Me, too!

Life & Theater

Driving home from Peppermint Creek's "The Seafarers" last night, I got to thinking about my taste in theater, which admittedly at this point is pretty broad. I was tickled with a metaphor.

My taste in theater is much like what I want out of life:

• Heavy doses of comedy to fill the days with laughter
• Plenty of drama to challenge me, make me think, help me grow, and help me form healthier relationships with others
• Strong dashes of absurdity to keep me on my feet
• Small bits of the familiar to comfort me
• A vast majority of new experiences to expand my horizons
• Relevant stories that give me something to share with those around me
  
• Lots of song and dance to celebrate it all

Found on Front Row at Lansing's Theaters

It runs in the family*

It seems that the cat has a possible theater career ahead of him ...

Some friends and I started a tradition on Facebook called Foto Friday. The rules are pretty simple: take a picture on Friday and post it to your news feed and you're in! No pictures of, or pertaining to, the men's room are acceptable for Foto Friday. Anything else is generally fair game, although our offices do seem to figure in a pretty high percentage of the shots taken.

I wanted to take a non-office Friday Foto and I had a decent idea. I would take a picture of Pekoe and his (by the end of the workday) empty food bowl. So I brought the camera home from work and after the initial writhing through my legs to express his joy at my return, Peek and I headed into the kitchen. I took an establishing shot of the tragically empty bowl:



I then took a nice shot of Pekoe looking mournfully at me while standing next to the tragically empty bowl. The camera told me to change the batteries and shut itself off. Oh, well. Okay. I feed Pekoe and then went to the computer to download the images, but alas! The second shot didn't save because of the low battery.

New batteries were added to the camera and then Pekoe was informed that, as we had lost the original image, we would now need to recreate "Sad Pekoe at the Empty Food Bowl." So, to his obvious confusion, I picked up his food bowl and dumped all but a few crumbs of the contents back into the airtight plastic container that keeps the cat food reasonably fresh and reasonably unavailable to strew all over the kitchen.

I set the bowl down and like a trooper he resumed his previous position and looked up at me on cue.**



Note how he has arranged to show off his lovely green eyes to best effect, to minimize any "devil cat red eye," and yet to very clearly express "What's the with empty bowl? We feed cats here!"

And yet ... the director in me reviewed the shot (if Peek and I had been filming, I would have been "reviewing the dailies" or something like that) and decided that we needed one more take.

Pekoe had already wandered off to sniff and bat at things, two of his major occupations, but when summoned to the set, promptly hit his mark and was ready to go.



As can be clearly noted in the second shot The Artist built on his previous character choices for Starving Cat, adding in layers relating to his previous life as a stray. There is just a hint of the dichotomy between being grateful for being fed every day and fearing dependency on another for his basic needs.

I swear he takes direction better than some far more experienced human actors I've worked with.

All the material we needed was now safely in the can, as it were, so the food was replaced in the bowl and the The Artist was rewarded with a couple of Pounce.***


*Okay, just to clarify, I do not regard myself as Pekoe's "Mom." His staff, maybe, but not his mom. Or any other family member. But the title just seemed more euphonius than "It runs in the human/animal companionate relationship."

**The truly discerning (or truly anal, decide for yourself) will notice that the arragement of food particles lacks continuity from the establishing shot. I was working from memory. I did the best I could.

***Which is about as much as I been paid for theater in the past year, come to think of it.

Exactly what I would have said

My next theater project is a show called The Laramie Project about the murder of Matthew Shepard. I'll be playing Officer Reggie Fluty, the first responder on the scene. Providence company member Beth is playing Marge Murray, Reggie's mother. Beth is only a few years older than I am,* so last night at a play reading I was chatting with her husband, David**, and we had the following exchange:

Me: So how many times do you think I can call Beth "Mom" before she just slaps me?

David: I dunno. Try it and see.

*This happens in theater (and in the movies) all the time. Sometimes we play the parents of people who are older than we are. It not how old you are - it's how old you can play.

**Yes, of course, he is named David. Of course.

Dimes and Quarters

They walked up to the bar, uh, and, as you know, paid for a pitcher with dimes and quarters, uh, which is something that I mean you don't forget. You don't forget that. Five-fifty in dimes and quarters. That's a freakin' nightmare.

