Hey there! Yep, I'm still alive - it's been a crazy couple of months and blogging (needless to say) has fallen by the way side. Hopefully, I can pick up the pace again in the next couple of weeks. I thought I would do a post inspired by Clare at Clare's Spot. Her funny and awkward posts crack me up, and while mine probably won't be quite as amusing - but likely more cringe-worthy - I decided to do one. All of these are related to rehearsals for the Wizard of Oz which opens this Friday... theatre has been a huge learning curve, and opens up lots of awkward opportunities! XDD
When - even after nearly six months - people at rehearsal STILL can't tell you apart from you sister, and you just start answering to each other's names until those who do know you from each other correct the erroneous talker and make things even more confusing.
... And then people at rehearsal call Joy by the shortened version of her real name and you innocently wonder out loud who they are talking about because you never call her that at home...
When your choreographer is making last minute changes to your really hard dance routine, and you are getting stressed because you aren't a dancer and you don't feel well, and the room is getting hotter and hotter and so the director puts the entire rehearsal on hold because she thinks you are about to pass out... (I was getting pretty dizzy and appreciated the cold air when I was taken out side to recover, but I did hate holding up the whole rehearsal!)
When you are late getting back stage for a scene and still have to dress... you manage to get your very restraining costume on before remembering that you forgot to mic up. You step into the mic pouch and then remember that you still have to get the headset up your dress so the cord doesn't show. Because of the mittens on the end of the sleeves, you have to get one of the other girls to help by sticking the headset as far up your front as you can, and having her grab it from the top and pull it through. *shakes head* I have learned my lesson. The headset stays on at all times.
When you are not used to wearing a four-fifths of the make up required for stage and manage to get mascara, eye liner, bright pink/red lipstick spread everywhere and on everything you touch.
... not to mention yelping every time to poke yourself in the eye with the mascara brush, and then trying not to let your eyes water up because you have only just managed to make that eye liner look half respectable.
When the directors tell the ensemble to move forward on the stage, and only a couple of people move and you suddenly find yourself in the front and blocking all the short people behind you... *sigh*
When you have a full dress rehearsal and know that you will look awful and raw if you take all that make up off with out your regular foundation to put on afterwards so you just go down to the mall mascara, blush and all. You aren't sure whether to smile apologetic when people give you strange looks, or just be over dramatic to add the finishing touch.
When you excuse yourself and squeeze past half a dozen people in big dresses to get to the door and almost walk out of the dressing room without the appropriate costume shoes - again.
... and your section of the dressing room is in the far back corner so you have to excuse yourself and squeeze past half a dozen people in big dresses to go and retrieve them.
When you can hear that a couple of the sopranos around you are not singing the right note, and you are unsure whether to sing the wrong note with them and be in unison, or sing the correct note and clash on the tone difference. The struggle is real when the conductor can hear everything.
I am long overdue for a general post to tell y'all about how life is going. So here it is now. :)
As a lot of you would have known, Mum and Dad were involved in the local production of The Pirates of Penzance this year. It was all rather exciting, as none of us have been involved with our theatrical society since Beauty and the Beast six years ago, and Mum and Dad have never done one together. There is a consequence that must be realized when you commit yourself to being in a musical show, and that is that - while everyone involved is a volunteer - everyone must pay by being semi-tortured with the same songs going around and around your head day and night for months on end. Thankfully, torture is only torture if you don't enjoy, and I think that, on the whole (in our family at least) we enjoyed the show and the music so much that we are only now beginning to wish we could forget it. For those of you who do not know the story of The Pirates of Penzance here is a synopsis from The Utah Shakespeare Festival website:
On the coast of Cornwall, a gang of pirates play and party as Frederic (a pirate apprentice) reminds the pirate king that his obligation to the gang is soon over. He was apprenticed to the pirates only until his twenty-first birthday, which is that day, and he is leaving them. Ruth (Frederic’s nursery maid when he was younger) explains that Frederic should never have been a pirate except for her mistake: She was told to apprentice Frederic to a pilot, but she misunderstood and placed him with a pirate instead.
