Ta-DAAA !

Sound the trumpets!

Believe it or not, the living room is clean and I emptied the last box in my office today.  Not only that, I still have a few little niches where things can be put if I need to.

The task is finished!!!

This is not to say that my work is done.  There are huge jobs I put off in the interest of just getting everything put back in place again.

One is going through the hundreds of CDs, many of which are computer programs no longer able to be run on current computer platforms, or programs I will never use again.  I've thrown away a lot, but I need to do more.  It's a job I put off until I got everything else done.

Biggest, though, is a humongous collection of photos that now sit in 3 very full boxes on the top shelf above my desk.

When I got my first camera, at age 10, what I told myself is that I wanted to "make memories." I've spent my entire life living up to that goal...and now, at 73 (63 years after I made the promise to myself), I am wondering if that was such a good idea!  I have memories up the yin yang and those boxes are just the ones that aren't already in scrapbooks.

(These are just a few of the scrapbooks....most of them are upstairs.  I smile when I realize that my mother has ONE "making memories" scrapbook, which starts in about 1939 (before she and my father were married), and ends with pictures of me at about age 7, in 1950.)

The top shelf is all the slides we found...I'm not even going to THINK about those for years.  The bottom shelf is many (but not all) of the CDs.

So the work doesn't really stop, but I now have a working office and am able to start doing all the stuff I have put off (answering letters, for one) while I was trying to get things organized.

---

It was a quiet day and I spent it getting caught up on "office stuff" (acknowledging things I'd received in the mail, writing to some of the Compassion kids, doing a bit on a couple of pocket letters).  It was nice to have nothing to do, especially since it was about 103 outside.  I could have brought my mother's laundry to her, but  I took the day of, knowing it wasn't yet a dire situation.

I made an appointment to talk about her new quirks and options within the Atria system with the resident services director for Thursday morning at 10:30.  By the time our meeting is over, my mother should be awake and we can have lunch together before I go to Logos.

Today Char is coming for lunch, to see this marvel that is my office (and to get away from her apartmentment, where they are turning the water off from 8 to 1 today)

Little Treasures

Well, there's no doubting that this is my office now.  Every flat surface is covered with stacks of "stuff."  This is not a return to normal so much as it is a "trying to get organized" sort of thing.  I have now sorted through and stored all of the books I am keeping so what is left are boxes of "stuff" that in the old office was just stacked randomly.  I am going through each box, piece by piece, and trying to sort through what I'm keeping (and where to keep it)

Now it could be said that if I haven't gone through this stuff for many years, I should just toss it all, sight unseen.  But then I would miss gems like this:

The story behind this is that a kid told his parents that Ned made him give him his lunch and the parents reported him to the police for "extortion."  The real story was that the two boys had made a bet on the definition of a German word.  Ned won and the price was the other kid's lunch (or maybe part of his lunch).  When the police finally met Ned and got his side of the story, they could see that he was no bully.  Later, I felt so sorry for the other kid because his mother made him call me and apologize and all the while he was on the phone (very reluctantly) his mother was in the background screaming at him to tell me he was sorry.  Then she got on the phone and talked to me for half an hour about the frustrations of raising a kid in this day and age (they were in sixth grade, I think) with all the sex around.  She ultimately took him out of public school and put him a Christian school.  I have often wondered how that poor boy turned out!

I had the "day off" yesterday.  My mother's stepson let me know he was going to have lunch with her, so I didn't feel guilty for not going to Atria.  I had nowhere to go, so I stayed home and emptied box after box

The dining room which was completely filled with boxes, the table heaped with boxes, now has an open space...and the box on the right is one of the boxes of things to go to the SPCA thrift store.

I found a bunch of things I had written, apparently for a class?  I had completely forgotten them, but they were written before I started FTW.  One I would like to condense for an entry here some day starts "It was not the sort of day I suspected would change my life..."  Now aren't you intrigued?

Earlier this week I worked a shift at the hospital.  Sometimes I just marvel at the attitude of people.  A girl came in and said "where can I get a doctor's appointment?"  I asked her what she needed an appointment for and asked if she had a doctor.  She said this was her first time here and she needed to get birth control.  I told her that we didn't have doctors seeing patients for routine exams in the hospital, but gave her directions to Women's Health (which I used to manage).

Then a woman came in to borrow a wheelchair so that her 90 year old grandmother could go upstairs to see her 70 year old son, who was in the ICU.  This is not unusual, but what was unusual was that at 4:15, when I needed to start packing up, I needed to get the wheelchair back, but grandma was still sitting in it up in the ICU.  I went and found another wheelchair and took it up to ICU and they transferred her, with MUCH difficulty but I was able to get "our" wheelchair back and get it put away before I left for the night.