Now Henderson and McKinney, they didn't seem intoxificated* at all. They came in -- they just ordered a beer, took the pitcher with them back there into the pool room, and kept to themselves. Next thing I knew, probably a half hour later, they were kind of walking around -- no beer. And I remember thinking to myself that I'm not gonna ask them if they want another one, because obviously they just paid for a pitcher with dimes and quarters. I have a real good feeling they don't have any more money.

Matt Galloway in The Laramie Project

*Thanks to Patrick for the correction.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

Last year I resolved to make one new recipe a month during the year, using the cookbooks that take up an entire baker's rack in my kitchen. Somehow that didn't happen,* although I did make some fresh peas at one point and had to look up how long to boil them.**

But a new year doesn't require new resolutions, just renewed resolve...

I had bought some Brussels sprouts at the local farmers' market which I had recently learned was now year-round. I had needed to pick up a pound of ground bison meat for some chili I would be making for the office chili cook-off and the Brussels sprouts were just a happy surprise. I rinsed them when I got home the day I bought them and popped them into a bowl in the fridge. I ate a few raw now and again (crunchy and yummy!) as I was doing other things, but tonight I decided it was Time to Cook the Brussels Sprouts.

One of the reasons that I love Brussels sprouts is that my Mom made them beautifully. She'd cut the stems off, make little Xs in the bottom, boil them in just enough water to cover, drain them and replace in the pot, add butter, salt, and pepper, and then cover lightly with a wax paper circle for a few minutes. They were the definition of "crisp-tender" and sooo tasty.

I knew the basic premise, but - again - needed specifics.

As I also had some bacon that was also reaching its Use It Today point and figuring that I could accomplish several things at once, I pulled out the cookbook that is upper left in the bakers rack: The James Beard Cookbook (1959. Well, 1967 in paper).*** It had been Mom's and several of the recipes have her mark, i.e., the date of the first time she made the recipe. Mr. Beard eschews both the Xs in the bottoms and the wax paper circle, so his recipe is a trifle simpler than Mom's but I think her Brussels sprouts are still the best. Also, the next time I make this I think I won't boil them as long as Mr. Beard suggests as the sprouts were softer than I prefer. But all in all? Pretty darn tasty.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
The James Beard Cookbook, page 446 & 447

1 quart or 1 pound of Brussels sprouts
Water
Salt & pepper
4 tablespoons of melted butter (not necessary for the bacon variation)

Trim the stems off close to the sprouts and remove any discolored leaves. Put the sprouts to soak for 15 to 20 minutes in water to which you have added 1 teaspoon of salt.

In a kettle put enough water to cover the Brussels sprouts and add 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring this to a boil and add the vegetable. Do not cover. Cook gently until just tender when pierced with a fork. This should take about 15 minutes.

Drain well and seve with melted butter and salt and pepper to taste (skip for bacon variation)

Some people like a dash of vinegar or some lemon juice added.

With Bacon

Prepare as for Boiled Brussels Sprouts (see above), and while the sprouts are cooking, fry 6 slices of bacon. When crisp, remove and chop fine. Drain off all but 4 tablespoons of the bacon fat. Return the chopped bacon to the pan and add the cooked and drained sprouts. Season with 1 tablespoon of grated onion.

I added the BSwB to some gluten-free rotini pasta. It was, in all, a lovely dinner that I look forward to making again some time.

Next up? The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook.

*I also resolved to walk to work on days when a) the temperature was above 40 degrees as I was getting dressed and b) if I didn't have to be somewhere immediately after work. That one worked out rather well, so I'm repeating it again this year as well.

**About ten minutes, up to 15 for larger peas.

***All of the books in my home are filed alphabetically by author except for cookbooks which are by size, smallest to largest. If I am able to stick with this project, the one on the bottom shelf right is my Provence the Beautiful Cookbook**** Technically, the cookbook to the absolute left is another James Beard cookbook dealing with Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapes, but that sort of book is usually rather thin on recipes for Brussels Sprouts.

****By which, I assume, was meant a cookbook about Beautiful Provence, rather than a beautiful cookbook, although as it is a coffe-table type book with lots of food-porn illustrations, it's certainly a darn fetching book.