Frederic tells the pirates that, after he leaves the gang, he intends to destroy them, not because he doesn’t love them, but because he loathes what they do. He is a slave of duty and, when no longer a pirate, it will be his duty to destroy them. The pirates understand, and also complain that they cannot seem to make money. Because Frederic is a slave-of-duty to the pirates until noon, he tells them why: Because they are all orphans, the pirates will not rob another orphan; and since all their potential victims are aware of this, they all claim to be orphans!
Because Frederic has spent his entire life with the pirates, he has never seen another woman; thus he thinks he may want to take Ruth with him as his wife. He asks Ruth if she is beautiful, and she responds that she is. Frederic, a very trusting young man, says that he believes Ruth and he will not let her age come between them.
At this point, however, Frederic hears a chorus of girls in the vicinity. He sees a group of beautiful young women, realizes he was betrayed by Ruth, and rejects her. Frederic informs the girls that he is a pirate, but not for long. He asks if any of the girls will marry him, and the youngest, Mabel, agrees.
The pirates enter the scene, and each grabs a girl. Major-General Stanley enters and identifies himself as the girls’ father, demanding to know what is taking place. When the pirates tell Major-General Stanley that they intend to marry his daughters, he objects, saying he has an aversion to having pirates for sons-in-law; the pirates respond that they are opposed to having major-generals as fathers-in-law, but that they will put aside the objection.
Knowing about the pirates’ weakness, Major-General Stanley tells them he is an orphan and, thus, disarms the pirates and takes his daughters, along with Frederic, away to his family chapel and estate. The major-general, who actually is not an orphan, soon feels guilty about the lie he told the pirates. Frederic, however, has a plan to lead a squad of zany policemen against the his old gang.
Before he can act, however, the pirate king and Ruth arrive to tell him that he is still obligated to the pirates. Because Frederic was born on February 29 of a leap year, he has served only five birthdays, not the twenty-one required by his contract. A strong sense of duty forces Frederic to relent, and, because he is a member of the pirate band again, to reveal the truth that Major-General Stanley is not an orphan. The pirate king vows that he will have revenge on the major-general.
Mabel enters and begs Frederic not to go back to the pirates, but bound by duty, he leaves. The police ready their attack on the pirates, while the pirates creep in to take revenge on the major-general.
The pirates defeat the police. However, when Ruth divulges that the pirates are really noblemen and they swear their allegiance to the queen, the tables are turned--and the police take the pirates prisoner.
However, because the pirates have never really hurt anyone, they are soon forgiven. The ex-pirates win the girls, Frederic wins Mabel, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Quite frankly, I don't get tired of it - it has become one of my favourite musicals. In fact, I went to see it five out of the ten shows that were playing here in town! XDD It is a very funny show. Below are a few videos starring Jon English and Simon Gallagher that make up my favourite sequence in the whole thing (although, now that I think about it, it probably won't make a whole lot of sense if you don't know what's going on. XD) Oh, and as an extra note... *giggles and whispers it* .... I think our show was better!!! XDD But don't tell Jon English or Simon Gallagher that! If you want to see photos of some of the characters in our show click HERE. A lot of of these photos seem to be of the senior patrons who support the shows each year, but you can kind of get an idea from some of the pictures. Oh, and if you look at photo number 10, that's my dad in the foreground with the parrot on his shoulder. (He played bass.) =D
Other than Pirates, I have been doing a few different things. This weekend coming, Jess and I are going to a leaders training camp in preparation for Tahlee kids camp in September. (It's the same camp I wrote about here.) We are really looking forward to it. I have been hanging out for kids camp since I had to say goodbye to my six little girls last year and send them home.
