tech week – Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + What we ate: One last show before the holidays; Unique and Frustrating

The week before was exhausting and hard and I never wanted it to end. There is something really special about working on a show that I love with some of my favorite colleagues, and also to top it all off, having my 13 year old also be in the show. This is probably the last time I will get to work on a show with one of my kids. By next year she will have likely aged out of being in the children’s chorus, and my other two kids don’t show any inclination for theatre. So I really tried to savor this past weekend of shows, these moments in the theatre we are having together, all the hard work and concentration. I feel so lucky to be able to share with her the joy and wonder of being able to tell stories onstage.

She felt it too. During our last show on Sunday night, every time I saw her backstage she was crying. At one point, she was standing next to me as her group was getting ready to enter, and she was crying so hard, another of the kids went and got her a handful of tissues. With one eye on my score – because I still had to call cues, of course – I leaned over and gave her a big hug and said, “You can’t cry and sing at the same time. Go onstage and enjoy the moment.”

I’d been trying to keep up with journaling during this show because I want to be able to remember what a wonderful time it was. Lately when I don’t feel like I have a lot of time for dep reflective journaling, I write down one or two things that were different and unique about the day and one or two things that were frustrating. Here are some of the things from the week of tech/performances :

Monday:
Unique/Different: Sitzprobe day. If you remember my post where I talked about Stizprobe – well this was a true sitzprobe (sitting rehearsal) because it was in a rehearsal room and not on stage, so we couldn’t wandel (wander). But it’s always exciting to hear the orchestra and for many of the children’s chorus, it was their first time ever singing with and orchestra.
-I talked to one of the kids in the show as we were waiting for rehearsals to start, and had a hilarious conversation with her. I have to admit that I had been struggling with some of the kids’ behavior – there has been a general lack of engagement and focus in rehearsal from a handful of them. I know that they are just kids and for many this is their first professional experience, but I was feeling pretty frustrated with some of the attitudes and talking back and not paying attention and not learning their music and breaking of props when I told that the flashlight stars are fragile. To be clear, most of the kids were doing really well and focused, it was just a handful that had worn me down. Plus having three hours of rehearsals with the kids every single night requires a very specific kind of energy from me. But then at the sitzprobe, I had this quirky delightful conversation with one of the kids and it helped remind me that these kids were…. well, kids. And asking them to focus for three hours at a time was asking a lot. They aren’t bad kids. They’re just kids and I needed to meet them where they were.
Frustrating: The theatre space is very small and the stage managers share a small office with two other departments so it’s very hard for me to get focused work time because there are always people coming in and out. (On the other hand, it makes for a good sense of camaraderie.)
-I didn’t get the Christmas cards done yet. (or the laundry folded, or the dishes done…)

Tuesday:
Unique/Different: On the way to work, a Secret Service car pulled in front of me and blocked traffic. Three or four minutes later, a motorcade came through. I don’t get to experience the Secret Service moving someone through very often, and I find it kind of fun to witness, regardless of one’s politics.
Frustrating: It was our Piano Tech rehearsal and we didn’t get through the whole show. We got through all of Act One and only half of the second act. It’s always frustrating not to get through the whole show before we add costumes. But at intermission, the plane onstage took longer to move than I had allowed for in the schedule (it was the first time the crew had taken the plane off stage – they eventually added two more crew members to help with the plane and other things.), and also there was a lot of starting and stopping for things I hadn’t planned on. I get very down on myself when rehearsals don’t move at the pace I would like.

Wednesday:
Unique/Different: -The kids had a chocolate chip bagel with cream cheese. Wednesday is 7:15am piano lesson day for the 13 year old and the 8 year old. The 8 year old took the 7:15am lesson this time so that the 13 year old could sleep in a little more, so I took the kids to get bagels in appreciation for getting to piano lessons on time. Usually the 8 and 6 year old split an egg bagel with strawberry cream cheese, but this day they chose to have a chocolate chip bagel because they had never had that before.
-Piano Dress rehearsal – I called all the spot light cues for the first act. I very rarely get any spotlight cues in my book by Piano Dress, so it was really a big achievement for me to have put the cues in my book and been able to call them at this rehearsal.

Putting cues in my book during a lighting session.

-And we got through the whole show and had time to go back and repeat some scenes with the alternate cast member. Also – there is one really fast costume change that didn’t go well the first time – one singer has one minute to change from a rose costume to a fox costume. Often we will just move on and hope it goes better the next time, but I pretty firmly said that we needed to give the dressers a chance to do it again. At first I was worried it would be a big waste of time because it took almost ten minutes to reset for the change. But the dressers and the singers nailed the change the second time through and that felt really good. I want to remember this moment because I don’t want to forget that the crew – wardrobe crew and stage crew – need time to rehearse as much as the singers do and that I need to make sure they get that time as we move through rehearsal.
Frustrating: Oh man, this day had a trifecta of frustration:
1) The bridge from the trail where I park and the kids’ school was closed for some construction work. We were already running late and I couldn’t get across the creek to get the kids to school. We ended up having to get back in the car and I just drove them to the school, but I still had to walk them in because they were so late. On the other hand, seeing the 8 year old explain to his little sister what a tardy slip was was kind of cute.
2) Then I stepped in dog poop. I’m pretty sure I stepped in dog poop while trying to find a way across the creek, but I didn’t notice it until I was halfway to work and the car started to really smell. And there was no way to pull over til I got to work. UGH.
3) I got to work and realized that I had left my wallet at home. An appliance repair company had called about a job I needed them to do and when I reached into my purse to get my credit card to pay them… it wasn’t there. On the bright side, I had left it at home while ordering the Christmas cards, so at least those were done. Plus I was going to be at the theatre all day so didn’t really need my wallet. But UGH.
All that happened before 10:30am. The rest of the day went pretty well, though. And luckily the 13 year old brought me my wallet when she came to rehearsal.

Thursday
Unique/Different:
-I went for a walk after dropping off the kids at school. I’ve been crap about moving or exercising other than 10 minutes of yoga in the morning. So I took 20 minutes before heading to work and walked the trail next to school. The air was brisk and cold.
-We had an Orchestra Tech rehearsal with and invited audience, which essentially meant the first time we performed the show in front of an audience. I love the first time we do the show for an audience because I feel like I get to see the show with fresh eyes. I’d spent two days calling the cues in rehearsal, and when we get an audience, I try to experience the show fresh – each time someone sings, each time the lights change colour, I feel an excitement that someone is seeing that for the first time. The moment when the curtain flies out revealing the plane onstage you can hear the audience inhale in wonder. The first time the children start singing, “Light your lamps, take up your places, for another starry night…” it’s just so exciting to know that a story is coming. The Husband brought the 8 and 6 year old and also one of the 13 year old’s friends, and it was nice to seem them in the audience when I went out to talk to the director.
-Also – I got all the spot light cues in my book and called them. woot.

Frustrating:
-Some work stuff dynamic stuff that isn’t really bloggable. Nothing big but just frustrating chain of information flow.

Friday:
Unique/Different-A Dress Rehearsal at 11am with an invited student audience, meaning I had to be at work at 9:15am. Now, I know a lot of people have to be at work at 9am, or even earlier, but I am not one of those people for whom this is a regular thing. It is so. very. early.
-The Student audience was amazing – even from backstage you could feel how excited they all were. I’m also really proud that an idea I had three weeks ago came to fruition. I had said in a meeting, “Hey, why don’t we do the intermission scene change with the curtain out and show the kids how we take the airplane apart and get it off stage?” Everyone was game for this idea, so we did it, and I think the students really liked watching the stage crew work.
-Opening night. It was a super long day what with that 11am dress rehearsal and then a 7pm performance. But we got Seoul Spice take out for dinner and that was yummy. (Seoul Spice is often described as Korean Chipotle – you get to customize your bowl.)

