This was "being a writer" day. I am in the process of writing a feature article on the 30 year history of the Davis Children's Nutcracker. I've been kind of working on this piece for several weeks now, in bits and pieces. Suddenly things kind of all got busy and all of a sudden I realized that the deadline is tomorrow.
I'd already conducted the most important interviews, but I wanted to fill in with other folks and I still had to choose photos and there was a photo shoot of this year's production. A lot to get done in a day!
I really want this to be a good piece because our life in Davis has been inexorably connected to the Davis Children's Nutcracker.
All five kids were in the very first production, in 1977, when nobody realized that 30 years later they would still be doing a show. That first show had a cast of 50, a huge undertaking by any standards, but now the show has a cast of 200, and there is such demand to be in it that the city holds a lottery to see who gets in.
Thank goodness for the age of the Internet. The entire history of this show is available on line, including programs from almost every show, lots of photos from almost every show and, from a certain point forward, streaming video of the production itself. If a newspaper article was ever written, that's there too.
Out of curiosity, I went back and checked. At least one of our kids was in the first three productions, then there was a 2 year break and from 1982 to 1989 Jeri, Ned, Paul and sometimes Walt worked tech for the show. Paul is listed in the 1992 program (I think he was running the theatre at that time), and Ned has worked the last two productions and is working again this year.
Ned came back because his best friend Greg asked him to help. Greg worked tech in his first Nutcracker in 1982, when he was 15, and now his children have been in it for several years.
So anyway, there is pressure to do this all well.
I took time off in the middle of the day to drive Walt to Woodland (10 miles away) for a 5 minute dental appointment, but then we stopped at Big Lots!, which I'd never shopped in before. I managed to run up nearly $100 in purchases because everything was so cheap.
We then stopped at a "Chinese/American Smorgi" (that was the name of it), for their buffet lunch. I don't know why I was so tickled that we were the only non-Mexican people in this Chinese deli. I loved the contrast between this man in his cowboy hat with the delicate Chinese lights.
I also loved that they served both Chinese and Mexican hot sauces along with the soy sauce.
(Walt had the Tapatio on his chow mein!)
In the afternoon, I conducted a couple of interviews over the phone, including one with Tom's friend Scott, who was the Nutcracker in the first production.
Then I went off to the theatre for a photoshoot and while there interviewed the kid who is the Nutcracker in this production. (I thought it was nice to make that little parenthesis.)
In the evening I conducted a couple more telephone interviews and worked on writing the piece. I took a break to cuddle Daisy but fell asleep, waking at 1 a.m.
It sometimes feels like I'm doing nothing when I spend all day sitting at my computer, but it really has been a "working" day for me today!
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