Friday Five - Taking a Break

Tell us how you would spend:

1. A 15 minute break: Solve the daily crossword puzzle.

2. An afternoon off: On a nice day - go to the beach. On a rainy day - the movies.

3. An unexpected free day: Hmmm...On a nice day - perhaps drive up to wine country. On a rainy day - spend the day at home getting stuff done, not changing out of my pj's, and reading.

4. A week's vacation: I would probably go home to the CO Rocky Mountains. Or to Italy. hahaha A wide range of choices.

5. A sabbatical: I would buy one of those one-way world airplane tickets, and globetrot!

One more reason to love the south

Leaving Louisiana this morning, my bags are heavier with the following
goodies: toffee, pecans, cheese straws, a sack lunch, a mint julep
cup, several strands of mardi gras beads, and a king cake...but of
course (will take the cake to rehearsal tonite). Not to mention the
jar of homemade blueberry jelly which I had to send to CO with mom
because it wouldn't pass thru my carryon luggage unnoticed by TSA. I
will pick that up at a future date, to be sure!

jet set

First off, thanks all for sharing your stories. I had some wonderful
ones come my way today!

I am currently at the airport waiting for my red-eye flight to my
aunt's house down south! I haven't been to LA since katrina hit, and
while I'm not going to New Orleans this trip, I'm looking forward to
being down there for a few days (my mom is throwing a surprise party
for her sister's 60th birthday-my aunt has no idea I'll be there). So.
Gonna be a goood weekend! Looking forward to the food, the family, and
seeing some folks that I haven't seen since I was 14!

Enquiring minds want to know

So, I put this out on [insert social networking site here] earlier today. Pursuant to a conversation with a friend at work today - for those happily married and/or committed to a life-partner:

How/when did you know you had found "the one"? I wanna hear some love stories!

Bark definitely worse than bite

Utility worker kills attacking 2-pound Chihuahua

This might make me a horrible person, but I laughed out loud when I read this story. Threatened by a chihuahua? REALLY?

It reminds me of a story as told by the older brothers of my high school bff. One time they were playing basketball with some neighbors, and the neighbors' chihuahua came outside to run around with the boys. One of the other guys didn't see the dog and, then, well. Let's just say that in chihuahua vs. bouncing basketball, the basketball wins. I should feel sad telling that story, but to this day I can't help but crack up when I think about it - it's just such a crazy story.

good times

I had a *really* great weekend in Colorado. And I will just leave it at that for now. Hope eveyone else had a wonderful (and long) weekend, as well!


A propos of absolutely nothing, here's a Home Depot advert that a friend fowarded to me. It's pretty damn funny.

Friday Five - Pets

For this week's Friday Five, the theme is Pets...so, here are five memorable Pets I've had.

1. Pancho Pescado: He's my current pet betta fish, and he was a birthday present about 3-4 years ago! I can't believe he's still alive, actually! He's a quiet pet and seems to like living in my house. But he especially loves when AZ comes to house-sit. She's his favorite person!

2.Issac and Fig Newt: Sibling and I had a pair of firebellied Newts when we were in about middle school. They were so cute and slimy! I remember it was a HUGE deal to drive out to the Aurora Mall pet shop and pick them out. However, we were bad caretakers, and the little plastic aquarium thing they lived in didn't get cleaned very often, and was very smelly. One night, dad put the tank outside and we had a freeze. He told us that they must have crawled out and escpaed. YEARS later, he finally fessed up that they had frozen and died!

3. Jenny and Red: Welsh Corgies just like the Queen! My parents had corgies for their entire marriage pre-kids (10+years), and Jenny and Red were still around for my childhood. They were outside dogs (we had a heated basement room they went in at night) and never came in the house due to allergies on our part. But I loved playing with them. Red bit me really bad on the knee when I was about 3, so he went bye-bye. Jenny, however, was a member of our family until 6th or 7th grade. She passed away of old age . . . it was one of the only times I've seen my father cry. After she died, he said he was never ever gonna take care of another dog...and he hasn't. But he did get us the newts shortly thereafter.

4. It Came From The Drain: Mutant lizard. During my sophomore year of college, I lived in a pan-hellenic sorority house on the top floor. One of the benefits of living on the top floor was not having to share the large communal bathroom, but having a private bathroom to share with only 4 girls. And a lizard. With no tail. He just appeared one day, and liked to hide behind our shampoo bottles - but would scamper down the drain upon being discovered. He did this for months! And then one day he was gone...off to a bigger and better drain somewhere else!