Not much organizing is going to get done today since I work at Logos (and will go to Atria first), but I hope to get through some of the stacks of stuff.  Problem is that our garbage pickup is not until Tuesday and our "paper recycling" can is already almost filled.

The Sweat of Our Brow

Walt has been working like a dog in the back yard, trying to clear away shrubbery so the new fence can go up, working with the tree folks to came out to find out why your big tree had decided to drop a branch and leave one on the verge of dropping, and just cleaning up the yard in general.  Each night he comes in, dripping with sweat, his shirt drenched.

Ned put the finishing touches on my office, moving all the slides to the top shelf and all the scrapbooks up on the shelves.  

He also had made this great shelf unit for my desk.  

He also moved all the cords on the floor up to the wall, so the dogs, who have made the space under my desk as their beds, won't unplug anything.

The guy has thought of everything.

So even though I myself made countless trips back and forth from the living room to the office (about 30 steps each way...whew!) moving more stuff in, I had no reason to be sweating and exhausted by the time I put dinner on the table.

This was a delicious dinner, which I did not expect it to be.  One of the things I love about Blue Apron is eating foods I have never eaten before, which I expect to hate and then discovering that it's really quite good.

This was crispy cod with squash.  The cod is breaded and fried and then topped with a salad of arugala mixed with quinoa and toasted almonds.  The whole thing sits on a bed of marinated summer squash, sliced and then added to vinegar, dijon, garic, and olive oil.  After you take the squash out of the dressing, you then put the rest on the arugula salad.

It was delicious.

But, as always, I was dripping sweat before the dinner got on the table, huge drops of sweat rolling into my eyes and temporarily blinding me, at least for reading the recipe.

The problem with Blue Apron dinners is all the prep work...which is, of course, what makes them so good.  By the time I have peeled and chopped and tried to cook things so that they all come out at the same time, I sometimes long for my reliable "Joe Special" which is just hamburger cooked with spinach and egg...one stop shoppping.  However, I am learning how best to do the Blue Apron dinners, which is to take breaks.  That may sound silly.  The work involved isn't all that much, but when I start sweating and my back aching, I just have to walk away and sit down for a few minutes....and I'm hoping that all these healthy meals are gradually making me more able to handle the work of putting them together!

I also shouldn't feel bad about how many trips I made back and forth carrying stuff to put away.  After all I had an almost 2 hour rest while I visited with my friend Cindy.  Of course my friend Cindy is also my dentist and most of those 2 hours were spent with her hands in my mouth, but  I honestly look on my trips to the dentist as restful visits. We get caught up on our lives, I get to vent about my mother, I hear about her trips to the Netherlands to visit her father-in-law, who also has dementia.  We compare what our kids are doing. She was filling 3 small cavities and I left there looking like I had a permanent sneer from all the numbing, but all the numbing means zero pain and only minor discomfort, so I don't mind.

The end is in sight as far as my office is concerned.  I am going to be left witha lot of  "miscellaneous sundries" that have no place...and had no place in the old office...and I'm going to sese how many of those I can actually throw away.

But I can see the living room again and that is a nice thing.

---

And just to get political for a minute, in this day and age how does ANY politician think they can get away with ANYTHING when there are cell phones and fact checkers behind every corner.  What was the Trump machine tinking of allowing Melania Trump to plagiarize.  Paul Manafort, campaign chairman, denied allegations that Melania Trump plagiarized a Michelle Obama speech on the first night of the Republican National Convention, calling the accusation "just really absurd."

But you can play the speeches side by side and they are word for word identical in a big spot.  You think I'm going to believe that Melania (who says she wrote thes peech herself--anybody believe that?) just channeled Michele Obama and somehow came up with the identical words?  Give me a break!  American people aren't that stupid....or are they?  These days I don't know any more.

Is It Sunday Yet?

Weeks like this confuse me.  Shows should not start on Tuesday, but all the Music Circus shows start on Tuesday. Not really sure why.  It's especially confusing in a week like this when I have five shows to review in 7 days.  When I got up this morning I was sure it must be Saturday, at least.  But it's only Wednesday.

We saw two shows over the weekend.  One was The Totalitarians, about which I wrote yesterday.  Then for our anniversary the next day we saw a show called Clever Little Lies, a comedy about marital infidelity -- surely a wonderful theme for an anniversary.  It was a hilarious comedy, until suddenly it wasn't.  I haven't written the review yet.  I'm trying to figure out how to explain how funny it is, without giving away the fact that it doesn't end as funny as it begins.

