The Knitting Circle

This last show I did had a fair number of knitters. They came out in full force by the second day of rehearsal. One actor came in with her knitting and the following day, there were no less than a third of our cast showed up with their knitting. The main instigator started converting others throughout the run of the production. She sucked in another actor, one of my crew and (sigh) me. I finally gave in to the dark side during our third week of performances. You don't want to see this piece. I'm attempting to knit a scarf, but frankly, I think I may donate this "scarf" to my cats. They like to lie down on it (while I'm knitting) or "help" me knit. Mind you, their version of helping is playing with the ball of yarn or swatting at the knitting needles (while I'm using them).

New Year's Eve 2006 - Update

New Year's (like Christmas) snuck up on me this year. It's been a stressful holiday season. The show I'm stage managing (Urinetown, The Musical) went into tech the day after Christmas. Literally. It's a huge production - cast of 16, lots of song-and-dance numbers and lots of light cues. LOTS. Most straight plays I've done have averaged about 30-40 cues. Most musicals have averaged close to 100. I think this one is close to 300. At least. I've been to scared to count, to tell you the truth. I do know that one of my busiest (and scariest) songs has 43 cues alone. So this tech week truly has been a hell week (there have been other stuff going on, but I'll save that for another post). On top of hell week (which was actually 2 weeks - tech week and previews), I got sick. In fact, I'm still sick, but at least I can function for most of the day now. Before today, I'd spend most of the day home, trying to rest up as much as possible before going into rehearsal. It has not been a fun holiday season. I'm just glad it's over and we finally opened. There were a few times over the past 2 weeks I didn't think I'd see opening night.

Christmas Traditions

My mom is the WORST out of the entire family about Christmas presents. Not buying them, opening them. She wants to open them ASAP. She's worse than my (younger) cousins. The most they do is case the Christmas tree on an hourly basis. Mom, on the other hand, will pick up the presents and feel them and look for tears in the wrapper ("since it's torn, I might as well open it"). If there are no tears, she will create them. Ok, she personally won't create the tears. She enlists "help". In past years, she used our dog. She would set the present down in front of the dog and let him sniff it. He would then be overwhelmed by curiosity and start pawing at it and start to tear it open. This year, my mom has upgraded. She used her granddaughter. She didn't even have to tempt her. Unopened presents are temptation enough for Munchkin. Munchkin knows her Lola can't refuse her anything, so anytime she wants something, she immediately runs to her. Munchkin wanted to open the Christmas presents NOW. She doesn't really care too much who the present belongs to, she just wanted to open them. So Lola decided to appease her need to open presents. It seems, however, that the presents she handed to Munchkin weren't presents for Munchkin - they were my mom's presents. How convenient. My brother and I stopped the Dynamic Duo halfway through present number 2. Folks, they were attempting to open their Christmas presents TWO DAYS EARLY. It's getting worse and worse with every year.

Music Junkies, Check This Out!!!

My co-worker just introduced me to this website:

http://www.pandora.com

Set up by the Music Genome Project, the website builds radio stations based on your music choices. Here's how Pandora works: you enter a song or artist and based on the entry's music characteristics & attributes, Pandora goes through it's MASSIVE library and compiles your radio station. It's so cool!!! The day my co-worker introduced me to this fabulous site, we spent about 2 hours plugging in different songs / artists and seeing what songs Pandora pulled. (That was a productive day at work.) So if you're stuck in a musical rut, go check it out!!!

Your 15 Minutes Of Fame

Ok, as suggested by a comment on Nemesis' blog, I've decided I'd release my cast list for the movie of my life (pre-productions pending). I haven't quite decided if it's going to be a tragedy or tragi-comedy. (It varies from day to day.) The problem is that the last time I had a definitive cast list was a few years ago. Since then, some of the characters have been dropped and some have been added. If you have any suggestions who you'd like to play you or if you have suggestions as to who should play someone else, please comment. (This also gives me a chance to see which 5 or so people actually read this blog.) Come on, this is your chance to be immortalized!

Aggies 12, t-sips 7

Aggies 12, t-sips 7!!!
(Just in case you didn't notice the score in the blog title.)
Yeah, it was a good Thanksgiving weekend!

