Sarcasm - also free

Let me start this out by saying that British Airways is a great way for Celiacs to travel. On their "manage my reservation" page, one can opt for "medical meals" which include gluten-free ones. If the request is made within 24-hours of flight time there is no guarantee that it will be honored, but they do what they can. My request was made at prett' near the 24-hour mark, but my meal made it on board, for which I am grateful.

Everyone got that? Okay, back to being snarky.

It was meal time and the dinner carts were coming up the aisle. The stewardess asked me if I would like beef or chicken and I told her that, uhm, I was supposed to have a gluten-free meal. I suspect that I was her first ever Celiac passenger because she smiled sweetly at me in a "don't mess with me, this is a long flight" kind of way and said, even more sweetly, that the chicken was free. And would I like some free wine as well?

And, you know, this just didn't seem like the right time to start educating the cabin staff about my RBAD*, so I just accepted the tray that she was trying to hand me.

Then I started trying to hand her back all the things on the tray that I couldn't eat, starting with the roll.

This seemed to cause a penny to drop somewhere, possibly as the cabin staff connected the nuisance in seat 46J with the medical meal in 46J. Oh yeah. So the correct tray was brought to the stewardess who, rather chastened, handed it to me with an apologetic smile. I, of course, was graciousness itself in accepting both my correct meal and the unspoken repentance.

And - for the curious - I had:

Chicken in tomato sauce;
Salad with a lemony olive oil dressing;
A gluten-free dinner roll;
A small bowl of fruit - pineapple, I think? (It's been several days since then.)
A little bag of dried fruit;
Vanilla pudding;
A gluten-free brownie; and
A full split of wine.

Well done, Brit Air!!



*Rather Boring Autoimmune Disorder

It does say it all

Gwyn found this and sent it to me and a few other folks. And while I agree with most of it, the last paragraph really spoke to me. Now matter which side of the aisle the people you voted for sit on, we're all in this together.

It's not over. One election doesn't solve anything--no matter who you elect, that candidate still has to live up to his promise. No matter what change you want, you have to get out there and make it yourself. But for the first time in a very long time, it felt like the country had opened its eyes again and remembered its name.

The Morning After on Cleolinda's LJ.

Dear Building Management

Dear Building Management ~

Thank you for the new "Water Management" showerhead which I found installed when I got home today. It's very pretty with all that shiny chrome.

It's also a "low-flow" showerhead, of course. "20 GMP Max" according to the showerhead. So I am writing this note to clear up your possible puzzlement about the upcoming increase in my water usage. I have pretty thick hair and a low-flow showerhead really doesn't get shampoo out of it in any kind of timely fashion and I find that my only solution is to just stay under the damn thing for however long it takes, so my showers will be getting longer.

Signed,

Leta the Tenant


Dear Rest of the World ~

If you have any ideas how I can crack this puppy open and remove whatever blocks the flow of water or reduces the water pressure or whatever, I'd be interested to hear it.

Leta teh pruney

Election Day

A good friend, whose opinions I otherwise respect, doesn't vote saying that if G-d has intended for us to vote, he'd give us real candidates...

Well,...If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Free Will by Rush

There are those who think that life is nothing left to chance
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.

A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive.
"The stars aren't aligned
Or the gods are malign"
Blame is better to give than receive.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will.

There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,
The cards were stacked against them
They weren't born in lotus land.

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate.

Kicked in the face,
You can pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will.

Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete.
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will.

Reminder

(Martha Raye & William Katt in "Pippin.")


"No Time at All"

When you are as old as I, my dear
And I hope that you never are
You will woefully wonder why, my dear
Through your cataracts and catarrh
You could squander away or sequester
A drop of a precious year
For when your best days are yester
The rest'er twice as dear....

What good is a field on a fine summer night
When you sit all alone with the weeds?
Or a succulent pear if with each juicy bite
You spit out your teeth with the seeds?
Before it's too late stop trying to wait
For fortune and fame you're secure of
For there's one thing to be sure of, mate:
There's nothing to be sure of!

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

I've never wondered if I was afraid
When there was a challenge to take
I never thought about how much I weighed
When there was still one piece of cake
Maybe it's meant the hours I've spent
Feeling broken and bent and unwell
But there's still no cure more heaven-sent
As the chance to raise some hell

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

Now when the drearies do attack
And a siege of the sads begins
I just throw these noble shoulders back
And lift these noble chins
Give me a man who is handsome and strong
Someone who's stalwart and steady
Give me a night that's romantic and long
And give me a month to get ready
Now I could waylay some aging roue
And persuade him to play in some cranny
But it's hard to believe I'm being led astray
By a man who calls me granny

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

Sages tweet that age is sweet
Good deeds and good work earns you laurels
But what could make you feel more obsolete
Than being noted for your morals?

Here is a secret I never have told
Maybe you'll understand why
I believe if I refuse to grow old
I can stay young till I die
Now, I've known the fears of sixty-six years
I've had troubles and tears by the score
But the only thing I'd trade them for
Is sixty-seven more....

Oh, it's time to keep livin'
Time to keep takin' from this world we're given
You are my time, so I'll throw off my shawl
And watching your flings be flung all over
Makes me feel young all over

Asking permission

Sally, Paul, David, and I went to Christine Lavin's concert at the Barns of Wolf Trap last night and during intermission I got to distribute Christine's homemade Barackolate Chip Cookies.* She gave away copies of the recipe as well and I've written her an e-mail asking for her permission to post it here because it sounds yummy and is fun to read.

Fingers are crossed that permission is granted because, well, read this excerpt and you'll see what I mean:

"Mix all the chips together in a separate bowl, stir them around -- look, all different color chips! And they're all gettting along peacefully, like our Founding Fathers hoped we would."**

Clearly this is the cookie recipe American needs this week.


*Guess how she'll be voting on Tuesday...

**Formatting Chistine's.

Words of Power

Ever wonder how I end up going from show to show to show? I finally figured it out. Using the phrase "I'm not doing anything right now, so my time is wide open" brings any "theater break" to an end within 48 hours. I might as well be lighting black candles and sprinkling chicken's blood around me in a circle.

Reconciliation

After Serge, in an act of pure madness, had demonstrated to Marc that he cared more about him than he did about this painting, we went and had dinner, chez Emile. Over dinner, Serge and Marc made the decision to try to reconstruct a relationship destroyed by word and deed.

At one point, one of them used the expression "trial period" and I burst into tears.

This expression, "trial period" applied to our friendship, set off in me an uncontrollable and ridiculous convulsion.

In fact, I can no longer stand any kid of rational argument, nothing formative in this world, nothing great or beautiful in this world has ever been born of rational argument.

from "Art" by Yasmina Reza

Operetta Geeks for Obama!

So there I am reading my (as usual) somewhat outdated copy of Time magazine and what should I find in the October 6, 2008 issue? Why, this picture taken in Nobleville, Indiana.

Now, if we ignore the subject of the photo and concentrate on the young lady smiling at her, the alert reader will notice that the young lady's t-shirt has a picture of a (wait for it...) pirate on it and that the particularly alert reader can make out the last syllable of the name of a certain Cornish port made famous in a certain piece of 19th century musical theater.

Frankly, I am a little surprised that Obama's crack campaign staff didn't notice this as well and make a more serious effort to lock in the operetta vote. Sprinking G&S quotes into his speeches, for instance, would have gone a long way in that direction.

This, for instance, springs to mind:

When all night long a chap remains
On sentry-go, to chase monotony
He exercises of his brains,
That is, assuming that he's got any.
Though never nurtured in the lap
Of luxury, yet I admonish you,
I am an intellectual chap,
And think of things that would astonish you.
I often think it's comical--Fal, lal, la!
How Nature always does contrive--Fal, lal, la!
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal, lal, la!

When in that House M.P.'s divide,
If they've a brain and cerebellum, too,
They've got to leave that brain outside,
And vote just as their leaders tell 'em to.
But then the prospect of a lot
Of dull M. P.'s in close proximity,
All thinking for themselves, is what
No man can face with equanimity.
Then let's rejoice with loud Fal la--Fal la la!
That Nature always does contrive--Fal lal la!
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal lal la!

