Your Review... Or Mine?

Two more reviews of Move Over, Mrs. Markham have been published, praising our cast as an ensemble. Together we are "brilliant," "professional," and "superb" while "Director Brent Stringfield has outdone himself with casting this hilarious farce." Hats off to all nine of us, indeed.

But that was the weekend. With no shows running on weekdays and no further rehearsal necessary, I have a lot of free time on my hands; and with a noisy neighbor downstairs, for my own sanity, I wanted to spend it out of the house. For the last two days, that's just what I've done.

On Monday, finding an evening audition led me down Highway 163, one of the more useful roads in this area, but one I usually avoid due to high-speed lane merges. However, as I zoomed down the highway Monday night, I noted that it provided easy access to Balboa Park on a straight shot from home. Thus, my plans for Tuesday were made.

On Tuesday, I was once again headed down 163 to 6th Avenue. This time, I turned in at the park. Though my more traveled friends might chose other venues, Balboa Park is easily the most beautiful place I've ever been. I spent the day taking it in, walking from end to end, getting my bearings and committing them to memory. Here is the rose garden; this bridge crosses the Park Boulevard; this bridge crosses the highway; there is the California Tower and Museum of Man; there is the Aerospace Museum.

By late afternoon I was re-tracing my steps. The sun was too persistent for decent photographs, so I took a seat at the Sprekels Organ Pavilion. There, I discovered, a free evening concert would take place in short order. I figured it would have to be better than the crazy lady waxing operatic with a tambourine near the Botanical Building, so I grabbed a Diet Coke and a hot dog and settled in. The Ron Jerman band wasn't the best orchestra I'd ever heard play Big Band music, but what they lacked in panache was made up for in authenticity. The "kid" of the group was 89. Or so they joked. Still, it was clear that they'd grown up with this stuff. So too had the charming older couples who graced the dance floor, and it was quite refreshing to watch dancers from an era when flailing about like dying fish would have indicated that you needed medical attention. This was the good stuff.

On Wednesday, I took my photos to the 1-Hour developers and took another drive down 163, passing the exit to Balboa Park. Instead, I found myself downtown, parked at the Convention Center. I fed a meter and walked the quote-smattered Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade. Headed back for my photos (and more film!), I drove through the Gaslamp Quarter. One block more, and I had a good look at Petco Park, home of the Padres.

Not ready to stop exploring once I had prints in hand, I returned to 163 and to another part of Balboa Park: the world famous San Diego Zoo. I'd visited twice before, but this would be my first trip without children in the lead. As it turned out, I could have used their navigation; I was useless with the park's map and the new Monkey Trails exhibit was a dizzying distraction in my attempt to visit the pandas and Polar Bear Plunge. I found both in time, but not before stopping for an amazing puppet presentation starring Puff the Magic Dragon. It seems that I did bring one kid to the park after all. A big one. The script was clever and I was truly amazed by things I saw on that marionette stage, including a belly dance, flying birds, a swordfight, and a tornado. I was blown away.

The hours are extended to 9:00 in the summer for a Nighttime Zoo experience, but by 8:00, skies still bright, I was exhausted and ready to leave. I briefly quelled my fear of heights for a foot-sparing ride in an aerial tram to the east end of the park, near the exit. There, I stopped to watch young girls compete in a truly amusing hula hoop competition. Despite Zookeeper Willie's determination to find something, anything, jarring enough to make them drop their hoops, the contest ended with three rather talented winners.

Immediately following, curtains behind me opened to an impressive bit of performance art called The Fountain, one of two pieces in The Living Garden. At first glance, from a distance, you'd have thought you were looking at a stone sculpture, but when the statue opens her eyes and begins, very slowly, to move to a classical soundtrack, you become transfixed as she strikes new and interesting poses, spouting water from her fingertips without mussing her costume or makeup. At the end of her performance, you are greeted by the second piece of The Living Garden: DiVine, a 7-foot walking plant. As with The Fountain, her costume and makeup are stunning, and this is some outfit -- as children stop to pose with the plant, it is difficult to figure just where the artist's joints end and her stilts begin, but her movement is beautiful. If you have the opportunity to visit San Diego before Nighttime Zoo wraps up in early September, I recommend stopping in for the show.

