Month: November 2024

Thanksgiving meal prep and Thankful for…- NaBloPoMo #19

I thought I’d keep Thanksgiving dinner simple this year since it’s just us, but even still there are several dishes with multiple steps and degrees of prep so it still feels like a project meal. Last night I made the pie filling for the pecan pie, made the pie dough, turned the turkey in the brine, roasted the turkey bones for gravy, and made the cranberry sauce.

Today I had to go to rehearsal from 10am – 2pm. Right now I’m triaging the rainbow Jell-O situation, I shaped the rolls and they are doing a slow rise in the fridge, and I’m making turkey stock (step two in gravy). We’re going to go see Wicked this evening, and hopefully I’ll make the two pies tonight. It seems like a lot when I write it out, but I like project recipes that I can break down into steps where I do one step every so often – it makes thing seem more doable.

Because it’s Thanksgiving week, I thought I’d give a big shout out to one of the biggest things I’m grateful for – the Husband.

Reasons that I’m thankful for the Husband:

  • He’s always thinking of how to make things better.
  • He always finds time to cuddle with the kids and listen to them when they are sad.
  • He buys me wasabi peas and dill pickle chips.
  • He is really nice to my parents, even when they make life complicated.
  • He talks to contractors.
  • He handles buying the technology items for the family.
  • He grows beautiful plants in our garden.
  • He returns my library books for me.
  • He puts up with my crazy opera/work schedule.
  • He is the lead parent when I’m on that crazy opera/work schedule.
  • He takes time off work to take care of things when I can’t.
  • He does the laundry 97% of the time.
  • He thinks about logistics and the reality of a situation when I am being impractical.
  • He is not squeamish about buying period products.
  • He is a great father and goes to all the parent teacher conferences that he can.
  • He tucks the covers back around me when he gets up in the morning before me.

There’s lists and lists more that I could say on the topic, of course, but that’s a start.

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends. Even if you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, here’s wishing you many things to be thankful for.

Who are you grateful for?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Weekly recap and other gratitudes- NaBloPoMo #18

It’s been a wild weekend in my opera world. I’m still processing, so perhaps I’ll give the run down next week. I’ve fallen off the NaBloPoMo routine this weekend because it’s been busy, so here’s kind of a catch all post. I haven’t had a proper weekly recap post in a while, so I thought I’d write some of the random things that have gone on this week:

– I did the supertitles for a voice recital last week. It was a really fun program, though the second song set was not performed in the order I was given, so that caused a bit of panic, but I was able to catch up and get the right translation slides in place. Also – fun story – the artists added a song the day before the recital and the pianist sent me the music and text so I could make slides.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll do it tonight.” I wrote in response.
“Thank you!” he replied. “Do you drink wine? :)”
“I don’t actually,” I wrote, “But I do eat chocolate.” Which, normally, I don’t make gratuitous grabs for chocolate, but I figured, why not?
Well the pianist brought me three bags of those Lindt chocolate balls. I thought that was super kind.
The coda to that story. A few days later, I noticed the five year old had chocolate peppermint breath. I didn’t think anything about it until I saw an empty bag of Lindt peppermint truffles on the kitchen floor. The sneaky kid had eaten an entire bag by herself. There were tears and sad faces. I can’t tell if I was more upset that she snuck chocolate, or that I didn’t get to eat my peppermint chocolates.
Oh, also during the recital, the singer sang a John Denver song, Perhaps Love, which was a little unusual, but this line made my heart contract every time he got to it:

-Friday I had the day off, and it coincided with the Thankgiving party at the 7 year old’s class. I was on the fence about going – there seems to be many demands on a parent’s time from the school, and it was my one day off. I will admit I am not the most involved parent – I don’t PTA, I don’t Room Parent, I didn’t make it to Parent-Teacher conferences this fall. But I figured it makes the 7 year old happy when I show up, so I can do it a couple times a year. I signed up to bring an activity. After some late night googling, I decided to bring in decorative gourd bowling. I bought several decorative gourds and 12 bottles of water. I put food colouring in the water bottles – red, orange, and yellow, for some fall flavor. And that was it. I think the whole thing cost $15. At the school, I set up the water bottle like bowling pins and let the kids bowl with the decorative gourds. It was surprisingly popular for the amount of effort I put into it. Maybe not so surprising, though. I mean what kid wouldn’t want to throw produce at things? The fun thing, then, was when the bowling started getting a little out of hand, I took the 7 year old and sprung him out of school early and we went home. It just feels fun to be able to leave school early on a Friday afternoon.

=And then that night we went to a middle school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a lot of fun. The weekend before we had gone to see A Year with Frog and Toad at the high school. Between those two productions, I’m realizing what an awesome thing school drama productions are. First of all, it’s a low key way to take my own kids to the theatre and that form of story-telling. And also, I love the sense of community- we had friends who were involved in both productions and it’s great to be able to support them.

-I haven’t written a dinner post lately, and that’s because I haven’t been home for dinner very much these past few weeks. One morning, I was packing all the snacks and food for everyone for the day and I think I packed more food to be eaten on the go than at home. I packed:

  • Three lunches (me, the seven year old, the four year old)
  • Two dinners (me and the seven year old since we both ahd a show that night)
  • Four snacks – two for the seven year old (one for school and one for the evening at the theatre), one for me, one for the 12 year old who had rehearsal that evening.

It seemed like a lot of portable food to pack for one day. Anyhow, the Husband has been making the majority of dinners this month. A few good dinners that I made, which I want to remember for the future:

  • Cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur Baking cookbook. These were savory and slightly spicy. The recipe suggested we top it with queso, which I might try next time. I actually mixed the dry ingredients ahead of time and the Husband did the rest when he got home.
  • Instant pot shrimp biryani from NYTimes Cooking. This was a pantry meal that I managed to make in thirty minutes one day when I had no plans for dinner.
  • Honey glazed mushrooms and udon noodles also from NYTimes Cooking – I had a head of cabbage to use up.
  • Happy hour dinner- crackers and charcuterie and I made a batch of Brazilian cheesy bread. Cut up veggies and fruit as well. The kids really love this kind of meal.
  • Not dinner, but my go-to lunch has been massaged kale salad. I prepped and washed a large container of kale ahead of time, and then in the morning, I massage a few handfuls with olive oil, sesame oil, and salt. Then I throw together with whatever I have on hand – roasted sweet potato, walnuts, daikon radish, avocado, apples… It’s sturdy so will keep in my lunchbox all day, and packed with vegetables so that it feels energizing to eat during long days at the theatre.

-I’ve been thinking lately about being nice. We have feedback sessions at the end of the each show with the stage management team. There was a comment at one point about someone not being very nice, having a very direct edge to their tone when they spoke to other people. I struggle with whether or not to pass this feedback along to that person. On the one hand, not someone being nice can have an effect on morale if you aren’t used to working with them. At the same time, I don’t believe that we all need to homogenous in our way of speaking or acting, and I do think we all need to learn to interact with people who have different styles of communication. And maybe it’s because I’ve worked with this person for many many years, that I have blinders as to whether the reports about them not being “nice” is a problem. Because they are one of the kindest people that I know. And to me, being kind is much more important than being nice. So I’ve been turning these ideas over in my head – about what place does personality have in work place culture and how to value different personalities as part of the whole package that someone is.

Things I’m grateful for this week: We’re going into Thanksgiving week – there are so many things to be grateful for and I was going to write a whole week of gratitude posts. Here are some small ones to start off:

Handles – this feels kind of silly, but my laptop sleeve has a handle and it makes it super easy to carry when I also have four other bags to bring to work. Every time I pick up the laptop, I think, “Boy am I glad there’s a handle!” I mean think about all the handles in your life! Doors, boxes, coffee cups… Handles make life better.