On accuracy

Among the FSS (Frequently Said Stuff) at rehearsals is the reminder that the author chose those words for a reason and that we're not working from the first draft.*

We all try for accuracy, some more successfully than others. When I was Production Minion for the Stage's production of "Art," I rode book for the guys at rehearsals, took line notes, and would e-mail them the corrections. One e-mail, entitled "Towards Zero," contained exactly six corrections, and all of them were happy/glad-level** paraphrases.

Not every show is that close. Not by a long shot. And I know some actors who are so famous for their paraphrasing that I joke that the program should credit them as co-authors. And that they have masters degrees in MSU (Making Stuff Up).***

So I was interested to run across this interview with Ayre Gross as part of a critique of Donald Margulies' Brooklyn Boy. After all, the most recent show in which I tried to deliver the dialogue with any kind of accuracy was Margulies' Dinner with Friends. Nice to know that he would have appreciated our (not always 100% effective, but sincere) efforts to present the script as written.

“How interested was he in the actors being faithful to his dialogue?”

“Oh, it's not even a question. I think everyone in the room understands that the language the playwright uses is not just the broad ideas. That there can be as much meaning in the syntax, or in the rhythms the playwright has written, as in the broader meanings of the theme. There was never any kind of 'we’ll improvise something here.'”

On rare occasions Margulies would solicit advice from the actors.

“Did he accept your suggestions?”

“He definitely responded to, but it was not like anyone ever went in and said, 'Listen, Donald, this is what I want to say here.'”

*I'm pretty sure that the latter truism is mine. Just one of my many contributions to the American theater.

**When happy is substituted for glad, a word with roughly the same meaning. A very small change, in other words.

***I have a pretty wit. A pretty, pretty wit.

This seems familiar. Too familiar.

Christopher Stasheff wrote a series of SF/fantasy books back in the 80s about a interstellar agent who fetches up on a planet called Graymarye which is a semi, kinda, sorta medieval society.* Pretty much, as I like to say, what would happen if Markland and the SCA had their own world. Or if Renn Faire was alway and everywhere.

The one that I am reading now is the second in the series, King Kobold Revived. Most of the characters speak rather "yeomanly" but Rod Gallowglass, our hero, speaks in very idiomatic late 20th Century English, as does Yorick, a time traveling Neanderthal**, in case the following excerpt sounds a bit peculiar.

...."There's that little matter of the rumor he's supposed to circulate," [Rod] reminded Tuan.
Yorick shrugged. "That you and your army have really come just to oust Mughorck, isn't it? Not to wipe out the local citizenry?"
"Thou hast it aright."
"But you do understand," Yorick pointed out, "that they'll have to fight until they kow Mughorck's been taken, don't you? I mean, if they switched to your side and he won, it could be very embarrassing for them -- not to mention their wives and children."
"Assuredly," Tuan agreed. "Nay, I hope only that, when they know Mughorck is ta'en, they'll not hesitate to lay down their arms."
"I have a notion that most of them will be too busy cheering to think about objecting."
" 'Tis well. Now..." Tuan leaned forward, eyes glittering. "How can we be sure of taking Mughorck?"
"An we wish a quick ending to this battle," Brom explained, "we cannot fight through the whole mass of beastmen to reach him.

" 'The High Cave'?" Tuan frowned. "What is that?"
"Just the highest cave in the cliff-wall. When we first arrived we all camped out in caves, and Eagle took the highest one so he could see the whole picture of what was going on. When the rank and file moved out into huts, he stayed there -- so Mughorck will have to have moved in there, to use the symbol of possession to reinforce his power."
"Well reasoned," Brom rumbled, "but how if thou'rt mistaken?"
Yorick shrugged. "Then we keep looking till we find him. We shouldn't have too much trouble; I very much doubt that he'd be at the front line."

*Amazon's description: Gramarye is a forgotten colony of Earth, an abandoned planet of telepathic outlaws, where elves and witches are real, and the fantasies of the Middle Ages endure.

**Yeah. Don't ask.

For my friends who are parents

And there are many of them and they are very good parents. Bless their hearts.

I’m nearly a decade into parenting, if you factor in pregnancy (and I choose to, because I view pre-natal vitamins as the preparation for a lifetime of sacrifice). So it’s embarassing to admit what just occurred to me as I doled out food that morning to various mammals: parenting is the only job besides combat soldier where you wake up on the job. Sure, some lawyers work punishing hours and have been known to sleep at the office on occasion, but no one has ever walked into their bedroom in the dark of night and demanded a re-analysis of tort reform.

Not only do you wake up on the job, you frequently wake up to information which would make a lesser person try to hide in the box with the ski-clothes. Which parent among us hasn’t awakened to the fact that a) There’s a lot of vomit in their house, b) It’s someone else's vomit, and c) It’s their job to take care of both the vomit and the person who is currently generating more vomit. And need it be said that a sleepless night or two with children hosting an especially energetic stomach virus – one that causes the washing-machine to actually die from overuse – should result in a little extra bonus in ones parenting paycheck? Of course, in the real world, the extra bonus is the parent getting the stomach flu, which arrives the morning the parent has signed on to monitor a field-trip to a pig farm.

"For What It's Worth" from The QC Report blogged by Quinn Cummings.

Posted while listening, no kidding, to "Sweet Child of Mine" on the radio...

For Lori

A friend passed away on Saturday, much too young.


Borrowed Time by David Moreau

I will not die tonight
I will lie in bed with
my wife beside me,
curled on the right
like an animal burrowing.
I will fit myself against her
and we will keep each other warm.

I will not die tonight.
My son who is seven
will not slide beneath the ice
like the boy on the news.
The divers will not have to look
for him in cold water.
He will call, "Daddy, can I get up now?"
in the morning.

I will not die tonight.
I will balance the checkbook,
wash up the dishes
and sit in front of the TV
drinking one beer.

For the moment I hold a winning ticket.
It's my turn to buy cold cuts
at the grocery store.
I fill my basket carefully.

For like the rain that comes now
to the roof and slides down the gutter
I am headed to the earth.
And like the others, all the lost
and all the lovers, I will follow
an old path not marked on any map.

Hiatus

"On a break" is community theater for "spend more time with my family" which is politics for "unemployed."

Feel free to suggest dinner dates and movie nights...

Walking to work

My apartment is a mile from my office. There are lots of things that are good about this - I like living close in - but the best is that when the weather is nice and I don't have time pressures afterwards, I can walk to work. This is good for my pocketbook (the price of gas); the environment (the use of gas); and my figure (burning calories instead of gas).

Until recently I walked to work accompanied only by whatever reading material I had on me. This is a mixed blessing as one of the bigger stressors on my mother during my formative years was her belief that she had witnessed me crossing Colesvillle Road with, as she put it, my nose stuck in a book. More than once.

Oh, as if. That would have been dangerous.

Besides, I was crossing this*:

not this:



The fact that my co-workers have claimed to see me do the same thing here:


lends no credibility whatsoever to Mom's case.

Anyway, David recently upgraded to a newer, fancier, yadda, yadda iPod and, being the nice sort that he is, gave me his old one rather than tossing into a drawer or something. I call it myPod.

So now my walks to work have a soundtrack. I listed to podcasts of This American Life and Selected Shorts and am enjoying them so much that I sent a little money to WBEZ to help pay for them. (You're welcome.)** And a walk that takes about 25-ish minutes while reading takes about 20 minutes while listening, which is also good for my figure.

I suspect that the number of days that I walk will drop with the temperature, but for now walking around in the lovely autumn weather is a definite good. ++good, in fact.


*And pretty nearly exactly there, as a matter of fact. Just a little bit beyond the white car on the left.

**Yes, I realize that the WBEZ contribution is only for TAL. When I can, I'll pony up for SelSho.

FAQ

Along with "Where is your coat?"* and "So what show are you working on now?"


