What's Wrong With a Paper Ballot?

At least West Virginia prints a paper trail, so you can see where your vote went, but this doesn't exactly make you feel better about computer voting.

First Snow

We got our first valley snow of the season last night. It started as heavy rain (~1/2 inch) and turned to snow, first on the mountain and then in the valley. The kids were hopeful that school would be canceled, but it was only about a slushy inch so far. They had a couple of days off last week and go to Disney in another week, so wanting a day off right now--that would need to be made up next summer--seems rather shortsighted.

I'm never too excited about October snowfall. It's just going to melt off the mountain anyway, and so doesn't give us a head start on building our base for the year.

Required Watching for Our Guests

I think this woman has stayed at the inn before. About five times a week, in fact.

NYC

I spent several days in Manhattan with my friend Grant last week. The weather was very cooperative, with the exception of cold, stiff winds when were on top of the Empire State Building. We spent a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, went to Ellis Island, visited St. John the Divine, did a walking tour in the Lower East Side and saw Spamalot on Broadway as well as a couple of off-off-Broadway productions. And of course ate lots of good food.

One thrilling moment came when we'd left the Hungarian Pastry Shop opposite St. John the Divine on the northern edge of Central Park. About ten minutes or so downhill from the pastry shop Grant realized he'd left his guide book under the chair. The place was so crowded and the tables so small and crammed together that there had been nowhere else to put it.

We were on our way to Greenwich Village to see a production of three short plays based on Stephen King stories and it was our last night in the city or we might have gone back. Instead, we wandered down through the park and Grant opined that we could probably walk all the way to the theater if we wanted, as we had plenty of time until it started.

An hour later, after wandering through the northern third of Central Park, we had the sudden realization that we should get moving. The play started in 70 minutes and we no longer had a map to guide us. We picked up the pace just as it was getting dark and promptly found ourselves lost in a part of the park called The Rambles, which is a warren of paths that abut a large pond, the bridges over which were mostly under construction.

By the time we finally escaped and found the nearest subway on the Upper West Side, we were starting to get pressed for time. We took the first subway toward Greenwich Village, then got off and looked at the map. No sign of Bond Street, which was where the theater was.

At this point, I thought we should just grab a taxi and have it carry us the last X-odd blocks so we could be sure of arriving on time. We had a hard time flagging one down until finally someone stopped in what had once been a taxi, but clearly no longer was. There was definitely no meter and we were grossly overcharged for not being patient enough to wait for someone legit.

But we got there in plenty of time. We trooped right down to the front of the tiny theater and sat down in the couches at front. Curiously, nobody else took the other couch. When Grant got up to grab a drink, the girl behind me said, "You might want to change seats, unless you want to get wet."

"Wet?"

"Yes, last year when I came, I was splattered with fake blood."

Oh, that. Unfortunately, by now there were no longer two adjacent seats anywhere in the theater. During the introductions by the director, we were warned that we were in a "splatter zone." We might get wet. Was that a problem for us?

"What do you mean by wet?" I asked. "Are we talking Sea World wet?"

"That depends on the performance."

But again, it didn't do much good at that point. There were no other choices. We moved our jackets behind us and I lifted the program as a shield whenever things looked dicey on stage.

And yes, there was lots of splattering in what proved to be a well-written, well-acted little production. Fortunately, the splatters headed in other directions. A couple of close calls, but I didn't feel anything hit me.

Language Lessons

Your daily Italian lesson:

Hills On Fire

I just got back from perhaps the most beautiful walk around the beaver pond that I've ever taken. The hills are on fire with the season's last bonfire. A breeze caught orange and red leaves and swirled them down from the trees onto the path in front of me. A hundred, maybe two hundred Canada geese covered the pond and filled the air with their honks.

The sun was at its dying angle in the sky, but warm enough to feel on my skin. Sammy galloped ahead of me on the path, delighted to be alive. He leaped into the water, which sent the geese to the center of the pond, half swimming, half flapping. When he got out a minute later, he couldn't pause for more than a half shake, before racing ahead in a scatter of water droplets.

Home Stuff

This wouldn't be much of a blog if I didn't bore you occasionally with stuff about my kids. I went to E's parent teacher conference yesterday and none of his teachers had one bad thing to say about him. They all commented about how mature he was, knowledgeable, and intelligent, how he always contributed well in class.

I found myself strangely digging for something and thinking, "But, but, he's not perfect. Sometimes he doesn't fill up the sugar packets when he sets the tables in the dining room!"

And then feeling vaguely guilty as I drove home. Do I ride him too hard about stuff? Should I give him more computer time since he's obviously doing a good job of keeping up on his obligations?

