May 2024 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Opening Nights and Mother’s Day in the City

The view from backstage. The Emperor’s throne is waiting in storage behind the projection screen.

I opened my show! The 12 year old opened her show! The 12 year old closed her show! Yay! It’s been a very packed week.

First of all – the 12 year old’s middle school production of Annie Jr. was delightful! She played Tessie, one of the orphans. Tessie is the one who says, “Oh my goodness! oh my goodness!” The Husband noted that he could pick her out in a crowd because of the huge plaid pocket I put in her pinafore. I couldn’t go to the first performance because I was working, but I went to the second performance, which was also the closing performance. It’s so funny seeing the whole show come together after spending all that time running lines with her. There is something very mechanical about running lines and I was so impressed by how comfortable she was onstage. (In the program, the 12 year old thanked her parents from runnign lines with her!”) And the whole production – I mean obviously the production values aren’t terribly high because it’s middle school, but it had it’s own handmade charm. There was one scene with a couch, and then the couch had to move downstage for the next scene so we watched the kids move it and afterwards I asked the 12 year old why the couch wasn’t on wheels? And she said, “Well, we borrowed it from the Teacher’s Lounge.” Which I think perfectly sums up the whole thing.

In the program, the twelve year old thanked, among others, “…her parents who helped her prepare for auditions, run lines, an boost her confidence.” I thought that was really sweet of her.

And that night after she came home from getting ice cream with her cast mates, she started crying because the whole thing was over and oh how I know that feeling – I think that is one thing that makes theatre so special – that high you get from doing something ephemeral and the low you get from realizing that it’s ephemeral. And even though you know you can audition for more shows, you’ll never repeat this very exact show again with these very exact cast mates.

The night after the 12 year old had her shows, I opened my show. There was a very fancy party afterwards. I wore a dress – the other dress I bought at Macy’s in March when I bought that red jumpsuit that I wrote about last month. This dress probably isn’t quite fancy enough for an opening night party, but it is comfortable and forgiving – the smocked waist is elastic – and flowy, which I like. I wish it came in another colour, because black/white/grey isn’t my favorite color palatte. I don’t wear make-up, and have no clue what to do with my hair now that it hasn’t been cut for a year and is looking a little overgrown, so I think maybe the whole look is a little unpolished – but there are limits to what I want to do with myself and hair and make-up don’t quite make it into those boundaries right now. I did wear heels, though, so there’s that.

The party had all sorts of tasty Asian inspired food, a photo booth, lots of loud music. I had fun talking to people I don’t usually get to talk to. The best thing, though was the fried pickled ginger. Who would have thought to do that? It was DELICIOUS.

The opening night party was the Saturday before Mother’s Day, so it was nice that I kind of had a pass to sleep in (until 8am!) then next morning. All week, the kids had hinted that they had planned a special Mother’s Day. Not to be a grinch, but I kind of don’t love celebrating Mother’s Day. (Or my birthday, or anything where I have to be the center of attention). I don’t like surprises, so the family was going to tell me what they had planned, but then they were giving out tickets to teh White House Garden Tour for Mother’s Day Sunday, and I asked the Husband if he wanted to go. And he said, “But we’ve planned Mother’s Day!” and I reminded him that my father was in town and he could watch the kids and when would we have a chance for free childcare while we go out together again? And he said okay. So on Mother’s Day Sunday, the 11 year old made French toast (perhaps with help from her siblings – I’m not sure since I was in bed), we ate the French toast, I took the 4 year old to her agility class and then when I got home, the Husband and I took the Metro downtown.

First stop was coffee. The Husband had wanted to check out this Indonesian coffee shop for ages, but we were never in the area at the right time. It is a fifteen minute walk from the White House so it was the perfect pitstop. I had a chai and a cherry croissant. The chai was delicious- bitingly spicy and just a hint of sweetness. I asked afterwards who made the chai mix and the barista enthusiastically pointed me to the company, Soul Chai. Definitely check them out if you like your chia spicy and not sugary. I’ll be ordering some for sure.