Where Are Your Shoes by Charlotte Erickson

There's a rusty water pump
And a bright black snake
Along this dusty road
Child, where are your shoes?

There are fallen coconuts
And huge heaps of garbage
Under this blazing sun
Child, where are your shoes?

There are elephants strolling
And baby goats roaming
Through this tiny village
Child, where are your shoes?

There's a dirty face
And one small, outstretched hand
On a beautiful girl
But child, where are your shoes?


*From November-ish to April-ish, in the back of the car.

Just in time for NaNoWriMo

From "The Writer's Almanac":

Lester Dent wrote more than a thousand pulp fiction stories, all with the same formula, which he detailed in an article that explained an exact formula for writing a 6,000-word pulp story.

Here is the formula for the first 1,500 words:

1. First line, or as near thereto as possible, introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a problem to be solved — something the hero has to cope with.
2. The hero pitches in to cope with his fistful of trouble. (He tries to fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem.)
3. Introduce ALL the other characters as soon as possible. Bring them on in action.
4. Hero's endeavors land him in an actual physical conflict near the end of the first 1,500 words.
5. Near the end of first 1,500 words, there is a complete surprise twist in the plot development.

Gulp

My 401(K) - or as a friend in an e-mail yesterday called it, his 201(K) and soon to be 01(K) - balance has been dropping in a sickening kind of way. For instance, I've lost $8,644.21 since Monday. This past Monday. Two days ago.

I'm down $34K and change since June. My little pile of "if cat food, at least name brand rather than store brand cat food" retirement savings is back to where it was in January of 2006. I've lost 33 months and yet don't feel any younger.

My Boss says $2 Trillion dollars has evaporated from domestic retirement accounts. Two Trillion.

One of our staffers is closing and emptying her 401(K) because she says she'd rather pay it in penalties and taxes than have it simply disappear on its own. And because, I suppose, she intends to put the sad remains under her mattress. (My investment club calls that Locking In the Loss.) No, I do not recommend this course of action.

So it's not too surprising that this clause from a kinda recent (September 29th) Time magazine article by Andy Serwer and Allan Sloan about Current Unpleasantness caught my eye:

While we're trying to get our heads around what amounts to the biggest debt transfer since money was created,...

Collateral benefits

For me: After making so many Lemon Almond Polenta cakes - at three eggs each - I've actually mastered the ability to crack an egg into a bowl one handed.

For the audience: I have to bring a complete cake for each performance, of which only slightly more than 1/4 is plated. So our lovely stage manager, Jason, slices and puts out the remainder in the refreshment area during intermission. Come to see the show and you might get to try the cake if you're quick enough.

Annual Performance Review

My Boss won't let use the following answers in my self-evaluation. Such as a pity, as it would be the most concise and honest one I'd ever written.


Accomplishments during last review period: Didn't piss anyone off so much that they felt that had to fire me.

Goals/objectives for coming review period: See above.

Shakespeare put it best

"See what a grace was seated on this brow...."

"Like a mildew'd ear"*

Even if Richard had not been piteously slain and murdered, he'd still be long dead, I agree. Either way, yesterday was his 556th birthday.

(Hamlet, of course, not Richard III. Act III, scene iv)

*By far, my favorite comparison in all of His Bardness's work. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Nope, much better to compare a king to a mildew'd ear. Good one, Will!

Best work quote of the day (so far)

You're screaming at the choir here!

How to have a successful community theater career

Own enough underpinnings that you don't have to do laundry too often.

Make sure that you have enough big girl panties to get you through the most stressful Tech Week. 'Cause you're never stressed alone.

How to convince me to go somewhere

5 e-mails:

From Carol in NYC:

Leta,

Would you have any interest in going to Torquay in November? The reason I ask is that Claire and I have been trying to think of someone who would be a really congenial third person in our rental car...and I KNOW you would enjoy it! Meriel is also a possibility, and you'd like her, too.

Just a thought...happy to provide details.

XX,

C

From Claire somewhere in England:

It would be great if you could join us, Leta. UK Qwerts are extremely silly, with a good deal of fooling about. If you can make a friend giggle in the *middle* of their aria with a smart remark, so much the better.

Driving down, it is obligatory to sing along with whatever I chose to put on the CD player - preferably loudly and out of tune, and also to share as much shameless gossip as possible, and if you don't have any, make it up !

Claire
xx

From me to Jackie, our hostess in Torquay

Carol and Claire are doing a very fine job of convincing me to attend Torqwert V, so I'm information-gathering before I give them a solid "yes" or "no" today.

So, uhm, is there room for me? I am willing to share if someone was hoping for a roommate.

And (here's the fun one) I have Celiac Disease, which is an allergy to gluten which is found in wheat, barley, rye, spelt, and a few other grains which makes feeding me a special challenge. I can send over a small box with a loaf of bread and a couple of other things that I can have if that would help. And I spend a lot of time reading labels on food. Fortunately, I am asymptomatic, so it's not that I'd need to be rushed to the hospital if I accidentally eat the wrong thing. And think how much beer you'll save, although I'll make it up in Whisky.

I hope all is well with y'all. It's definitely been too long since we've seen each other.

Love,

Leta

From Jackie in Torquay:

Yes, yes, yes. Of course we have room for you. Please come, especially if you don't mind sharing.

I know all about Celiac Disease as my brother-in-law is a really bad sufferer. Also, running a hotel you do get lots of people with special dietary needs. You don't need to send over a box - we can get gluten free stuff here which I will gladly get in for you.

Book that flight at once.

Love

Jackie and Bob

From me to Carol and Claire:

It looks like I'm in!

I'm am smiling so broadly right now....


Where I'm going: The Torcroft Hotel on the English Riviera
Why I'm going: TorQWERT V

I'm going to surrounded by friends old and new, I'm going to sing a bunch of G&S, I'm going to be able to eat without bringing my own food, and I'm leaving the country again before my passport expires.

It's been kind of a stressful summer but I am really starting to look forward to the Autumn.

This means something, I just don't know what

The new e-mail notification always makes me happy, thinking that it might be something good, either work-wise or socially.

The phone ringing gives me the opposite feeling, whether it's the phone on my desk or my mobile.

Text messages - even though they come through my phone - also make me happy. Even though I don't usually know who they are from.

Field Trip!

Or "The Humanities Major Infiltrates a Really Cool Government Facility" ...

Every now and then working with engineers pays off. For instance, the other day I got this in my e-mail:

Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 7:02 PM
Subject: You are invited by the IEEE/AESS and IEEE/ GRSS to Tour NASA on 9/16/08

Next Meeting: Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 10am

Topic: “NASA Technical Tour, Integration and Testing Facilities & Hubble Cleanroom ”

Presenter: NASA, sponsored by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing and Aerospace Electronics and Systems Societies

Location: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

About the Tour: See how NASA builds, tests, and prepares for satellite missions.

Cost: Free

Naturally, I wrote back and asked to be included because how often does an English/Humanities Major get to tour science geekery on this level? I billed myself (to my bosses anyway) as the "corporate representative" to the tour and e-mailed the following to my friend Tim who is an astrophysicist at Goddard: "By the way, I'll be at Goddard for the IEEE tour on September 16th. No points for guessing who will be the only non-engineer there." and we made a date for lunch.

Finally, I would be going somewhere besides my office where my badge (or as I call it, my geek tag) would be considered fashion-wear.

The tour invitation got such a good response that the organizers had to break it up and do it over three days, so I got moved to September 17th. My goal was to not stand out as the Humanities Major in the room, so this morning I got up all bright and lark-like and selected an outfit from the non-Jane Austen end of my wardrobe spectrum: Black slacks, black v-neck shirt, maroon sweater, and flats. Good for walking around in, not likely to interfere with eqiupment that might cost multiples of my annual salary.

