NaBloPoWriMo 2024 – Page 2 – Life Off Headset

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!

Things that ground me this week – NaBloPoMo Day 10

A few weeks ago, I signed on to a free online parenting class offered by the Parenting Encouragement Program. It is supposed to be a seven week course, but I could only make one night out of seven. The class I went to was about rituals and routines. At one point the class leader asked, “What routines do you have that make you feel grounded?”

I found myself raising my hand. “What do you mean by ‘grounded’?” I asked.

I can’t for the life of me remember exactly what the response was, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot during this busy busy season. To me, it means those things that make me feel stable and human. Those things that, when it seems like life is out of control and I’m starting to spin in my head, those things that remind me that we are human beings, not human doings. Rituals and routines that give me a bit of mental space so that I have the capacity for more inputs.

I do feel silly about how hard I found this past week. I mean I make opera; I don’t perform heart surgeries on babies. It’s not life and death. (I mean, not literally.) But it was a hard week, mentally and physically for me.

When I was writing the title of this post, asking myself, “What things ground me this week?” I thought – well, to be honest, tech really ground me to a pulp this week. Isn’t there a beautiful irony in that? The things that make me feel grounded are the things that I really need when life is grinding me up and spitting me out.

Here are a few things:

Tea in a mug. I often bring tea in my travel mug, but lately I’ve been re-discovering the tactile sense of connection of drinking out of a mug, the heat seeping into my hands and warming all of me. Drinking hot tea, strong and steaming, pulls me into a moment of just being and feeling present.

Short hot hot hot hot showers. I’m not a shower every day kind of person. I’m not even a shower every other day person. But this past week, I found that three minutes under a steaming hot blast of water was cathartic. I would drag myself up in the morning, after getting home past midnight. Sometimes during tech I decide sleep trumps showers. But these days I have to be up to pack lunches anyway, so I get up, feeling like the hard hard rehearsal the night before was still clinging to me. And even though I barely had time in the morning, I turn the water on super hot and jump in the shower, just long enough to breathe the steam and feel the sting of water burning my skin. And came out feeling like I’m going to make it through the day.

Classical music on the way into work. I have an audiobook for my long commutes to the theatre, but this week, on the way in, I just wanted to listen to classical music – I wanted the soothing, wordless melodies – anything with words would be too much. My mind could trace the musical lines as I listened, but also my mind could wander and problem solve and think about the day ahead. I think while part of being grounded is about being fully present in the moment, there is part of being in the moment that is also about thinking of the problems ahead. The challenges of the day are also part of the present moment. I know that people talk about mindfulness as being in the now, but I think the now is also made up of aspects of past and future as well.

Holding my son’s hand. The seven year old is in my show. (Which, on reflection, wasn’t a great idea for the family – it’s certainly has pushed us to activity capacity and the late nights have messed up a lot of things.) Some days he comes to the theatre before the child minder is on duty, so I take him out to the house with me where he sits in the seats behind me as I put cues in my book. He holds my hand as we walk around backstage and that little warm firm grasp reminds me that here is a living breathing human that I somehow pushed into the world, and how awesome is that?

The routine. Getting up in the morning and packing lunches – two slices of bread, two slices of cheese, two slices of ham. Apple, sliced. Five slices of cucumbers. One cookie. Feed the kids. What is important right now? Not obsessing about how to fit in 40 minutes of chorus break in a 4 hour rehearsal, but rather, packing this lunch so that the kids aren’t hungry at lunchtime. I don’t know how I’m going to fit in all those breaks, but I do know that we will get in the car at 9:55am to catch the school bus at 9:06am.

Expressing gratitude. For the Husband, for good colleagues, for the fine weather (that I don’t get to see). For being so very damn lucky that I get to make opera for a living.

What grounds you these days? What is grinding you up these day?

Looking forward to right now… NaBloPoMo Day 9

Opening Night! Very excited to get this show before and audience and for people to see the story we’re telling onstage. There are some truly stunning moments.