My apple box, and the prop guy who gets it for me – The stage management console at the theatre was clearly designed for someone taller than me. When I stand at it, my score is chest height, which makes it uncomfortable to turn pages and turn my cue lights on and off. (The cue lights are the colored lights that I use to tell the crew when to execute a cue. They are at the back of my console.) So I stand on an apple box. It’s not literally an apple box – it’s a wooden box about the size of an apple crate, which is why it’s called an apple box. Every time I call in this theatre, I ask the prop head for my apple box and he finds it, only giving me a little bit of grief for being short.

The seven year old and me backstage – he’s standing on my apple box.

Rock Creek Parkway – This is the road I take to the theatre. The thing is, though, the traffic goes into the city in the morning and out of the city in the evening. I, however, go into the city in the evening, so I can’t use it. So I end up having to drive through D.C. during rush hour to get to an evening performance call. Driving through the city is tedious in normal times; during rush hours it is soul sucking. I’m grateful for whenever I can take the parkway and not have to drive through Dupont Circle.

Ten extra minutes in the morning – Because of the late nights, I’ve been sleeping in a little later than normal and the mornings have seemed a little more breathless than usual. One day we left the house a few minutes late and I realized that we were going to miss the bus, so I drove the kids straight to school, parking on the trail and walking up to the school. Turns out, if we choose to drive them walk to school, I can leave a little later, buying me an extra ten minutes in the morning and I also get a little walk in up to the school and back to the parking lot on the trail. Those ten extra minutes give me the space to breathe and think through everything that I need for the day.

How was your weekend? Who is the kindest person you know? What quotidian thing are you grateful for this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Tales from backstage – bloody bloody show. NaBloPoMo 2024 #16

There is blood in my show. Fake blood. There is blood painted on costumes and blood on people’s hands and blood on props. Blood always causes lots of consternation when you try to put it in a show. It’s super messy, to start – to really look good onstage it has to be quite thick and sticky. Also stage blood gets on everything. Which is usually the point – it’s supposed to have a big visual impact. But it gets on the costumes, it gets all over the set, it drip drip drips onto the floor. And then you have to clean it up. From the stage, from the props, and from the costumes. For our show we use special stage blood that is supposed to wash out of costumes – it has soap as one of the ingredients. But the costume department always does a test first. Just because something says it will wash out, doesn’t always means it will wash out of all fabrics.

Also the other tricky thing about blood – which department deals with it? Sometimes it’s the make-up department. Sometimes it’s the prop department. Let’s be honest, no one wants to be responsible for it, but also no one wants other departments to be responsible for getting their things bloody.

And then, what is the best way to get blood on a person? The super simple way is to paint it on a costume, and have a rip away patch that is surreptitiously removed at the right moment. Sometimes we hide a bloody sponge on the stage somewhere so that the performer can swipe the sponge and then swipe the blood on themselves. Another method we make small blood pouches out of Ziploc bags and the performer carries it hidden on their persons and then pops the bag at the right moment.

For my current show, the blood is actually applied offstage and they performers come back onstage with blood dripping from their hands. The director did indeed want the hands dripping with blood. But we didn’t want to much blood that it would drip all over the floor for people to walk in and track all over. We needed predictable bloodiness. So at one point we were trying to figure out how to get the singers’ hands sufficiently bloody in the thirty seconds that they are offstage.

“Let’s do a blood test,” I suggested to the prop coordinator.

“Sure,” she said. “The tricky thing is figuring out where we can do it.”

Turns out that if we do it backstage, we have to have the prop department involved and they were about to go on dinner break. If we do it down in the dressing rooms, we have to have a wardrobe person involved and they weren’t on the call that day.

“Let’s just do it in the parking garage,” I said in half-joking exasperation.

“Actually….” she said.

Which is how I ended up kneeling on an old sheet in the bottom level of the parking garage at work with my hands in a basin of blood.

It was messy and sticky. But it did wash off rather well.

Sometimes I love how ridiculous my job is.