After coffee, we proceeded to the White House. Now getting tickets to the White House Gardens tour is not exactly a rarified thing. Thousands of tickets are passed out for each weekend of garden tours, and they are free. (Honestly, I’d be annoyed if they weren’t free…) However, I was able to get tickets through work, which meant that I didn’t have to stand in line at 8:30am to get tickets. tl:dr – I found the whole experience rather… underwhelming and would not stand in line for tickets unless you were an American history/government fan.

I think calling it a “Gardens Tour” was a little bit misleading. It was more of a “Grounds Tour”. The pre-ordained path allowed people to view the gardens from a distance, but there weren’t a lot of flowers to be seen as we walked along. My take away – the White House grounds is a lot of grass and trees. Which, I supposed makes sense – grass because you need to land helicopters, and trees because it seems like planting a tree is a beloved activity for past residents of the White House to leave their mark and/or honour an occasion. And I guess if I’m being honest, while the horticultural side of the garden tour felt pallid, the historical part of the tour did feel quite momentous. Here was a tree planted by the Obamas, here are the windows to the Oval Office, here is the Rose Garden and that walk way seen so many time on the West Wing. So I suppose what the garden tour lacked for me in actual garden, it made up in weighty historical significance and that did make for some pondering.

There was a military band playing music throughout the day. They played lots of Disney tunes.

This was as close as we got to the Rose Garden

That’s the oval office there, you can see if you squint.

Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden and Jill Biden’s cut flower garden.

This commemorative oak planted by Herbert Hoover came from Lincoln’s birthplace. I like the juxtaposition of that with the Washington Monument in the background.

After the Gardens Tour, we decided to take in a museum. The White House is next to the Renwick, which is an American Art Museum that focuses on craft and handiwork. I’ve seen several things there, and really found it intriguing so I was eager to go again. I thought there was an Amish quilt exhibit there, but when I arrived, I found that the Amish quilt exhibit was at the American Art Museum in Gallery Place/ Chinatown, which was seven or eight blocks away. Oops. We took in the exhibits at the Renwick anyway, the best being this exhibit of nets hung from the cieling. It was visually appealing, but also relaxing experience because you had to lay down on the floor to get the full impact:

After we took in the other exhibits in the Renwick, we decided to go to the American Art Museum and see the Amish Quilt exhibit after all since the restaurant that we picked for dinner was in that direction anyway.

Love the effect of the black squared to create negative space on this quilt.

I thought this exhibit was stunning and though provoking. What struck me, apart from the visual aspect of the quilts, was the idea that all these quilts hung in a museum, yet they were all labelled “Artist: unidentified” – it made me ponder the tension between quilts that are quite skillfully and and artistically assembled – the patterns and colours are quite intricate – and the Amish who are a modest, attention shunning people. Highly recommend this exhibit.

I love the piecework on this quilt – it looks random, but really has a lot of structure.

After the exhibit, we went to dinner. Recently the New York Times published and article entitled “The 25 Best Restaurants in Washington, DC Right Now.” (Hilariously, the comments are full of people noting that a lot of the restaurants on the list are in the Maryland or Virginia suburb, so the title of the article is misleading. I’m surprised by the vehemence of some of the comments.) Some of the restaurants on the list I’ve been to, but many were new to me, especially those in the city since we very rarely eat out in the city. There is no where I feel my suburban mom-ness more than in a hip DC restaurant. At any rate, we decided to check out a restaurant on the list, Baan Siam, a Thai restaurant in Mount Vernon Square, near Gallery Place. This isn’t like your standard Thai restaurant – pad thai and drunken noodles are nowhere to be seen. The food is from northern Thailand. The Husband and I ordered fried pumpkin, fried spicy mushrooms (enoki mushroom – this was novel because I’d never had fried enoki mushrooms and the long thin shape made it well suited for finger food), spicy chicken in banana leaf (very spicy, but also sweet, sour, and funky in a good way), shrimp chili paste fried rice with fried pork belly, and a small cucumber salad. It was all super flavorful and tasty. And for dessert, we had mango with sticky rice, because of course.

After dinner we took the metro back home, arriving back at the house aroun 7:45pm. When we got home, things were pretty quiet, so the Husband and I snuck in the back door and collapsed on the living room couch waiting for someone to notice we were home. No one did. Everyone ended up going to bed super late- not ideal for a Sunday night, but it was all fine.

