Leta's Rule of Purses

"If one's purse is capable of carrying the weight of a small child, one will."

Time for something smaller.

Jeepers Creepers

At brunch this morning, I kept staring at the guy at the next table. Sure, he was pretty cute, but that wasn't what drew my eye to him over and over.

I whispered to Malinda that the guy at the next table was probably noticing that I was staring, but check out those glasses! As if on cue, he looked directly at me, smiled, and wiggled his glasses at me.

Clearly, I wasn't the first. I doubt I'll be the last.

Time in a bottle

"Pamwriter" left this as a comment at the end of a nice essay on downsizing from the Tucson Citizen. It's definitely even more of a challenge to get rid of stuff when the "stuff" has sentimental attachment.

So this is really for the several friends who have lost loved ones recently and will be faced with sorting their possessions into "what to keep, what to throw, and what to give away."

A friend of mine recently said ‘You CAN keep time in a bottle’. She has decided that a small collection of bottles as keep-sakes is better than the tons of keep-sakes themselves. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘we’re keeping the memories.’ So what she’s doing is to write small notes and put them in the bottles that she has categorically labeled – maybe one is ‘mom’ and one is ‘dad’ and one is ‘first husband’ etc. I’m thinking about this as I sift through ‘my stuff’. I also have started to watch the ‘Hoarders’ – I watch then I get up and clean a closet. I’m in touch with the emotional attachment to the stuff and letting go. I’d put the cookie maker* (I had one too) into the pile to go to the hospital shop and let those folks decide which of their piles to put it in.

*The item that essay author Lydia Brewer used as her jumping-off to muse about de-accessioning.

Out of the waste stream

David has started saving corks from wine bottles (and other spirits) for recycling. Feel free to give me yours to give to him or just send them on to Yemm & Hart who will make other nice cork things out of them.


Wine Cork Recycling
Yemm & Hart Ltd
425 North Chamber Drive
Fredericktown, MO 63645


This activity has a couple of fun side effects:

Cork recycling gives you a nice cheering sense of helping sustain bird (and other animal) habitat as you are sipping your Chardonnay or Shiraz; and

When your friends and family notice the volume of corks you have collected and ask how long it took to accumulate that many, you can glance at the bowl of, oh, 30 of them and say "Uhhh.... couple of weeks, I guess"* and then enjoy some quality time with your near and dear during the intervention.


*Of course, if the number is more like 50, then you'll want your answer to be "Uhhhh... couple of days, I guess." Try to keep your answer an inverse of the number of corks.

Of spices and slippers

Wherein David and Leta experience the joy of giving in an all-new way...


Part the First:

A few years ago David noticed that I had a pretty ratty pair of slippers. (The slippers had achieved this level of rattitude by being the kind that I particularly like and sometimes have trouble finding - they're basically just fleece ballerinas so that my feet don't get all hot and sweaty.) So, figuring that he had found a problem that he could solve for me, he quizzed me about slipper preferences and for Christmas presented me with a lovely red velour pair from, I believe, Eddie Bauer that came in their own little presentation bag. Oh, how nice!

So I took the nice, new ones home and brought the ratty old ones - which were now my spares - to his house. The following Christmas, I received a very nice pink fleecy pair from Victoria's Secret. Oh, how nice! So the pink ones live at David's and my ratty old ones are in my luggage.

It's a good assumption that everyone who will ever read this has already figured out that David's real goal is not to supply me with new slippers every year, but to drive the ratty old slippers out of my life altogether. I didn't realize this until he noticed the ratty ones in my luggage and looked like a home-owner watching the mouse saunter out of the kitchen carrying the piece of cheese that had been baiting the trap.

He asked me hopefully what I would do if he bought me a nice, new pair of slippers to go into my luggage? Oh, that be nice. And the ratty old ones? Oh, I'd probably put them in my theater box to wear backstage.

Listen carefully and you can probably still heard the grinding sound his teeth made.

Part the second:

I am not the only keeper of the beyond stale-dated. David, himself, has a cabinet filled with herbs and spices that pre-date me and we started seeing each other just after GWB was "elected" the first time. I've been suggesting for a long time now that the fenugreek that he and Susan bought for some long ago curry could be tossed, along with orange peel that smelled like citric acid and dust.

