It’s been a really long week of tech and performances. Eight days straight without a day off. But even though it’s been a little bit of a grind and there’s been some really special and amazing things going on. Things I want to remember:
-The make-up artist – One of our singers got sick and when I went to tell the make-up crew, the make-up artist A, who does that singer’s make up said jokingly, “Well I guess I’ll just be bored.” And I said, also jokingly, “You could put me into the Tiger make-up.” And she said, “I’ll totally do that. Come back in five minutes.” Which is kind of hilarious because I don’t think I’ve worn make-up since before the pandemic, maybe even longer. So I came back in five minutes, and A gave me Tiger eyes:
I’ll never look this cool ever again. Also notice how those eyes make my unwashed hair look great?
-The stage crew – We had something come up, and I went to the crew and said, “Can you do X so that Y can happen?” And they said, “Why don’t we do W instead so that Y can happen?” And W was a much better solution for Y than I would have ever thought. I mean X was a petty crappy solution for Y in the first place, but it was the simplest option. And just the fact that the crew thought of this more complicated, but better solution to the problem, and went to another theatre to get the parts to make it happen, and they did it without being grumpy about it… The whole things just made me really grateful to be working with them.
Also- when one of the performers forgot to go onstage with their prop thorn, and then told the director that they didn’t know where to find it, the crew helpfully did some labelling to help the singer:
-The crew member who showed up for a show in a full on bear costume. I have no words to describe the delight I felt when I saw him. I have to say the stage crew at this theater is my absolutely favorite crew to work with.
-The visit from Secret Service. There was a VIP at one of our shows, and the number of secret service people everywhere was surreal. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It blows my mind that being surrounded by this many security people is just life for some people. Also – the very ordinary-ness of the security detail. I guess that’s kind of the point. This was also the night that the singer called in sick, and we had to call in someone to sing the role. This isn’t the kind of role where there are lots of people who knew it – the guy we brought in literally looked at the music for the first time at 11am that morning. That whole day was just bonkers all around.
-Having the 12 year old in my show. Riding home in the evenings with her, blasting show tunes in the car and singing along.
-The after party on the last night. A parent had reserved a local pizza restaurant after hours so we could go there. It was everything you’d think an after party with 30 kids would be – loud, raucous, lots of singing, and love flowing like the wine.
-Just the energy and positivity of everyone who worked on this show. There is something in the air, I think, when you do a show with kids for kids because the experience is just as much for the kids onstage as for the kids in the audience. And everyone realizes what a special and potentially life-changing week this could be. Making opera is my job. It’s what I (incredibly) get paid to do. And when it’s your job, sometimes you forget to savor the joy of it – it’s just another night at work. But when you do it with kids, many of whom had never done anything on this level, you realize that you can’t phone it in. The performers and the audience don’t deserve that.
Now that I’m done opera-ing for a few weeks, I can catch my breath, have some time to relax and prep for our winter break trip.
There was an article in the Washington Post last week about panic buying before a vacation or trip. THIS IS ME! Even though we are going to a country where I could literally show up with my passport and a credit card and be fine, I feel like there are THINGS I need for my trip. To be honest, though, most of my panic buying has been as a result of my two big travel fears – that the kids will be bored or hungry on the plane ride. Okay, so far, I’ve panic bought: – A new purse. Or rather three new purses to try. Is this a panic buy or rather a procrastination buy? My purse is literally in tatters, so I needed a new one anyway.
-New shoes. Or rather four new pairs to try on.
-Crocs for the 5 year old because the strap fell off hers this summer, so she needed a new pair anyway.
-Princess sticker book. Also a few other activity books for the flight. I don’t know why because let’s be honest, the kids are just going to watch 20 hours of tv on the plane.
-Mad libs. The kids seem to really take a liking to these this year.
-Card games. I bought a mini Uno to carry in my purse, and Skyjo, a new to me card game. We’ve already opened the latter and it seems like it will be a good game for us because it’s numbers based. The seven year old picked up on it rather quickly. I’m always on the lookout for good games that aren’t language based because we’re not always playing with English speakers.
-This activity book. Which the kids have already started on, so I’m not sure that it will come on our trip:
-Small four compartment snack containers, because snacks need to be organized.
-Some books to read on the way. I like to read books written by authors from the place I’m visiting.
-plug adaptors, which I think the Husband has ordered.
Still to panic buy: -Snacks. All the snacks.
-Trader Joe’s tote bags. Because we’ll be seeing lots of relatives and it’s such a gift-giving culture, I want to bring some small, simple gifts with me just in case. I read somewhere that Trader Joe’s tote bags are much coveted in Asia, so I’m going to pick up a few and some TJ’s snacks to gift.
-Soft pants for the 7 year old. I think I’m going with the philosophy that comfy clothes = pjs for the flight, so I need to get some more soft pants for the kid.
-water colour postcard pad. I like being able to do some water colour paintings when I travel, and I’m out of the small size paper. Of course I could just cut up the larger size paper that I have….
-Travel keyboard so I can write and do some work on my iPad while gone.
-eSim card. Does anyone have experience with these? Particularly in Asia? Is it a better option than just getting the day to day international coverage from my carrier?
Grateful for: -all the above things about the show and the people who made it happen.
-The Husband for holding down the fort at home.
-The myriad of boba shops near the theatre. The 12 year old and I had a lot of boba last weekend; it was fun having the choice of places to go to.
-A new traffic light on the way home. There is one way to get home that requires making an unprotected left hand turn onto a very busy street. It’s actually marginally shorter than the other way I go home. I used to avoid going home this way, because I didn’t want to have to make that left hand turn. They have recently put a stop light there and it is now not so scary and I drive that way all the time now.
-Our friend for giving us his CSA share from this week while he was away on vacation. Free vegetables!!! Although, there was a kholrabi the size of a baby’s head. I’m at a loss what to do with it, but the 12 year old figured it out:
Looking forward to: -weeknights at home this week. So far in December I’ve had one evening at home with the family. There were a couple free days, but we spent those out and about. This week, I have three nights at home to cook dinner, eat dinner, squabble, and referee sibling disputes. (or to ignore them.)
-Our anniversary. Last year our sitter cancelled and we ended up staying home for our anniversary, but the oldest kid rallied her siblings to make a sign and then she told the Husband and I that she would watch the kids while we had a movie date night in the basement. It worked so well that we decided to put the kids in charge of our anniversary again. We’ll see what happens!
-Our trip and seeing family and new places and eating good food. The 5 year old woke me up at 6am this morning, asking, “Mom, when are we going to pack our suitcases?”
-Sleeping and exercising. There’s been precious little of that these past six weeks.
-Reading in a chair with a cup of tea. Or on a plane. Regardless – uninterrupted reading time. I’ve been an a romance novel kick lately – Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series and Courtney Milan’s Wedgeford Trials series.
-This audiobook – I love a good Jane Austen inspired book, and this one is quirky and creative. I almost wish I were still commuting to the theatre so that I can listen to it more. Almost.
One more week until Christmas! How is your week going? Do you ever panic buy anything?
Another tech week approaches – the last one for 2024! I feel like I just went through tech week, and here we are again. I’m actually pretty excited for this one because the 12 year old is in the show that I’m working on. The logistics of the rehearsal carpool have been complex. We are carpooling with two other families, and it’s taken six adults and a spreadsheet to get these kids to rehearsals and performances.
Things I’ve done these past few days to prep for tech week: – pick out my outfits for the week – make a big batch of something to eat all week (the red lentil soup that J blogged about). Hopefully there will be enough for the 12 year old to eat too. Which reminds me I’ll have to pack snacks for her as well. She gets to the theatre at 4:30p and rehearses until 9:30p – I’m not sure when theatre kids eat dinner. -paid bills. Inevitably during tech week, I forget to pay a bill or two, so I made a point to find the utility bills and pay them. – made a batch of hard boiled eggs in the InstantPot for breakfast. -bought the big container of yogurt. Actually I had my friend who was going to Costco pick it up for me. During tech week, yogurt is a complete meal. -Take a shower. I feel silly putting this on the list, but sometimes I forget.
I still need to stock up on fruits and veggies and healthy snacks.
Tech week reminders for me:
Eat well
Sleep. No revenge bedtime procrastinating
Limit the scroll cycle.
Don’t drop the ball on life admin things. Find time for them.
Hug the family whenever I can.
Find time to go outside every day.
