How’s that lyric go? One week…will it ever be right? Then outta the hat, it’s that big first night.

I will not list all the things that have yet to be done before the curtain flies at 8:00 this evening, but suffice to say that I will be a bizzy rodent this day. Oh, and there’s that teaching thing.

We had our final rehearsal last night, and there was some fun, some good singing and acting, and some hope. We shall see.

And have I mentioned how much I adore the round robining? Loved it.

But for now, it’s off to the shower, the school house, and the theater. So much time, so little to do…………See you on the other side of opening night!

Click the title ^^ to reveal the tale.

I think we’re ready for it. I’m sure we are. It’s for certain. I need to notify Ross, who hasn’t been out this way for awhile.

It’s Round Robin, Round Three. If you want to marvel at all the cool writers who haunt RtB, you can have a gander at Round Robins I and II.

Rules of the Game

1. Only add a few sentences at a time — but you can add on to the story as many different times as you like.
2. Don’t hit “Reply” under someone else’s comment. Rather, just start a new comment altogether. That way, the story will read down the page, and we won’t nest ourselves into a 1-centimeter-wide column.
3. The Fink gets the last line of the story. Because Kody will simply write, “Everyone died. The End.”

Ready, steady. go. I’ll start.

It was a dark and stormy night…

I don’t know what the deal is. Something doesn’t feel right. Ick. I guess it goes with the territory of He–I mean, Production Week. Was I too snippity with my fantastic sound guy, who makes magic happen in a hideous “performance space” with cement block walls and tile floors? Was I so preoccupied with pit issues that I forgot to really listen to the singers and watch the dancers? Am I going mental?

Truthfully, I think it’s all part of the painting oneself into a corner as opening night approaches. I wish there weren’t three more gigs after this one, but if wishes were fishes…

Still, it was great fun playing with the band, and I think the kids are funneling down to opening in style. Very proud of everyone.

Thanks to my regular RtB fiends (and you know who you are) for hanging in there and reading the rants and tripe. Back to normal lunacy very soon, I promise. I have movies to review.

Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” I won’t go there right now, or there’ll be a rant. (In fact, I just deleted five huge sentences.) Suffice it to say that some people think they’re funny as it, and it makes me wonder if there’s a special place reserved there for them. You know the kind I’m talking about.

More on that another day, fo sho. But back to production week.

As I type this, my stomach gets all ooky. And the heck of it is, the anxiety usually centers around stuff I can’t change.

Production week for me entails thoughts and worries about:

1. what’s still wrong and how it can be fixed
2. things I have to let go of because they can’t be fixed in time for the opening
3. how many details I need to tie up, and feeling that there is at least one gargantuan “thing” I’ve forgotten to address
4. cuts in the score about which I may have failed to inform the players in the pit
5. in this case (since I’m playing), getting my own part right
6. most importantly, giving our audiences the quality they’ve come to expect (this is the biggy)

But, like heaven and earth, this too shall pass away. Thirteen days. Thirteen days.

Indeed, it was Anna Jarvis, not the Hallmark company, who picked up and ran with the idea of Mother’s Day: a concept originally conceived a few years earlier by Julia Ward Howe (of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” fame) to honor mothers and celebrate world peace.

According to MothersDayCentral.com (paraphrased):

In 1908, Senator Elmer Burkett of Nebraska proposed making Mother’s Day a national holiday, at the request of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). The proposal was defeated, but by 1909, forty-six states were holding Mother’s Day services. Celebrations also took place in Canada and Mexico.

Anna Jarvis quit her job and devoted herself full time to the creation of Mother’s Day, endlessly petitioning state governments, business leaders, women’s groups, churches and other institutions for support. She finally convinced the World’s Sunday School Association — then a key influence over state legislators and Congress — to back her. In 1912, West Virginia became the first state to officially recognize Mother’s Day, and in 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed it into national observance, declaring the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

What a big to-do, eh? The best part about it, for me, is getting to see/talk to my children, their wives, and my grandchildren. I think any mom prefers that over just about any other gift.

So if you’re fortunate enough to have your mother still with you, give her a call. She’ll love you (even more, if that’s possible) for it.

I stumbled across an article that made me giggle. I thought, yep — I bawled like a fool at that movie. And it got me to thinking…you know, I bawl at some point at just about every movie I’ve ever seen. Empathy Overdrive.