Grateful for – the Tech Week edition:

-Blue highlighter. This is sort of a weedy work hack, but – There is one entrance I cue (the green post it) that is in the middle of an orchestral interlude. I like to think I read music pretty well, but I always felt iffy about this entrance, never confident that I was cuing it in the right place. Reading a piano reduction of the orchestral part can be confusing because there are so many notes in the page and I have to figure out which notes correspond to what I’m hearing, and if I don’t count it completely accurately, I get easily lost. Most nights it was kind of a prayer and a “feeling” for where the cue was. So one day during tech, I took a blue highlighter and highlighted the notes of the melody. And suddenly, I could see what I was listening for and I could follow the music and cue the sequence perfectly. Sometimes I just have to highlight what I need and ignore the rest of the notes and I won’t get lost. I’m sure there’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

-dropping my flashlight. One of my backstage tools is my mini Maglite. It is essential for lighting the way backstage when everything is dark. I converted my light with a kit so that it is push button operated instead of twist. Anyhow, at the start of tech, it was working somewhat sporadically which was kind of annoying and I was going to order myself a new one. Then at one point, I accidentally dropped the Maglite on the floor and it started to work! Yay!

-The Husband who held down the fort – handling pick up and dinner and bedtime on his own all week. Also while dealing with a whole slew of plumbing problems at our rental house. And then he even brought all the kids to my dress rehearsal, even though it meant a late night for everyone. I think the 4 year old fell asleep in the last act, but the other two kid watched the whole thing.

-middle school drama programs. For giving my kid such a great experience. For giving her an outlet to be silly and make friends. For giving her a place to go after school. For bringing the community together to cheer these talented and enthusiastic kids on.

Looking Forward To:

-Being home in the evenings – now that my show is open, I’m looking forward to being able to pick up the kids from the school bus, make dinner, put kids to bed and zone out in front of the tv with the Husband watching Brooklyn 99 or 30 Rock or maybe we’ll get to that third season of Ted Lasso.

-Swim Season – We’ve signed up for the pool, and I’m excited to spend time at the pool and to cheer the 12 year old on at swim meets. There were a couple days last week that were blazingly hot and I thought how it feels like summer, but we’re not quite there yet.

-Dirty Meat Party – There is currently twenty pounds of meat marinating in my fridge in preparation for the grilling party that we have every time a certain colleague/friend of mine is in town working on a show. It’s probably the biggest party we throw every year and while I don’t always like having 25 people descend on my house, I do love seeing everyone having a good time. There is some rain in the forecast, which makes me a little nervous because I am ill equipped to put 25 people inside my house. But we can’t postpone it because then the meat will be over-marinated. Also – the party has always been called the Dirty Meat Party, but maybe I should reconsider because as the 7 year old ran to the school bus, he called out, “I can’t wait to eat dirty meat!!!!”

-Reading this – middle aged female pirate goes on adventures. It’s proving delightful so far. I’ve laughed out loud so many times while reading it.

What we ate:
The only dinner I made at home last week was Friday night, my day off. I made this Pearl Couscous with Creamy Feta and Chickpeas . I added some shrimp in the last 5 minutes of baking. It was very tasty, but I wish there was a way to make it a one pot meal. perhaps just cooking it all on the stovetop and not baking it?

In lieu of the other dinners that week, here is another “At Work All Day” lunchbox picture:

Lunch: broccoli quinoa salad, which I had made last week and still working through. Plum.

Dinner: marinated beans with potatoes and arugula. Avocado and a boiled egg to eat along with.

Snacks: cut up apples and hummus, protein bar (from Costco, really just a glorified candy bar), two carrots (yes, I just toss them in whole. easier that way), beef stick (actually for the drive home to snack on when I get sleepy.)

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tech week and loving one’s job

Props are packed and ready to go to the theatre!

