The Average Blogger

Odds and Ends

Because it is winter and we are, for the most part, in hibernation mode and just watching endless hours of television (Downton Abbey, Justified, Arrested Development), I don't have a lot to report.  Work continues to be work.  School seems to be proceeding apace -- at least, I haven't gotten any reports to the contrary from the Powers That Be and the kid keeps bringing home papers with A's on them, so I'll assume all is well.

By the end of last week, I suspect I had several people ready to call the SPCA on me.  First, I complained on Facebook that Miss Amy Pond barks like mad when we crate her up for the night.  Now, yes, we could just not crate her, but there are issues with that.  We have to shut off the downstairs to enclose our cats, one of which has a terrible penchant for peeing on our upstairs rugs.  If we close Amy down there with them, no only will she go bonkers chasing them around all night, but she's also a chewer and there's no telling what our house would look like in the morning.    If we let her sack out with us upstairs, that means I have to get her up and outside and fed at 4 a.m. -- and she is not a quiet child.  She is high-energy, and upon being let off the leash is about as likely to follow me downstairs as she is likely to jump on the bed and attack my sleeping husband with claws and kisses. So, no.  I am full-on ready to go Shock Collar on her, but thought there might be cheaper/less nasty avenues.  Well, I was half-right.  Apparently there are collars that are motion sensitive and spritz the dog with something stinky (citronella, lemon, essences vary,) when they start yapping.  These cost about as much as a shock collar, and I wondered about their efficacy.  Nobody who responded to my Facebook post had tried one, but they all had opinions about what I should do instead.... which, well, thanks, but that's not really what I was asking about, now was it?  I am perturbed by this.  If I ask you, "What is your name?" I don't want to hear that you were born in Pago Pago. 

After that bit of amusement, I then went home and took her out for some exercise.  Because she is a strong little thing, but also rather obstinate and much more interested in barking at the deer than in chasing the tennis ball, it occurred to me that one way to wear her out would be to weigh her down before walking her.  So I fashioned a harness and hooked her up to the Young Prince's wagon, then told him to park himself in it and let her pull.

It was rather amusing.  We walked three blocks and she was just fine, trotting along, keeping up with me, la la la.  Then we went to turn the corner, and I could actually see the realization dawning in her little black face that OH MY GOD THERE IS SOMETHING ATTACHED TO THE BACK OF ME PANIC PANIC DANGER.  I made her sit. She sat, staring at it warily.  I made her walk. She started shimmying sideways to keep an eye on it.  I made her walk faster, and she broke into a run, trying to get away from it.  Well, of course, you can't get away from something that is hitched to you, so the noise scared her more.  The Young Prince tumbled out, and for once laughed it off instead of adding to the problem, which earned him several brownie points from me.  I made her sit again.  She did.  We walked home without further incident.   Once we got to our yard, however, I had Thomas get out,  and the change in noise sent her all bucking bronco terrified. 

So we have dialed that back a bit.  I am now dragging the (empty) wagon myself, to get her used to the noise.  After a few minutes of that, I hook it to her on a longer rope and make her walk.  I believe that eventually she will be well-suited to haul firewood and other assorted stuff.  And hopefully be too tired at night to kick up her Infernal Abandonment Racket. 

On the other insubordination front,  the YP hit a milestone over the weekend when we busted him looking at nudie pics on his DSi player.  A bit of prodding led to the expected (and highly embarrased on his part) answers of "I was curious/no, I don't do this on school computers/no, nobody in real life has asked me to get naked, nor have I asked anyone else."  So there is that. I think he was most surprised that we weren't angry.  Little does he know that his father had to do the first round of chatfest not only because, well, it's a Boy Thing, but also because I was hiding in our bedroom with a pillow over my head trying very hard to keep my laughing muffled.

Only other news of note is that Saturday was a Winterfest school event that I got suckered into volunteering for from 10-4.  Imagine, if you will, five hours of Kidz Bop music and one hour of cleaning up.  (Can anyone explain the point of Kidz Bop to me? Why not just have compilations of the real songs? I mean, these aren't kid songs, and they aren't particularly kid-ified.  Seriously, how do you make Put a Ring on It or California Gurlz relevant to a 9-year-old? You don't! So why make a 9-year-old record it, rather than just letting all the other 9-year-olds lip sync along in their own hairbrushes? Do I sound old lady curmudgeon here? Or sane?)  Still, the kids seemed to have fun, and the Young Prince showed valor during the raffle drawing by consoling a kid smaller than him who started crying about not winning a Transformers prize. 