Then last night Dolly was back where she belonged, as Hello Dolly opened on the Music Circus stage.  It was about the hottest day of the week, so walking to the theater from our parking slot was like doing exercise in a sauna, but thank God the theater is air conditioned.  When I first started reviewing, Music Circus shows took place in a giant tent.  I think they had blowers blowing air in at intermission, but the heat combined with the terribly uncomfortable "directors chairs" made attending a show less than pleasant.

Fortunately two or three years after I started reviewing, they built their permanent building, with comfortable seats and air conditioning.  Once you get into the place, all is fine and the shows are almost always high quality and lots of fun.

But when you wake up the next morning it's Wednesday and your week doesn't end until Sunday...and there are two more shows to review between now and then.  This week it's Cyrano de Bergerac on Thursday and Bells are Ringing on Friday.  Both are part of the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble's now-annual summer festival, where they do two non-Shakespeare shows and run them for about six weeks each.

Next week was scheduled to be a non-reviewing week because our plan was to go to Santa Barbara on Saturday for Tom's annual birthday BBQ on the beach, but we have had to cancel.  I was uncomfortable about leaving my mother, but was going to do it but then the termites invaded and the appointments Walt was able to get with the exterminator and the contractor (to fix the garage door, which is now off its hinges and nailed to the garage itself) were going to make it impossible to do what we planned to do.

So we won't be at the BBQ and we won't see Brianna's All Star game, but hope to go down a couple of weeks later, when the dust settles up here.  The last time I saw the girls was Christmas and I'm itching to see them again! Thank goodness I started writing to them so I feel at least still a part of their lives especially when Brianna answers me!

I console myself with the realization that with Uncle Ned, Uncle Norm, and Uncle Joe around, the girls couldn't care less if I were there at all, but if we go by ourselves, they are more likely to be interested in their old grandparents.

So not going also puts less pressure on me to clean out the living room before Ashley and Dave move in here to dog sit.  What with Swap Bot projects deadlines and reviews to write the relocation into my office is going slowly.  It's kind of like the process that I use when writing a review. I write a bit, then go do something else--often just sitting and staring into space while my mind races.  With the office reorganization, I put a few things away, then sit and try to figure out what I am going to do next. I could easily just move it all in and sort through it after it's out of the living room, but if Ned has gone to all this trouble to give me this organized office, I want to return everything thoughtfully and not just throw something on a shelf, but decide why it goes on that shelf.

There are tons of books, but I want to put them back into some sort of order.  I have a place for all the books about animals (dogs, horses, elephants) and I just started a shelf for mysteries, but since the mysteries are all over the place in boxes, it require going through all the boxes to separate them out.

I have a Steinberg section, a section for theater books, and a section for books about language (I am fascinated with facts about language, the history of language, and odd facts about language, like Martha Barnette's books, "Ladyfingers and Nun's Tummies" (a lighthearted look at how foods got their names) and "Dog Days and Dandelions" (a lively guide to the animal meanings behind everyday words).  I also have a section planned for books about San Francisco and then there are all those books that don't fit in a specific category.

Theoretically, with the books I have donated to Logos, you'd think that the remaining books would all fit on the shelves, but there are two problems with that.  First, before the reorganization, I had books stacked two-deep on the shelf, which meant that there were many books I hadn't seen in years and didn't realize I had.  I don't want to do that now, which means that I start out with half the shelf space I had for the same number of books. Also, I had lots of binders in cabinets and other storage areas, binders for the Compassion kids, binders for collections of newsletters I have written over the years, binders for diaries of journal entries of trips we have taken before I started Funny the World.  I have only ONE shelf that is tall enough for a binder, so those have to go there.  I have a wonderful number of shelves but two are much too high for me to reach, so those will be for storage and I have to figure out what, other than movies and slides from the 1960s and 70s are best to go up there.

So it just all takes thought and thinking sometimes leads to frantic depression about how I'm ever going to get this done.  But I will.  And when it is finished it will be great. I just have to survive the growing pains...or is it shrinking pains?

Torpor

Webster's defines "torpor" as "a state of not being active and having very little energy."  While this might describe me most of the time, today I had a good excuse -- it was 104 outside.

Walt, a better man than I just about all the time, hauled furniture out to the dump and cleaned up the yard for garbage pick up tomorrow.  

Me?  I bought more plastic and spent a couple of hours watching my mother sleep.

Early in the morning, I took Walt out to a rental place where he got a truck large enough to hold the furniture he was taking to the dump.  He wanted to get it done before the sun got too high.