On not Christmas-ing. I haven’t been feeling the Holiday Spirit this December. It’s barely registering for me that Christmas is in two and a half weeks. Some of it is because the weather has been really warm lately. Some of it is because I’ve been really busy at work. And also because we’ll be travelling, we haven’t decorated or gotten a tree or put up Christmas lights. We’re taking a “The trip is the present” approach and not really doing Christmas presents. The little kids have been writing sad Santa letters: “Dear Santa, Don’t come to our house because we won’t be here.” Literally.
I think more than in past years, I’m realizing that Christmas is what we make it to be. If we don’t buy the presents, there will be no presents. If we don’t set up the mantel, the mantel will stay bare. It’s kind of interesting to opt out of all the Christmas things to see what we really hold meaningful, and what is just stress-ladened expectations.
What we have done, though: -Tuba Christmas! Luckily this year Tuba Christmas coincided with the free day, so I was able to go with the whole family. As a lovely bonus, my cousin and my friend K came along too. My cousin was in town for work, and I didn’t think I would get to see her, but she came in a day early to spend Tuba Christmas with us. Afterwards we went for dumplings.
-Listened to Christmas music. The Husband has one play list that is 12 different versions of “We Need a Little Christmas.” That always makes me laugh. I’ve also been listening to choral Christmas music when I need something quiet and calming.
-Watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and Spirited. Spirited is becoming one of our “must watch” Christmas movies every year.
-Went to Longwood Gardens to see the Christmas displays. We didn’t stay long enough to see the lights, but we see trees and the trains. We also saw the new conservatory, which was beautifully bright.
What I’ve been missing: -Going to church. I’m not the Catholic one in the family, but I do still like going to church with the family. Lately I’ve had to work on Saturdays (the Husband likes to go to Saturday evening mass), so I haven’t been to Mass with them. I’m missing the carols and the Gospel reading and the time to sit and think about what Christmas means.
-Hallmark movie binges. I’ve watched maybe two Hallmark Holiday movies this year, which if you remember my posts from last year, is pitiful. I did re-watch Biltmore Christmas, which might be my most favorite Hallmark holiday movie ever. SOOOOOO good and sweet and romantic and just the right tone of angst and longing.
-The house smelling like Christmas greenery. I don’t know if I miss having to get the tree and get out all the ornaments and decorate it, but I do miss walking into the house and being greeted by the smell of fresh pine.
-Advent candles. When we do find time to do advent candles, we aren’t super consistent with them, but I do like the ritual.
-Christmas picture books. I used to borrow 24 Christmas books from the library and we would read one each night in lieu of having an advent calendar. The Husband did borrow a stack of books and there are a few we can pull out from our own collection to read, but it hasn’t been the book flood it has been in the past.
-Planning a big Christmas meal. Though I did just do Thanksgiving…
What I haven’t been missing: -The anxiety of Christmas shopping. I actually like thinking about and buying gifts for people, but it takes a lot of mental and financial resources to do it. I do feel a little bit guilty that I’m not making an effort to buy gifts, but I don’t have the bandwidth right now. Maybe after my show closes, I might run out and get a few things, or do some baking, but I’ve passed the window for ordering things online, and I think it actually makes gift giving simpler when there isn’t the infinite world of the internet available. We have talked about maybe having a few surprise gifts waiting at the house for when the kids get back, but it’s nothing like the four or five + stocking stuffers we usually do.
– Drive through Christmas light displays. We always tried to go to these on a weeknight and it always seemed like a bit of a mad rush. I do like Christmas lights; the other day I drove the long way home through a neighborhood with lots of lights, and that was nice.
-Trying to Christmas plan while in tech.
-Secret Santa or White Elephant gift exchanges.
I’m sure there are more things I’m forgetting happened during this season, but I clearly don’t remember them enough to miss them…
Some Bummer news– I don’t think I’ll be working this summer. I have a trip planned with the 12 year old that is in the middle of the opera season with the company I work for during the summer, and the one show that I was available to work has already been staffed. The lack of contract has hit me harder than I want to. It always is a little sad when I don’t get contracts, and it fills me with self-doubt (Did they not like me enough? Will I ever work with them again? Is there someone younger and cooler and better than me who got the contract?) Also often one gets work by returning to a place season after season, and if you miss a season, there’s not guarantee that there will be a slot for you the following season. (I had a really horrible experience with this at one company where I decided to take a summer off after I had my second child and they never asked me back again – the person who hired me literally told me that it wouldn’t be fair to my replacement if they couldn’t come back the following seasons.) I know I make the choice to be a freelancer but it makes me realize how little job stability there is with this job that I love. Because I can’t take PTO or leave to do things that I want, there are long term repercussions to not being available for work. Oh well, I’m reminding myself that my job is not more important than my family, and that this trip with my 12 year old is cooler than any job. I guess I’m just petulant that I can’t have it all.
Grateful for: -My friend/college roommate K who I haven’t seen at all this fall, despite the fact that she lives in this area. But I texted her and asked if she wanted to come see the final rehearsal room run through of our show and she said “Yes!” I knew the 12 year old really wanted someone she knew to be there, and the Husband couldn’t make it since it was the same time as the 7 year old’s piano recital. K has a very full life – in addition to her full time job, she plays in a string quartet – but I’m grateful that she makes the effort to show up when she can.
-Not having to deal with car seats anymore. I’ve been having to drive carpool to rehearsals, which means putting four pre-teens in my car – three in back and one in front. The two little kids are still in booster seats, so I have to pull out the boosters every time I’m driving opera carpool. I’m very grateful that I’m just pulling out booster seats (which don’t have to be latched in), and not pulling out full on car seats which are kind of like wrestling damp ten ton octopuses. Also grateful that I can put one kid up front so that I don’t have to drive the van since my parking lot at work is the size of a postage stamp.
-Kind words and ketchup chips. One of the directors of our show is from Canada. She actually directed the first show I did the fall too. And before she left after the first show she asked if she could bring me anything when she came back for the second show. “Ketchup chips!” I said half jokingly. Well, she showed up for the second show with a bag of ketchup chips for me. How awesome was that? But also, this past week, both the directors of the show have each pulled me aside at one point to tell me how good the 12 year old is onstage. One of them even said, “I’m not saying this because you’re a staff member. She’s really very smart onstage.” I feel like one of those super critical stage moms because sometimes when I watch the 12 year old in rehearsal (and I try not to watch her too much) all I can see is when she’s not paying attention or goofing off or not coming in on the right beat of music. I’ve always struggled a little because I want the people I love to be perfect because I believe in them, and I tend to be more forgiving of the people whom I’m not as close to. Being told that my kid was doing well, was kind of an eye opening; someone was telling me that my kid was enough and that they saw good work happening- it made me realize that I should also be seeing her strengths this way as well.
Well, that’s the news from here. Hope everyone has a lovely week!
If you celebrate Christmas, how Christmas-y are you feeling right now? Have you ever had to install a car seat? What is your favorite Canadian snack?
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!
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!
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?
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!
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?
This past week was pretty mild, but what a snowy, snowy week we hadthe week previous! I have to say, after having absolutely no snow last year, it was a bit of a shock to have so much snow last week. Of course, still not as much snow as in other parts of the country, but certainly what qualifies for a lot of snow here – maybe 3-5 inches.
The quick version: -Monday was MLK Day, so no school for the kids. I did have to work, so the Husband was home with them. -Tuesday: Snow Day!!! Schools were closed, and the building where we rehearsed was on a delay. Also, annoyingly, County summer camp sign ups opened at 6:30a am. So at 8am, I was on the phone with work re-scheduling rehearsal while at the same time on my computer trying to register the six year old for summer camp slots. The Husband worked from home. -Wednesday: another snow day! Although the 4 year old’s preschool was open. Let me tell you – she loves it when she’s the only one who gets to go to school. Again, the Husband worked from home. -Thursday: Everyone got to go to school. HOOORAY!!!! -Friday: Snow day! Again. I had to be in at work around 2pm, so I took the morning shift with the kids and the Husband went in to work. He came home around 12:30pm.
So yup – a grand total of ONE day in school for the older two kids.
