Monday, April 26, 2010

West Side Story

I've got to say that the music to West Side Story is hard to shake once it's in your head. Especially when you see the show twice in one weekend. I've been humming tunes pretty much non-stop.

The Girl was in the show this past weekend. (One of only two Freshman in the cast, thank you very much!) Here she is hanging in the middle of the scaffolding.
The scaffolding was the set for the most part. They'd roll it over here for one scene. Spin it around and roll it over there for another scene. Climb on it, hang from it, stand, sing from it and dance on it. Very dynamic but time consuming to change from scene to scene.

West Side Story is, of course, the struggles of the Jets and the Sharks as they vie for turf. The Girl was a Jet because if there is one look she could not possibly ever pull off it would be Puerto Rican. Here's a bunch of Jet girls. You would think gang girls would look tougher and meaner. This group looks like a bunch of princesses.
Now this is better, Shark guys! Watch out, they may be smiling but they are all carrying switchblades!
How about some Jet guys? They're tough too. They bring chains to the rumble.
Shark girls are another bunch of princesses. But none of these girls are afraid to deal out a slap if you get a touch mouthy with them.


We went opening night and the show was still rough around the edges. There were major technical problems with the sound. The kids seemed lost when it came time to move set pieces. The live band had only practiced with the kids singing twice before opening night and the timing was all off. The kids just looked plain confused most of the time.


Sunday's afternoon's performance was an entirely different story. Most everything went off without a problem. The sound issues were cured and you could actually hear the actor's lines. The band sounded amazing and the kids are figured out how to sing with them. The whole show rolled along smoothly.


The auditorium is coming down in just a few weeks now. When I see the new building going up, it's hard for me to get sad about the old one coming down. The only part that gets to me is that my little piece of green room graffiti will be buried.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Double Down Trouble

I am pretty darned disturbed by this new sandwich that KFC has devised in its laboratories of death. What is going on with this Double Down Chicken Sandwich? Is this not the most disgusting thing you have ever heard of of? Two chicken filets used to sandwich a slice of Monterey Jack and a slice of pepper jack cheese, some kind of secret sauce and two slices of bacon. The nutritional facts on this sandwich are horrifying, especially the sodium. You can check out the stats proudly displayed on its official page.

And what's with that name? Double Down is a blackjack term where you get to split a pair and bet on both hands individually. Usually doubling down ends up pretty well for you. But still to give a sandwich a name that invokes the idea of chance and gambling? It's almost implying that you are gambling with your life if you eat this sandwich.

The first time I saw an ad for this sandwich was on Saturday Night Live. The commercial plugged the food and then ended with that if you paid a little extra, the clerk would just stab you in the heart. We all had a big grand laugh at what we thought was just a skit on the show. The next day we found out the sandwich was very real, only the offer of quick death was fake.

Finally, you can't look at this sandwich and not think of this:
(Sorry about the absolute lousy quality!)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Kalahari Lock-In

The Girl and I are in a bit of a fog today. Last night (and this morning) we were at Kalahari Waterpark for a Girl Scout lock-in. 11 PM - 5 AM. By the time all of the girls were dressed and had gathered everything together, we finally got out of there around 5:30, which put us back in town at 6:30. Right to bed we went and got up around 1 PM today.

The Lock-In was an adventure but for all the wrong reasons. In the first half-hour we came across a little girl who had slipped down some steps leading up to one of the slides. Her friends weren't sure what happened. Some of them said she fainted, others said she tripped and hit her head. Her friends were guiding her down the steps when she got to myself and some other leaders. She was clinging to the rail taking the tiniest of steps and shaking all over. Her eyes were rolling in her head. And she was green. Literally green. I've never seen anything like it. She was a yellowish-green from head to toe. The other leader I was with grabbed the girl up and I started hollering down the stairs for everyone to move. Another leader shot off head to find a lifeguard. At the bottom of the stairs were two EMTs waiting to take the girl. We went to peek in on her a while later. They had her on oxygen, in neck brace, strapped to backboard and an ambulance was on the way.

A few hours later, I was in hanging around in the Girl Scout cabana when a little girl came over asking if this was first aid. Her big toe was bleeding under the nail. I offered to walk her to the first aid office and the whole way there her toe was oozing blood. We hobbled across the park and the lifeguards fixed her up. Then they gave her the news: She was going to lose the toe nail. The one guard showed the girl her own big toe with the nail only half grown back. The same ride had ripped her nail off a month earlier. That particular ride had a tendency to do that to people.

When I got back to the cabana I was told I missed all of the excitement. One of the leaders wiped up on the wet concrete and broke her ankle or maybe her leg.

Wow. It seems like a lot of disasters but there were 1,600 Girl Scouts there. I think I was just unlucky and kept coming across the bad moments.

Nevertheless, I had an amazing amount of fun and so did the girls in my troop. We all kept our toenails, kept our bones unbroken and stayed one color. I could write a whole post about what happened to myself and three other leaders on the one ride that looks like a giant toilet bowl, but I'm not quite ready to tell that story yet. It's a doozy!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Marco's Birthday

In the week leading up to today I would occasionally mention one of the other people around the house that it was the dog's birthday on Sunday. The conversation usually went like this...

Me: Yo, it's Marco's birthday Sunday.

Other Human: Oh yeah? How old is he going to be?
At which point I would mumble something about finding out. No one had a clue how old the dog was but we had several spirited debates about it...

Me: He's going to be seven.

Other Human: No six.


Me: I think it's seven.


Other Human: Weren't you going to look it up?

I just looked it up and in fact today he is six. Eventually someone will mention that he is forty-two in dog years. Not to worry old boy, you're still just a big dumb puppy to me!

Happy Birthday Marco!

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Birthday Party Escapades

This post is two days late. I wish to thank the three of you for not calling me out on that.

The party was a huge success! At it's height we had 23 kids at the house, so it wasn't that bad. The best gift that the kids received by far was the weather. The thermometer in the kitchen read eighty-two when the party started. It hovered right in the mid-seventies after sundown making the candle-lit patio a nice hangout alternative to the stuffy house. There were kids running in and out of the house all night long. Thank goodness I had the forethought to send Marco away. It would have been an impossible situation with him in the mix.


The boys were bound and determined to just play Xbox the entire time. One of The Boy's friends brought his Xbox over to talk to our Xbox. It was all just too cool.But the girls had other plans that first involved attacking the boys with balloons.

Defeated temporarily the girls headed outside to plan their next wave of attack.
And to build a human pyramid.

In the end the girls forced the boys to go on a scavenger hunt and play hide and seek or maybe it was sardines. The evening ended with all of them outside on the patio. The Man and I sat in the kitchen and listened to their very grown-up sounding laughter.

We ended up with WAY too much food and drink. Like embarrassingly too much. We'll be eating pizza around here for a long time.

One more Happy Birthday to the Girl and Boy! What a fantastic way to celebrate it!