Just a suggestion

I am sorting and mailing out the W-2 forms for 2009 today. The ones for current employees will go to their offices and the ones for former employees will go to their homes.

And quite a few of them will come back to me because some of the former employees have moved and their forwarding orders have expired. I always tell departing staffers to make sure that we have an address for them that will get their W-2s to them, but who really thinks about a former employer or a once-a-year form while going through the whole "do I really like this enough to pack and move it" and "why do I have so much crap and why is it so heavy" process that is moving.

So if you moved during 2009? Make sure your former employer has your current address. Sure speeds up getting that refund.

A nice compromise

I was a Girl Scout. My elementary school was somewhat haphazard about sponsoring scout troops, so I was involved in scouting about every other year. But I absorbed a fair bit about lanyards and uniforms and campfire songs. And I sold cookies. Back in the old days we went door-to-door because, as my mother put it, "I'm not taking any cookie order forms to work. This is your project and you are responsible for it." So I went door-to-door taking orders and a few weeks later I went door-to-door with my little red wagon (truly) and delivered the goods.

Girl Scouts no longer go door-to-door because it's just not safe. It probably wasn't safe back when I did it, but we didn't know that. Instead the order form appears at the office. And Celiac Disease or no, as a former Girl Scout, I am morally obligated to pay those cookies forward.

Luckily for me, my very good friend, the Gleeful Gecko, believes in the Girl Scouts and their cookies. And has a birthday coming up. In a division of labor that works for both of us, I will buy the cookies and he will consume them.

It's rather a pity that I can't deal with all of my moral obligations as easily.

Cup of Brown Joy

When I say "As-sam!" you say "Love-ly!" AS-SAM! LOVE-LY!
When I say "her-bal" you say "No thanks!" HER-BAL! NO THANKS!



Thanks to The Linguaphile for the link.

Matching donation

I got this e-mail this morning from our Human Resources Director:

I am sure you all are aware of the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti last week and the growing need for resources needed by the Haitians to recover and rebuild. Many of you have responded by sending aid through your charity of choice, and [the company] will join you in that effort by matching your donations. If you have made a donation towards the Haiti recovery effort, please contact me. I will co-ordinate the Haiti Relief matching fund donation.

One of the many reasons I'm glad I work here. I've texted money to the Red Cross and now and I think I'll send a bit more to Doctors Without Borders for the immediate relief and Engineers Without Borders for the long-term recovery.

Energy Circle

A common tradition in community theater - especially community theater involving children - is the "Energy Circle": the cast and crew gather together in a big circle and hold hands. After a few words about having a great show and maybe a suggestion about staying focused, the Director squeezes one of the hands s/he is holding. That person then squeezes the next person's hand and so on, sending the energy surge around the circle, all the way back to the person who started it.

My role in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is playing one of the Church Ladies, a small group of women who serve as the critical, judgmental Greek Chorus. When the Director announced the Energy Circle and one of the Stage Managers came to round every one up, one of the other Church Ladies asked if that really included the adults. Yep.

So I told the Stage Manager that I would participate, but she should know by now that the real Energy Circle in my life is the rim of a Martini Glass.

Snowpocalypse Tomato Soup

The DC area is covered in snow. At first we were told that we'd get a few inches on Saturday. Then it was a few inches on Saturday and some on Sunday. By the end of the day on Friday, the predictions no longer included the word "inches." We were expecting one to two feet of snow over the weekend.

It was snowing by the time that I left the theater at 9:45 pm. (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is basically an extended one-act.) Just a light dusting, but coming down pretty steadily. I had drinks and gumbo* at a friend's house and set out for home around 1:15 am. By then the roads were snow-coated and slippery, so the driving required a decent level of skill and focus.** I was home by 2:00 am.

Today's performances having been cancelled, I got to have an at-home day. There were several inches on the ground this morning and we're over a foot now. It's still coming down pretty briskly. The Blizzard Warning has shifted to a Winter Storm warning and is expected to last until about 6:00 am.