I was apparently the only parent who set up an appointment with his his Spanish teacher. Mostly, I just wanted to suss out her Spanish ability. She spoke pretty well; we conducted the entire conference in español.

E loves school. He loves band, he loves cross country, he likes all his teachers and is engaged in learning. Seems to be getting along well socially, too. Who would have thought that seventh grade, of all ages, would be a period of growth and confidence for him*.

In unrelated, but similarly annoying parent stuff, I's picture appeared twice in this week's paper, once for Oliver! and the other as a picture of some kids at the school walking beneath some trees with colorful foliage.

It sure wasn't in my own life. Seventh grade was one of the low points. It didn't help that I had the most evil teacher of all times. Mrs. Bearnson, who hated teaching, hated kids, and had the kind of sadistic cruelty that Stalin could have put to good use. This is only a slight exaggeration.

Cheer Up

I figure you're probably feeling a little gloomy, given that anything you've put into your S&P indexed 401K or IRA in the last 10 years has lost value, meaning you'll be working until you're 85. Here's a little something to cheer you up.

More Oliver! Stuff

We had two more performances of Oliver! yesterday. The understudy performed for the matinée and I think she did a fantastic job, really rising to occasion. It probably helped that roughly half the audience seemed to be made up of her family and friends, come out to see what was her only guaranteed performance of the run. Perhaps feeling the competition, the other Oliver stepped up his game for the evening show and turned in what was easily his best performance so far.

From my perspective, we were sharper in the afternoon. After a long day, it was hard to stay entirely focused in the evening. My counterpart, Mrs. Sowerberry, skipped part of the dialog and had to work her way back through it. I don't think it was noticeable, but she was perhaps a bit flustered for the rest of the scene and didn't quite hit her counterpoints on my song perfectly.

I'm happy about how my song is doing. There are some terrific singers in the production and while I have a strong voice, it's nowhere near as polished as some of the more experience cast members. My goal is to make up for it with good visuals, facial expressions, and the use of my height (6'4", plus top hat) to give a suitably creepy/cheerful tint to my performance. I've heard a lot of laughter at the right places and the direction told me last night that she thought my song was the most consistently good part of the play.

I'm pretty sure she didn't mean "the best part" of the play, but that I was good and consistent. Early on, I realized that I didn't have the experience or the well-developed talent that most of the other leads had, but what I could do was learn my lines and my song perfectly.

I spent some time on youtube, looking at various performances and trying to adopt certain techniques that I found. One excellent performance was the one below. During practices, I found I was leaving the funeral parlor in about two strides at the end, when Oliver runs off, so I stole this guy's cartoon-like running start. And the interesting thing is that although it's only two seconds of the play, every time I perform, audience or cast members mention how funny it is.

Opening Night

We had opening night for Oliver! last night. It wasn't particularly stressful, thanks to our sneak peak the night before, but we still managed to make a number of minor gaffes, line flubs, and the like. Nothing serious, but it wasn't quite as sharp (at least from my perspective) as the previous evening. Many of the glitches had to do with set changes. We have the orphanage table, the coffin from the funeral parlor, and a huge bridge for the final scene to deal with, as well as these huge flats to turn between the Thieves' Kitchen and the street scene. It makes for some stressful moments back stage.

But on the whole, it went pretty well. Some guests from the inn went to see the production last night and they had good things to say about it this morning. They were especially taken with Nancy, who is probably our best singer in the production and also a talented actress.

It All Makes Perfect Sense

I just needed someone to analyze this for me. It's kind of like Shakespeare; you don't always get the subtle word plays on the first listen.

Miss Teen USA Moment

Hopefully we won't see any more moments at the VP debate tonight that remind one of the Miss Teen USA pageant.

Production Week

Tonight is our last rehearsal before performances start on Oliver. Tomorrow we have the sneak preview with the official opening night on Friday. It's been great to see everything come together over the last week. We still had a few glitches on Monday, but they mostly related to set changes and other technical details.

I'm responsible for some awkward scene changes. I got there too late for removing the orphanage table and got back there just as the director was heading out to take my place. She gave me a dirty look when she got back. And it really was my fault. I left the backstage viewing room with plenty of time except for the small detail that I ran into a dozen orphans coming down the narrow stairs and by the time I fought my way past them it was too late. Now that I know what to expect I shouldn't have this problem again.

There's a tricky situation getting the coffin in and out of the undertaker's parlor and we kept knocking the curtains around when turning the flats from the street scene to the interior background. And then there's the bridge. It's about twelve feet long and must weigh three hundred pounds. We were having a hard time maneuvering it in and out of the back room. There are only two of us assigned to the task; maybe it would work better if we had four or five people wrestling with the stupid thing, sweating and cursing. Okay, maybe not.