Sleep – I feel like I need to sleep for a week to recover from tech.

A weeknight at home. I’ll have one night at home this week. I’m looking forward to cooking a proper dinner and just hanging out with the kids and being in my pjs by 8pm. (The Husband has a well deserved evening off with a friend.) I’m not looking forward to the possibility of dealing with tantrums and being yelled at over screentime. I guess there are pluses and minuses about an evening at home with kids.

Parent teacher conferences this week. I know they are kind of a drive by affair, but I’m looking forward to getting a glimpse of what’s going on in school with my kids.

A walk with a friend. I have a friend who works by the theatre and I haven’t seen her in a few months. Usually we see each other once a month, but between my work and her travel it’s been a while.

Longwood Gardens – I have one Sunday off in December and we’ve booked tickets to Longwood Gardens to see the Christmas displays. I’m not quite registering that Christmas is so close, though.

A designer I like working with coming back in the Spring – This is more long term, but I just learned that a designer I really love working with will be working on my show in the Spring. Impermanence is a part of theatre. Shows open and shows close; people come in and we work together for a very short time and then we move on. But often, very often, our paths cross again, and there is a sense of familiarity and joy to reuniting with colleagues.

Reading more of this book – The chapters are short but full of adventures, which makes it perfect for me right now. And it’s making me long to escape to the woods.

What are you looking forward to?

Weekly Gratitudes- NaBloPoMo Day 8(?)

A quick list this week. Because tech week.

Things I’m grateful for this week:

Tech- because it was so all consuming that it was a good distraction and kept me from spiralling over election news.

My Stage Management Team – because they kept rehearsals moving backstage, and any time I ask for help or give them a task, the answer is, “Sure, I can do that.” or “What if we did it this better way instead?” This show was really hard for me, and I’m so glad that I had assistants who were beyond competent.

Everyone I work with- for being collaborative and kind.

Post It Notes – Because it seems like all I did this week was run rehearsals or put light and scenic cues in my score. I’m grateful for Post It notes, because it is easy to move the cues around as we try to figure out how really we want scenic shifts to happen. (I think I’ve blogged about how this all works before, but I’m too fried to try to find that post… Maybe I’ll do another post some time.)

Yogurt – for being a complete meal. I feel like a terrible managerial example this week – I always try to tell my team to take their meal breaks and I barely took any the past few days. Thank goodness for yogurt.

Computers and email for sending documents – When I started at this company we were still faxing attendance sheets to the people who submitted payroll. Also when I started at this job, we would type up rehearsal notes and then print the out and put a copy in each person’s mailbox at work. So time consuming. Now we just scan/draft an email, and then hit SEND! Easy peasy.

The Husband – because he has done so much driving this week. And he holds things together and takes care of the kids and the house and still goes to work every day. He’s been the one that’s had to deal with traffic and kids’ tempers and laundry and so much more. Oh and the two days that the kids were off school, he was home with them and one day even took the day off work and took them to the Air and Space Museum. I might have worked 76 hours last week, but he worked 168.

What are you grateful for this week? Have you ever had to use a fax machine? Do you still have to use a fax machine?

Haiku x 2. NaBloPoMo Day 7

It’s been a beast of a tech week. I’m trying to eat and sleep and get outside when I can, though it’s not been a whole lot these past three days. I think I’ve missed a day of posting,for NaBloPoMo. Maybe I’ll catch up and double post at some point.

I’m trying to write more haikus rather than scroll on my phone while walking. As part of The Bored and Brilliant Challenge, I composed haikus in my head instead of taking pictures in an effort to stay off my phone. But sometimes something was worth having a picture and a haiku. Here are two from recently.

Pay attention here –
Someone took a highlighter
to mark the sky pink.

Fairy wings lit up,
We tramp through crisp fallen leaves
pursuing candy hauls.

Hallowe’en 2024 – NaBloPoMo Day #6

Welp. It’s certainly disappointing, the election results. I have no words, just lots of sadness and a need to understand what drives the American people.