In amongst all this – I opened a show and closed a show. I would say I also teched a show, but the process was so quick, I would barely count it as “tech” – just one day of rehearsal onstage. The show was a program of three newly commissioned 20 minute operas. It’s something we do every year and I love participating. There is such excitement about presenting premieres of new works written by young composers and librettist. One piece in particular was so quirky and fun – it takes place in a world after humans are extinct and the characters are microplastics and a tardigrade. I had to google tardigrade and now I feel that much smarter for knowing what a tardigrade is. (If you, like me, didn’t know, it’s a small microscopic creature that can live in extreme conditions and survive anything. They look like little bears. Apparently there’s an Aquanots episode about them.)
So putting up a show combined with a snow week was kind of … a lot. But at least I got to go to work. The Husband’s three day weekend stretched into a five day weekend, and he should get a medal for being home with the kids for all that time.
Things that worked this tech period: – prioritizing life and work things. I didn’t have an assistant for this show, so I had to really focus on what was important to getting the show up. There was one moment in particular that stood out for me when I declined a meeting invite. It was just a 20-30 minute meeting, and normally I would think, “It’s thirty minutes, I can squeeze that in.” But I decided that, no, actually I’m stage managing a show without an assistant – I need those 20-30 minutes for myself or I won’t get my paperwork done and I will be stressed out – the meeting can wait. It was a bit of a lightbulb for me, to be honest – to be able to say, “That isn’t a good time for me, can we re-schedule?” I have no bones declining meeting when I have to be somewhere else – ie. “I’m only available until 3:30p because I need to pick up the kids.” But somehow, saying, “I can’t do that because I need to finish my paperwork” I don’t know – that had never occurred to me. – Not worrying about things being pretty. Look, like most stage managers, I love nice paperwork – I love charts and diagrams and running times all lined up. But you know, ultimately getting the information out correctly is the most important thing. So yeah, there was some paperwork that had a mistake and I decided that I’m just going to correct that with a Sharpie rather than try to open the document on my computer and change it. Why waste the paper or my time? -Packing food, particularly leftovers. I always pack food, but it’s especially helpful because this theatre is farther away from the staff canteen than the other theatre I worked at. I think three out of four days last week, I had leftovers in a tortilla for dinner. Perfect thing to eat efficiently. -Four Color Frixion Pen. Frixion Pens are one of the best new inventions for stage mangers. Well, at least this stage manager. My favorite is a four colour Frixion pen in black, green, red, and blue. All those colours in one barrel so I can colour code cues in my book without having to pull out another pen. And also the ability to erase cues when things change. Amazing. -Riding to work with my work bestie. When I’m in tech, my social life suffers and I miss seeing friends. Which is why I love that one of my good friend works with me and we get to ride to work together and talk about life and work and all the things at Trader Joe’s that I miss buying. – Realizing I’m the stage manager. I have always been more of a self-effacing type of stage manager. It’s not necessarily a good thing. But twice last week, people have said to me, “You get to decide; you’re the stage manager.” Whoa what??? Right. I get to tell people that I want them at a meeting. And, this was the big moment – I get to decide that it’s okay that I wore my snow boots all day because if it’s between taking the time to change into my black shoes and not getting that one last thing done, versus just keeping the damn snow boots on but getting the thing done – I’m going to keep my snow boots on. And the world didn’t end. I mean I don’t think it’s an open invitation to be cavalier and dress unprofessionally, but … in the scheme of things – it’s okay to keep the snow boots on. -Taking time to go sledding. Last year I bought a sled. Then it didn’t snow. Bummer. So I was very determined to take the kids sledding this year when the snow hit. You know, if it was a choice between taking the kids sledding and making the paperwork pretty – I chose sledding. On Tuesday, I told the kids that if they wanted to go sledding, we had to leave the house by 9:30am and we managed to do it. We drove to the local elementary school where there is a nice hill and went sledding for 45 minutes. (Funny side note story -while sledding, we ran into a kid that the 12 year old knows from school, and he said snow days at after care were the best – the aftercare company was still providing care that day because the buildings were still open – because you got to play dominos and then after lunch, the after care folks would take all the kids to the hill and give them each a pizza box to go sledding. Doesn’t that just sound like the height of childhood memories?)
So we only have one sled – the other thing is a plastic tub that we use as a water table during the summer. It works great!
Then on Friday, the same thing. I told the kids that if they wanted to go sledding, I would take them, but we had to be ready to go by 9:30am, and again, they were! And honestly, I would have been really disappointed if we hadn’t gone. This time, we also took our neighbor’s kid with us. (I firmly believe in being a village and if I don’t have to be at work until 2pm then why not take an extra kid with us so her parent can have a few hours to work? Plus the kids always love having other kids around and they other family takes our kids sometimes in the evenings too.) I took a few runs down this hill this time in the sled which was really fun, and I thought ahead and brought a Thermos of hot chocolate with us, a lovely treat once we got done sledding.
Looking back on that list, what struck me is that a lot of what made the week go well on my end is that I made very mindful choices about what was important to keeping me going and everything else could be subpar or just dropped. There is a culture in stage management (and theatre, and really, I’m sure a lot of other industries) of pushing yourself and letting work drain every last drop that you have to give. It doesn’t need to be that way. I need to do things in a way that leave me mental margin, so that when the important things come up, I have the bandwidth to deal with that. Even things like taking my kids sledding – being able to step out of the job and concentrate on, “What can I do to make memories with my kids?” – it puts me in a better mood at work because I know that if nothing else, we had 45 minutes of joy that morning. I feel more like there is a bit more balance to me. It relieves a bit of the mental load of wondering if my kids’ are having a good day and the guilt of not being home at bedtime – because you know what? They at least had a good morning and I feel like there’s a bit o (I do still have a lot of guilt and struggle over the fact that the Husband does 95% of the parenting when I’m working and I know it’s a lot to put on his plate… I need to work on how to achieve balance when there is no balance.)
Hopefully writing those “things that worked” will help me remember them next time I’m in tech. Which won’t be until May. That’s a little wild for me to realize that I don’t have a show to work on for a long stretch.
Fun Family Activity – We went to a concert by Elena Moon Park. Park is a musician who reimagines folk songs and children’s songs from around the world, mostly from East Asia – yay Asian representation! I had heard her at an outdoor concert two years ago and I really loved her music so when I had a chance to hear her again, I was really excited to hear her again and take the kids. During the concert, the kids were kind of clingy and they didn’t participate in any of the clapping games or hand gesture-y parts, and I was worried that they weren’t liking it. But afterwards, they were singing bits of the concert, so I guess they did enjoy it after all.
Other nice things this week: -The six year old reading Dogman to his little sister.
– Dropping the 12 year old and her friend at voice lessons and then going for a walk and re-discovering the Glass Forest. The Glass Forest is a really neat little bit of forest where someone has hung bits of glass and metal and what not from the trees to make a series of sculptures. When you walk through it, the wind knocks the metal and glass together and it’s like walking in a windchime. It’s a little creepy, a little magical. I was on a walk while the 12 year old was at her voice lesson and I happened upon the Glass Forest. I had come here years ago, on some kind of mission to find hidden gems of DC. This definitely fit the bill of “hidden gems” but I had forgotten about it in the years since, so it was a nice surprise to find it again.
-Okay, I feel super pretentious recounting this, but it was such a sweet moment – after sledding on Friday, as we were enjoying our hot chocolate and taking in the snowy views, the six year old says, “Mommy, it looks like a Robert Frost poem!” Lest you think the six year old is some kind of genius budding English scholar – he knows exactly one Robert Frost poem. We have an illustrated version of “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” – and the cover did indeed look like the scene before us:
…miles to go…
-And this made me laugh – The Husband and I stayed up late to watch the football game one night. And the 12 year old tried to convince us to let her stay up too. The reason? it was not because she was a huge footballs fan. No – it was the Kansas City game and she wanted to see if she could catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift. We sent her to bed, though I did take a picture of the tv when they showed Swift during one moment.
Current woes – Homework. The first grader has started coming home with homework and he is very reluctant to do it. I alternate between threatening/pleading/cajoling/bribing/etc. him to do it, and just saying “F*ck it! It’s first grade. If he doesn’t want to do it, why should I spend energy getting him to do it?” Then I have a tiny panic spiral about how I’m not setting him up for success and I go back to threatening/pleading/cajoling/bribing/etc. This is not where I want to spend my energy. So truth – it usually only gets done 50% of the time.
