It’s international Talk Like A Pirate Day, ye scurvy plankwalkers!!

So move smartly, ye lubbers, and talk like a pirate the whole day long!

Arrrr!

Rehearsals for Guys on Ice are going well, but Monday was our day off, and I had a great day.

Dentists appointment in the morning. Yes, it’s odd for me to put “Great Day” and “Dentist’s Appointment” in the same thought, but I got a nice teeth cleaning and some new crowns finished, and they look great!

Then it was off to do some prop shopping for the show, a little costume shopping as well. This was much fun. In addition, I picked up the new Green Lantern comic book and read that while having a great (soft) lunch at a Mexican place I’d never tried. Yum.

Next, picked up a new battery for our riding mower, and installed that. Then, while Jeanne and Maggie took a walk with the dog, Max and I played baseball in the backyard for a while. This was much fun. I was very proud – I almost got knocked unconscious by a screaming line drive off my kid’s bat! 🙂 His hitting is getting pretty good! The throwing though…we’ll be continuing to work on it.

Immediately following baseball, we had giant bowls of homemade chicken soup with angel hair pasta – YUM! Then we all had a big family event where we gathered up all of the recycling that’s been accumulating in the garage, piled it into the van, and took it down the road to the recycling place – this was fun because pizza boxes and folded cereal boxes fly like frisbees, so we had a blast filling the cardboard bins!. And of course, since we were already in the van, even though it was getting close to bedtime for the kids, I couldn’t NOT take advantage of the fact that we were already halfway to town, so I drove us to Twisters for some spur-of-the-moment ice cream cones.

Eating the ice cream cones on the way home, Maggie was lamenting that the only thing we didn’t get to do was ride our bikes. Well, it was getting dark, but we jumped on our bikes and took a couple of spins down the dirt-road that runs next to our yard (it leads to a courtyard of houses, a nice little dirt-road cul-de-sac that’s very pretty and peaceful, kind of in the woods). So, we rode around for a little bit chatting and laughing, and then headed back in for bed. Naturally, while we were getting them ready for bed, a break-dance show broke out. I was painfully reminded how out of shape and nearly forty I am, as opposed to 18 again, when I tried to show them exactly how “The Worm” is REALLY done!

Once the kids were in bed, I did have to watch the Tigers bullpen lose a game for them, in what appears to be a big blow to their postseason chances. *sigh* Still, after that I watched a great episode of Doctor Who! What a great show!

And now…Tuesday morning. Work. Off to do a little more shopping, prep for rehearsal, and prep for Williamston Theatre’s big Season Launch Party on Thursday. So, I’m expecting Tuesday to be a great day too…

But I need more days like Monday in my life!

Today, E.E. Cummings. (or, if you prefer, ee cummings, for he often used the lowercase spelling)
Read more about Cummings here!

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

Put “[your name] looks like” into Google, and post as much results as you want:

Tony looks like some incredibly dumb emo band like My chemical romance or something. What?!

Tony looks like he would be an animal in bed. The man just oozes sex appeal. … Sadly, this was about Tony Stewart, the racecar driver, and not me!

Tony looks like maybe he should think about girls, or sports, or something, ANYTHING besides evil little midget clowns. I have no response to this one at all.

Tony looks like he is going to blow chow. These are just weird…

Tony looks like a munster. I liked The Munsters!

Tony looks like a spaz, Tryn’s character model was recycled …Why does Tony look dumb in so many of these?!

Tony looks like he’s pretty well taken over the neighborhood. Yep, me and my mob of evil midget munster clowns!

Tony looks like a caveman and that is by no means attractive. Okay, this is just getting mean.

Go to http://www.careercruising.com.
Put in Username: nycareers – Password: landmark
Take the ‘Career Matchmaker’ questions at the upper left corner
Post the results.

For a quickie quiz, not bad! (But some of them..like #7?!

Tuesday was the 6 year anniversary of the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks.

Tuesday was also the first day of rehearsal for Guys on Ice at Williamston Theatre.

Normally, those two things wouldn’t have any particular connection…but on September 11, 2001, I was also directing Guys on Ice. We were in our second week of rehearsal, and I had just driven to the theatre, listening to the soundtrack of the show in the car. As I was walking in, my friend Tessa was standing outside smoking and looking very upset, and I asked if she was okay. She, of course, told me what was happening, and I went inside to the greenroom to join everyone else at the television, where we saw the second plane crash.

We all watched for a while there (and everyone made their phone calls, and did the things you usually hear about in all of our “Where were you?” stories), and then I cancelled rehearsal and everyone left to go home to their families. The next few days of rehearsal were difficult, but we decided that a nice, fun, sweet story about life, love and friendship was just what people wanted, and that what we were doing was important and people would appreciate it, (turns out, we were right). And we, like so many others, just went on doing our thing.

So…yesterday, I got up, being excited about directing Guys on Ice again, at a new theatre, with some new cast – it’s a fun show, and I’ve been looking forward to it! Lots of ideas and plans bouncing around in my head…and I turned on the television, and there were the news folks talking about the anniversary of the attacks, and I was overwhelmed with an amazing sense of…well, not just sadness, which I imagine is natural, but also a strong feeling of…hope. An odd sense of Deja Vu, of course, but also a great deal of positivity. Yes, there are horrible things going on in the world, and Michigan’s economy is horrific, and times are tough…but yesterday morning I was reminded by the news, and my own recollections, of how bad and scary things can really be. And at the same time, because of a sweet, funny, touching play that I directed, I was also reminded that we can persevere, and we can pull through the hard times. I was reminded that what it’s really all about…the reason we’re all here…is each other. Whether it’s a terrible attack, a poor economy, or struggling to keep a small theatre afloat, we can, by coming together, come out on the other end of whatever trials are thrown at us.

So, for me, that’s what Tuesday was about. Yes, first day of rehearsal. Yes, the anniversary of an awful, awful event.

And also, for me, Tuesday was about Hope.

This Sunday, I decided to go with the thoughts of Leo Tolstoy. I was at a wedding today, and it got me thinking about the wonderrful things that are in my life…so that influenced my quote searching tonight, and I was excited to find 3 quotes that really felt…right.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

All 3 are great to apply to life in general, and the last two will be particularly useful as I start rehearsals in a couple of days for a new show!

Interesting Factoid: When you’re walking around the tailgating section of a college football game, selling raffle tickets, you get offered a LOT of free beer!

This morning we’re selling 50/50 Raffle tickets at the MSU Home Football game as a fundraiser for the theatre! Should be very cool! 🙂

So my van was in the shop for a week.
Electrical nightmares making all the lights do the wonky.
Got it back a little while ago.
They did their magic un-wonk voodoo, and it’s all better.

Just in time, too, because that $900 was really burning a hole in my freaking pocket.
*sigh*