This Site is FUN!!!

I read about this site this morning on "The Blue Skunk", a blog that I follow...IT'S FUN!!!!

...and why SHOULDN'T I be on the cover of Esquire??!!

...and why SHOULDN'T I be tatooed on David Beckham's abs???!! HA!!

Check it out at http://www.photofunia.com/!!!

Seussical: Weekend II

So...we're now into weekend TWO of "Seussical". All of our performances last weekend went well, and the audiences have seemed to really like the show. How could they NOT?! It's a hoot, and we've put A LOT of time and energy into performing!!

This week was GREAT, but a little odd...it's always bizarre how much time we spend rehearsing together, and then the show "goes up", and we only see each other on performance nights. It was GREAT to come home from school, and just...stay home, but it was a little "dicey" getting back into it for the show last night. I THINK I remembered about 94% of my blocking and choreography...hopefully tonight it'll be closer to 99%!!!

My knee is starting to mend, my cold is almost gone, and the allergies haven't seemed as severe this spring, so things are looking up! Now if I can just DROP 20 pounds, life will be GOOD!!!

Paul, one of the cadets, has a church confirmation retreat this weekend. We have a "swing" coming in to do his part, which is making some of us a little nervous. Our makeup call, however, is a little early tonight, so that we can be on stage by 6:30 to run a few of the numbers with him. I'm SURE it'll be just "peachy keen" (the expression, of which, I had to EXPLAIN the meaning to all of the high school kids in the show, since they had NO CLUE what it meant, but, am now HAPPY to report MOST of them are using...!!!).

Five performances to go...

Whoville

I've been dubbed the "Charles Nelson Reilly Who"...all I need is a pipe and big glasses...

me and Susie in our "jungle of Nool" attire

Hope YOUR week has involved a little drama too (in a good way, of course)!!

Opening Night

Opening night was last night! Details later, but here are a couple of shots from back stage...

me, Susie, and Theresa getting ready for the "jungle of Nool"!

me and Janet...DIG those fingernails, girl!!

Kelly and me (LOVE that pink hair!)

Susie and me

My gorilla costume!

"Seussical" is a HOOT! If you ever get a chance to see the show somewhere...DO!!! Great music, fast paced, fun!!!!

Susan Boyle!

from Yahoo! Buzz:

Boyle's Got Talent by Mike Krumboltz
April 13, 2009 12:53:39 PM

"American Idol" isn't the only launching pad for aspiring singers. Across the pond, "Britain's Got Talent" scored a huge boost in the Buzz after an unassuming contestant gave an amazing performance.

Susan Boyle (remember that name) became a Web phenomenon after singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. The performance brought the audience to its feet and left the judges (including Simon Cowell) either speechless or in tears.

Before going on stage, Ms. Boyle admitted some self-deprecating facts about herself (she's never been kissed and lives alone with her cat, Pebbles). For those reasons and more, audiences were expecting the female William Hung. They were wrong.

Lookups on the sudden star posted huge gains. A no-name just the other day, Ms. Boyle quickly surged into our top 5,000 overall searches. Blogs and gossip rags went wild. The Mirror jumped on the story, reporting that while Ms. Boyle thought she "looked like a garage" on TV, she received a standing ovation when she showed up at her local church.

Other sources write that as a child, Ms. Boyle was the target of bullies because of a disability. But, with her newfound fame, she is getting the last laugh. In fact, she's already meeting with officials from Mr. Cowell's Sony BMG label. This may have been the first you've heard of her, but it certainly won't be the last. You can watch her performance below...

@ Yahoo! Video

Random Bits of My Weekend...

Nothing much to write about today, except that the sun is shining, and it's "relatively" warm for a change.

The week has been hectic with work and rehearsals. Things are getting more and more "frantic" as we launch into opening week. We had a LONG and tedious tech rehearsal last night, but a bunch of us went to Jakes afterwards for drinks, so it was nice to hang out for awhile. Here are a couple of photos I took with my cell phone:

Theresa and Susie

Rachel and Kris

Me and Katy

Duane left for North Dakota last night, so I've had the day to myself. I have to admit that I REALLY like an occasional "me to myself day". I slept in, went to the grocery store, and have spent the rest of the day on the computer or watching television.

I decided to start entering recipes for FLAIR II on http://www.keyingredient.com/. FLAIR I took so much work that I didn't think I'd EVER get it all entered, but, the final result was REALLY cool, so maybe if I enter stuff as I find it (as opposed to doing it all at once, over MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS), it won't be so much work. Here's the first recipe I entered...YUM!!!