I’ve grown very hands off with the 12 year old’s homework. This is not some bold parenting choice. This is just lack of energy. At any rate, she has told me that many of her teachers don’t believe in homework (Great! They should meet the 1st grader’s teacher!). So it is entirely possible that she doesn’t have any homework. I for sure only very rarely see her do homework, and her grades keep coming back solidly average, so I guess she is doing what she is supposed to be doing, whether or not it is homework. As someone whose parents were very involved in my academic progress, I’m feeling a little bit like I ought to care a little bit more.
Grateful For: -The Husband having the flexibility to handle all the snow days.
-All the super talented people I work with. I know I say this every time, but I work with amazingly competent and supportive people. Everyone knew that I was working without an assistant and there were so many offers of, “What can I do for you?” I guess this is another thing that made last week good – when people offered to help, I let them. I let someone else check the sign in sheets, I let someone else buy me a Coke to get through one long day. I let someone else start rehearsal when I couldn’t make it quite in time after dropping the 4 year old at school following a delayed opening. There is no room to be a martyr here and I’m glad I don’t have to be.
-How beautiful everything looks blanketed in snow. I know living in snowy weather is not always easy or ideal, but it sure is pretty, and I always feel lucky that I get to see it. There is nothing like being cozy inside with a cup of hot tea (or cocoa) while watching the world being buried in snow and silence.
-And also -grateful for snow plows and snow shovels so I can get safely to work. And an all wheel drive vehicle.
-The twelve year old’s friends for coming to celebrate her birthday. We had six kids over to belatedly celebrate the twelve year old’s birthday, with three of them spending the night. The next morning we had waffles and bacon and fruit and then a group of them went to see the new Mean Girls movie. It was a pretty hands off affair for us. We helped them make pizzas, then gave them the run of the basement. I did go downstairs and turn off the tv at 12:30am to a bit of minor protesting. Afterwards, the twelve year old said to me, “Thanks for turning the tv off. I’m really tired and I would be even more tired if you had let me stay up all night.” Wow. That’s a nice bit of self awareness there. Anyhow, I’m glad that her friends came over and that she had a good birthday party.
Looking Forward To: -I signed up for a slot at Career Day at the 12 year old’s school. I went back and forth on whether or not to sign up – I think I have a pretty fun job, but it’s also a very seasonal job (for me – there are people who do this full time), and I don’t know if non-full time employment is really what Career Day is about? Oh well. I’m nervous – what am I going to talk about for thirty minutes??? But it’s good to do new things, particularly things that scare you a little bit.
-Lighter work load and time to focus on house things. The two big projects are to figure out what to do about my car and moving forward with getting window treatments for the living room. Both projects carry a lot of mental and emotional stress. There’s also little projects like cleaning out the pantry and linen closet. And I really want to label the spice jars on our spice rack. Who knows if I will get that all done, but good to have aspirations.
-Listening to more of this audiobook – narrated by Julia Whelan. Julia Whelan is an amazing audiobook narrator. This book itself has some questionable plot holes and devices that normally would not appeal to me, but Whelan does such a great job that I’ve been sucked in. I can’t tell whether I would like this book if I read it vs. listened to the audiobook.
What We Ate: Saturday: Parmesan Mint Pasta. The Husband cooked because I was at work. The kids had requested mac and cheese (from the box), and the Husband said this looked more interesting and made it instead. Surprisingly tasty even though it was cold when I ate it after getting home from work.
Sunday: Scavenge. Sundays we usually try to eat down the fridge. I think there was frozen tortellini with red sauce for the kids. Not for dinner, but at lunch I had salt and vinegar stir fried potatoes, to which I added julienned golden beets. A friend had given me a bag of beets from her produce box because she didn’t like beets, so I was looking for ways to eat them. I actually ate some of them raw too – the beauty of golden beets is that they don’t stain your hands deep purple-red.
Monday: Funny story. Before I left for work, I told the Husband that there was tofu in the fridge and he should use it up. Later that day, he texted me asking if the tofu was in a red lidded container. I said, no the tofu is shrink wrapped, still in it’s own packaging. <I put that in the dinner. > he replied. <It melted.> Then, I realized what was in that red container. <That was feta> I texted him. <Lol!> he writes back. <It is still feta. L said hmmmm that’s smooth, dad!> So I guess for Monday, they had kung pao feta for dinner. With noodles.
Tuesday: Tofu stir fry. For reals this time.
Wednesday: I made vegan gnocchi soup, a recipe that I’ve made many times because the family loves it. I actually made all of it before I went to work, except the gnocchi and coconut milk – the Husband added that before he served it.
Thursday: I’m not sure what the family had for dinner. I had a ktichen sink sandwich – pickles, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, avocados, mustard. It was quite messy to eat and now that I think of it – I could have just mashed all that into egg salad and it would have been less messy.
Friday: I had leftover curry eaten in a tortilla wrap at work. The family had waffles.
Saturday: Pizza, make your own as this was the sleepover night. And there was lots of soda and chips involved. But also carrots, cucumbers, and apple slices.
Sunday: Again – scavenge for dinner. The kids had hard boiled eggs and half and avocado each. I’m sure there were other veggies and fruits in there too. I had kimchi friend rice and golden beets pan fried on the griddle. I feel like this is my go to Sunday scavenge dinner – kimchi fried rice and whatever other veggies are in the fridge.
Well, this post has been sitting in my draft folder for over a week, so no, it is really, not “last” week’s recap, but from two weeks ago, but this time has been very full, so where we are. But this is what I’ve been up to….
Last week Two weeks ago, was a whirlwind week in the theatre. We were in the theatre Tuesday and then we had tech, opening, four shows over the weekend (really five if you count the 11:30am dress rehearsal on the day of Opening), and then closing. It’s been a super intense schedule.
Things that made the week great despite often working 12 hours a day with barely a dinner break: – The show itself. It’s a beautiful show. The music is by turns catchy and moving, the story makes me cry and laugh and makes my heart grow. – The other people on the stage management team. Who care just enough to do an amazing job but not so much that the hard stuff gets in the way of just getting stuff done. –The crew at the theatre. So this show went up in the smallest of the theatres that we perform in. I love this crew so much! The two lead technicians are always positive while at the same time being realistic about the limitations of the space – they solve problems without drama and don’t get annoyed when we ask for too much. Everyone is really nice and really good at what they do. There was one day when I wanted to take spike measurements (Spikes are the pieces of tape we put on the floor to tell us where the furniture or people or props need to be placed – we measure where they are so when we remount the show, we know where we put everything). This isn’t something we always have time to do, and sometimes is is painfully slow because we only have two crew members helping us. This time, after one show, the crew basically swarmed the stage and got it done in twenty minutes. I don’t know if I can convey how amazing it was, but it was amazing. Also – the crew moved my stage management console to the house (what we call where the audience sits) so that I could spend the first few days of tech out front. This is only important because usually I tech from backstage, where I can’t really see anything, and being able to tech from the front and see the show is actually quite helpful.
The Lighting designer snapped this picture of me at my console, which is kind of fun.
I very rarely get pictures of me working, so I was tickled by this. I’m standing at my console, which has four tiny monitors – one so I can see the conductor, one so I can see the stage, one infared so I can see the stage when it’s dark, and one that has the lighting cues so I can keep track and make sure we are in the correct light cue. The monitors are kind of small, so it was nice to start tech rehearsals out front to I could better see what was going on before moving backstage. Also, yes, I stand on a box to call because I’m short and the console was sized for someone taller than me. –The audience. Seeing families and little kids coming to the theatre – man, nothing warms my heart like that. –The Husband. I know I say this all the time, but I really couldn’t have my job without him. The gold star this time, though, goes to him for bringing all three kids to a dress rehearsal for my show. Taking kids to an 8pm show on a weeknight isn’t exactly a stress-free activity, so major props to him for doing that. I love that the kids got to see what I was working on – apart from it being a great show for kids, it lets them see what mom is doing when she isn’t at home in the evenings. I think it’s kind of abstract to them what I do and why I’m gone, and I feel like it helps when they get to see me at work. -Climbing 13 flights of stairs to the theatre every morning. My show was in one of the smaller theatres, way at the top of the arts complex. There is an elevator, but to get there from the parking garage involves either cutting through the backstage of another theatre, or walking through the orchestra pit, where there is this sign:
Ominous. I went through anyway.
So the most direct route is to take the stairs. Some days, I figured, if I did nothing else that day, at least I climbed 13 flights of stairs.