I dropped him off and then went out to Office Max, where I bought a thingy which is 4 plastic drawers on wheels, which I can use to put all the things that have been in the desk drawer I've been using for 30 years.  They aren't quite as large, so I am limited, but that means making decisions about what to save and what to toss.  The drawers are filled and I still have things left over, but I am a good way there.

I also, at Office Max, found a desk chair that was not only comfortable, but on sale for nearly 50% off, so I threw caution to the wind and bought it.

The office is coming together nicely, and I feel very good about working in here until I go into the living room and realize how much more there is and how I can't even begin to know where to fit it all in.  But for now, this is a nice workable place to work.

It was a shock to walk into Atria at 1:30 and find my mother coming back from lunch!  She couldn't remember if she had had lunch or not, but she had coffee breath, so I assume she did.  But she was out in public!  It may be that she was just feeling better and not remembering what she looked like, just went to lunch as she always does.

But I can tell she's feeling better because most of our repeated conversatiaon today was about how she's getting old, how it would be neat to be 100 and what am I doing exciting tonight.  Right back where we began before the accident.

Her finger still hurts, but it used to be 4 fingers that were excruciatingly painful, now one finger hurts a little bit.

The purple around her eyes is turning yellow so she is on the mend and won't be technicolor any more, though it still shocks her to get a glimpse of herself,  But in some corner of that demented mind she finally knows that there was something about an accident, but she isn't clear on the details.  Still just her knowing that "accident" was somehow involved is a huge step forward.

* -- * -- * -- * -- *

I'm in the middle of writing a review of a show we saw on Saturday called "The Totalitarians" by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb.  It's a mostly hilarious comedy, but about 10 minutes into it, I decided that this was actually Donald Trump's playbook.  There is a Sarah Palin-type candidate named Penny Easter running for governor of Nebraska who comes up with the slogan "Freedom From Fear" and hands out tattoos with "FFF" on them.

You land the "Freedom from Fear" moment and everyone raises their fists in the air.  At first dead silence, just fists.  F-F-F. F-F-F. F-F-F. And then a whisper growing, the crowd beings to chant "Fff fff fff fff fff.

Penny Easter gives a long speech (2-1/2 pages in the script), her first before a large crowd.  I'll tell ya, if she had only called other politicians nasty names you would have thought it was an actual Trump speech.

But at intermission, I looked at info on the play and realized it was first produced in 2014, which means it was written even before that, long before Trump invested in a hat factory so he could sell stupid "Make America Great Again" caps and make money doing it.

After the show, I talked with the director and told him how lucky he was that Trump was running for president and he said he had been nervously watching the campaign and hoping that he didn't "peak too soon."

So it appears that the Trump candidacy, which frightens me so much, is good for something at least, to help sell a very funny play at one of my favorite venues.

Finished--at last Finished!

It's finished!

Ned finished it while I was at Atria this afternoon and when I got home, I was all set up -- computer, printer, and TV.  All these shelves!  I hope to fill them in a more organized fashion (but probably won't!)  But I love that all of my Compassion kids binders are all together on one shelf now.

I took the morning off from Atria because my mother's step son was stopping by to visit her, and I had my monthly lunch date with my friend Kathy.  I was on the way to the restaurant when I had a phone call from the step son letting me know that my mother seemed to have a pain in her finger and had anybody checked that?  I couldn't believe it.  I had written to him TWICE giving him a full report on the accident, including the sprained fingers.  I assured him that the doctor was aware of the problem, that she had been ex-rayed and that I had explained it to her at least 100 times.

I also had a call earlier in the day from someone at Atria.  She said "I'm here with your mother.  She's a little confused and doesn't seem to remember what happened to her."  I told her too that it had been explained to her a zillion times and would probably explain a zillion more times.

Lunch with Kathy was interesting.  Naturally we talked a lot about politics.  Her son and his husband don't know what is going to happen to them.  His husband is from Portugal and is working on his PhD.  He will get his PhD in another couple of years.  Her son has a guest visa because he is married to his husband.  But since the husband never established permanent residency in England because he didn't need to, under the EU, he doesn't know if he will be allowed to stay...and if he can't stay, does his husband lose his guest visa?

After lunch, I went to Atria.  The stepson had stayed less than an hour, according to the guest book  But at least he came which is more than anybody else in the bay area has done.  I stayed until about 5.  Her bruising is more extensive today

 

She took a nap, and I did too.  We sat there and stared at each other for about an hour.  Occasionally she would tell me that her fingers hurt and she didn't know why. At one point she told me that she didn't know why, but all she could think of in the back of her head was that she wanted to walk and just keep on walking forever.  I wondered if this, combined with her obsession with seeing her mother lately meant anything.

