The Flibbertigibbet

Leta's Rule of Purses

2011-11-28T10:08:00.001-05:00

"If one's purse is capable of carrying the weight of a small child, one will."

Time for something smaller.

Don't Throw the Past Away

2011-09-14T10:12:00.001-04:00

I have an audition for another Irish play, Brian Friel's* Dancing at Lughnasa. If I am cast, I will need an Irish accent for the weeks of rehearsals as well as the weekends of performance. The chances of it not leaking into my every day conversation I leave as an exercise for the reader.

*If I say I have an audition for an Irish play, one can assume that I mean one by Brian Friel. I am one of the few theater geeks I know who finds Martin McDonagh hard to take. I'd much rather watch the crew do the clean up and reset all the blood squibs than actually watch The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

Quoted

2011-09-13T17:55:00.002-04:00

New Hampshire Public Radio covered NPR listeners response to their 9/11 coverage.

Now I'm wondering if I should write and tell them that when I hear "you'll reap the rewards" in their fundraising ad, my brain automatically fills in "of your pluck, my boy, in the Bailey and Middlesex sessions."

I can't take it anymore

2011-09-09T17:48:00.001-04:00

Sometimes public radio does what I call over covering a story and rather than just bitch to David about it, I wrote to the Ombudsman* and outlined my concerns. I didn't use any of the bad words that I've been using to the radio recently, so I consider that a win. (If this siphons off some of my annoyance and David doesn't have to listen to me be irritated, he may consider it a win as well.)

I suspect that this will accomplish nothing but I feel better for having written it. During the last president election caller after caller to the Diane Rehm show begged the panel on the Friday News Round Up to scale back the discussion of the "horse race"**. The panelists, every time, said that they had to talk it to death because that's what people are interested in.

The New York Times ran a piece back in 2007 that neat sums up my dismay with horse race coverage: "The campaign coverage has been sharply at odds with what the public says it wants, the study found, with voters eager to know more about the candidates’ positions on issues and their personal backgrounds, more about lesser-known candidates and more about the debates.

But the media is even more obsessed this time around with questions of tactics and strategy, despite what the study described as a “generational struggle” in both parties. Horse-race stories accounted for 63 percent of the stories this year compared with what the study said was about 55 percent in 2000 and 2004."

If you are the sort of malcontent that I am -- or if you are dismayed that there is not enough coverage of 9/11 this week or won't be enough of election -- the Ombudsman (see job description, below) can be reached via the Contact Us button on NPR.org.

Dear Ombudsman,
An effective way to make me no longer care about a subject - or to get angry every time it's raised - is for public radio to over cover it. When public radio becomes One Thing Considered -- as it has with the 9/11 anniversary --and has story after story on the subject, each one with a more tenuous connection, it just burns out any ability to hear any more about it.

The events of 9/11 were a defining tragedy for this generation and it makes me truly sad that I can't listen to Morning Edition or ATC right now without thinking "Oh good grief, another one?" and changing the station. I won't be listening to public radio this weekend because I can't stand to have truly important things turned into noise.

I understand that anniversaries make a convenient hook for stories that might otherwise lack one. But the hook is overfull.

The same thing will happen during over coverage of the 2012 election. By the time the 2008 election was over I believe that public radio had spoken to every person living in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. I grew to hate all of them, let alone the people running for office who I had grown to detest long before through overexposure. I remember at one point thinking "Another election story? Another? Is nothing happening anywhere else in the world? Sweden maybe?"

Please consider scaling back. I would appreciate it and I don't think I'm the only one.

*Ombudsman is a Latin term that means "the person corporate has assigned to actually have to listen to the random whining and complaining of the malcontents." What a great job to have ...

** The horse race is political handicapping and on the FNRU it's usually about the fundraising.

Another reason I like my job

2011-08-29T17:33:00.001-04:00

I am in charge in planning the annual meeting of our managers and Board of Directors, a very fine group of people with whom I greatly enjoy spending time.*

Today I sent out the e-mail confirming the date and location of the meeting, to wit:

As mentioned previously, the managers meeting will be held [date]. We had originally hoped to have the meetings here in the DC area but a city-wide meeting** is taking place that week, so we will meet at the [location]. [Further details, blah, blah, blah]

Within a few minutes I got a reply from one of our Operations Managers: Wow – a city wide meeting. Do all residents have to attend? That must be one heck of a gathering!

And I answered back: Yes! That’s exactly it. Plays hell with restaurant reservations with 600,000 all trying to get a table.

This is why when people ask me what I do I say that I work with smart people who can take a joke.

* I would probably enjoy it more if my brain weren't running a constant hum through my head of "What have I forgotten to do? What have I done wrong?"

** A city-wide meeting has lots of stuff going on in the Washington Convention Center and fills every hotel.

I like to look

2011-08-26T09:58:00.000-04:00

Tess Vigeland* hosts my favorite radio show about personal finance** and over the past couple of years if there is one thing that she has said more than once it's that during volatile times like these we should just throw the investment statements in a drawer, unopened. "Don't look!"

(Hmmm. Maybe there should be more exclamation marks in that because Tess always sounds very emphatic when giving this particular piece of advice.)

I respect Tess immensely and enjoy her reporting but I have to say: I like to look.

In fact, I look every week. On Monday morning, as a matter of fact. I've kept a series of Excel spreadsheets (one per year) for the past ten years. The data? The balance of my 401(k). The purpose? I do better with feedback. When watching my weight, I get on the scale. When I was digging my way out of debt, I paid lots of attention to my bank balance and those debts with my lists and graphs and calculations***. If I could figure out how to as quickly and easily quantify how many lines of dialogue I know versus how many I need to know, I'd do that, too. And probably learn the darn lines faster.****

I know that sometimes the news will be good and sometimes it will be ... less good ... but locking in losses when the numbers are down remains a poor idea. So I look. And I chart. And I leave my 401(k) alone. Every few years I rebalance but not during a volatile period. And I look. And I chart. And I make jokes about which brand of cat food Pekoe and I will be sharing during my golden years.

Oddly enough, I started doing this charting three months before 9/11 so if you look to the left you can see the 10 percent drop in my balance after that awful day. It was a scary drop at the time but the balance recovered in a few weeks and compared to 2008 it can't even be seen. From May of '08 to March of '09 I lost 40 percent of the then current balance. Right now I'm down 8 percent from just before the whole Debt Deal mess. But the numbers on the right are still higher than the numbers on the left. Up and down, up and down, but generally up. Looking has taught me to take the long view. I'm saving for the future, not for this morning's balance.

As I like to say, if I look out of the window during the winter and see that it is snowing, I don't throw away my summer clothes. So I look. And I graph.

I like to look.

*It's pronounced Vigg-land even though it looks like Vie-gland. Sort of like it's pronounced Lee-tah even though it looks like Lett-uh. Those who can pronounce us can't spell us and vice versa ...

** Okay, there's not a large sample, I realize. Not the point. The show is awesome, as is Tess.

*** And lines and circles and a few paragraphs on the back.

**** When a friend was in labor and said that she wanted to go to the midwife's office to find out how dilated she was because she "needed to know the numbers" it made perfect sense to me. Of course, if it hadn't made perfect sense to us, then her husband, mother, and I might have recognized this for the class transition phase thinking it actually was. S'okay. We got to the hospital with several minutes to spare. What?

Rhyme of Rhymes

2011-08-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

Savoynet has been discussing poetic rhymes lately, especially how the word "wind" is to be pronounced in a given phrase and one of our members posted this poem.

Andrew Lang (Scots poet 1844–1912), in Longman's Magazine:

RHYME OF RHYMES.

Wild on the mountain peak the wind
Repeats its old refrain,
Like ghosts of mortals who have sinned,
And fain would sin again.

For "wind" I do not rhyme to "mind,"
Like many mortal men.
Again" (when one reflects) 'twere kind
To rhyme as if "agen."

I never met a single soul
Who spoke of "wind" as "wined," And yet we use it, on the whole.
To rhyme to " find" and "blind."

We say, "Now don't do that agen,"
When people give us pain;
In poetry, nine times in ten,
In rhymes to "Spain" or "Dane."

Oh, which is wrong or which is right?
Oh, which is right or wrong!
The sounds in prose familiar, quite,
Or those we meet in song?

To hold that "love" can rhyme to "prove"
Requires some force of will,
Yet in the ancient lyric groove
We meet them rhyming still.

This was our learned fathers' wont
In prehistoric times.
We follow it, or if we don't,
We oft run short of rhymes.

If we'd met when we were teenagers. And Irish.

2011-08-21T20:24:00.000-04:00

Mag: Oh, you're so clever! Well, I'll tell you something: there are occasions in my life when I know how G-d feels.

Joe: Good for you.

Mag: And one of those occasions is now. (Puffing her cigarette regally.) At this moment G-d feels ... expansive ... and beneficent ... and philanthropy.

Joe: Philanthropic.

Mag: (after momentary setback). And we will not be put into bad humor by grubby little pedants.

Joe: Look, Mag: we came up here to study. What are you going to do first?

Mag: French. And then maths. And then Spanish. And then English language and literature. And after lunch geography and the history of the world. I have planned a program for myself. The important thing about revising for an examination is to have a method. What are you starting with?

Joe: Maths.

Mag: Then what?

Joe: That's all.

Mag: Only maths?

Joe: Huh-huh.

(She considers this absurd idea for a second. Then, because Joe is wiser in these than she, she readily agrees with him.)

Mag: Then that's what I"ll do, too. (Really worries.) My G-d, if the volume of a cone doesn't come up, I'm scootrified! Not that I care -- I can afford to go down in one subject. (Pause.) Joe ...

Joe: What?

Mag: What's the real difference between language and literature?

Joe: You're not serious, Maggie!

Mag: Don't -- don't -- don't tell me ... I remember now ... One is taking and the other is ... books!

Joe: Talking? ...

Mag: That's it.

Joe: That's no definition! Language is ----

Mag: Don't say another word. I have it in my head. But if you start lecturing, I'll lose it again. I have my own way of remembering things.

Thank you, Fin Dwyer!

2011-08-19T18:25:00.000-04:00

I was recently asked to sub for another actress in a one-act at Silver Spring Stage. A week's notice, okay, but really that just makes it exciting, right? And besides, I'm playing a narrator, so I can consult my script while I sit in a chair. Easy peasy!! I can read! I can sit! I can read and sit at the same time!

However.

The play in question is the first act of Brian Friel's Lovers. Brian Friel is Irish. So are his characters. That means that they have ... Irish accents. And preferably not "Irish Spring" or "Lucky Charms" accents.* I have long said that I had an Irish accent that would pass auditions but I'd never had to put that to the test before.

So I collected the script a few days ago and have rehearsed with the cast a few times. And the other night at home I re-loaded all of the Irish History podcasts that I had previously listened to back onto Smudge. And I have been wandering around in my free time listening to the host, Fin Dwyer, tell stories that can be summarized as "As then things went very badly for the Irish"** and repeating what he says more or less phrase by phrase.***

No would seriously mistake me for a resident of the Auld Sod but I think I'm at least ... not jarring.

And I was, of course, no end of pleased when our director was giving notes one night and suggested to another cast member that their accent was wandering. "Maybe you could listen to some Irish History podcasts," she said nodding at me.

Possibly more difficult will be to stop speaking that way when not in performance.

So this is my tiny effort to repay Fin for the assist. If you have any interest in Irish history, I highly recommend his podcast and website.

*Telling an actress that she has a Lucky Charms accent is the sort of thing that makes people go all slitty-eyed and resentful, though outwardly still smiling and charming.

**See, for example, the Vikings.

***In the episode about the Spanish Armada, I got really good at saying the word "gun" with the proper accent. Such a pity that word doesn't occur in the play. Well, unless I work it in every so often. "He carried his school-books *and a gun* in a leather satchel." Like that.

Everyday Words

2011-08-09T17:59:00.001-04:00

I don't know if I found Words We Live By on my own or if David sent me the link but it's exactly the sort of thing that we flag for each other. In this case, I'm not entirely sure that "Dwight Garner" isn't some kind of obvious pseudonym because there are entire bits in here that David could have written. To wit:

My family recently moved to western New Jersey;* a bus trip is a convenient way to reach New York City. The surprises began when, aboard our early-morning Trans-Bridge bus, we decided to read together, for the first time, the small print on the back of our ticket stubs.

Or...

On that street sign Singer’s name is spelled entirely in capital letters — in all-caps, as word people say. This turned out to be worth noticing. New York City is in the process of eliminating its all-caps street signs; they turn out to be less legible than those in upper- and lower-case. The New York Observer has called this sign-swapping project, due to be completed in 2018, a "$28 million copy edit."

And, of course, I have the hidden clue that the "also on the New York Times" box features a link to a story about boxed wine, David's current favorite way to be eco-friendly while imbibing.

Even Hamilton Burger could get a conviction on that kind of evidence.

*No, David doesn't live in New Jersey, nor does he have children. I am assuming that those are merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative

Or ... maybe not

2011-07-01T16:39:00.000-04:00

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. Blaise Pascal

I think my favorite thing about watching Pinter's plays is that almost as soon as I think I understand what was going on, a voice in my head tells me "No, that's not it. Try again."

We saw Old Times last night and its themes of the unreliability and possessiveness of memory meshed perfectly with that sense I always have of not having understood what I just saw. Or having understood it through my own filters. We interpret what we think we remember, changing the memory, and changing its meaning.

I don't remember several things about what happened when I got rear-ended a couple of weeks back, but at least I know that I don't know. It's very comforting to have a yes or a no answer.

The plays I hate the most - and they are often early plays by newer playwrights - are the ones where when asked why a character did something, said character responds immediately, with the complete reason. In complete sentences, too. I don't actually know anyone like that. We are mysteries to ourselves just as we are to others.

So now I'm revising what I saw. Did this mean that? Why did she behave that way? Did I totally misunderstand that character? That scene? That play?

And because it's Pinter (pause) I may never know.

... And that's okay.

Very live theater

2011-06-30T13:20:00.000-04:00

A fun article from the New York Times about this summer's en plein air shows.

In Outdoor Theater All New York's a Stage.

But this isn’t exactly hit-your-spot, say-your-lines theater. With two wild cards — the audience participation and the uninitiated public that is buzzing around — anything can happen, and at the performance I took in, it did.

