting from deep inside the brutal and repressive David regime.......

Limerent for John Linnell ... and so many others

I just heard a piece on The Next Big Thing (www.nextbigthing.org) on soon to be lost or forgotten words. It's a continuing series where Julie Subrin assigns a writer or artist three words that are in danger of leaving dictionaries though obsolescence. Most of the words just wash over me, although I enjoy hearing famous - or at least established - writers using these words in sentences. It's like an instant trip back to 7th grade, although the writers are able to avoid the popular 7th grade construction of "simple subject - simple verb - vocabulary word - simple direct object," for example, "Leta wrote an unequivocal sentence."

So today's words included "limerent" and it's a wonderful word. Limerence is the crush stage of a relationship. It's often sexual but basically marked by total infatuation. I feel that way all the time! I don't live a life of quiet desperation, I live one of chatty limerence. I've had crushes on friends, on cast mates, on co-workers..... (all names withheld because limerent doesn't mean insane). I've even been assigned a crush by, no surprise, an actor.

I've always been susceptible to crushes and I enjoy their short-term hors d'oeuvre-like nature. They are to real relationships as canapés are to entrées. I probably wouldn't want a steady diet of the person - toffee for breakfast, toffee for lunch, toffee for tea - and by the time the crush fades, I'm ready to let go, but it's fun while it lasts. Brings some zip to my day. And just as much fun, of course, is when someone has a crush on me. "Nothing is more attractive to a man," said the Baroness, "than a woman who is in love with him." Works for me.

John Linnell of They Might Be Giants used limerant (and the other two words) in a song that he sang on the air. He says we won't be hearing it in concert any time soon because it still needs some work (making "some work" sound like "complete overhaul"). If you go to the website, you can hear the piece and the song. Some aspect of the sound on my computer isn't functioning right now, so I can't transcribe the song - the goal after all, is to get the words back into use - but maybe I can do it later. Go ye and listen.

Adventures in Theater Going - Past and Future

Okay, here's the story from the past:

I went to see -- (ha! Not Machinal! This is not the Machinal story!) (ahem) Hamlet several years ago. The company, Mobtown, was new, it was their first production, and it was very early in the run, so they'd had no time to create word of mouth. I can only hope that they got some as they went along because it was one of the best productions of Hamlet I've seen. Anyway, they were performing in a large, Gothic-y, decreptic, and deconsecrated church, so the acoustics were good and the setting was perfect. Something was rotten in Denmark, indeed.

Well, there were five of us in the audience - yes, five. One of my many theater rules is when the audience outnumbers the performers, you call it a win. And there a point in the show where I always get the giggles. I find Hamlet's comparison of his father and his uncle "See what a grace was seated on this brow ..... Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear" to be completely hilarious. I get the giggles just thinking of it and I know when it's coming (Act III scene 4), so I tend to get a wee bit chuckly ahead of time. (I'm a wee bit chuckleheaded all the time.)

So there I was, trying not to get all giggly during this Masterpiece of the English Speaking Theater, when I was presented with the family Polonius. Old Man Polonius is about to fill his children full of good, dull, fatherly advice from which we could all benefit ("Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar," "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice." I know I would benefit if I'd hewed more closely to said advice.) So Pops is droning away and the kids are nodding and smiling, leaving me free to notice that the director had cast two fair-skinned, red-haired people and the costumer had dressed them in lots of green and black. So instead of absorbing all the above wisdom, I just kept thinking "we'll return shortly to Hamlet, but first a few numbers from Riverdance!" at which point the giggles were not to be denied.

And I was, let's remember, 20 percent of the audience. And the acoustics were good. I could feel the actors losing focus as they wondered what the heck I found so funny. And I could see their corner-of-the-eyes darting glances in my direction. Which probably made me giggle more, I'm sorry to say.

So fast forward to this coming Friday: I'm going to see Henry V (Henry the Vee) and I have several pals in the cast. Unfortunately for them, Michael (my director) spent some time today working on breaking me of a habit he doesn't like by comparing it to "sighing during the St. Crispian's Day speech." Pause rehearsal for several long seconds while I fall about laughing and repeating "we few, we happy few, we -- sigh -- band of brothers." So now there is a non-zero possibility that I will get the giggles during one of the finest speeches Sheakespeare ever wrote. When my sweetie and the aforementioned pals will be on stage not far from me (ESP is a small house) and they will be armed with swords. And opening night nerves. And their director, who knows my giggle when he hears it, will probably be in the vicinity, armed with an occasionally caustic personality. So if I don't post for quit a long time, I'm probably recovering from being beaten by a lot of actors. Wish me luck.

Thank you, Josh Tyrangiel

Guess I'm just filtering today.