The view from the top
The one moment I lost my will to continue. This is my work computer:
As you can see, the power button is, brilliantly, located next to the backspace and delete button. There was one evening, I had about an hour before rehearsal to crank out a piece of paperwork that was kind of key to the top of show sequence. It had been a crazy busy day and I finally had time to sit down and do this chart and people were arriving for their make-up calls and the hallways were starting to buzz with anticipation and activity as people got ready for the rehearsal. I made a typo, and hit “backspace” to correct it, but accidentally hit the power button and the computer shut down, taking my paperwork into the ether. I put my head down on my computer for five seconds of utter despair, screamed a little inside and then sighed and moved on with life.
Stage Manager on a crate.
So all in all, a good but exhausting week. It has left me very behind on all things holiday, and so that part of life feels a little … unprepared.
The Annoying/Upsetting life admin:
In my continuing saga to renew my driver’s liscence – I finally got to the MVA and… their card reader was down. Argh. I had to yet again re-schedule my driver’s license renewal.
Then the four year old finally had her dentist appointment and has a jaw-dropping five cavities. So she also has to be scheduled for crowns, which requires sedating her, and the next available appointment they had was actually the day that I had re-scheduled my driver’s license appointment. Wump wump. So I guess the license is being re-scheduled again. I am completely flabbergasted by the state of my children’s teeth. And the four year old even flosses. I mean not every day, but at least a couple times a week. So I am going to have to be more diligent about the teeth: 1) consistent brushing in the morning – I’ve set an alarm reminder for this. 2) I need to do a pass with the toothbrush when they are done. I’ve been told that my kids have naturally very deep grooves in their teeth, which makes for good places for bacteria to grow. 3) no more gummy candies and cut down on the sugar. I love Welch’s fruit snacks, but I guess I’ll take one for the team and stop buying them. Or just stash them at the office.
On the bright side, the dentist said that once they had crowns, they wouldn’t have to floss those teeth. He actually almost said they wouldn’t really have to brush back there, but I think he realized he shouldn’t really be saying that and stopped himself.
Outfit of the week – Not very interesting this week because we’ve been in tech and performances. Tech is the one time where I always wear pants because I have to be up and moving around a lot. I try to wear colourful clothes during tech so I can be seen easily onstage. I didn’t take any photos this time, but maybe next tech I will – I basically pretty much wear the same two or three outfits every time I tech a show. For performances, I wear all black. People sometimes say, “You must have a lot of black clothes since you work backstage.” Truth to tell, nope. Here are the two outfits that I cycle between when I’m running a show:
My black wardrobe for cooler weather is basically: -two pairs of black pants – one is a pair of Betabrand’s dress pants yoga pants that look polished but are so stretchy, and the other is a pair of black cords/jeans. Though I mysteriously can’t find that latter pair, so I basically wore the Betabrand pants for five days in a row last week (those are the ones in the picture). – 2 black long sleeve shirts. The one in the picture is actually a maternity top from Gap that I’ve been wearing for six years or so. By other long sleeve black shirt is a dolman sleeved cotton shirt from Uniqlo. -1 black v-neck short sleeve t-shirt. It’s from Pact, though I bought it on super sale at Whole Foods. (tip! Whole Foods sells Pact clothing, and they always seem to be on sale when I see them.) This t-shirt is made of very sturdy, smooth cotton. -1 black v-neck 3/4 sleeve dress from Wool&. It’s the Willow dress. Super versatile. (Also in the picture, you’ll see I’m wearing my FlipBelt – I wear the Flipbelt backstage with my dress because I need to clip the belt pack of my headset to it.) -1 sweatshirt blazer. Also a work horse. It looks like a blazer, but feels like a sweatshirt. I’ve gotten lots of complements on it backstage, where it is dark and people can’t tell I’m just wearing a glorified cardigan. – black leggings – I have 3 or 4 pair of Jockey pocket leggings that I wear all the time, not just for backstage. I love them because they are mostly cotton and have side pockets. -1 pair of black shoes, Wolky Passion Mary Janes. I feel like I should also get a pair of Chelsea boots or sneakers as well, but these Mary Janes go with everything and are pretty comfortable, so I’m probably fine. I do occasionally wear my running shoes backstage since they are black, but that always feels a little weird. -I don’t usually wear a hat because then the headset won’t fit on my head, but for some reason on this show, I had a headset that could go over the hat, so I wore my hats backstage. That hat was given to me fourteen years ago by a friend at my bachelorette party. -For opening nights, I also have a chiffon-y top and skirt that feels a little fancy. So between those 10 items of black clothing, I manage to get through a whole run of a show. I repeat clothes a lot, but like I said, no one really cares what you’re wearing when you are moving around in the dark backstage. Every so often, I’ll feel uninspired by my black capsule wardrobe and then I remind myself that I don’t actually wear much black when I’m not working, so no point in spending money to expand that part of my wardrobe. When I’m feeling meh about putting on my blacks, I just do it anyway and then I get over it pretty quickly.
Tech snack discovery of the week: One of my go to quick foods to pack during tech is an avocado. I just chuck the whole thing in my bag and then at work, I split it in half and eat it with a spoon. Well, this time, I had also packed these Tamari Soy Sauce Rice Crackers from Trader Joe’s and I thought, “We put avocado on sushi, why not on Tamari Soy Sauce Rice Crackers?” And I used the crackers to scoop out and eat the avocado and it was delicious. Definitely going in my “easy emergency dinner” ideas list.
Brilliant pairing!
Tech Steps Stats: Average Steps/Day: 6913 (Definitely lower than when I am an Assistant Stage Manager since being an ASM requires running around backstage a lot more.) Average Miles/day: 2.8 miles Average Floors/Day: 8 floors.
Grateful for – in addition to all the above things that made our week in the theatre so fulfilling: 1) The colleague who recommended me for my supertitle job. I was prepping the translation slides for my next voice recital gig and realizing how much I actually love doing supertitles. This gig wasn’t something I was actively looking for; the organization was looking for a supertitle coordinator and asked my friend if they knew anyone who could do it and he gave them my contact info. I’m so grateful that my friend thought of me.
2) My friend, who sent us a copy of her new cd of music for children. It’s brilliant and I am in awe of her talent. She has one song that she said was inspired by my 11 year old years ago when she must have been 5 or so and asked for a song about being bored. The result was a song called “It’s the End of Your Screentime.” And there is one song that is a riff on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” where she talks about stars and the atmosphere and rhymes the phrase “Blue Super Giants” with “I love Science.” I mean how awesome is that? You should check it out! The CD is called Because He Was A Weasel – her website is here. I feel so lucky to know such a smart and witty and thoughtful person.
Looking Forward to: 1) My mother’s coming to visit. She is spending three weeks with us. Yay. I’m hoping I can convince her to make dumpling when while she is here.
2) Hallmark Holiday Movie marathon. The 11 year old’s request. Seems like the perfect way to spend a day since the weather has gotten decidedly chilly.
4) Theatre trips. I’ve booked tickets to see A Year with Frog and Toad for the family – the two little kids LOVE Frog and Toad – and also tickets to see Fiddler on the Roof with my mother. Fiddler on the Roof was her favorite movie, and I thought this was a good Christmas present for her since it wasn’t something that she would have to store or take back to California. I so rarely go to theatre that I’m not working on that to have actually bought tickets seem novel and special.
5) Pants. I was lamenting my lack of pants – I have one pair suitable for winter, not counting the aforementioned black pants for working backstage; I’ve been wearing my linen pants to supplement, but that seems… not seasonally appropriate. When Duluth Trading company had their holiday sales this month, I ordered many many pairs of pants to try on. I don’t love pants, but I’m excited to potentially have more than one pair for cooler weather. One pair I ordered is flannel lined!
What We Ate:
Monday: Kabocha squash curry from Meerah Sodha’s East. East is cookbook I borrow from the library at least twice a year – it has such great and flavorful vegetarian recipes. I should just buy it, I love it so much. (Funny story, I bought this cookbook for a cousin gift exchange a few years ago, I love it so much. Then my meat eating/vegetable hating cousin ended up drawing it. My other kind-hearted cousin graciously stole it from him, saying “I love vegetables!” But to be honest, I don’t know that she actually cooks.) The recipe for the curry floating around online, though.