Yosef Solanski, a rare Jewish immigrant in the Irish neighborhood that is now Chinese, is crucial to the crime, and he was played by Mr. D’Amore himself. Just as Yosef, a close friend of Mary Ryan’s, was explaining to us that he often slept in yonder park, someone who really does sleep in yonder park came up and called him a liar. He had never seen him in the park, the fellow insisted, and much shouting ensued.

Kitchen Rules

2011-06-27T17:38:00.000-04:00

Everybody's office has different kitchen rules. Here are a couple of ours:

Today someone put a cake in the kitchen at work and our controller and I found it. He wasn't sure what the deal was but I pointed out that the presence of plates, forks, and no sign saying "Can't Touch This" meant that the cake was being shared. I also told him that it was up to him to take the first piece. Someone had to start the darn thing and we know that because it's filled with gluten, I can't.

He was convinced that this was some kind of trap. I promised him that if it were not meant to be shared, it wouldn't be unguarded in the kitchen. C'mon, engineers work here. College interns. Those folks can strip an entire box of donuts in a few seconds.

So I said that if he started the cake and anyone gave him any crap, he could refer them to me. "I got your back. I'll explain." "You'll say you never said any such thing." "Exactly. I might even say that I'd never met you."

He started the cake. We found out later that it was leftover from a birthday party the evening before and intended for general consumption.

Rule #1: Food left unguarded is for sharing. Candy you don't want to share should be kept on your side of the computer screen or in a desk drawer. Anything out in the open is intended for all.

Rule #2: You move your feet ... Most frozen entrees require heating, stirring, and more heating. A lot of people put their food in for the first three minutes and then wander off. I know I do. We have a "move your feet you lose your seat" approach to the microwave. If the microwave dinged for my food and you're waiting to heat your food, take mine out, put it on the top of the microwave, and put yours in. Sometimes new people hover near the microwave, reluctant to mess with someone else's lunch, but we quickly enough train them to our ways.

I don't know how other kitchens work but I've been working here so long I don't think that I could change my ways.

Fair Warning

2011-06-23T13:13:00.000-04:00

People from my past find and friend me on Facebook with a certain regularity.* The farther back they are from the more I think that the "about me" should be changed from "Leta spends a lot of time in theaters" to the equally accurate but more "full disclosure"-like "If you thought I was nice but weird back then, well, I still am. Sure, I cover the weird better, but time doesn't make us different, just more thoroughly ourselves. Weird has had quite a while to settle in and get comfy."

* Which is fantastic. When it happens, I tend to spend a whole bunch of time just saying "Wow ... [name]. Wow ..." and looking at their profile to see what's new with them.**

** And the very best "from the past" friending I got was a college boy friend. There was a time when that wouldn't have been possible, so finding out that he no longer disliked me made me very happy indeed.

Car accident

2011-06-22T19:01:00.000-04:00

You know how a new car is new until it gets its first ding in it? Well, Gracie, my lovely VW Jetta, went from new to not-new this past Saturday night.

I was on my way home from seeing the NVTA one-acts and stopped when I got hit from behind. And it's actually kind of lucky that I was there because I was the buffer between the BMW that hit me and the Subaru in front of me. In the Subaru was a married couple with their one-year-old child. So by "lucky," I don't mean "lucky for Leta" but "lucky for the folks in the Subaru."

They didn't seem to see it that way at the time, of course. The mother of the one-year-old had enough adrenaline looking for an outlet that it didn't much matter what I was going to say ("Ma'am, I wasn't moving. That guy hit me!") because she wasn't going to process it. So she yelled at me for a while about how hitting their car with her child in it WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE. (I, of course, agree. Given a choice, I would not have been pushed into their car. I also understand that scaring a mother about her child will immediately bring out the protective instinct.)

So I'm kinda listening to her and kinda trying to explain that I didn't initiate this event and kinda thinking about how I hit my head on the steering wheel and now my head hurts. And about how a friend of mine was in a low-speed impact that left her with herniated disks in her neck. And then the guy who hit me starts asking if he can just give me his information which I didn't understand at the time but now assume to mean could he give me his insurance information and then leave. And I am certainly the sort of accommodating idiot who might have agreed to that except that Subaru Mom then started screaming about how she was going to call the police. So, actually, I was lucky that she was there, too, I guess.

The nice policeman arrived promptly and started collecting information. He asked if anyone was hurt and I said that I hit my head and that it hurt. Clearly, I was lucid* and not bleeding but he called for the EMTs. Looking back, I wish that I had taken the time while the Subaru Mom was on the phone with the police to put back into my purse everything that fell out of it when it fell off of the seat when the BMW Guy hit me. Not because my purse was filled with contraband but because I wouldn't get a good look at it again for another 3 hours or so and spent that time worrying about things like my iPod.

The EMT guys put a neck collar on me and strapped me to a back board and loaded me into the ambulance. There are patches of the whole event that I don't remember very clearly so I don't remember if the police officer or I decided that a trip in the ambulance would be a better option than me driving myself to the hospital. Obviously, if I had, say, passed out while driving myself to the hospital** we all would have regretted not having me be driven there by the nice EMTs, so whoever suggested the ambulance trip, the other probably agreed pretty promptly. I did think to ask for my purse and my magazine. I've been to hospitals. There's always plenty of time to read ...

I always wondered what it was like to ride in an ambulance and the answer is ... kinda boring.*** I was strapped to the back board and one of the EMT's spent a pretty decent chunk of time making sure that I was really, really strapped to it, which include taping my head down across my forehead so that my head wouldn't jiggle. They said that I dealt with it better than many other people have. How did I deal with it? By chatting with the EMTs, of course. If I can chat through things, I can get through things. Anyway, I spent the trip looking at the ceiling.

At the hospital I had nice, clear line of priorities. As each one was dealt with the next one moved into higher prominence. They were:

1. I wanted my phone because I had left a message for David and didn't want to not answer if he woke up, got the message, and called. Scaring one's nice boyfriend unnecessarily is bad karma. I called him again later and actually talked to him. Hmmm. Did I do that before or after I got to the hospital? Don't remember.

2. I wanted to be released from the back board. My scoliosis makes lying on my back uncomfortable after not too long a period of time. I was released from the back board within a couple of hours.**** It's also hard to read while strapped to a back board, so I read intermittently and filled the rest of the time worrying.

3. I wanted to use the bathroom. I wanted this with more and more urgency as time went on but they couldn't let me get up until the neck collar had been removed and they couldn't remove the neck collar until after the X-rays had been read. I don't know how long it took and I was only in the hospital, really, from about 12:30 AM to about 4:15 AM, so it couldn't have been the two days it felt like, but boy, oh, boy, was I ever glad to be released from the neck collar when it finally happened.

4. I wanted to know where my glasses were. Not in my purse. Not with me. Hopefully in the car.*****

5. I wanted someone to be nice to me. Not "nice to me" in the kind but professionally detached manner of hospital personnel but "nice to me" as in saying "you poor baby!" and expressing outrage on Gracie's behalf.*+5 *+6 So ... using my phone which has a dedicated button for Facebook, I posted a status update. I knew that by saying that something bad had happened to me that I was possibly stirring up, well, several hundred people, but it was cold in the hospital and I was lonely. I kept it reasonably low-key and posted this at 4:54 AM while waiting for a cab. Car accidents suck, hospitals are boring, and I'm glad I'm okay. Bruised and headachy but okay.

Quite a few of my friends are early risers, so the first "you poor baby!" comments came in about 15 minutes later and continued through the next couple of days. The actual wording of "you poor baby" was "glad you're okay."

On Sunday evening I posted a follow up: In theory it's the Naprosin that makes me feel better but I know that it's the love and good wishes from so many lovely friends that's the real extra strength pain relief. I am very lucky to have lots of people who are nice to me.

6. I wanted the stupid [expletive] cab to show up. I called the cab at 4:20 AM and got a text at 4:23 saying that it was 3 miles away. I had to option to text "where" to find out how far away the cab was.

I went outside (where it was slightly less frigid) to wait for the cab.

At 5:02 I sent the "where" text because I was wondering how it could possibly take 40 minutes to cover 3 miles. I got the reply that the cab was 4 miles away.

At 5:20 I sent the "where" text again and got the same answer. I went back into hospital and called the cab company. They sent another cab which arrived at 5:28.

If I hadn't been so tired and shook up, I think I would have started the process earlier. I don't like Yellow Cab now. I may never like them again.

7. I wanted to collect Gracie, see if she was drive-able, go home, go to bed. The impound lot she was towed to was only a quarter mile from the hospital, so this part was rather easy. Except for the $343 tow bill. On the plus side, the driver put my iPod into the glove compartment for me instead of stealing my car charger like the last time that I was towed. A new iPod Touch would have cost me about ... $300. Hmmm.

8. After I got home, I wanted Pekoe not to respond to how stressed out I was by doing the things that he knows annoys the bejeebers out of me. I was fresh out of bejeebers, so he got evicted from my bedroom until after I'd had some sleep.

Today I am bruised, much less headachy, and very, very grateful that it wasn't worse.

*Or as lucid as I ever appear to be.

** I didn't pass out at any time during the whole event. Just sayin'.

*** Don't tell my father this. He is the President of the Ambulance Authority Board in the county where he lives.

**** Or what seemed like a couple of hours. Boy, time really slows down when you're staring at the ceiling worrying.

***** Yes. In the car.

*+5 Gracie is the Jetta.

*+6 The rows of asterisks were getting too long. The next step is exponential notation.

How to support engineering

2011-05-27T17:42:00.000-04:00

David and I were headed out to dinner last Friday and as we were walking to the Thai place that we like, I noticed a bunch of people with some kind of big display set up on Ellsworth Drive. And because I am inexorably pulled toward bunches of people with big displays* as Pekoe is inexorably pulled towards people wearing colors that have a high contrast to orange cat hair, I veered in toward the people to see what was what.

What it was was the Blair Robot Project***. My alma mater sponsors Team 449 in the FIRST Robotics Competition and I won't bother to retype all of the "about us" text, but Blair competes prett' near every year and does pretty well prett' near every year.

I admired the robotics, explained why I couldn't have any of the baked goods they were selling, stuffed a buck in the till, took a picture or two, and asked for some literature. I also gave my business card to the one of the adult mentors and suggested that she e-mail me and ask for a donation. I figured that if I got an e-mail, then they actually wanted the money. I got the e-mail!

My company is chock full of engineers, so I figured that I could convince my Boss that supporting this kind of thing could help to grow our future employees. And, not to put too fine a point on it, a whole bunch of the Blair Robot Team are ... female. Women are underrepresented in science and engineering. Sort of like wheat products are underrepresented on my shopping list.

Had he been hard to convince, I had a good paragraph from their hand-out at the ready: "FIRST encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals. FIRST and FRC are not just about building better robots or better engineers - they're about about building better individuals and better communities." Alas, I didn't have to quote this high falutin' rhetoric because my Boss agreed right away that our company should make a donation. The check request awaits his signature.

So if you wish to support science and engineering, or future women engineers, or cool robot stuff, check out their website: Blair Robot Project or this one For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). If you want to make things super easy on yourself send a check to Montgomery Blair High School, 51 University Blvd E, Silver Spring, MD 20910 (put "Robotics Team" in the memo line).

And if you want to see why I want to work with these folks after they graduate from college, check out the Quotes page. Three of my favorites:

"The drive chain is loose? Not my problem. Here, have a wrench. It might not be the right size." Eric Van Albert, in a rather blunt blog post

"Robotics is really preparing us for jobs at NASA. Look. We're past deadline overweight, overbudget, and our [project] doesn't even work!" Ben Shaya

"The harvester almost harvests, the shooter almost shoots, the robot almost drives, and the code almost compiles!"Ben Shaya, in describing the progress made on the robot

*What do I veer away from? Well-meaning volunteers (or poorly paid staffers) with clipboards who ostensibly wish to "educate"** me about their issue but are really fundraising. I don't give money to people on the street.

**In the Leta dictionary (i.e., what I've noticed that people really really seem to mean) "educate" means "hector others into seeing things your way."

***I think that's the first time that I didn't accidentally type "Blair Robert Project."

Doing what I thought I would

2011-05-24T18:41:00.000-04:00

I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.

--- Steve Martin

My mother passed away a few months ago and left me some money. I didn't expect this because when she died, I was scheduled to meet with the finance people where she lived in a few weeks and get the ball rolling to sign her up for Medicaid.

We'd have conversations, Mom and I, where she would fret about having nothing left to leave me and my nieces. And no matter how I answered ("You don't have to leave us anything. You raised me and have given me lots of good memories as well" or "We didn't earn the money, it should go to keep you comfortable." or "Don't worry, you *won't* have anything to leave us and that's really okay."*) she still fretted about it. Which meant that even though I was in charge of her bank account (which was larger than mine) and received the statements for her (reasonably small) mutual fund, etc., Mom and I had trained me to think of her as inches away from destitute. So I figured that when she died, she would be poor, I would pay for her funeral, even more stuff I have no room for would end up in my apartment, we would miss her, the end.

In addition to fretting about running out of money, Mom said many times that she didn't like living there and hoped that she wouldn't have to do it very long. I can't say that I blame her because I can't think of anyone who has ever expressed a hope to spend their final years in a nursing home, no matter how nice it is.*** So in my heart of hearts, I guess I wasn't too surprised when she passed away in January. I'm grateful that it was a relatively easy passing and not the scary and horrible one I'd feared for so long.

And in the end she got her wish. She had something to leave us. I got 50% of her estate and my two nieces got 25% each. I was so prepared to left just mementos that my first response was nausea. I was literally nauseated. And then I was scared because I've seen how not very good with money I could be.

For years I would think off and on about what I would do a with a "windfall." What if I won the lottery? What if I found bags and bags of money?**** But, okay, let's assume some strings-free money, what would I do. The fantasies always ended up having three elements:

1. I'd get rid (finally) of my student loans.
2. I'd buy a new car because the Protege which has served me so well is a little old lady now. She's 12 which is, what, 96 in human years? 120?
3. Fund my retirement.
4. I'd give more more to charities I care about, especially theaters.
5. Other. Often other included stuff like pedicures or massages or a personal chef. When I was thinking really huge sums of money than #1 was "move Mom out of the nursing home and get her in-home care."

But I always assumed in the way back of my mind that I manage to fritter the money away. Theater tickets, meals with friends, impulse purchases, having the No Money for Leta fairies steal it in the night ...

Now that I've inherited Mom's savings and her annuities, though, I am rather proud that I'm doing what I hoped I would do. My desire not to waste this final gift from my mother has meant that I am being more careful with it (I think) than I usually am. The scorecard so far:

1. The student loan monkey is off my back. This is like having a hefty raise in pay. Half of that money is going to savings, so it feels as though I've turned my loan debt into a dollar-cost-averaged savings plan. That happened first. The brunette you saw dancing in the streets? That was me. So, check.