Frustrating: Okay, this one might be TMI, but I got my period the day before and during the morning rehearsal/show, I totally bled through my pad and my underwear. Luckily I spend the show standing up, so I didn’t bleed through my pants. I didn’t get a chance to change my pad til after the show – there is only one rest room backstage (not counting the ones in the dressing rooms, but I can’t use those ones during the show) and it’s pretty busy at Intermission. Anyhow, it was all fine, but sometimes I get so frustrated that I’m 46 years old and still bleeding through my underwear when I get my period.

Saturday:
Unique/ Different-The perfect scarf drop. There is a moment in the show where a scarf drops from above and lands into a puddle of light. For whatever reasons of wind and physics the scarf never lands in the puddle of light – it always drifts upstage or downstage and ends up in the dark. Well, during the evening show, the scarf landed perfectly in the center of the puddle of light and it was magical.
-Walking to get boba between shows with the 13 year old, each of us with one ear bud so that we could listen to our book together as we walked. We’re currently listening to:

Frustrating: I forgot to call the houselights out at the start of Act 2. The houselights are the lights over the audience. Usually as the orchestra tunes, I call the houselights out, but for some reason, during the matinee, I forgot and we almost started the 2nd Act with the houselights up. I realized just in time but it made for a kind of squishy moment. And then… in the evening show, I again forgot to take the house light out during the tune. I hate making the same mistake twice. Clearly I whatever I had written in my book was ineffective at getting me to call things in the right sequence. I was just really frustrated at myself for messing up.

Sunday:
Unique/Different: Last day of performances- two shows this day. The matinee was the last show for one of our youth leads since he alternates with another singer in the part. At curtain call, he came out crying for his bow. As soon as the curtain came in, the whole cast surrounded him in the biggest group hug I’ve ever seen. The joy and support the cast felt on behalf of the kid was palatable in the air. I get choked up thinking back on it. Here is the other thing that was amazing about this moment – I’ve done this show three times over the past 11 years, and it has always been a white child in the main role. This year was the first time I’ve done it with a Black child in the part. And there’s something really bigger than the sum of it’s part when you cast a child of colour as such an iconic character. For the child himself, for the rest of the cast, for the audience- it’s kind of a shift in what we accept about the stories we tell on stage and who can tell those stories. It’s been a challenging time at work, and I want to remember that we tell stories with open minds and to open eyes, even amidst all the uncertainty.
-Also there was a bit of a burning issue with the spotlights at the start of the second act of the show. That was exciting. We had to take the spotlights out for about ten minutes while the crew fixed the issue.

Frustrating: That we can’t do twenty more performances of this beautiful show.

Grateful for:
-All the things above, the unique/different and the frustrating. I feel so lucky to have had that experience.
-The Husband. For doing keeping the kids alive and getting them where they need to be; for making food; for bringing me food; for doing the laundry; for juggling all the other things of life. Also for dealing with the 6 year old’s bloody nose at 1am.
-A surprise brie sandwich. I had made a turkey sandwich with the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, layering turkey, arugula, cranberry sauce, and some brie that I found in the fridge. Only by the time I’d gotten to work, I had forgotten that I had put brie in the sandwich and my first bite had a s deliciously pungent surprise. I had that same sandwich until the turkey and cranberry sauce ran out, and I now call it surprise brie sandwich. It brought much joy to my lunch life.
-Friends for driving carpool.
-The freezer section at HMart. Going into tech/performance week, I knew that the 13 year old and I would be eating a lot of food at the theatre. Thank goodness for HMart. I stocked our freezer with dumplings, bao, and aloo paratha, all of which I would cook in the morning and pack for dinners that were filling and easy to eat at the theatre.
-While we’re talking about food – grateful for people who bring communal snacks to work. Snacking is super important to me at work:

There is a Trader Joe’s next to where our prop head shops….

-The crew at the theatre for being amazing and game, and crawling on the floor behind the stage to fix problems. And literally putting out fires.
-All the people I work with. There’s a bit of a sense that we’re in the foxhole together right now and I’m glad I’m there with these people.

Looking Forward To:
I’ve been struggling with feeling excited about our upcoming trip to Taiwan. I feel really ungrateful for saying that about a chance to travel internationally. BUT we were there last year and the kids were really looking forward to Christmas at home. Also – it’s going to be a lot of family, which will be chaotic; there will be my kids complaining that they don’t have iPads like all their cousins do; there’s jetlag and people’s schedules being off; there’s the discomfort of not being home and around familiar things…. So I am trying to acknowledge my feelings, but also think of the things that I am looking forward to. So here are some things I’m looking forward to:
-Seeing my grandfather. The whole reason this trip was planned is that we are celebrating my grandfather’s 100th birthday. He no longer travels to America, so I think every chance I get to see him is a gift.
-Seeing family. I’m conflicted about this because sometimes I feel it hard to connect with my cousins, but I do want to see them and I am looking forward to all our kids hanging out.
-The food. The food in Taiwan is so delicious. I’m looking forward to it all – noodles, bao, soy milk, stinky tofu…
-The fruit. This gets its own category from “food” because the fruit in Taiwan is so amazing – sweet and flavorful, and so many varieties.
-Seeing Mr. K, our bus driver from last year’s trip. My mother booked him to drive us again. He was just so chill and kind.
-Relaxing at hot springs and hiking – my mother has arranged a couple days for us together to chill at the end of a the week of intense family activity. I haven’t been hiking as much this year as I would like, so I’m looking forward to this.
-Watching all the movies and reading books on the plane ride. My sister-in-law and I have decided to have a book club. We’re going to read these two books:

What We Ate:
This was the week of make-ahead or eating out:
Sunday: Made a big pot of Dakdoritang (Korean braised chicken and vegetables). Kind of based off this recipe, but I added Kabocha squash and daikon and shitake mushrooms. It was really delicious. The 6 year old who hates mushrooms actually loved the mushrooms in this dish. I ate it all week.

Monday: I ate leftovers. I brought dumplings, cut up apples, aloo paratha, and carrot sticks for the 13 year old. The Husband took the two little kids out for pizza and ping pong with a friend after he dropped the 13 year old at rehearsal.

Tuesday: I ate leftover dakdoritang. Same as yesterday for the 13 year old. The Husband and family had chili at home – he had made a big pot on Sunday.

Wednesday: The 13 year old and I split a jamon torta that the Husband had brought home for me the day before. Did the rest of the family have chili again?

Thursday: The 13 year old and I had chili at work.

Friday: Seoul Spice take out for the 13 year old and I. The Husband and two little kids at home made pizza and they watched… not sure, but it was some Christmas movie. Maybe Candy Cane Lane?

Saturday: Leftovers at the theatre. I think. The details are hazy when one is going onto day six at the theatre in a row.

Sunday: The 13 year old and I went out for dinner between shows with my stage management team. We split a chicken sandwich and a burger. It was so tasty.

Welp that’s the news from here lately. We’re rounding the corner to the holidays and a new year. This last month of the year has just flown by. I’m a little bit in a panic state about packing and prepping for our upcoming travel; I’m feeling a bit of guilt about dropping the ball on presents and teacher gifts/cards; I have a few Christmas cards still to send (should I Sharpie out “Merry Christmas” and write in “Happy New Year”?? ). Christmas is not going to be very Christmas-y this year, and part of me is okay with that, but also part of me is having an existential crisis about it. I think we’ve decided that Christmas cards, Tuba Christmas and Mass are “must do” Christmas activities. The rest… I’m trying to decide how sad I am that we missed out on some of the usual holiday things. More to ponder.

