Wednesday

Monday, while on the phone with Mom and Dad, the kids told me they smelled something burning. After about 5 minutes and a gradual intensification of the smell, I discovered a plastic water bottle had flipped out of the dishwasher rack onto the bottom of the dishwasher and lodged itself under the heater coil. It was proceeding to melt at a rapid rate, and filling the kitchen with the smell of burning plastic. Mmmm. I retrieved it with a pair of tongs and tossed it in the sink. When we came home from rehearsal hours later, the house still reeked. Two days later, everything that was washed in that load, even though we ran them through again, still smells like melted plastic. Tasty.

MacBeth opens in two days. We're doing a condensed version, with 6 actors. I play Lady MacBeth, a Witch, a murderer, and a soldier. I die twice, once onstage and once off. I fight with quarterstaff, make sound effects with a wet finger on a wine glass, and scream bloody murder at least twice. We're performing in the library auditorium, which is tiny, and has no lights and a miniscule stage. So, we're seating audience in the last three rows, and in folding chairs set up in front of the stage, and using the middle part of the room, seats and all, as our performance space. Scenes are lit with camping lanterns, garage worklights, flashlights, and electric candles. It's got a very low-tech but creepy, Blair-witch kind of feeling to it. It's been challenging, exciting, and lots of fun to work on, and I'm really, really glad I agreed to do it. I'll miss it when we're done on Saturday.

Kids are doing fine, although Scooby came down with a little cold last night. Hopefully it will stay little! They've been troopers about coming to rehearsals with me, and a kind member of my cohort has invited them over to use their apartment complex's pool a couple times per week. Cinderella's water bravery is improving by leaps and bounds, and I guess that she'll be swimming by the end of our visit to MA in August.

Even quicker update

Survived week one of Wiz camp. Teaching dance four hours per night is tiring!! I don't remember it being this hard...
I want to run, but the only time I have now is 6:00am so I'm back before Don has to go to work...and when I get home from teaching at 11:00pm, that's very difficult. The sweat equity I'm putting in is about the same as running, but I miss the training schedule I had going. Maybe next week I'll try to get back to it.
School before school still primarily a success, although Cinderella rebells against the writing assignments. The reading is going full speed though - they've all almost completed their first log-sheet for the library program - 15 hours!
Two more weeks of MacBeth rehearsals, and no sitters lined up as of now. Should be interesting...

Quick update

My wonderfully geeky children have started "school before school" this week. This is where Scooby puts together a lesson plan for several different subjects (spelling, science, social studies, math, and "specials" (art, music, etc.) for each day of the week, and Tarzan and Cinderella actually sit down and do the lessons! They're on day one of a full three week plan. We'll see how long it lasts! So far they actually all sound like they're having fun, and learning something!
Last night was closing night and strike for Mulan, Jr., so I've actually survived phase one of my stupidly busy summer. The show was quite good for jr. high, and I think all the kids had fun. Today, we start the five week camp for the Wiz. I don't really feel prepared, but I'm praying that it all comes together. We've had a week of rehearsals for MacBeth, and all has gone well...I have lots of memorizing still to do, though, and not much time to do it. It should be a really interesting production when all's said and done. The kids signed up for the summer reading program at the library. Scooby's reading the "39 clues" series of books, Tarzan just started the "Series of Unfortunate Events" and Cinderella's re-reading all the Junie B. Jones books. My reading level has dropped significantly, but I found a copy of Noel Streatfield's "Skating Shoes" which was out-of-print for a long time, and I'd never read it before. "Ballet Shoes" "Dancing Shoes" "Theater Shoes" and "Movie Shoes" are all favorites of mine, so it was great to add another to the list! Frankly, it's not as good as the others, but still, it's fun to round out the series. I think there's still "Party Shoes" out there somewhere, but I'm not breaking my neck to try to find it.

Happy July

Sorry I haven't been posting more. I have been ridiculously busy with summer theater camp at Regent, choreographing and teaching dance classes. It's going well, but I am WIPED OUT at the end of the day. My time of solitude, quiet house and not doing laundry every day is coming to an end, as I'm off to Pittsburgh tomorrow to pick up the kids from Super-Granny's house. I'm planning on driving straight through on Sunday to come back, as I start rehearsals for MacBeth and have tech week for summer camp starting Monday night. At least Don doesn't have to work, so I have one more day kid-free to get my bearings. Also getting a cold, so driving all day should be fun. Happy fourth, wishing we could be in Norwood!