My position on the moral high ground was pretty much ensured after I went to use some nutmeg, which David buys whole (because he uses a nutmeg rasp) and it had nutmeg worms. At that point I began to lobby harder for not keeping the those poor, dried nuts, twigs, leaves, etc through the end of the last mortgage payment. My own rule is not to keep them more than four years. I date them when they come into the house and everything bought before January '05 will be pitched by Inauguration Day. New president, newish spices.

Part the third:

So our anniversary present to each other this year is that David gets to pitch my ratty old slippers and I get to dump his antique foodstuffs. He thought we were each going to throw out our own stuff, but what's the fun of that? So when I read on-line that he had tossed the fenugreek, I called him immediately with a Cease and Desist order. Now I get to empty the mere-memories-of-their-formers-selves contents from the bottles and David got the warm glow of tossing my ratty old slippers.

Of course, I dumped his spices out the front door, so I was recycling whereas he tossed my slippers into the trash (which I couldn't watch), so he was just adding to the waste stream.

Conclusion:

So if traditionally the first anniversary is for giving paper, the second for giving cotton, etc, in the 21st century, the eighth should be for giving your loved one the thing that they have been itching to dispose of and allowing them the joy of ditching it. The Eighth Anniversary could be for de-accessioning.

On its way to the Pennyworth

I've never actually seen Mom wear this t-shirt and I know that I won't, so off to the Pennyworth it goes, but I enjoyed the list.

Top Ten Reasons for Being an Episcopalian (according to Robin Williams*, that is)

10. No snake handling.
9. You can believe in dinosaurs.
8. Male and female, God created them; male and female we ordain them.
7. You don't have to check your brains at the door. **
6. Pew aerobics.
5. Church year is color coded.
4. Free wine on Sunday.
3. All of the pageantry, none of the guilt.
2. You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized.
1. No matter what you believe, there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

And, of course, there is the very slight irony that I'm typing this on Sunday morning when the rest of the Frozen Chosen are at church. I'm not sure this counts as a devotional activity.

*Yep, the comedian. It's from an HBO special he did some years ago. Not Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury, although wouldn't that be interesting?

**If I could edit the list, I'd use the #7 I found as I was verifying which Robin Williams we were talking about here: "Instructions found in BCP" ***

***The Book of Common Prayer - it's more or less the Anglican Owner's Manual for the church.

Zippo

My Mom will be moving from the Independent Living section over to the more nursing home-like section that someone jokingly called "Dependent Living" in the Continum of Care Community where she lives.

The first and biggest part of this process was six or seven years ago when Mom moved out of the 3-bedroom house that she lived in for 30 years and into a one-bedroom apartment. Between my Aunt Dotty and Mom's friend Barbara, much stuff was wrestled away from her and given away, thrown away, left with unsuspecting friends and family, and probably mailed to random addresses. Mom, bless her heart, is a sentimental packrat. Had she time enough and space, she would keep everything that ever entered her life by way of another person, including phone messages and drive-through receipts. Deep in her heart, Mom thinks that the Collyer brothers were right.

When she first asked me what I wanted from the house in which Igrew up, I said the piano, the dollhouse, and the lamp she painted with two ceremic ladies on it who looked a little like Sara and me in that one was blond and the other brunet (known to us as "the Leta and Sara lamp"). I did get those three things and, oh sweet merciful heavens, so much more. So very much more.

Because when Mom is being forced to give things up, it's easier just to agree to take those things and pretend that they will be cherished forever as she would cherish them. It's rather like telling little children that their dog has gone to live on a farm because many, many of those things went to the Pennyworth some time ago.* Please don't tell Mom.

We are now deep into the second phase, from one-bedroom aparment to one room. Getting one's mother ready to move into Dependent Living is remarkably like sending her to camp for the rest of her life. She won't need furniture or dishes or anything like that, but she will need roughly two week's worth of clothes, which will be marked with her name, and toothpaste and a toothbrush. She won't have a lot of privacy, so valuables are coming to me or going into the safe deposit box. A lot of boxes of stuff are coming to me prett' near intact so that Mom and I can sort it after she makes the move in a couple of weeks.