We started the tour in the Visitor's Center and proceeded to the theater where they have the Science on a Sphere (SOS) display. According to the brochure, SOS is not revolting breakfast fare but "a suspended 6-foot diameter sphere that displays 3D animated data of the planets, moons, and our earth. The GSFC production crew has also made the first movie to be seen on the SOS called 'Footprints'." Very, very cool. We got to see - among other things - weather patterns from over the past couple of months (think Gustav and Hanna and Ike*) up to that morning. When the guy behind me misinterpreted the data and said we were looking at "today" before we were I was the one who quietly corrected, "no, that's August." "Oh, so it is." He is a scientist. My cover remained intact.

After the SOS we boarded a couple of shuttles and were taken into GSFC proper and into Building 7/10 & 29.

Ahem:

The Building 7/10 Spacecraft Test and Integration Facility contains cleanrooms for spacecraft integration and special chambers for environmental test of spacecraft. Nine thermal-vacuum chambers, four large vibration platforms("shakers"), and an acoustic test chamber capable of 150 decibels are located in this facility. There is also a full-scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Building 29 Spacecraft Systems Development and Integration Facility is a 7990 m² facility that contains one of the largest cleanrooms in the world. The High Bay Cleanroom is a 1,161 square metres (12,500 sq ft), class 1,000 (M4.5), horizontal flow cleanroom measuring 30.5 x 38 x 27 meters (100'x125'x89'). Its five 250 horsepower fans are capable of moving 25,388 m³/min (900,000 ft³/min). It has been designed to support the integration and testing of flight hardware and has the capacity to accommodate two full-sized shuttle payloads simultaneously and plays a major role in preparations for the Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Missions.

(Thanks, Wikipedia.)

Specifically, the Cleanroom is the largest known Cleanroom in the world. Its 9 stories high, so pretty much everything connected to it just looks freakin' big. I am convinced that I passed a drawer on the tour labeled "Big A$$ Wrenches." (The drawer for sockets, alas, was merely labled "Sockets.") Sort of sums up the experience, right there.

There is a smell common to government facilities. It's not a bad smell, but it is very specific. It's kind of a mix of plastic, metal, and recycled air, with maybe just a soupçon of ozone. I've smelled it when Dad took me on Navy ships and I've smelled it a few other places and it's there at Goddard. Maybe it's the smell of our tax dollars working very hard for us.**

Anyway, we were also taken to see the vibration platforms, the thermal test chambers, and ... the acoustic test chamber. The rule at GSFC is that if there is something that can be tested before an object is shot into space to roam the galaxies at 172kph, they test it. Hence, the acoustic test chamber. Picture loud. Picture the speakers that your most annoying neighbor ever owned. Now picture that speaker being, oh, 10 - 12 feet across. That huge freakin' speaker was quite a few feet overhead and we could only see the back of it and the several feet of business end that was resting on a platform overhead. We walked into the room that leads to the acoustic test chamber, our guide pointed up to the speaker and the group reaction was pretty much "Whoa!" I still tend to think "Whoa!" as I remember it.

Our guide told us that nearby staffers usually find a reason to be out of the building when things are being acoustically tested.

The last stop on our trip was the cyclatron, which a) is huge and b) can spin things up to a rate of 6g. Yep. Six times the gravity of the earth. Humans tend to pass out at 3g. Oddly enough, our guide wouldn't let us ride the cyclatron, but did point out the big mark on the wall from the last time that someone started the device without being 100% positive that everything was completely secured. We all agreed that a good goal was to not be the last signature on the checklist for that event.

As I was leaving the building it began to occur to me that those payloads must find space very restful after all the testing they go through in Greenbelt.

After our tour, I met my college friend Tim for lunch and although I'm sure that the other people enjoyed the tour very much, they didn't get to have lunch with Tim afterwards, so I can only pity them. Tim, who is both wicked smart and a nearly professional story-teller, is a very entertaining lunch companion. With my theater schedule and his two daughters starting their teenage years, we don't see each other nearly often enough.

Goddard hosted "LaunchFest" this past weekend and from what our guide told us, they had a good enough response that they'll do it again, possibly next year. If you get the chance, go. Maybe they'll let you ride the cyclatron...


*No, no, not "Gustav and Walter and Franz." Be serious.

**It is not, as Apocalypse Now teaches us, the smell of victory, as that has a strong napalm aroma.

Appetite grows by what it feeds on?

Desire has no object, only a singular cause: desire desires its own cause in order ever to perpetuate itself. The ego experiences desire in the form of psychological contents (”wishes”). The subject of the unconscious does not have desire - it is desire.

From Journal of Thieves

My alma mater, not my year

David likes to check out the antique photos on Shorpy. Today he sent me this one of the archery team, cheekily labeled "I'm With Cupid."

Montgomery Blair High School girls, 1935

Band Camp for Operetta Geeks

"...the all-time nerdiest thing I've ever been involved in, and I say that as a person who has been involved with public radio and marching band." Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot

I don't know which of my geeky hobbies would win for all-time nerdiest thing I've ever been involved in, but I suspect that the hot money is on either the historical re-enactment, the D&D, or the G&S Sing-Outs.

Or, as I put it in an e-mail to David:

Doug is also talking about coming. Largely, I bet, because in our ongoing "you are such a geek" conversations, he thinks that witnessing me singing G&S will count as a critical hit. As if. Anyway, he'll probably come to his senses and bail but if he doesn't, I can introduce you and you can protect each other from the G&S freaks and their show-themed t-shirts.*

Before I go any further, of course, I must mention that my D&D, G&S, and Re-enactment friends are among the finest, kindest, loveliest people I know. Smart and creative, too. And I do not make fun of them while standing superiorly apart. I am deep in their midst where I am happy and at home. But let's face it, any hobby you have to explain to people...

So the 4th Great Gilbert & Sullivan Sing-Out was held over the last weekend in August and I got to immerse myself in a full weekend with friends who get most of my references and are not only willing but happy to hang around talking about G&S and bursting into song. We infested the Rockville Civic Center's F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater and sang our hearts out.

Some highlights:

- Seeing Long-Distance Kate. I haven't seen Kate since she moved to Louisville nearly a decade ago. Since last we met she has acquired the love of her life and two daughters. Her sons - who I knew as little boys - are men. Good-looking men. One of them is engaged. Where did the years go?

- Seeing Local Kate. She lives less than five miles from me and yet we never see each other. Kate brought her daughter Ali who was 8 the last time I saw her a few minutes ago. She is now 15. Fast few minutes. I caught up with Kate and Ali and asked about Kate's other daughter, Sammy. "So how is the Fairy Princess?" "Exactly." As a toddler and little girl Sammy was dewily emerged from under a drift of flower petals. It seems that at twelve she hasn't changed. Look close in the pictures her mother carries and you can still see the wings, I swear.

- Seeing Debbie. Again, lives here. So we had to pay a bunch of bucks and commit to spending a beautiful weekend indoors to run into each other, but now we have a lunch date for next week. Completely worth it.

- Memorabilia. I finally bought a copy of the third edition of Harry Benford's G&S Lexicon which lists me in the acknowledgements. Why did Harry include me? I dunno. But he did and I feel all famous and learned about it. I've been meaning to pick up a copy for a while (I have an earlier edition), and now I have one. That fact that I am thanked and Larry isn't is probably the most surreal thing about G&S that I can think of.

- Buttons. We - of course! - sold buttons*** that VLOC folks made. When we were planning the last Sing-Out Denise mentioned that we'd need ideas for buttons. "Hand me a pen." quoth I. And a couple of minutes later I had listed a dozen which had sold handily. This time I e-mailed my suggestions in and ditto. Buttons are how geeks self-identify.

- All that singing. We sang all of them. All thirteen operettas. Sometimes I sang from the back of the house, sometimes from the stage, sometimes from the front of the house. But the absolute best was sitting on the risers during Pirates and just listening to the men. The men's chorus music in Pirates is so lovely, so lyrical, and from where I was I could hear those gorgeous, gorgeous harmonies. And this Baritone-preferring soprano just fell in love with the tenors because they earned it. They were glorious. And I could turn around and tune into each voice as I chose, so I got to hear old and dear friends like Les and Lyle because no matter how glorious the tenors are, a baritone's a baritone.