2. I bought a shiny, new Jetta. Sunroof. Manual. Elegant charcoal grey color. And an Equality Maryland affinity license plate, so that's a few bucks that went where my mouth is. Check.

3. My (very attractive, how can there not be an extra fee for that?) new financial planner and I have already started deciding what's gonna go where so that I won't have to eat cat food when I'm older. Check.

4. Silver Spring Stage got a check from me.***** So did several other theaters I like. My favorite was when I walked up the lady running concessions at Forum Theater during intermission and when she said "May I help you?" I said "Yes, you could give this check to the right person for me, please." And she looked at it and "Oh my, yes! Thank you!" And it wasn't even that large of a check. I felt like a patron of the arts for the rest of the evening. Check and check.

5. See the Steve Martin quote, supra. Mainly I've bought some new clothes and picked up the check more often. But even so. Annnnnd, check.

One of the nice things about having some extra disposable income is that when I went to see a show at the Hub Theater and the nice lady selling tickets accidentally overcharged me (not by much, just a few bucks) I suggested that instead of going through the effort of cancelling my transaction and re-doing it, she just code the overage as a donation and send me a thank you letter (because I think I *will* be itemizing this year). She was delighted to comply. And once again, I feel like a patron of the arts.

I could get used to this. I really could.

*Multiple Sclerosis as severe as my mother had it is very expensive. The "continuum of care community" where she lived for the last ten years of her life started out costing about $5,000 a month when she was living independently and having aids come in a few times a day and, when she had to move over to the nursing home section and having skilled nursing ended up costing $313 dollars a day.** (For people who do math as well as I do $313 x 30 = $9,390 per month or $114,245 per year). This was significantly more than her income.

**Of all the folks I have met with MS, I haven't seen anyone with a worse case than Mom's, so most people with MS diagnosis should not look at Mom as a pattern for their own futures.

***And, as nursing homes go, it was very nice. But still depressing.

****Not that I buy lottery tickets, but fantasy doesn't require that. And if I found bags and bags of money, I'd call the FBI. I grew up in America. I watch TV.

*****The Stage is my theatrical home, so they got the biggest check. By far.

She opened the door. I walked through it.

2011-03-16T16:53:00.001-04:00

My friend Patty asked on Facebook:

What proportion of your electricity usage do you think comes from nuclear power? (I was surprised when I saw the figures.)

And I said:

I actually know this one: Annually, about 26%, compared to about 20% for the US. (Ours comes from the Calvert Cliffs facility.) We also use a lot of coal (50% compared to the US 51%). Nuclear power is kinda scary every few decades. Coal ruins our environment every day. Maryland's hydropower component is about 3%. If we lived in Idaho, almost all of our power would come from hydro.

And then I added:

Japan is 11% nuclear and 46% oil, most of which is imported.

And it was actually on my mind because as we all worry about and pray for the people of Japan and the horrors they are experiencing I was wondering how much of their power comes from nuclear and how they would replace it were the plants to be permanently closed for some reason.

And here's the answer from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Analysis of Japan:

Japan has few domestic energy resources and is only 16 percent energy self-sufficient. Japan is the third largest oil consumer in the world behind the United States and China and the third-largest net importer of crude oil. It is the world's largest importer of both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal. In light of the country's lack of sufficient domestic hydrocarbon resources, Japanese energy companies have actively pursued participation in upstream oil and natural gas projects overseas and provide engineering, construction, financial, and project management services for energy projects around the world. Japan is one of the major exporters of energy-sector capital equipment and has a strong energy research and development program that is supported by the government, which pursues energy efficiency measures domestically in order to increase the country's energy security and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

On Friday, March 11, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sendai, Japan, triggering a large tsunami. The earthquake and ensuing damage resulted in a shutdown of 6,800 MW of electric generating capacity at four nuclear power stations that have a total capacity of 12,000 MW (some plants previously offline for maintenance). Other energy infrastructure such as electrical grid, refineries, and gas and oil-fired power plants were also affected by the earthquake. Japan likely will require additional natural gas and oil to provide electricity, however power demand may be dampened at least in the short term as a result of the destruction of homes and businesses. According to some industry estimates, fuel oil and natural gas consumption could increase by up to 238,000 bbl/d and 1.2 Bcf/d*, respectively, depending on the combination of fuel substitution.

Total primary energy consumption in Japan is over 22 quadrillion British thermal units. Oil is the most consumed energy resource in Japan, although its share of total energy consumption has declined from about 80 percent in the 1970s to 46 percent in 2009. Coal continues to account for a significant share of total energy consumption, although natural gas and nuclear power are increasingly important sources. Japan is the third largest consumer of nuclear power in the world, after the United States and France. Hydroelectric power and renewable energy account for a relatively small percentage of total energy consumption in the country.

The analysis contains lots more information, including the good news that Japan has been decreasing their oil consumption due to government emphasis on conservation and efficiency. Perhaps we should consider doing the same.**

* Barrels per day and Billion cubic feet per day. A barrel is 42 gallons. A cubic foot is still what they told you it was in grade school.

** Want to know lots of cool stuff about our energy sources and uses? Our very own Department of Energy knows all and tells lots. Especially about renewable energy resources.

Why community theater is my home

2011-03-16T10:40:00.000-04:00

From a Silver Spring Patch interview with Silver Spring native Michael Blaustein:

Patch: What have you learned about the business?

M.B: In any industry it is a business. While it is important to build genuine relationships, this business is based on money. Money runs the business. When there is no money being generated those "friendships" slowly fade.

Patch: What do you say the key to your career is?

M.B: I would say networking is. In this business I would say talent is 30 percent and networking is 70 percent.

More than once I have described acting in Hollywood or New York as a career in sales with yourself as the product.

The Official AN/SPS-30 Cigarette Lighter

2011-03-11T17:35:00.001-05:00

This post from Silver Spring: Then and Again is another one of those areas where elements of my personal history come together.

I live in Silver Spring (or at least moved here as a child) because APL was here. The Navy assigned Dad to APL, possibly as a Tech Rep, so my parents bought a house a couple of miles away. We expected to be here for two to three years. Naturally, I therefore ended up doing all but a few months of my schooling in Montgomery County schools.* (I'm not sure but I think if I asked Daddy why the Navy assigned him there, he would say that it was to put him in proximity to Crisfields for lunch every day.)

So I grew up in Silver Spring, Daddy worked at APL, and the third leg of this triangle is, of course, that the company I work for now does radar here in Silver Spring, blocks from the old APL site.

Looking at the plaque, I can even understand most of what it says because quite a few of our contracts say much the same thing. The numbering system for contracts hasn't changed, probably since 1781.

Not that I smoke, but if one of those were to show up at yard sale, I think I'd buy it in a hurry.

*I started kindergarten in at Quidnessett Elementary School in North Kingston, Rhode Island and we moved to Silver Spring in November of that year. The year that I was 14, I spent six months living with Daddy in Belgium and attended the base school from March to June. Other than those brief lacunae, teachers at Parkside Elementary, Eastern Junior High, and Montgomery Blair High School had the daily struggle of getting me to stop daydreaming or surreptitiously reading.

Lots of Information

2011-03-11T12:43:00.000-05:00

I read a book review in the New York Times that I am assuming that David has already read. And I'm kinda assuming that he'll buy the book.* And after he does, I'd like to borrow it.

Because how can one not want to read a book where the reviewer and the author write, thus, about Ada Lovelace:

Some [colorful digressions] are included just for the sake of introducing the great eccentrics whose seemingly marginal inventions would prove to be prophetic. Like Richard Holmes’s “Age of Wonder” this book invests scientists with big, eccentric personalities. Augusta Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, may have been spectacularly arrogant about what she called “my immense reasoning faculties,” claiming that her brain was “something more than merely mortal." But her contribution to the writing of algorithms can, in the right geeky circles, be mentioned in the same breath as her father’s contribution to poetry.

And if David doesn't, I'll buy it and he can borrow mine.

* "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" by James Gleik

Audrey’s WATCH Award Speech

2011-03-07T17:35:00.002-05:00

The WATCH awards were held last night at the the Birchmere Music Hall in Alexandria. It was, as always, a very fun evening and I got lots of compliments on my dress*. Any evening spent with 500 theater people and a bar is going to be a good evening. I mean, really, how bad could that be?

The ceremony went well and the winners were pleased and the nominees who did not win were gracious (at least in my hearing) and the wait staff was busy bringing more drinks. As I say, about as usual.

Because I am standing on the stage for the whole thing, I generally don't applaud for winners or speeches. I smile. I smile at the top of the evening and I smile all the way through.** My friend, Chuck, one year complimented me at the end of the evening on how I was still smiling. "Oh, am I smiling? How nice." :-D

But the evening took a memorable turn when my friend, Audrey, won for Featured Actress in a Play. I was pleased for her for more than one reason: She's a damn fine actress and she's been through a really rough time. Taking home a piece of lucite won't make the last year any easier, but I'm very glad she got it.

And when she gave her acceptance speech, which like everything that Audrey writes was honest and funny and smart and likely to give me a lump in my throat, Audrey accepted her award by giving a tribute to community theater which not only put that lump there but made me teary-eyed as well. In those few words, she summed up exactly how I feel about this hobby of ours and how I feel about the friends I've made doing it.

So I asked her if I could post it here. And tough, kind, generous Audrey said of course I could.

Congratulations, Honey! And no fair making me cry in public.

Thank you for this recognition. Thank you to my talented cast and crew, our designers and technicians, and mostly, our fearless director Chris Curtis for giving me the opportunity.

I just need to take a minute here, because this isn’t about me… it’s about us.

A few years ago, my play Fin and Euba premiered in a local one-act festival. It was later published in an anthology called Best American Short Plays. I used to think that kind of thing only happened to folks like Edward Albee. But sometimes I actually call myself a playwright. And I have community theater to thank for that.

Last year, while I was performing in the show Rabbit Hole, for which I was nominated for tonight, my husband, who has been battling kidney failure for years, went into the hospital and stayed there quite sick for 5 months. He lost his job. And our house went into foreclosure. But I was not alone. Bridget Muehlberger and Erika Imhoof said, “it’s not going down like this.” They, along with every single cast and crew member of Rabbit Hole, along with many, many other volunteers, produced a yard sale and fundraising effort that saved my house… and my life. I wouldn’t have a home right now if it weren’t for community theater.

Take a minute and look around at your table. Chances are there’s someone in front of you or beside you, who knows your favorite show tune or your mother’s maiden name or where the bodies are buried. Someone you cannot imagine living without… someone you never would have met, or had the chance to love, if it weren’t for community theater.

Community theater is a lot more than just a few crazy actors and techies who stage plays and throw cast parties, admittedly, really great cast parties. No.

Community theater is what we choose to do instead.

Because, let’s face it. It’s cheaper than therapy. More fun than prime time television. And probably more rewarding than that night class at the annex. It’s a home. Community theater, is a really great… warm… life-giving home.

Thank you.

*That cost $32. The only thing better than a sale is a clearance sale. Thank you, Lord and Taylor's!

**One of the reasons why I wear flats. It's much easier to smile if your feet don't hurt.

Why I do dark, difficult plays sometimes

2011-03-02T09:52:00.000-05:00

I'm currently in rehearsal for The Shadow Box which is a lovely play about three families coping with terminal illness. Needless to say, it has fewer laughs and "feel good" moments than your average Neil Simon play. The show isn't about uplift, it's about closure.

I find myself feeling the tiniest bit defensive about the show because a cheery evening out, it ain't. Frankly, it's always easier to ask your friends to come see happy comedies. But theater, as I like to say, is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. How human beings got where are are and how we'll get where we're going. And that isn't always sunny or uplifting. Sometimes it's sad or difficult.

My friend, Craig, who loves dark, difficult plays recently directed David Harrower's Blackbird in comparison to which The Shadow Box is pretty sunny. I think that he would be very interested to read these quotes which were found and posted to Savoynet* by Andrew Crowther** about W.S. Gilbert's drama The Hooligan which is celebrating its centennial this month. The Hooligan is story of a condemned man's last hours.

Andrew wrote:

A comment from the Stageland column in the Penny Illustrated Paper of 11 March 1911 (a more racy and perhaps more working class paper than others):

It disturbed everyone. Most to applause; a few to resentment. There was the ruddy, ample gentleman whom I met in the bar during what the Col. calls the 'Intermission.' 'You come here to be amused, not to be----" He groped for the word and lost it. 'A man of a morbid turn of mind might think it all right, mightn't he?'

A play that can wing a ruddy, ample gentleman; leave him puzzled, gasping, unsettled; stir up vague doubtings about killing folk and giving them 'no chanst'--a play like that is a play which you ought to pop in and see at once.

In Holbrook Jackson's essay "Why Do We Laugh?" in his volume of essays Occasions (Grant Richards, 1922, pp 94-95):

I always felt that the laughter provoked by [James Welch's] characterization in The Man in the Street was an expression of relief from the underlying tragedy of the thing. But if there is any doubt about that, there could be no doubt whatever about the small gasps of hysterical laughter during his realistic interpretation of the condemned man in Gilbert's little tragedy The Hooligan. The theme is so painful as to be almost unbearable. I have seen people walk out in the midst of this play unable to stand any more of it. Yet those who remained in the grip of the horror, watching Welch revealing the fear of a condemned man during his supposed last few moments on earth--the fear of a man who is half idiot, and who has very little worth preserving in his life--those who remained laughed every now and then at the humour of it. Some things may be too deep for tears, but nothing is too deep for laughter.

* An e-mail list for Gilbert & Sullivan fans

**Andrew is a G&S scholar who has added greatly to what we know about those two men, their works, and their times.

The Sting quote I really like*

2011-02-26T11:39:00.000-05:00

"Bad reviews should give you a bad breakfast but shouldn't affect your lunch."

*At some point I will post a quote from Stewart Copeland so that he doesn't think that I'm taking sides. Maybe it'll be one of the snarky things he said about Sting that make me laugh.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

2011-02-25T18:53:00.000-05:00

I started writing this post (oh my) a long time ago, when the story first ran about the loction of the cabin. I've been moved to update and finish it because the cabin will be open to the public this weekend.

* * * * *

It's a funny thing but until somewhat recently I assumed that Uncle Tom's Cabin was located in the deep south somewhere. Mississippi or Alabama or something. Although the image of Eliza running across a frozen river in the deep south should have put paid to that.