I took a different route home from the zoo, through downtown and onto I-5, from which I could see the lights of the Southwest Airlines Skytower at Sea World, decorated for the upcoming 4th of July. I followed the highway until I could stop for a picture, ending on Sea World Drive. I was surprised to find the park still open after 8:00, but the Nighttime theme continued: Sea World Summer Nights keeps the park open until 10:00. So I went in.

Inside, the cast of the park's Riptide production was warming-up for a 9:30 show that looked promising, so when they took a break, I strolled over to watch the late Shamu performance House of Douse, which, I discovered later, is in its final year. The sun had finally set, so it was a treat to watch Shamu literally in the spotlight. Though I'd seated myself in the Soak Zone, I was thankful to be dry as I left the arena under cool breezes to catch the stage show.

At 9:30 Riptide took the stage with acrobats, dancers, and an incredible drum line ready to mesmerize the audience with a Cirque de Soleil quality routine. And they did. The performance was capped at 10:00 by SkyBlast, the nightly fireworks display. Visitors were invited to mingle with the cast after the show, and as folks waited for traffic to clear many a young child tried to mimic the display they'd just seen when drummers offered them their sticks.

Traffic cleared with surprising speed and the ride home was an easy one on yet another road -- this one, the one I'm living on. Although what I've described here --concerts, killer whales, pandas, and fireworks -- reads like an expensive vacation, the only money I laid down over the course of two days paid for the hot dog and Diet Coke at Balboa Park. Oh, and the film I had developed. For a member of both the Zoo and Sea World, everything else was free.

Yes, Virginia... membership really DOES have its privileges. And San Diego is one hell of a town.

From My Shots of Balboa Park

Over the Fault Line

Today was productive. Because today I did something that I never do. Today I asked for favors.

Our show was reviewed on Friday. Opening night. It was a good performance and the review was available the next evening. One of the girls in the cast had read it before coming to the theatre, but had not brought a copy to share. Knowing that the "Hitch" review was out, others among us were curious -- how could one get hold of a copy and what did it say?

Robert Hitchcox's reviews have an odd format which suggests that they are posted online somewhere, but for as long as I've been in San Diego, no one has been able to answer the question of where they can be found; all that anyone knows for certain is that a handful of people on Hitch's "list" receive the reviews via e-mail. I read Hitch's review of The Odd Couple because my director was on that list and he forwarded the article; but so far, no one had forwarded the Markham review. So, I e-mailed the producers, who I knew to be on the infamous list, and I asked them to send me a copy. And they did.

Hitch concentrated a great deal on the ins and outs of the intricate sex farce plot and not a great deal on the cast as individuals. Our review was the review of an ensemble, which was deemed "truly professional" as we matter-of-factly and in proper accent delivered our lines, then allowed the audience their moments of laughter, giving "the humor of the script a chance to tickle the audience's funny bone." In the end, he wrote that if laughter is excellent medicine, then attending our production "proves extremely beneficial to one's health."

The second favor I asked today was of our photographer. Tony Eisenhower had taken the character headshots for this show, and I was able to keep a copy of the one that was posted on the PowPAC website, but together we had chosen a different photograph for the program... and it's that photograph that I truly love. In the program, it is small and pixellated, so I asked Tony today if he would e-mail another copy of it to me, so that I might show it off to those who would not see the production (like certain menfolk overseas). He obliged, and though I preferred the shot before it was converted to black and white for the program, I'm happy to have it at all.


I can't do a thing without a cup of tea!

Two more critics visited us this weekend, and I am keeping an eye out for their reviews. Although most don't publish as quickly as Hitch did, I checked an online publication I knew to be represented on Sunday. There was no review posted, but the site sent me scurrying to an evening audition.

I read that FaultLine Theatre in Hillcrest was hosting a cold-read audition within the hour for three plays that would go into rehearsals ASAP for a two-weekend run in late July -- and there would be pay! A show that would open and close in late July would not delay my planned return to Nashville, my evenings were free for rehearsals, and Hillcrest is just around the corner, so I scooped up some headshots and resumes, did a quick MapQuest search, and I was on my way.