- And more singing. Sullivan might just as well have written in an alto and soprano line for certain pieces. "Cat like tread" and "The March of the Peers" are two of them. Tantantara! Tzing! Boom!

- The re-writes. Gary had a verse as the Major-General's song, which he has given me permission to post here. He and Local Kate wrote the lyrics together and smartly decided that as Pirates would commence somewhere after 10:00 at night, he would sing this instead of the traditional 3rd verse, not after it. Fabulous!!

When I can be a part of VLOC's Sing-Out here in Maryland,
And yodel thirteen op-er-as, from piracy to Fairyland,
When I can wrap my tongue around the issues in this patter song,
And listen as Kate Huntress-Reeve contributes to the Matter song...

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern scholarship,
When Blair Eig sings the Roulette song and pockets a ten-dollar chip,
And when the Sing-Out's finished, all the fun and games will melt away...
When I am in my Lexus doing 80 on the Belt-a-way!

(When he is in his Lexus...)

It's often hard to think of rhymes that make the lyrics up to date,
But Kate and I collaborated! Now I fear it's getting late,
And so in making up a verse to (hopefully) amuse you all,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

I'm already looking forward to the next one in, I think, 2012. Must start warming up.


*As it turned out, Doug did have to bail, largely because his schedule was OBE. Rather a pity as he missed some damn fine singing** by some damn fine people.

**None of it, alas, by me. I clearly need to sing more as I was sorrily out of voice.

***Or, as I think of them now, "real live Flair."

My favorite thing about Pink's "So What"

She calls her ex a "tool." You just don't hear that enough in pop music.

Mm, cake!

Beth: Oh, that looks so good, what is it?
Gabe: Limone-mandorle-polenta.
Beth: Mandorle?
Gabe: Almond.
Beth: Mm.
Karen: Instead of white flour, you use polenta.
Beth: Oooh, what a good idea.
Gabe: And six eggs.
Karen: It's very eggy.
Gabe: And a ton of butter.
Beth: Mm, it's delicious.

Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies


Okay, so the girl with the annoying food allergy is doing a food show. Specifically, I'm doing a show where cast members drink coffee, eat cake, drink wine, eat salad, etc. In general - and I can do this because I'm asymptomatic, which means that I don't get actively sick if I eat something gluten-y - if my character needs to eat something, I eat it. But if there's an easy work-around, why not take it?

I asked Craig, our director, what he was planning to do about the one of the items that I am required to eat - the cake. He thought that he'd probably just ask the Properties Designer (the person in community theater responsible for things that carried, moved, eaten, etc by actors) to get a yellow cake. "Or I could get a gluten-free cake mix and be responsible for the cake."

I am usually happy to be responsible for: learning my lines, learning my blocking, showing up on time, and, um, performing. I am usually very resistant to being responsible for anything external to that. Why? Largely, because I am very lazy.

But I actually do like to cook and rarely get to do it. So the chance to cook and do a show, well, I volunteered to provide some of the food for a food show.

Gotta love the internet. Go to Google and type in lemon almond polenta cake and then just scroll through the returns (go ahead, I'll wait). Something I'd never heard of before I first read Dinner with Friends back in 2004 and something that had no real resonance for me before I went gluten-free (mostly) in 2005 is all over the web. I read lots of recipes, eliminated the ones that called for "flour", focused on ones that looked reasonably simple, and settled on this one from Nibb'lous.

It's a very easy recipe to make. Frankly, the hardest part was translating the measurements from grams to ounces, which wasn't even necessary as my measuring cup has both.

Some thoughts:

- If the recipe calls for softened butter, than the very first thing to do is put the two sticks of butter (the half-pound of butter*) in the bowl you'll be using and leave it on the counter as you create your mise.

- The Whole Foods near my place doesn't carry caster, or superfine, sugar, so I made my own by running regular sugar through the coffee grinder. This idea may also be all over the internet, but I thought of it myself. (When I am not busy being a complete idiot, I occasionally guest as a genius.)

- If the ingredients are listed in metric, then perhaps the oven temp will be as well. The cake takes an impressively long time to bake at half the correct oven temp. (And, thus, we are back to idiot.)

- I made a glaze for the top but instead of lemons I used key limes (donated to the cause by Mattie), sugar, and titch of cornstarch. Tastes lovely. Boils in nothing flat. Do not turn your back on it.

- None of the recipes I found suggest using a parchment round in the bottom of the pan, but good luck getting the cake out in one piece without one.

- With all that butter and all those eggs, this is one really moist cake, which a good thing as far as eating on stage is concerned.

The second time I made the cake, I set the oven to the correct temperature. Worked out much better. Mattie and I tasted attempt #1 and she gave me some good feedback. Laura, Sally, David, and I tasted attempt #2 and the rest went to the theater for my castmates to try.

I figured that Andy, who actually has to eat his piece would be given a primary veto. If he hated it, we'd use yellow cake or something similar. Andrea has to eat some of hers as the lights go down, so she got a secondary veto. Doug has to plate it but doesn't intend to eat it so his opinions matter less. Craig, our director, got to try some because I like it when people eat my cooking.

They liked it!

So now I only need to make another 15 or so of them.....


*It's a seven-inch cake tin. That's an Alabama-level of butter in this cake. With the three eggs and the corn meal it just needs to be deep-fried to be an official Mobile recipe. And maybe served with a side of bacon.

Where to find me

The Cameron Highlands Resort.

An interest in tea can take you to the exceptionally beautiful Darjeeling in the northeast of India or Kerala in the south or even to Uganda and Malawi in Africa... And of course, being served afternoon tea in ravishingly lovely hill country -- well, what could be more glorius?

Caroline Grayburn of Tim Best Travel.


My schedule:

Morning - get up, drink local tea. Look at pretty scenery.
Noon-ish (flexible) - have lunch and tea.
Early afternoon - nap.
Afternoon - Afternoon Tea amid the pretty scenery.
Evening - Cocktails and dinner.
Night - tea and a book.


I think I can be packed in about 10 minutes.

My candidate

After much thought, I've decided to lend my support in this election to the Surprise Party. Technically, they haven't run for office since 1940 and their candidate, Gracie Allen, has been dead for over 40 years, but it would make me feel so much better to Vote for Gracie than anyone else I can think of.

She ran a positive enough campaign even for Brett.

In all seriousness, though, like Brett I'd far rather people try to convince me to vote for rather than against. And Gracie's campaign was no more insubstantial than the 3rd grade bickering we're getting from the current crop.

Vote for Gracie!

Leta > Leta > Leta

Leta is busier than I am, but I am busier than Leta.

Just because I miss it so

And because some days the thought of "shipwrecked and comatose" doesn't sound so bad.

The Red Dwarf Theme Song



It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere,
I'm all alone, more or less,
Let me fly, far away from here,
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun.

I want to lie shipwrecked and comotose,
Drinking fresh mango juice,
Goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes,
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun.

I’ll pack my bags, and head into hyperspace,
Velocity at time-warp speed.
Spend my days in ultraviolet rays,
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun.

We’ll lock on course, straight through the universe,
You and me, and the galaxy.
Reach the stage, hyperdrive’s engaged,
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun,
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun.


Maybe I should just get the DVDs....

Happy Birthday, Mr. Mencken

"When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."

H.L. Mencken, The American Language

Both parties would say this proves their point

"America demonstrates invincibly one thing that I had doubted up to now: that the middle classes can govern a State. ... Despite their small passions, their incomplete education, their vulgar habits, they can obviously provide a practical sort of intelligence and that turns out to be enough."

Alexis de Toqueville

This is what comes of allowing poets to write plays

Doug lent me his copy of Under Milk Wood, a play he talks about the way that I talk about Betrayal (except that he has actually directed both of them and knows them better than I ever will). I picked it up to read yesterday in order to clear my "library card" with him (which is written on the front of his script for Dinner with Friends so I remain very aware of it).*

So there I am, sitting in the Starbucks before rehearsal, and I open this thing. As I do so, Laurie swung by on her way to her rehearsal, saw it in my hands and asked "Who's doing that?!" "Nobody. I'm just reading it." "Oh." And off she went.