5. School fair goldfish: I don't know about you, but we had a TON of these little creatures over the years. We'd win them at the fair, and they'd survive for about 4 days. Which is why I'm surprised Pancho is still alive!

Tripping down memory lane

I have been taking many trips down memory lane this week, thanks to my scanner, social networking and waiting on my boss this week at work. SO. What does this all mean? AWESOME pictures from the last 15 years or so, and the funny commentary going along with it. It also means getting in touch with a few more people from high school whom I've not seen in about a billion years. It has been GREAT fun, and a trip to recollect some of our crazy antics in choir and such. OH man. Very fun. (And lots of frightening fashion choices.)

Holiday Weekend

This coming weekend is a holiday weekend, which means a three-day weekend for me. And I'm going to Colorado for a mini-break and to have a chance to see P while he's home on his 30-day redeployment leave.

Not *ONLY* is it a three-day weekend - it's a three-holiday weekend:
Valentine's Day - Saturday
Sibling's Birthday - Sunday
President's Day - Monday

I'm not celebrating any of the aforementioned days this weekend, though. Sibling will be on the East coast with S; President's Day is just a day off; and Valentine's Day? Well, that will be a miniature Christmas celebration in our house this year. Since P was in Iraq over Christmas, and missed out, we're going to make up for that by listening to Christmas music and making Candyhouses. Random? Yes. But good for the heart and soul. Looking forward to it!

The Iceman . . . runneth?

Really?

Man. I love theater politics. Never a dull moment.

Seriously, though, I don't know what the Iceman's politics/public persona/etc are like, but this would be entertaining. Hope, change, and there better be fresh cut flowers in my dressing room...

variables

I feel like there are so many variables floating up in my life this year. Not bad variables, just unknown variables. Funny how life really *is* a "choose your own adventure" book, right?

I do have constants in this equation. And thank God for that (who is one of the constants to begin with...). Along with faith, I would count my amazing family and equally amazing friends among those constants.

But back to those mysterious unknown variables. I think what drives me crazy is:
1. Lack of knowledge/control
2. The "What-if's"
3. Fear of making the "wrong" decision (and yet - who decides what is right/wrong, not in a moral sense, but in a ... decision sense, I guess)

All of the above reasons, however, are in some kind of conflict with the feeling that as I get older, I am finally learning to let all of that GO and just get on with my life. Let go of the what-if's; let go of thinking what anyone "thinks" is right for me, and just make my own damn decisions. It's not as easy as you'd think. But I'm getting there. And trying to decide what it is exactly I want out of life - I only have this one chance! Better make it a good adventure . . .

excuses, excuses

To make a short excuse of my sporadic blogging: my computer at home is still not fixed, as previously thought. And blogging via cell phone is not all it’s cracked up to be, hence the lack of communication. SO – hope everyone is doing well these days –the boss tends to frown upon reading blogs at work – go figure!

I have a few thoughts on this past month of musical activity:

1. Sick singers are miserable, neurotic creatures, and this particular production saw at least half the cast downed with whatever awful bug is making its way around SF this winter. I was solidly sick for about 2.5 weeks. UGH.

2. By the grace of God, my sickness did not include my throat – so I was still able to perform. Singing under the influence of lots of (legal) drugs is trippy. I found, though, that I only had energy enough to focus on performing…I didn't have enough energy to worry about HOW I was performing, which, some would argue, made my performance better.

3. Given #2, though, my second weekend of performances, after recovering, was much better than my first weekend’s. I could actually focus on not just making it through my aria without falling over. Made for a better characterization.

4. I shouldn't read reviews. Good or bad. Good ones can make me too comfortable in my performance, and bad ones can demoralize.

5. Sometimes I wonder if I am more comfortable being a character than I am just being myself. And sometimes the answer to that question is: Most Definitely Yes.
The closer any given role is to my *actual* personality, or if the character responds to a situation like *I* might respond, the harder it is for me to play. But I eventually work through that on stage. It’s weird.



PS for JEN: YES. I am TERRIFIED of ET - it is my phobia. I used to have recurring nightmares...up through Grad School, even. Completely irrational, I can't help it. Ty and Sibling like to tease me about this!