According to this website, the story begins in Kentucky and the icy river is the Ohio. The eventual destination is Canada. Later Tom is sold "down the river," but I'm not sure where. The one thing I do know is that the cabin of Josiah Henson, the slave whose autobiography inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write the book, still exists and is located ...... in upscale Bethesda, Maryland.

Maryland, a border state during the Civil War (and a slave state before it), was put under martial law during the war because of the number of pro-Confederate officials and its proximity to Washington, DC. My state, however, did remain part of the Union, (whew) due in part to the efforts of her governor, a slaveholder, who negotiated with federal officials.

Quickie geography refresher - the District of Columbia was originally a diamond-shaped territory donated by Maryland and Virginia. It is now a sort-of diamond-shaped territory with a ragged lower left (the Potomac River) because the Virignia section (Arlington - named for Robert E. Lee's home) was returned and is now the site of, among other things, the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery.

Several major arteries go from the Maryland suburbs into DC, including Georgia Avenue, which passes in front of my church. And buried in the churchyard are 17 confederate soldiers who fought in General Jubal Early's raid and the Battle of Fort Stevens. (The deli up the street has a General Jubal Early burger on their menu.) I will pass the church (and the deli) on my way to the Josiah Henson Special Park.

And if they have copies of the Reverend's autobiography for sale, I shall buy one* and learn more about the history of my state.

*You know, to provide a bit of income to the Special Park. If they don't, I can read it on-line.

Maryland SB 116

2011-02-23T18:31:00.000-05:00

The Maryland "Civil Marriage Protection Act" has been debated today and will get its final vote tomorrow. I had urged my representatives and the governor to support the bill. I didn't say anything terribly interesting or unusual, just that I support equal rights, including equal marriage rights, for all Marylanders. I took Equality Maryland's basic "please do the right thing" e-mail and added my own thoughts, including my belief that "gay marriage is just marriage."

And it certainly didn't hurt that one of my reps, Delegate Sheila Hixson, co-sponsored the legislation and another, Senator Jamie Raskin, was one of the legislators who introduced the bill.

So I am holding my breath as Maryland is given the chance to treat all of her citizens with dignity and respect. Sort of like in 1864: “Because Maryland remained in the Union, it was exempted from the anti-slavery provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation.(The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to states in rebellion). In 1864 the state held a constitutional convention that culminated in the passage of a new state constitution. Article 24 of that document outlawed the practice of slavery. In 1867 the state extended suffrage to non-white males." (Via Wikipedia)*

The full text of the bill can be found here. It ain't very long and, frankly, it's not all that provocative. It merely lifts the "one man and one woman requirement." But then most really big things aren't that wordy.

And here is Senator Raskin's reply to my letter:

Dear Leta

Greetings and thanks for your very thoughtful note in support of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, the legislation that I have introduced with Senator Madaleno to end the stain of discrimination against tens of thousands of people in our state who are locked out of the institution of marriage. I consider it not only a serious moral and constitutional obligation but a high honor to be fighting for equal rights, benefits and responsibilities for my thousands of gay and lesbian constituents. We are making major gains across the country in securing equal citizenship for all our people and dramatic progress here in Maryland, where I believe we are on the verge of passing SB 116 this Session. I have been working very hard to convince wavering and undecided colleagues that this will be a vote they can be proud of for the rest of their lives. We had an extraordinarily successful hearing on Tuesday, February 8 in which the breadth and passion of support for marriage equality was manifest, along with the palpable weakness of arguments on the other side. On Thursday, February 17, I joined six of my colleagues on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee to vote in favor of the bill, 7-4, and to report the bill to the floor; the Committee also adopted an amendment I offered to assure churches and church-sponsored groups that they will not have to participate in the solemnization or celebration of any marriage they choose not to. In any event, Equality Maryland has been doing a superb job organizing, and I am convinced that we are going to win.

I am certain that the days of marriage discrimination are numbered and we will see justice on this front in our lifetimes, probably very soon. I am proud to be part of this movement for equal rights under the law for all Marylanders. Thanks for taking the time to write me, and please stay in close touch.

All best, Jamie

*I was actually assuming that I would have to include an example of some disgraceful aspect of Maryland history, so I am very grateful to Those Strangers on the Internet for providing me with something more uplifting.**

**And now you’re trying to remember when the 13th and 15th Amendments to US Constitution were enacted, right? December 1865 and February 1870, respectively. As goes Maryland …

Luckily he shares my sense of humor

2011-02-03T15:10:00.000-05:00

Actual conversation with my Boss today:

Me: I'm going to run an errand.

My Boss: Are you? I won't be here when you get back.

Me: Is that a threat? If I walk out, you're leaving?

Nothing like a little pretend emotional blackmail to liven up the workday.

I'm in

2011-01-30T22:36:00.000-05:00

Religion takes a lot of knocks these days, so it's extra nice to run into onto of those bits that remind me why I (somewhat inconsistently) get out of bed on Sunday morning and go to church. The readings and psalms and Gospel today were generally on the theme of being what my friend Brett calls being "a good man among men." This is the bit in particular that made me nod and think "Yup. I can sign off on that":

"He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?"

Micah Chapter 6, verse 8

Although, truly, religion isn't required, it does makes a nice framework for me.

The Dress

2011-01-28T09:41:00.001-05:00

Much-more-consistent-blogger-than-Leta, Quinn, has written two posts recently on what women wear they to big Hollywood award shows and why fortheluvvagahd they wore that: Dark Globe and I'm a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World. Much fun -- go read them.

And, of course, the nominations for the WATCH awards were announced a couple of weeks back. As we were standing decorously to the side after we'd read our share, Sue leaned over to me and said, "But more importantly -- have you bought The Dress?"

I haven't yet. And I'm trying to decide if I should recycle one of the ones I've worn before or get a new one. .... Dither .... Dither .... Yeah, I'll probably get a new one.

I don't have the many various requirements that ambitious starlets do when choosing a dress, fortunately, so I was able to list my requirements in a comment on Quinn's second post:

1. I must look fabulous enough that strangers stop me to compliment the dress (This actually has happened. Made my lifetime.).

2. In order to look that fabulous while standing on a stage for three hours the dress must not be painful in any way.

3. I must be able to buy the dress at Loehmann's for not much money in about a half hour on my way to rehearsal for whatever show I am in that time.

The fact that I -- a non-fabulous, middle-aged woman -- achieve these goals most years is an annual miracle.

Perspective

2010-12-30T09:59:00.000-05:00

Voiceover in the Barilla pasta ad: "I believe that wheat is a gift from God."
Me to David: "I don't."*

*Although I do like to describe many, many things by quoting Phyllis_Schlafly's opinion of (no kidding) nuclear weapons: A wonderful gift from a wise and loving God.

I don't see why not

2010-12-16T15:25:00.000-05:00

My boss asked me about the annual holiday potluck:

My Boss: What are employees encouraged to bring?

Me: Very expensive alcohol.

My Boss: Really. So just desserts or ...?

Me: Desserts or side dishes.

My Boss: Okay, thanks. (Heading into his office)

Me: And jewelry!

Thanks again, Dad

2010-09-16T17:05:00.001-04:00

I got to be teenager-y and blame my parents (specifically, my father, who provided my Irish genes) for my problems when I got diagnosed with Celiac Disease because CD is very common in Ireland and people of Irish descent.*

Well, fate has offered this opportunity again. I was told today that I have Rosacea **and, according to those strangers on Wikipedia, "It primarily affects Caucasians of mainly northwestern European descent and has been nicknamed the 'curse of the Celts' by some in Britain and Ireland.

*So far the only thing I've gotten from my mother's German genes are a somewhat "Achtung" approach to kitchen organization and a fondness for rules.

**And I was told this in the same way that I am told lots of medical information: as though it were something that the doctor has noted in my file long ago and assumed that I knew. What is up with that?

USA Science & Engineering Festival

2010-09-15T17:18:00.000-04:00

I've been asked to play Rachel Carson* at this festival, so I'm pretty excited about it. Here (slightly edited by me) is the "please come to our festival and bring a future Dr. Sheldon Cooper with you" e-mail that I received today from the organizer via the director who recruited me.

*Actually, I was offered my choice of Rachel Carson; Sally Ride; or Rosalind Franklin. I look more like Dr. Ride than I do Ms. Carson, but, c'mon, Rachel Carson lived in Silver Spring. It was a foregone conclusion that I would pick Carson. And it gives me a more pressing reason to read Silent Spring and The Edge of the Sea than "Oh. I should read those."

Ever wanted to talk with a Nobel Laureate? Did you know red wine goes well with steak, but also has anti-aging properties? Want to uncover the mysteries of baseball's knuckleball? These and other intriguing questions are answered at the Inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival, the biggest celebration of science the World has ever seen!

Inspired by international science festivals that draw crowds in the hundreds of thousands, the goal is to increase our nation's awareness of science and inspire our nation's youth to consider science-related careers, while uniting our country and showcasing the amazing science and innovation taking place throughout the United States. The Festival descends on Washington, D.C. with events throughout the city for everyone, from the smallest child to the most established scientist; promising to be the ultimate multi-cultural, multi-generational, multi-disciplinary celebration of science in the United States.

Check out a video of the San Diego Science Festival (SM) at http://www.scivee.tv/node/12528

(SM) -- San Diego Science Festival is a registered California Service Mark of Science Spark

So why have a Science Festival? Society gets what it celebrates! As a culture, we celebrate movie stars, rock stars and athletes and we generate a lot of them, but we don't celebrate science and engineering.

The Festival is analogous to an art, music or literary Festival but it is focused on Science and Engineering and accomplishes its mission via hands-on demonstrations, fun demos, and presentations including art, music, comedy, film and theater.

The Festival kicks off in just three weeks, offering over 150 FREE events for the public - all geared toward sparking an interest in Science. Over 750 companies, universities, research labs, federal agencies, professional societies, community groups and science outreach organizations will participate.

You can find out all the details at: http://www.usasciencefestival.org

The grand finale will be a two day EXPO on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (and surrounding venues) on October 23-24, 2010--- over 1,500 fun, hands-on interactive activities and 75 stage shows for all ages. There will be stuff for the mildly curious to the science professional. You can learn about fun topics like the science of the magic of Harry Potter, the mathematics of jump roping, the physics of superheroes, the chemistry of Thanksgiving Dinner, the engineering of baseball bats and balls, the science behind special effects in movies, trends in Global Warming, renewable energy sources of the future .... (This is a completely non-profit, non-commercial, fun and educational initiative.)

You can operate state-of-the-art robots, laugh with science comedians, be mesmerized by science magicians and mathemagicians, converse with astronauts, Nobel Laureates, science celebrities like Bill Nye the Science Guy and even scientists of the past, fly a fighter jet simulator, enter a virtual reality environment, be a CSI agent, make a virus out of marshmallows and toothpicks, try your hand at using a surgical robot, discover methods of measuring global warming, learn how to transform your car so it can run off a cuisinart etc.

And --- while having fun --- you can leave with information about science scholarships, internships, mentorship programs, jobs and much more.

Many, many thanks and best regards,

Larry Bock

Executive Director

USA Science & Engineering Festival

Q&Q

2010-09-10T15:11:00.000-04:00

People wanting to see my Boss: "Is he in a good mood?"
Me: "Yes." [Beat] "You're not going to change that, are you?"

"Hiking Maryland and Delaware"

2010-09-06T22:08:00.001-04:00

Mom was an avid hiker and backpacker. The energy, time, enthusiasm, and love that I put into theater, she put into being on trails, maintaining trails, and promoting enjoying the outdoors. I've been saying for a while of our two obsessive hobbies, hers was the smarter because it meant that she spent beautiful days outdoors, while I spend them shut up in windowless rooms.

So I was very touched to run across this letter in Mom's first edition of Hiking Maryland and Virginia by David Lillard and Chris Reiter:

August 24, 2000

Ms. Ann Hall

Dear Ann,

Thank you so much for allowing Ed and me to use your library of trail resources in the research for "Hiking Maryland and Delaware." The books were a tremendous help to us. We were able to include in the book a combination of many hikes that had not before appeared in a single source.

I want you to know also how much I appreciate your dedication and service to the hiking community over these many years. I understand that you are not able these days to put in the kind of "sweat equity" that you once offered. I hope you will be heartened to know your kind assistance on this book is itself a wonderful service to hikers. It will help thousands of novice hikers discover the outdoors that you have so lovingly stewarded.

Enclosed is a copy of Hiking Maryland and Delaware, a small token of my appreciation for your help.

With sincere thanks,

/s/ David
David Lillard
AHS President 1994 - 2000

The first edition was dedicated to all of the people who have done trail maintenance and all of the other volunteering that keeps the trails available for anyone who wants to walk them.

It was the dedication in the second edition (2006) that made me cry. I don't cry very often, but this made me get the kind of teary where you can't talk for a couple of minutes, which was inconvenient because I was reading the dedication out loud to Mom, just so that she could hear it again.

For Ann Hall. When her legs failed her, she did her volunteer trail work from her bottom, sitting in the trail to cut brush, clear water bars, and tend the path. How she got herself so far into the woods no one can imagine. That's love.

And it's inscribed: Dear Ann, You have inspired more than you know. With appreciation, David

And David* and I used the second edition today planning our hike at Little Bennett Park.

Need a good book on hiking in Maryland and Delaware? I have one that I can recommend.

*my David, not Lillard

I think I could give her a run for her money

2010-08-31T09:57:00.000-04:00

Mom gets the large print Reader's Digest every month and when she is done with them, she passes them on to me. One of the highlights of RD, of course, are the little anecdotes that people send in, "Humor in Uniform," "Life in These United States," "Campus Comedy," etc. Mostly I read them, smile, and move on. But after all of the time that I have spent in theaters over the past few years, this one really caught my eye:

My young daughter loves to go to performances at the local high school, so when her brother was in a spelling bee, she happily came along. But halfway through, she lost interest. Leaning in to me, she whispered, "This is the most boring play I have ever seen."
Angie Aiken, Alpharetta, Georgia.

I may have to recruit Ms. Aiken's daughter to be a WATCH judge on day.

Bread and Roses

2010-08-27T17:36:00.000-04:00

A few months ago a friend was asked to sign a petition protesting the "sweetheart deal" that a local professional theater/venue had or might have in the future. She asked me about it and I actually was able to frame a reply that didn't involve sarcastic swipes at the giant, tax-payer funded stadia we have around here:

Sorry that it's taken me so long to reply but I wanted to get past my knee-jerk "don't hurt the arts!" response.