Once I'd parked the car and fed the meter, I walked into the FaultLine space. Small. Intimate. I liked it. And I liked my odds against the small turnout. I was just getting excited when I looked at the calendar I'd been handed on the way in. I'd known coming in that there was danger of a conflict, and sure enough, there it was. Though I'd hoped that "two weekends in late July" would mean the last two weekends of that month, it did not. There would be performances on the weekend of July 15th -- the closing weekend for Move Over, Mrs. Markham. Auditioning would be fruitless. I confirmed that all three plays would go up on that weekend before returning to my car, a bit crestfallen. Although I would have liked to have been seen for future consideration, it would have been tacky to put myself forth as an option knowing the conflict -- though perhaps I should have thought to ask if they'd like an extra reader in the shuffle. I'll remember that next time. This time, I'm happy to give myself points for going at all.

Opening Post-Motor-em

After a long and stressful Hell Week, Opening Night was a surprising success. An audience covered with laughter what were painful pauses during rehearsal and the show went swimmingly. On stage, we had a lot of fun with a responsive audience, and at a reception afterwards we heard a lot of praise from that audience. It's a good thing, too, because Hell Week wasn't the only thing that had left me with doubts about the opening night performance.

My worry increased a great deal after taking my parents to the airport Friday morning. I've become superstitious about that trip. Recent history has proven it does not bode well for me. Once, after dropping my father off, I found myself locked out of the apartment. A month later, after another drop-off, I crashed the company car. Rather, I was crashed into... but you see where I'm going with this: a performance on Airport Day could go horribly awry. It didn't. But I didn't escape the day unscathed.

Driving home after the reception, I was pulled over for speeding. I'd been pushing the five-over rule for the 45-mph speed zone in what, I soon found out, was actually a 35-mph speed zone at the point the officer clocked me. Worse, when the officer asked his rote two-a.m.-on-Friday-night question about drinking, I could not deny that I'd had an opening night beverage. Though I'd stayed at the theatre long after that drink, thoroughly enjoying a rather nerdy conversation about comic books, Tori Amos, and the new Batman movie, admitting to a cop that I'd had it at all was scary as hell. I have bad luck with police.

See, there are people who can routinely drive 100 on the highway without ever getting a speeding ticket, but I'm not one of them. I won't even try. Because I'm the girl who gets a moving violation at a stop sign. I'm the girl who, driving 35 in a 40, gets a ticket that's signed in triplicate and delivered to me minutes before the school zone I'm supposed to have sped through goes into effect. I'm the girl who gets a ticket on a patch of Kentucky road where my brother, at the same speed, had a day earlier been told to yield right to faster traffic. That's my fate behind the wheel. And I don't tempt it. So when I found myself in this situation, I knew I was doomed. It wouldn't matter that the drink was hours-old or that the street was marked "45" not inches away from where we were standing, because I was the girl standing there.

As I stood eyes-closed, head back, touching my nose, I thought I was a goner. Because when I'm nervous, I shake and stutter (ask anyone who's watched me attempt a monologue) and if there is a whiff of accusation in the air, I'll look guilty. Had you come to my home in Detroit in 1977 to ask who was killing a million Cambodians, I'd have looked so suspicious that you'd have jumped to conclusions despite the fact I would have been just 5 years old and passport-free.

Fortunately, when it was most important, fate threw me one of the good guys and, in the end, I was sent on my way without even a speeding ticket.

But I don't ever want to go through that again. When it's time for my parents to leave after their next visit, I'm handing them cab fare.

Move Over, Mrs. Lapczynski

A few months ago, when I was new to San Diego, I started a blog. At the time, my intention was to hone my voice and finally put to paper ... er, pixel... the columns that continually fly through my mind half-formed. Adding fuel to the writer's fire was the fact that, visiting a new town, I had a whole new set of experiences to draw on -- and plenty of free time. Little did I know what would happen next.

You see, somewhere along the line, I let someone in my family KNOW I was writing a blog. I suppose I'd written something I was proud of. Ah... those were the days. Next thing I knew, my mother started a blog. My brother was quick to follow. Suddenly, my family was communicating in a whole new way and better than ever, but it changed the nature of the beast.

This continued for months before my friend Chris joined the fray. Dear Chris. Many years ago, afraid to put my own words out for public consumption, I demanded that Chris follow his own writing muse according to my strict deadlines for an online magazine. As his editor, I earned the moniker Darth Kel.

The four of us -- my mother, brother, Chris, and me -- in varying combinations, read and comment on each other's blogs. Now, it's important for a writer to know his audience, but it's quite another thing for a writer to KNOW his audience... especially if they would otherwise be the subject of one's writings. That's a problem.