And that’s the sum total of what I remember from dinners last week. I’m sure the Husband fed the kids quite well. There was a movie night where they watched Candy Cane Lane. I might have made instant pot soup another night, but I can’t remember. One day for lunch, I did make a really tasty Cheesy Kale and Rice Cake bake from Hetty Liu McKinnon’s Tenderheart cookbook. I had rice cakes (the Korean kind that are dense and chewy), and some kale languishing and I just used whatever cheese I had on hand and the result was amazing. The recipe isn’t online, but you can see a picture of it on McKinnon’s IG feed, and, if that is your thing, get the cookbook because there are so many terrific vegetable heavy recipes in there.
So that was the recap of tech/opening/closing week. Clearly I’m past that, but I’m still playing catch up and counting down to the holidays. I’m looking forward to having time to to sit and reflect on my day, rather than collapse in exhaustion when I get home from work at midnight.
Another show closed. Well there was only one performance, so it opened and closed on the same night. Someone backstage was wishing people “Happy Clopening!” This was unlike any tech period I’d ever done before. First of all, we had fewer onstage rehearsals than I’m used to, so everything felt rather ambitious and there was no day off before closing so I definitely had to pace myself a little bit. But the biggest adjustment for me is that because it is an outdoor venue, we had all our lighting sessions at night, after the evening rehearsal. It doesn’t do much good to write light cues during the day with bright sunlight everywhere. So for three days, we would rehearse until 11 or 11:30pm, the cast would go home, and then we would have a little break and then come back and light from 12:00 midnight until 2:30am. Go home, sleep, and come back the next afternoon. It’s funny how coming back to work at 2 or 3:00pm can feel just like arriving to work at 10am – the same kind of groggy, anticipatory energy as you walk in the door for the first time, chai in hand.
I guess many outdoor opera companies do this over night tech session, but it was my first time experiencing it. Thankfully the company provided us with food after the evening rehearsal and before the midnight tech session. As the big boss said, “It’s easier to work the third shift with a full belly.” I know some jobs, particularly in the for profit sector, the company providing food, or being able to expense food, is a given, but it’s not that way where I work, so I’m always grateful when we are included in company provided meals.
Anyhow, the show is now closed, farewells have been said and the summer opera season is over or me. On to the next.
Tech week stats- Average Steps / day, over 4 days of tech: 18, 623 Average flights climbed/day: 23. The set had two levels, rather high ones actually. There was one staircase that took you up 30 feet in the air.
Here is the view from the top:
Some other fun tech week photos:
Paperwork – I did the wardrobe/wigs running paperwork, which requires a lot of time math to figure out how long someone has to change their costume.
The swanky outdoor patio off of the space we used for our office. The hammock was wet for most of the week, so I did not get to relax on it as I wanted. I might have taken a ten minute nap in those chairs at one point, though.
Our pretty pretty set. One night only then into the dumpster. Theatre is so ephemeral.
Our fabulous interns lightwalking at 2am.
The tower opens up to reveal these mirrored walls:
The view of the theatre as you drive up – how lucky to work in such a beautiful space!
Also – on a sartorial note – On Opening Night, I saw several ladies in these really elegant caftans. Now I’m at a stage where “cocktail attire” sounds completely uncomfortable and unpleasant to me. Plus there is no longer anything in my closet that might pass for cocktails attire. And heels… forget about it. So when I saw several ladies so elegant and cool looking in soft billowy caftans, I thought… “Am I old enough – and poised enough — to be able to pull that off?” and now I am contemplating adding a beautiful elegant caftan to my wardrobe that might be opening night worthy. Something like:
from Anthorpologie
or this;
From Banana Republic
Or this one is fun:
From Nieman Marcus – though definitely on the price-y side for me. But alos I appreciate the non-plunging neckline.
I’d have to figure out the heels situations though…. I feel like 75% of what makes something elegant is wearing heels.
The Husband took the kids out of town for three days to visit family, coinciding with the first few days of tech, which was extremely nice. For the second time this summer, I had the house to myself, though this time I was in the theatre for much of the the time so I didn’t get to indulge in my alone time as much as earlier this summer.
My first evening with an empty house, though I had a long date with a friend. It was blazingly hot so she wandered if we could do something in the air conditioning.
So I suggested ice skating. I had, in fact, just been at the ice rink that morning with the kids for their lesson and the 50 degree arena was refreshing. My friend thought it was a brilliant idea, so we went and spent two hours gliding lazy laps around the rink. Then we went for dumplings at my favorite dumpling house. Since the last time I was there the restaurant has expanded into the space next door to become some kind of karaoke bar, and walking in the hip new interior was a bit of a shock. This is the dumpling house that the Husband used to eat at every Friday for lunch when his office was a few blocks away. We used to come with our teeny tiny babies and there is one waitress who would hold our babies and walk around with them so that we could eat. When my friend and I walked in, the waitress asked me, “Where are the kids?”
“My Husband took them out of town,” I said.
“Vacation for you!” She said.
When she took our order, she said, “We have special vegetables today!” Apparently during the summer she grows vegetables in her back yard and then brings them in to the restaurant for them to cook and serve. She even pulled out her phone to show us pictures of her green green plots of land. It was very impressive. “In the Summer we are Farm to Table too!” she laughed. She was explaining what vegetables she brought in today and said we should try one of the dishes, one of which was a shrimp dish. The translation app translated the name of the vegetable as “loofah”. And indeed it was – it was kind of like a spongy cross between a cucumber and a zucchini. Very tasty. The cucumbers in our cucumber salad were also from her garden and they were the lightest crunchiest cucumbers I had ever tasted.
After dinner we walked over to a dessert place called Kyoto Matcha that I had wanted to try for a while. They have a lot of Matcha based desserts, including a “blanket cake” that looks exactly like it sounds – a swaddle of dessert. I got a Kyoto Cream Roll Cake which had a slightly salty cream filling. My friend go the red bean blanket cake – both were really delicious. We got our cake and sat in the plaza and ate cake and talked about life and such until it got late and then we went home. It was so nice to spend time with my friend, one on one, without the ids around, even though she is always the best with my kids.
Things that made life fun last week or so: -Getting the Wordle in one! I mean statistically it’s bound to happen since I use the same first word, but still it was pretty fun when all the squares turned green the first go around. Though I have to admit it is not as satisfying as getting it in six or three – three because it makes me feel smart and six because it makes me feel lucky. Now I have to find a new first word. Ironically, the weekend thread on Ask A Manager had a threadjack on Wordle first words – some good options. I liked poser and pinky. Stare seems to be a common one too.
-Before they left for the lake, the two older kids had their Theatre Camp performances. It was a harrowing week for camp because the storm the previous weekend had done a lot of damage to the park where they originally had camp, so they had to change locations. The new location was not as convenient for me, but some of the camps at the park had to cancel so I’m glad our camp was able to relocate. Each child was in a different show and it was so fun to see them up on stage – saying lines, singing, dancing, and having a good time. My favorite moment was when the six year old, playing one of the children in a Pied Piper of Hamlin inspired story had to be a frozen statue – he was such a great frozen statue. The little guy is surprisingly good at standing still and staring off into space. Theatre camp is expensive, but I think the kids get so much out of it, so I’m glad we can afford to send them.
-While waiting for the kids’ camp performance to start, I had enough time to take a very muddy run on a nearby trail, where I met this little guy:
-Just down the road from the new camp location is a produce stand. I stopped by one day because they had peaches and peaches are one of my favorite things about summer. “Do you take credit cards?” I asked the guy at the register. “We only take cash, check, or IOU,” he replied. I must have given him a funny look, because he said, “My boss has been here for thirty years every summer and it’s the way he does things. If anyone doesn’t have the money, we let them have what they want and tell them to come by when they have the money.” “That seems so odd!” I said. “Yeah, it’s not how people do business these days, but it works for us.”
So he sent me on my way with six peaches, and the next day, I came back with cash and bought another six peaches. So I guess it does work out okay for everyone somehow.
The IOU produce stand.
Grateful For: Tech Week Edition:
-Water, ice, and Gatorade and my insulated water bottle. Like I mentioned – we were at an outdoor venue. It was in the high 80s and oh so humid last week. The venue provided us with huge coolers of ice and bottled water as well as water coolers with both ice water and room temperature water. During the performance there was Gatorade as well. I’m not a Gatorade person, but I tell you, at intermission after being on my feet since 6pm, and sweating profusely, I drank a bottle and felt better. I had brought my black blazer to wear because I do believe in wearing long sleeves backstage, especially since the venue was so big that there were large swaths of the audience who could see backstage from where they sat. But I soon gave up on the blazer and just wore it when I was standing close in the wings. I also started googling “Black Linen Blazer”. My insulated Kleen Kanteen also got such a lot of use. So glad I bought a straw lid for it. I was having a conversation with my sister in law who lives in Amsterdam about water and she said, “Oh we don’t drink ice water in Europe; I’t sso American.” And I thought with sad dismay, “But ice water on a hot day is one of the great pleasures in life!” She is missing out, I tell you.
