Monday, September 26, 2005

Dress Rehearsal

Not so slowly anymore...

Going crazy that is.

Yesterday was our first tech rehearsal. It went well. A little slow, like usual, and it seems like we spend a lot of time doing scenes at night, but our soundtrack/transition music is awesome. One song by Coldplay. Very nice. I had another costume vetoed, but the pink flowered shirt that I thought was too inimitably girly for Catherine was suggested. So there we go. And they nixed the skirt that was taking me forever to get into. Thank goodness.

Today I'm at work all day to make up hours from the half day I took last week. I had big plans for getting things priced and put out around here, but as usual around here, an employee isn't coming in because she has to pick up her boyfriend in the tri-cities. So much for the big plans. We can't get anything done. I'm going to work Saturday instead of Thursday this week in the hopes that while mari runs the place I can organize the linen room, sort merchandise, and further divide ornaments by color in the Christmas basement. We have boxes stacked all the way up the ramp and spilling over. Because the spilloever blocked the door to the linen room we've just been throwing bags of things through the doorway. Now that room is a disaster, and we haven't priced the bargain room half of our last three deliveries, so we have boxes stacked waist high on one side of the sort room. Then the arehouse sent us another 40 boxes of goods on Friday. We are swamped. And our volunteers are all at the fair. Rargh.

Speaking of the fair, half of my classes won't be here this week because 1st, 2nd, and 4th graders are going to the fair. So I'll have large gaps in the my schedule. I haven't looked to see where the gaps are, but I'm hoping it will leave me time to come late and leave early, not sit around for an hour between two other classes.

I can't wait for payday. And I need to put gas in my car.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Bisy. Bak son.

Um.

I have time to eat or sleep, but not both in the same day. I lost a pound and a half last week. Busyness is the best diet ever, not that I even remotely need it.

Teaching is going very well. I'm getting better at the teaching part, and slightly better at the discipline. I need some new songs for next week because I'm starting to get bored. At this point all of my classes are singing variations on the same songs. Fun for them at recess, a little monotonous for me. But my fourth graders combined forces yesterday on the way back from a field trip and "One bottle of pop"ped all the way home. That made me very happy. And my third grader today, when I taught them a new song, said that thei older sibling has been driving them CRAZY walking around the house singing it. Ha. Their parents must hate me.

The lighthouse is frustrating. Not the job itself, but the variables week to week. We never know which employee is going to call in sick, or have a doctors appointment, or a sick kid, or an interview, or decide they need to hand out resumees that day (most of our employees come from a program to faze people off welfare), or whatever. You can't count on anything. And this week our stable volunteer base is either volunteering at the fair, or out with a sick relative. They started fixing our roof this week without warning, and waking up every morning at the crack of dawn with the sound of people walking over our heads is exhausting. Especially when you don't have to get up for several hours but can't help it.

Rehearsals are going well. We have most of a show now, and adding an audience should take care of the last of it. We're just doing a line-through tonight. (IE: run lines as quickly as you can, no blocking or costumes) We have no set construction tomorrow, yay, because I'm going to the fair and the sunfair parade. And sunday we have a full dress rehearsal, with makeup I'm assuming because we're having our pictures taken again. Final Dress is next Wednesday. The show opens a week from today. I'm getting ill thinking about it. In the meantime...

...Wycliffe Dinner Theater will be in town Wednesday through Friday. Their show is on our dead night, and a few of my friends will be coming to the dress rehearsal. Coordinating that right now has made for more insane busy-ness, but we've pretty much taken care of everything, and now all we have to do is wait for them to come.

And I'm going to go do something now. We are so backed up around here that if Nancy and I each cloned ourselves three ways, we'd still have plenty more to do then hands to do it.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005












Tara Maclay

45% amorality, 36% passion, 81% spirituality, 81% selflessness

What a woman! (Or man, as it may be...)


Tara is a moral, centered, spiritual and selfless person... rather, I
suspect, like you. People like this make those around them love them.


Congratulations! (and stay away from windows, just in case)



Thanks Again! -- THE 4-VARIABLE BUFFY PERSONALITY TEST
















Link: The 4-Variable Buffy Personality Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid

I had no idea

I had no idea I was that girlie

Turning on the lights in the kids room this morning, I almost stepped on a dead rat. Not a mouse. Not a big mouse. A rat. The exterminators don't believe me. "We don't have rats in Washington." I've never seen a mouse longer than my hand. Anyway, I let out a bloodcurdling shriek and went tearing up to Nancy's apartment. She told me to get one of the guys fixing the roof to get rid of it for me.

I was halfway to the roof before I realized, this is stupid. I've disposed of carcases of voles, mice, lizards, insects, and goodness knows what else living with Cai in California. I can handle a dead rat. In theory. It took several minutes of what can only be described as "girlie noises" and cringing to maneuver the darn rat into a newspaper into a bucket.

I would have thought that after the vole that attached itself to my finger, I would be immune to this.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Some Stories from Here

Stories from Here

I was out to lunch with my director after a very long day of set painting, and I she said I must have so many stories working here. And wanted to know if I ever wrote them down. Of course, I blog. Up until now I've been hesitant to put some of them on here, confidentiality and all that, but here's one.

We had a girl working for us. She'd worked before I got here, left on maternity leave, then came back. She'd had several children taken away by the state. Drug use. This pregnancy she kept clean all the way through and had a beautiful, healthy baby. Then she came back to work. Her behavior was erratic. Finally, after almost a month, the story came out. She was living with a man, the child's father, also a drug pusher, He had begun to beat her up. She'd gone back on drugs. She got tested at work, but they were too dumb to monitor her and she'd got someone else to take the test for her. Because she'd come for help she was bundled off with her baby and anything we could give her, since she had to run with the clothes on her back. She's presumably safe now, sheltered at an agency, getting back on her feet. Being taken care of. And we had to watch our backs for a while in case the child's father came by to find her. He called looking for her, but I never saw him.

Another girl came into the store with my mother. She had fresh bruises from her last beating. She'd been in foster care. They took to hammering away at her at the slightest provocation. She left and ran with nothing but what she was wearing. Mom brought her to the store to outfit her with clothes and school supplies. Now she's living in a group home trying to start over.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

HG

Ok guys, tell me because I honestly can't remember...

To whom did I lend my copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I want to lend it out but I can't remember who has it!

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Christmas

The bummer with putting up Christmas trees...

...is your arms look like you fought a losing battle with several mangy cats.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Today

Today

Wycliffe Dinner Theater Meeting
Work
Other Work
Back to work
Rehearsal
Symphony Chorus
Memorize Lines
Sleep.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

We Got Carried Away

We Got Carried Away

There's a quark. There's a quark. There's a quark on the subatomic particle on the atom on the mitochondria, on the paramecium, on the amoeba on the germ on the speck on the flea on the fly on the hair on the wart on the frog on the bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea...

Another Saturday

Another Saturday

Today we painted the set from 8am to noon. It looked beautiful at 10:30. By 11 we'd distressed it down to where it needed to be. Now it looks vaguely like a haunted house. Very nice. Especially the dirt in the windows and the front steps. LOADS of fun!

I went on a spending spree. I bought a pair of shorts to wear as a base under my costume and then did the unthinkable and...got my eyebrows waxed. They'd been resembling small forest roaming predators for some time now, and it is beyond my skill with tweezers to do more than maintainance. So hurrah for Alma who put them back into order.

Now I'm off for Lebanese night at my folks' house. I'm not really excited, but Mom says she needs reinforcements for all the company.