I went up to D-FW to spend Thanksgiving with family. I think it was the larger family gatherings (from Dad's side) that we've had in a while. I stayed with my brother, sister-in-law and Munchkin in Dallas and we trouped over to Ft. Worth for dinners at my cousin's place. He, his wife and their twins were housing my parents & my other cousin who was visiting from Oregon (some state waaaay up northwest where it gets cold). And yes, I did say "dinners" (plural). That was not a typo. We had the pre-Thanksgiving dinner, the Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and the real Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. My brother & his family had to miss Thursday's dinner, so it was decided to have the "real" one on Friday when they could join us. The end result being that I waddled out of the D-FW area on Saturday.

It was great being on vacation and seeing them. I brought my dog up and the kids LOVED him. He's a Golden Retriever and he's almost as tall as my niece and my cousin's twins. They hugged on him, loved on him and (in the case of my niece) sat on him. Every once in awhile, I took pity on him and let him into the backyard to give him a break from the little people.

Munchkin (aka my niece). She's now 2 1/2 and speaks in full sentences. In fact, she rarely stops speaking. My first morning in Dallas, I woke up to the dog licking me and Munchkin talking to the dog. She'll talk to just about anyone or anything ("hi house!", "I miss you Bear-Bear", "play in my room, Jock"). Another morning, I woke up to see her talking on my cel phone just "like Daddy". (BTW - Bear-Bear is her favorite Beanie Bear and Jock is my dog.) She's such a funny little person.

The Saturday I came back, I met up with Nemesis & D who was in from San Francisco. We had a great time catching up and she taught us great variation on Scrabble called Speed Scrabble. I'm hooked! (Thanks, D!)

Oh yeah, and the Aggies won against t.u. 12-7!!!

Election Updates

The blogging came to a screeching halt due to the elections. That was an exhausting, interesting experience. We had a flurry of final rounds of fundraising events. Then I spent the last 2 weeks working out of one of our client's headquarters. She lost, but we knew it was going to be an uphill battle. She was a Democrat running in a VERY Republican district. (That's ok, we took the Hill, so it all balances out.) Anyways...

I was working the polls for early vote and on election day pushing cards for her. So yes, I was one of those people who would run up to you and remind you who my candidate is and what she was running for. I had a few interesting responses. One guy strong-armed me (you know, that football blocking move when they stick out their hand to push you off). Another guy literally sprinted to the poll. He got out of his car and ran to the poll then ran back to his car after he was done voting. Then I had a guy ask if my candidate was pro-life. Not an unusual question. I got a number of those working the polls. I told him she was pro-choice, then he proceeded to preach to me for about 10 minutes. I just nodded my head when I really wanted to say "the poll is that way and you're lucky you're voting in the morning, not during the last 10 minutes before the polls close". I definitely didn't engage him in a debate, because my coffee hadn't kicked in yet and I'd probably still be there debating with him. It was already going to be a long day and I didn't want him to make it any longer. It was election day and I worked the polls from 7am to 7pm with about 2 hours for lunch. Election day ended back at headquarters with the beer and everyone glued to the computers and TVs. Needless to say, as soon as we saw our numbers falling and we knew we couldn't win, the party started to dissipate.

This election cycle was definitely an interesting experience as I was slowly sucked further into the political world. Oh, and it's not over. We have a December election for a contested race and we're already crunching numbers for future elections.

Sick Days

I've been sick for a week. I'm in tech week for the current show I'm working on, so my schedule has been crazy. Any time I get sick it is always during tech. It's been miserable. Between the day job and rehearsals that do end till 11p, I haven't had any time to rest. So my boss (for the day job) made me take today off and it was glorious. Almost. I wish I could say I did the whole "lady of leisure" routine today, but since I was feeling miserable for half the day (when the drugs kicked it), it wasn't as productive as I wanted it to be. On the other hand, I did get to sleep in till 2p (I got up to eat, take my drugs and move to the TV) and run some essential errands, like get some new windshield wipers (since it's been raining) and getting my hair done. I was excited about that. Now I'm sitting at the coffee shop, casually and calmly sipping my coffee instead of gulping it in the car and waiting to leave for rehearsal. I know, very boring stuff, but it's been a delicious, slow-paced day. I haven't had one of those in a long while. Now I feel ready to attack the rest of today.

