Blogging in the breeze

It's a beautiful day here, and I am writing this post from my screened in porch on my new laptop! woo-hoo. The old computer stopped hobbling along earlier this week, and since we just purchased a super duper powerful desktop to replace the one that caught on fire, we decided to get a scaled down laptop as our second computer. I'm psyched. I'm always so jealous when you all talk about blogging on the couch or in bed or whatever, but now I can, too! We have yet to determine if we can save the hard drive from the dead computer, and I really hope we can, as there are some pictures on there I won't be happy to lose.

It's leap day! Are you doing anything special today?

My cat loves being out here on the porch, although he REALLY wants to get outside. He is not an outdoor cat. I'm sure he thinks we put the bird feeder out there just to taunt him.

Tomorrow starts a new month, which means new Monday missions! Your March Missions, should you choose to accept them, are to write posts in the style of:
3/3 A voicemail message
3/10 The voice of someone or someTHING else in your home (here's your toaster's chance to tell all!)
3/17 An obituary
3/24 Easter week - I'll have family in town... take the week off.
3/31 A political ad

And finally... Jenn of Serving the Queens tagged me for a meme wherein I'm supposed to show you a picture of my bedroom. Jenn showed a lovely picture of her room , with an inspiring poem painted on the wall. I was tempted to clean up in order to do this, but as you can see, I didn't.

My room is normally a mess. I'm not a neat person by nature, and then the bedroom is upstairs and down a hallway, so it doesn't even get the "people are coming over, must clean up NOW" moments of cleaning. Admittedly, having been sick for a month now, it's a bit worse than usual, but not too much.

I never make my bed. Well, rarely. Why bother when you're just going to sleep in it later? Besides, I took a nap this morning. The side of the bed is usually piled up with reading material and discarded clothes, as you can see. The big book is the complete novels of Jane Austen. I'm still reading Emma (the book is so big I didn't take it with me on vacation... I read Lovely Bones instead). Under it is 'Tis, a gift from the director of my show. I'm looking forward to reading that, but after Angela's Ashes, of course, which I conveniently have in my "to read" pile, anyways. You can see the elliptical machine, which, despite my best intentions, has been unused lo these 5 weeks of fighting the plague. At least it doesn't have clothes hanging from it.

The rest of the bedroom looks much the same... the cedar chest piled with clothes to put away, the chair piled with clothes to hand wash, and the dresser piled with... junk, I guess.

I will refrain from tagging anyone, but if you feel like posting a picture of your messy (please, please tell me I'm not the only one!) bedroom I would feel much better.

The happiest place on earth

OK, so it's been 3 weeks since we were at Disneyland, and I am just getting my pictures up. It's been a bit crazy (what with a death in the family and an unplanned trip to the frozen north, opening a new play, a computer dying, and the plague that never ends...) But better late than never, right?

Do you think this child is excited to be at Disney?

We stayed with The May Queen's "god-family," some dear, dear friends of ours who live about 15 miles from Disneyland. We met up with one of her other godfathers at the park. Her "god-brother," a 15 year old boy who is just sweet as can be with her (they held hands in the car on the way to the park) skipped school to join us... which was great because he was wheelchair bound after a recent knee surgery. This got us to the front of many lines very, very quickly. I highly recommend taking someone who can't walk with you to Disney. It's the only way to travel.

The May Queen and her Daddy in front of Cinderella's castle, first thing on our first day. We did a few rides (Dumbo, Peter Pan, etc) and then headed to meet the princesses. We knew this was a priority for The May Queen. We attended a little show where the princesses taught the little kids how to bow and curtsey. Later, MQ would talk about this show and say how when the princesses came out we had to "curse them." When I stopped laughing I corrected her. Curtsey.

But look what else they had at the show!! Maypoles!!!!! I had to get a picture for my blog.

We then waited in line to see the princesses. For over an hour. This was the longest line we waited in the whole 2 days we were there. But The May Queen was satisfied.

We both got to meet our favorite princess.

She also met Prince Phillip. She was not so sure about him at first, but now she loves to tell me how he told her that even Sleeping Beauty was a bit nervous the first time she met him. I just thought that was so sweet. Although I know he says that to all the girls.