On to the post I had drafted before election results came in…

Hallowe’en was so mild here this year. Some years it is so chilly and the kids have to bundle up and you can’t see their costume. Not this year. It sooooo warm. I had brought a light hoodie to wear myself and didn’t need it at all.

The kids’ costumes this year were certainly a mix of things. I love making Hallowe’en costumes, and helping the kids put them together. I selfishly get a little sad when the kids just want to buy one. This year’s costumes weren’t super fancy, but I think the kids were pretty imaginative.

The twelve year old went as a “water fairy”. Not sure what that meant, but it involved lots of fabric and a blue dress. I had taken her to the thrift store to find a dress that we could alter, and we found a iridescent blue dress that would be a nice base. The plan was to attach layers of shimmery fabric and tulle to the dress. We went to the fabric store and got fabric and then picked up some light up wings from Party City.

Well, when we got home, the twelve year old tried on the dress and it actually looked really good on her. And it was also knee length. Do you know how hard it is to find a skirt or dress for a tween that isn’t super short? Also- we discovered that the blue dress has pocket! Can it be more perfect???!?!? At that point I decided this dress was too useful to turn into a Hallowe’en costume and I wasn’t about to ruin it by sewing tulle and shimmery blue fabric onto it.

So instead of sewing the fabric to the dress, I sewed the tulle onto bias tape to tie around her waist. I sewed the blue shimmery fabric into a kind of skirt, and the twelve year old just wore the fabric as an overskirt. Add the light up wings and some glitter make-up and the look was complete.

The seven year old had originally planned to go as Darth Vadar again. But when he heard me talking to the 12 year old about her costume he decided that he needed a new costume too. Well this was two weeks ago and I had told him the window had closed on submitting requests to mom for a Hallowe’en costume so we had to make so with what he had. The Husband suggested that he wear his bomber jacket and go as Tom Cruise in Top Gun. (Note: I have never actually seen Top Gun myself.). I ordered him some aviator glasses – which he lost within 15 minutes of trick or treating. White t-shirt and jeans and a bit of hair spray and he was all set. I tried to get him to give me a toothy Tom Cruise grin, but he went for cool stoic Tom Cruise instead.

The five year old basically pulled a bunch of stuff out of her dress up bin, put it all on and declared herself a princess. She wore a Moana headband that I had made four years ago for the oldest, a Snow White dress, wings we bought at the Ren Faire, a tutu that a friend gave the 12 yrar old. And underneath it all, she is wearing a skirt made of the same blue shimmery fabric as her older sister. Fun fact, the seven year old sewed the pocket for the elastic on the blue shimmery skirt. Ever since he started taking sewing classes, he’s been wanting to make his sister a dress – I guess this is a first step.

Our neighborhood is pretty quiet for Halloween so we always go trick or treating with friends at their place. They have a fun neighborhood to trick or treat in. A lot of people actually sit out in their driveway and wait for the kids to come by, which is nice because you don’t have to play the “The place is dark, should I ring the door bell?” game. One house even had a crockpot with hot apple cider, with optional rum on the side for the parents. The decorations in the neighborhood are pretty fun and amazing. They have a neighborhood Hallowe’en decorating contest, and our friends actually won “Best night time” for their display.

Here are two of my favorites:

i thought this one had really effective lighting:

This one is a little sad now, but I really appreciate it:

This one was my favorite. I think it won “Scariest Display.” The whole yard will filled with dolls. Sooooo creepy.

We trick or treated from about 6:00pm til 8:30pm then went back to our friends’ house for chicken wings and candy counting, sorting and trading. It’s really nice that our kids are of an age when they can hang out by themselves and the grown ups can talk.

I’m glad I didn’t have to work on Hallowe’en this year. Some nights we have tech over Hallowe’en. I wonder when the 12 year old will stop going trick or treating? She loves going, and I figure at the very least she can still go with her little brother and sister, so she’ll have a good excuse to go even when she’s probably aged out a little. Though I don’t know if she’ll get as much candy then.

