Tonight, we played Star Wars.

I got home, dead tired, and was attacked by the kids – Max desperately wanting me to be Darth Vader and play out some scenes with him and Maggie. I can’t for the life of me figure out what scenes they were, but they mostly consisted of me breathing heavily and chasing them around the house.

(It was kind of like my early dates with Jeanne, now that I think about it…but I digress.)

So, of course, I’m walking around with my black hoodie zipped up to my nose, breathing heavy and having sword fights with Max (him with a plastic lightsaber, me with a foamy Lego sword). I’m also dodging laser blasts from Maggie, who’s using an authentic light up laser blaster that’s an “Authentic Replica of General Grievious’ ™ Blaster” from the last movie.

Y’ever chase your kids around, breathing like Darth Vader, wearing a hoodie over your face, and having energetic sword fights while fending off laser blasts?

After about 15 minutes I got so lightheaded I just let them kill me.

Stupid Star Wars. If my kid liked Star Trek I could just Vulcan Nerve Pinch him and be done with it. But NOooooo…. we’ve gotta do the only Sci-Fi Franchise where the main villain is in desperate need of sinus irrigation. Nothing scarier than a slow-walking guy in black who needs a lozenge.

The good news is, though, that after that everyone was so worn out we laid in the family room and watched the Tigers play.

The bad news is that the Tigers got spanked.

*sigh*

Still, I did get to say Swoosh…pah….*evil Darth Vader Breathing*…swooosh…pah…Max. I’m your Father, Max.

To which, right on cue, he screamed “NOoooooooo!”, and ran away.

The Tig’s lost, and I almost passed out…but still, a pretty good night.

My friend Beth has a habit of posting things she’s grateful for on her LiveJournal, and I like it.

So I’ll be doing that now:

Things from today that I’m grateful for:

I’m grateful for the HILARIOUS car trip with my kids this evening, when they were doing British accents (I have no idea why.) For a fun treat we got fast food, which we rarely eat, and they were discussing their Taco Bell in British accents! “Oh, Mawx, I say, this bean buh-reee-toe is simply Mahhh-velous!” “Oh, Maggie, you are soooo right.”

Speaking of Taco Bell, I’m grateful for the Bean Burrito with extra red sauce.

I’m grateful for the $2,000.00 donation the Williamston Theatre got today!

I’m grateful for the donation WT got of much needed lenses for a dozen of our lighting instruments!

I’m grateful for being in the car today to listen to a bunch of the Tigers game as they won and went to 27-13; 14 games over .500!

I’m grateful for getting to see some friends perform in a matinee this afternoon, and then chatting with them for a while afterwards.

I’m grateful for the season finale of The Amazing Race, which I got to watch on TiVo!

You Are a Buttered Popcorn Jelly Bean

You have a strong, distinct flavor that makes you quite controversial. Some people love you, others wish you would disappear forever.

Still, I do like popcorn quite a bit…

🙂

So, Monday was great.

My son turned 6. Man, where did THOSE 6 years go?! It seems like just yesterday we were in the hospital, Jeanne was doing her second “I’ll do this with no painkillers whatsoever” birth, just like she did with Maggie. One of my favorite memories of that whole incident happened about 10 minutes before Max was actually born. My wife, who was amazingly calm throughout the entire process, grabbed my shirt and looked me right in the eyes and said loudly and firmly “I AM NOT DOING THIS AGAIN!”. *laughing* That’s fun to remind her of now and then! And now, that little bundle of joy is riding around the house on his new Razor Scooter because it’s too rainy to do it outside.

Also, this Monday, we had our first rehearsal for Additional Particulars. Needless to say, it was a great day for us – First read-thru, the designers were there to hear it, actors and stage managers working in the building, we played our first official game of tape-ball in the building! Very, very cool. I couldn’t be happier with the cast – gonna be a great show. Our stress now is all about getting the building ready in time, which it’s looking like we’re going to accomplish!

