(Eventually)... The Agony of De-Finger

About a week and a half ago I decided my next post - whenever I got to it - was going to be "A Love Letter to Community Theater".  To sum up: Playing the Cat in the Hat in Seussical was definitely a role-of-a-lifetime and possibly the one I was best suited for: run around like a maniac, make a huge mess, cause trouble, improv at will, and basically have a blast. Oh, and sing a whole lot but not anything that has to sound real pretty or like you know what you are doing. OK! Sounds great. Audiences were fantastic. Elliott was a model theater citizen AND a joy to watch on stage - so they tell me. And it was one of those beautiful occasions when the people you encouraged to come to the show really, truly had a BLAST and left feeling joyful and entertained. Ka-ching.

Being a dork during the entre' act.

E in one of his MANY roles: The Elephant Bird. Stole.The.Show!

A small taste of the amazing set and costumes.

But Seussical was SO three days ago. So, then I decided the title of my next post HAD to be "Why I Hate 5Ks and Will Surely Keep Doing Them Anyway". See, one of the people I harangued  into coming to the show was my BRF, Lauren, who made the trek from 3 hours away in Vermont. She was happy to come but also suggested we might do the local 5K on Saturday, too, cuz, ya know... BRF is Best RUNNING Friend. As fate would have it, I also got my first-ever FAN LETTER after the first weekend of shows from a little boy who was going to be at the race. That sealed the deal. I decided to run the race. It was about 2 degrees outside (or 25 degrees, but there WAS a wind chill factor) and it was ALL UPHILL (there was one series of hills but I REALLY didn't enjoy them) and there were rabid dogs all along the course. (No, there weren't.) ANYWAY, Lauren SAID she was going to run conservatively but promptly took off like a bat outta hell and taunted me to join her. I was not in any shape to keep her pace but it DID get into my head enough that I had a pretty good race. Still, 5Ks are HORRIBLE and I HATE them. But then they are over pretty quickly and you get amnesia and surely find yourself doing another one soon enough....

The boy in front wrote me the 'fan' letter. It was his 9th birthday. He had hoped to meet Elliott. So, we showed up with the hat, a card signed by the cast and crew and a Seussical pin for him. If he and Elliott ran the kids' 2K as fast as they talked they would have broken world records! SO sweet....!

Lauren won our age group and I managed to squeak out 3rd. Woo hoo! All the frigid temps were worth it when we were able to sit with some coffee and baked goods afterward. 

But people can only take SO much running talk so as of yesterday this post was DEFINITELY going to be "Running Out of Limbs to Injure". Cuz on Sunday I woke up with an "Old Lady Shoulder". I literally could not raise it up without help from my other arm. It was freakish. Blessedly, the flute player in Seussical is also my chiropractor (gotta love small town livin'!) and she set me straight so I could get through the show. But, then Monday (yesterday) it was TERRIBLE. I couldn't even open a door knob with my right arm. Forget about trying to pick up Gabe or do something as skillful as shift my car from Park to Reverse. (One of the few occasions on which I am thankful I don't drive a stick shift!!) It was a lot better today but I had already managed to squeeze in an appointment with my PT guy. The verdict? I slouch. And I sit for long periods at my lap top with my arms out too far from my body and my eye gaze too low. (As I am doing right now, as a matter of fact!) He thinks the problem has built up over a long period and probably an awkward position in Saturday night's sleep was the last straw. As long as it doesn't bother me to swing my arms (which, as of tonight, it doesn't) I am good to run. I just need to ice it once a day and do a few stretching exercises. I'll get some strength training stuff in the coming weeks to help keep this problem at bay. Hopefully for ever....

But no, NONE of those things are what this post is about  because TONIGHT we had a somewhat epic tragedy/comedy play out. It features our hero, Elliott, and his nemesis, wooden train tracks. It seems that Elliott has, in the past, taken to sticking his fingers in the round spaces in the toy tracks. You know, the slot where the knobby thing fits in to connect the next track? Previously this has always worked out OK for him. Apparently, sometime between the LAST time he did that and tonight, his finger got wider.