-Fans. There were giant fans everywhere backstage. I definitely adjusted my traffic patterns and took the opportunity to walk by them any chance I got.
-The Husband taking the kids away for a few days. Being at the theatre until 2:30am is a lot more manageable when I don’t have to get up at 7:00am to get the kids to camp/school. I did have to get the youngest one to school on the last two days of tech, but the Husband made sure that they didn’t wake me up too early. There was one morning when a child walked in and said, “It’s 8:00 – why are you still in bed? Are you okay?” then she ran downstairs in a panic to tell the Husband.
-2:30am traffic. Much lighter than 3:00pm traffic. Because the last thing I want to do when getting off work at 2:30am is sit in bumper to bumper traffic. So yeah, I’m glad there are only a few poor souls out of the Capital Beltway in the pre-dawn hours. It did also have me wondering who these 2:30am on the beltway souls were. I’m sure there are many tales to be told there.
-The past three productions of Don Giovanni that I’ve done. This is my fourth production of Don Giovanni. (I think the show I’ve done the most is The Marriage of Figaro – I’ve done six of those – there was a period of life when I did a Figaro every year. Good thing it’s my favorite opera.) Anyhow, every production is different, yet a lot is still the same. A lot of the music, even with cuts, is the same. The reason I’m glad for having done so many Giovannis is that I am very familiar with the music. And the score is very heavy – it’s like four hundred pages or something like that, plus it’s in a binder with all my other show running paperwork. (Some people just keep their scores in a separate binder which makes things lighter, but I like having things all together. I have colleagues who are starting to to work off tablets. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.) Normally I carry my score with me around while I’m running the show, periodically parking it on a music stand. (This is actually somewhat controversial. Some people think you should always have your score with you. Some people think you should leave it on the music stand and run around unencumbered. I fall somewhere in between but do tend to carry it around a lot. But over all, I’m a “You do you” kind of person.) With a 400 page score, this gets very tiring. It wasn’t that our production was that busy, but with the heat, I was running water to singers practically every time they came off stage. Juggling five water bottles, a towel for wiping sweat plus a 400 page score was kind of ridiculous. So I just left my score on my music stand for most of the show. And the reason I felt like I could do this was because I had done three previous productions and I knew approximately how much time I had between cues. I didn’t have to have the music with me to know where I was in the show. I knew that the start of this aria meant I had three minutes to get to this wing to cue these singers onstage. I knew that the repeat of the A section of this line meant that that singer had two minutes left in their costume change. I mean even with a new score I have the timings written and and I could figure it out and learn the rhythms, but there is something easier about not having to look it up at all. So yeah, I’m grateful for those three previous productions of of Giovanni and for being able to run around backstage in the summer heat without having to lug my 400 page score with me.
-And as always, my amazing colleagues who are so good at what they do and who makes me laugh and keep my spirits up even at 2:30am. This job is so much harder when I don’t get along with the people I work with.
Looking Forward To:
-The start of School! There is back to school shopping to do and a few more days to wring out all the summer we can before getting back into the school year routine. I feel like I need to get the kids back on a school sleep schedule. They’ve all been staying up til 9:00p/9:30p even 10pm, and waking up around 7:30pm. Well except the 3 year old who wakes up at 6:30am no matter what time she goes to bed. The oldest will be starting middle school, which starts at 8:15am, so that will also be a big adjustment getting out of the house an hour earlier. She has a practice half day coming up, so we’ll see how that goes. Also – not sure how she she is getting to school. Bus is only provided if you live 1.2 miles from school and we live 1.1 miles. So walk, or maybe bike? It feels a little far to walk, but maybe not. There is one pretty busy road to cross and no stop light, only a cross walk, unless you walk two blocks up or down, which adds about five minutes to the walk. I do worry because we live next to the hospital so there is a lot of traffic on that road. But also I don’t have time to walk with her or drive her myself since I have to get the other kids to school (plus our neighbor’s kids). Maybe the first week, I can walk with her to the busy street and make sure she gets across safely. New year, new challenges!
-Also on that note: getting back to routines. I feel like I’m behind in everything – laundry, house chores, life chores, kids activity sign up. I’m looking forward to having time to think things through.
-Going to visit a friend at her house on the shore.
-Going to the County Fair! Rides! Fried Food! Animals!
– Getting my passport renewed. This is one of those “Looking forward to checking off the to do list” tasks. The Husband was going through our box of documents and said, “Hey your passport is about to expire.” “No, it isn’t,” I said. “I put a calendar reminder to renew it three months out.” “Oooookay,” he said. So I pull it out and looked at it. Friends, it expires NEXT MONTH. Oops. I thought I had put a calendar reminder to renew my passport this year, but turns out that was a calendar reminder to renew my daughter’s passport. So it must be done and soon. I’m glad I didn’t have any international trips planned. And hope that I won’t have to flee the country any time soon. Also I now need to find one day with perfect hair to have my picture taken.
-Reading this book:
It’s a book that feels quite personal to me and I can’t put it down. All my youthful and middle-age insecurities as an Ivy League student/graduate are right here in every chapter.
What we Ate: We ate pizza multiple times this week, and it’s not even counting the number of times the Husband and kids ate it while visiting his sister. Pizza just seems like the easiest options for these group meals, though I do want to grow my ideas of “food to feed multiple people and kids” beyond the many variations of cheese and carbs (pizza, mac n cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas…) Anyone have any other go-to feeds a crowd with kids ideas?
Monday: Miso Tofu, Broccoli and Udon noodles. There was leftover miso sauce from something the Husband made the week before, so I threw it on tofu, baked it and had broccoli and noodles with it. vegan.
Tuesday: Eggs, The Husband cooked since I was at work.
Wednesday: Pasta and Turkey meatballs. The Husband’s sister was in town and this was an easy meal to throw in the InstantPot. Pasta and sauce cooked separately to accommodate vegetarians. I made a double batch of meatballs and froze them for future me. ( I actually made these for Wednesday, but SIL’s plans changed so I just froze the meatballs and the Husband put them in the IP – I’m so proud of him because he usually avoids the IP…)
Thursday; Pizza take out. We were going to go to the pool, but it got really chilly and rainy so we ordered pizza and ate at home with my Sister In law and her family.
Friday: Pizza and movie night. I think they watched the Lego movie.
Saturday: Dumplings and green beans.
Sunday: Family was gone, and I went to the Dumpling House with my friend.
Monday: Leftovers. Start of single lady eating.
Tuesday – Friday: Made a big pot of mujadara for Tech Week and ate a combination of that and leftovers for the rest of the week. I used this recipe from Feasting at Home.
Well, the Husband has taken the kids to New York for the weekend, so I have a childfree couple of days. Wow. I didn’t go with them because I was working, though I did contemplate going up for the one day I had off, but then decided to just enjoy the time to myself.
It’s kind of intimidating looking at the blank slate – I mean it’s almost noon and I just pulled myself out of bed. Last night I came home from rehearsal at 11:30pm, spent about 45 minutes scrolling my phone, then cleaned the kitchen until 1:30am. Part of me said I should go to be early, but part of me – wired a little from the evening’s rehearsal – thought cleaning the kitchen and listening to podcasts was the perfect activity to do when no one else was at home asleep.
Some moments this week:
-I bought a sled. We have never had a sled which is fine except for the one week that we get enough snow for sledding. The past years I’ve had the kids sled in plastic bins and cardboard boxes, but I’ve really wanted a sled. The big issue is storage. This week, I was at a consignment sale that a local pre-school does as a fund raiser and they had a sled – a really sturdy Rubbermaid sled. In fact, my good friend has this sled from her childhood and her kids still use it. I was still on the fence about it, so I told myself if it was still there the next day, which was half price day, I would buy it. I went back the next day, and it was still there, marked down to $8. I had just enough cash to buy it, after I stocked up on some other clothes for the kids. Actually – I had to use my lucky $2 bill to buy it. I have a $2 bill that I don’t remember where I got it from, but it’s been in my wallet for a few years now. After they rang me up, I was one dollar short to buy the sled. And I thought… well what use is a $2 bill just hanging out in my wallet? So I handed over the $2 bill and took the sled home. Now that I’ve used my lucky $2 bill, it’s probably not going to snow this year… but this thing is built like a tank so maybe my grandchildren will use it.