Greek Lasagna

from Better Homes and Gardens 9 x 13: The Pan that Can!!! Yum!

Yield: 12.00 servings

Ingredients

9 dried lasagna noodles
1 lb. ground beef
2 tsp. dried, minced onion
2 cloved garlic, minced
1- 8 oz. can tomato sauce
¼ cup dry red wine
1 tsp. dried oregano, crushed
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
1 egg, beaten
3 T. butter or margarine
3 T. all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. black pepper
1 ¾ cups milk
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs, beaten
¼ cup sliced, pitted kalamata olives
8 oz. shredded white cheddar cheese

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions, drain well. Rinse with cold water. Place lasagna noodles in a single layer on a sheet of foil; set aside.

Meanwhile, for meat sauce, in a large skillet, cook ground meat, onion, and garlic until meat is cooked through, using a wooden spoon to break up the meat as it cooks; drain off fat.

Stir tomato sauce, wine, oregano, and cinnamon into meat mixture. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Gradually stir hot meat mixture into the one beaten egg; set aside.

For cheese sauce, in a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour and peper. Add milk all at once.

Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly; cook and stir for 1 minute more. Stir in ¼ cup of the Parmesan cheese; set aside.

In a small bowl, stir together the two eggs and the remaining ¼ cup Parmesan cheese; set aside.
Spread about 2 tablespoons of the cheese sauce evenly in an ungreased 9×13-inch baking dish. Place three of the cooked lasagna noodles on the sauce in dish.

Spread with ⅓ of the meat sauce, ⅓ of the remaining cheese sauce, and ⅓ of the olives. Drizzle with ⅓ of the egg/Parmesan mixture. Sprinkle with ⅓ of the feta cheese and ⅓ of the cheddar cheese.

Repeat layers two more times, starting with noodles and ending with cheddar.

Bake, uncovered, for 35 to 40 minutes. Let lasagna stand for 10 minutes before serving.

372 calories, 22 g. fat, 1 g. fiber

I ordered a movie called "Almost Normal" from Amazon.com. It arrived yesterday, so I decided to watch it this afternoon. It was released in 2005, and had an interesting storyline. Gay guy hits 40...no "significant other", not happy, gets drunk, crashes his car, and wakes up as himself as a high school kid. Twist is, he's in a past that didn't exist. EVERYONE is gay, and the "straight people" are the "freaks". He hooks up with the high school jock he'd always fantasized about, but then realized that he was STRAIGHT! A little unbelievable, and several things just didn't "work", but it was enjoyable, and I LIKED the ending (even though I figured it out LONG before it actually ended).

This evening, I think I'm going to watch ANOTHER movie, and maybe actually READ something! I have a couple of things that I SHOULD do, but the thought of just lying around is REALLY TEMPTING!!!!

Tomorrow is Easter, and I'm going over to Robin and Dave's for dinner. We decided NOT to make the trek down to Des Moines...too far to drive for a two hour dinner. I guess we'll have to catch everyone at Thanksgiving. It's going to be ODD to not see the extended family this summer (now that the lake house is gone). We're going to have to make a better effort to attend the holiday dinners!

I guess that's it! The play opens Friday, and we have a HECK of a lot of stuff to accomplish during rehearsals this week. This, paired with the fact that the school board is meeting Monday night to decide how staffing will look next year, is going to make for a VERY, VERY long week!!!!

Enjoy the rest of YOUR weekend, and I hope YOUR week flies by quickly!!!

California with a Cane

Yep...took a four day vacation to Los Angeles, and packed my knee brace and a cane. You haven't LIVED until you've tried to navigate Huntington Beach using a cane. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't sink all the way into the ground...just far enough to make it awkward and difficult.

There were DEFINITE perks to using a cane...pre-boarding the flight, having Duane carry my luggage everywhere, and, BEST OF ALL, being able to skip the lines at Disneyland!!! Unfortunately, we didn't learn this last perk until halfway through the day...a lovely girl at the "Peter Pan" ride asked if I'd received a "disability pass"...I said no...because I'm not technically "disabled"...just gimpy...we went on the ride, and the girl at the OTHER end said the same thing (bless those "Peter Pan" girls). The second girl said that we didn't need a pass...that my cane WAS my pass, SO, for the rest of the day, we went to the EXITS of all of the rides, and they loaded us into the flying ship/boat/submarine/etc. then sent us through...lovely (and by that point my leg WAS throbbing after standing in the "real line" at "It's a Small World", the teacups, and going through the "house of tomorrow"...). More about Disneyland soon...