Why do I do this to myself? It’s like I can’t help it. I spent most of  Water for Elephants in boo-hoo mode. And you should have seen me during the cloying, sappy The Notebook. I couldn’t breathe through my nose for an hour. And Sophie’s Choice – I don’t even want to talk about it. Cripes — you name the movie and I cried at it. (Well, except maybe The Hangover.)

Even the old classics — The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life – are weepworthy for me. Why do I do this?

I once asked the Thriller (who never cries at anything) how he and I can be watching the same film, and I’ve got the box of Kleenex on my lap while he sits there munching on popcorn, totally oblivious to all the harrowing emotion onscreen. His response was, “It’s not that it doesn’t make me sad, but it’s all just a made-up story.” I realized then that some of us internalize a story, and some of us watch it as a disinterested (not to be confused with uninterested) bystander.

This was brought to bear in a conversation I recently had with the students in my vocal jazz ensemble. One of the boys made the comment, “I get so involved in the [in this case, horror] story, I can’t take it.” I totally agreed. The slash-and-gore isn’t happening to the girl on the screen; it’s happening to me. I guess that’s why I can’t watch most horror films. I totally flip my poop. Same with a sad movie: I’m right there with the people going through it. I remember seeing Ghost in the theater…oh dear, what a mistake.

And it doesn’t stop at movies. I can’t read this without dissolving into weeping foolery. I cry at commercials (remember the Folger’s Coffee ones about soldiers coming home at Christmas? And I can’t even get through the opening frame of this, Lawd). But movies get me the most, because I crawl so far into the story, it’s impossible to extricate myself when things get hairy. I can’t watch Cars with my grandsons without losing it during the scene where James Taylor sings “Our Town,” and I’ve seen that movie a hundred times. I’m bawling right now, having researched and played the link. No one seems to need us like they did before…Oy…

OK, so what’s your take on this? Where do you sit on the Weep Scale? I’m off the charts, ferdangsure. What are the saddest movies you’ve ever seen? I’ll bet I could say “Oh yeah!” to more than one of them.

Off to get ready for…sniffy…school.

*sNORt*

Here’s something for sure: when this school year (you know, the Three Weeks What Will Never End) is done, I’m getting back into my skin. Family, friends (although I’ve loved spending time with the always-awesome Stoney during this rehearsal run), traveling, cooking, baking, gardening, reading, walking the dog…it’s all coming back with a vengeance. Can’t wait.

I will resume my list on the Comfort Foodie; the last recipe I posted was back in March, oy. But until then, I will look for pockets of sanity when I can. It’s the best all of us can do during the crazy times, ja? Behold the V & S coolness for today:

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes -- definitely in the plans

Do NOT go here.

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Lifehacker has the coolest stuff.

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I entered grilled chicken  in the first box, and roast beef in the second. Nice little script.

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I don’t visit Photo of the Week nearly often enough.

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Some of these I knew; others I did not. As Suzanne is wont to say: Inneresting!

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You can’t stop watching. Heh heh.

Well, I suppose I will go get ready for the school house — but not before reading about how the Indians came back to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th, only to give it up to the White Sox in the 10th. Yay.

We sort of expected it would happen for a popular show like this. I just hope we can live up to everyone’s expectations. From the movie, I mean.  Thing is, the Broadway show bears limited resemblance to the film version in many places. Profanity and general raunchiness are the biggest differences; they cleaned up a lot of it for the movie. And since we’re doing the “school version” (written by original Grease scriptwriter Warren Casey so schools in more conservative districts — like mine — could do the show), there are also several plot omissions.

For instance, there’s no pregnancy issue with Rizzo. It’s been completely excised from the story. And of course, all profanity has been removed and some lyrics replaced (most notably, the words to “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” and “Greased Lightnin’”).

Actually, the book was so squeaky clean, we replaced a few of the lines with their original counterparts. For instance, the school version has Danny singing (in “Summer Nights”), “We told jokes under the dock…”

Seriously? Hahaha yeah, we changed that back to “We made out…”. Some of the changes are ridiculous.

Some people may not realize that three signature songs from the movie — “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “Grease is the Word (main theme),” and “You’re the One That I Want” — are not included in the Broadway version. We added “You’re the One” and “Hopelessly” — I just had to write my own arrangements of them, and there’s a line of text we had to add to the program for copyright purposes. That said, there are a few songs in the Broadway version (and not in the film) that are fantastic!

And “Greased Lightnin’”? That’s Kenickie’s feature, not Danny Zuko’s. Travolta put his foot down in the movie production, reportedly insisting that the song be his.

Um, question to Samuel French (the pirates): If everyone wants to include the songs from the movie anyway, why not just put them in the original score??