I read the little essay at the beginning and I read the little guide to Dylan Thomas's Anglo-Welsh pronounciation at the back. And then I needed to head to the theater, so I left the Starbucks and began to read the text as I walked.

Page 1.

To begin at the beginning:
It is Spring, moonless, night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

OMG. I coundn't just read it. No way. I had to hear the words and so, in my walking rhythm, I started to read it a bit aloud.

Page 2.

Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nanny-goats, sucking mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman's lofts like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour. It is to-night in Donkey Stret, trotting silent with seaweed on its hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot, text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercoulers done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy.** It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies.

By now I was at the theater and tracked Laurie down just to tell her that "Oh, my God, I love this play. I'm on page 2 and I love it." "I know!"

During Andy & Andrea's scene, I curled up with in the back of the room, whispering the words like some kind of postulant with her breviary, stoppping only to poke at Doug and point out the amazingness (which he already knew) of bits like --

Mrs Rose Cottage's eldest, Mae, peals off her pink-and-white skin in a furnace in a tower in a cave in a waterfall in a wood and waits there raw as an onion for Mister Right to leap up the burning tall hollow splashes of leaves like a brilliantined trout.

Why he didn't just swat me away remains a mystery.

As I am reading his copy, I get to see all of his edits, directions, and the occasional thought which is the best part of borrowing someone else's script. Mind you, some of his edits make me sad; for good and sufficient reason, for instance, "sloeblack" is gone from the first paragraph. (Would you like to know the good and sufficient reasons? Ask Doug. It is not for me to reproduce them here because what happens in his reheasal hall, etc.) So no "sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack," alas. I may have to just start saying that randomly to myself to replace in the multiverse the number of times that phrase was not said in its entirety in his production. As always, the multiverse can thank me later.

Another nice thing about borrowing someone else's copy is that - unless that person is all German about her script's and book's spinal integrity the way I am - working copies of scripts tend to lie flat on the desk as one is typing out particularly good bits into one's blog.

He pointed out a few characters that he thought I'd play well. I am immensely flattered.

I'm on page 32 right now. There are only 95 pages, alas. I will probably re-read it before I return it. Maybe more than once.

*David is the only other person who refers to my "library card" in casual conversation about borrowed books.

** The next time that I need a screenname for something, I'm thinking that rosytinteacaddy is the way to go, except that a band in New Zealand thought of it first.

Parting

Parting
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

The best thing about working with someone named Rob

-- Is that you can move your action item higher up his to-do list by threatening to use your Laura Petrie voice.

At least it worked for me.

The voices in my head

We had rehearsal this evening - an off-book run of Act I which was less painful than it might have been - so I've been listening to Andrea, Andy, Craig, Doug, and Jason this evening and for the past few weeks. And their voices have imprinted on me.

I find that this is a pretty common thing to have happen. When I did more G&S than just Sing-Outs and Sing-Ins I would end up with the G&S tape loop in my head. I would be trying to fall asleep or in the shower or whatever and, say, the men's chorus would fill my head with 15 1/2 bars of "We sail the ocean blue." That's right 15 *and a half bars*. So no resolution before we're back at the top of whatever section the men felt that I needed to hear right then.

This morning in the shower it was "Welcome, Gentry," in, I am very grateful to say, its entirety. The whole song. But at least it was the whole song. Of course, we got through the whole song several times before the shower was over and many more times on the walk to work.

Normally, one can get rid of brain-gum songs by replacing them with other songs. Worse songs always work the best, of course. But the only music I could come up with right now is other G&S and as "Welcome, Gentry" was playing to completion it seemed the better idea not to rock the boat. I could have had something from The Grand Duke stuck in my head after all.

Anyway.

We were dismissed reasonably early and I was at home, sitting on my sofa, petting my cat, and reading Kitchen Confidential** when I noticed that instead of reading neutrally, the words were in Andrea's voice. Andrea looks nothing like Anthony Bourdain. And she's tons nicer. So I banished her voice from the book.

This was only moderately successful, as Andy replaced her briefly and then Doug. And, in fact, as I was reading an interview at the back of the book, Doug was covering Bourdain and Andy was covering Daniel Halpern. This got to be kind of amusing, especially as I have no idea what Bourdain actually sounds like, so we kept Doug in that role and I started swapping out folks for the interviewer, first Andy, then Craig, then Jason.

I was least successful with Jason because I haven't been listening to him as intently or as long. As either actor or director, I spend a lot of time listening to people talking, saying lines, kidding around. I listen to pace and timbre and rhythm. Eventually the voice imprints on me for the next few weeks. It always starts as I'm reading the script and hear it in the voices of the cast. Eventually they just take over all printed matter and my e-mails are "read" to me by Lorraine or Angie or Cassie or Lori or whomever. Incorruptible had a cast of eight and all eight of them battled for the chance to read Time magazine to me.

It should only take me until about Sunday morning to get the current crowd out of my head. And, naturally, we have rehearsal on Sunday afternoon.....


*"Welcome, Gentry" has my favorite suggestive lyric in all of G&S: "Welcome, gentry / for your entry / sets our tender hearts a-beating." Yeah, don't it just.

**A book that I am finding strangely addictive. I've gulped it down like corn chips, even though Bourdain is pretty much like wasabi peas in terms of his rhetoric.

Pretty song and pretty pictures

94.7 has gone back to an all classic rock format, alas. But look what I can console myself with after hearing too much Journey, Boston, and Tom Petty. I mean, I like them all but toffee for breakfast, toffee for lunch, and toffee for tea....

Still a bad influence

I got to see my friends David and Gwyn this past weekend at the Sing-Out (more on that later) and I got to hang out a bit with their adorable children.

When last I saw D&G, their daughter Dorrie was about 2-ish and their son hadn't even signed in. Dorrie is now 6 and John is about 3. At two Dorrie was a bit shy around strangers - she had a nicely polished, very effective "I don't know you, why are you talking to me" look, but at six she wants to tell you about her missing tooth and the gold dollar the tooth fairy gave her and how she is not going to spend it. John wants to be physically attached in some way because if you are going to like someone, you should really, really like them.*

And as the Baroness remarked about a man finding nothing more irresistible than a woman who's in love with him**, very few adults can fail to be charmed by small children who seem - out of an entire room of grown-ups - to find one's self the most fun to hang with. I know that I can't.

So we hung out and chatted and stuff.

And then I offered the Box Office Ladies coffee. (They were stuck in the box office most of the weekend, so whenever we had food or drinks or anything, we'd always offer some to them. They are very nice to us.) Dorrie and John wanted to help, so it went thus:

Dorrie added the creamer to the cup at my direction;
I swept up the creamer that chose to land on the table instead of in the cup (not Dorrie's fault - it's powdered creamer and you know how that stuff can be);
John supervised.
Dorrie shook down a packet of sugar and added it to the cup;
I told the children to step back from the table and added the coffee;
John supervised.
I stirred the coffee and Dorrie volunteered to carry it over.
John and I ran interference while Dorrie threaded her way with a hot beverage through a room full of oblivious adults;
I remembered to tell her that if the coffee started to slosh too much, she should just walk slower or stop for a second or two;
Dorrie arrived at the box office with no spillage whatsoever and received a very nice thank you from Kathy the Box Office Lady.

A little while later it occured to me that I might have asked their parents before I turned the children into waitstaff but if they are interested in theater, it's probably a good skill set to have.

And it's probably just as well that they are back home and out of my reach lest I teach them how to make Martinis in that same "think of it, do it, consider the implications later" way.


*Which means that John and I have a real bond because as many people can tell you, that's pretty much my M.O. Or, as I put it to Doug, the castmate playing my husband, when he asked about my boundaries regarding staging a scene "well, I'm rather tactile and I pretty much don't have any, so go for it."