So...we flew out on Saturday morning, and stayed at the Marriott near LAX. I was a little worried about staying anywhere NEAR the airport, but it was AWESOME. We had a second floor room (as FAR from the front of the hotel as we could possibly be...normally no big deal, but with a cane...REALLY REALLY FAR!!!! Here's the view from our balcony...VERY cool place.

OF COURSE, between the airport and the hotel we stopped at Carl's Jr. for the Santa Fe chicken sandwhich (I had two!). Called Robin AND Dave (as is tradition) to rub it in. After unloading the rental car and checking out the hotel, we headed to Antelope Valley to see the poppy fields, which were in full bloom. We got a LITTLE lost on the way there, and the poppies weren't as plentiful as the last time we were there, but it was still GORGEOUS, and worth the hour drive out of the cities to see them.

Sunday, we headed to the L.A. Farmer's Market. We had breakfast at a great little outdoor stall, and saw our only "stars" of the trip...Leslie Jordan (Beverly Leslie on "Will & Grace", and Terry on "Reba"), and Kiersten Warren (Tiffany in "Independence Day", and Nora Huntington on "Desperate Housewives"). We tried to get a picture of Leslie Jordan...one of those "pretend you're taking a picture of me, and then turn the camera a little to the side to get it"...it's on Duane's camera...so will add it to this post later...for now...here are a couple of photos of them from the internet...

Leslie Jordan

Kiersten Warren

After shopping the farmer's market, and the Grove, a HUGE hoity-toity shopping center nearby, we headed to Pasadena to tour the Huntington Library and Gardens...it took us FOREVER to figure out where it was, because I was under the impression it was in Huntington Beach...go figure. After we FINALLY figured that out, it was fairly easy to get to. GORGEOUS place...FABULOUS old 1st editions and a Gutenberg bible. The gardens were flowery and lush, and it was DELIGHTFUL to NOT be in Minnesota!!!

"Blue Boy"

"Pinkie"

After the gardens, we went to El Chollo for dinner...really GOOD Mexican food. Robin and Dave have raved about it for years, so it was finally nice to see what they were talking about! After dinner, we checked out some of the shops near the restaurant (we found a Baskin Robbins!!!). After that, we headed back to the hotel.

Monday, we did the "beach thing" and went to Huntington Beach. I LOVE the ocean, and could stare out across it for HOURS. I love the SMELL of the ocean...I love the FEEL of the wind on my face, I love the SOUND of the waves crashing on the shore, and I LOVE walking through the sand!!!!! Duane is not so enamored of it, but knows how much I like it, so tolerates spending time there. It was sunny, and warm, and the waves washing across my feet (and cane!) was FREEZING, but AMAZING!!!!

We spent the rest of the day at Disneyland. Duane had never been before, so we did the "classic Disney" (as opposed to the more "grown up" California Adventure side). It was FINE with me, because, with my leg, I was SO not up to roller coasters or "grown up" rides (and I don't like them anyway). I have to say that, even at 44, classic Disney was a HOOT! We rode the teacups (three times...Duane likes spinny things), manuevered the rickety little boats on the "Storyland Boat Ride", and enjoyed a day of childhood fantasy...

The thing I remember MOST about my trip to Disneyland when I was 5 or 6 was the submarine ride. I remember the "animatronic" mermaids brushing their hair, and the underwater shipwreck VIVIDLY to this day. Now it's the "Finding Nemo" adventure, but it was still WAY cool to go on...(even though as a grown up, I realized, looking up through the port hole that the surface of the "lagoon" was just above the window...sigh...). There's a COOL poster of the "classic" ride, that IF I become rich, want to buy. It's very 60's looking, and has the mermaids on it.

We also toured the "Haunted House", and rode on "Pirates of the Caribbean". I also remember those from my first trip there, and it was FUN to see that they hadn't changed THAT much. Apparently, Disney "purests" were upset about Disney characters being incorporated into the "It's a Small World" ride, but I didn't think they detracted from it at all...they weren't THAT intrusive at all, and the dolls looked GREAT. TOTALLY sick of that song though...ugh!

We stayed for the fireworks, and I'm glad we did...they were AMAZING. Julie Andrews narrates the show, and it incorporates music and lines from many Disney movies, all timed to specific pyrotechnics...VERY cool!

Tuesday, we got up, had breakfast at an outdoor cafe in Santa Monica, spent some time on the Santa Monica Pier, and then drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to see more of the coast. We made it as far as Malibu before having to turn around to return the rental car.

After that, we headed to the airport, and, after an hour delay because of "brake problems" (no worries THERE!), flew back to Minnesota...where it was snowing...sigh..

Hope YOU were able to get away from YOUR part of the world for a little while too!!!