Still, all craziness and idiotic complications aside, this has been a good run, and I hope they’re up to the task next weekend.

Next weekend. Oy.

Seems I’m counting down everything lately. Usually, a countdown makes you feel hopeful; excited. Not so with a couple of these, unfortunately, as they are fraught with uncertainty. Can I just say I am glad that after this year, we won’t have the musical in May anymore?

Off to my Monday…hey, what are you counting down? Anything I should know about?

1. Either I ordered the wrong pair of Wayfarers, or they sent me the wrong color. Either way, I’m happy.
2. I’d eat this.
3. OK. I love the idea of making your own fizzy lifting drinks (actually, I just like to say fizzy lifting drinks), but isn’t this a trifle too much work?
4. We hadn’t even started rehearsal last night, and I was on the warpath. Nearly reached critical mass. Very uncomfortable beginning. (Fortunately, things improved.)
5. Me wanty.
6. Cue awesome Lalo Schifrin theme song in 5/4 meter.
7. OK, but why?

All right, enough looking for cool stuff this morning. Time to get going on the sound plot for Grease, then 68 other things. I shouldn’t complain, though; when I woke up with a start at 4:50 this morning, I thought it was Monday.

Yay!

Heh. Sorry for the lame Les Mis reference, and that’s not what I mean anyway. I mean that at the end of the day, if you have done your best, if you’ve treated people with kindness and respect, if you’ve been honest with and loving to your family and friends, and if you are grateful for the blessings in your life — then you have no choice but to experience at least some contentment.

In spite of some unexpected scenarios popping up with the show, and the requisite stress that comes with encroaching performances and hanging details, I am largely content this day.

We don’t allow ourselves to experience it often enough, in my opinion. Americans are seemingly hard-wired to fret and scheme and wring every possible minute of work out of every day. It’s like if we’re not exhausted by 10 p.m., we have wasted the last 24 hours. We have to stop that.

What if we were to say, “I am going to deal with my life today projecting an attitude of contentment, to wit, if I can’t change a thing, I will work around it/with it. I won’t let it destroy my day or rob me of joy.” Imagine the worry (which solves nothing) and stress (which’ll eventually kill you) you will avoid. That hasta count for something.

OK, fiends. Ready, steady, do it. Try on some contentment for size.

She got her hair slicked back and Wayfarers on, baby…

Yes, after reading a post on Facebook this morning from Suzanne, admiring a pair of Ray-Bans, I had to go make my first purchase of the summer: some Wayfarers. In fact, I got this exact pair — with the girly flowers on them. Whatever do you think?

Twenty-three days, and I will be that much closer to wearing them on the beaches of Cape Cod and Bar Harbor…

Aren’t they adorable? (The glasses, not the beaches.)

Cute Fink

Yes, I am crabby this morning. I embrace it. I marinate in it. And as the boo-hoo quotient is abnormally high today, I will go so far as to say I’m justified in being so.

I’ve said this before: I think that in order to glean the most from the human experience, one has to, as BFF Kay is wont to say, feel all the feelings on occasion. Some of us feel the need to feel all the feelings quite often, which could explain the high incidence of mental and emotional instability in artists. It’s the reticence to be that big ball of public high anxiety that results in my infrequent blasts of snark on this forum. Gotta release the pressure, or it gets funneled into the choir rehearsal, which is never a good thing.

So maybe I should just go with the research and snark out a curse word to make me feel better (although reading the word “Webicine” just makes me mad all over again). Oy.

Know what I dislike?

• Rude, inconsiderate, unkind people. Now listen here. I try (I don’t always succeed, but I am constantly trying) to make it so the experience of having contact with me does not make a person want to run away screaming into the night. Or reach for an awl. But even I have my limits. What have I ever done to YOU? (Not you you, but “you” collectively. I know, I know: you get it, move on.)
• Being able to get to sleep fine, but once I wake up, I’m up (today it was 2:15 a.m.).
• Verizon Wireless, because they’ve got so many of us by the throat and they know it. Somewhere, Ayn Rand is smirking.
• The fact that being rude, inconsiderate and unkind is not some kind of misdemeanor. If people were fined — or better yet, jailed — for being mean, we’d see a lot fewer insensitive, uncharitable displays. Either that, or we’d need a lot more prisons.
• Election years
• The fact that many of my students can recount with pinpoint accuracy everything that Snooki and The Sitch have done for the last three years, but cannot identify the last three US presidents
• The fact that we have exactly one weeknight rehearsal this week with the full cast due to athletic events, and learning last night that our lead has to instead go to a meeting for Buckeye Boys State. <insert maniacal, psychopathic laughter by two directors, waving pistolas and jumping off the Cliff of Insanity>
• Samuel French, for putting out the most hideously written and poorly edited script and score for a musical, and having the unmitigated gall to charge an arm and a leg for the privilege of going through it page by page and making improvements

Oh my, she’s such a drama llama, yes? Yes. I claim it. I corner its market. But please — misery loves company today. Please make me feel like less of a loser and contribute a witty rejoinder about something that bugs you this fine Wednesday. I promise tomorrow’s post will be sunnier if you do.