**Not my experience at all, by the way, BLTP.***

***"But let that pass." A little rusty on our G&S acronyms? After this past weekend, I'm not. Not at all.

Karen says

Trouble me, disturb me with all your cares and you worries.
Trouble me on the days when you feel spent.
Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden when my back is sturdy and strong?
Trouble me.

Speak to me, don't mislead me, the calm I feel means a storm is swelling;
there's no telling where it starts or how it ends.
Speak to me, why are you building this thick brick wall to defend me when your silence is my greatest fear?
Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden when my back is sturdy and strong?
Speak to me.

Let me have a look inside these eyes while I'm learning.
Please don't hide them just because of tears.
Let me send you off to sleep with a "There, there, now stop your turning and tossing."
Let me know where the hurt is and how to heal.

Spare me? Don't spare me anything troubling.
Trouble me, disturb me with all your cares and you worries.
Speak to me and let our words build a shelter from the storm.
Lastly, let me know what I can mend.
There's more, honestly, than my sweet friend, you can see.
Trust is what I'm offering if you trouble me.


"Trouble Me" by 10,000 Maniacs (Natalie Merchant)

Loss

BECCA
(After a beat) Mom? (NAT looks up at her.)

NAT
What.

BECCA
This feeling. Does it ever go away? (Beat.)

NAT
No. I don't think it does. Not for me it hasn't. And that's goin' on eleven years. (Beat.) It changes though.

BECCA
How?

NAT
I don't know. The weight of it, I guess. At some point it becomes bearable. It turns into something you can crawl out from under. And carry around -- like a brick in your pocket. And you forget it every once in a while, but then you reach in for whatever reason and there it is: "Oh right. That." Which can be awful. But not all the time. Sometimes it's kinda ... Not that you like it exactly, but it's what you have instead of your son, so you don't wanna let go of it either. So you carry it around. And it doesn't go away, which is...

BECCA
What.

NAT:
Fine... actually. (They're silent for a couple beats. BECCA nods a little. She goes back to work. So does NAT.)

(The lights fade.)

From David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole.

I'll never say no to you

I'll never say no to you,
Whatever you say or do,
If you ask me to wait for a lifetime.
You know I'll gladly wait
For a lifetime or two
Just to look at you.

I'll smile, when you say "Be Glad,"
I'll weep if you want me sad.
Today is tomorrow
If you want it so.
I'll stay or I'll go,
But I'll never say no...

From The Unsinkable Molly Brown by Meredith Willson, so beautifully sung by Harve Presnell on the cast album with which I grew up.

Jack Webb did have a sense of humor after all

I was listening to the Big Broadcast last night and during an episode of Dragnet wherein Det. Joe Friday goes undercover to arrest a Heroin dealer* there is a scene set in a bar. The "background" music was actually pretty foreground so it was hard not to pay attention to it. All was worth it, though, when I figured out that the piece was an instrumental version of "I've got you under my skin."


*Height of weirdness - listening to Jack Webb's voice refer to heroin as "H."

Now I really want one

Selections from H.P. Lovecraft's Brief Tenure as a Whitman's Sampler Copywriter

Caramel Chew

There is a dimension ruled by a blind caramel God-King who sits on a vast, cyclopean milk-chocolate throne while his mindless, gooey followers dance to the piping of crazed flutes. It is said that there are gateways in our world that lead to this caramel hell-planet. The delectable Caramel Chew may be one such portal.

Your move

"Your Move" by Yes which includes the best advice ever written into a rock song.

I've seen all good people turn their heads each day
so satisfied I'm on my way.
I've seen all good people turn their heads each day
so satisfied I'm on my way.

Take a straight and stronger course to the corner of your life.
Make the white queen run so fast she hasn't got time to make you a wife.

'Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time and its news is captured
For the queen to use.
Move me on to any black square,
Use me any time you want,
Just remember that the goal
'Sfor us to capture all we want, anywhere,
Yea, yea, yea.

Don't surround yourself with yourself,
Move on back two squares,
Send an Instant Karma to me,
Initial it with loving care
Don't surround
Yourself.

'Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time and
its news is captured
For the queen to use.
Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.
Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit
Didda.

Don't surround yourself with yourself,
Move on back two squares,
Send an Instant Karma to me,
Initial it with loving care
Don't surround
Yourself with yourself.
Don't surround yourself.
Send an Instant
Karma to me. Don't surround
yourself.

'Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time and its news is captured
For the queen to use.
Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.
Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.

'Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time and its news is captured.

Another good reason

Whenever I go to a restaurant that has a gluten-free menu I make sure to ask for one - even though I have probably already decided what I'm having - because it's not a bad idea to keep the staff aware that they have customers who appreciate and use those menus. It also reminds the wait staff that I'm probably not going to want crutons on my salad.

Having seen this article in the Milwaukee Business Journal, however, I now know that it will also let everyone who needs to know that I'm "in the house."

Built into a Bonefish Grill food register is a button that reads “food
allergies” that alerts the kitchen staff that they’re preparing a meal for a patron with dietary restrictions. All dishes are made from scratch, allowing chefs to eliminate or substitute individual ingredients. Kitchen and wait staff receive in-house training on food allergies.

At the restaurant

My dinner companions (and the waitress): You're sure you don't want an appetizer?

Me: Nope. I'm saving myself for dessert. Which is like saving yourself for marriage, only harder.

The Olympian I am rooting for

Amy Yoder Begley. Amy is a middle and long distance runner competing in Beijing this year who has Celiac Disease. She's blogging about the Olympics on her website and for the Fort Wayne* Daily News. Here's a snip from an entry from a few days ago:

The cafeteria seats 5,000. I can't eat there due to my wheat and gluten allergy (Celiac Disease). The village did get a lot of complaints about not having wheat and gluten free foods so they just added some yesterday. However, they do not prep it gluten free, so I still can't eat it. I have to eat at the USOC camp they have set up for us 20 minutes from the Village. I am not complaining though, I prefer safe food over convenience!

She's competing in the 10,000 meter on August 15th. Go, Amy!

*Fort Wayne, Indiana - the proud home of Maj. Frank Burns.

A life in the theater

Shriekback's description of rehearsing at Silver Spring Stage....


In a jungle of the senses
Tinkerbell and Jack the ripper
Love has no meaning, not where they come from
But we know pleasure is not that simple
Very little fruit is forbidden
Sometimes we wobble, sometimes we're strong
But you know evil is an exact science
Being carefully correctly wrong

Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big Black Nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home

We feel like Greeks, we feel like Romans
Centaurs and monkeys just cluster round us
We drink elixirs that we refine
from the juices of the dying
We are no monsters, we're moral people
and yet we have the strength to do this
This is the splendour of our achievement
Call in the airstrike with a poison kiss

Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No-one move a muscle as the dead come home

How bad it gets, you can't imagine
the burning wax, the breath of reptiles
god is not mocked, he knows our business
Karma could take us at any moment
Cover him up.....I think we're finished
You know it's never been so exotic
but I don't know, my dreams are visions
We could still end up with the great big fishes

Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No-one move a muscle as the dead come home

Who'll stop the rain?

I will. By sending a castmate this e-mail:

(I'm making this offer so that it will stop raining.)

Let me know if you'd like to be picked up at the Metro for rehearsal.

The centre cannot hold

On my mind as we start "Dinner with Friends." I don't know exactly why yet.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


-- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

Karen and Gabe (#2)

I sat down beside her. The unpaid phone bill was as good as anything else to talk about; we no longer needed to say aloud what we were saying to each other underneath. In all our life together, we had taken goodbyes casually, and hellos, too. A lot of people mistook it for not caring. It was perhaps too much the opposite. We needed each other like bees and honey.

From Smokescreen by Dick Francis

Karen and Gabe, not Beth and Tom (#1)

Since we had left London, she had developed an added strength which one could only call serenity, and although she could on occasion lose her temper as furiously as I could, her foundations were now built on rock.

A lot of people in the film world, I knew, thought my wife unexciting and my home life a drag, and expected me to break out in blondes and redheads, like a rash. But I had very little in common with the sort of larger-than-life action man I played in film after film. The films were my work, and I worked hard at them, but I didn't take them home.