I mean not suspicious at all to be found in a parking garage with blood dripping form my hands…

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Books Read, October 2024 – NaBloPoMo #15

It’s Elementary by Elise Bryant – Mystery novel about a single mom who is guilted into heading the PTA’s diversity committee at her 7 year old’s elementary school. And then the principal goes missing. It’s light and frothy and some of it made me laugh out loud. BUT the main character starts a relationship with the school counselor and I kept thinking how wildly inappropriate that was and by the end of the book, it kind of made it hard to enjoy the book. Even still, this line, where the main character bristles at the idea of being a Young mom, made me snort with laughter:

“I’m grown, just like you! I use Sensodyne, and I have enough white hairs that I can’t keep casually plucking them without looking like a “before” in one of those women’s hair loss Instagram ads I keep getting, and I’m pretty sure my back hurts more than it doesn’t hurt now, and I’m wearing Old Navy Pixie pants. There is nothing more grown than Old Navy Pixie pants!”

― Elise Bryant, It’s Elementary, p. 30

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune – sequel to The House on the Cerulean Sea. I LOVED The House on the Cerulean Sea, a book about a government worker who is tasked with investigating a school for magical children. This sequel is… fine. It was nice to re-visit the characters, but this book lacked the urgency and plot drive of the first book. There was no tension in this book – it was pretty much magical kids and those who love them vs. big bad government, and some of the book felt very preachy.

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams – A whimsical romance featuring a florist who leaves her wealthy upbringing in Atlanta to open up a flower shop in Brooklyn where meets a mysterious stranger. In a parallel plot, the book follows Ezra, a jazz pianist whose star is rising during the Harlem Renaissance. The book involves some time travel, which isn’t usually my thing, but I really liked the mix of historical and contemporary settings here. The plot kept me turning the pages, though I thought the resolution of the various elements fell a little predictable and rushed.

There were some really thoughtful contemplations about modernity. In a way it reminded me of Ministry of Time and some of the ideas in that book. For example:

“I like vinyl, so I didn’t evolve past record players. Not a fan of Google. If I had my druthers, I’d only research in libraries. But I do enjoy Alexa telling me the weather every morning. Washing machines, AC, photocopiers, and LASIK surgery? A-plus inventions. Tinder, automatic transmission, Roombas, CGI? Dumb.” He shrugged. *I’m not that impressed by freezers. They made milkmen obsolete. I miss hearing them deliver those glass bottles at the crack of dawn; it signals a new day has started!” he exclaimed. “Social media? None of my business. Websites frustrate me, mostly. What are these cookies I’m always being asked to accept? TV’s probably my favorite twentieth-century development. I always have the newest model, and these days, it’s all so good: prestige, reality, sitcoms, cartoons. I mean, have you seen Succession? P-Valley? And, obviously, I keep up with music. All kinds. Good music’s good music; genre’s just the bag you carry it in.””

― Tia Williams, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, p. 243

No Two Persons by Erica Baumeister, read by Cassandra Campbell, Stephen Graybill, Carol Jacobanis, Rachel L. Jacobs, Barrie Kreinik, Max Meyers, George Newbern, Jesse Vilinsky, Braden Wright, Gabra Zackman – This book tells the story of a novel and how it comes into the lives of nine different people. The first chapter tells the story of how the novel Theo comes to be written and then each chapter focusses on on person whose life is impacted by the novel. Even though the stories are slightly interconnected, each chapter is more like a self contained short story. This book really believes in the mythology of how powerful books can be. I don’t think I bought into the idea as much as the author did, but I did find each story absorbing.

On my proverbial Nightstand: I’m not finding a lot of time to read these days, but I do have a few things with bookmarks in them. Interestingly theses are all hard copy of books. I’ve been finding that I’m more able to focus these days on hard copy books so I haven’t been reading on my phone these days.

The Unlikely Thru-Hiker – Adventures on the Appalacian Trail.