I was actually in that space on Monday night because [Theater}, who uses the space, was doing a season preview. I chatted for a bit with [their artistic director], and he told me that [Theater] splits their gate with [Venue].

Considering [Theater]'s normal show budget, [Venue] is not pulling in lots of dollars from them. It's kind of win-win because 1) [Theater]gets the use of a nice black-box theater which seats about as many people as they sell tickets for; 2) [Venue] doesn't have to absolutely program there year-round; 3) Silver Spring's profile as an arts destination is raised a bit; 4) people who want to see good shows for cheap can do it in place where there are restaurants and parking.

[Theater]received two Helen Hayes awards (a big deal in local professional theater) for their work in that space and if they are allowed to continue to use it they will continue to bring value to the downtown area. Theater goers are actually pretty good about spending money around the theater. They meet for dinner, they go out for drinks after, etc. The American Association of Community Theaters has something on their website describing the dollar multiplier provided by theaters. [Real theaters, not movie houses. :-) ]

And [Theater] isn't the only group that uses that space. Back in January the Community Theater Festival Association hosted the One-Act Festival there. I don't know the financial arrangement, but I do know that Association doesn't have much cash, so it may have been a similar split the gate deal. Folks came in from around the state to perform at the festival, so hotel rooms, dinner tabs, and liquor tabs were run up around the area. I, personally, stayed in my own home, it being near by, but I had lunch on my tech day at Egg-spectations, coffee on performance day from Panera, lunch at Panera, lunch the next day with a big group at McGinty's, etc.

Contrast that with the situation at [Other] Theater. They are about $6 million in debt. [Another] theater is going up for auction on Tuesday due to a $4 million debt. The economy is bad all around but arts organizations are always hit hard by any penny pinching. When police are being laid off, it's hard to justify grants for plays. Theaters cannot pay their bills on ticket sales alone. If we did, seeing any play would cost close to New York prices. We depend on donations from audiences and grant money from local, state, and federal agencies.

But we also provide a benefit, both monetary and artistic to the communities in which we reside. Theater goers spend money. Theaters provide the kind of story-telling that is our cultural heritage. Participating in theater provides the kind of team-work and character development that we ascribe to sports.

I don't know how much of a "sweetheart deal" Montgomery County should give to [Venue] but I know that Maryland lags behind Virginia in what we give to the arts. If we want all bread and no roses, helping to put [Venue] out of business would be a step in that direction.

My corollary*

2010-08-23T15:14:00.000-04:00

Attachment isn't.

*Osborn's Law: Variables won't constants aren't

My iPod has a sense of humor

2010-08-05T16:51:00.000-04:00

A great big storm just blew through this area and to ensure that I got that point that a lot of water was falling out of the sky, the randomly chosen songs that Smudge played during the tempest included "The Flood in Lyons" (Renaissance) and "Walking in the Rain" (the Partridge Family's cover of a Neil Sedaka song).

How to make my parents laugh

2010-07-12T18:10:00.001-04:00

This past weekend David and I stayed with Dad and Audrey while we attended the Contemporary American Theater Festival in nearby Shepherdstown.*

As Dad and I were sitting around catching up, he told me a bit about the skin graft that he had to deal with a wound on his leg. Typical of Dad's sense of humor he told me that he told the nurses that they were ruining his once perfect body, since the graft would leave scars on both the wound site and the donation site.

"Huh." I replied. "So I know this means that we can't show you any more. Can we still breed you?"

And we were greatly amused by each other and proved - again - that while I look just like my Mom, I am still related to my father.

* Highlight for this festival? Discovering I was sitting next to David Remedios, the sound designer for two of the shows. And then watching him not even flinch, let alone turn around and kill, the patron who spent the first five minutes of the show we were watching (not one he designed, but even so) slowly and loudly open something wrapped in cellophane.

I am my father's daughter

2010-07-12T09:38:00.002-04:00

"I often don't know what I think until I've heard what I have to say."

from a This I Believe essay that Daddy wrote this year.

This might not be as easy as I thought

2010-07-05T11:01:00.000-04:00

Listing to Power Breakfast on NPR in the morning means that at least once a day I mutter "self-serving jerks" about our elected officials. Probably not what Elizabeth Wynne Johnson has in mind as she broadcasts this daily snippet of what the powerful and corrupted are doing, but that's what I'm always left with.

I have voted in every election in which I was eligible and I don't really want to stop now, but the major parties and their corporate owners don't offer anything better politically than Burger King offer nutritionally, so I don't really want to play with them any more.

It has occurred to me that there is at least one party out there that a) seems to agree with some of things that I find important, and b) has neither the money nor the power to annoy me nearly as much as the behemoths do. Heck, I don't think I've ever heard them even mentioned on "Power Breakfast," which may be a good sign.

So I've decided to start voting for the Green Party. I have voted for their candidates before, but I've decided to make them my default. It's similar to Brett's "vote against the incumbent" policy, possibly, in that it includes a certain "please go away" message to people who have learned that their real job is to get re-elected. Besides, I've long thought that a viable third (and even fourth) party would be our best chance of maintaining a genuine representative democracy.

However, there is a small difficulty. I went to the website for Maryland's Green Party yesterday in order check out the candidates for 2010 and beyond and I got this message:

WANT TO RUN FOR OFFICE?

If you would like to run for office as a member of the Green Party, please call 443-449-4159.

That's right: the the independent restaurant of politics seem currently to have no candidates. Or no menu to continue the metaphor. I hope they have some candidates very soon because I really don't need or want another Double Down.

King: What means this most unmannerly irruption?
Is this your gratitude for boons conferred?

Scaphio: Boons? Bah! A fico for such boons, say we!
These boons have brought Utopia to a standstill!
Our pride and boast--the Army and the Navy--
Have both been reconstructed and remodeled
Upon so irresistible a basis
That all the neighboring nations have disarmed--
And War's impossible! Your County Councillor
Has passed such drastic Sanitary laws
That all doctors dwindle, starve, and die!
The laws, remodeled by Sir Bailey Barre,
Have quite extinguished crime and litigation:
The lawyers starve, and all the jails are let
As model lodgings for the working-classes!
In short--Utopia, swamped by dull Prosperity,
Demands that these detested Flowers of Progress
Be sent about their business, and affairs
Restored to their original complexion!

King: (to Zara) My daughter, this is a very unpleasant state of things. What is to be done?

Zara: I don't know--I don't understand it. We must have omitted something.

King: Omitted something? Yes, that's all very well, but--- (Sir Bailey Barre whispers to Zara.)

Zara: (suddenly) Of course! Now I remember! Why, I had forgotten the most essential element of all!

King: And that is?---

Zara: Government by Party! Introduce that great and glorious element--at once the bulwark and foundation of England's greatness--and all will be well! No political measures will endure, because one Party will assuredly undo all that the other Party has done; and while grouse is to be shot, and foxes worried to death, the legislative action of the country will be at a standstill. Then there will be sickness in plenty, endless lawsuits, crowded jails, interminable confusion in the Army and Navy, and, in short, general and unexampled prosperity!

W. S. Gilbert, "Utopia, Limited"

Catalog Living

2010-06-24T17:32:00.000-04:00

Suddenly I can't wait for David's next Crate and Barrel catalog to arrive.

Catalog Living

Quinn has a similar relationship with the Lily Pulitzer catalog, as I recall.

Chocolate?

2010-06-23T13:09:00.001-04:00

It is possible that one of our staffers didn't use this as his model, but as he gives me a Hershey bar whenever I do a favor for him, I have my suspicions ...

Chocolate?

I think I celebrated this wrong

2010-06-22T14:20:00.002-04:00

Last night I stopped in a the Forum Theater season preview* and then walked home, stopping on the way at Baskin Robbins for a scoop of Daiquiri Ice sorbet. Yum....

It turns out that I could have honored the soltice better:

Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis (New Era) wishes all residents of Latvia a joyful "Ligo!" Midsummer holiday, LETA** was informed by Liga Krapane, the prime minister's press secretary.

The leader of the government wishes each person who celebrates the holiday an unforgettable feeling on Midsummer's Night while waiting around the bonfire singing "Ligo!" songs and waiting for the sunrise.

"The longest day and the shortest night, the bonfire, garlands, floral crowns, songs, cheese and a tankard of beer. This all belongs to the summer solstice, the celebration of which is an ancient and fundamental Latvian tradition. We are proud of this, and generation to generation we preserve it," said Dombrovskis in his festive greeting.

At the same time, he calls for the public to act responsibly towards themselves and those around them during the long holidays, so that this celebration will leave only positive and bright memories without tragedy or unpleasant consequences.

*Note to working actor - I wasn't planning to tear you away from your friends, merely to ask if you are rehearsing anything I should plan to see. But, alas, you couldn't give me a few seconds of your time, so that ticket is going unsold, isn't it?

*Not Leta = me, but LETA = the Latvian news agency. But wouldn't that be cool? If the prime minister's press secretary called me up and told me stuff like this?

Why I blog

2010-06-18T09:03:00.000-04:00

For years I have contemplated telling this story, and for years I have put off telling it. While I have delayed, my memory has not improved, and my recollections of the past are more hazy and fragmentary than when it first occurred to me that one day I might write them down.

...although I was at one time conscientious and diligent enough in keeping a diary, I kept it for use at the moment, not for future reference.... It had become a bursting, groaning dust-bin of information, for the most part useless.

About six years ago I moved into a smaller house in London, and I burnt a great many of my earlier diaries as unmovable rubbish. The few passages which I shall quote in this book from those which escaped destruction will prove that my bonfire meant no great loss!

Still, when it was suggested to me in the year of my stage jubilee that I ought to write down my recollections, I longed for those diaries! I longed for anything which would remind me of the past and make it live again for me. I was frightened. Something would be expected of me, since I could not deny that I had had an eventful life packed full of incident, and that by the road I had met many distinguished and interesting men and women. I could not deny that I had been fifty years on the stage, and that this meant enough material for fifty books, if only the details of every year could be faithfully told. But it is not given to all of us to see our lives in relief as we look back. Most of us, I think, see them in perspective, of which our birth is the vanishing point. Seeing, too, is only half the battle. How few people can describe what they see!

...For weeks I had hesitated between Othello's "Nothing extenuate, nor write down aught in malice," and Pilate's "What is truth?" as my guide and my apology. Now I saw that both were too big for my modest endeavor. I was not leaving a human document for the benefit of future psychologists and historians, but telling as much of my story as I could remember to the good, living public which has been considerate and faithful to me for so many years.

From The Story of My Life, Recollections and Reflections by Ellen Terry with thanks to Sam for sharing it as Savoynet discussed how much reliance to have on memoirs written in a subject's later years.

Nominated

2010-05-05T13:51:00.002-04:00

Back in November, David and I took a trip up to New York to spend Thanksgiving with my cousin. Normally, he and his girlfriend come south to stay at my Dad's but my cousin got a job working sound for a show which was scheduled to open right around the Autumn harvest holiday.

So we had a lovely Thanksgiving Dinner in their new apartment and on Friday we saw the show he was working. We took up most of a row and the famous director/choreographer was in attendance the night were there. Very exciting!

Fela! is bright and energetic and got lots of good buzz after we saw it (including an interview on The Daily Show for Bill T. Jones), playing to good houses even in a down economy.

On Saturday David and I went to see The Royal Family, one of my favorite pieces of "antique theater," which was then in revival in a lavish production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater.

It was a wonderful theater weekend and I enjoyed both shows thoroughly. And, it seems, I wasn't the only one: Both have been nominated for multiple Tony Awards in both performance and technical categories and both were nominated for the top honor in their discipline: Best Musical (Fela!) and Best Revival of a Play (The Royal Family).

Like Ko-Ko, I am always very glad to hear my opinion backed by a competent authority.

Because I relate everything to theater anyway

2010-04-20T17:50:00.001-04:00

At Bridget's grandmother's funeral, I told her something that had occurred to me during the mass. And I don't know what it says about either of us that we both found it both comforting and rather cheering.

"When your grandmother passed away, her show closed. And this is the closing night party where we talk about what a great show it was."

The devil you know

2010-04-20T17:42:00.000-04:00

At the read-thru for Stone Soup last night I noticed one of the cast - one of the ones who had worked with me before - looking at my oddly.

"You're remembering what a ding-a-ling I can be, aren't you?" I asked.

His lips said "no, no," but his eyes were definitely saying "yes, yes."

I'll see you and raise you

2010-04-15T12:34:00.001-04:00

Me: I got two paper cuts doing that mailing. I'm going to file for Workers' Comp.
My Boss: Paper cuts, huh? That sounds self-inflicted to me. We'll put you on report.
Me: Fine. I'll see your self-inflicted wound and raise you a hostile work environment.
My boss: Oh, really? Then we can make this a very hostile environment for you.

It's not for nothing that I studied the fine art of Retaliation & Escalation under Brett. But it seems that my Boss may have taken a similar curriculum.

What he doesn't understand

2010-04-13T07:36:00.002-04:00

It's not that David isn't entitled to half of his own bed when I stay over, it's that my half happens to be in the center.

Jeepers Creepers

2010-04-11T19:38:00.000-04:00

At brunch this morning, I kept staring at the guy at the next table. Sure, he was pretty cute, but that wasn't what drew my eye to him over and over.

I whispered to Malinda that the guy at the next table was probably noticing that I was staring, but check out those glasses! As if on cue, he looked directly at me, smiled, and wiggled his glasses at me.

Clearly, I wasn't the first. I doubt I'll be the last.

In a nutshell

2010-04-01T13:08:00.003-04:00

But that was a very, very long time ago and I'd like to tell you that I'm better but all I am is older.

Quinn Cummings

Clearly, I have been abducted by aliens

2010-04-01T08:50:00.000-04:00

Or eaten by bears. Or something.

I saw 4 plays in March. 4. I normally see about 10 plays each month.

Yeah, last March I saw 5 plays, but I was in a show that opened on the 20th, so those last two weekends didn't lend themselves to me seeing other plays. We also had rehearsals most Friday nights and every Sunday.

I was so surprised at that 4 that I looked back over the past year.* Between March 2009 and February 2010, I saw 121 plays:

February 2010 - 8

January - 8

December 2009 - 6

November - 16

October - 9

September - 9

August - 12

July - 9

June - 13

May - 13

April - 13

March 5

*Yes. I keep track of what plays I see. Of course I do.