Thank God for my aunt. She came in from Cleveland for a week and cajoled, bullied, and simply wore Mom down so that lots and lots and lots of stuff was given away. I'm too much of an enabler. I'd ask her book by book what she wanted to keep, whereas Dotty simply points to an entire shelf, announces that Mom won't need them any more and packs them up. We'd never be ready in time** if it weren't for the more Achtung side of Dotty's personality. Bless her.

So Saturday morning we three were going through Mom's jewelry. I asked for a few things, not much because I don't wear a lot of jewelry, mainly rings and earrings, but Mom doesn't have pierced ears and she wears a size 5 1/4 ring and I wear a 7.

But I did find something I wanted. Something I'd asked for more than once over the years that Mom could never remember if she still owned it and if so where it was. When I got cast in Agnes, I asked Mom if she still had her old Zippo lighter. The one that, I think, Daddy gave her when they were engaged. The one with her name on it.

We found it in the jewelry box. And now I have it. Dotty showed me how to fill the lighter fluid reservoir and it works a treat. It sounds like a Zippo, which is the first thing everyone notices when I show it to them in that "lookee what I got!" way - that it make that Zippo sound when you shut the lid.

Mom gave me her engraved cigarette case several years ago which I did use during Agnes but we didn't find the Zippo until the day before closing and introducing a new or different prop late in the run is just a bad idea. And the $1.79 electronic ignition lighters that I bought at the convenience store near the theater did the job just fine and it seemed sort of disloyal to stop using them. I still have one in my purse.***

So I'm very glad to have my new Zippo. And I'm also noticing that for a non-smoker, what with the Zippo, the cigarette case, and the ashtrays I seem to have more than my fair share of smoking paraphernalia. All of it given to me by Mom, who actually quit smoking the day she found out that she was pregnant with me.


* Even though it's very close to both my home and my office, I cannot ever volunteer at the Pennyworth and don't dare stick my nose in the door, lest I start buying back things I've managed to let go of. The packrat gene runs strong.

** And we still might not. The schedule was set by them not by us.

*** Another was given to our stage manager, Frank, as an informal present. He can't light it by snapping his fingers near it the way he can the Zippo,**** but he likes the little built-in flashlight it has.

**** Frank has several interesting talents. Most of them, as I like to point out, are a little useless and a little louche. I probably like to point this out because they are, each and every one, the sort of trick I find fascinating and will never be able to learn how to do.

FAI

I normally suffer from a bit insomnia but now I suffer from the far more pernicious FAI - Feline Assisted Insomnia. I don't always know when to expect a FAI event but they all start out more or less the same: I go to bed and hope to get some sleep. I need to cut that out, clearly, as it must be the cause of my problem.

I read for a bit and just after I've turned out the light and drifted off, Pekoe (the fabulous orange tabby) will find a way to make some kind of noise that I either can't identify or can't ignore. So I wake up and have to deal with stopping him from making that noise and then I'm all awake and alert and can't get back to sleep for quite some time. Considering that he's often in another room when it happens I am impressed at how well he times my nodding off.

A couple of Thursday nights ago, though, he kicked it up a bit. Instead of the usual vaguely annoying* or unidentifiable noises, he made a sound that was all too identifiable - smashing glass. And when you've drifted off a couple of minutes before and then hear smashing glass, you don't think "Hmmmm. I wonder what that was. I guess I'll find out in the morning. NTS: Wear slippers or walk carefully." No, you leap fully alert out of bed thinking "What the hell?!" and wondering 1. what he had managed to smash; 2. how much you will/won't miss that thing; and 3. if the smash was first in a series.

Let's hope that the answer to 3 is "no" because what he managed to smash - which I will only miss until I replace it - is the glass in the front of the china cabinet. From the circumstantial evidence, he was trying to jump from the table (where he's not supposed to be) to the top of the china cabinet (ditto), didn't quite make it, and managed to kick in the glass front to the cabinet. According to my Dad, Mom's parents bought the dining set sometime in the late 30s or early 40s, so that glass is 65 or 70 years old minimum.