He's growing up, that one.  Shudder.

 

Hibernation

Even though the temperatures have been veering between Cold and Not Cold, I am now officially in Indoor Mode, with no yardwork, a reluctance to go out and run errands, and an overwhelming urge to lie buried in blankets on my couch and not move.  I will read, I will watch TV, I will knit.  I generally don't fiddle around online because my laptop is usually in my purse and it would just require far too much effort for me to get up and retrieve it -- although it does help keep me warm, I grant you that. 

(Add to this, NeighborGirl and I went to see Devil Inside on Friday night and it was such a dreadful production -- I mean, bad writing, bad shooting, bad production value, just BAD -- that I'm seriously reconsidering the theater as a bad risk and possibly not paying gobs of money to see anything there ever again. I reckon this resolution will last until the next time the Young Prince begs me to take him to some new release.)

But I love this aspect of winter, y'all.  I get caught up on so much of the slothful "free time" things I like to do. This weekend I finished the Dark Materials trilogy this weekend, which was an interesting read, both in a writerly educational way and from the "Wow, dude's got an ax to grind" perspective. 

NYAB was kindly indulgent and joined me in watching a lot of British stuff on Netflix.  Several hours of Father Brown mysteries with Kenneth More, based on stories by the inestimable GK Chesterton.  You want a study in incongruity, blast through some Chesterton and Pullman in rapid succession.  (You'll also probably feel like a blundering neanderthal when it comes to manipulating the English language, but que sera sera -- see what I did there?)

The kid spent much of his time apart, watching his own DVDs and being astonishingly self-sufficient -- even more astonishingly,  he was downright helpful and good-natured about wrapping up chores and pitching in when we did pull him away from Tron or Peter Pan or whatever he was doing. I like that boy, you know?

Life is good, y'all.

Year-End Wrap-Up

So, that whole holiday thing happened. It was nice. Low-key.  Restful.  Got a lot of reading done, and some writing, and lots of eating and sleeping. Saw the White House and Capitol Christmas trees/displays. Went to a movie. Went to a museum. The high point was finding a Steak and Shake within 50 miles of home.  So. Awesome.

So here's where things stand for 2011:

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Watched two of my favorite people marry each other. Went to a ballgame and sat in seats that showed up on TV. Fell in love with Chincoteague.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Ha! My reverse pyschology plan worked. I will continue that this year. I resolve to gain 40 lbs.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Hm.  People I know became parents, but I don't know that I'd say I'm close to them.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, huzzah. Made it through another one.

5. What countries did you visit?
We went practically nowhere this year. And it was everything I thought it would be.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Same request as last year: more free time.  I would use it to sleep, write and run the dog and the kid into the ground.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Aug. 25, when NYAB and I ditched the kid and played like grownups.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Losing weight and keeping my temper, to the extent I managed to do both.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I continue to feel like I'm shortchanging my kid. I continue to wonder what would make me feel like I wasn't.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Only the usual.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Well, it would have to be either the new septic system, the new electrical breakers or the dryer. The dryer made me least angry, so I'll go with that one.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Certain folks of my professional acquaintance. And everyone I count as a true friend.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Cough. Certain folks of my professional acquaintance. And those who done wrong the folks I count as true friends.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Repairs. Grumble.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Time off. Time with NYAB.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Forget You, by Cee-Lo.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    i. happier or sadder? Happier.
    ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner! Huzzah!
    iii. richer or poorer? Poorer.  See aforementioned repairs.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing. Parenting.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Work. Yell.

20. How (did) you spend Christmas?
At home, reading and watching movies.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
In and out and in again -- with my son's behavior, I should have hastened to point out.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Walking Dead.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I'm too tired to hate anyone. But that also means I'm too tired to be nice to people who piss me off.

24. What was the best book you read?
Mine, goddamnit.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Uh.  Was Hot Chelle Rae this year?