Unfortunately it was shortly after this that we got the phone call that my husband's brother was dying, in a matter of days. My husband made the decision to leave and try to get a flight home. He didn't make it, and Greg died later that day. The Big Guy was very sad to miss the rest of our first Disney trip (he had never been himself!), but he went home to be with his parents, and it was the right thing for him to do. We stayed on and kept having fun, although we missed him. For a while there it did not feel like the happiest place on earth. But Disney does have a way of making things look brighter, I must confess.

The May Queen was very spoiled by all her godparents, and a little spoiled by us parents, as well. (Another tip - take the godparents with you and go home with more souvenirs than you know what to do with!)

We like to call this picture "Disney First Communion."

Before leaving MQ's Daddy paid to have her face painted. The dress, ears, gloves, purse, wand and Minnie doll were all gifts from the Godparents.

One thing I did not expect was that The May Queen is a roller coaster FIEND. Once she discovered the real rides, that was it. She would pass up a chance to meet a character, saying "after another ride!" We were so pleased to discover she was tall enough to go on everything. Her favorite was Thunder Mountain. She even rode with her hands up. One time when we rode it she had her little white gloves on, and the ladies behind us just gushed about how cute she was. As soon as we got off she had to go on it again. Space Mountain and Splash Mountain were similar hits. And The Pirates of The Caribbean. She requested it the next day by asking "Can we go on the pirate ride? Yo ho, yo ho?" Too cute.

The water on splash mountain made her face paint run. She loved the water ride at California Adventure, too, even though she got SOAKED.

Look at that face. Pure glee.

The carousel at Disneyland wasn't working, so we had to hit King Tritan's carousel at California Adventure.
There's me.
The Big Guy's nickname for The May Queen is "Weasel," so we had to take this picture in line for the Roger Rabbit ride. It was fascinating when it broke in the middle of the ride and we had to walk out, escorted by the always friendly Disney staff (they really do a great job of that. In 2 days I think we dealt with 2 people who weren't completely lovely, and in the schme of things they weren't too bad themselves) MQ was a little scared of having to get off the ride, but we convinced her it was part of the adventure. And it was.

We really had so much fun. I can see why people go back again and again. The May Queen soaked it all up and loved, loved, loved it. I'm so glad we took her at this age. Yes, yes, it's Disney propoganda and merchandising every time you turn around. It's true. But we had a ball. I was grinning all the way home the first night. Although after 2 days I confess to being completely beat. When the May Queen got tired she hitched a ride in the lap of her godbrother. That Cinderella dress left glitter in it's wake, and by the end of the day his crotch glittered. We called it magic, and took pictures, but I'll refrain from posting them here!

It really felt like a magical time, and we were so lucky to get to spend it with some dear friends, as well. And I know we'll go back. Hopefully next time The Big Guy can enjoy it with us.

73

I looked across the table at my husband, who was gazing intently at The May Queen. She was standing next to his chair, animatedly telling him about something that happened at school today. As I watched him watch her I thought wow. Look how he is listening to her. He is such a good daddy. I love him.

The May Queen finished her story and sat back in her own chair. Her daddy then turned to me and said "She said like 73 times in that story."

So that explains the rapt attention he was giving her.

And the award for best improvisation of a dirty song goes to.....

Painted Maypole!

Oh... Wow. Thanks. I really wasn't expecting this at all. It's such an honor to win the first ever award of this kind. I was sure the award would go to Wayne Brady. I wonder... was it my song about going to Disney World, where I rhymed about Mickey the Runt? Or perhaps it was my song about being a pilot, and coming in my cockpit? Although really anyone could have come up with those. Maybe it was my rather inspired turn about being a trailer inspecting Fema Agent. And I must confess, the song about playing the tuba was a bit difficult... singing that bit about polishing an instrument with my in-laws in the audience. At any rate, it's truly an honor to have you acknowledge my work. It's my privilege to share my dirty lyrics with you night after night. I have to thank the director and musical director, who taught me to trust my own voice and gave me the freedom to get as filthy as possible, and my fabulous castmates, who continue to inspire me with their own dirty rhymes. Thank you to my parents, who never would have let me say such things at home (although Dad did once give Mom a screw in her Christmas stocking...) but laughed heartily when they saw the show. And of course, I would be nothing without my audience and their brilliant suggestions, such as "swallowing a cat." Because with a pussycat as your inspiration, the dirty lyrics practically write themselves. Thank you.