Passover haiku

2010-03-30T09:06:00.006-04:00

It is - in my mind - Andy's haiku because I learned it from him.

Left the door open

So Elijah could come in

Now the cat is gone.

From Haikus for Jews

Veris me facies

2010-03-25T17:07:00.003-04:00

"Leta - that's a pretty name. What does it mean?"

"It's Latin for 'joyful'."

And my face is pretty joyful that spring is here.

Veris Leta Facies

from the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

Veris leta facies
mundo propinatur,
hiemalis acies
victa iam fugatur,
in vestitu vario
Flora principatur,
nemorum dulcisono
que cantu celebratur.

Flore fusus gremio
Phebus novo more
risum dat, hac vario
iam stipate flore.
Zephyrus nectareo
spirans in odore.
Certatim pro bravio
curramus in amore.

Cytharizat cantico
dulcis Philomena,
flore rident vario
prata iam serena,
salit cetus avium
silve per amena,
chorus promit virgin
iam gaudia millena.

The joyful face of spring

turns to the world,

sharp winter

now flees, vanquished;

bedecked in various colours

Flora reigns,

the harmony of the woods

praises her in song.

Ah!

Lying in Flora's lap

Phoebus once more

smiles, now covered

in multi-coloured flowers,

Zephyr breathes nectar-

scented breezes.

Let us rush to compete

for love's prize.

Ah!

In harp-like tones sings

the sweet nightingale,

with many flowers

the joyous meadows are laughing,

a flock of birds rises up

through the pleasant forests,

the chorus of maidens

already promises a thousand joys.

Ah!

How to clean out your e-mail inbox

2010-03-25T11:57:00.004-04:00

Sort by subject.

Delete everything with the subject titles Dinner; Lunch; Opps - now attached; Today; and Tonight.

Another target-rich area, of course, is the ones starting with You and Your.

Boy, that's handy

2010-03-24T17:28:00.004-04:00

I bought an iPod Touch from one of my co-workers and being just a little too cheap to buy expensive apps for it, I have only acquired the free ones. As it turns out, one of them has come in very handy lately. I recommend it highly.

It's called Flashlight and it makes the screen a very bright white (or blue or red or green or black* or any custom color). During The Laramie Project there are long stretches when I am sitting quietly, Stage Left, on the lip of the stage. So if anyone is missing from rehearsal, I read in their parts because ... well, I because I love read parts. So I sit there with the script on my lap and as we are at that point in the process where it goes randomly dark while lighting is being tested or adjusted or set, I keep the iPod Touch with me and use Flashlight to read in the missing lines. It's also helpful when someone needs a little assist on the escape stairs. Definitely handy. I'm glad I have it.

And it's also nice that I have Freecell. Which casts a light, too. I'm just sayin' ...

*I have no idea about the black, but I admit that I am intrigued by the idea of a black flashlight.

Sometimes I do say the right thing

2010-03-22T12:53:00.004-04:00

Which contrasts nicely with so much of the rest of my conversation. Although my friends generally seem to agree that my usually kind intentions often cancel out any infelicitous phrasing.

But every now and then I do say the right thing, which pleases me greatly and which is possibly why my friends are still willing to ask me for advice. Or perhaps they just enjoy the Magic 8 Ball experience of "What Will Leta Say This Time?"

I don't remember if I have "documented" these here before, so stop me if these sound familiar ....*

# One
Some years ago Friend #1 was considering proposing to his girlfriend. We had dinner and he told me this but wondered if it was the right thing to do.

"Absolutely. You should ask her to marry you."
"But I don't have any money."**
"Yeah, but you've never had any money."
"Thanks."
"No, what I mean is that if money, per se, were important to her, she wouldn't be with you now."
"But I can't afford a ring."
"All she will hear when you propose is that you want to spend your life with her. Really. Give her a cigar band now and buy her a real ring in the future."

They got married and have been living happily ever after. And his sister, when she heard this story from him, promptly went upstairs and got their mother's ring from her jewelry box and gave it to him. So no cigar band was required.

# Two
Friend #2 also had a proposal dilemma. He wanted to propose to his girlfriend but as his field might require relocating a few times until he was sufficiently established and her field didn't have as general a possible practice area, he was concerned that marrying him would have a negative effect on her career. Or that they might have to be a long-distance couple. Or, etc.

"Marry her. If you love each other enough, crossing the country for each other is not too much of a problem. If you don't crossing the street is too much effort."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. Deciding to build a life together is what's important. The rest is just logistics."

And they are married and living happily ever after ... ***

#Three
I was standing on the stage at the WATCH awards a week ago and the friend standing next to me was listening to his name get mispronounced. More than once.

"Should I correct it when I get to the mic?" he asked me, sotto very voce.
"Well, [previous MC] mispronounced my name for five years running," I murmured back.
"Okay. I'll let it go."

Yep, sometimes in the midst of the nonsense the Magic 8 Ball gives the right answer.

*My having told them to you in person several times doesn't count.
**We were young and poor back then. We're middle-aged and poor now. Me because I am completely incompetent financially, him because this is a rotten economy.
***As you can see, I think that people in love should get married. "This is true love - you think this happens every day?" says it well. So, more darkly, does "You truly love each other and so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the story books say." both from The Princess Bride

Time in a bottle

2010-03-02T13:04:00.004-05:00

"Pamwriter" left this as a comment at the end of a nice essay on downsizing from the Tucson Citizen. It's definitely even more of a challenge to get rid of stuff when the "stuff" has sentimental attachment.

So this is really for the several friends who have lost loved ones recently and will be faced with sorting their possessions into "what to keep, what to throw, and what to give away."

A friend of mine recently said ‘You CAN keep time in a bottle’. She has decided that a small collection of bottles as keep-sakes is better than the tons of keep-sakes themselves. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘we’re keeping the memories.’ So what she’s doing is to write small notes and put them in the bottles that she has categorically labeled – maybe one is ‘mom’ and one is ‘dad’ and one is ‘first husband’ etc. I’m thinking about this as I sift through ‘my stuff’. I also have started to watch the ‘Hoarders’ – I watch then I get up and clean a closet. I’m in touch with the emotional attachment to the stuff and letting go. I’d put the cookie maker* (I had one too) into the pile to go to the hospital shop and let those folks decide which of their piles to put it in.

*The item that essay author Lydia Brewer used as her jumping-off to muse about de-accessioning.

I am so deep

2010-02-18T16:44:00.002-05:00

The thoughts that went through my head - in order - when a doctor's office told me that there was a problem with one of my routine tests:

1. I guess David would be willing to take Pekoe if ...

2. Huh. Does this mean I can stop contributing to my 401(k)?

3. Screw that gluten-free diet.

Luckily for David, Pekoe, my 401(k), and the manufacturers of the gluten-free products I buy, the specialist to whom I was referred declared the area in question "extremely normal."

Pie!!

2010-02-17T14:08:00.004-05:00

I heisted this from my adorable pal, Tommy's*, post on Google Buzz.**

Single Serving Pie in a Jar

I'm going to get some gluten-free pie crust from Whole Foods and make myself some pies.

I'm also going to make several to take to my Dad's so that I can have pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas without either throwing out the crust (sad face) or bringing a gluten-free pie from Whole Foods that looks kind of mashed, as they always do, and that everyone else ignores which makes me feel all ghetto-ized about my food (put upon face).

*I would link to his blog but he last updated it over a year ago. Tommy ... dude ...

*Remember when we used to find things out by talking to each other? Yeah, that's so last century.

Kasha & friends

2010-02-10T19:22:00.007-05:00

With all the snow we've had, I've run through most of my usual favorite recipes and I did a fairly limited shop during the last clear day we had (Monday), so I've decided that it's time to go to the perishables at the back of the cabinet for inspiration.

I found a box of Kasha which is - and I am not making this up - buckwheat* groats. Yes! Groats! How cool is that? And even though there were directions on the side of the box, I found a recipe for Kasha in the next-up contestant in the Leta-cooks-her-way-thorugh-all-those-damn-cookbooks reality show.

The recipe is absurdly easy to make, so I gussied it up a bit, for a couple of reasons: 1. It felt more like a one-dish meal post-gussying; and 2. A nice big bowl of plain groats for dinner is too peasanty, even for me.

I still have plenty in the box and will probably make Kasha again soon, but I may have to try it without the egg, just to see what that does to the final product.

Kasha (Buckwheat Groats)
The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook, page 124, published 1955

(I made a half recipe, but this is the full one)

1 cup Kasha, medium or coarse
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups boiling water

Mix the kasha, egg, and salt in a saucepan. Place over low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until each grain is dry and separate. Add boiling water; cover and cook over low heat 12 to 15 minutes, or until dry and tender.

Serve as a substitute for rice or potatoes, or use as directed in recipe. This recipe makes about 3 1/2 to 4 cups.

The gussying consisted of sautéing some onions and garlic in olive oil and adding them, along with some chopped spinach after about half the water was absorbed into the kasha. Because, really, could it hurt?

*Nope, buckwheat isn't really wheat. It's a whole nuther grain.

In this bleak midwinter

2010-02-08T18:42:00.006-05:00

I have a great fondness for what a friend of mine labled "downer Christmas songs." You know, "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "Carol of the Bells" and the most Downer Christmas Song of them all, "In the Bleak Midwinter."

The only part of it that doesn't work for me is that we sing it (or, more likely, listen to it) in mid-December, which around here is more like "In the Reall Late Autumn."

Our bleak midwinter is actually about now and this midwinter is bleaker than most. We got a big snow on December 18th (24 inches), another on January 30th (about a foot), another on February 2nd (5 inches) and another over this past weekend (another 24 inches).

We are now expecting another 4 to 12 inches before Wednesday evening. The frozen heaps from December haven't yet eroded and we've had more and yet more. I love snow, but we've had enough.

And when someone on the radio described this past week as "snow on snow on snow," I realized that the theme song for me for SnOMG 2010 is the poem written by Christina Rossetti well over a century ago.

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago

On this one, I think Lucy is right

2010-02-06T10:39:00.003-05:00

Up here on the 8th floor, the snow definitely seems to be coming up.

LUCY
And way up there,
The little stars and planets,
Make the rain,
That falls in showers.
And when it's cold and winter is upon us,
The snow comes up,
Just like the flowers.

CHARLIE BROWN
Now, Lucy, I know that's wrong. Snow doesn't come up,
it comes down.

LUCY
After it comes up, the wind blows it around so it
looks like it's coming down but actually it comes up
out of the ground- like grass. It comes up, Charlie Brown,
snow comes up!

CHARLIE BROWN
Oh, good grief!

"Little Known Facts" from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, lyrics by Clark Gesner, ideas by Lucy, Lucy by Charles Schultz.

Snowed up

2010-02-05T19:58:00.007-05:00

Every time we get a lot of snow (we are currently in the middle of SnOMG 2010 with 5" on the ground so far and another 20 or so expected), this scene runs through my head.

One still morning, Laura came downstairs to find Ma looking surprised and Pa laughing. "Go look out the back door!" he told Laura.
She ran through the lean-to and openend the back door. There was a rough, low tunnel going into shadows in gray-white snow. Its walls and its floor were snow and its snow roof solidly filled the top of the doorway.
"I had to gopher my way to the stable this morning," Pa explained.
"But what did you do with the snow?" Laura asked.
"Oh, I made the tunnel as low as I could get though. I dug the snow out and pushed it back of me and up through a hole that I blocked with the last of it. There's nothing like snow for keeping out wind!" Pa rejoiced. "As long as that snowbank stands, I can do my chores in comfort."
"How deep is the snow?" Ma wanted to know.
"I can't say." It's piled up considerably deeper than the lean-to roof," Pa answered.
"You don't mean to say this house is buried in snow!" Ma exclaimed.
"A good thing if it is," Pa replied. "You notice the kitchen is warmer than it has been this winter?"
Laura ran upstairs. She scratched a peephole on the window and put her eyes to it. She could hardly believe them. Main Street was level with her eyes. Across the glittering snow she could see the blank, square top of Harthorn's false front sticking up like a short piece of solid board fence.

From The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Me, too!

2010-02-03T09:31:00.002-05:00

Life & Theater

Driving home from Peppermint Creek's "The Seafarers" last night, I got to thinking about my taste in theater, which admittedly at this point is pretty broad. I was tickled with a metaphor.

My taste in theater is much like what I want out of life:

Heavy doses of comedy to fill the days with laughter
Plenty of drama to challenge me, make me think, help me grow, and help me form healthier relationships with others
Strong dashes of absurdity to keep me on my feet
Small bits of the familiar to comfort me
A vast majority of new experiences to expand my horizons
Relevant stories that give me something to share with those around me
Lots of song and dance to celebrate it all

Found on Front Row at Lansing's Theaters

It runs in the family*

2010-01-30T21:46:00.009-05:00

It seems that the cat has a possible theater career ahead of him ...

Some friends and I started a tradition on Facebook called Foto Friday. The rules are pretty simple: take a picture on Friday and post it to your news feed and you're in! No pictures of, or pertaining to, the men's room are acceptable for Foto Friday. Anything else is generally fair game, although our offices do seem to figure in a pretty high percentage of the shots taken.

I wanted to take a non-office Friday Foto and I had a decent idea. I would take a picture of Pekoe and his (by the end of the workday) empty food bowl. So I brought the camera home from work and after the initial writhing through my legs to express his joy at my return, Peek and I headed into the kitchen. I took an establishing shot of the tragically empty bowl:

I then took a nice shot of Pekoe looking mournfully at me while standing next to the tragically empty bowl. The camera told me to change the batteries and shut itself off. Oh, well. Okay. I feed Pekoe and then went to the computer to download the images, but alas! The second shot didn't save because of the low battery.

New batteries were added to the camera and then Pekoe was informed that, as we had lost the original image, we would now need to recreate "Sad Pekoe at the Empty Food Bowl." So, to his obvious confusion, I picked up his food bowl and dumped all but a few crumbs of the contents back into the airtight plastic container that keeps the cat food reasonably fresh and reasonably unavailable to strew all over the kitchen.

I set the bowl down and like a trooper he resumed his previous position and looked up at me on cue.**

Note how he has arranged to show off his lovely green eyes to best effect, to minimize any "devil cat red eye," and yet to very clearly express "What's the with empty bowl? We feed cats here!"

And yet ... the director in me reviewed the shot (if Peek and I had been filming, I would have been "reviewing the dailies" or something like that) and decided that we needed one more take.