The Impossible Us – It’s been a page-turner. In the alternate universe Trump does not become president. I don’t know if the author realizes how much that tiny plot detail reverberates right now.

This is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained – Insightful.

What I wore, Tech week – NaBloPoMo #14

I thought I’d continue my posts on what I wore, since it’s fun to see how that changes depending on what I’m doing. Also – I thought it might be interesting to walk through how tech week unfolds for me. In addition to rehearsals in the evening (or with Piano Tech Day, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening) tech week usually involves spending the morning cleaning up the messy notations in my book from the night before, then the afternoon is spent in the theatre at the tech table setting light cues and placements with the director and designers. Throughout it all, I’ll be double checking schedules for the next day, and following up on any other notes that have come up. Because I have to drop the kids at the bus, I rarely get to the theatre before 10:15am, but from then, it’s non-stop til midnight. I usually plan out all my outfits for tech week so that I don’t have to think about it in the morning – also I only have five pairs of pants so I pretty much wear the same-ish outfit rotation during tech.

Anyhow, on to the sartorial….

Sunday – Sitzprobe day. Sitzprobe, for folks who don’t know, is the first rehearsal where the singers get to sing with the orchestra. (German for sit + rehearsal because we don’t do any staging. We actually usually wandelprobe – which means we are onstage and the singers can wander – wandel – as they sing, but we don’t move scenery or have costumes or lights or anything.) Traditionally singers will dress more nicely for Sitzprobe since it’s the first time meeting the orchestra. This outfit passes for dressing nicely in my world. I wore: my linen shirt dress (Uniqlo – which you can see in my summer post – I bought this when pregnant with the second? third? not sure. It is nice and loose), black leggings (from Jockey – I know it’s not fashionable to wear leggings and dresses, but I can’t stand wearing tights.), sweater (from a nursing line called Teat and Cosset, which I believe is no longer in business. It’s a nursing sweater, with buttons on the side. I love this sweater because it is so light and slouchy since it was made to transition from maternity to nursing, yet it also has balloon sleeves, which make a nice detail. It’s also cotton wool blend, so holds up well without being too hot.), ubiquitous puffer vest (Uniqlo), and blue boots from Reiker. I bought those boots last year as a possibility for travelling, but they aren’t all that practical for travelling because they are not waterproof. But I love the way they look, so I kept them anyway.

Monday – Final Room Run Day. The Room Run is the last rehearsal in the rehearsal room before we move onstage. It’s where we go through the whole show one last time in the rehearsal room. I try to dress a little more nicely for Final Room Run because there are a lot of guests in rehearsal that day. Blue dress (Wool& workhorse dress that I wear at least twice a week), Black leggings (Again the Jockey leggings. I think I have four pairs of them – I like that they are cotton/spandex and have the tech pocket for my phone), butterfly sweater (I LOVE this sweater. I got it at Nordstrom Rack, I think. I’m always scared to wear it because it is cream colour and I don’t want to get it dirty, but it makes me so happy when I do wear it. Another cotton/wool blend.), boots from Sorel (these are the boots I ended up ordering and wearing when we travelled last year. I love them. They are waterproof and easy to put on and I’ve walked five miles in them and my feel didn’t hurt.) Hat from my sister in law.

Tuesday: Set Looks. Set Looks is when, after the set is loaded into the theatre and assembled, the crew puts each different scenic look onstage so the director and designers can see and adjust and tweak. It’s also the chance for stage management to get a sense of what the pathways are like backstage. It’s a very exciting day. There are 11 different scenic looks in the show I’m currently working on, so set looks took two hours.
My friend calls this look my “Hallmark movie apple picking look.” Pants are Duluth Trading Company’s Cotton Noga Pants. They are super stretchy and comfy and in the dark could pass for khaki pants. The pants don’t have belt loops which makes them not quite perfect for backstage, but I’m wearing a scarf for a belt so I can have my flashlight on me. Black t-shirt, I think is from JP Penny. Plaid shirt is also from Duluth. And Allbirds on my feet.