This week is also the closing date for the region writing eisteddfod that I discovered we have last year. I only entered two sections last year, but this year I am entering all three - short story, poetry, and a letter to the editor. I did not enter the short story category last year as fictional prose is not my strong point when it comes to writing. However I decided to do it this year and I am happy with the results. Oddly enough, it is the poetry that is eluding me this time. I kind of know what I am going for, but the right words are evading me at present. Hopefully they come before the closing date. We shall see, we shall see!!
Guess what??! I am (attempting) to learn the violin! I have sort have been interested for a while, but did not really want to start right at the start with Twinkle Twinkle. My sister Joy offered to give me a lesson, and so I agreed, provided I could start with the second song. She agreed. Actually I don't think she particularly agreed with me, but she decided to humour me anyway. So now, I have struck up a race with James. I asked him who would reach performance level of the last song in Suzuki book 1. He - of course! - is convinced it will be him. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we shall see, we shall see! XDD
Talking about music lessons, I now have three piano students and am meeting with a potential fourth this week. (Wow! It's all happening this week! O.o) I so much enjoying teaching. My three students are all ten years old, but apparently the little girl I am meeting on Thursday is only seven and has no musical training so I will be starting from scratch, so to speak. I am rather looking forward to it. :)
I think that is all I have to report for now... So long, farewell!
My sisters, Rose (3) and Annie (2) are growing up so fast. They re developing their own unique senses of humor which leave the rest of us gasping for breath sometimes... Here's a post dedicated to the antics of Annie and Rose. :D
Me: Knock knock!
Rose: Knock knock.
Me: No, you say "who's there" Try again. Knock knock!
Rose: Who's there?
Me: Interrupting cow.
Annie: MOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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Rose: I need help.
Me: How do you ask?
Rose: May I please need some help?
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*Annie makes a noise like she is going to throw up*
Me: Are you ok?
Annie: No! I'm sick.
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Rose: I can't see inside my skin, because if I cut a hole in it, it will hurt.
Jess: Have you tried?
Rose: No! It would be sore!
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Rose: *'reading' the words on a mug * Cup - of - tea.
Me: No, sweetie. It says 'Live in the Moment'
Rose: Live on a Mango???
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Rose: *singing* Do, a female deer. Re, la la la la sun. Mi, I call myself. Fa, a long long way to run. So, a meedle pulling fred. La, a la la la la So. Ti a la la la la bread. THAT WILL BRING US BACK TO DO!!! (And, yes, she shouts that part. ;) )
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*I give Annie a piece of frozen mango, and a few minutes later, she is back for more. *
Annie: More berries?
Me: It's mango, sweetheart.
Annie: *jumps up and down, clapping her hands and squealing* Oh that's so exciting!!!
Hello again! Yes - I still exist... I'm just slack. :D I shall have to better than this if I want to keep any readers. :)
I love playing with words. Even made up words (or should I say especially made up words? :P) I love finding out the Greek and Latin roots of words and finding out what words belong to the same families and I like fiddling with prefixes and suffixes to figure out how to change a root word to different parts of speech. For example: Ambulo is Latin for "I walk" From that word, we get the English words ambulance, amble, ambulatory, somnambulism, ambulation, etc. If you take another word (say, love) you can change it to: A noun - loveA verb - lovesAn adjective - lovingAn adverb - lovinglyYou get the gist. We had a funny conversation tonight about a word that we kept changing. I recorded it for you. :)
Jess:Joy keeps saying
“uniformitarianiamistic.”I tried to
tell her that the word would be “uniformitarianistic” but she just grinned and
said “uniformitarianiamisticly”
Mum: * laughs* An adverb!
Elise: *intrigued by word * uniformitarianiamistic! Uniformitarianiamistic!
Uniformitarianiamistic!
*We all stand around trying to say it more than three times
in a row without getting tongue-tied*
Jess: You know, we are wasting time just standing here
trying to prononunce something that isn’t even a word.
When - even after nearly six months - people at rehearsal STILL can't tell you apart from you sister, and you just start answering to each other's names until those who do know you from each other correct the erroneous talker and make things even more confusing.