It survived several of my grandparents moves, Mom and Dad's moves, and my moves but when a cat is determined that I not sleep, well something has to give.

And so, here for the Peekster, is the first song I've come across that he could have written.


*Like when he plays "small object on the dresser hockey"

I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass - Nick Lowe

l love the sound of breaking glass
Especially when I'm lonely
l need the noises of destruction
When there's nothing new
Oh nothing new, sound of breaking glass

I love the sound of breaking glass
Deep into the night
l love the sound of its condition
Flying all around
Oh all around, sound of breaking glass
Nothing new, sound of breaking glass

Oh all around, sound of breaking glass
Nothin' new, sound of breakin' glass
Safe at last, sound of breaking glass

I love the sound of breaking glass
Deep into the night
I love the work on it can do
Oh a change of mind
Oh change of mind, sound of breaking glass
All around, sound of breaking glass
Nothing new, sound of breaking glass
Breaking glass, sound of breaking glass

But isn't this against everything they stand for?

Well, yes. But sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

- So first there was Google - clean white page with a catchy logo;
- Then there was Google with the special logos for special days;
- Then there was iGoogle where you could crap up the clean white page with widgets and gadgets and stuff. (Mine has the weather and my reader and a few other things. I am weak.)
- Then there was iGoogle with "artist themes" where you could add a picture to the top of the formerly clean white page. I largely ignored that option because Google is supposed to be different. It's the clean white page! Or the clean white page with some stuff on it! But not a lot! Just some! Some useful stuff! But not a lot!

But. Today while trolling through the artist themes just for fun and thinking the title of this post, I found that one of the themes is by Dale Chihuly.

I like art. Art is nice. I love glass art. I love it more than chocolate. And Dale Chihuly was the first "glass artist" with whose work I became familiar. I usually have to be pried away from exhibits of his work.*

And so, / although / I wish to go, / and greatly pine / to brightly shine.... (oops, sorry, G&S distraction.) Ahem. And so, although I do believe it's against all that the clean white page stands for, I have added the Chihuly theme to my iGoogle page. It makes me shiver with pleasure to look at it. And it'll update during the day showing me new and different pictures of Chihuly pieces. It's too much happiness!

And - in the back - behind the widgets and the gadgets and the artist's theme - somewhere back there - is the Clean White Page.


*And, yes, of course other glass artists have told me that the man in person is - how shall I put this? - a butthead. Suffers from severe cranial-rectal inversion.** I don't care. It's not like I spend any time with him. I just love his work.

**Unless Dale Chihuly reads this blog***, in which case, no one ever said that to me and are you free for coffee or drinks or something sometime?

*** Yeah, like that happens. Whatever.

No, really, it's my *badge* photo

And possibly one of the more flattering pictures taken of me recently.



Well, except maybe for this one taken by Brett on our recent clamber around the Billy Goat Trail. After getting over one particularly interesting boulder we were considering calling it "Last Known Photo of Leta."



And it would surprise no one that in the last known photo of me before I fell off of a cliff or was eaten by bears or whatever that I am smiling my "camera smile."

Coming with me, even if I have to run back into the burning building

Behold - Erasable highlighters.

That's right. Erasable.

Highlight. Unlight.

When I told the guy at the Office Depot what I was looking for he said he was getting all shivery just thinking about it. As I already was.

I've shown my Erasable Highlighters to people who were instantly convinced of the amazingness of the Erasable Highlighter.

O brave new world that has such markers in it.

How to get cool stuff for your desk at work

Today's e-mail:

Leta,

Is the schedule for the meeting in April set enough so that we can get reservations? Are you arranging hotel rooms? Enquiring minds want to know.

-----------

Yep, the dates are firm and I've made the reservations. I have your [hotel rewards] number, so that'll already be applied to your reservation.

Are you going to bring me a present from Alabama?

-----------

Sure, you want a lump of red clay or a model space rocket. I haven’t found much else there in Huntsville.

-----------

Either is fine with me. Of course, I'll have it on my desk and I'll tell people that you gave it to me.