Charlie snuggled beside me under the duvet and put her head on my chest. I smoothed my hands over her bare skin, feeling the ripple deep in her abdomen and the faint tremble in her legs.

"O.K.?" I asked, kissing her hair.

"Very..."

We made love in the simple, ordinary way, as we always did; but because I had been away a month it was one of the best times, one of the breath-taking, fundamental, indescribable times which became a base to live from. Certainty begins here, I thought. With this, what else did one need?

From Smokescreen by Dick Francis

Gilbert & Sullivan's Flibbertigibbet

Which Character from 'The Yeomen of the Guard' are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Phoebe Meryll A flirt who has been raised among the soldiers at the Tower. Phoebe toys with the heart of her oafish admirer Wilfred in order to get what she wants. She desires the handsome Fairfax, and so takes every opportunity to be near him. In the end she is rejected by him, and due to her lack of discretion thereafter, she is forced into an engagement to Wilfred. “Were I thy bride, then all the world beside were not too wide to hold my wealth of love… But then, of course, you see, I’m not thy bride.” -Phoebe Meryll Phoebe Meryll 65% Sergeant Meryll 60% Colonel Fairfax 55% Jack Point 50% Wilfred Shadbolt 45% Leonard Meryll 45% Sir Richard Cholmondeley 45% Elsie Maynard 40% Dame Carruthers 30%

As it's me, it'll probably be a laugh line. Or lines.

Karen: Why were you so quiet tonight?
Gabe: What? What do you mean?
Karen: When Beth was telling us. You were so silent.
Gabe: I wasn't silent. I was shocked. I was stunned.
Karen: You let me do most of the talking
Gabe: That's not unusual. (She swats at him.) Hey! No, I mean it, you do do most of the talking.
Karen: I do not.
Gabe: Yes you do. You generally have more to say on any given subject than I do. That's why we work well together. You talk, I write, you edit me.


From Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies

Word(le)

Via, of course, wordle

Ann's daughter

As I was helping Mom move from Independent Living to Very Assisted Living I spent more time wandering around the community where she lives without having her with me. I had noticed over the years that people knew that I'm "Ann's daughter" -- we look very much alike, it's not that great a logical leap -- but I hadn't realized how throughly until they would stop me in the halls every other day or so and ask about her.

I told her at dinner the other night that it was a darn good thing that she had raised me to have a decent set of manners because had I been a rude, obnoxious daughter, everyone would have known exactly who had fallen down on the job.

At auditions

We've been given a scene to do and have also been given a chance to look it over first.

Assistant Director: Jeez, you people read slow.
Me: If you think we read slowly, wait 'til you see how long it takes us to memorize.

* * * * *

Two actresses have been called up to do one of the five sides they've picked up.

Actress: Oh, actually, I haven't read that one yet...
Director: Then it really will be a cold reading, won't it?

4:30 AM. Awake.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

I need to increase my carbon footprint

According to this article on Boston.com, it seems that "German researchers have shown that high CO2 levels in the atmosphere lead to wheat crops with less gluten."

Time to start leaving all the lights on at home and driving across the street for lunch. Other CO2 boosters will be added as I think of them. Pity that I walked to work today.

I recommend following the link just for the "you mean, we might lose....?!?!" list. Welcome to my world, Boston.com

And, by the way, here's a very nice Going Gluten Free article from the Los Angeles Times "Journal Times."

I learn another useful thing from the internet

I have an automatic Google search for "Leta" which turns up some interesting things for me, a few of them from the Latvian News Agency "LETA;" a few because Google seems to believe that the word "let's" counts as a "Leta" sighting; a few reminding me that Frank Leta in Missouri has car dealerships; and many, many of them because, it seems, that if your first name is Leta (or if you have a daughter named Leta), you write a blog.

I grew up believing that I was the only Leta in the world, so this sisterhood of Letas on the internet is nice development. Mind you, none of us actually know each other or anything; I don't find cross references to other Leta blogs in my travels through the ether. But even so, it means that there are quite a few women out there who have also spent their lives correcting how our name is pronounced.* We may not know each other, but we have a bond.

So anyway, today's Google search turned up a new-ish blog written Leta the culinary student. I'm not sure why it took Google so long to find it; she's been blogging since April. I normally don't spend a lot of time on either Mommy blogs (unless the Mommy is a friend or even a friend of a friend) or food blogs** (too much rhapsodizing about food I can't have), but I'll probably keep checking in on Leta for a while because 1) she's starting an externship at a restaurant in NYC and that sounds interesting; and 2) she includes cooking tips, like the one below, instead of just recipes for pastries.

Another trick I learned allows you to tell how cooked a steak is in the middle without cutting into it. Press your forefinger and thumb together and feel the fleshy spot on the outside of your palm in between your thumb and forefinger. This is what a well done steak feels like. Press your middle finger and thumb together for medium well. Your ring finger and thumb give you medium. Your pinky and thumb give you medium rare. If you don't touch any fingers together, that fleshy spot should feel really soft, just like a rare steak. Kind of gross, but very handy!

*Reminder: Lee-tah, long "e" like in "sweet", not Lett-uh, short "e" like in "letter."

** Big ol' exception, Anne's Food

Yet another Note to Self

When I joke to a friend that I should just consider scheduling a melt-down instead of waiting to be taken by surprise, perhaps I should take that as a warning.

Amazing the number of things I learn about my state of mind by listening to myself talk.

How to support local farmers

1. On your way home from an event out River Road stop at the little farm stand on the north-bound (west-bound?) side.

2. Pick out three nice peaches; three small, pretty plums; and a nice tomato.

3. Decide against adding some sunflowers to your purchase because there are already some very pretty flowers in the kitchen from Bridget and Michael from opening night.

4. Pay the man the $3.23. Give him exact change for the last three cents.

5. Drive home and realize about five blocks short of getting there that you've left your produce behind.

6. Hope that the guy running the farm stand was able to resell those items so that at least someone got some good out of your mistake. Well, someone in addition to the Farm Stand Guy...

7. Sigh.

It's not the $3.23 I'm so sorry about - it's the Maryland-grown, nicely ripe, just ready to eat summer treats I'm regreting.

Sigh.

Even though I don't actually wear the dance belt

Wil Wheaton has a written a post that most actors should read both before and after every audition.

The pretty white ships...

All Around My Hat

Incorruptible is deliberately anachronistic which has all sorts of time-tossed music running through my head as we get the show ready to go up. Now, naturally, no one could consider herself a college medievalist who wasn't familiar with Steeleye Span, so this song seems to be nudging Apollo 100's Joy from the top of the list of "my current braingum."

Want it stuck in your head, too? Here 'tis! But I'm sure that it won't get at all stuck in your head. Not at all. It's perfectly safe to listen to and will leave your memory practically as the song finishes. You won't be humming it at the coffee maker or in the elevator because it won't be stuck in your head. Nor will you turn it up and sing along until your Boss shuts his door.

Steeleye Span - All Around My Hat / Farewell He

All around my hat I will wear the green willow
and all around my hat for a twelve month and a day
and if any one should ask me the reason why I'm wearing it
it's all for my true love who's far, far away.

Fare thee well cold winter and fare thee well cold frost
nothing have I gained but my own true love I've lost
I'll sing and I'll be merry when occasion I do see
he's a false deluding young man let him go farewell he

Other night he brought me a fine diamond ring
but he thought to have deprived me of a far better thing
but I being careful like lovers ought to be
he's a false deluding young man let him go farewell he and

All around my hat I will wear the green willow
and all around my hat for a twelve month and a day
and if any one should ask me the reason why I'm wearing it
it's all for my true love who's far, far away.

Quarter pound of reasons and a half a pound of sense
a small sprig of time and as much of prudence
you mix them all together and you will plainly see
he's a much deluding young man let him go farewell he and

All around my hat I will wear the green willow
and all around my hat for a twelve month and a day
and if any one should ask me the reason why I'm wearing it
it's all for my true love who's far, far away.