Hope you all are heading into the home stretch of 2025 with time to reflect and look forward as well.

is 9am seem early to you? Have you ever had a brush with Secret Service? If you journal, any prompts you use when you have journaler’s block? What Holiday traditions are “must do” for you?

PS: If you want to see the show that I was working on, you can see a clip here and here. If you don’t blink, you’ll see me!

Weekly recap + what we ate: a week of tech meals

Well, since I last poked my head around here, I’ve teched, opened, and closed a show. And I also prepped and started rehearsals for my next show. I feel like we’re kind of in survival mode right now – long hours at work for me; the 13 year old is also in my upcoming show so has rehearsals several times a week – I’m really proud of her for getting herself to rehearsals after school; my parents have come to visit. And as always, the Husband is holding down the fort, keeping the kids fed, the house picked up, and my laundry folded. The hours are late because the opera I was in performances for is looong – 3.5 hours from orchestra tuning to end of bows. That’s long. It was a beautiful show, though. And I love the music – some days I feel so lucky that I get to live in Mozart’s brilliance for a living. It’s not always fun and roses, but there is a lot of beauty to be found in my job.

At the beginning of tech week, I thought it would be interesting post to capture what I pack in my lunch box during tech week. Lunch box is a bit of a misnomer because in it I also pack dinner and lots of snacks. Basically my formula is:

-Lunch
-snacks for rehearsal breaks
-Dinner
-Snack for drive home. I’m often driving home late at night so a snack helps keep me awake.

Sometimes if I don’t eat breakfast, I also pack breakfast. Usually it’s yogurt and berries with a swirl of honey. Sometimes it’s just a peanut butter sandwich.

So here is looking at Tech Week through the lens of what I pack for dinner.

Day one of tech – On the work schedule:
11am Set Looks and Spiking. This is where the set and furniture is put onstage and the director – and scenic designer, if there is one – gets the first chance to look at everything and tweak things that can be tweaked. It is also often the first chance for the crew gets to do each scene shift in order. They do it slowly, and not at all in time. “Spiking” refers to putting down tape marks where all the furniture will go. Our show was a revival of a show that we had done previously and the scenic designer was not present.
7:00pm Sitzprobe. A rehearsal where the singers get to sing with the orchestra, no staging or props or anything; everyone just concentrates on singing with the orchestra for the first time. Sitz is German for sit. Probe is German for rehearsal. We actually had a Wandelprobe – “wandel” means to wander – where the singers instead of sitting at chairs with music stands got to walk around an open set while singing. Note for future self, though – while in my stage manager mind, a Sitzprobe and Wandelprobe are similar in that we only have a reduced stage crew with us, they are very different for the singers. We had called it a sitzprobe on the schedule when really it was a wandelprobe and people were upset because they were expecting to just come and sit and sing. Singers prepare and dress differently for a Sitz vs. a Wandel.

Anyhow, what I packed to eat:

Pink snack box (Lunch): Empanada (from Farmer’s Market the day before), cucumbers, apple slices, hummus, a boiled egg.
Green Lid (Dinner): Smitten Kitchen’s One Pot Farro and Tomatoes. I often make one large pot of something to eat throughout tech week. This time is was this deliciously simple, filling, and versatile farro dish. I add a can of cannellini beans to bulk it up. Vegan since I leave out the cheese.
Orange snack box (Post show/ drive home snack): Trail mix (I make my own – pretzels, mixed nuts, M&Ms), grapes, apple slices, string cheese, cucumbers.
Extra snack: two clementines.

Day Two of Tech:
1:30p – 5:00pm: Piano Tech #1
7p – 10:30p : Piano Tech #2
Piano Tech is the first rehearsal onstage with scenery, and often lighting. We work through the show slowly, making sure everyone – performers and crew and stage management – can figure out what the traffic onstage and backstage is. This rehearsal is with piano not orchestra, hence the name Piano Tech.

What I packed:

Lunch box – Jamon Torta (wrapped in foil) – the Husband had gone to dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants a few days ago and brought me back a Jamon Torta, my favorite thing on the menu. I didn’t have time to eat it then so I packed it for lunch. Apple slices, cucumber slices, banana muffin (I had found a bag of frozen muffins in the freezer! Nice treat)
Dinner: One Pot Farro with roasted delicata squash and a boiled egg. (Eggs are another of the things I always prep for tech week – fast, easy source of protein)
Snack box: Same as the day before. I didn’t finish it all, so I replenished it and packed it again.

Day Three of Tech:
morning – putting cues in my book, cleaning my book for the evening rehearsal
2:00p – 5:00pm – lighting session. Where the lighting designer sets lighting levels without any performers onstage. I have to be there to put the cues on my book and remind the lighting designer of when thing happen and where people are standing onstage.
7:00pm – 11:00pm – Piano Dress rehearsal. We add costumes to the mix. Still a piano rehearsal.

Lunch Box: Empanada (from the empanada run earlier in the week). Apples, cucumber and banana muffin. I think these were actually leftover from the day before. The torta was so huge I didn’t eat much of the other stuff I packed.
Dinner: One pot farro and tomatoes with roasted delicata squash
Blue Snack Box: apple slices, boiled egg, trail mix, sesame rice crackers from Trader Joe’s, Undercover Quinoa Chocolate crisps.

Then we had a day off!!!

Day Four of Tech:
Morning: putting spot light cues in my book. Spot light cues are the bane of my existence. They are fussy and a lot of words to say. For example “Spot 3 Standby to pick up singer in Frame X at 50%, head and shoulders as they come through the stage left door.” The Frame number tells them what colour to put in the spot light. The percentage is how bright to make the light. “Head and shoulders” is how big to make the light; head and shoulders means the spotlight should only cover the singer’s head and shoulders. There is also “full body”, which is the whole person, “3/4 body” which is about to the knees, “waist” open to the waist. The Assistant Lighting Designer writes the cue sheets for the spot lights, but I still have to put it all in my book to relay the information to the Spot operators.
Afternoon: Lighting session
7:00pm – 11:00pm: Orchestra Tech rehearsal. We finally add the orchestra to the mix.

What I packed:

Lunch (or dinner – it’s pretty interchangeable at this point):
-One pot farro, with delicata squash. Though this time I add arugula and eat it as a salad, dressed with some olive oil and rice vinegar.
-Green rimmed tupperware: Coconut chickpea curry with pumpkin. I had made it for dinner the week before, and it made good leftovers for tech week. Vegan.
Snack container: Trail mix, sesame rice crackers, undercover chocolate quinoa crisps, cucumber slices, string cheese.
Additional snacks: apple slices. Grapes and carrots.

Day Five of Tech:
Morning: Continue putting spot cues and fixes in my book.
Afternoon: Lighting session
7pm – 10:30pm: Orchestra Tech #2. Ran the show with the orchestra.

Lunch (or dinner)
-Round container: One pot farro eaten as a salad with arugula and raw golden beets and olives.
– Square container: Coconut chickpea curry with pumpkin, again.
Snack Container: Trail mix, cucumbers with furikake seasoning, boiled egg, sesame rice crackers, apple slices
Additional Snacks: aple slickes, grapes and carrots.