Sincerely,

You know those people who, when the alarm goes off in the morning, reach for their glasses before even sitting up? I’m one of those people. Or I should say I was one of those people. Ready for the money shot?

Last Friday, I was married to my contact lenses and glasses. Cripes, I wore contacts and glasses (bifocals) at the same time. Yet, as of yesterday, I read music and emails all day long, and today, I am typing this without glasses or contact lenses. And I can see.

That’s the mind blower. I can see — without corrective lenses. Granted, I’m still a novice at this new approach, so I’m not 20/20 yet, but I’ll bet I’m 90% better. And I didn’t have laser surgery. So…I’m sure you’re dying to know…how did I do it? Here’s the answer:

I took off my glasses.

(That’s IT? That’s the mind-blower? Psh.)

No, fiend. With the help of a book called Take Off Your Glasses and See, I am learning to take back my eyesight through an inner refocus; a throwing off of the standard mindset that people with vision problems are A) relegated to corrective lenses for the rest of their lives (or surgery), or B) doomed to poor sight in middle age. What I’m finding is that in the field of vision correction, there’s been no challenge to basic mores: Bummer, I can’t see clearly; guess I need glasses. This doctor, over his 20 years of research, has basically come to the conclusion that most people with eyesight issues are given a crutch (glasses/contacts) right away, and so their eyes — and minds, as pertains to their vision — stop working for healing, as if the brain has absolutely no bearing on the amazing restorative properties our organs possess. The author wonders aloud why doctors and the lay community joyfully accept miraculous disappearances of tumors in terminal cancer patients, but can’t wrap their brains around the sudden ability to see better. Troof.

So I’m sure you’re wondering at this point (and I do have a point), What’s the secret? Well, half of it I’ve already told you: just take off your glasses. The second part is a realignment of your own belief system with regard to your eyesight. According to Dr. Liberman:

Most people who try this [initial] experiment [of going for a walk outside without any lenses] find a noticeable improvement in their acuity. How can simply removing your glasses clear your vision? Taking off those crutches allows your eyes to readjust to seeing on their own. The longer you keep your glasses off, the more you will notice the constant fluctuation of your eyesight. Sometimes, you may have flashes of perfectly clear vision; other times, your vision may appear to be worse. This dynamic fluctuation is a sign that a healthy visual function is reasserting itself after being locked in a rigid focus for many years. Unlocking that focus is the first step toward reclaiming your naturally clear vision.

And this from a guy who started wearing glasses in elementary school, and who now wears no lenses at all — and he’s in his sixties.

I can easily read the 2nd-to-last line, without glasses.

I had a student ask me yesterday, “Could this be all in your mind?” Maybe. But if it is, I’ll take it. Whatever works. And this is working. I’ve thrown down the crutches, and I’m learning to walk all over again. And don’t think for a minute this revelation doesn’t translate to other parts of my life.

Ah, clarity. I’m getting there — hopefully in many ways.

FO

I had my (only) pit band rehearsal yesterday afternoon, mostly to make sure the guitar player, whom I’d neither met nor heard play, was going to be OK with everything. I mean, Grease without a guitar is like, well, Grease without a guitar player.

I should have figured it out when I got no response from the reminder email or the two texts I sent before the rehearsal. The rest of us were there, but…yeah. No guitar player. Bam. Fired. Now what? With son Lars unavailable for that time period, I didn’t know where to turn. Good guitar players always seem to be in glut-like supply, until you actually need one.

Seamus and I discussed an alternative, but I decided to fling out my net as a desperation move and ask a former student (who now lives in a town 75 miles from the school and works for Best Buy) to rescue us.

He said yes.

I am in a state of both total disbelief and indescribable gratitude. So that is one glacier-sized worry off my plate, making room for the 326 other things. You know how that is.

Twenty-seven days. Yes, I am now officially one of those loozer teachers who’s counting — along with every student.

FO