The poor kid came into the dining room and, trying to remain calm, started to cry. "It doesn't hurt, I just can't get it off!" And this wasn't just any track, It was a BRIDGE, so we are talking wood and a lot of made-in-China's best plastic around it. Here's what we tried:

1. Cold water. (It would reduce the swelling and the thing would come right off.... Nope.)
2. Soap. (Scrub it up a little and it will slide right off.... Nope.)
3. Butter. (Rub that greasy goodness on there real thick. It will slip right off... Nope.)
4. Panic. (This is the point when Elliott started to freak, on and off. That also did not help get it off).
5. Ice. (See #1. Nope).
6. Get the plastic off and hope that would make the wood easier to separate at the place his finger was stuck. Got some off but not all of it. Hurt E too much to keep trying it, so... Nope.
7. Hammer and flat head screw driver. (Scott tried to "chisel" the major section of the bridge away so we would at least be dealing with a smaller object. That was too much vibration for E. He started freaking out again. So, NOPE.)
8. Hand saw. This was LITERALLY Elliott's idea. I think Scott and I were both thinking it would really put him over the edge if we tried it. But, after a few attempts, starts and stops, the major section of the bridge was removed and we were just left with a small section. At this point Scott used his finger as a 'safety' so E knew that Scott would stop cutting long before he hit E's flesh. When he got close enough, I was able to break the wood and release the finger.

Sadly, this was all a little too alarming to poor E at the time to document it photographically. I WISH it was on video. Maybe a reenactment is in order.

Or not. Yeah. Probably not.

So, that's enough excitement at our house for now. Happy Thanksgiving!

Pay It 40-ward: GO BIG (if you wanna!)

I am starting to rack up the miles for Pay it 40-ward! Thank you so much to my latest Team Members who have brought the grand total to 25 Miles. Just 15 to go before this part of the mission will be accomplished! We now have 8 states represented. 

1. Kathleen - Ctr. Harbor, NH
2. Kerry - VT
3. Megan - Rochester, NH
4. Bethany - Philadelphia, PA
5. Hope - Candor, NY
6. Richard - Candor, NY
7. Sandra - Milford, NH
8. Catherine - Kenosha, WI
9. Anne - Sandwich, NH
10. Mandy - Wolfeboro, NH
11. Mandy - Barnstead, NH
12. Meghan - Rochester, NY
13. Teagan - Rochester, NY
14. Al - Zion, IL
15. Karen - Concord, NH
16. Anika - Tuftonboro, NH
17. Heidi - Ambler, PA
18. Heather - Liverpool, NY
19. Tammy - Triangle, VA
20. Lauren - VT
21. Kim - Candor, NY
22. Cindy - Ithaca, NY
23. Heather - Tuftonboro, NH
24. Carol - Sandwich, NH
25. Jim - Sandwich, NH

My last post feels like it was ages ago, and I apologize for the gap in communication. This week has been nuts at our house on several fronts. A committee I am on for my church is at the finals stages of finding and calling a new rector to serve. (Read: many long, important meetings. A happy and ultimately rewarding situation, of course, but ZOINKS!, a working mama's logistical nightmare!) In addition, it's Tech Week (aka Hell Week) for Fiddler on the Roof, which I am not in but which my 7-year-old IS in. And DARN if he can't drive himself, do his own makeup and wrangle himself on stage when he needs to be there. There has been a seriously bad sleep:activity ratio around here. I got permission for my little Anatevkin to miss the final dress rehearsal tonight with the understanding by all involved that an 8PM bedtime instead of an 8PM curtain time would improve all of our lives immensely. 

So, I am home tonight and I had to share the texts I got from my sister after my last post. She is one who had not, in fact, signed on for the project previously. I am going to share the screen shots of her texts to me because they are (unintentionally) hilarious... and tell of her grand idea: 

(pardon the odd repetition of some of the text in the different shots... I am not sure how to improve my aim in screen shots...)

So, in case that wasn't clear, she is going to use the money I send to buy scratch off tickets that will go into a raffle basket she is putting together as part of a church fundraiser. She will attach information on this project to the basket and she hopes that if the scratchers lead to a payoff for the winner of the basket, they will use the money to Pay It 40-ward, too. Isn't she clever!?! (Takes after her baby sister, I think.)

Here's are some excerpts of an email from another Team Member who hasn't quite settled on how she wants Pay it 40-Ward:

Originally I was thinking of something anti-ivory. I am pretty passionate about keeping elephants and rhinos alive... It just seems like a huge, almost unsolvable problem. Me versus a poacher or "[Team Member] Takes on the Ivory Black Market Trade". That would be funny.... Maybe I will promote awareness about bats (they are pretty neat animals that deserve our attention) and how they are important in the ecosystem... that, or bees.  Round Up kills bees....