Anyway, in a recent Time magazine article about Leonardo DiCaprio, Mr. Tyrangiel greatly improved my day with the following sentence:

Of course, no one sets out to make a pile of terrible movies - not even Ben Affleck.

I'm with Janet

The final paragraph in Michael Bérubé’s post yesterday says:

In the meantime, let me just add that the final fifteen minutes of Finding Neverland are maudlin beyond human endurance, except perhaps in the case of Janet, who would happily watch a two-hour documentary involving Johnny Depp eating oatmeal. See you next Tuesday with more capsule movie reviews!

It makes perfect sense to me. Of course, I'd probably be willing to pay near Broadway prices to watch John Cullum or Sam Waterston read from the phone book, so I may not be the best person to ask.

Not being as stupid as Ross, I've never laminated my list, which is good because it changes pretty often. Here's the list - as of today - of famous men I'd "break a date with David on our anniversary to have dinner with and David would just have to deal":

1. John Cullum. I know. He's 73 - older than my Dad. So what. Talk to him for a few minutes (I have!!!) and you'll understand.

2. John Cusack. Never fails to catch and hold my attention. Just a lovely actor and always interesting.

3. Johnny Depp. A man so beautiful that he must believe that women's jaws are hinged differently then men's because I don't believe he's ever seen a woman who mouth wasn't hanging slightly open.

4. Alan Rickman. If I have to explain this, you should probably talk to an endocrinologist. Rent Sense and Sensibility and Galaxy Quest.

5. Sam Waterston. There are more reasons to watch Law and Order than the police procedural stuff. Oh, how I'd love to be an extra and sit in the jury box and listen to Waterston orate.

Ask me tomorrow and you could see five different names.

Why I don't drink much

"Hearts full of youth, hearts full of truth, six parts gin to one part vermouth." -- Tom Lehrer

I'm not much of a drinker for a bunch of reasons. My usual when going out with friends is to ask for a cup of coffee with a shot of brandy or a "scotch and soda, kinda light on the scotch." And, no, I never ask for the good stuff if they inquire about a brand. I ask for "something cheap that tastes good with a bunch of soda dumped in it." Because it's wrong to pollute good scotch with mixers. I nurse it and then I might have a second, but often my second drink is a cup of coffee. And, of course, the result of asking for a scotch and soda, kinda light on the scotch is that I end up with about 1:1 of scotch and water. (Scotch and water. That's so wrong.) My Mom taught me to mix drinks at about 3:1 where 3 equals mixer and 1 equals booze, by the way.

Anyway, last night David and I went out after seeing a play and I decided to have a scotch and failed to ask them to go light on the scotch. Well, there was actual soda instead of tap water in it (hurray!) so I probably downed it a little more quickly than usual. It was probably about a 4:1.

And then I ordered another. Why? I dunno. Just felt like it. About half way through that one, I cocked my head to the side in response to something David said, and I felt my face go numb and brains slide slightly to the left. David said "What?" and I said "Wheeeeew" with a nice rising then falling pitch. And just enough cresh/decresh for seasoning. "Am I driving us home?" he asked. "Oh, yeah" was the reply.

Now everyone knows the classic stages of drunkenness: happy, horny, depressed. But I seem to have taken a slight detour and found a new stage: tape recorder. David and I had earlier touched on him running lines with me when we got home. He figured that I was now in no state to do that. Ha! I was so! So I started running everybody's lines, picking random scenes. And, I regret to say, acting out some of the blocking in the parking lot. Not my blocking. Mary Ann's blocking. Well, only a little of that because David hustled me into the car at that point. (Thanks, Sweetie!)

A few more "Wheeews," some giggling, a demand for a bedtime story, a large glass of water, and couple of aspirin later, I was sound asleep. No hangover, thank goodness.

Our friends will put up with all kinds of reactions to booze and forgive us. Especially if it makes the kind of story they can embarrass us with later. But no one wants to see Leta's one-tipsy-woman production of The Man Who Came to Dinner. So maybe I'll just have coffee for a while. At least until the show closes.

Keep those Christmas cards and letters coming

I am a total sucker for Christmas cards and holiday letters and all that nonsense. And because everyone I know is waaay too busy, I'm still getting them, even in January. In today's mail I got one of my annual favorites - Mary Ann and Jim's Christmas Letter.