-----------

I’ll go with the space rocket, then.

Vroom! Cough! Cough!

My old vacuum bit the dust. Or rather, sucked up the dust and then spewed it around the room and into my lungs. The vacuum is an ancient orange Hoover upright that's nearly as old - or maybe older - than I am. Okay, probably not older, but Mom had it for years and years and then I got it.* It worked great and, in fact, the motor still does. But the tubing connecting the machine to the bag is of less stern stuff and finally gave way. Ron, the guy at the vacuum repair place told me that it's not fixable (and that he can't even use it for parts), so I set about looking for a new vacuum.

At first I wanted a bagless one, but Ron told me that they are basically just boat payments for vacuum repair guys and that he doesn't sell them. (Almost all of the vacuums in for repair that day were bagless, as he emphatically pointed out.)

Then he showed me some lovely, quiet, reliable machines in the $200 - $250 range. With HEPA filters and everything. The Lexus of vacuums. They were pretty, too. But I told him that I'm one person, with one cat, in a reasonably small apartment. At which point we moved over to the Hoover Tempo.

Also right before our move to the Hoover was my mentioning that I was only pre-shopping that day because my boyfriend noticed that Consumer Reports did vacuums in the March issue. CR kind of annoys Ron, largely because he is convinced that they have one guy who tests vacuums who is 6'4" and a former linebacker and that 5'0", 100-pound little old ladies don't have the same handling and maneuverability experience as Bruno. All in all, a pretty entertaining rant.

The Tempo is more like the Honda Civic of vacuums, I guess - less flashy, a little louder, a lot less expensive. No HEPA, but good filters that would get most of the allergens. And it's a pretty color blue. And what singer wouldn't want a vacuum called the "tempo"? So I said that I'd be back after I checked what CR had to say (pause while Ron rolls his eyes).

That was Monday. The CR info came in on Wednesday and I went sprinting back to the vacuum store only to find out that all the Tempi were sold out. They would get at least three more the next day, but one of them was already promised to someone else. (The Other-Guy-Who-Isn't-Ron looked puzzled that they were flying out the door so fast. I wasn't surprised at all as the Tempo was the first vacuum on CR's list that was under $300 and got good ratings. It was #6, in fact, and got two "excellents," three "very goods," and two "goods." And it is the only vac in the first ten that costs less than $300.)

Yesterday they got the delivery from Hoover and tagged one for me. I went to collect it after work and Ron assembled it for me, gave me some good maintenance advice, showed me how to change the belt. He then showed me how the belt that arrived in my brand new vac was already a bit stretched out as he was replacing it for me, which is basically the reason why I went to Ron's hole-in-wall vacuum repair instead of a big box store. One of Mom's prejudices is that big box stores are staffed by high school students who don't know and don't care and considering how many parts Ron assembled before he carried the Tempo out to the car for me, I'm really glad that I bought it from him.

I picked up some kind of an upper respiratory thing from the unintentional dust storm in the apartment so I haven't been playing with my new toy yet, but this weekend? This weekend, my darlings, we vacuum!


*According to Mom, by confiscating it. Or maybe her word was "steal."

They will pay

I went to see the childrens' show at Elden Street today and they were using the wicked substance. Yep. Glitter. Even Adam, the stage manager was all bright and sparkly.

They'd gotten to him. He had glitter in his hair, on his skin, on his clothes. (How he's going to get through a day at a Northern Virginia high school tomorrow is beyond me.)

After the show I was carefully hugging the folks I knew when Adam twigged that I was trying to avoid the going to Sparkly Hell. At which point he was more interested in rubbing up against me than a puppy usually is.* Others added to the Adam's crimes.

So they will pay. Maybe collectively. Maybe individually. It just depends on how I determine to wreak my terrible revenge. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon and for the rest of their lives.

Because that's how long I'll be finding glitter on me.


*not that way! Geez. Bunch of gutter minds you people are.

The Things That I Would Carry

I know that many of us have been following the San Diego wildfire story - either closely or casually. I heard on NPR this morning that KPBS, a San Diego public radio station, has created a Google Maps of the situation. More importantly, in the sidebar is more or less up-to-the-minute news about which shelters are open, which neighborhoods are now safe, and other useful infomation.