Day Six of Tech – Final Dress Rehearsal! It was Wednesday, which is when the nearby Farmer’s market is, so we went to get empanadas for dinner.

Day off!!!

Opening Night – Finally.

Just dinner this day:
-In the insulated container: Meera Sodha’s congee with celery and braised soy mushrooms. I made it for breakfast one day since I had a bunch of leftover rice in the fridge and had enough leftovers to take for dinner. I got the recipe from her latest cookbook Dinner, which features vegetarian and vegan Asian inspired recipes. This congee was delicious comfort food, and so simple and fast to make. The braised mushrooms magically had the consistency of pork belly – which for me is a selling point.
-In the snack container: cucumbers, grapes, sharp cheddar cheese, and a piece of apple cake. (About the cake – the day after final dress was a day off, and I was so drained that even though I had a laundry list of things to do, I just couldn’t do anything but sit in a comfy chair and alternate napping and reading a book. At some point in the afternoon, I felt the need to get off my behind and do something (not that napping and reading are nothing), so I baked an lemon apple cake with some apples we had that were past their prime. Baking turned out to be the right low energy activity. I need to remember that next time I am feeling in a post tech slump – baking is a good activity to bring me back into the world of productive “life-ing”. Not that I follow the cult of productivity, but I do think I need to have an activity that takes me out of the zoned out numb brain state that I’m in after teching a show. )
-Snack- carrots and apples for the drive home.

And that’s a tech week of food for me. There is something really satisfying about bringing all my food with me – I kind of actually don’t like to buy lunch or meals; it never tastes as good to me, and it takes too much time. I’d rather spend my time going for a walk.

Grateful For: I’ve been pretty lax about keeping up with my gratitude journal this month. I really want to get back to it because I find it really grounding. One day I sat down and did some aggressive gratitude-ing, and just did a gratitude brain dump, and I felt so much better after. So in that spirit, and given that it’s almost Thanksgiving, here is some off the cuff gratitud0ing, stream of consciousness style as I wait for the 13 year old to finish basketball.
-beautiful fall weather – cool, brisk, crisp and bright.
-the kid who just said, “Good pass!” To the thirteen year old at this basketball pick up game. Pick up is sometimes rough – right now it’s her and eight other middle school boys and, let’s be honet, boys can be kind of not nice to girls on the basketball court and there have definitely been not nice comments made. So it’s nice when a kid says something nice to another.
-being done rehearsal in time to be home to give the kids good night hugs and kisses.
-being done rehearsal in time to hang out with the Husband on the couch.
-My mom making dinner tonight and leftovers waiting for me at home.
-Friends who drive carpool.
-Will Watt, my current favorite audiobook narrator, and his expresive, silken voice, for making me almost look forward to my commutes.
-My portable bluetooth keyboard that allows me to type blog posts on my phone during kid activities.
-Whoever is in charge of the drop off line on Friday at the elementary school for blasting feel good tunes as kids are being dropped off. I look forward to walking the kids to school on Fridays, knowing that I’ll be greeted by upbeat music.
-That my kids walk hand in hand to school. I love watching them walk up to the doors together and disappear through them. I’m grateful that they always (almost always) are happy and willing to go to school.
-That I get to work on two of my favorite operas this fall. One is behind me and one has just started rehearsal.
-That I get to work on one of my favorite operas with my 13 year old in the chorus.
-That the prop guy at work retrieved the stage management snack box that I had accidentally left in our office at the theatre. I had meant to bring it back to the rehearsal studio, but it was so late when we left the theatre after the final show, I had forgotten. And the snack box is very important. I also didn’t want the mice to get to it.
-Butter, flour, baking powder, and buttermilk. Heat. And the strange alchemy that makes biscuits.

Looking Forward To:
-Thanksgiving. It’ll be a small gathering, but I’ll still be making all the food. Current plan for menu is: Buttermilk brined spatchcocked turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rice with kabocha squash, roasted broccoli (or steamed, depending on time), rainbow Jell-o, apple pie, chocolate whiskey cake. Maybe bread. Maybe a green salad.

-Thanksgiving leftovers.

-A day off that isn’t Thanksgiving, so I can get life tasks done.

-Track suits! I used to order the kids matching pjs for Christmas, but the 13 year old wears adult sizes now, so it’s hard to find something for all three kids. This year I ordered the kids matching track suits instead, something that’s been on my “want to buy them” list for a while. I’m really excited.

-Curling up with hot tea and a book. Not sure when this will ever happen this month, but I’m looking forward to it.

-This was just released on Audible – looking forward to listening to it on my commute. (After I finish my current Will Watt narrated book. )

It’s by the same group of people who made the audio play version of “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”, which I also really enjoyed. Peter Dinklage as Poirot was so much fun.
(Speaking of which – did anyone catch the broadcast of Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Twelfth Night on PBS’s Great Performances? Dinklage’s performance as Malvolio was brilliant – comic precision blended with strangely earnest pathos. I’ve always found Malvolio tedious, and this was the first time he seemed human.
The rest of the production – I have feelings. This was a star studded cast – Sandra Oh, Lupita Nyong’o, Jesse Tyler Ferguson – and I think there was some really brilliant ideas in the production – the Viola/Sebastian relationship was really well done; the music; some of the minor characters were really well portrayed; the curtain call was brilliant, but also flabbergastingly lavish. But… the production wasn’t romantic. I think Twelfth Night is a very romantic play – the sincerity and depth of feelings of all the characters is what makes the play funny, even as people’s hearts are breaking. The gender bending love triangles here are played purely for laughs, and I feel like that makes them come off as without depth. Despite some great performances, I never believed that Olivia or Orsino loved anyone except themselves. And maybe that’s the academic, esoteric truth about Olivia and Orsino. But I don’t think – I don’t want to believe – the characters are as shallow as all that. Viola is such a great character – probably my second favorite literary character after Jane Eyre – that you have to believe that Orsino is worthy of her love. And in this production, he just … wasn’t all that. It’s a tricky task, to be sure, to deliver an Orsino that deserves Viola, but I have seen it done before, and it’s disappointing when you come out at the end of Twelfth Night feeling like Viola could have done better.
Anyhow, that’s my five second review of the production. I’d be interested to see if anyone else caught the production and had thoughts. It’s available to stream until the end of the year on PBS)

Welp that’s a whole lot of brain dump (written over ten days) for one night, and I desperately need to go to not stay up too late, so I’ll wrap it up. No weekly dinner menu because a) I didn’t write it down the past few days, and b) the Husband did most of the cooking and I wasn’t home a whole lot for dinner the past few weeks. I think there was soup from the freezer, eggs, chicken stir fry. Taco Tuesday… all of it filling and tasty, I’m sure.

Anyhow, I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving are gearing up for a lovely one, however you are spending the day!

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tech/opening/closing; Motivation and Discipline

I’ve made it to the other side of the show. Last week we teched and then had our one and only performance. It’s been an intense week for sure, working until 1:30am two of the nights. The process has been fast and furious – only two days of rehearsal in the theatre before opening. Usually we have four days in the theatre, at least.

Lighting session. The view from Stage Right.

The thing that’s particularly intense about this schedule is that the first rehearsal onstage for the full cast was with orchestra and full costume, wigs, and make-up. Usually the first onstage tech rehearsal is just piano and no costumes, so we can get used to the set, figure out the staging, slowly work through tricky traffic. To have to throw set, costumes, orchestra, light cues at the process the first time most of the cast stepped onstage was a lot. But big shout out to our stage manger, who came up with a plan to keep things moving while stopping and allowing everyone time to work on elements that needed work – firing weapons, fights, offstage singing moments, balance notes, costume changes etc. The one costume change I was really worried about involved the entire 36 person chorus changing from a winter look to a spring look in 1 minute 30 seconds. It’s not a complicated change – mostly just taking off overcoats and scarves, and adding summer hats, but when 36 people have to do it all at once, it’s a bit of a madhouse.