Taking Care Of Some Overdue Blogs...

N: So what's between a bear and a twink?

Me: A straight guy.

One of the boys complaining about the current dating prospects as we were commiserating over coffee.
(If the terms are confusing you, go ask your trusted gay pal.)

My current work/rehearsal is crazy - even crazier than usual. I'm working on a new show - Jean Sarte's No Exit (Huit Clos). This show is at Rice University. It's an interesting experience. They're all young, inexperienced actors and I have to keep reminding myself that they're baby actors. I can't assume anything with this group - like I said, they're inexperienced actors & students to boot. So aside from working on the show, we're trying to train them in routines & habits that we in the professional world take for granted - warm-ups, checking with the stage manager, line notes, blocking, etc. (One of the positives is that it's an opportunity to instill in this young, impressionable group a sense of fear and blind obedience to the Stage Manager! Muwah-ha-ha-ha!!!) What's been really intriguing is watching these kids move from the cerebral to the physical. Let me explain. These are Rice students (the nerds & geeks that most of collegiate Texas makes fun of), so there's lots of analysis of the symbolic, the philosophical, political & social influences, etc. They ate up the tablework. Getting them to transition from table to stage has been another matter. One of the most commonly heard phrases during the first couple of weeks of rehearsal was "you're over-thinking". We've forced them to distill the 2 paragraph explanation down to a 3 to 5 word sentence that starts with "I want" or "I need".

I digress.

Regardless of whether they turn out to be great actors or just ok, they're a good group of kids. Another upside to working at Rice is that I'm 2 buildings away from really cheap beer. I mean REAL cheap! Shiner for $0.95. Oh yeah!

Hello Kitty Meets Darth Vader

'Nuff said.

Survey Courtesy Of Nemesis

W H O . W A S . T H E . L A S T . P E R S O N . T H A T?

1. You hung out with? Merida
2. Rode in a car with? Merida
3. Went to the movies with?: Joel
4. You went to the mall with? Mom
6. You talked on the phone to?: Joel
7. Made you laugh? Merida

W O U L D . Y O U . R A T H E R?
1. Pierce your nose or tongue?: Nose
2. Be serious or be funny? Funny
3. Drink whole or skim milk?: Whole
4. Die in a fire or drown?: Drown - I have a low threshold of pain
5. Spend time with your parents or enemies?: Parents

A N S W E R . T R U T H F U L L Y.

1. Do you like anyone?: Yes

D O . Y O U . P R E F E R.
1. Sun or moon? Moon

2. Winter or Fall? Fall - I get to wear the fabulous fall/winter shoes, but not have to suffer through the cold

3. left or right? Right

4. 10 acquaintances or two best friends?: 2 best friends

5. Sunny or rainy?: Sunny

6. Vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream?: CHOCOLATE

A B O U T . Y O U.
1. What time is it? 1:17am

1. First Name?: Janel
3. What do you want to do? SHOPPING!!!
4. Where do you wanna live? Paris
5. How many kids do you want?: None at the moment
6. You want to get married? Eventually
8. Are you double jointed? Nope
10. Can you cross your eyes? Yes
11. Do you make your bed daily? Nope

R A N D O M.
1. Which shoe goes on first?: Right
2. Ever thrown a shoe at someone? And ruin my shoes???
3. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? Twirl
2. Have you ever eaten Spam?: Ahh, Spam!
3. Favorite ice cream?: Cookies & Cream
4. How many kinds of cereal are in your cabinet? None
5. Do you cook? When I have time.
6. Current mood? Kinda iffy.

IN . THE. LAST. 48 HOURS. HAVE. YOU.

1. Bought something: SHOES!
2. Sang? No
3. Been hugged: Yes
4. Felt stupid: No
5. Missed someone: Yes
6. Danced Crazy: No
7. Gotten your hair cut? No
8. Cried: Do tears from laughing so hard count?
9. mad: No
10. been kissed: Grrrrr...No

. S T U F F .
1. Have you ever been searched by the cops? No
2. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone? With someone
3. Do you believe in ghosts? Not really.