26. What did you want and get?
To be 10 lbs lighter.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?
Super 8 was a nice surprise, but Fright Night wins.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 40. I got a piano that I'm still not playing, and I had the best ice cream lunch ever courtesy of Miss Angela, and everyone was super nice to me, and the next day we went to Opening Day, where we all froze to bits.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More money.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Same as 2010.

31. What kept you sane?
I'm not sure I stayed sane. To the extent I did, it was due almost entirely to good listeners.

32. What political issue stirred you the most?
I'm no longer stirred by politics. No point in it.

33. Who did you miss?
My carefree booze-swilling youth.

34. Who was the best new person you met?
Er. I am going to say Tammy in IT, who actually answers email and gets things done.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Being around unhappy people makes me fucking miserable. 

36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Several years ago I said goodbye to my own sanity. But I don't, no, I don't, no, I don't mind at all.

That Time I Dropped the Ball

So, when I was decorating for Christmas, I was doing up the guest room and I felt lazy.

"We aren't having any company, right?" I asked NYAB. "I can just put on the Christmas bedspread but leave the usual everyday sheets?"

"Yep," he said.

Last week, we were sick and short-staffed at work. Congress stayed in all weekend and I worked both of those days, with a lovely break Saturday night to attend a friend's party (where I got to fulfill a bucket list goal of giving Helen Thomas a withering glare, though I imagine she's so old and blind she thought I was a piece of furniture,) followed up by a grownup dessert date with NYAB. 

And work continued into this week.  I had my vision trained on Thursday and Friday, when I would finally only have to work from 5-8 a.m., and then Do My Own Stuff. 

And then I got a message from my dear college friend on Tuesday morning: "Hi! Looking forward to seeing you! I'll be on this afternoon's train!"

Uh. Whoops.

So my sweet pal Cynthia is in town til tomorrow, and she very nicely entertained herself in DC yesterday while I worked, and even more nicely overlooked the fact that when she arrived, her bed was buried under the contents of my linen closet. In fact, she helped me uncover said bed. Bless.

Today we are waiting for the dryer delivery man, the contractor to fix our shower, and the kid to wrap up his last half-day.  I don't know what we're going to do when all that's taken care of, but it better be fun, dammit.

That's life in our fast lane.  Perhaps tomorrow I'll work on my writing.

Stop and Go

So, I figured things would slow down a little bit this week, with no parties/plays/etc. to prepare for.

So far, it's been at a dead stop.

Saturday's party was lovely.  The place looked nice, the food was served, the guests were wonderful.

Sunday was productive. I got the garage cleaned and put together my new not-rusted-out wheelbarrow that my parents gave me for Christmas. It's so nice, y'all.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling lousy. But I went to work anyway. Where I felt REALLY lousy.  Got an email that the kid was also lousy.  And another copy editor. 

Good lord, I thought, I've poisoned us all.

Well, no. But some kind of nasty stomach bug did make its way through a few of us.

So yesterday the Young Prince and I were on the SAD diet (Sick As Dogs) and we both slept a lot.

The stress was more than Not Your Average Blogger could take, apparently, as he does not have our affliction, I don't think, but he also hasn't gotten out of bed yet today.

Perhaps our regularly scheduled lives will resume tomorrow. Right now, I think I need a nap.

And then I need to wrap gifts/go shopping/pick up the drycleaning/help the kid with his projects/write my books/lalala.

Yes. Definitely a nap.

Cookies, Carols, Curtness

I'm in 50th place on my "writing" contest.  Eh, whatevs.

We had a fantastic weekend, y'all.  Saturday started with a peppermint milkshake and Christmas tree decorating and wrapped up with the traditional lobster and chowder dinner. Omigod, the dairy. Yum. 

Sunday was the Wolf Trap sing-along, and it was much more fun at a balmy 40-50 degrees. Much easier to eat dinner afterward when you can feel your fingers. The Young Prince sang along more than he did last year, and he didn't get really nuts about wanting to jump around and dance til halfway through, so I count that a success as well. I hope that if we keep going, it will wind up being one of the annual events the kid remembers fondly as a perennial part of the holiday season. I would like that. It's like caroling without the exercise or the panhandling. What's not to like? 