So for lunch I made tomato soup from scratch. I looked through my cookbooks for ideas and then sort of went my own way. It was easy and tasty and I'm glad that I made a large enough batch that I have leftovers. Here's what I did:

Snowpocalypse Tomato Soup

Peel and mince 2 cloves of garlic;
Mince a quarter of a medium onion;
Sauté the the garlic and onion in a generous splash of olive oil over a low flame while considering whether to add some Vermouth to the recipe;

Open two 14-ounce cans of diced tomatoes and empty into a two-quart pot;
Warm the tomatoes and add the garlic and onion;
Stir and decide yes on the Vermouth - pour in a healthy splash;
Add a cheerful amount of oregano, parsley, and thyme;
Shake in Cayenne pepper until you think you may have overdone it;

Let it all simmer for a little bit, then ladle about half into the blender;
Blend on "chop" for a few seconds;
Pour it back into the pot;
Let it simmer a little longer for good measure;

Grate enough good cheese over it to bring a smile to your face;
Finish with salt and pepper to taste.



*Really good gumbo, with okra and gumbo file. Must get the recipe ...
**Snow driving tip: Proceed at a moderate speed, stay away from the brake pedal. Would that everyone else on the road with me knew that.

Team

Something happened at precisely that moment. Both Claudia and Jamie tried to explain to me about it, but they couldn't quite. I know what happened, though I never told them. Having words and explanations for everything is too modern. I especially wouldn't tell Claudia. She has too many explanations already.

What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away when they had acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. Becoming a team didn't mean the end of their arguments. But it did mean that the arguments became a part of the adventure, became discussions not threats. To an outsider the arguments would apppear to be the same beause feeling like part of a team is something that happens invisibly. You might call it caring. You could even call it love. And it is very rarely, indeed, that it happens to two people at the same time -- especially a brother and a sister who had always spent more time with activities than they had with each other.

From From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, the only juvenile fiction I've ever read that contains a map of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

How to fill your e-mail inbox*

1. Click the "like" button on Facebook for a friend's picture of their cute children.

Ta-da! You're done! Sit back and watch the e-mails roll in!


*I was going to call this post "How to Get More Interesting Mail" in honor of the Direct Marketing Association's booklet for people who wish to receive more rather than less junk mail. But Facebook comments aren't junk mail - they're the conversation.

Just like the good old days

The best thing about playing a tiny part in a kid-dominated show is that I have lots of down time at rehearsal. So Karen and Felicity and Julie and I can gossip to our heart's content and I can work on my crocheting*. It all reminds me very much of my days in Gilbert & Sullivan choruses. No one will remember that I was in the show but I'm having a lovely time helping to put it together.


*I am making a scarf or two or three for women serving in Afghanistan, a project that my friend Pam alerted me to.

Understudy

No one prays more for the good health of the star than the under-rehearsed understudy.

Eat your vegetables, Anna, and wash your hands often.

Table for Two

On Friday night I was supposed to meet Dave, a theater friend, for dinner at Fajita Coast. He was scheduled to see The Goat at Silver Spring and I was planning to see The Merry Wives of Windsor at my high school, a block away.

I was running a little late and my friend Laura, one of the cast members for The Goat hit little enough traffic that she decided to have a sit down rather than carry out dinner. So she went to Fajita Coast ....

(This is where that wavy screen that they had back in the old days on sit-coms to denote a flashback kicks in.)

Dave walks in a sees Laura sitting at a table. He and I see each other rarely enough that she fit his mental description for me*, so he plunked down at the table with her and said jocularly "I'll just sit here until you get a better offer. "

"I'm sorry?!"

"Augh! You're not Leta!"

"No, but I know Leta."

So when I arrived a few minutes later, they were still sharing a table, happily chatting away.

If they become friends, they'll have one of the better "meet cute" stories I can think of.


* And I quote - thin and brown haired. Delusional. Flattering, but delusional.

I'm not sure I was exaggerating either

David and I were invited to a gala fundraiser recently. The kind held in Expensive Locations with Open Bars and Important Dignitaries. We would be one of three couples at a table for several couples. I don't have an official link to the organization but the very good friend who invited us does and it is a Very Worthy Organization indeed. I was honored to drink their booze, consume their food, and applaud their Dignitaries.