But we did it, and by all accounts the opera was beautiful. Everything went smoothly, no noticeable hiccups. People backstage, cast and crew, seemed to not be too confused, so that always makes me feel as if I’ve done my job well. There is something gratifying about being a stage manager in that people always appreciate you. At least the people backstage and onstage.

Now I have a little break before I plunge back into rehearsals again. I took the weekend to relax. It was truly a plan-free weekend. We actually spent all of Saturday morning playing “My bed is my island” as all five of us cuddled and napped and read in the 13 year old’s bed. It felt so indulgent. Then we did a few chores around the house and went to the pool for a couple hours. Highlight of our pool time was that the 13 year old taught me how to dive! I’ve never really been able to dive – just kind of teetered at the edge of the water then belly flopped in. The 13 year old gave me lots of tips and coached me through it. Yay! I’ve always wanted to figure this out.

After the pool, we came home and had pizza and watched Glee. Then after the kids went to bed, the Husband, 13 year old, and I watched Jaws. I had never seen Jaws before, and as the movie is 50 years old this year, the Husband thought it a good time to watch it. There was definitely some screaming and clutching going on while we watched. What a nerve-wracking and entertaining movie. I don’t know that I need to watch it again, but glad I checked that off my list. All in all, it was such a perfect, lazy Saturday. This is what summers are made for, I think.

The thirteen year old teaching the 5 year old how to dive.

Every time I have a gap between shows, I like to think about routines I want to set up (or return to) so that when I am back into working nights and weekends I have some good practices in place. Along those lines, something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately was this article by Leon Ho on Life Hack: Motivation vs. Discipline: Why One always Beats the Other (And It’s Not What You Think). The article made me think about how there were some things I was very disciplined about at while working (daily yoga, eating fruits and vegetables, finding time to get outside, making the bed.). And there were some things that just didn’t happen because I didn’t feel the motivation (journaling, running, check ins with the Husband, putting away my lunch box). It’s not like the former is more important than the latter – I just never felt like doing it. Reading Ho’s article really made me think about how waiting to be inspired to do something wasn’t going to work.

And because I’m a Questioner (per Gretchen Rubin), the article stuck with me because it broke down the brain chemistry of motivation vs. discipline to explain why discipline gets more consistent results. In a nut shell, motivation releases dopamine, which makes you feel awesome and powerful. Motivation lights up your brain and encourages action. However, these dopamine flows cab be fleeting and unpredictable. And this is why relying on feeling motivated to do something doesn’t work. Discipline, however, Ho writes, is about creating systems that will work even when motivation isn’t there – it’s the adulting pre-frontal cortex. It is really hard for the pre-frontal cortex to win out over dopamine, but you can build routines and habits that make it less of a struggle. This is the quote that really made me sit up:

“Picture Michael Phelps at 5:30 AM, staring at a chlorinated pool in Baltimore. It’s 2003, years before his first Olympic gold. The water’s cold. His muscles ache from yesterday’s 12,000-meter swim. Does he feel motivated? Hell no. But he dives in anyway. Every. Single. Day. Even Christmas.”

This was an eye-opening re-frame for me: Michael Phelps doesn’t swim every day because he wants to swim in a dopamine flood of motivation. He swims every day because that’s what he has to do to achieve his goals. So when people say you have to want things to get it, they aren’t talking about “wanting” to win a game or play your best in that moment, they’re talking about using that “want” to set up disciplined habits. So that your dopamine lacking brain will still do the thing even when it isn’t feeling warm dopamine fuzzies. It’s all about showing up, right? And towards that, thinking about how to show up. Or what can one do to make showing up a habit. Because you can’t rely on dopamine to get you there.

None of this is particularly groundbreaking or new, but sometimes a different framing can cause a lightbulb moment. So I started thinking of all the things I want to show up for, even when I don’t feel motivated. And here’s some of the list, and thoughts on how I can develop the discipline to do them.

Showing up for my physical self:
-Daily yoga. (Check – I do this by knowing that it’s the first thing I do in the morning)
-Sleep, specifically going to bed early. (I’m terrible at this – I need to be more disciplined about having a set bedtime. Maybe if it can be a time to be in bed, even if it’s with a book when I don’t want to go to sleep?)
-Eating fruits and vegetables with every meal. (Check – I stock the fridge with fruits and veggies and cut some up for myself every day when I’m prepping food for the kids. I can’t make them eat veggies, if I don’t do it myself.)
-Running or strength training every day. (working on this. Motivation is very weak on this one. I think I need a set time. I’ve been running in the morning with the kids following me on their bikes, but not sure if this will still work once school starts.)

Showing up for my mental self:
– journal
-paint/play piano
-write
-read
All these, I think, are about finding consistent time to do it. But there are only certain hours in the day. Some could fit into a weekly practice, though.

Showing up for my financial self:
– Monthly financial admin days to pay bills and review payments and any other financial housekeeping.
-monthly financial check ins with the Husband.
-Double check my pay stubs.

-not buying things impulsively and mindlessly
Again, I think a lot of these are all about scheduling and sticking to it. I think it’s hard for me to stay on track with some of these things because it’s very computer based and I tend to get distracted on the computer. Also finding time to meet with the Husband when we both feel like we have the mental capacity to talk finances is hard. But maybe we just have to schedule the time, and set the bar low – like 15 mins to look at the bank account together to start and then scale up from there? Or maybe we meet for lunch once a month and go over everything?

Showing up for my Work Self:
-Focused times to get ahead with paperwork so it’s not last minute.
A lot of ink has been spilled about productivity and focus at work. For me, I need to embrace the mantra “create before consume” and eliminate distractions for even just 45-60 mins of concentrated work first thing when I get in. (I need to get up and stretch after that anyway.)

Showing up for my social circle and far away family:
-spending time with friends – in a group and one on one.
-responding to texts and phone calls.
-sending texts and phone calls when I haven’t heard from then in while.
-offering support when they need it

– sending my parents pictures and updates of the kids regularly
I think the way to be disciplined about this might be to make scheduled efforts to reach out. Maybe every morning I send a text to one person to say, “Thinking of you.” Once a month see if anyone wants to grab lunch.

Showing up for My Family (Okay – some of these are a little more abstract, but I do think that for me it’s easy to neglect my family when I’m tired or busy or stressed. I think, “Oh, I’ll give them my attention once tech week is over”, as I rush out the door. And then when I do get home, it’s hard for me to remember to be loving. I want to figure out ways to show up for them when I’m not home on evenings and weekends and when my brain is full of work things. I don’t want to get prescriptive about these things, but along the lines of motivation vs. discipline – just because gestures of affection and connection and automatic and pre=planned, it doesn’t make them any less sincere. )
-Calling home on my dinner break. (I used to have an alarm at 6pm that was labelled “call home” so that I would remember to do this on long days at work. I should re-instate this. Sometimes at work I get caught up with what is in front of me – if it’s a work thing or a great chat with a colleague about potato chips, what not – and I forget to call home.)
-Weekly family meetings. (We currently do these at 7:30am on Saturday mornings. They are a little painful, but it’s a good way of checking in about the week ahead and making sure everyone gets the bigger picture of what is going on.)
-Being kind even when I’m tired.
-Tell them they are doing great. Sincerely.
-Giving them hugs and kisses every day when I leave for work, even though I’m in a rush. Along those lines, getting up before the Husband leaves for work so that we can have even one moment of connection. He leaves for work at 7am, and some days it’s hard. But this is where I think discipline can help me.
-Sneaking into their bedroom to give them hugs and kisses every night when I get home, even if I’m bone tired and they’re asleep.
-family rituals: Rose/Buds/Thorns, movie night, family clean up time

Whoa that was a lot of brain dump on that topic. Thanks for coming along on the ride (if you’re still here…) I think my big take away from that exercise is to wake up earlier, scroll less, and schedule my life more. For someone who love to have the ability to be flexible and capriciousness (for myself – let’s be honest, I can’t stand it in others.), discipline is met with resistance. But I guess that’s the point. Discipline allows me to fight against that inertia of not wanting to do something when I’m not feeling motivated. I think the trick is to balance a disciplined life with one where I can also have a sense of spontaneity and flexibility.