Wednesday – Piano Tech Rehearsals, two in one day. This is the first rehearsal onstage with performers – we have sets and lighting, but no costumes or orchestra. It’s a long long long day. This is my tech outfit – I wear this for every piano tech because I like to wear a colourful top that will stand out so people can find me onstage and backstage easily if they need to, and also so if I have to go out onstage, it’s obvious that it’s me and not a performer being somewhere they shouldn’t be. Floral print t-shirt (Uniqlo), pants are the same Noga Pants from Duluth that I wore yesterday, but in a different colour, and on my feet my Altra running shoes.

Thursday: Piano Dress Rehearsal- our first rehearsal in full costume, wigs, and make-up. This show has a lot of costume changes, some of them only a minute long. The first rehearsal in costume, we very rarely make all the costume changes on time so it kind of feels like jumping on a runaway train that periodically stops so you can put your pants on. And also the train looks completely different than the train from the night before because someone painted it a different colour. I didn’t get a picture of myself in this outfit. The shirt is the same Uniqlo shirt as Wednesday, just in a different colour. Linen pants, also from Uniqlo.

Friday: Orchestra Tech Rehearsal. We now add orchestra. This rehearsal is pretty much the conductor’s rehearsal- we work at their pace, so they will stop and give notes and fix musical issues if needed. Hopefully the conductor constantly moves the rehearsal forward. Usually we give a conductor a list of places that it would be helpful if he didn’t stop because we have a costume change or a scene shift that we have to do in real time. I wore the wide leg linen pants I got this summer from Old Navy and a blue striped top.
I’ve had this top for over twenty years. I hadn’t thought about it being that old, but I was looking through some college pictures lately and there it was. I think I bought it at a thrift store one summer during college. I find myself reaching for this when I need something that’s one step above a t-shirt. It’s probably the thing that’s been in my closet the longest. Well, I do have a night shirt from high school. I also have a pair of boots that are probably just as old, but I don’t wear those as much because my feet have gone up a size since college. I should just get rid of those, but they were the first pair of real boots that I ever bought- or rather my mom bought them for me as a present. This t-shirt was out of my rotation for a little while when I was in my mid-low rise pants phase since it is a little on the shorter side for a shirt on me. But now that I’m back into high rise pants this shirt has fit right back into my wardrobe.

Saturday: Orchestra Tech #2. Same kind of rehearsal as the night before. I’m wearing a top from Uniqlo, Duluth Trading plaid shirt, and linen joggers from Gap. You can’t really see it in this picture, but I’ve had to patch those pants because they were getting holes. I work in the dark, so I figured it’s okay to wear patched clothes to work. I don’t often wear these pants for tech because there aren’t belt loops and if I’m the Assistant Stage Manager on a show, I need to wear a belt or sash for my headset and belt pack and flashlight. But as the calling stage manager, like I was for this show, I don’t have a wireless headset; I’m tethered to my console so I don’t need to clip anything to my waist. Also that concludes my work appropriate pants. After this night I start repeating pants or just wear black pants.

And back to Sunday, which was a day off. Yay! In the spirit of keeping it real, here is what I wore on Sunday for running the kids to skating lessons and an afternoon nap and a late afternoon walk. Sweatpants- they’re light blue tie dye, inspired by a pair of cloud joggers that I saw a character wear on Ted Lasso. (I think I found these ones on Backcountry.com and they were definitely more expensive that I would pay for a pair of sweat pants, but they are really thick and comfy and 100% cotton and I wear them almost every day off during the winter.). Tunic length hoodie. I’m sure I’m also wearing a shirt there too, just can’t remember what.

Welp that was my sartorial tech week life.