You can find it here.

I have spent random minutes in the last few days wondering what I would take with me if I had to bug out and considering what a sentimental pack rat I am, the list is pretty short:

Pekoe and his kit (food, bowls, litter);
My purse;
My passport;
As much cash as I could;
Kipling (my teddy bear because he is very reassuring and makes a great emergency pillow);
Clean underthings;
A book or two - probably Middlemarch because then I would forced to finish the darned thing (and besides, it's long) and something more fun than Middlemarch;
A small "collage" I put together of family pictures; and
David.

That was all I could come up with and I could put all that in the car in twenty minutes or so. If I had to grab-and-go the list would be:

Pekoe;
My purse;
My passport;
As much cash as I could; and
David.

After Hurrican Katrina David and I worked out a very basic, "I guess we'd" script of what we'd do if required to leave in a hurry. Daddy always says that they'd like to see more of us, so I guess he'd be happy to know that his and Audrey's house is where these refugees would arrive. With cat.

A few weeks ago we nearly had "Bring Your Cat to Work Day" because the fire alarm went off in my building as I was getting dressed. I finished dressing, stuffed Peek into his cat carrier using my never-fail technique (available upon request), and headed out. I dithered around for a bit but as the fire department had arrived pretty darn fast, I was able to return Peek to the apartment rather than figure out what to do with him for a full day at my office which is not set up for him or his needs at all.

On that day it was Peek, purse, passport and go. I have a horrible time letting go of things but I do know that things can be replaced, (it helps to be able to prove one's identity, of course). One place where Mollie and I lived had a nasty flood (raw sewage) in the basement and I hated with a white hot passion going through the ruined things and that was only the things I kept in basement storage. It can be done, it just sucks enormously.

I have always travelled light and though I would miss every single thing that I own, if I were asked to evac, I would lock the door, hope for the best, and leave.

I just hope I never have to.

The Eternal Typewriter

We have an old IBM Correcting Selectric II here in the office and I would fling my body in front it to save it were anyone to try to remove it. Selectrics don't have the groovy bells and whistles that, say, iPhones do, but you can open a Selectric up and make a few changes and it will still work. In fact, you can back over it with your car and it will still work. Largely, because it's heavier and more solid than any car I ever drove, possibly excepting the '68 Cougar I had in college. But the Selectric probably gets better gas mileage and won't rust out the way the Cougar did.

I was planning on writing a little love note/blog post to this Selectric today anyway because, well...because I love it, that's all. But things were brought to a head when one of our newer accountants, after being informed that handwriting envelopes containing large checks was not the done thing, asked me how one would "put a typed address on an envelope." And he wasn't kidding.

He had never used an actual typewriter in his life. Not before today anyway. I taught him how. Oh dear.

I learned on my Mom's old Royal manual and I earned some pocket money typing her papers when she was taking some classes when I was a teenager.* In high school, I took typing on a Selectric. And thus a life-long love affair was born.

The Selectric (jeepers, I wish these posts came with a soundtrack because this is just crying out for something by Paul Williams to underscore it) is easy to use and even though it is - literally - older than most of our new accountants (sigh) it still works beautifully. And it sounds like a typewriter. Remember how phones used to sound like phones and now they all sound sort of like the situation normal indicators on life support equipment? Well, newer typewriters don't really sound like typewriters. They just don't.

And it never gets paper jams, unlike a certain copier I could mention here.

It just types. First time, every time. The ball doesn't jam up the way the keys did on the Royal, and the end of line indicator is a cheery bell sound.

And it corrects. Easily. Sure, changing the correction ribbon is something that only the high priestesses of the Selectric (such as, ahem, mine own self) can accomplish but changing the regular ribbon doesn't get toner all over your hands, like with a certain copier that I have been given permission to destroy with the fire ax once it's lease is up.

And...and....and it's a nice color. Well, not bad color. A perfectly reasonable color, unlike that other electric typewriter in the office which is some kind of depressing county office worker teal. The Selectric is a nice, dark beige.