Pekoe had already wandered off to sniff and bat at things, two of his major occupations, but when summoned to the set, promptly hit his mark and was ready to go.

As can be clearly noted in the second shot The Artist built on his previous character choices for Starving Cat, adding in layers relating to his previous life as a stray. There is just a hint of the dichotomy between being grateful for being fed every day and fearing dependency on another for his basic needs.

I swear he takes direction better than some far more experienced human actors I've worked with.

All the material we needed was now safely in the can, as it were, so the food was replaced in the bowl and the The Artist was rewarded with a couple of Pounce.***

*Okay, just to clarify, I do not regard myself as Pekoe's "Mom." His staff, maybe, but not his mom. Or any other family member. But the title just seemed more euphonius than "It runs in the human/animal companionate relationship."

**The truly discerning (or truly anal, decide for yourself) will notice that the arragement of food particles lacks continuity from the establishing shot. I was working from memory. I did the best I could.

***Which is about as much as I been paid for theater in the past year, come to think of it.

Exactly what I would have said

2010-01-28T16:18:00.006-05:00

My next theater project is a show called The Laramie Project about the murder of Matthew Shepard. I'll be playing Officer Reggie Fluty, the first responder on the scene. Providence company member Beth is playing Marge Murray, Reggie's mother. Beth is only a few years older than I am,* so last night at a play reading I was chatting with her husband, David**, and we had the following exchange:

Me: So how many times do you think I can call Beth "Mom" before she just slaps me?

David: I dunno. Try it and see.

*This happens in theater (and in the movies) all the time. Sometimes we play the parents of people who are older than we are. It not how old you are - it's how old you can play.

**Yes, of course, he is named David. Of course.

Dimes and Quarters

2010-01-26T15:05:00.004-05:00

They walked up to the bar, uh, and, as you know, paid for a pitcher with dimes and quarters, uh, which is something that I mean you don't forget. You don't forget that. Five-fifty in dimes and quarters. That's a freakin' nightmare.

Now Henderson and McKinney, they didn't seem intoxificated* at all. They came in -- they just ordered a beer, took the pitcher with them back there into the pool room, and kept to themselves. Next thing I knew, probably a half hour later, they were kind of walking around -- no beer. And I remember thinking to myself that I'm not gonna ask them if they want another one, because obviously they just paid for a pitcher with dimes and quarters. I have a real good feeling they don't have any more money.

Matt Galloway in The Laramie Project

*Thanks to Patrick for the correction.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

2010-01-20T22:36:00.004-05:00

Last year I resolved to make one new recipe a month during the year, using the cookbooks that take up an entire baker's rack in my kitchen. Somehow that didn't happen,* although I did make some fresh peas at one point and had to look up how long to boil them.**

But a new year doesn't require new resolutions, just renewed resolve...

I had bought some Brussels sprouts at the local farmers' market which I had recently learned was now year-round. I had needed to pick up a pound of ground bison meat for some chili I would be making for the office chili cook-off and the Brussels sprouts were just a happy surprise. I rinsed them when I got home the day I bought them and popped them into a bowl in the fridge. I ate a few raw now and again (crunchy and yummy!) as I was doing other things, but tonight I decided it was Time to Cook the Brussels Sprouts.

One of the reasons that I love Brussels sprouts is that my Mom made them beautifully. She'd cut the stems off, make little Xs in the bottom, boil them in just enough water to cover, drain them and replace in the pot, add butter, salt, and pepper, and then cover lightly with a wax paper circle for a few minutes. They were the definition of "crisp-tender" and sooo tasty.

I knew the basic premise, but - again - needed specifics.

As I also had some bacon that was also reaching its Use It Today point and figuring that I could accomplish several things at once, I pulled out the cookbook that is upper left in the bakers rack: The James Beard Cookbook (1959. Well, 1967 in paper).*** It had been Mom's and several of the recipes have her mark, i.e., the date of the first time she made the recipe. Mr. Beard eschews both the Xs in the bottoms and the wax paper circle, so his recipe is a trifle simpler than Mom's but I think her Brussels sprouts are still the best. Also, the next time I make this I think I won't boil them as long as Mr. Beard suggests as the sprouts were softer than I prefer. But all in all? Pretty darn tasty.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
The James Beard Cookbook, page 446 & 447

1 quart or 1 pound of Brussels sprouts
Water
Salt & pepper
4 tablespoons of melted butter (not necessary for the bacon variation)

Trim the stems off close to the sprouts and remove any discolored leaves. Put the sprouts to soak for 15 to 20 minutes in water to which you have added 1 teaspoon of salt.

In a kettle put enough water to cover the Brussels sprouts and add 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring this to a boil and add the vegetable. Do not cover. Cook gently until just tender when pierced with a fork. This should take about 15 minutes.

Drain well and seve with melted butter and salt and pepper to taste (skip for bacon variation)

Some people like a dash of vinegar or some lemon juice added.

With Bacon

Prepare as for Boiled Brussels Sprouts (see above), and while the sprouts are cooking, fry 6 slices of bacon. When crisp, remove and chop fine. Drain off all but 4 tablespoons of the bacon fat. Return the chopped bacon to the pan and add the cooked and drained sprouts. Season with 1 tablespoon of grated onion.

I added the BSwB to some gluten-free rotini pasta. It was, in all, a lovely dinner that I look forward to making again some time.

Next up? The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook.

*I also resolved to walk to work on days when a) the temperature was above 40 degrees as I was getting dressed and b) if I didn't have to be somewhere immediately after work. That one worked out rather well, so I'm repeating it again this year as well.

**About ten minutes, up to 15 for larger peas.

***All of the books in my home are filed alphabetically by author except for cookbooks which are by size, smallest to largest. If I am able to stick with this project, the one on the bottom shelf right is my Provence the Beautiful Cookbook**** Technically, the cookbook to the absolute left is another James Beard cookbook dealing with Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapes, but that sort of book is usually rather thin on recipes for Brussels Sprouts.

****By which, I assume, was meant a cookbook about Beautiful Provence, rather than a beautiful cookbook, although as it is a coffe-table type book with lots of food-porn illustrations, it's certainly a darn fetching book.

Just a suggestion

2010-01-20T09:59:00.002-05:00

I am sorting and mailing out the W-2 forms for 2009 today. The ones for current employees will go to their offices and the ones for former employees will go to their homes.

And quite a few of them will come back to me because some of the former employees have moved and their forwarding orders have expired. I always tell departing staffers to make sure that we have an address for them that will get their W-2s to them, but who really thinks about a former employer or a once-a-year form while going through the whole "do I really like this enough to pack and move it" and "why do I have so much crap and why is it so heavy" process that is moving.

So if you moved during 2009? Make sure your former employer has your current address. Sure speeds up getting that refund.

A nice compromise

2010-01-19T16:51:00.003-05:00

I was a Girl Scout. My elementary school was somewhat haphazard about sponsoring scout troops, so I was involved in scouting about every other year. But I absorbed a fair bit about lanyards and uniforms and campfire songs. And I sold cookies. Back in the old days we went door-to-door because, as my mother put it, "I'm not taking any cookie order forms to work. This is your project and you are responsible for it." So I went door-to-door taking orders and a few weeks later I went door-to-door with my little red wagon (truly) and delivered the goods.

Girl Scouts no longer go door-to-door because it's just not safe. It probably wasn't safe back when I did it, but we didn't know that. Instead the order form appears at the office. And Celiac Disease or no, as a former Girl Scout, I am morally obligated to pay those cookies forward.

Luckily for me, my very good friend, the Gleeful Gecko, believes in the Girl Scouts and their cookies. And has a birthday coming up. In a division of labor that works for both of us, I will buy the cookies and he will consume them.

It's rather a pity that I can't deal with all of my moral obligations as easily.

Cup of Brown Joy

2010-01-18T09:30:00.003-05:00

When I say "As-sam!" you say "Love-ly!" AS-SAM! LOVE-LY!
When I say "her-bal" you say "No thanks!" HER-BAL! NO THANKS!

Thanks to The Linguaphile for the link.

Matching donation

2010-01-18T09:20:00.005-05:00

I got this e-mail this morning from our Human Resources Director:

I am sure you all are aware of the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti last week and the growing need for resources needed by the Haitians to recover and rebuild. Many of you have responded by sending aid through your charity of choice, and [the company] will join you in that effort by matching your donations. If you have made a donation towards the Haiti recovery effort, please contact me. I will co-ordinate the Haiti Relief matching fund donation.

One of the many reasons I'm glad I work here. I've texted money to the Red Cross and now and I think I'll send a bit more to Doctors Without Borders for the immediate relief and Engineers Without Borders for the long-term recovery.

Energy Circle

2009-12-19T16:39:00.003-05:00

A common tradition in community theater - especially community theater involving children - is the "Energy Circle": the cast and crew gather together in a big circle and hold hands. After a few words about having a great show and maybe a suggestion about staying focused, the Director squeezes one of the hands s/he is holding. That person then squeezes the next person's hand and so on, sending the energy surge around the circle, all the way back to the person who started it.

My role in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is playing one of the Church Ladies, a small group of women who serve as the critical, judgmental Greek Chorus. When the Director announced the Energy Circle and one of the Stage Managers came to round every one up, one of the other Church Ladies asked if that really included the adults. Yep.

So I told the Stage Manager that I would participate, but she should know by now that the real Energy Circle in my life is the rim of a Martini Glass.

Snowpocalypse Tomato Soup

2009-12-19T16:22:00.006-05:00

The DC area is covered in snow. At first we were told that we'd get a few inches on Saturday. Then it was a few inches on Saturday and some on Sunday. By the end of the day on Friday, the predictions no longer included the word "inches." We were expecting one to two feet of snow over the weekend.

It was snowing by the time that I left the theater at 9:45 pm. (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is basically an extended one-act.) Just a light dusting, but coming down pretty steadily. I had drinks and gumbo* at a friend's house and set out for home around 1:15 am. By then the roads were snow-coated and slippery, so the driving required a decent level of skill and focus.** I was home by 2:00 am.

Today's performances having been cancelled, I got to have an at-home day. There were several inches on the ground this morning and we're over a foot now. It's still coming down pretty briskly. The Blizzard Warning has shifted to a Winter Storm warning and is expected to last until about 6:00 am.

So for lunch I made tomato soup from scratch. I looked through my cookbooks for ideas and then sort of went my own way. It was easy and tasty and I'm glad that I made a large enough batch that I have leftovers. Here's what I did:

Snowpocalypse Tomato Soup

Peel and mince 2 cloves of garlic;
Mince a quarter of a medium onion;
Sauté the the garlic and onion in a generous splash of olive oil over a low flame while considering whether to add some Vermouth to the recipe;

Open two 14-ounce cans of diced tomatoes and empty into a two-quart pot;
Warm the tomatoes and add the garlic and onion;
Stir and decide yes on the Vermouth - pour in a healthy splash;
Add a cheerful amount of oregano, parsley, and thyme;
Shake in Cayenne pepper until you think you may have overdone it;

Let it all simmer for a little bit, then ladle about half into the blender;
Blend on "chop" for a few seconds;
Pour it back into the pot;
Let it simmer a little longer for good measure;

Grate enough good cheese over it to bring a smile to your face;
Finish with salt and pepper to taste.

*Really good gumbo, with okra and gumbo file. Must get the recipe ...
**Snow driving tip: Proceed at a moderate speed, stay away from the brake pedal. Would that everyone else on the road with me knew that.

Team

2009-12-02T23:57:00.003-05:00

Something happened at precisely that moment. Both Claudia and Jamie tried to explain to me about it, but they couldn't quite. I know what happened, though I never told them. Having words and explanations for everything is too modern. I especially wouldn't tell Claudia. She has too many explanations already.

What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away when they had acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. Becoming a team didn't mean the end of their arguments. But it did mean that the arguments became a part of the adventure, became discussions not threats. To an outsider the arguments would apppear to be the same beause feeling like part of a team is something that happens invisibly. You might call it caring. You could even call it love. And it is very rarely, indeed, that it happens to two people at the same time -- especially a brother and a sister who had always spent more time with activities than they had with each other.

From From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, the only juvenile fiction I've ever read that contains a map of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

How to fill your e-mail inbox*

2009-11-18T23:49:00.004-05:00

1. Click the "like" button on Facebook for a friend's picture of their cute children.

Ta-da! You're done! Sit back and watch the e-mails roll in!

*I was going to call this post "How to Get More Interesting Mail" in honor of the Direct Marketing Association's booklet for people who wish to receive more rather than less junk mail. But Facebook comments aren't junk mail - they're the conversation.

Just like the good old days

2009-11-17T23:06:00.003-05:00

The best thing about playing a tiny part in a kid-dominated show is that I have lots of down time at rehearsal. So Karen and Felicity and Julie and I can gossip to our heart's content and I can work on my crocheting*. It all reminds me very much of my days in Gilbert & Sullivan choruses. No one will remember that I was in the show but I'm having a lovely time helping to put it together.

*I am making a scarf or two or three for women serving in Afghanistan, a project that my friend Pam alerted me to.

Understudy

2009-11-16T23:08:00.000-05:00

No one prays more for the good health of the star than the under-rehearsed understudy.

Eat your vegetables, Anna, and wash your hands often.

Table for Two

2009-11-15T20:28:00.003-05:00

On Friday night I was supposed to meet Dave, a theater friend, for dinner at Fajita Coast. He was scheduled to see The Goat at Silver Spring and I was planning to see The Merry Wives of Windsor at my high school, a block away.

I was running a little late and my friend Laura, one of the cast members for The Goat hit little enough traffic that she decided to have a sit down rather than carry out dinner. So she went to Fajita Coast ....

(This is where that wavy screen that they had back in the old days on sit-coms to denote a flashback kicks in.)

Dave walks in a sees Laura sitting at a table. He and I see each other rarely enough that she fit his mental description for me*, so he plunked down at the table with her and said jocularly "I'll just sit here until you get a better offer. "

"I'm sorry?!"

"Augh! You're not Leta!"

"No, but I know Leta."

So when I arrived a few minutes later, they were still sharing a table, happily chatting away.

If they become friends, they'll have one of the better "meet cute" stories I can think of.

* And I quote - thin and brown haired. Delusional. Flattering, but delusional.

I'm not sure I was exaggerating either

2009-11-14T20:33:00.000-05:00

David and I were invited to a gala fundraiser recently. The kind held in Expensive Locations with Open Bars and Important Dignitaries. We would be one of three couples at a table for several couples. I don't have an official link to the organization but the very good friend who invited us does and it is a Very Worthy Organization indeed. I was honored to drink their booze, consume their food, and applaud their Dignitaries.