But not for my mother. You see, tonight my mother wrote quite a lengthy piece about me on her blog. Before I could pry the keyboard from her hands to comment on the fact she and the other fiends had devilishly plagiarized my lists of random thoughts, she'd already written a second post. And this one was about me. Specifically, it was about living with me again for the first time since I was 18.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my mother. I even like my mother. But I can't live with my mother. I've known it for as long as I can remember; my very first steps were toward the door.

And this is what I mean about KNOWING your audience, because that last sentence could go in any number of funny directions, but I don't want to hurt my mother's feelings for the sake of comedy. (Chris: you have a new assignment). The fact is, my mother and I are The Odd Couple incarnate. By the end of 3 weeks, one of us has to go before somebody gets killed. Stick to the hallway and your room and you won't get hurt! ...And to think she thought I should have been cast as the female Felix! Although she has a bit of a point: when it comes to the house, I am definitely Felix to her Oscar.

After sharing a space with me for the first time in 15 years, my mother wrote that she'd learned these things about herself:

• I am an inherently aggravating person.
• No matter where I am, I am in the way.
• Everything is my fault...that's just the way things are.
• There is no way I can help with anything. It's my fault, I should just get out the way, I am being aggravating.

My God that's aggravating! Now get out of my way, let me at the keyboard, and stop screwing up the fonts, will you?

She also wrote: "Living with an actor is a challenging thing. Actors are high-strung, sensitive, semi-hysterical creatures. People may live on the edge of hysteria. Actors build condos there." Yeah, that's not going to niggle away at me at all. AAUUGGHH! Now she's doing it on the internet!

Fortunately, this 3-week arrangement ends Friday. Mom and Dad are returning to Tennessee just as my rehearsals end and my show opens.

And then I'll be all alone... by myself... and lonely.

mommy!

Disclaimer: After reading my mother's blog at her insistence, I warned her that I would get her back. It's all in fun... though, like any comedy, it has a base of truth. Apologies to Neil Simon, whose recently-memorized lines made more than one italicized appearance above.

I Did It! I Did It!

I can't believe I did it, but indeed I did! (Apologies to Lerner and Loewe)*

Anyone who knows me at all well can tell you I'm not a party person. I don't know what to do, where to stand, who to talk to. I need an anchor -- someone I can cling to who is either sensitive to how uncomfortable I am or equally uncomfortable themselves. Last night, I didn't have one, but I went to the party anyway.

I expected to go for a short while: make an appearance, become wallpaper, feel utterly hopeless, and exit unnoticed. For me, it's standard operating procedure at parties. An MO. So why bother? Piddle and diddle, wait and debate, I'd almost made my mind up to stay home... but something happened. Nausea. That sickening feeling in the pit of the stomach that tells you when you're making the wrong decision. I hate that feeling, but I trust it. And so, four hours late, I made a literal gut decision to go.

People who have "real" lives that don't involve theatre folk might find it rude to arrive at a party four hours late. And if it were any other party, I'd agree. But theatre parties are different. They are events. Festivals. Fairs. They don't "start" as much as they "open."

The first few minutes are always the worst. Where do you stand/sit? Are you stealing someone's chair? Who do you talk to? Are you interrupting? Do you have anything to say? It's horrible. I'd rather enter a dentist's office than a party. But at this one, something interesting happened. Something heretofore unheard of. People came to me.

The party was full of actors and directors from around town, and a number of them had seen The Odd Couple. Apparently, I made quite an impression. I must say... parties are a lot more enjoyable when they come with lavish praise and exciting rumors. In fact, by the end of the night, I was so comfortable with the company I was keeping that I did something else unbelievable -- I sang karaoke.

If you know me, I hope you were sitting down for that one. If you don't know me... well... let me paint a picture. I'm a person who's scared to death to walk into a party because I don't know where to STAND... would you expect me to SING? Uh uh. But by night's end my producer/agent-to-be mandated that I polish up a rendition of Blue Bayou, which she deemed perfect for my voice.

Though I'll be returning to Nashville soon after my show ends, there are reasons to believe that staying in San Diego through July was a wise decision. I'm keeping a lid on that right now -- don't want to jinx anything -- but I may have some exciting news before the month is out.

*From My Fair Lady, the lyrics are actually "You did it! You did it! You said that you would do it and indeed you did." ... but, after all, I DIDN'T say I'd do it!