This week has been given over to baking for our party on Saturday and to working with the kid on assorted gift projects he is tussling with. Excellent, reasonably creative-not-cribbed ideas.  We'll have to see how he does on execution.  I'm trying to be Nice Supportive Helpful Mom, and not No, Stop, You're Making It Hard On Yourself Mom. 

I haven't really learned this lesson very well, though you'd think I would have by now.  It's just so frustrating to watch the kid do math with his fingers -- and in the wrong, longer, time-wasty-er direction; if he has to add 8 and 4, he'll start at four and count up 8 EVERY SINGLE TIME. But he gets the right answer, and I guess I should just lay off and figure that someday someone will shame him into memorizing them or flunk him on a timed test and he'll just do it when it matters.

It does make me wonder, though.  He is (well, he was, I assume he still is,) certifiably diagnosed with borderline ADD.  I'm not certifiably diagnosed but it's pretty clear I'm desperately afflicted with full-bore IMD (Impatient Mom Disorder, dontchaknow.) And I wonder if maybe they're not a bit related? I've spent countless hours jabbing at him to hurry up, come on, get it done, JEEEEZZZZZUSSSSS!!!  He's spent countless hours resisting, trying, arguing.  Maybe I should see what he does if I say, "Know what? I want you to work on this, but I want you to stare at the page for a full minute before you write a sentence. And then I want you to take 45 seconds to write each letter. No. You're going too fast."  Hmmm.

(The argument also could be made that impatience stems from my having ADD, I guess -- I'm ready to be done with this shoe-tying nonsense. Let's go! Something shiny! Time's a-wastin'!)

So for those of you who will be receiving a gift from the Young Artist, I can't promise a delivery date. I can only hope it will be worth the wait.

Anyway, this is all the long way around to saying it's business as usual at Casa Blogger, and we're all having a lovely time waiting for the year to end.  Hope y'all can say the same!  And if you're in the area, come to our cookiefest.  We take all comers after the hour of noon!

Here Goes Nothing...

So, I've been dabbling in writing, as most of you probably already know, since I do tend to go on about it.

Most important? Please go here and vote for my story to win. Not only will it make me happy and published, it will also give an infusion of books to the grade school in the weensy Illinois town my family hails from (whence my family hails? Sounds snobby.)

Second most important: I'm going on about writing even more, but I won't do it here as much.  If you want to see the writerly side of my sparkling and multi-faceted character, head on over.  I'm also back on Twitter.

But family news and whatnot will continue to show up here, however sporadically.

Thanksgiving was a lovely affair, with the delightful Porter/Graham-Silverman/Player to Be Named Later as our company. They make excellent desserts, y'all. I had pie for dinner last night, that's how good it was.

The rest of the weekend was gorgeous weather, yardwork, playing with the kid and the dog, and several visits from NeighborGirl, all of which we thoroughly enjoyed. Say what you will about leaf blowers and emissions -- one gallon of gas and about 8 hours accomplished what probably wouldn't have gotten done in 24 hours with two people raking and swearing and acquiring blisters upon blisters.

We also headed out to the theater and saw Hugo.  It was a nicely done movie; very pretty and artful and true what I read of the book. (The Young Prince read it on his own but showed me huge chunks and asked about a thousand questions.) The sad part of where I am in my life right now is that most of the time I was watching it, the refrain in the back of my head was, "Damn. Can you imagine hearing that Martin Freaking Scorsese wants to make the movie of your book? Sigh. Screw you, Brian Selznick, you amazingly talented and rightfully recognized bastard."

Now the family is into a headlong downhill slide toward Christmas. This weekend is a sing-along at Wolf Trap and baking like mad; next weekend is our cookie party, the weekend after that is another friend's party, and the weekend after that is the big day.  (Not to mention assorted school and extracurricular events for the YP.)

I keep saying it because I keep being surprised by it: I am far too busy for a person with no social life!

The Drama of Drama

So, the Young Prince's drama production is finally over.  He is sad. Myself? Not so much.

I'm not sure why my experience was so negative.  The production was great, the kids were top-notch, the YP had a fantastic time and seemed to get along with the group fairly well. I think, anyway.

The monetary investment was a bit steep for my blood, but I was OK with that by the end.