Half way through tech week! I had this idea that I would go one of those “Photo every hour” posts that Engie or Stephany do periodically- I thought it might be a a good way to capture a day of tech for me to look back on. Hah hah. Once we got into the evening rehearsal, shit gets real and I couldn’t keep up. Friday, our first tech rehearsal onstage, was particularly busy – our Production Assistant was out sick, so I had to do their job and my job. I logged 25,000 steps and climbed 34 flights of stairs that day. Part of the reason for all those stairs is that our set is three levels high. Here’s the view from the top level:

(Side note – it’s been much debated on how to refer to the levels of the set. There is a ground level, a middle level and a top level. Now if, in rehearsal, someone says, “Go to the second level,” which level would you go to? I would go to the mid level, but many people would go to the top level. We eventually just ended up calling them “mid” and “top” level.)

But I did take some pictures throughout the day, so here is a dump of pictures of that first day of tech last week, in and around the “intense, running around, and checking attendance, and listening to instructions, and relaying instructions to cast and crew, and why is everyone talking all at once? and making sure people didn’t get run over by the scenery or props, and took their cues on time and oh my god, and, how do we get thirty people onstage through that three foot wide gap? and yes, you should wear the hat now and no, now you take it off, here, just give it to me, and are people going to make their costume changes in time for their next cue? No they aren’t, they’ve just missed their entrance, and where are the dancers? and we need to give them a break, and what is that rule in our union contract? and the director wants to do things a different way, okay we’ll make that work, and we want to add fire? and this singer is now dead, can they go home or will we go back and do their scene again? and oh my goodness, we managed to tech through the whole show, thank GOD” part of the day….

Thursday was a set looks (where stage management and the director looks at the set for the first time and decide that, “Yep, this is what we were expecting.” and we make all sorts of discoveries as to how people will get onstage.) and then a Stizprobe (first time singers are with orchestra – sit and sing).

Friday was the first Piano Tech rehearsal, the first time onstage staging rehearsal for everyone. This is what was in my camera roll for that day:

6:30am – wake up – summer morning sunlight and I make the bed.

7:35am – roll out my yoga mat for 10 mins of yoga. The 4 year old helps.

8:30am – breakfast, eaten at the kitchen counter, with a book. Cottage cheese and blueberries – I’m trying to eat high protein/ high fiber breakfasts and lean away from the heavy carb breakfasts. Which is hard because bagels are tasty.

8:45a – quick 5 minutes of laundry folding before taking the kids to the school bus. Those three small folded piles all I manage to fold in five minutes.

10:30am- At work. paperwork. Make rehearsal logs for the day. Usually our production assistant does this, but they are sick this day. That’s my favorite brand of mechanical pencil – and I found that they sell it with a red barrel. Red is my favorite colour, so I ordered a whole box of them.

12:30p – lunch, sitting outside. I’m going to spend much of the day running around in the dark – Gotta grab sunlight when I can.

1:15pm – checking attendance. The rehearsal scheduling department gives me a list of people who are running late to rehearsal.

2:30pm – An hour into the first piano tech rehearsal. My music stand.

4:30pm – random picture of how we want to set this giant 30′ silk onstage – I take pictures of a lot of things because sometimes it’s easier than trying to describe to the crew how we want things to look. Sometimes I say things like, “That guillotine needs to be centered this spot on stage.” And it still isn’t clear because everyone has their own perspective and they move the thing here and there and I try to explain and then finally it goes in the right place and the crew says,. “You mean the upstage edge needs to split center?”. And I say, “Yes, thank you,” And I think to myself, “It probably would have been clearer if I had said it that way. Thank you for figuring that out.”

6:00pm – Run at dinner time. The weather was beautiful.

7:00pm – Quick picture in the bathroom of my piano tech outfit. I always wear the same thing – floral patterned top (Uniqlo) and linen joggers (Gap – patched in two places and maybe need to be replaced soon.). I like to wear bright colours during tech so I can be seen onstage. I do wear shoes, but I had just changed out of my running clothes and hadn’t put them on yet.

9:30pm – one hour left in the evening rehearsal, back at my music stand for a moment. These blue index cards are where I write who is making an entrance. If it’s just a handful of people, I will write it directly on a Post It, but when there are 30+, I write it on an index card and put it in my binder. I often only write first initial and last two letters of last name. ie. John Smith would be JSm. I had an assistant director once who called these the “airport codes” for each chorister. It’s a good feeling for me that I’ve been with these choristers so long that when I’m writing down the mass chorus group, writing their airport code takes no mental effort at all.