How Do You Start Your Morning?

Last night, I was the emergency bailout call for a longtime friend of mine who was on a date in SF. At least, I attempted to be the emergency bailout call (D, you need to be able to hear the phone for me to bail you out). Afterwards, during our post-date analysis (as we women are wont to do), D asked me, "after you check your email in the morning, what websites or blogs do you read?". So I pose that question to you - what do you read? (I'm on the hunt for interesting blogs and websites.)

I'll Play Along...

I know this has been going around for awhile, but I've been swamped. Just humor me.

Four Things about me - Things you may or may not have known about me in no particular order.

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Stage Manager
2. Sound Designer
3. Office Manager & Researcher for a consulting firm
4. Educator for a museum

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Whale Rider
2. Mary Poppins
3. Steel Magnolias
4. Star Wars - A New Hope

C) Four places I have lived (in order):
1. Houston, TX
2. College Station, TX
3. Ellenville, NY
4. Houston, TX

D) Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. West Wing
2. Stargate SG-1
3. Battlestar Galactica
4. MASH

E) Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Boracay, Philippines
2. Paris, France
3. Barcelona, Spain
4. Montreal, Canada

F) Websites I visit daily:
1. NY Times
2. Houston Chronicle
3. Manolo's Shoe Blog
4. Gizmodo (pretty electronics!)

G) Four of my favorite foods:
1. Chocolate - in any form
2. Chicken Fried Steak
3. Paella
4. Pho

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Barcelona, Spain
2. New York, NY
3. Shoe Shopping
4. An undisclosed private island with white sand, blue waters and a few cabana boys

Titus Andronicus - Shakespeare's Unintentional Comedy

L: While this is not the WORST show HSF has done, this belongs in the pantheon. This definitely goes on the demo reel.

(Observation made during intermission - that's right, we were only at the halfway mark!)

M: Could you hear us cackling up on the hill?
Me: No, because we were too busy giggling.

(Comment made after the show.)

Nemesis: Look! It's Topsie from Uncle Tom's Cabin!

(Comment made in the first 5 minutes of the show.)

Last night, Nemesis and I attended the Houston Shakespeare Festival's production of Titus Andronicus. For those not familiar with this play, this is possibly the goriest tragedy Will Shakes wrote. Blood, severed limbs, unintentional cannibalism, murder - a definite tragedy. Nemesis and I spent a good chunk of the show giggling and snickering. It was BAD. On so many levels.

I don't think the costume designer liked any of the actors. It seemed like she went out of her way to make the actors look bad. Lavinia (the girl who loses both her hands and her tongue) looked like Topsie from Uncle Tom's Cabin. She was wearing a hoop skirt & black, sausage-curled wig that looked like it was made out of a yarn mop. The chorus looked like they were from Colonial India complete with turbans. Titus' sons and the rest of Roman tribunal wore these hats that must have been swiped from Marvin the Martian. Tamora wore this headpiece that looked like it was borrowed from Nefertiti's wardrobe. Altogether visually disturbing.

The blood. Or lack thereof. All of the murders were indicated (as opposed to weapons actually making contact with the actors) and at the same time, the chorus would parallel that murder with some symbolic action representing the blood being spilt. Like unfurling a red banner above the spot where one of the characters was killed. Or drizzling blood over the newly murdered character (like you would drizzle glaze over a cake). Or dropping an axe on a slab of raw steak (a la Gallagher - just minus the watermelon). But I think my favorite is the murder indicated by the big red ball. Yes, a big red rubber ball. The chorus tossed it around like a game of hot potato and the last chorus member tossed it to the character as his adversary killed him. Nemesis and I were giggling as the emperor's brother caught and collapsed over the big red rubber ball and then tumbled into the pit.

It's shows like this that make me weep for my profession.