I texted this picture to the Husband and wrote, “You don’t even have to know it’s in the house.”
-The baby continues to sleep erratically. One night this week she got into bed with me about 3am and started to cry and cry and cry. She kept saying that she wanted to show me her picture. I had no clue what she was talking about, and at 3am decoding baby was not really a priority. I eventually went back to sleep and I think she did too… it’s all kind of hazy. The next morning we get up do our morning thing, and then when I go into her room, I see on the bunk beds:
Sigh. This is why we can’t have nice things.
That was her picture. She was so proud of it. She even pointed out the W she made in the top right hand corner. (W is the first initial of her name). I did manage to remove it with rubbing alcohol, though the Husband said he had been reluctant to clean it off because she was so happy with it. I’m now contemplating maybe some kind of peel and stick whiteboard? But of course if I do that it will instantly render the surface uninteresting and she will move on.
-We went to the opera! All of us, including the kids. I don’t really have a regular sitter, and the Husband and I wanted to see the opera that the baby did the video shoot for. So I thought maybe we should all just go. The ten year old loves going to the opera, and I thought it would be fun for the baby and the five year old to see the results of the video shoot. We didn’t stay until the end because we didn’t want to be out too late with the kids, but we stayed for 3/4 of the opera. The theatre even had booster cushions for the kids – which I hadn’t realized they did. Now I know for next time! It was fun to see the three year old as a huge silhouette onstage – I could tell it was her by her wild hair. Watching the opera, she was a little fidgety, and said the opera was scary, but otherwise did really well. (I mean the opera is about witches and burning women and babies, so maybe she has a point… we did not stay for what I hear was a severed head at the end.) The five year old seemed really into it, and was actually upset at having to leave early. Though he did say at intermission that he wanted to leave so maybe he just really didn’t want to go to bed when we really left. I did bribe the two little kids with lollipops to get them to sit for the second half. The singing was beautiful, and music thrilling, and I thought the tenor’s Act 3 aria was stunning. All in all, I would say a successful family venture to the opera!
Booster cushions in tow! Going to the opera!
– I had a bit of a meltdown on Monday when I went to get my bike out of the shed to go to work, and I couldn’t find the key to the shed. I (embarrassingly) called the Husband, railed at him for a little bit, then felt defeated and went upstairs to change out of my biking clothes and into work clothes and drove to work. I had planned out my bike rides depending on this week’s rehearsal schedule, and there were really only two days that would work to bike, so I was super disappointed and frustrated when I couldn’t bike to work. Anyhow… I did manage to run three times on my dinner break and bike one way on one other day, so I guess I still feel pretty good about the amount of exercise I got.
-Speaking of running – some gorgeous skies and colours during my dinner break runs this week:
There was also one house that had a wish tree out front, and people wrote wishes and hung them from the tree. I especially enjoyed this combination:
In case you can’t read it, the red tag says, “That One Direction gets back together.” The Yellow once says, “Be Connected to my Community.”
-And speaking of exercise: Friday was our first tech rehearsal in the theatre. A day that is always super busy where I’m on my feet all day, running around the stage and theatre. I looked at my Health app on the phone, and yesterday’s stats:
Which is apparently 9.2 miles
I feel like the number of steps/ distance is about right for a day of tech. Though 2 miles of that was my dinner break run. The 34 floors, however, is more than normal. I do often climb a lot of stairs during tech – our office is in the lower level of the theatre and there is a rehearsal room on the 2nd floor. This tech however was a lot more because our set has two levels and there are a lot of singers and dancers going up to the second level and coming back down, so I was running up and those steps a lot to cue them onstage or to deal with issues. Plus the stage itself a platform about two and a half feet up from the floor of the theatre so even just stepping on stage is 1/3 a flight of stairs. And I went on stage a lot yesterday. I always think it’s fun to look at these metrics as how they reflect in the day. The dip between 12n-1p was lunch break when we sat on the back terrace and enjoyed the fresh air and view of the Potomac. The spike between 5p-6p was when I went for my dinner break run. The spike in flights climbed between 8pm and 9pm was probably that part in rehearsal when one of the singers left a sword on top of the second story of the set and then we couldn’t find it so I ran up and down the steps five times looking for it because I though it might have gotten kicked off the platform and I was worried that it was under the set. (Someone else had retrieved it and put it on the prop table.) Anyhow, I always think it’s fun to look at the data from tech and compare it with other techs.
Something I read that made me think this week: This article about digital detoxing and technology norms in a collective society. The article talks about how and why the idea of a “digital detox” has come into our vocabulary and made me really think about the amount of time I spend on my phone. Well, not strictly the time that I spend on my phone, but rather the material I consume while on my phone, and how that reflects who I am. The author is a media studies professor and she writes: “Studying digital-media breaks can reveal what individuals and collectives value in unmediated spaces, and the measures they take to protect it.” I’ve been thinking lately about this idea of the offline values that I want to protect. I was looking back on my five year journal and I realized that it was this time last year that I decided to take a break from Facebook because I felt like it was a time suck. Now I don’t necessarily spend less time on my phone, but I think I spend different time on my phone. I read more books. I read and comment on more blogs. I play Wordle and DuoLingo. I still scroll a lot of stuff in Feedly and spend too much time researching purchases and go down internet rabbit holes. I think, though, if I can remember the things that I find fulfilling and satisfying offline, then it will help me be more purposeful with the time I do spend on my phone. So if I value things like connecting with people, stimulating my mind, doing something physical – I will use technology to do those things, guard them and prioritize them, and be more cognizant of when random scrolling doesn’t check those boxes.
Anyhow, my weekend aspirations so far: – Wash my bras. I, sadly, only have two bras that are currently comfortable and they both need a washing. (They are nursing bras, but are so comfortable that I still wear them. Though I do truly need new bras.) Anyhow his is kind of the sad state of affairs where I have to put “wash bras” on a list to remember to do it. – Pick up the house. Cleaners are coming Monday, and we always do a tidy before they come. Which usually involves lots of screaming, bribing , and withholding things from the children. Well, they aren’t home this weekend, so let’s see if it will be any less stressful to just do it all myself while they are gone. – a yoga or a gentle strength workout video. I ran three times this week, plus tech last night, so I’m feeling like something on the short and easy side this weekend. – ten year old’s Halloween costume. Perpetual October task. -put oil in my car. It is due for an oil change, but I don’t see that happening for another week, so this is the stop gap measure. -sleepover with my friend. We might go see a movie (This one with Cate Blanchett as a charismatic conductor. right up our music nerd alley.) Or we might just stay home and have an in home movie night. -Hike and picnic with sleepover friend. -Work Sunday Night. -random internet chores – bills, activity sign ups, still on the quest for black shoes
What We Ate:
Saturday: Hot Pot Restaurant (mentioned last post)
Sunday: Chipotle and Papa Johns at Friend’s house.
Monday: Turkey Meatballs loosely from this Smitten Kitchen Recipe. I didn’t do the broth part; I just premade the meatballs and marinated the squash so the Husband could just toss it all on a sheet pan when he got home and they ate it with pasta. I made a double batch of the meatballs and froze them, which I think future me will thank me for. This was really tasty – I ate it cold when i got home from work and the kids took the leftovers for lunch the next day. The three year old, who says “I don’t like vegetables!” ate all of her yellow squash and then some, but refused to eat the zucchini because it was green.
Tuesday: I had leftovers at work – the last of the mushroo wild rice soup from a week and a half ago. The Husband took the kids to dinner with a friend.
Wednesday: We went to the Opera this night and ate at the terrace cafe at the theatre, which is always pricy, but the food is good and I get a tiny discount. I had a Cioppino which straddled the line between briny and salty.
Thursday: The family had leftover pizza – something easy as they were packing for their trip. I had some kind of leftovers grabbed from the fridge. I’ve started packaging the leftovers in smaller containers when possible so I can just grab them out of the fridge on my way to work.
Friday: Husband and kids were away. I brought a kale salad for dinner – Massaged kale, roasted butternut squash, almonds, avocado, cucumbers, radishes, cheddar cheese, olive oil, salt, shallots, lemon. It was really tasty. And a good way to clean out the vegetable drawer.