This Post was a Monday Mission. This week's mission is to write your post in the style of an award acceptance speech. If you choose to play along, put a link to your award acceptance post in the widget below. And don't forget to thank ME.

Zzzzzzzzz.....

I have been sleeping a lot this week. Every day when I haven't had to be somewhere in the morning (so that would be Tuesday, Thursday and Friday), I've come home from taking the May Queen to school and crawled back into bed for between a 3 and 4 hour nap. It's glorious, in a lot of ways, but I'm not getting much done. Clearly, my body needs it. I've been sick for over 4 weeks now, and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. My show opens tonight. Maybe next week I'll be able to get back to normal. Anyhow... that's why I haven't been around much. I've been spending a lot of time with my pillow.

Reminder: Monday's Mission is to write a post in the style of an award acceptance speech. Have fun!

A Bit of Blarney

I'm back in rehearsal again, this time for a remounting of a show I did in fall of 2006. One original cast member moved away, but otherwise it's the same crew, and it feels a bit like old home week. It's truly an ensemble show, with everyone on stage all the time, and each character has his or her own moment to shine. It's a lovely relief after 3 shows in a row of small parts. It's something that I can simultaneously sink my teeth into, and yet not have to put in hours and hours of memorization and rehearsal, since we're already so familiar with the show.

The show is an interactive one, as if the audience is coming to mourn a death. It takes place in Ireland. (The link will take you to the Wikipedia page about it. I try to never put the names of the shows I'm doing on this blog, so that someone doing a web search for the local production won't find this blog). I play the fiancee of the deceased. In each performance I have to improvise a song, based on a suggestion given by an audience member earlier in the show. When we first began rehearsals for this I was TERRIFIED of the song. But the director and musical director taught me the formula, and now I have quite a good time with it. One of the "rules" that I have to follow is that by the end of the song I get as dirty as I possibly can, and the last word should be so obvious as to what it is from the previous rhyme that the rest of the characters try to cut me off before I can say it (last night in rehearsal my song was about hockey and I was rhyming with the word "puck." You get the idea...). Then, at the close of the song, I mount the coffin. Literally.

High art it is not, but it is great fun.

The New Pants Network

All Pants, All the Time

We had such fun at Christmastime with our All Pants Christmas Carols, that we've decided to bring to you a complete lineup of Pants Television Programing. So pull on your Lazy Pants, park yourself on the couch... and enjoy!

The All Pants Lineup

News Pants
The Today Pants
Live with Pants
48 Pants

Game Pants
Pants of Fortune
Pants or No Pants
The Newlypants Game

Soap Pants
As the Pants Turn
The Young and the Pantless
Pants Hospital

Classic Pants
Leave it to Pants
I Dream of Pants
Lost in Pants
Everybody Loves Pants
Pants and the City

Comedic Pants
Desperate Pants
Ugly Pants
Saturday Night Pants
How I Met Your Pants
Two and a Half Pants

Dramatic Pants
CSI: Pants
Pants Anatomy
Cold Pants
Bionic Pants
Pants and Sisters
Dirty Sexy Pants

Reality Pants
Celebrity Pants
The Biggest Pants
Dancing with the Pants
Pants Swap

*******

This Post is part of the Monday Mission, which was to write a post in the style of another blogger. I chose the list-loving, Pants Patronizing Alejna of the fabulous blog Collecting Tokens. (Check out the link at the top of this post to see her list of Pants Christmas Carols!). Write your own homage to another blogger, and paste your link in the widget below:









And be sure to join us next week, when our mission will be to write a post in the style of an awards acceptance speech. You'll have just watched the Oscars (right? I mean, don't we ALL watch them?) and surely you've been practicing your own speech in the shower for decades. For the Oscar or whatever award YOU dream of receiving. Will you be humble or boastful? Who will you thank? Who will you forget to thank? Will the music cut you off?