Oh, my but I'm old. Hey! You kids out there! Get off my lawn!


*I typed them pretty poorly because I was too impatient to wait the eons that it took Mom's old McDonald-milkshake-thick White Out to dry, among other things.

Because I needed more stuff

David and I spent the weekend at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherstown, WV. That is to say, we saw four plays in three days at Shepherdstown and stayed two nights at Casa Dad & Audrey, which meant that I got grits and bacon for breakfast, a comfy bed to sleep in, and the good pleasure of hanging out with my folks. CATF is my favorite weekend of the year.

There is always a certain amount of theater-related stuff for sale at CATF (David and I each have a ball cap and I have a spiffy red t-shirt) but this year they really got with the program. Someone finally figured out that audience members will crack their wallets open faster for intermission treats than for pretty near anything in else theater. And so this year fridges were rounded up and placed in the lobbies of the two theaters and interns sold cold drinks and ice cream treats in addition to the tchotchkes. Oh frabjous day!! Callooh! Callay! If they find a coffee maker for next year I don't think that I'll be able to stand the excitement.

There was also an audience survey which offered a 10% discount on the aforementioned tchotchkes to anyone turning in a completed survey. David and I each completed a survey and then I went shopping. They let me use David's survey to get 10% off of an overpriced - but exceedingly fetching - t-shirt that says (wait for it) "thinktheater", which I already do a lot, so I thought I might as well have it on a t-shirt. And (using my survey) on a travel mug and a director's pen, which has a little light built into it for taking notes in the dark. I also liked that the town gets a look-in, so the complete text on my very important geeky new stuff says:

Shepherstown, West Virginia

thinktheater

oldest town / newest plays / ultimate theater experience

contemporaryamericantheaterfestival

While I am grateful that an American theater festival doesn't spell it "theatre," I am still wondering if everything would have cost more if they had used spaces between the bolded words.

I don't normally buy the sorts of things that are sold in lobbies, and I rarely wear t-shirts, but obviously this week's casual Friday will have to spent inducing people to thinktheater.


* Heck, the Stage probably paid the light bill for a dozen years from the sale of the finest boxed wine in Montgomery County, available before the show and during intermission, thank you very much.

Please connect me to JUniper 7-5423

JUniper 7-5423 was my phone number when I was growing up. Or mostly was because by the time that I came along, exchange names were on their way out, although they could still be found in ads and in the phone book. I just never heard anyone say them, or at least not seriously. (At one point in The Man Who Came to Dinner, Maggie is asked for the telephone of the hotel, the Mansion House, which she gives as Mesalia 32, so I've said that on stage a bunch of times.)

Because I'd only read them, in my head my number was "Juniper-7-5423," but I've recently heard people (okay, actors, whatever) running the five numbers together, so it would be "Juniper-75423" which just seems harder to remember to me and I have no idea which was preferred. Perhaps, it was an either/either thing.

David is kind enough to make me calling cards ever since the time he saw me give someone one of my deposit tickets for my checking account because neither of us had any paper handy. (I tore the account number off of the bottom, but he was still appalled.) He lists my contact info and this blog's address and includes a pretty little graphic. They are lovely and much nicer looking than my boss's business cards. And because David has heard me rant about the tiny type on business cards (tons of white space, medium grey print the size of bacteria - what is up with that?), they are in a nice, clear, easy to read, reasonable font.

And now they'll have my exchange on them! David mentioned The Telephone Exchange Name Project the other night and sure enough David Pescovitz posted a link to the TEN Project on Boing Boing yesterday which David forwarded to me. I reviewed Ma Bell's list of Officially Recommended Exchange Names, got all misty-eyed about JUniper, and then selected BLackburn for my mobile number. My office number begins with "57" which was reserved for radio operators which means that it has no historically correct exchange name, so I've "created" KRypton for my office number.

The next time you see me, be sure to check out my spiffy-retro calling cards.

Personal Shopper

David and I were at Target the other day and I made two purchases: a pair of shoes and a tube of lipstick. As is usually the case with me, the more expensive item was the quicker shop. David pointed to a pair of cute, little platforms (at 5'7", a style I normally don't spend a lot of time on)* which we agreed would look spiffy when we go on a real date**. Tried them on, decided to buy them, moved on. Three - five minutes, maybe.