It was the investment of time and aggravation that did me in, I think. In this instance, I'm not at all convinced the end justified many of the means. Maybe it's because I've been a manager too long and I'm used to doing things my own way -- but I don't think so, because there were a lot of other rookies involved in this thing looking around going, "Really? That's how they roll here? Because that's messed up." I think it's more likely I've been a manager too long and I look at bad managers and think, "UGH STOP IT I DON'T EVEN LIKE PUTTING UP WITH NONSENSE LIKE THIS WHEN I'M GETTING PAID TO DO SO."

Like having a party where kids were expected to know to dump liquid into a bucket before throwing out their plastic cups into trash bags.  Um, yeah. There were 60 kids, four monitors. That's a recipe for success. And then one of the monitors got dressed down for abandoning her post -- when some kid had dropped a full cup of something somewhere else and she had gone to help clean it up. (This was not me, for the record. I managed to escape being a member of trash patrol.)

Or the fact that every parent is expected to sell ads (or cough up an opt-out fee,) but there's no list of who's selling where, so the "ad committee" has no idea whether they're making cold calls to business owners who are like, "Oh, Joe Blow works here; he already bought an ad for his kid."  Well, that's dandy.

Another problem seemed to be that assigned roles were not well assigned. It seemed to me that half the women on these committees did most of the work. (OK, yes, there were some men. But really, I'd say it was a 90-10 split. I'm not stereotyping, I don't think.) The responsibility quotient was all over the place. There were some women who were extremely organized, listened to their people and delegated well. (These committees were the best run and most effective, surprise, surprise. They also seemed to be the ones run by women who either had lots of experience with the group or had day jobs.) There were some women who were just "Argh, nevermind, I'll do it myself." (I sympathize with these women. I have a bad streak of it myself, but I try to tamp it down and share my toys.) There were some women who were wandering around going, "What should I doooo?" (Yeah, I hate them too.) And there were some women who were total martinets. "You go here, you do that -- I don't care if you said you had other commitments at that precise moment. Do it!"  (That went over extremely well, as you might imagine.)

Before he retired, my dad ran library systems.  It seemed like every year when he was making the pitch for his budget, the purse-string holders would ask him, "Well, why can't you just use volunteers to (put books away/check books out/unlock the doors/turn on the heater)?"  And his answer was, 'Well, to some extent, we do.  But we are a county service, required to provide materials to taxpayers, and volunteers are notoriously unreliable, for a variety of reasons." 

Yup.

But, hey, I learned a lot. I learned which committees to sign up for next time and which names to avoid. I learned a lot of ways to NOT do things if I'm ever in a position to commandeer a group -- which I suspect might be sooner than I would like, if the kid continues in this fashion.  I also suspect the purchase of a glue gun may be in my not-so-distant future. 

In the meantime, we are taking a break.  The midseason performance is Annie.  I didn't even let the YP audition. I don't know that he would have been taken, but I didn't want to risk it.  I needed the break.

Instead, we are honing his skills on our own.  We are doing readings at home. On Monday, he is going to audit a hip-hop class (Yes. I KNOW.) to see if he wants to improve his dance skills.  (And yes, I'm hoping I can sell him on Swing and Ballroom at some point, but for now I think he should probably be in a dance class with a bunch of other high-energy young boys who can't sit still.) And we are going back to the time-honored tradition of getting homework done, reading when we aren't working, and focusing on how to be quiet and still. Wish me luck on that last one. I will need it. 

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for friends, family, health and material comfort.

I'm also glad that's over.

Projects, projects.

I'm working on other things in other places at the moment.  Working to polish my public-facing image.  More on that in a few weeks, probably.

As for my more private (privater?) image -- I don't have one. But y'all, the Young Prince is cracking me up right and left. 

This weekend was his first performance (First two, really -- afternoon and evening shows.) He was great, and he had so much fun.  It really does make up for all the crap I had to do as an Involved Parent.  He's already waxing wistful that it'll be over after this weekend. So, yeah, on to the next audition.

In other YP news, he brought home two pieces of paper on Tuesday:
1: He made the "captain's list" for getting all A's and B's.
2: He got written up for "lying on the floor and being disruptive" during music class.