David is less likely to enjoy these sorts of events than I am, but he is a) a very nice man and b) also fond of the friend who invited us, so he agreed to attend.* But he's a pretty sharp cookie and observed that he thinks the major reason I accepted with such alacrity was the company we would be keeping more than anything else.

"This is just social for you, isn't it?"**

"Well, sure it is. Oh, Honey, as long as we are invited by such good folks, I'd accept an invitation to run through a hail of bullets."


* He may have had other motives, I don't know. I shall not speculate here.

** Usually the correct assumption.

Like Sarah Chalke. Or Dick Sergeant. Or Brian Forster

Andy: You look different. Why do you look different?
Me: I dunno. Maybe because I'm being played by another actress?
Andy: That's very meta of you, but no.

Because it's been raining a lot lately

"Fool In The Rain"
Jones, Page, Plant

Well there's a light in your eye that keeps shining
Like a star that can't wait for the night
I hate to think I've been blinded baby
Why can't I see you tonight?

And the warmth of your smile starts a-burnin'
And the thrill of your touch gives me fright
And I'm shaking so much, really yearning
Why don't you show up, make it all right?
Yeah, it's all right.

And if you promised you'd love so completely
and you said you would always be true
You swore that you would never leave me, baby:
What ever happened to you?

And you thought it was only in movies
As you wish all your dreams would come true
It ain't the first time believe me, baby
I'm standin here feeling blue
Yeah I'm blue

Now I will stand in the rain on the corner
I'll watch the people go shuffling downtown
Another ten minutes no longer
And then I'm turning around

The clock on the wall's moving slower
My heart it sinks to the ground
And the storm that I thought would blow over
Clouds the light of the love that I found

Now my body is starting to quiver
And the palms of my hands getting wet
I've got no reason to doubt you baby,
It's all a terrible mess

I'll run in the rain till I'm breathless
When I'm breathless I'll run till I drop, hey
The thoughts of a fool's kind of careless
I'm just a fool waiting on the wrong block, oh yeah
Light of the love that I found...

Wearing my poppy

When I was growing up I believed that Memorial Day honored those who died in War and Veterans Day honored all service personnel. It turns out that I was mistaken.

Memorial Day (originally Decoration Day) celebrated Union soldiers and the date (last Monday in May) was chosen to match the day of reunification after the Civil War.

Veterans Day (also known as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day) originally honored the veterans of the first World War. When I was in England last November, we stopped our singing and such in time for the moment of silence at 11:11 am and afterwards our host, Bob, asked if any of us had parents or grandparents who fought in that war. His father fought for England as the did the fathers and uncles of several of the people in the room.

I had landed at Heathrow a couple of days before and as I was going through the airport with Carol and Claire and Mariel, I saw a box labeled "Poppy Appeal". Ignorant American that I am, I asked what it was and what it meant. I was told that the Poppy Appeal which offers little paper poppies in exchange for donations, supports the Royal British Legion, the nation's leading Armed Forces charity providing care and support to all members of the British Armed Forces past and present.

I asked if a pound was enough (oh, any amount is fine, luv), put my pound in the tin, and took a poppy. I put it through the button hole of my sweater and was severely grateful that I had learned this before I had needed any kind of assistance, as I had assumed that the many people wearing poppies were airport personnel of some kind.

I made sure to wear it that Sunday and also made sure to put it where I wouldn't lose it when I got home.

A couple of months later, I was at the James Lee Community Center for an audition or a rehearsal or something and was chatting with a friend who works there. I noticed a box of poppies on the counter and asked about them. It seems that the American Legion also uses poppies to raise money for the support of veterans.

So now I have two poppies and this week I have worn my British poppy on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for Remembrance Day and will wear my American poppy today, tomorrow and Friday for Veterans Day. My Boss saw my English poppy on Monday and today is wearing the one that he got on a recent trip to London. My other boss has not been able to find a poppy anywhere locally, so I have lent him my English one. And the three of us are explaining our poppies to the many people who ask about the paper flowers we are wearing.

Why poppies? Because many of the fallen in World War I were buried in Flanders Field in Belgium where poppies grow like poppies.

To all who served my country or their own, including my father and grandfathers, my thanks. Thank you for your service.

The Poppy Appeal

American Legion Auxilliary Poppy Campaign