David is less likely to enjoy these sorts of events than I am, but he is a) a very nice man and b) also fond of the friend who invited us, so he agreed to attend.* But he's a pretty sharp cookie and observed that he thinks the major reason I accepted with such alacrity was the company we would be keeping more than anything else.

"This is just social for you, isn't it?"**

"Well, sure it is. Oh, Honey, as long as we are invited by such good folks, I'd accept an invitation to run through a hail of bullets."

* He may have had other motives, I don't know. I shall not speculate here.

** Usually the correct assumption.

Like Sarah Chalke. Or Dick Sergeant. Or Brian Forster

2009-11-13T09:32:00.004-05:00

Andy: You look different. Why do you look different?
Me: I dunno. Maybe because I'm being played by another actress?
Andy: That's very meta of you, but no.

Because it's been raining a lot lately

2009-11-12T12:08:00.004-05:00

"Fool In The Rain"
Jones, Page, Plant

Well there's a light in your eye that keeps shining
Like a star that can't wait for the night
I hate to think I've been blinded baby
Why can't I see you tonight?

And the warmth of your smile starts a-burnin'
And the thrill of your touch gives me fright
And I'm shaking so much, really yearning
Why don't you show up, make it all right?
Yeah, it's all right.

And if you promised you'd love so completely
and you said you would always be true
You swore that you would never leave me, baby:
What ever happened to you?

And you thought it was only in movies
As you wish all your dreams would come true
It ain't the first time believe me, baby
I'm standin here feeling blue
Yeah I'm blue

Now I will stand in the rain on the corner
I'll watch the people go shuffling downtown
Another ten minutes no longer
And then I'm turning around

The clock on the wall's moving slower
My heart it sinks to the ground
And the storm that I thought would blow over
Clouds the light of the love that I found

Now my body is starting to quiver
And the palms of my hands getting wet
I've got no reason to doubt you baby,
It's all a terrible mess

I'll run in the rain till I'm breathless
When I'm breathless I'll run till I drop, hey
The thoughts of a fool's kind of careless
I'm just a fool waiting on the wrong block, oh yeah
Light of the love that I found...

Wearing my poppy

2009-11-11T12:34:00.004-05:00

When I was growing up I believed that Memorial Day honored those who died in War and Veterans Day honored all service personnel. It turns out that I was mistaken.

Memorial Day (originally Decoration Day) celebrated Union soldiers and the date (last Monday in May) was chosen to match the day of reunification after the Civil War.

Veterans Day (also known as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day) originally honored the veterans of the first World War. When I was in England last November, we stopped our singing and such in time for the moment of silence at 11:11 am and afterwards our host, Bob, asked if any of us had parents or grandparents who fought in that war. His father fought for England as the did the fathers and uncles of several of the people in the room.

I had landed at Heathrow a couple of days before and as I was going through the airport with Carol and Claire and Mariel, I saw a box labeled "Poppy Appeal". Ignorant American that I am, I asked what it was and what it meant. I was told that the Poppy Appeal which offers little paper poppies in exchange for donations, supports the Royal British Legion, the nation's leading Armed Forces charity providing care and support to all members of the British Armed Forces past and present.

I asked if a pound was enough (oh, any amount is fine, luv), put my pound in the tin, and took a poppy. I put it through the button hole of my sweater and was severely grateful that I had learned this before I had needed any kind of assistance, as I had assumed that the many people wearing poppies were airport personnel of some kind.

I made sure to wear it that Sunday and also made sure to put it where I wouldn't lose it when I got home.

A couple of months later, I was at the James Lee Community Center for an audition or a rehearsal or something and was chatting with a friend who works there. I noticed a box of poppies on the counter and asked about them. It seems that the American Legion also uses poppies to raise money for the support of veterans.

So now I have two poppies and this week I have worn my British poppy on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for Remembrance Day and will wear my American poppy today, tomorrow and Friday for Veterans Day. My Boss saw my English poppy on Monday and today is wearing the one that he got on a recent trip to London. My other boss has not been able to find a poppy anywhere locally, so I have lent him my English one. And the three of us are explaining our poppies to the many people who ask about the paper flowers we are wearing.

Why poppies? Because many of the fallen in World War I were buried in Flanders Field in Belgium where poppies grow like poppies.

To all who served my country or their own, including my father and grandfathers, my thanks. Thank you for your service.

The Poppy Appeal

American Legion Auxilliary Poppy Campaign

A Bright Side

2009-11-10T18:22:00.004-05:00

When Mom moved to Very Assisted Living boxes and boxes of her papers came to me. I am packrat but Mom is even more of one.

The central part of my study has been filed with boxes for the past year and I'd frequently walk in there on a Saturday morning, fully intending to sort, ditch, file, and generally reduce the level of the worst Disney ride ever, Paper Mountain. I'd take one look at it, desultorily move a few items from one place to another, feel totally overwhelmed, and find something else to do. Often something really productive, like play FreeCell.

Well, with Mom running out of money, it's time to submit the paperwork for a "spend down." Mom paid a pretty steep "deposit" when she moved into the facility where she lives and now that she does not have the income to pay the $295 a day that it costs to live in VAL, they will help me organize spending down the deposit. When she runs through that and uses up all but $2,500 of her assets, they'll apply for Medi-whichever it is.

The people in the Finance office are very nice, but it turns out that they actually do need to see paperwork. Lots of paperwork. So I've been spending time in the study and because I have a goal - find X, find Y, find Z - I'm not being dissuaded by chaos and dispair.

So while it doesn't look like it to the average passer-by, the study is tidier and more organized. And I've been getting rid of things outside of the study as well.

Except for the fact that I know it's too much hope for, I'd say that maybe by the time that my nieces have to do this for me, I'll have broken the packrat habit.

Reconciliation

2009-11-09T08:31:00.001-05:00

Night flight to San Francisco. Chase the moon across America. God! It’s been years since I was on a plane.

When we hit thirty-five thousand feet, we’ll have reached the tropopause. The great belt of calm air. As close as I’ll ever get to the ozone.

I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening …

But I saw something only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired.

Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead.

At least I think that’s so.

From Angels in America by Tony Kushner

Not as cute as he thinks it is

2009-11-08T22:16:00.003-05:00

Of all of the tricks that Pekoe has learned over the past 10 years, I think that his new one of tipping his cat box onto its side is my least favorite.

Especially when he does in the middle of the night and I find out by walking though cat litter a little while later.

It also happens to be true

2009-11-07T23:53:00.001-05:00

Living in Very Assisted Living ain't cheap. It's costing my mother $295 a day to be kept in the style to which she would have preferred not to become accustomed. $295 a day is more than her income, so we're starting the process to spend down the deposit she paid when she moved there seven years ago. When that money is (too soon) gone, the facility will help her apply for Medi-whichever.

It depresses Mom to think that she won't have anything to leave me and my neices. I've tried different ways to tell her that, while it is too bad, it's more important to take care of her than to worry about any kind of financial legacy.

Today I may have found a way to phrase it that works for her:

Mom, you worked hard all your life and saved a lot of money, which will be spent to keep you safe and comfortable. You're money should be spent on you. And knowing that you are safe and comfortable means a lot to me.

She said that was "a nice way to put it." Had Mom been more of a fan of Hemingway, she might have said "Isn't it pretty to think so," but I doubt she would have gone to far as quote Brick's "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?" Mom's never been as much of a cynic as Mr. Williams.

For my birthday

2009-11-06T09:07:00.004-05:00

Don't take to me Nello's for a very expensive dinner. Just buy me a shiny new Passat.* Or a shiny new Eos** and a used Jetta.

*Thunder Blue, manual, sunroof.

**Salsa Red, manual, don't forget the iPod cable-thing.

And that's the way it is - now

2009-11-05T22:12:00.005-05:00

Back in the old days (when I was a child) there was the evening news, in black and white, and there were two newspapers, the Washington "Post" and the Washington " Evening Star."*

Then, in the fullness of time, there was news on the radio. Real news stories that lasted longer than a minute. Real news, not just a few headlines at the top of the hour, mixed with traffic, weather, and celebrity gossip. (Or, worse yet, the AM station that my mother liked that carried Harden and Weaver - WMAL, back then pretty Reader's Digest-y, today a ractionary sinkhole).

And how do I get my news now? From FaceBook. I learn about breaking news stories as I read about them in status updates. Then, later in the day, NPR fills in the details for me.

Lee described FaceBook as what happens in the halls between classes in high school. Apparently, it also has a PA with morning and afternoon announcements, too. Just like high school. What goes around comes around.

*Unless I was visting my grandparents, in which case there was the Plain Dealer, which was thinner and more Reader's Digest-like. I liked the "Plain Dealer."

**Today, by the way, is Morning Edition's 30th birthday. Many happy returns of the day!

***And, of course, people who follow Twitter now get their (truncated) headlines from the Twits.

How to escape terrible radio

2009-11-04T21:40:00.003-05:00

I get two stations at work - 88.5 (wamu), the local NPR station, and 107.3, the local pop and "personality DJ" station. Mostly I divide my time between the two of them, but every now and then - and more and more frequently these days - I need a break. I was reluctant to use Smudge* at work because when my boss needs me, I don't want to have to take out ear buds before I look attentive. Or miss him when he calls for me.

But then one day ... then one day ... ** then one day I realized that even though the external speaker makes the sound a little teeny, tiny, itsy-bitsy bit tinny, Smudge still lacks the static of my radio and I could hear it just fine even without the ear buds.

So now when I need to avoid hearing about Virginia politics on NPR or to avoid being subjected to the biggest blowhard DJ in radio on 107.3, I grab Smudgy, chose a random song and hit "genius." Et voila!***

Sometimes I use the wi-fi network that I can get to and use Pandora. Also good. Thank you, Modern Technology!

* My name for my iPod Touch because what have I re-learned from having an iPod Touch? That human beings are greasy little animals.

** Oh crap. I cannot seem to stop quoting from Edward Albee's The Goat. That is so not fair.

*** I've done this a bunch of times, so I really should stop looking over at Smudgy as each next song comes up and thinking "Oh! I like that song." Of course, I do. It's on my iPod.

She's known me a while

2009-11-03T23:47:00.002-05:00

One of the positive things about having lunch with a friend who is taking pain killers and is a rather stresssed is that you can have exchanges like this:

Her: I've had too many people die lately so be careful.
Me: Be careful? Oh! You mean, like, crossing the street and stuff. For a minute I thought you meant "be careful not to say anything stupid and that ..."
Her: Oh yeah, that's a total crapshoot with you.

It's so nice to be understood.

The bad place

2009-11-02T23:25:00.003-05:00

I don't mind Tech Week, which some theater people call Hell Week. In fact, I rather like it. But, oh, how I hate Version Control Hell.

I went to Version Control Hell last week and just got back. Fortunately, it was really only a day trip, unlike some of the extended voyages I've been on in the past.

Upper Management is working on an important document for our company right now. And they are doing it by in-person meetings and by editing the document via our intranet site. And they forgot the most important rule: when editing the document on the intranet site, "save" don't "save as" with a new name.

So I merged the documents back into one and sent the Worthy Gentlemen* an e-mail reminding them not to "save as," but only to "save."

And I included this paraphrase: What Leta has joined together, let no Manager put asunder. **

I'm hoping that the Biblical-sounding injunction will work where "please" and "thanks!" have failed. We shall see.

* Because I work in what is still a very male-dominated field, I am still looking forward to the day when I send an e-mail to Upper Management that cannot start with the salutation "Gentlemen."

** Another reason that I really, really like my job? I ran that sentence past my Boss before I sent the e-mail and he didn't make me take it out.

Notes

2009-11-01T21:11:00.002-05:00

"At the end of every rehearsal, we have what are called "notes." If they're not about you, they're boring but if they are about you, they're important."

Amy, giving the best summary I've ever heard for the last few minutes of rehearsal.

She is directing her second show which has a large cast, 90% of which are children, many under age 6, most doing their first show. She is my hero.

Valuable lessons from Old Time Radio

2009-10-25T21:07:00.002-04:00

"It's the olives that do it, not the Martinis!"

Johnny Dollar in "The Confidential Matter" episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

Character Reference

2009-10-19T08:08:00.003-04:00

"Since you should know something about me, I have asked the Reverend Simon Simpless, of St. Hilda's Church near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, to write to you. He has known me since I was a child and is fond of me. I have asked Lady Bella Taunton to provide a reference for me too. We were fire wardens together during the Blitz and she wholeheartedly dislikes me. Between the two of them, you may get a fair picture of my character."

A letter from Juliet Ashton to Amelia Maugery in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Don't ask for much, do we?

2009-10-06T08:48:00.000-04:00

Collect of the Day
Sunday, October 5, 2009

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire to deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

We would also like a pony.

Byron, Bryon

2009-10-01T19:14:00.001-04:00

Byron* has been popping up in my line of sight again lately. Sara Joy is rehearsing Arcadia and her Facebook status updates are peppered with Hannah's dialogue; John Malkovich appears in the film version of J.M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace and has this comment about his character, a professor of Romantic poetry: "Probably if you spend your whole life reading Byron and Keats and Shelley, partaking of their worldview, then you might have a different moral compass than those who don't."

So the lame brat is on my mind again.

A couple of nights ago I was reading a Time magazine from a few weeks back and came across a book review. The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes** describes "an era when science was both glamorous and dangerous" and the review by Lev Grossman notes that at that time "Poetry and science weren't wholly separate yet: they were seen as complementary ways of piercing the veil of everyday phonomena. William Wordsworth, Lord Byron and the Shelleys (Percy Bysshe and Mary) followed scientific breakthroughs like sports scores."

And the single hardest part of Arcadia for me to memorize is back in my head:

I had a dream which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air... ***

In rehearsals, before those words were secure (which nearly required a nail gun) I would get to that point in the script, look intelligently**** at Patrick and say "Bryon, Bryon, end of Byron" and we'd go on with the scene. I think the director was a little afraid that I would do that in performance, too, but I did not.

Perhaps the universe is trying to tell me something. Perhaps while I am between scripts, I'll read some Romantic poetry and see what - if anything - it does to my moral compass.

Assuming I have one, that is.

* George Gordon, Lord Byron

** I don't think it's the same Richard Holmes as the baritone who sings for NYGASP, but that would also be a nice piece of serendipity, wouldn't it.

*** Darkness

**** Or so I like to think.