What item in your closet have you had the longest?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Looking forward to this week – NaBloPoMo 2024 #13

Another voice recital that I’m doing the supertitles for. This recital features a young singer I’ve worked with before and the program sounds really cool – some opera arias, some songs by John Ireland (British art songs are so my jam), and even John Denver’s Perhaps Love. Also this beautiful song, Homeward Bound, that’s been stuck in my head ever since I heard it. There are a couple pieces in Xhosa – which is a South African language I had to google. As nerve wracking as it is to cue titles for a language that I have zero familiarity with, it’s also pretty cool to learn about a different language.

Thanksgiving – Thanksgiving has snuck up on me and I had done zero thinking about it. It will just be a quiet family affair as I have to work on Wednesday and Friday. The 7 year old made the menu: turkey, rainbow jello, steamed broccoli. The 12 year old wants cranberry sauce as well. And there will be pie. Of course. I’ll probably just do a turkey breast since it’s just the five of us.

Wicked the Movie – is coming! The 12 year old and I have a mommy daughter date to go see it. Not sure when, but it’s happening.

Starting rehearsals for a new show – Didn’t I just open one show? Yes. The opera season this fall is PACKED. I’ll close my current show on Saturday and Sunday we start rehearsals for the next show. I’m excited because the 12 year old is in the children’s chorus for this next show. It’ll be fun to work with her. I hope.

Two evenings at home this week. WOW! Think of all the laundry I’ll be able to fold. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

Started this book. The male protagonist is kind of a jerk so far, but the premise is really interesting to me.

What are you looking forward to this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – thirty blog posts in thirty days- click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing, everyone!

Weekly gratitudes – NaBloPoMo #12

This week grateful for:

A weeknight at home- I got to cook dinner, help with homework and piano, do laundry, and go to bed before midnight. It was amazing.

Opening a show. There was one little snafu during the show, but otherwise it went well. It felt good to finally call all the cues in my book.

Printed spot labels. One of the most time consuming parts of putting cues in my book is writing in the information for the spotlight operators. The Stage Manager tells the spot ops whom to pick up with their light, where that person will be onstage, and what level intensity the light will be (in percentage) and also when to switch the colour in their light and then when to fade out. It’s a lot. Usually it takes a few hours to get it all in my book. My grandboss had this brilliant idea this show for the Assistant Lighting Designer, who creates the spotlight cues, to type labels with all this information. It was amazing. I just took the labels, put them in my book, and read them for the first time during final dress rehearsal. Okay, so it’s not my ideal situation to blindly call the spots for the first time during final dress- I like to have a better sense of what the spots need to do. But I simply did not have time to put the cues in my book ahead of time during this show. Having the spot cues pre-written took a huge chunk off my plate.

Friends who took the 5 year old for an overnight On one of the nights when the Husband had to be at the theatre late to pick up the 7 year old, our neighbors picked up the 5 year old from school (our kids are at the same pre-school) and kept her for the evening and an overnight. The 5 year old had a great time and it was helpful for her not to have to ride along to the theatre.

My hoodie that I keep in the office. I don’t usually love having branded work swag, but having this hoodie was really helpful last week because it was really cold in the theatre. And I spent a lot of time in the theatre.

All the people I work with – I know I said this last week, but it’s still true. I’ve dropped the ball on a lot of things or passed things off, and people have picked up the slack and given me grace and we still get the show up and sometimes we laugh a lot along the way, even while realizing how ridiculous the situation is. I couldn’t do this job if everyone was an asshole.

The Husband – it’s broken record worth listening to. The kids and I could not get through tech week and our busy schedules if he didn’t pick them up, feed them, drive them places, help with homework, bake cookies (he baked cookies on Monday when he was off for Vegeans’s day!), do laundry, pick up the house, keep in touch with contractors, and worry about us driving late at night.

What are you grateful for this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Haiku Friday – NaBloPoMo #11

Solid in my hands,
Warmth passing from tea to mug to me
morning tea grounds me.

Open and inhale
Little Free careworn pages
The sweet smell of books.

Cool weather bike rides
These are days I like living.
Perfect balanced joy.

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click here to see who else is participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!