Random Thoughts: Part Drei

Proposed plans for a shift system of computer usage were well accepted but poorly implemented; so, while I have control of the keyboard, here are a few random thoughts of the day.

• I still don't have costumes that meet the director's approval. His "I'll know it when I see it" insistence, coupled with my too-large frame and a too-loud backdrop have made costume selection difficult. The only outfit that had early approval has since been rejected... and the show opens on Friday.
• Costume shopping with our producer yesterday turned up a few things that we are happy with. Between the two of us, we spent quite a wad of cash. The director hasn't seen anything yet, but my new duds have an ally.
• Our producer is a former Equity actress whose career ended after an accident crushed her leg. Because she thinks I'm a good actor myself, she shared a few leads with me, but the truest compliment was hidden in her lunchtime determination to brush off dusty contacts and become an agent.
• One of our cast members is hosting a housewarming/pool party at this moment, and I was among those that received an E-vite. More than 70 people were on that list and most replied that they would attend (it must be some house!), but I know fewer than 10 of them and the party is likely to get rowdy. A part of me thinks it would be smart to go and meet other area theatre folk, another part of me knows that I am helpless in a crowd and I would be wasting an hour on the road. Oh, for a wee bit of social EPT-ness and the power to network! I won't get very far in this field without it.
• I-15 has been backed up for days (I assume that's due to the county fair at Del Mar) so I figured I'd have a built-in excuse not to go. I checked the local traffic for confirmation. No dice. It's clear sailing to Poway today.
• Still... I should be spending time with my father this weekend. He just returned to San Diego from a business trip. Tomorrow is Father's Day, Monday is his birthday, and we will not cross paths during the week as I go into "Hell Week." ... Anyway, he's making "spaghetti goop" tonight. Don't want to miss that, now do we?
• Did I mention that I wish I were better in social situations yet? Did I? 'Cause I do. But I'm not.

I think I'll grab a Diet Coke and see if I can find a West Wing rerun.

Random Thoughts Part Zwei

The shuffle continues this morning with these thoughts:

• Penn Jillette and his wife Emily had a baby on Friday. Their first. A girl. And they named her Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette. Moxie CrimeFighter. May she be an only child.
• Speaking of Fighter Jillettes... uh, jets... often, as I pass Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (once famous for TOPGUN training) on my way to rehearsal, fighter jets zoom overhead. For me, this is no typical sky candy. Although I come from an Air Force town, I'd never spied an F-14 in flight. In San Diego, a Navy town, the buggers are everywhere.
• I've finally got a costume for the second act of my show. After trying on a handful of outfits pulled for me, I mixed a pair of promising dress pants with the shirt I'd worn to rehearsal and viola! A costume came from my closet after all.
• When I went to see "Take Me Out" at The Old Globe in January, I bought the T-shirt. Been there, done that. Nice shirt. In the play, "take me out" had a double meaning: the phrase could end "to the ball game" or "of the closet." But the play closed in February and not everyone is a theatre fan, so now I rarely wear the thing in public. Because, without the show, the words "take me out" seem to read differently, as if I'm demanding a date ("Hey you! Take me to dinner!") or something worse ("Hey you! Tuck me in with trout!"). It's dangerous enough out there without asking for it. Now I call that shirt "pajamas."
• If men are more visual than women -- as they claim when they're doing something naughty -- why do single women buy plants, pictures, and wall paper while single men make furniture of egg crates?
• During yesterday's end to Michael Jackson's trial, there were comparisons to the handling of OJ Simpson's trial. I largely ignored both trials and in both cases ended months of ignorance and indifference with information overload during the hours of the verdict's preamble and post-ramble. It's been ten years since OJ's verdict. Ten years. Unbelievable.
• On Thursday, I'll have been in San Diego and cigarette-free for 5 months.