As you can see, this Pay It 40-Ward participant is putting in a good deal of thought to her plan as well. I love the stream of consciousness you can hear in her writing of this message. Good on ya!

Keep in mind, your ideas don't need to be nearly that much work. You can think of tons, I'm sure, but here are the ones that I have come up with. If you already have something in mind, please shoot me the info in an email (or a hilariously fat-fingered text!) so I can pass it along to others. 

Thank you again for your support on this adventure. Real, varsity training to get these old bones through 40  miles starts in earnest next week, so there will be many-a groaning, sore post starting then, I'm sure! 

Please, let me know if you have any questions and join in, why doncha!? Email me to get on board. 

P.S. Several people have said they have tried to leave comments on the blog and have been unsuccessful in the process. I am working on that, but meanwhile, if you have a comment, include it in an email and I will share it on the blog. 

What I've Been Up To

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4UUit7FHvbI

So here's what's been keeping me busy lately. Three more shows.

I'm the butterfly.... Elliott is the edible 'rich boy'.

Obnoxious 1/4 birthday photo series

Yesterday Gabriel was exactly 3 months old.... Or one-quarter of a year old. We "celebrated" by  traveling for 652 hours from our home to my sister Heidi's just outside of Philadelphia. It was PAINFUL but thankfully not because of anything my kids did. It's just a long way on top of crazy amounts of traffic through the New York metropolitan area and along the New Jersey Turnpike. We left just after 5AM and arrived at about 3:20PM. Just so not fun.

BUT, we are here now and having a great time. The main reason for our visit is so T and E can participate in a week-long theater camp. Their cousin, Maddy, did the camp last year and loved it. This short and sweet camp is taking the place of the close-to-home 5-week theater camp Tommy did the last 2 years. We found that, though we loved it, it was simply too much of time commitment for our family during the summer. Had we done that option, we wouldn't have been able to go to Camp Gungah or to Cape Cod. And what a great excuse to spend MORE time with cousins and Aunts and Uncles this summer!

Because Heidi is a much better Aunt than I am Mother, she took a metric boatload of pictures of Gabriel last night. Here, in honor of his .25 years, are some of the highlights. (Confession/ acknowledgment: he's 99% adorable but sometimes, he's just plain GOOFY lookin'. I know this so it's okay for you to say it out loud, too.)

BQ!... basically

Last night my husband and his merry band of theater students qualified for the Boston Marathon.

Chew on that for a minute.

Confused?

Bear with me. This will make sense in a few paragraphs.

For the last two days, Scott and his kids participated in the New Hampshire Educational Theater Guild's State Festival. In order to do THAT, a school has to qualify at a Regional Festival. These festivals offer high school theater programs an opportunity to prepare and perform a short play (up to 40 minutes) for an audience of their peers and adjudicators. They get 5 minutes to put up their set and 5 minutes to take it down. It's a day (or 2 days) that the kids and Scott look forward to every year because they learn SO much from watching other shows and from hearing feedback from the judges. Also, let's admit, it's fantastic for these kiddos to be with a majority of like-minded dramatic-types for a couple of days!

The Seniors involved in the production.

This year the Kingswood show was called "Star Crossed Lovers". It retells Romeo & Juliet (perhaps you've heard of it?) through several different theater genres across the ages. There is everything from a "Dumb Show" (basically Cave Men speaking "ugga bugga" but acting out the major plot points of R&J) to depresso-Russian to 1930s Broadway.

The show.was.phenomenal. I've never heard adjudicators offer so much positive feedback and so few points for improvement. They noted that this show had it all: incredible energy, a flair for the ridiculous (which was necessary for this piece), visually awesome sets, costumes and technical direction, and a live jazz band (the music of which was almost completely composed by the students themselves).... Oh, and did I mention the acting from every single performer - from the exceptionally multi-talented leads to the crew member in black holding a tree and becoming exquisitely and comically forlorn as its branches were chopped down - was absolutely dead-on. And, for the first time ever, Scott's crew won a trip to New Englands at the end of the month... which means ("Oklahoma!" fans take note) "they've gone about as fur as they kin go!"

This photo doesn't do the creative work ANY justice... but I filched it off FB so I can't complain!

So yes, TECHNICALLY they didn't qualify for Boston, but metaphorically they TOTALLY did. Their incredible feat and the incredible (for most mortals!) feat of making the Boston cutoff compare quite nicely.