AND, on Monday, tickets went on sale for the show. And people called up and bought them. People came in and bought them! We didn’t sell a million yet, but we sold some, and word is just getting out, so it was great to have people come in and buy them! Our first official ticket sales! We need to sell about 3000 more to sell out the run, so if you know anyone in Michigan, get them tickets!

So, yep. I hope you had a good one, because my Monday was pretty great.

To My Mother, My Wife, My Sister, My Sisters-in Law, My Mother-in-Law, to Sarab and Annie and Christine and Mary919 and rather_reticent and everyone else who is a mother, or mother-to-be;

Happy Mother’s Day!

Thanks for everything that you do!

Well, as a fundraiser, we have a Poker Tournament for Williamston Theatre tonight! None of us has much experience with these, so I’ll let you know how it goes!

Both of my kids had their school concerts this week – it was great to see them up there onstage singing away with their classes. So cute! In kindergarten they sing songs and Max was hilarious, and in 2nd grade they do songs and a bunch of instruments. Maggie had a “solo” on the washboard for one of the songs (the “country” themed number). It was very fun!

Speaking of school, this article about a couple of teachers having a…classroom disagreement…sure makes me hope things are okay at school for Jeanne. Even if a fight broke out, though, I’m pretty sure my lovely wife could take most of her co-workers. 🙂

Rehearsals start Monday for Additional Particulars. We’ll have the show ready. I’m hoping we’ll have the building ready! I’m also hoping to win the lotto tonight.

This weekend is the Season Finale of Survivor, and the SERIES FINALE of West Wing! Of course, they put them on at the same time. Thank you very much. No worries, thanks to my awesome TiVo!! Sadly, I missed the West Wing‘s cast appearing on the Ellen show this week. Ah well.

Last quick hit for the day – being an Artistic Director is a great job. All of the glitz and glamour. *Falls on floor laughing, flailing* No, no, seriously…the point is that my car looks like hell. The roof has peeling paint. Nowhere else on the car, and it’s NOT up for a recall, so despite not being able to afford whatever number they give me, I’m gonna have to find out from Maaco how much to sand it and repaint it! 😦 Because when I pull up to the big donor’s houses to talk big important theatre talk (don’t laugh, I do that sometimes!), I shouldn’t really look as broke as I really am! This, ladies and gentlemen, is life in the theatre.

After spending money to see Silent Hill (which disappointed me), I’ve had scary movies on my mind.
I mean, scary movies. Movies that scare you. Not movies that just use gore to gross you out.

Then, Entertainment Weekly came out with this great feature:

The 20 Scariest Movies of All Time.

I’ve seen a lot of them, and I have to admit – they’re scary. I’m going to have to rent the ones I’ve not seen yet!
Plus, there are a couple of movies that I found very scary, that I’m surprised aren’t on there.
Still, that’s what makes these kinds of lists fun – they’re very subjective!

So what’s YOUR scariest movie?

Today…was marvelous.

Art is both creation and recreation. Of the two ideas, I think art as recreation or as sheer play of the human spirit is more important.
-Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

Thursday
The Field Trip that Maggie and I went on was great – really, really fun. It was at this very neat place, The Impression 5 Science Center!. They had a ton of hands on science stuff, most of it for kids but even that stuff was fascinating for most of the grownups. Most of our jobs take us so far away from that, we end up forgetting how very cool things like centrifugal force can be! Or the physics of light, or any of a million little amazing things.

So, we had a great time discovering and playing and exploring the science of the world around us. I like a lot the way they take things that happen in every day life (like blowing bubbles) and show you how the science behind it works, so that as you go through your life after that, you notice more of how amazingly complex the simplest things are! A terrific outing.

Friday
On Friday we drywalled one side of the wall in the Williamston Theatre lobby. A bunch of work, but so wonderful to do and to get done! We only did one side, because early next week the electrical and soundproofing/insulation will be put into the wall, and we’ll drywall the other side to close it up once those things are in place.

Here’s a picture from the inside of the theatre, looking at the newly drywalled side of the new wall! Scroll down a couple of entries to see what it looked like just before this work was done!