Random Thoughts

As another week passes and I come closer to opening -- and then closing -- another show in San Diego, my thoughts are on "shuffle." Here are a few samples:

• Lemons and oranges are ripening on area trees, collecting on the ground after they fall the way that I remember apples did in my grandmother's yard in Michigan. Citrus trees are new to me, where apple and cherry trees were common before.
• An earthquake rattled the apartment yesterday morning from an origination point 66 miles away in Anza, California. It registered 5.6 magnitude and was the first I've felt. An odd experience -- exciting and frightening at the same time.
• I heard a story about Bonnaroo on NPR this weekend. It's strange to think that the little town anchored by a Wal-Mart and a radio station, the little town where I lived and worked, is now the source of national news. This is the 3rd year of Bonnaroo, but four years ago that Manchester farm hosted the comparatively ill-attended Itchycoo, where I saw some decent bands on a radio pass. This year, my friends were working concession stands.
• Germany is a long way from here.
• So is my stuff in Nashville. I could easily pull a costume for my show from my closet there, but not from what I have here.
• The show opens next weekend and two of our actors -- otherwise very good -- aren't encouraging in the pace department.
• My roommate has started rehearsals for his cruise ship gig and will be leaving before I get home. We'll have missed each other for the duration of our year's lease -- and his future rent contributions will come from international waters.
• What will he have done with his cat?
• I can get a lot of deep-cleaning done alone in the apartment for a few months.
• What will the last 6 months of the year bring in Nashville? Will I miss San Diego or will I be relieved to return to rain, squirrels, and quiet neighbors?
• I saw a cool instrument at the county fair -- a Chapman Stick. It's a sort of 12-string guitar without the guitar... just a very long fret board. Kenny should have been there to see it. I miss my guitar.
• My Uncle Mike is an incredible guitar player. I watched him carefully during my recent trip to Michigan. All the instruction I missed by not growing up near him was not lost on me.
• Who would I be now if I'd grown up in Detroit? Would I like me more... or less?
• Why am I rambling on the internet?

My attention needs to focus on my upcoming opening, but disconnected thoughts ride on the heels of the looming closing and my return home. For now, it seems, my options are "shuffle" or "off." So maybe I'll go take a nap.

The Shores of Gitchy Gloomy

There was a light rain this morning. Not very much and not in my part of town, but enough to pester the morning newscasters introducing the Hummer H3 and the San Diego County Fair. The skies have looked threatening for days -- not thick, dark threatening, but grey, sprinkle threatening -- yet nothing has fallen, save what little nagged the TV crew. Californians call this looming overcast "June Gloom," hot on the heels of "May Grey."

This is quite opposite Nashville weather, where May and June are rather sunny months, if too hot. Here in San Diego, it's dark and cool. So cool, in fact, that I wondered: what IS the average June temperature here? The answer: 66.8 degrees. Before the chilling breeze blows through. In Nashville, the June average is nearly 10 degrees higher at 75.6. That temperature is also notably a full 3 degrees hotter than San Diego's hottest month, August. San Diegoans would fry in a Nashville July or August, both of which average temperatures nearing 80 degrees and are swamped with a sticky humidity foreign to the coast. And I'm with them: sticky and hot in Tennessee... yuck! Bring on the June gloom! Except... well... I miss the rain.

Earlier this year, I wrote a precipitation comparison. San Diego is nearing the end of its third wettest season. Ever. It seemed, early in my visit, that it might catch the record. But the rain stopped. Some time ago. To Nashville's average 47 inches of rain annually, San Diego records less than 10, but the current tally is up to 22.49 inches for the season ending June 30th. I might wait until the season ends in a few weeks to point out that San Diego will not catch the record of 25.97, or even second best at 24.74, but why? June will not provide the numbers. The average June precipitation over the last 30 years has been 0.09 inches. In the last 5 Junes, the total precipitation was 0.00. No rain. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Dry, dry, dry. Meanwhile, Nashville will expect 3.6 inches before the month is out and 4 more in July.

In rough math, while San Diego has seen 250% of normal precip this year, it has registered only 50% of what is normal to me. An average year here would see only 5% of what is normal to me. It's hard to imagine so little rain. Harder still when the clouds hovering above hide all hints of blue skies.

So this is June Gloom. And it's only the 10th. If these clouds aren't going to produce even one good thunderstorm, then they should be gone! Shoo! Bring in July... and whatever cutesy moniker the locals have for it.

Side note: Seattle, known for its rain, registers 9 inches fewer than Nashville annually. However, Seattle's drip-torture method of near-constant light rain is quite different from Nashville's spurts of torrential downpour.

Got Caffeine?