Back in college Sarah told me that every woman needs a tube of "good whore-red" lipstick. It took me years to realize that in that phrase "good" was modifying "red," not "whore," but no matter; I was out and needed another. The lipstick, of course, required scouring every make-up related rack in the store and comparing and contrasting colors and brands and prices and types. I would hold a tube up to my face and get David's feedback on how it worked with my coloring. I'm a winter, but I still avoid reds that are too blue.

To my great delight, I found a L’Oréal color (#350) called British Red which fits the bill. It's a true red without a blue undertone, it looks fabulous, and it wasn't too expensive. (woot!) How long did it take to finalize this choice? 10 minutes, possibly 15. And he has a better eye for this sort of thing than I do, so having him there probably cut the decision time in half.

David's first real experience with my shopping inversion was back in January when we went to buy me a new winter coat (Christmas present. Isn't he the cutest thing?). We went to Macy's, I think, and he pulled out 3 or 4 coats and I pulled out two. Tried them all on. Chose the dark green, wool/cashmere Ellen Tracy trench. Twenty minutes. Later that day we stopped at the market for a few things, including some body wash for me to keep at his house. So many brands, so many smells, so many attributes.

For the record, I don't really like body wash or lotion that smells like fruits or vegetables,*** so that elimination was pretty quick. I found a nice "clean cotton" smelling one whose price didn't offend me. Twenty five minutes.

Yep. It takes me longer to pick out a $5.99 bottle of body wash that I will use up in a few months than to pick out a $200 coat that I will wear for years.

I will be wearing my spiffy new color today, in case you'd like to admire David's consulting handiwork.

*I was 5'7" by the time I was 12, when platforms were also popular. I bought a pair of 5-inchers, bringing me to 6' at a time when all the boys in my class were 5'4". (Idiot) But David's 6-something (1? 2? Who can tell with his Alan Alda slouch), so the additional altitude is no longer such a bad thing.

**Real date means doing the sorts of things that regular people do instead of the things that theater people do. Like go to dinner somewhere with tablecloths.

*** Herbs, spices, tea, and flowers are all fine. I don't know whether ginger, a root, counts as a vegetable or not, but it smells like a spice to me.

But then I could never hear it again

My friends and I noticed several years ago that as soon as we buy a copy of a movie, we never see it again. If we're playing flippy-channels and run across it, we don't stop because "we have that on DVD" and we never seem to pop in the DVD. I don't know why, I'm sure, but we don't.

So please don't buy me this.

Every year on Independence Day, NPR staffers* read the Declaration of Independence from start to finish. I more or less plan my 4th of July morning around hearing that and by the time we get to with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor, I'm all teary eyed. In fact, I'm a little verklempt just typing that phrase.

There's something about that document that appeals to so many parts of my personality: the need to lay before other nations a tidy list; the "if we don't hang together we shall surely hang separately" teamwork; and the willingness to put their names to it and take the consequences. They were far from perfect, but they were better men, and far more heroic, than I.

The Declaration itself tells us early on that our country will never be perfect or even not hypocritical: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. In the 18th Century the set of "all men" - at least in Virginia - meant all male, white, Protestant, landowners over the age of 21. The rest of us were not so equal. And many of us are still not so equal.

So we'll never be perfect but we keep trying. Jefferson said “I am among those who think well of the human character generally. I consider man as formed for society, and endowed by nature with those dispositions which fit him for society… his mind is perfectible to a degree of which we cannot as yet form any conception.” But now I'm digressing into the Constitution, which for some reason I find less stirring.

Anyway, if you miss the reading tomorrow morning, the text is available on The Archives Declaration page.

Of course, if you're shopping, I wouldn't mind this.

*On-air staffers, of course, I never get to hear Stacey or Bej reciting our grievances, more's the pity. Although if they did, and if I got to choose which one Stacey would read, well, duh, it would have to be For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury because that would sound as though my G&S-hating pal were decrying the absence of that operetta. Which would be so neat.