Grateful For – this week’s gratitudes, many tech week related:

-Tech week hero- The Husband, for recovering my files. The night before our first onstage rehearsal, my computer died at 9:30pm. I was only half way finished the wardrobe running paperwork and hadn’t saved the document into the cloud. (The wardrobe running is the document that tells the wardrobe and wig/make-up crew when people change clothes, what they are changing into and out of, where they will do this change, and how much time they have to do the change. For this show, because there are so many people and so many different costumes, the wardrobe running is a 10 page document.) Cue despair. For me, this was the ultimate version of the worst possible time for one’s computer to die. I mean it was such a horrific thing to happen, I couldn’t even have a meltdown because I just needed to finish the paperwork so I could give it to the crew for the next day. The Husband, calmly let me use his laptop and took my laptop to see if he could get it to turn back on. Meanwhile I started re-creating my paperwork from scratch. Eventually the Husband was able to pull my files from the computer and put it on a separate hard drive, even though the computer motherboard was dead. Thank goodness I didn’t have to re-create the entire wardrobe running from scratch!

-Duluth Trading Company tank tops with built in wireless bras. It was a hot and humid week to be doing outdoor opera last week. I usually don’t wear tank tops to work, but I made an exception for 80 degree humid weather. These tank tops from Duluth were my wardrobe MVP last week. They have built in bra cups so that I don’t have to worry about finding an appropriate bra to wear with them, and they are thick enough cotton that it doesn’t feel too skimpy to wear at work. I only have two, but I think I will order more next time they go on sale.

-I got a free t-shirt from our Fight Choreographer! I had asked him where I could buy swag from his business, and he showed up one day with this shirt for me!

He does fight and intimacy work for the stage.

-The crew, cast, creative team, and my co-workers for the show I worked on. Making opera magic happen! Having the opportunity to be part of making opera magic happen.

-my water bottle. And the coolers of ice and Gatorade that the theatre keeps backstage. Staying hydrated while I sweated buckets. Also the Coke that got me through the late nights.

– No more long awful commute. Friends, this will be the last time I complain about the commute to my summer job. At least until next summer. I’m glad I won’t have to drive those 18 miles again for a while. Though now I’ll have to find other times to listen to my audio book.

-This tomato sandwich because it represents friendship and summer:

The bread was from my co-worker at the opera. She is from out of town, and before she left for her next gig, she gave me two big bags of food that she hadn’t finished.
The tomatoes are from our friend who doesn’t like tomatoes so all the tomatoes in his CSA he gives to us.
The sandwich features basil mayonnaise, the basil plucked fresh from the Husband’s garden.
And eating it all outside on out back patio.
All these things made lunch just that much more poignant and full of love.

Looking Forward to:
-School starts in a week. Eeeep! I’m excited to start the new school year. I still have to get school supplies (note: this is done), and assess the clothing situation for the kids. They do all still have backpacks from last year so I don’t have to worry about getting new backpacks since that is often where the pickings are slim in mid to late August.

-Renaissance Faire!!!! Opens this weekend. We’re going to go Labor Day Monday, I think, for our annual Ren Faire Trip. Looking forward to shows and feats and turkey legs and people watching.

-Peaches in January. I spent Sunday canning peaches I had bought when there was a sale at the Farmer’s market. I kind of messed up and didn’t temper the first batch of jars and two of them cracked when I put them in the water bath. It was slightly alarming as I’d never experienced that before. I had to empty the canning pot, removing the broken glass and peaches floating the the water bath, and reheat the water again. So I have only 6.5 jars of peaches for this winter and lessons learned for next time. The kids wanted to eat the canned peaches immediately, but I said they couldn’t eat them until January at the latest.

-Lenten book club. Well, it’s not Lent anymore, and it’s not really a book club, but the group of ladies that started a Lenten book club has decided to continue to meet through the year to read and discuss life and spiritual things. This month’s reading is the parable of the Good Samaritan coupled with the story of Mary and Martha. I’m looking forward to a night of community and discussion.

What We Ate:
Sunday: Falafel sandwich and oysters. The stage management team went out to dinner together between rehearsals. The stage manager paid for my dinner, which was very nice of her.

Monday: Tofu and eggplant stir fry with Udon noodles. The Husband cooked, using some of the tenderest sweetest eggplants of the season that I had picked up from the Farmer’s Market.

Tuesday: Chicken Mole tacos leftover from the week before. I worked this evening and brought a salad from home – marinated beans, spinach, and arugula.

Wednesday: I had the same salad at work. Not quite sure what the rest of the family had.

Thursday: I went to a happy hour farewell gathering for a co-worker and had a BLT slider and fries. The family had mac n cheese, I think.

Friday: I had the same marinated beans, spinach, and arugula salad at work. The family had pizza and watched Star Wars: New Hope.

Saturday: dumplings and green beans and Glee.

Sunday: Tortellini and red sauce with roasted zucchini on the side. I sliced the zucchini into rounds, tossed them with salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika, oregano, and olive oil. Roasted for 15 minutes. Stuck parmesan cheese and basil in the food processor and then sprinkled it on the zucchini for the last five minutes or so of roasting. It was delicious. The kids ate the whole pan. I should have made more.

Hope you’re week is going well as the seasons change. I guess the season of life, if not the actual season. Here the weather has been distinctly on the cool side, that is tricking me into fall feelings, but I bet there are still warmer days in store.

Have you ever seen Jaws? Backpacks – Did you (or your kids) get new backpacks every school year? What are you disciplined about? What do you feel motivated about? Any tips for finding discipline for the things on my list?

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Opening Night, and April Reflections.

Another show opened! Yay! Now we are open, and I have a week of performances and meetings and cleaning up before I close out opera season. It feels like space has opened up in my life, but it is May which means a lot of life/ family/kid things are happening this month.

This weekend was probably busier than it should have been for me, given that it’s been a little non-stop at work. I should have taken time to gather my forces and refocused on what I need to do on the life admin/home front. On Thursday, my one official day off, I ran errands with a friend, went on a walk with another, took the two older kids to be “Mystery Readers” at the 5 year old’s classroom, took the 8 year old to soccer… it seemed like a lot for a free day when I really just needed to sleep or stare at the wall.

On Saturday, I decided to take the kids to a local street festival. We all biked there, which was really fun. Usually I walk while the two little kids bike and scooter (the 13 year old was on a service project with friends), but this time the kids said I should bike too, and it worked out better than I thought. The 5 year old is a dervish on the scooter and being on a bike, I could finally keep up with her. There’s something really fun about an excursion with the family where all of us are rolling on wheels. My goal is to get the 5 year old off her training wheels this summer.

