Friday, November 30, 2007

Danny Discovers Catalogs

Danny has discovered catalogs, and the world may never be the same.

With his birthday coming up in about a week, Danny has now contracted a serious case of the gimmees, and the catalogs just add fuel to his burning desire for presents. He wants everything in those catalogs. Everything.

And with Christmas only 19 days behind Danny’s birthday, this condition isn’t going to go away soon. Sigh.

On the other hand, our big Christmas present is beginning to take shape. Right now there is a hole. Not much, you might say, but within days that hole will have concrete footing, frost walls, and basement walls standing in it. And within weeks of that, there will be a house.

Not a finished house, to be sure, but four walls, three floors, a roof, and exterior windows and doors. All wrapped in Tyvek and waiting for some elbow grease to turn it into a living space.

It’s scary. It’s very, very exciting. And it’s really happening!

Friday, November 23, 2007

Holiday Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving day at the home of Karen’s brother John and his family. Lots of fun with all of the cousins together (a rare treat), and a great meal.

Then we headed up to Niantic, Connecticut, about halfway home, where we discovered a new restaurant for breakfast, walked on the boardwalk, and found interesting seashells and rocks. Then a stop at the Mohegan Sun for video games, a little shopping, and dinner at Johnny Rockets.

Now we’re home for a weekend of overdue winter preparations and some work on getting the new house started. Now that we have the permit, we have to scramble to get the foundation in and inspected before the deep freeze. Then we can get the framing and sheeting up and the roof on and we’ll be able to work dry and reasonably warm when winter arrives.

The Pajama Game is all done, and it was amazing, playing to a sold-out house on it’s last day, Sunday the 18th. It’s tiring, but I’m really going to miss it. I understand why we only do six performances, but after working on the play for nearly three months, it’s hard not to keep it going at least a little bit longer. Besides, being on the stage is an incredible high!

Karen’s Lowes store is now officially open, having had its Grand Opening celebration during the last weekend of my play. It was very exciting, especially when, on Friday, the squirrel cage fan that was inflating the giant balloon on the top of the store caught fire, prompting an evacuation. But everything elese went fine, even without the big balloon.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Tired, But Happy

The first weekend of “The Pajama Game” has come to a close. After a solid week of nerve-racking rehearsal, we finally brought it all together. With three performances (before three terrific audiences) in the can, we get a couple of days of rest, one quick refresher (without having to make the rushed costume changes that are an integral part of this show) and another rest day before we hit the boards again.

What I love about working with The Village Players is that they take it all very seriously, and yet make it all seriously fun. I don’t think I’m going to get another chance to perform there again for a while, and I’m going to miss it.

But it’s also very tiring, especially with this family’s hectic and unpredictable schedule. And, for some reason, this show is even more exhausting than “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum,” even though I was on stage for most of that. Perhaps it’s because I actually dance in this show, and when I’m not on the stage I’m running up the stairs to change my clothes.

Fortunately, I have tomorrow off to rest a bit before I have to go back to work.

In other news, we got our building permit, and now we’re just trying to get on the schedule for excavation and foundation. In this neck of the woods, you have to get these two tings done before the truly cold weather sets in, before the ground feezes hard and makes the whole thing more expensive, or even impossible.

Karen’s store had their Family Night tonight. I was on stage, but Karen took the two younger boys and they had a good time. The store opens tomorrow, mostly unannounced, and the Grand Opening is Thursday.

And now that the Rochester store will be open, I can stop by on my way home, say hello to my wife (a rare treat these days!) and pick up anything we need for the new house.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Catching My Breath

A rare few moments in the library to pay bills and catch up a little on blogging. Still rehearsing The Pajama Game, at the Village Players; opening Friday with only three more rehearsals to go. Yikes!

There is a new gallery up, finally, of William's birthday party. We are running around trying to get our building permit for the new house so we can get the excavation going and get the foundation poured before the ground freezes. If we can get the shell done before it gets too cold we can work on the house during the winter.

You'll have to excuse any typographical errors in blogs and gallery captions. I try to correct them as I find them, but they are all written on the run between the many other things I have to do these days. Unfortunately, I can't do it over lunch (although right now I use that time to study my lines anyway) because I can't bring my laptop computer into work for security reasons.

So mostly the captions are written at home while looking at thumbnails of the pictures, and the the whole gallery is loaded onto the laptop for uploading at the next trip to the library. The blogging process is similar, although sometimes I can write while waiting to go onstage at the theater and other spare moments. Today I'm writing directly into the Blogger screen since I'm sitting at the laptop for other online work anyway.

But now it's time to pick up the boys, so I'll post this and try to add another entry this weekend--after opening night!