Mary Ann and I met about five years ago doing a show and as it is easier to get on my Christmas list than off of it, she's been getting cards from me ever since. (Anyone wishing to be removed from my Christmas card list, please apply to the author for the simple, one sentence exit request. Oddly enough, it's not "please don't send me any more of these.") Anyway, I've been sending cards to Mary Ann, so I've been added to her family's holiday card and annual letter list. The annual letter is written by Jim, her husband, and it usually greatly amuses me. I've never actually met Jim, but I enjoy his writing style. This year he included the usual ration of family news and just for added fun, quite a few really lame jokes. Really lame. Like the kind of lame jokes that my Dad likes. (If there is enough of a clamour from the Dedicated Readership, some of Jim's Truly Lame Jokes will be posted.)

Mary Ann and I have the same last name, so when we do shows together, people ask if we are related, which I find very flattering. We usually just say yes, we're sisters, and let folks figure it out as we go along. But after reading the latest of Jim's holiday efforts, I think it's not that Mary Ann and I are related, it's that Dad and Jim are.

I also got a holiday letter from my wonderful friend Leslie. Leslie and her partner Naomi live in California, so I only see them every few years, which isn't nearly often enough. But their holiday letter includes pictures of their Catch-Your-Breath-Beautiful daughter, Kaili. Kai is about 4 now and althought they are not related at all - except that all their parents are loved by me - Kai startlingly resembles my friend Samantha, who is 7. I tell Leslie that pictures of Sam are great predictors for Kai. Kai looks more Asian than Sam, but not by much. They could be sisters and I hope they get to meet some day.

One of my co-workers hoping to snare this commie pinko liberal asked me if I send Christmas cards or holiday cards. And do I say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." I told him that I send Christmas cards to my friends who celebrate Christmas and holiday cards to my friends who celebrate other things. I say "Happy Holidays" to many folks and "Merry Christmas" to those folks, like my friend Russell, who hate hearing "Happy Holidays" and grouse about it. If the idea is to spread a little joy, why not give people the card/greeting they'll enjoy. My co-worker had to agree that that made sense. He was thwarted in his goal to prove that my fellow travelers and I had needlessly politicized the holidays, which only served to brighten my day.

The cards are still on the piano, the dining room table, and around the kitchen because I'm not ready to take them down yet - especially with new ones coming in. I send out about 85 cards each year (hello, my name is Leta and I am an idiot about mailing things.....) and I get about 30 or so, which, considering how many of my friends don't do holiday cards, is a pretty darn good ratio. I think I really do need to trim the list a bit, so maybe next year I'll only send 50. We'll see.

Attribution

You know how sometimes you'll quote something and all the people in the quote will be referred to as "some guy" or "the other guy"? Well, I've recently gotten names to fill in for a couple of those stories:

1. J.L. Austin & Sidney Morgenbesser. The New York Times Magazine ran a brief profile of Morgenbesser, a professor of philosophy at Columbia who passed away this year.

In the academic world, custom distates that you may be considered a legend if there is more than one well-known anecdote about you. Morgenbesser, with his Borscht Belt humor and preternaturally agile mind, was the subject of dozens. In the absence of a written record of his wisdom, this was how people related to him: by knowing the stories and wanting to know more. The most widely circulated tale - in many renditions it is even presented as a joke, not the true story that it is - was his encounter with the Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin. During a talk on the philosophy of language at Columbia in the 50's, Austin noted that while a double negative amounts to a positive, never does a double positive amount to a negative. From the audience, a familiar nasal voice muttered a dismissive, "Yeah, yeah."

2. Michael Replogle. The first WATCH awards ceremony I attended was in 2001. WATCH's system is to have winners and nominees from the previous year present the awards for the current year. Michael won for directing Richard III for The Arlington Players, which also won for best play. So he went up to present the best director or best play award (note: please insert here the usual disclaimer about how the nomination is what is important and the award recognizes excellence, not "bests." Okay, whatever, moving on.) and there was lots of applause. Being the smart ass that he is, Michael looked around the room, cocked his head slightly, and said "Yeah, yeah, yeah, applaud. I got one of these empty salt shakers last year and none of you bastards ever called me." David and I have been calling the WATCH award "that empty salt shaker" ever since and it's very gratifying to know whom I'm quoting.

Two notes: 1. I'm sure that I have horribly misquoted Michael, which is a pity. And, of course, it's a much better experience when you hear it from Michael directly. The next time he tells that story I'll pay more attention to the wording. 2. The WATCH award is a small-ish glass or lucite (I dont' know for sure, I've never won one. Hmphf.) statue shaped like the Washington monument, so comparing it to an empty salt shaker is pretty apt.

Nothing we pedants like better than correct attribution. "It's like eight hours at the sea side." (W.S. Gilbert!)

Final treats update

"It is ordinary among some Plebians in the South of Scotland, to go about from door to door upon New Year`s Eve, crying Hagmane." Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, 1693

In five days we begin the Time of Privation. It used to be that in Europe Lent was a time of sacrifice, a time of eating little and of penance, a time of forswearing treats and indulgence, and repenting the indulging of the recent past. Well, we're rationalist people these days and while some of us still have Lent give-ups (I usually do), we don't do the full on (reverb on) Time of Privation -tion - tion (reverb off).