11:33pm – screenshot. Sometimes when I’m leaving and I realized I’ve I forgotten to log out of my timesheet, I take a screenshot of my phone so I remember what time I walked out the door. I get a lot of spam in my email.

12:10am – arrive home. I find that the lunchboxes I ordered for the kids have arrived. Yay! In the past week, one child has cracked their lunchbox and the other has lost theirs (I don’t want to be the one to open that lost lunch box when it is recovered…). I do have one extra for each child, but I like having a few spares for those times when the lunchbox doesn’t get cleaned the night before. I love these Sistema lunchboxes because they are relatively inexpensive and they can go in the dishwasher. And they are durable. We’ve had ours for about four years now. I was going to buy just one spare, but amazon also sold them in a four pack for about $12/each, so I went that route. They are getting harder to find, so I worry what will happen when Sistema stops making this size. Maybe I should order another 4 pack…

And that was a photo summary of Day 1 of tech. Day 2 of tech was Saturday, and I didn’t have to be at the theatre until 1pm, so I did a load of laundry (and hung it to dry), took the 7 year old to his morning soccer – the game was on despite the drizzly drizzly weather, and then dropped the 12 year old to her voice lesson on the way to work. On the days when I don’t have to be in until 1pm, I feel like the morning should be luxurious, but then it fills ups, especially on weekends. I spent the first part of the day at work light walking – basically we stand onstage while the lighting designer sets light levels – which is kind of tedious, but can be beautiful:

The evening was a piano dress rehearsal, first time in costume. It’s always a very long night, but we got through the whole show, which is always good.

Here is a random spot of beauty on asphalt, to break up all the work goings on, as seen on my run:

Doing Something You Love. I had a text exchange with a colleague last week. She was asking me about someone that had worked with me as a Production Assistant previously. (Side note: This really happens. Not sure how it is in other industries, but word of mouth is huge. It doesn’t matter who you list as a reference – if I know you’ve worked with someone I know, I will often have a casual conversation about you.). This former Production Assistant wanted to move on from stage management, and I replied to my colleague, “I think I knew she wanted to do something different. I’m always surprised when people don’t want to be stage managers because I genuinely like what I do a lot.” And my colleague wrote back – “Me either… I love what I do.”

Then I heard this interview with filmmaker Caitlin Cronenberg, who is the daughter of a famous filmmaker. And Cronenberg was asked about her feelings on nepotism, and she said, “You know, there are children of people doing things, and it’s because you look at your family member making art for a living and enjoying what they do. And you say, I want to love what I do. I want to make art for a living. And that’s why so many actors, so many directors and producers have children who are also in the business.

And it made me think how the 12 year old used to say that she wanted to be a stage manager, and I always thought that it was because she thought the work was interesting. But maybe, that isn’t it. Maybe she realizes that finding something you love to do – whether that is your job, or something outside of your job – that is important. And maybe she thinks, “Hey, there’s this thing that mom really loves doing… maybe I would love doing that too.” It made me think about how much my children pick up on the attitude/emotions/moods that I exude and how important it is to model that intangible quality – we all want our children to be happy, so they also need to have models of how to be happy. I hope that the 12 year old finds something that she loves doing. She doesn’t have to love it 100% of the time – I certainly don’t love my job 100% of the time; I most certainly don’t love parenting or painting or writing 100% of the time – but she has to love enough aspects of that thing that she finds periodic joy in doing it – not the results, not the end product, but in the doing.

Grateful For:
-The sanitation workers who pick up our trash and recycling. The other day, I came home after dropping the kids at school and the recycling trucks were making their routes. They just finished our house, and then I saw them take my elderly neighbor’s trash and recycling cans back up her driveway for her. It was such a nice thing for them to do! The Husband, who used to work for the county’s solid waste department, says that if you have difficulties putting your trash cans at the bottom of your drive, you can have your house coded so that the sanitation workers come get your trash cans and put them back if you want – there are special colour trash bins for this. I love that. I guess taking trash cans down to the curb was one of those things I took for granted (the 12 year old does it at our house), and I’m glad that there are provisions for people for whom it is difficult.

