Reincarnation

Anyone who doesn't believe in reincarnation should get him/herself to the New Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and watch the short run of Zero Hour.

...but I'm getting ahead of myself. I feel like I could start writing "Tale of Two Cities." It was the best of times...it was the worst of times.

The day started out normally with something waking me up instantly out of a sound sleep at 6:45 and the dogs being THRILLED that I had gotten up to feed them. I'm getting pretty good about feeding dogs in my sleep.

When they had all eaten, I settled into the recliner, determined to at least be quiet long enough to come to a proper state of waking. Quiet was about all I got. Rupert curled up with me and Lizzie, determined not to let the upstart have all the lap time, joined him. You know, I actually like Lizzie in my lap, if she didn't always have to be on my FACE. She crawls up until she is practically touching me with her nose. If I'm watching TV, I can't see around her, and then the licking starts. If she'd just curl up and sleep like Rupert does, she would get a lot more lap time.

At noon, I took Rupert to Petco and left him. I don't know if he got adopted, but someone was coming specifically to see him, so I'm holding the good thought. He went home with Megan from the SPCA (if he didn't get adopted), who is keeping him until Wednesday when things calm down around here.

We were headed to SF to a memorial celebration for Dario, partner of Roger Pierson from the Lamplighters. The memorial was scheduled to run from 2 to 6 and we figured we'd get there around 4, eat enough that we didn't need to have dinner, and then drive across town to the theatre to see "Zero Hour."

Only it was raining and traffic was totally impossible. My average speed for a good portion of the ride was 25 mph. Even when we changed direction, left Highway 80 and took 37, which goes across the delta to Highway 101, it was still 25 mph and then we got to 101, where it was still 101. It seemed that traffic in this part of California had just come to a grinding halt.

The 90 minute ride took us over 3 hours and it was nearly 5:30 before we got to Roger's. By that time the crowd had dwindled down to the "faithful" and all the food was gone. But we were glad we had gone anyway. "The faithful" are all part of the old guard Lamplighters, and all people in the company that we still know, so we got some visiting time in, which is always very nice.

At nearly 6:30, we got back in the car (it was raining, BTW, so all our clothes are soaking wet) and drove to the theatre. I made a wrong decision. I should have known better than to try to drive on Van Ness Ave., where the entire length of the street the top speed was 5 mph and we hit every red light.

But we did get to the theatre on time and even bought some Nutter Butter cookies for "dinner." 2 cookies each. Then they announced that the house was opened.

I had seen the show before, in one of its earlier productions and was impressed then, but it's been at least two years and since that time Jimmy has been performing it all over the place, so it has been tweaked and honed and is an even more amazing production than it was two years ago.

He doesn't play Zero Mostel, he is Zero Mostel (hence the opening sentence about reincarnation). He was telling us after the show about a woman who had seen it...somewhere. She was about 90 yrs old and came up to him afterwards and asked if he remembered her, and that she had lived in the same building that he did in New York. She actually thought he was Zero Mostel!

It rained most of the way home. Now that I am sliding into my dotage, there are several things I don't like to do: drive after dark, and drive in the rain. But with Walt's arm in a cast, I had to grasp the steering wheel and do it anyway. It was, needless to say, a relief to finally pull off the freeway in Davis.

Tomorrow we get to do it all over again, to different locations for different reasons, but lots of driving and visiting again. I don't have a clue when I am going to update this journal, the vlogs, or anything else until Wednesday, so you'll see me when you see me, I guess!