What was your favorite Hallowe’en costume growing up? (If you did Hallowe’en). What age did you stop going trick or treating?

What We Ate This Week – NaBloPoMo Day #4

Even though I try to meal plan, I usually find it more helpful to write out what we actually ate in any given week. This past week was a very functional week of dinner – just about the simplest and fastest ways to get dinner on the table and everyone fed. I think it will be like this for a few weeks since 3 out 5 of us will be at a rehearsal or performance every night of the week.

Monday: Barley Vegetable Soup – from the freezer. I’m not even sure when we made this.

Tuesday: Mac and Cheese and green beans and waffles. Waffles are one of those things that are easy for me to prep ahead on nights when I have to work. I put together the dry ingredients and the Husband add the wet when he gets home. I made savory cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur Baking book, and it was really really tasty – like Mexican food in waffle form.

Wednesday: Ribollita Soup. This wasn’t a great recipe. It was too acidic for our tastes – I think too much crushed tomato? I might throw some pasta in the leftovers to make it more like a pasta dish.

Thursday: Hallowe’en. We went to a Friend’s house and they fed us. Veggies, and dip and pizza before trick or treating, and chicken wings and salad after trick or treating.

Friday: We had dinner out with friends that were visiting. The Husband and I shared sandwiches – a fig, prosciutto and brie sandwich and a BLT. We had fried portabellos for an appetizer that was really tasty.

Saturday: the Husband and two littles had pizza and watched Dispicable Me 4 at home. I had dumplings (from the freezer) at work. The 12 year old went to the opera with friends. I think they had pizza and fries. She sent me a picture!

Sunday: I worked late and had Wednesday’s ribollita in a tortilla. It was a little soggy. Not sure what the Husband made for the kids, but the house smelled really nice when I got home. I love walking into a house that smells like home-cooked dinner.

What was your favorite meal last week?

Looking Forward To Right Now – NaBloPoMo Day #3

In my weekly posts, I always write a couple things I’m looking forward to. Anticipation is actually something I track daily. A few years ago, I read an article about how social scientists have found that anticipation increases well being and ever since I’ve tried to find something to look forward to every day, from big things to small things. (It’s not this article, but same ideas)

I thought for NaBloPoWriMo, I’d write my gratitude list on Saturday, when I look back at the week, and then on Sunday I’d look forward.

Things I’m currently looking forward to:

-Tech rehearsals. Actually being at the other end of tech. I’m going to be honest – there are stage managers that LOVE tech – those rehearsals where we move onstage and start incorporating scenic, lighting, costume, wig elements into a show that hitherto we have been rehearsing in a room on lines of tape. I don’t know if I’m one of those stage managers. I find tech extremely stressful. There is a lot to keep track of. There is never enough time or money. Sometimes what we do in the room don’t always match with the realities of what we can do onstage, no matter how much we try to anticipate it all. On top of that, it’s hard to “life” when in tech – I eat crappy food, don’t get to read or exercise, or see my family. Not to mention the Husband is solo parenting through all this, and driving all the kids to all the things. It’s rough. But, I do love seeing things onstage, solving problems, driving the ship, hearing the orchestra and singers come together, collaborating with directors and designers. So yeah – I’m looking forward to tech and the opera we’ll create together onstage. I’m also looking forward to the day off before final dress rehearsal.

-Running along the Potomac. To give myself one “life” thing to look forward to during tech – I’m going to try really really really hard to fit at least one run in on my dinner break. I love running along the Potomac – watching the sun set over buildings, over Roosevelt Island. Monuments in the background. Seeing the crew teams rowing down the river. Other runners. There’s a lot of see, even as I try to clear my mind.

-Chocolate chip cookies. The cafeteria at the theatre has the BEST chocolate chip cookies. They are the size of my face and have the just right degree of squishy slightly underbaked quality in the middle. Of course, they are often sold out by dinner time, so even thought I almost always bring my food, I always go to the cafeteria to get myself a chocolate chip cookie (or two). Some days, it’s the best part of my day.