Nope, 'cause we have January for that now. We have the "Yes, I can step on the scale, but I'm not woman enough to look down and see the number." We have New Year's Resolutions to lose weight and save money. (Ha and - again - ha.) We have the horrible knowledge that although it is cold and dark now, spring will come again, followed inevitably by summer. Yep. Sumer is icumen in. So on the day after my birthday, we have no more treats! None! Drink champagne, eat canapes, flirt like crazy, count backwards, and get it out of your system because as soon as you wake up and swallow a couple of aspirin, the diet begins. Sigh.

But until that happens, we've got 120 hours of treat-eatin' goodness to explore. On our last work day of 2004 (December 23), we had the last of the fudge Jill made, a box of Poppycock, yummy peanuts, and more cookies. (Poppycock is like Crackerjacks with a different name.)

And today David and I were at my Dad's. Audrey made Yorkshire pudding and mincemeat pie. Normally, I can take or leave mincemeat, but she picked this up in (the mincemeat, not the whole pie) Pennsylvania and it was very, very good. And I love Yorkshire pudding, which isn't pudding in the sense we Americans usually use. Yorkshire pudding is (more or less), popover batter cooked in a hot oven with roast drippings. Make the popover batter and before you put it into the muffin tins (or square brownie pan), spoon in a bit of the hot grease. The batter poofs way up and the result is a slightly greasy, but truly marvelous, light, airy bread. Both Audrey and Mom make it, although not very often, and I love it.

I probably won't post again until the Time of Privation, so Happy New Year to one and all. I hope the holiday treats you right. Åssume that if I were to see you at midnight, I'd give you a kiss for the New Year - and I'll see you on the other side.


PS - Happy Hogmanay to Derrick and Paul, strange and dark-haired men......

Treats Update II

Jill brought in homemade fudge and homemade oatmeal caramel treats. Jill rules.

I'm hoping to start a campaign for a bake-off between Jill and Debbie (Bronson's wife). After all, everyone wins as the competition gets hotter and hotter.

And Bob, our CEO, received a tower of boxes of treats and the cookies came to the front desk.

Deck the halls and shoot out the speakers

Hearing Christmas music at the malls - sometimes before Halloween - brings out the Grinch in me. I love the holiday but I hate the pressure to buy, buy, buy. Of course, like everyone, there are some holiday songs I like more and some I detest more. Here's a short list, in no particular order:

I like and will turn way up and sing with loudly:

Carol of the Bells. The real one. For SATB choir or just bells. I learned it in high school and rarely get to hear it, so I never get tired of it.

Do They Know It's Christmas. The real share-with-the-less-fortunate spirit of Christmas (even if it's being preached at me by wealthy rock stars). Linus would approve and so do I.

God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.

Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful. There's a descant. I'm a soprano.

All I Want for Christmas is You. As I said, the only Mariah Carey song I like.

Let It Snow. Which, due to the weather patterns in the DC area should really be a Valentine's Day song. We have a brown Christmas year after year.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays. Or any holiday song sung by Karen Carpenter. A warm, sweet, lovely voice and her interpretations always put the song first.

The Little Drummer Boy. But only the Bing Crosy/David Bowie version. I hate all the rest, which are twee and horrible (as is the song). But Bing and Bowie have this beautiful blend to their voices, so it sounds lovely, and after all these years of hearing it, I'm can still amuse myself by considering the meeting where some very, very drunk record exec suggested teaming Mr. Republican Golfer and Ziggy Stardust.

Jazz editions of carols by great singers like Diana Krall, Ella Fitzgerald, etc.


I don't like and will change the station if it I hear:

The Little Drummer Boy. Unless it's done by Bing and Bowie.

Oh, Holy Night. Oh, wretched excuse for sopranos to overemote. But to be fair, any singer can make Oh, Holy Night into an awful experience. And most do. Fall on your knees and cover your ears.

Any holiday song sung by Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand. "It's not about the holiday! It's about me!" I find that people are generally either Karen Carpenter fans or Celine/Barbra fans. I'm completely in the Karen camp.

Pops stars ruining otherwise nice music. Carols whined by Avril Levigne and her ilk. Be joyous, be thoughtful, be silly, but dammit, don't be sullen. I recently heard Stevie Nicks do bad things to Silent Night. Why, oh why, is this country debating a ban on gay marriage when humanity would be so much better served by passing laws that prevent this kind of horror?

But let's keep things in perspective. On December 26th, they disappear without a trace. Until next year.