The street festival has valet bike parking, which was really great. So we biked/scootered to the festival and left our bikes with the bike valet – so convenient. The place was super crowded and at first I remembered why I don’t often go to these festivals – there were so many people; I was supposed to meet up with friends, but I couldn’t find them; the inflatable activities weren’t being monitored and it was open season – chaos and even dangerous as balls and foam arrows flew around. I was actually pretty miserable for the first 30 minutes. But then I managed to pull the kids away from the inflatables/flying objects “fun” zone and we walked down the street and found a children’s musician singing songs about nocturnal animals. We sat in the shade, ate our snacks and listened to music, and I began to decide that I was having fun after all.

We walked on down the road, checking out some displays by various county organizations and found a mountain biking group – they had set up a little course and were letting kids try out mountain bikes. The 8 year old wanted to try and he ended up spending twenty minutes there, riding the same course of two little speed bumps over and over. He’s due for a new bike this spring – he is still using a hand me down purple and turquoise bike with broken pedals, which I think is a testament to how much he loves being on his bike – so afterwards I talked to the people running the mountain biking booth, and they said to get him a mountain bike because he can do whatever he wants on a mountain bike. The group also does youth mountain biking rides with a “no one left behind” philosophy – I’m excited to check it out further for the 8 year old. (And maybe the rest of the family…?)

Afterwards the mountain biking, we stopped at the truck touch, and I did end up running into some friends and having some great catch up time. So in the end, I’m really glad I took the two little kids to the street festival. I think I just have to remind myself to try to find the not so crowded places to be. One thing I thought was cool was they had “sensory friendly” tents where you could sit in a comfy chair with a pair of earmuffs on when things got to be too much. i thought that was such a great idea at an event that could be overwhelming.

That evening, the 13 year old and I got dressed up and went to the Gala Concert at my work. Her favorite opera singer was singing, so I thought it would be fun for her to go. We went with some friends, and it was nice to just go and watch a show without having to work on it at all.

Sunday I took the 5 year old to Agility Class and then came home, turned around twice and then went to work for the Sunday matinee performance. It’s nice that the show is so short because I have time to come home and still have a bit of time to re-set for the week.

I’ve been trying to lean into the idea of a “Sunday reset” to get me ready for the week ahead. So far my Sunday Reset list involves:
-Putting away the floordrobe and all the clothes on the bench in the bedroom.
-taking a shower. For me and the kids.
-planning my clothes for the week.
-boiling eggs for the week so I have easy breakfast. (I can’t find my silicone egg holder for the InstantPot so I’ve been boiling eggs on the stove and they don’t turn out as well. Suggestions welcome.)
-Tidying the living room and my desk. (usually one or the other, but I would love for it to be both.)
-exercise
-Cleaning out the backpack bins by the door
-Bluey with the family. Or Andor.
I would like to also add:
-dealing with the mail bin.
-clipping the kids’ nails. I always forget to do this until their nails are too long. I think if I had a set time to clip nails, it would be better.
-Getting the kids activity bags set so I don’t have to think about it later in the week.
-clean out my purse – it gets so full of receipts over the week.

I’m also wondering where the line is between Sunday routine and Sunday Reset. Maybe one is a flashy internet term and one is just … life. Because I would also like to find time on Sunday to be outside, to write on my blog, to connect with friends. But that doesn’t feel like it’s in the “get ready for the upcoming week.” category. Am I overthinking this? Also where is the line between over thinking and acting mindfully?

April Recap/ Reflections
April was definitely consumed by work work work work. I started prep for a show on March 31st and we had our final dress rehearsal on April 30th.

April highlights:
-finished our taxes on time. Finished the 13 year old’s taxes. (She got paid for the show that she was in last December. It was a 1099 and we claimed her voice lessons as an expense against it, so she ended up operated at a loss last year.)

-rehearsing, teching, and opening a show. It’s been one of the smoothest show processes I’ve ever had. It helps that it’s a remount of an existing production, and the show is short. Even still, everyone was lovely to work with, which is really important.

-“Ask Me Anything” session for the Production Assistants with the Staging Staff at work. So may words of wisdom and practical considerations to pass along to the next generation of people in the arts.

-March Madness. Yes, it says March, but it finished in April. We watched some really exciting games together as a family. I’m not a huge basketball fan, but it’s fun to see the Husband and 13 year old really get into something together.

-My mother and Uncle’s visit. Taking them down to the Mall and walking amongst the monuments.

-The weather – Spring has sprung. Sunshine, warm air. We’ve moved past cherry blossoms into tulips.

-Running – I ran 7 times last month, which is the most I’ve run since November. Getting to run along the Potomac on my dinner break is always great for views. I love that the path I take to run takes me across a bridge over the river, and from that end, I can look back and see my work place all lit up, and it seems so far away – it makes me feel like I accomplished something on my run, even though it’s really only a little more than a mile away.

-Continuing my daily yoga. Some days I squeaked it in with a 10 minutes video before bed, but most days I did 15-20 minutes in the morning.

-Lenten reading group. Such a great group of ladies with whom to contemplate life.

-Take your child to work day. I did not participate – my work hadn’t organized anything, but the Husband took all three kids to work, and they all had a great time. His work place goes all out for TYCW day, with lots of crafts, riding busses, scavenger hunts (one of the items is “Photocopy your hand”)

-figured out the 8 year old’s soccer team. He’s having such a good time being out on the pitch again.

-Easter service with the Bangla musicians.

-we finally got window treatments! It’s a little plain, but better than the mismatched curtains that I had before. I was so delighted by the top down/bottom up mechanism that I spent a good fifteen minutes after they were installed putting the shades up and down. The plainness of the shades do open up the wall on either side, and now I feel like I need art for the wall.

April Lowlights:

The Federal Government blood bath continues and it is very much hitting home. I’m trying not to think about it, but almost every conversation I have with friends starts with a ginger, “How are you doing?” because I just don’t know if people still have their jobs or not.
Not having a lot of time at home, leaving a lot of the burden of parenting with the Husband. Tech is hard on everyone.
Dropping a lot of balls in life admin.
Taking the corner into the parking lot poorly and putting a sizable dent in the car. AGH!
The house desperately needs a declutter, but I haven’t had time or energy to do it. I’m so tired of not being able to find things or constantly stepping on papers and toys and half done projects.
Owing money on taxes. This is to be expected now, but ouf. I’m going yo try to pay quarterly taxes this year, to make April less painful, but it might all be a wash.
The death of the Pope. What a humble, wise, kind, and beautiful person. The passing of public figures don’t usually hit me that hard, but the death of Pope Francis brought a real sense of loss.

April Insights- two insights, one practical and one philosophical:

-Practical- and this is super weedy stage management stuff, just warning you – Getting my cues in my book before we hit tech makes life so much easier during tech week. Okay, this seems obvious, but I struggle with this one. One thing I’m trying to work on with my own personal journey as a stage manager, is working ahead when I can. I often wait to put cues in my book because I think, “What if things change?” But you know what? They can’t change all 150 cues. So I should do what I can and move the Post It as I need to. For this show, I had the stage manager’s book from the last time they did this show, and that even gave me time to type my light cues onto labels for my own book. I’ve always kind of raised my eyebrows at people who type their cue labels, thinking it’s a lot of work for something, and kind of fussy. But OMG! how clean and pretty does it look to have all the cues typed?