So, yeah, I'd say he's right on track.  It's getting harder for me to get worked up about this stuff. I mean, he's mouthy and opinionated and balks at doing stuff he doesn't want to do.   Yes, it's a problem and it will make life harder for him. It already does make life harder for him when he pulls it with me, though I'm not sure my methods are necessarily communicating the lesson I intend.

But the thing is, I'm getting out of the habit of thinking that it is MY problem.  I used to go into these meetings with the teachers thinking that I should be able to do something, I should be able to fix it, I should be able to make my kid behave even when I'm in a meeting at my office 47 miles away.

Know what? I can't. Go figure.  I can hassle him about it before and after the fact, but I can't Be There and Deal With It -- and I rather suspect that if I were to do so, the teacher would heartily disapprove of my methods.

So, yeah.  He'll figure it out when there are consequences.   Meanwhile -- A's and B's!  Yay!

Another Mouth to Feed

For starters, my parents visited. While they crammed a lot of stuff into a fairly short time, this probably sums up the high points:

So, yeah. That happened.  Tree removal was pretty exciting, and we've got all the stuff sorted and moved now -- logs to a new logpile in back, stump-ground mulch augmenting a path to hopefully circumvent my annual Getting the Riding Mower Stuck in the Snowmelt Swamp Event.

The big addition to our family is a half-lab, half-shar pei, and arrived via my niece, who had named the black bundle Yoshi -- which the Young Prince later explained is the name of a videogame character.  (Hi, I'm old. I was still trying to figure out why a half-Chinese dog had a Japanese name.) The YP took it upon himself to rename her, and she is now Miss Amy Pond.  Because when he walks her, he says this. 

It's been an interesting adjustment, since the YP alternates between utter frustration that she is untrained and jumps all over him and badgers him and nips his fingers, and complete affection and friendliness.  I alternate between utter frustration with his losing patience and his flailing around trying to get away from her when she chases him, and complete joy at watching him when they work. 

And she's a cute little thing, isn't she?

With her one white paw.

In other happy news, our friends who came out for Thanksgiving last year were not frightened off by the experience and will be rejoining us.  Hopefully those chuckleheads in Congress's deficit committee will not have ruined my week by going to the 11th hour -- hahaha! Who am I kidding! Of course they will! The good news is that such nonsense is at least predictable nonsense, so I can work around it.

Otherwise, work remains work.  Drama, agita, understaffing and overanxious. La la la.

The YP has been off school for the past two days (They say "conferences," I say "Union sweetie deal to get teachers to the voting booth,") so we have made great strides in getting the house back into semi-presentable shape after the mayhem wrought by a Halloween party, a puppy and a boy, and in getting the lawn to look like a lawn despite autumn.  I've also resumed my efforts to make home-schooling augment the kid's real schooling -- right now he's writing a screenplay called The Space Circus.  So far he's written the chatter that comes before the credits. Hey, it's a start.

So all that's really left now between today and Thanskgiving is the kid's Monster Epic Time Sink Dramatic Production Thing That Eats Time. We missed last night's rehearsal because my Camaro's clutch fell out in the drive-thru at Taco Bell -- and boy, if you ever want to see a cashier look highly alarmed, tell her your car's stuck in front of her window.  Hahaha.  Fortunately, it was on a grade and I could get the car rolling enough to steer it into a parking spot.  Still waiting for the phone call that gives me the checkbook damage.

But yes, the play. Rehearsals every night this week (lawd,) running til 10:30 and 11 p.m.   Rawr.  Then two performances on Saturday that basically have us locked in a school from noon til 10 p.m.  Rawr, again.  They get Sunday off, thank goodness, then two more performances the next weekend. Factor in, of course, that the parents are expected to ride herd on kids, props, snacks, etc., etc., etc.  and I think we will ALL need a nap at the end of this hootenanny.

(And I can't promise any posts because they're insanely hardcore about this stuff -- no parents with cameras, no photos during the performance, no saving seats in the auditorium ACH TUNG!!)

I'm more and more glad every day that I didn't let him try out for the second of their three season performances.  (Of course, it was Annie, which either means he wouldn't get a part at all or he'd wind up with the lead role in a wig. Chortle.) 

Here's what I have to say about that:

See y'all in another couple weeks, I'm guessing.