-Child minders. There are 20 children in our show. I am so grateful for the child minders to when the children to and from stage and keep an eye on them when they are not onstage.

-my sewing machine. I spent Sunday finishing up the 12 year old’s costume for Annie. I had to hem the pinafore, so I plugged in my sewing machine that has been dormant for several months now, and it worked. My mother in law had passed this sewing machine down to me – I believe it belonged to her aunt. It isn’t fancy – pretty much just does a straight stitch – but I don’t need fancy for where I am in my sewing skills. I was able to hem the pinafore. Then I added a pocket with some scrap fabric, because I know when I work on shows we are always asking for pockets in costumes. Then I looked at everything together, and the muslin pinafore looked a little bright, so I tea dyed it. It was my first time tea dying something and the process was pretty easy. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but the pinafore is now a light brown color. Also – another skill I did for the first time, is I made a button hole! The top of the dress dipped a little low in the front, so I added a button and made a button hole. Oh – here’s another gratitude – I’m grateful for creators who post tutorials of how to do things on the internet.

Old faithful sewing machine. I say a prayer of thanks every time it manages to turn on and work. Look – it’s the beginning of a buttonhole!

Looking forward to:
-Opening Night for me!

-Opening Night for the 12 year old!

-Orchestra rehearsals. We start adding the Orchestra to our rehearsals this week. I often think how lucky I am that I get to listen to a full orchestra play all the time. The wall of sound, the colours of the different instruments, the bone vibrating sensation of six trumpets and six trombones playing backstage, right next to me. There is something so amazing about that degree of unamplified music -so immediate and so grand. I love it all.

-Watching Starstruck. I started the third season of this show while making lasagna last week. I loved the first two seasons of this rom com about Jessie, who unknowingly hooks up with a famous movie star Tom in Season 1 and the fall out from that. The show is hilarious and touching. I don’t usually like shows where people make a mess of their lives, but there is something I really relate to in Jessie.

What We Ate:
Monday: Butter chicken – I used the leftover sauce from the Butter Chicken I made a few weeks ago, but I probably should have cooked it on the stove rather than in the Instant Pot because it was very runny.

Tuesday: Not sure – Husband cooked. I took myself out for Thai food because it was the day of the final room run and I wanted to eat something special.

Wednesday: Zucchini Pesto Lasagna from Smitten Kitchen Keepers. We had a bunch of zucchini to use up. And I figured this would be good for leftovers as well. It was tasty, but very cheesy. I find lasagna is always a lot of work, and I could have the same results by just making the sauce and veggies and tossing it with noodles rather than layering and baking in a tray.

Thursday: Not sure – Husband cooked, I think…. I packed dinner, see below…

Friday: Pizza (take out) and an Avengers movie. I packed dinned, see below…

Saturday: No idea.

Sunday: leftovers/scrounge in the fridge. My brain was so fried by this point, I can’t even remember if I made the kids dinner. Oh wait. yes I did. I boiled some pasta, tossed in broccoli during the last three minutes, drained and mixed in the leftover ricotta sauce from Wednesday’s lasagna, for a cheesy, broccoli pasta. (See – I did just what I said above – mixed the lasagna sauce with cooked pasta and veggies and it was just a tasty a much less work.

Since I don’t really have an idea of what the family had for dinner for most of last week, as I was away most nights last week, I thought I’d take a picture of a typical food pack that I bring to work on any given day during tech week when I usually eat both lunch and dinner at work. This was actually from Thursday, but then I ended up going out for lunch that day and didn’t eat most of this and so just re-packed it and took it on Friday:

Lunch: Broccoli Quinoa Salad, avocado, hard boiled egg, plum

Dinner: zucchini pesto lasagna, cut up veggies and apple slices

Snacks for throughout the day: another container of veggies and apple slices, hummus, roasted chickpeas, mini pretzels, string cheese, mixed nuts. (Also at the office we have peanut m&ms, peanut butter pretzels, chocolate caramels, and gummy Nerds.).

Aside from breakfast, this all gets me through the day.

That’s it for last week. It’s been exhausting, but I am excited about the show. Also excited to be opened and to pick up around the house a little bit.

What do you love doing? And taking a poll: Which level would you call the “second level”?