So I've managed to negotiate computer time.. but I can't manage to make my ideas conform to it. Here I have the computer all to myself. Nice. Quiet. Morning. Great. In fact, my mother was sleeping when I took control of the keyboard but I didn't want to wake her with the sound of the coffee bean grinder and the morning has progressed without coffee so that all I can think of is an old Far Side cartoon with a dog hearing his master's commands as "blah blah blah blah Rover blah blah blah" but in my case it's "yawn yawn yawn yawn coffee yawn yawn yawn" and my mind is drifting while I can't think of anything to write but wonder instead if the dog's name was really Rover or if it was Fido and I'm intrigued by my stream of consciousness and my ability to write without punctuation as I contemplate the question of whether I'm completing a run-on sentence or managing to compete with James Joyce. Whew! A period. That was nice.

I need a Diet Coke or a laptop.

PS. In 2001 James Joyce's record for the longest sentence in the English language (in Ulysses) was shattered by Jonathan Coe in his novel The Rotter's Club. 13,955 words? One sentence? Forty pages? Are you kidding me? And I thought Faulkner and Hemingway were long-winded!

Dice Are Rolling....

...the folks are in.

(Even I've got to groan at that stretch of an Evita reference.)

The parent-folk have returned to the San Diego roost, which means for me more time out, away from the computer, and more competition for it when in. For the next two weeks my blog is unlikely to see daily updates... although I AM in the process of negotiating a shift schedule. Should talks fall through, the situation room is ready.

In the meantime, take a gander at the PowPAC page. My headshot was added this morning.

Family Plots

When rehearsing and performing The Odd Couple earlier this year, I traveled roughly 20 minutes south to a theatre in Chula Vista. Now, rehearsing and preparing to perform Move Over, Mrs. Markham, I travel roughly 20 minutes north to a theatre in Poway. For my next trick, I'll travel considerably more than 20 minutes east to an apartment in Nashville. Mine. So while I'm still in San Diego, I'm compiling quite a stack of photographs and stories to take home with me, and one of those stories is airing this weekend on A&E.

No, I haven't hit the big time, thanks for asking. But I might get my first (and last) big break if I kick off during a rehearal. Across the street from the Poway Performing Arts Center (PowPAC) lies Poway Bernardo Mortuary, home of the reality series Family Plots.

I've never seen an episode of Family Plots but my sudden proximity to it has piqued my interest, so I will be tuning in at 9/8C this Sunday. If you've never watched the show either and you're up for a challenge, try figuring out the second season episode guide. Apparently, these things air in a Star Wars-like fashion, with Episodes 6 - 17 first, then episode 4, followed by 1 - 3, and finally 5. Even my DVR is confused: while it can find 4 episodes on Monday, Sunday's premiere is a mystery to it. Somewhere, a bored little Program Director must have done an impressive foreign dance for his paycheck. OLE!

I haven't met any of the folks at the mortuary, but I did stop in their parking lot for a photo. And behind the sign, across the road, that building you see is PowPAC. I'd wave to you, but I'm on the other side of the street with a camera.

Ein Minuten, Bitte

Excuse me for interrupting... the season premiere post is on its way... but I felt the need to share yesterday's smart-alecky German translations, as they were largely ignored by their recipient.

Following words like "landeshauptstadt" and "mittagstraße" and "jahrtusendturm" which I could reasonably break down, were shorter words like zurück, und uhren & schmuck.

Zurück, I suggested, was in Switzerland. Or, depending on pronunciation, it might be a military prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Uhren & schmuck, I said, were ill-liked Jewish fellas with a comedy magic routine soon to be featured in an HBO special. I was promptly issued corrections without so much as an e-chuckle. Who has time for giggles when the whole of Germany waits to be explored?

Zurück, I was informed, means simply "back;" und uhren & schmuck together mean "jewelry store" -- specifically a watch shop and a jeweler. ("Uhren", by the way, literally translates to "clocks" so this is a context thing)

Fine. Great. Good to know. But could I get a teeny-weeny snicker out of "Zu Rück" as Alcatraz? Please. Anyone?

Either my humor is obscure and sad, or I need to wake some folks up with a pick-axe handle. (That's for you, Jake) Zurück... I kill me.

Landeshauptstadt: state capitol; Mittagstraße: midday street; Jahrtausendturm: millennium tower; Pick-axe handle: a writing challenge issued by my brother.

Lord, I'm Crazy 'bout a Mercury

With the impending return of my parents this weekend, I continued on the errand path today. After returning the steam cleaner, fresh from yesterday's stain debacle, I turned to another cleaning project: the company car.