-A Year with Frog and Toad, the musical. We went to see this show at the local professional children’s theatre last year and it was delightful. The kids still sing parts of it. (Sometimes when I ask the 7 year old to take something to another room for me, he’ll grab the thing and run off singing “I’m a snail with the mail and I’ll deliver without fail!”) The high school is doing it for their fall musical and we’re going to go see it. A night at the theatre!

– Visiting a friend in January. I had a friend that was supposed to visit this week, but didn’t end up being able to come to town. So we’ve make plans to plan a visit in January.

-reading everyone’s posts this month for NaBloPoWriMo. Thirty people have signed up for the challenge! I’m looking forward to “meeting” more bloggy friends.

What are you looking forward to?

Weekly Gratitudes – NaBloPoWriMo Day #2

On my weekly posts, I always try to write at least three things I am grateful for that week. So for NaBloPoWriMo, my weekly gratitude list gets it’s own post.

This week, some things I’m grateful for:

-My sewing machine still working. I sat down two days before Hallowe’en to sew my 12 year old’s costume, and when I plugged it in – nothing happened. I started to despair. Is there anything more despairing than a non-working sewing machine two days before Hallowe’en???? After a moment of spiraling, I unplugged the machine and plugged it into a different outlet. And it worked! Turns out the machine is so old that you have to plug the plug in right side up. I tried to google why this is, but the explanation is too dense for me to process right now. The important thing is that the machine worked and I was able to finish the 12 year old’s Hallowe’en costume.

-Beautiful balmy weather this week. There were a couple days where the weather was in the high 80s this week. Not what I expected for end of October, but the sunshine and warm air was lovely.

-My bike. I had one day when we didn’t have rehearsal so I just went to work to do some paperwork. Since the day was a little flexible, I decided to ride my bike in. I did walk the bike up the big final hill, but other than that, it was a great ride. And then a few days later, because my bike was still at work, I went for a bike ride instead of a run on my dinner break. Running is not so fun for me. Biking is pure joy.

-Text from my 12 year old. There have certainly been some ups and downs and learning curves with getting the 12 year old a phone, but one of the most delightful things is that she now texts me. Sometimes it’s just “hi.” Sometime it’s more than that. Often it’s “When are you coming home.” And then there are lots of pictures – mostly food and selfies. There are parts of the phone that aren’t really working for me, but getting texts from my daughter does make me smile.

-Daylights Saving time ending and getting one more hour of sleep. (Though it’s a little bit of bad timing because I’m about to start tech, which means a lot of late nights. When my body will think it’s 11:30pm and I’ll still have 30 mor minutes of rehearsal to go….)

-Binder Clips. Is there anything as useful as a binder clip? I mean aside from the obvious purpose of holding paper together. We use them in the kitchen to close up bags, like a chip clip. I use them at my desk as a photo holder. I use them when cooking to hold my cookbook open. I use them to clip a bunch of scrap paper together to make a little notepad. So many uses! This week, I discovered a new use – to hold up a music stand. So if you’ve ever worked with a music stand, you know that the top part goes up and down so that if you are standing or sitting, you can adjust the stand to the right height. But… Sometimes with not so great music stands, you pull the top up to be able to use them at a standing height and the weight of your book slowly makes the top sink down again. It’s maddening. Often, we just take gaff tape and tape the stand at the height we like, but this really pisses the prop people off because it can really gum up the shaft of the stand and then it won’t raise or lower anymore. Well, one of my colleagues showed me something brilliant. You can take a binder clip, and clip it to the inner shaft at the height you want and the binder clip with keep the top part of the stand from sinking down. Amazing! The simple binder clip fixed a problem that I’ve had ever since I started stage managing. I’ll take a picture and add it to this post if I can – it’s a little hard to describe how truly brilliant this is.

What are you grateful for this week?

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