To qualify for Boston it can take YEARS of training and sacrifice. You need to try different races and different plans (some you make up yourself) and condition yourself that patience is key.

To qualify for New Englands, it took Scott 10 years (!) of attending festival. He tried different genres and scripts (some he wrote himself) and conditioned himself (and his students) that patience is key.

To qualify for Boston means that you have achieved something that most runners (let alone your Average Joe/Jane) will never attain. You don't need to tell a soul (though why wouldn't you?) and you can always carry that accomplishment in your pocket when life is getting you down.

To qualify for New Englands means that you have achieved something that most theater folk (let alone your Average Joe/Jane) will never attain. You don't need to tell a soul (though everyone else will tell everyone THEY know, so the world will know anyway!) and you can always carry that accomplishment in your pocket when life is getting you down.

When I BQ'd, I thought about just enjoying the accomplishment and forgoing the actual race. I changed my mind and registered. The plan at that point was to train for the race but to keep in mind that the point of Boston, for me, anyway, was to have The Experience. Take in the enormity of the place and the occasion. Soak up the love from the screaming Wellesley Women... all that jazz. Obviously I wanted to have a good race, but this was not going to be a place for me to go for any kind of PR.

Before the group qualified for New Englands, Scott figured if they DID qualify, they would celebrate their accomplishment but probably wouldn't go.... and that would be okay. (New Englands is during Spring Break this year and there will be some key cast and crew on far away, long-planned trips).  But, when he surveyed his students, they overwhelmingly voted to patch up the pieces they needed to patch and take the show to the next level. The great part about this is, like Boston, the pressure is completely off and they can enjoy the experience. There are no adjudicators. There is no "next" to qualify for. They will spend 3 days in workshops (run by various theater professors from around the state), performing shows, bonding with theater kids from the 6 New England states.... Obviously they want to put together a good show, but the overall experience is far more important to them at this point.

I have to get my butt in gear this morning, but here's how Tommy summed it up today when he learned that there were no "bigger trophies" that Dad could win: "Wow, you musta done really well in making people laugh.... your plays just keep getting funnier and funnier, Dad."

Who could ask for anything more?

Glamour in Mud Season

I have some big news for you.

It's going to come as quite a shock, so I hope you're sitting down.

Okay. Take a deep breath, because here it is:

Some people in the world are NOT having a baby in April.

I know, crazy, right? But I have it on good authority that some folks (most of whom are not me, by the way) have things on their mind other than potential names for Baby TOP, emergency child care for Things 1 & 2 in the event of an unexpected delivery date, potential post-delivery running goals, which pieces of baby gear they can live without....

Every so often I do manage to take my head out of the maternity sand and consider what other people have going on. And, likewise, what I might be doing if Baby TOP had not become part of our lives.

One of those things is a spring series of events that The Village Players is putting together known as Glamour in Mud Season. I could try to explain what that is, but instead I'll quote the website to save you my obfuscation:

Glamour in Mud Season™ celebrates the joy of living the independent, “take life by the horns” existence that is northern New England. Long after most of America has put winter behind it and is enjoying the aromatic scents of tulips and daffodils, northern New Englanders are captivated by snow fleas and captured by foot-deep mud. They compete in “ice-out” contests, watch maple syrup boil, and create their own muscle testing, imagination stretching and ambiguously entertaining events.

Join the Village Players of Wolfeboro, NH, as it hosts Glamour in Mud Season™, a weekend-long celebration of all that makes living the vida muddy grand and glorious. April 13-15, 2012.

No self-respecting Glam Event is complete without accompanying merchandise! Check out the hilarious offerings that will let everyone know you take your Glam AND your Mud "seriously".

This is right up my alley: self-deprecating, funny, theatrical.... and were it not for the events taking place April 13 - 15, I would certainly be participating  in as many as possible. (As it is, I will either have a several-day-old baby to care for or I will be several days beyond my due date.... neither one a recipe for a night on the town, methinks!)

If you live in New Hampshire, I highly recommend you check this out. A good deal of the activities are centered around the spring production at The Village Players, Hay Fever by Noel Coward. In fact, on opening night, audience members will be treated to a red carpet entrance complete with bulb popping paparazzi and an emcee.Wouldn't you love to dust off your inner-Brangelina, don your sparkly-est duds and jewels - oh, and your knee-high waders! - and step out for a night of high class comedy? 

Yes. Yes, you would!