Coming soon to a theatre near you...

So far the show is in good shape.  We're through all our technical cues and still have a few nights to get things tidy and up to speed before we let the public see our work.  The actors are really, really funny, and now all we need is an audience.

So, if you live around Boulder or will be visiting us in the next few weeks, here's the scoop in case you'd like to see the production I've been working on:

"The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged"

Opens Friday, May 2

Performances:

May 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16 @ 7:30 p.m.

Matinee Sunday, May 4@2 p.m.

(Run time: approximately 2 hours, including 15-minute intermission)

For tickets, please go to:

Dairy Center Online Box Office

Tickets are $12 for students/seniors and $18 for everyone else. Come check it out!

Overheard upstairs.

"Don't kick me in the stomach."

"Why?"

"Because it makes your brother kick you back."

"I'm making the baby kick!"

"When you kick my tummy, he kicks my tummy, so you're kicking each other through my tummy."

"Is that a good idea, or a bad idea?"

"It's a bad idea.  I don't like it."

"I won't kick him then, okay?" (At least until he comes out, I'm thinking.)

"Good. Because I will weep for the rest of my pregnancy if you do. Every day."

"How many days, mama?"

"About 112."

 

"That's a long time."

"Yup."

Introduction to a flurry of activity.

This week marks much busy business for Matt, a few major events for myself, and (thank goodness) a standard school week for the bug.

The center where I work is sponsoring a huge cultural arts festival on Thursday. We've got dance classes, film shorts, speakers, panels, sign language demonstrations, opportunities for careers abroad, and more. I'm hoping the "more" will be "a lot more people than our staff." This is always the point before a show or major event where I worry that no one at all will show up. This worry comes from the first performance event I ever managed, where we had an audience of 18 people for a $2,000 event. I am a meticulous proofreader of all publicity materials as a result of that particular PR disaster. (The event posters didn't list the location, in case you're curious.)

I'm auditing a statistics class this semester, and my final presentation is tomorrow. We had to take existing datasets and do analysis, which was mildly interesting but I wish I could actually do the proposed research that would follow up on the rather basic studies I analyzed. Wouldn't you like to know if actors take their onstage characters' characteristics into their offstage lives, and if so, how long that effect persists? I would.

The show I'm stage-managing goes into tech rehearsal on Sunday, which means you're unlikely to hear much from me next week as I'll be at the theatre any waking hours I'm not at work or with the bug. After preview on Thursday the 1st, though, life should start slowing back down, and by May 17th I'll be back down to one part-time job. What will I do with myself then? Stay tuned.

Luckily, our child-in-progress continues to develop apace. General consensus on our doctors' part is that "he" is the appropriate pronoun. :) As many "women's studies" departments have become "gender studies" departments in the last few years, I feel that having one child of each gender will allow my longitudinal studies to continue in line with recent research trends, which is very pleasing.

Don't ask about names, because we're not telling. However, if you have any suggestions for names (or for "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T name your child this:"), feel free to put them in the comments. Last time when I was bearing the bug, we had a "worst possible baby names" contest among our friends, and "Snowflake Copkilla Beasley" won out. Can you do worse, while maintaining a basically family-friendly level of discourse?

Yup.

I can't imagine why anyone would stop crying.

Because it was true with my first one, and it will likely be true again with the one we're expecting in August. The "softly, in the middle of the night, and exhausted-sounding" part really brought back memories.

Thoughts on recreational reading.

So on Friday night I finished Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. You might have heard of this book as it's a few years old by now. Julie Powell started a blog after she decided to make all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I in a single year. She had quite the challenging experience doing so in a small loft kitchen in Long Island City, and apparently also quite the supply budget given the cost of some of the ingredients.

I'm no Julia Child, nor even a Julie Powell. But I would like to up the number of recipes I can make without a cookbook, and I decided that my next refinement project is going to be a tasty sour cream chocolate cake. It's a "refinement project" because, for those of you who don't live at 5280 feet, fine-tuning any baking recipe means you're going to have to make and adjust it at least three times before you get even close to the substance it's supposed to resemble. The high-altitude bakers' advice:

1) First make the recipe as it is, and note what goes wrong.
I completed that step today. The center of the cake sunk, unsurprisingly given the typical high-altitude baking experience, and by the time the center of the cake was done, the edges were a bit dry. This is standard cake-baking here in CO; it's how most bakers roll. Many Colorado children spend their entire pre-flatland lives believing the indentation in every layer cake is just a frosting reservoir. Here's myself and my sous-chef, working on the project:


2) Adjust to add more liquid and less leavening (read: baking soda). Also, consider baking at 15-25 degrees higher than the recommended temperature.

This will be cake 2.0, in a few weeks once we polish off the first semi-failure and I get through tech week of the show I'm stage-managing. I'll let you know how that part goes in a future post.

3) Find a frosting recipe that doesn't totally suck.
I want a nice, thick frosting (no 'glazes' or 'icings') that is not sickly sweet and still maintains a good sour-cream taste. I tried Nigella Lawson's today and it was too darn sweet. The Best Recipe cookbook one produces a thin icing, not a frosting, and there's no sour cream in it at all so I'm throwing it out before even trying. If anyone out there has a good chocolate sour-cream frosting recipe, could you please throw it my way? I want the next cake to be a step forward in all respects.

Although I must say, even this first version was clearly enjoyed by all:

A little love from your niece.

To my sister, whose birthday I always remember the day before.

Which is far too late, given that we live eight hours apart. Short of delivering lame flowers that die or something else locally cheesy and immediate, there's no way I'm going to be prompt and thoughtful. Plus, I've got pregnancy brain, and who can generate a desirable and appropriate gift in that state? You might end up with chocolate-dipped pork rinds or something.

So we got creative instead. She even rehearsed the little bow at the end, several times.

Blogstravaganza!

So with one thing and another, I am finally sharing some pix from Easter, from our recent trip to Omaha, and from the other pictures that, um, haven't been cleared from the camera since Christmas.  Yep, folks, extreme uploading imagery delays.

First, the bug and her bonnet on Easter:

The following week, we departed for Omaha and my nephew's first communion. We have exactly one picture all weekend where all three cousins have their eyes open:

And the bug wore ponytails in her hair without bursting into flame for the first time in recorded history during our visit:

Here's what she looks like from the front with pigtails:

We had a lovely trip. Eventually, I hope to post some of the bug's budding photojournalism from the road trip back to CO.