This Day In Music

What Was The #1 Song On Your Birthday

The day I was born:
My Love - Paul McCartney & Wings

Sweet Sixteen:
Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Midler

18th Birthday:
Rush Rush - Paula Abdul

21st Birthday:
I Swear - All-4-One

27th Birthday (first time):
Maria Maria - Santana

27th Birthday (4th time):
21 Questions - 50 Cent

You Must Check This Out!!!

I recently discovered this blog courtesy of Laine. (Thanks!) Here's the warning she posted along with a link:

Warning: You’re going to laugh out loud so don’t read this on a full bladder or you’ll definitely pee in your pants.

She's right!!! Nemesis and I just looked through this blog and we were crying. Here it is, but before you click on the link below, you may want to use the bathroom first.

What Not To Crochet

You Can't Have Your Cake & Eat It, Too

So it's been awhile since the last update. I've been knee-deep in work and rehearsals. We finally opened last week, and the day after we opened, I was sick. I skipped work this past Monday and Tuesday due to my being ill. Not my ideal way of spending days off from work. Tuesday night, I felt the need to bake. I'm not sure whether to attribute this urge to a fever-induced delirium or just the fact that I haven't cooked/baked in a long while (I've been real busy), but I decided I decided I was well enough to stand upright and bake. I baked a lemon pound cake with lemon glaze. It's yummy! It's almost gone. This cake was baked in a 9x5 loaf pan. On Tuesday night. In fact, it came out of the oven about 11:30p on Tuesday night. It's now very, very early Saturday morning. There is about 1.25 inches left from 9 inch cake. I (the one who baked the cake) have consumed about 1.25 inches of this cake since its emergence from the oven late Tuesday night. Apparently, there are gremlins who've been eating the cake in secret because the other 2 (very real) residents in this house have accused me of eating up all of the cake and they've barely had any of this cake. The accusitory tone of their voices would lead one to believe that they have only crumbs. Hardly enough for their taste buds to register anything.

Riiiight...

The last time gremlins resided in this house, they were fighting for space with the bogeyman, the sandman, the scaly green monster and other traditional tenents who take up residence under the bed of a preschooler.

Gems From The 70's!

One of my colleagues found this little gem. We were howling throughout the entire video! An extreme example of why straight white guys shouldn't be allowed to dance in public.

Chicken

I was told (actually, I overheard) that there was to be a game of San Juan today. (For lack of a better explanation, San Juan is a role-playing card game. It's set in one of the Spanish colonial territories and your job is to build up this city from nothing but the natural resources.) My suspicion is that "some" of the other players are too CHICKEN of a little competition and "forgot" to call me.

You know who you are. And so do I.

In the meantime, I'm at Agora - a little cafe owned by a couple of Greeks. This is important, because we are not only in the midst of the World Cup, we are in the elimination round of the World Cup. These Greeks (like most of the rest of the world) are soccer-mad. Both the TV's are tuned to the Portugal-Netherlands game and there are a number of people watching it - the Netherlands fans upstairs and the Portuguese fans downstairs. It's starting to get quite noisy now. Portugal is ahead 1-0 and the people upstairs are on pins & needles.

More On Sleep (Or Lack Thereof)

1) Venus, the Bright Morning Star
2) Breakfast
3) Sunrise

What do all these things have in common? These are all things that should be experienced at the END of the day, not the START. Unfortunately, I had the displeasure of experiencing all three as the start of my Friday.

Nemesis needed a ride to the airport and I obliged. In return, I get to borrow his remote-controlled Matchbox car for the weekend (my car is in the shop and in need of a new engine). The problem was that we needed to leave for the airport at 5:00 am. That's Five in the Morning. That translates to me waking up before the sun rises. Ugh!!!

On the way to the airport, we stop by Shipley's for breakfast. As we're driving along the freeway, Nemesis points ahead and says "I think that's Venus". At the same time, I look east and I say "it's getting light over there. I think the sun's rising". I then remark that while I'm not adverse to seeing Venus, eating breakfast and observing a sunrise, these are all things that should be experienced in their proper timeslots. Breakfast should be eaten as the last meal of the day (that time between the close of the club and bedtime). Both Venus & the sun rising should be viewed on the way home to bed. See, everything in its proper place and time.