It took me some time in San Diego to find a quarter carwash, but I did. Or, rather, I found a coin-operated carwash. While it would certainly accept 25-cent pieces, it would be a reach to call this thing a quarter car wash as it required 9 of the coins ($2.25) to start up, offering only 4 minutes of wash time. Once again, less and less costs more and more. Because someone was waiting ahead of me for a bay to empty, I began rather than ended with vacuuming the interior.

I emptied my pockets and coin purse of parking meter money to pay for this 5-coin ($1.25) extravagance and almost immediately regretted it. Four months of driving in Nashville would have left my van littered with snack crumbs and cigarette ash, but my San Diego life had left the company car quite pristine. That's the second time this week that a rented machine has pointed out my lifestyle changes. In fact, I attribute the few crumbs the suction tube found to the air-freshener-leavin', makeup-forgettin' driver who borrowed the car in April.

It was quite a different story once I moved to washing the exterior, however. The Mercury was quite a mess. For one, California smog had settled on it. Given time, I'm sure one might forget that the car is registered as "white." A white car in San Diego... madness, I tell you. For another, my apartment-assigned parking spot is conveniently placed beneath three sap-dripping trees. An internet search tells me that the drip might instead be insect honeydew, but I don't really care. Whatever it is, this stuff is sticky, tough, and all over the car. The soft foam brush at the multi-quarter carwash is no match for it. Long after the rinse water stopped flowing, I was scraping yellow-beige spots from the surface with a thumbnail. Once satisfied with the results, I crossed the street to pick up a sandwich at Subway: my lunch and dinner for the day. Inside the restaurant, Alan Jackson crooned "Well if I had money, I tell you what I’d do; I’d go downtown and buy a Mercury or two.” I must have done a good job.

Parked again under its familiar trees, the freshly-cleaned car is now beckoning rain. I hope today's dark clouds answer the call, because it hasn't rained out here in some time. That's something I'm starting to miss.

Tonight, I'll be rehearsing the second act of Move Over, Mrs. Markham (yes, we've finally found a quorum there). Tomorrow, I'll develop a roll of film and tell you about a show's upcoming season premiere that is near and dear to my life right now, even though I've never seen an episode.

Dot Calm

As the custodian of my parents’ San Diego home away from home, there are a few housekeeping chores on my agenda before their return to it this weekend. Today I completed a number of them before settling on the largest one: cleaning the carpets. Oh, I love cleaning carpets! I’m good at it; anal and thorough and thrilled with the results, I’m your man – er, woman – for carpet cleaning.

At first, I didn’t know where to rent a cleaner in San Diego. Points should be awarded to the marketing department at Rug Doctor, then, for instilling in me brand recall and for having a rental locator on their website. I whisked away to the local Von’s Grocery store, rented the machine, and set to work.

Early in the process, I was concerned that the machine wasn’t working. The upper tank was collecting the cleanest dirty water I’d ever seen. It was not black, not brown, not even a healthy grey, but something just murkier than tap water. In my fifteen years of carpet cleaning, I’d had no experience with this phenomenon. And then it hit me. No pets. I hate to encourage the policy, but I have to admit, it makes an incredible difference.

It took no more than an hour to have the whole place done, but I like to do the job twice to be sure. And, besides, I reveled in the idea that I might be disturbing the late-night rollicking neighbors downstairs. Having finished off the bottle of cleaning fluid, and ready to pack up and pat myself on the back, I made the last minute decision to move the dining table and take a sweep underneath. The Rug Doctor was just a wee too tall to fit beneath it. And so I did. And, boy, was that a mistake!

With one movement of the table over the moist carpet surrounding it, the black table legs began to bleed an inky purple. Stain! Streaks of stain marked the progress of the Crate & Barrel table over my freshly cleaned carpets, which were suddenly dirtier than when I’d begun. And these were no ordinary household spills – they call that stuff “stain” for a reason.

I moved the table back into position, set the legs on paper towels, and spent the next few hours rifling through cleaning products. Could “Shout” take it out? Would hairspray remove the ink? What about Spray-n-Wash? Lysol? I tried every single one. In time, the water tank filled with a satisfying black and the stains were gone.

There’s a Crate & Barrel coffee table sitting on the balcony. And it’ll stay there until the floors are dry.