This is the opening number – this is the most cues I have on one page, but the first twelve minutes of the show is a wild ride indeed. I basically just keep my head down, keep calling cues, counting measures, and am thankful that the lightboard operator is good at her job and keeps up with me.

I had hemmed and hawed about typing my labels because I like my light cues to be in a diamond shape and I couldn’t figure out how to print the labels in the right orientation to make them diamond shaped. I procrastinate for a week, thinking I would be able to figure it out. But then I decided, if the choice is between hand writing all 150+ light cues on the exact right shape label vs. typing them on not quite the right shape …. well typing them is so much faster. So I said to myself, “Diane, stop being ridiculous. Done is better than perfect. Stop waiting for the perfect solution to hit you on the head. You’ve been staring at this for a week now. Just do it the slightly different way and get it done.”

– The Philosophical – At our AMA with our Production Assistants, one of them asked us what is the best advice we’ve ever been given, and one of my co-workers said something that stuck with me. She said that Gavin Creel, a musical theatre star who passed away last year, said something that really stuck with her – (And forgive me if I’m not saying it correctly or paraphrasing it badly – I can’t find internet transcript of his exact words) He said that life isn’t a ladder to climb; it’s a lily pond. We are all on our own lily pads, and sometimes you jump from one lily pad to a bigger one, and sometimes you jump from a bigger one to a smaller one. And sometimes you jump onto a lily pad that sinks and sometimes you jump on to a lily pad that floats away and takes you somewhere unexpected and wonderful. I think this is such a beautiful metaphor because we live in a world that is obsessed with climbing the corporate (or what ever) ladder, but we have to realize that life is not all about climbing up. It’s about finding the lily pad where you want to be, and also about being willing to jump to a different lily pad when the time is right.

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club. Big thank you to Elisabeth for inspiring and highlighting daily movement. Some walks this week: walk on the trail near the 8 year old’s school, and grateful for a bench in the shade. Run at work on my dinner break, with blue skies and cool sculptures and architecture. Walk around the plaza at work on the day when I didn’t quite have time to go for a run. Walk to the Farmer’s market near work, where I got a pineapple ginger paleta (so refreshing, a bracing blend of sweet and spicy), and admired the front yard sculpture exhibit the neighborhood is sponsoring. A date to Costco with a friend (I’m counting this! We walked, and we got out of the house.). A walk on our nearby trail with a friend, catching up. A walk around the block one evening after work with the family, watching the kids collect leaves and run ahead of us, a perfect post dinner Sunday evening activity for Summer.

I was initially hesitant to declare participation because I knew I was going into a busy month, but you know what? It is more doable than I anticipated. I was motivated to find those ten minute chunks, late at night, on my meal break, etc. And it also gave me an excuse to try to cajole my family along with me. I think there was one day the first week of April where I didn’t get out and walk/run/bike, but I probably could have squeezed in something. Sometimes it takes planning, but also sometimes it’s about realizing when you have a bit of empty space. Not that we have to fill up all the empty space in our lives, but I’ve realized that going for a walk is still a form of having empty space – it gives me time to think, or not think, to breathe, and work out a bit of restlessness. Ultimately, though, there is no failure here. We do what we can do.

Grateful For:

-The above mentioned chance for the 13 and 8 year olds to be Mystery Readers for the 5 year old’s class. Before we went, the 8 year old said that he was nervous, but he did a great job! He read Pigs to the Rescue and The Giving Tree. The 13 year old read Daddy Daughter Day and 100 Dragons Named Broccoli.

-the box of tempation at work:

It is filled with chocolate:

-Everyone at work who does such a great job to make the show look and sound so good.

-Parent coaches. Despite what I wrote last week about the fight between the two coaches at the 8 year old’s soccer game, I really believe parent coaches are doing amazing work. I watched the 8 year old’s practice last Thursday. Herding a bunch of 2nd graders seems like an exercise in frustration, but Coach Greg kept it together and managed everything so well.

-Carpools. The thirteen year old had a full day of activities on Saturday, and I didn’t have to drive her to anything thanks to carpools.

-That I still have a job. It seems like every week, there is a new round of layoffs at work.

-Zhong zi, and my mother for bringing them. When my mother was visiting in mid April she brought a whole bag of zhong zi. These are sticky rice balls, filled with meat and mushrooms and wrapped in bamboo leaves. They are one of my favorite Taiwanese foods. One day when the fridge was pretty bare since we’ve been behind in the shopping, I needed a quick lunch and found the bag of zhong zi. I steamed them up and we had them for lunch and it was the perfect low fuss meal.

-comfortable shoes. That match the carpet at work. A wonderful thing on days when I am on my feet all day.

-Other things that make tech week go well: lunch boxes and ice packs, the Husband, a comfortable bed, water bottles, the ginormous chocolate chip cookies from the canteen at work, monitors and a strong conductor’s down beat.

Looking Forward To:

-The 13 year old’s middle school musical. Opens this week. I’m really excited to see it.

-My parents are coming for a visit. They very rarely come see us together, so this feels kind of special.

-May! What a month. We have lots going on this month – the 5 year old is FINALLY getting baptized. The 8 year old has first communion. The weather is turning the corner from Spring into Summer. Farmer’s markets. Piano recitals. Voice recitals. Happy Hour and lunches with friends.

-Watching Season two of Andor as a family. Well, actually, watching season one of Andor as a family. I haven’t even seen the first season. I hear it’s really really really really really good.

-Reading this book, not sure what it’s about yet, but I find myself nodding along with a lot of its shrewd and cutting observations. And the chapters are short so it flies by.

What We Ate:
Monday: Lamb stew, from the freezer. Thank you again, past me.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. The Husband made chicken tacos

Wednesday: I had empanadas from the Farmer’s market since I was at work. This is the best part of being at work on Wednesday. I think the Husband made some kind of sausage skillet for the rest of the family.

Thursday: Dinner out with friends.

Friday: I had leftovers at work for an early dinner then went out with the stage managers after the show and had a truly decadent dinner – scallops, risotto, kale salad, fancy guava soda made from scratch, peanut butter pie for dessert. The Husband and kids had pizza (take out) and watched Smoky and the Bandit. (Which I have never seen myself.)

Saturday: Kitchen sink chopped cabbage salad with chicken. I was kind of at a loss for what to make, so I took a bunch of sad vegetables from the fridge (cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, red onion, avocado), chopped it up, added walnuts, olive oil, salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar. Threw in some shredded chicken and… dinner! It was tastier than it ought to have been given the despair I felt when I first opened the fridge.

Sunday: Egg/ Breakfast sandwiches. The Husband cooked because I was at work. I think I had toast and yogurt when I got home.

Hope you have a lovely week.
Do you have a Sunday reset? How was your April? What does May look like for you? What do you make for dinner when you are looking in despair at the fridge at 5pm? Do you feel like you are on a ladder or a lily pad?

Tech week is coming!, Christmas-ish, + gratitudes

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?

What I wore, Tech week – NaBloPoMo #14

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

Anyhow, on to the sartorial….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welp that was my sartorial tech week life.

What item in your closet have you had the longest?

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

Weekly gratitudes – NaBloPoMo #12

This week grateful for:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are you grateful for this week?

Things that ground me this week – NaBloPoMo Day 10

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a few things:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Gratitudes- NaBloPoMo Day 8(?)

A quick list this week. Because tech week.

Things I’m grateful for this week:

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

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

Everyone I work with- for being collaborative and kind.

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

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

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

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

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

Looking Forward To Right Now – NaBloPoMo Day #3

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

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

Things I’m currently looking forward to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are you looking forward to?