I decided to turn on the TV and tried to find something that she might be interested in enough to look.  I tried Ellen but she just turned to me and said "do you understand anything that is going on?"  I finally just turned the set off. She is beyond being able to watch TV and enjoy it.

When I left she was upset because she didn't know what she was supposed to do if I'm not there.

It was a hour earlier than yesterday, but I was eager to see my new office.  I will go back at some point tomorrow, but my heart is in starting to arrange the office.

First Blood

"It's not a construction project unless a little blood is spilled," said Ned as he wrapped gauze around his finger.  The Frozen band aid I offered him wasn't going to do it, though I would have enjoyed seeing him with Princesses Anna and Elsa decorating his pointer finger, and it would have made a funny picture to send to Brianna and Lacie. 

But this was heavy duty blood.  Thank goodness we were able to find gauze pads and tape (though the tape was in the desk that my computer desk is now covering up).  We so seldom (i.e., almost never) need first aid supplies any more.  I think the tape was from my cataract surgery...the first one.

He cut his finger moving the first of two bookcases back into the office.  These and a metal file cabinet are the only pieces of the old furniture that are coming back in again.

He's going to put one more shelf in above the bookcases, now that he can see them in place.

The rest of what he did was little painting stuff (like a second coat of enamel on the desk top) and building a cover for where the modem and wifi will go.  He also took out a lot of tools, so it's starting to look like an office again.  I put some boxes up (but they won't stay in that spot...still it was nice to see something on the shelf).

He went home early and will be back tomorrow and, he thinks, finish up on Friday.

An e-mail I received during the morning was a lovely surprise...Amazon apparently had to give its customers rebates because of some Antitrust Settlement I knew nothing about.  But I was delighted to hear they had added a not small amount to my account and I was able to buy 3 kindle books I've had on my wish list but didn't want to spend the money for.  I still have money left in my account, which is delightful.

In the afternoon, I binge watched 2 episodes of Rizzoli and Isles, whose new (final) season started without fanfare and was already 3 episodes old when I saw it last night.  Walt went upstairs to take a nap.

I was sitting there, minding my business and arranging the new books into the right files on my kindle when I heard a kerfuffle at the back door.  When the dogs reacted by lunging at the door (which was slightly open to give them access to the yard), I thought maybe another bird had gotten confused and flew into the sliding glass door.

But when I got up, what a surprise!

Our mock orange bush had fallen over...well, at least a big chunk of it had fallen over.  You have to actually climb over the bush in order to get past the patio (unless you go around, that is).

I'm not sure what we will find when it is all cleared away, and whether the remaining part of the bush will be viable or not.

But it certainly did add a bit of excitement to the day that started with "first blood" in the office!

Plastics

In the movie The Graduate, young Benjamin Braddock is given advice by an older man at his graduation party.

 

"Plastics," the man says, explaining that plastics were the wave of the future.  That was 1967.  His prophecy has come true and plastics are everywhere.

Plastics have become my life.  It seems these days I have never seen a plastic container I didn't like.

Take this little tower thingy.  It is made up of three sets of three plastic shelves, each approximately 7" square (a little over 7" in length).   It is my new tower of stickers.

I use stickers.  Lots of stickers.  I decorate letters to the girls and send them stickers when I write to them.  I use them in creating pocket letters.  I send them to the Compassion kids.  I share them with members of Swap Bot.

Not only do I use stickers, I also get stickers.  People send them to me in SwapBot swaps.

Years ago, when I was making scrapbook pages, I bought lots and lots of stickers, many of which I still have.  So I am drowning in stickers.

They have all been in one big box and trying to find something takes forever.  

But now I have a tower of stickers.  It took me over an hour yesterday to set up drawers for:  Disney, Irish, "critters" (non specific animals), dogs, cats, smiley faces, butterflies, hearts and flowers.  Those are the categories of stickers I have the most of.  I still have a lot of other oddball stickers, but now the stack is much smaller and much easier to plough through when looking for just the right sticker.

Then there is the Washi tape.

I love Washi tape.  It's the Japanese paper tape that you can use to decorate anything.  The one really nice thing about Washi is that if you don't like where you positioned it on a piece of paper, you can pick it up and reposition it.  I always decorate the girls' envelopes with Washi and use it for lots of other craft projects.  I have lots and lots of Washi tape (I also get sent Washi tape).  Now I have two big boxes in which to store most of the rolls of tape.

I love those little plastic boxes.  I could fit more Washi into the bigger box without them, but I like having them in groups of 4 rolls.  They stay neater that way.  I have similar boxes for oversized patterned paper books and individual sheets.

I have plastic boxes for postage stamps, one drawer for forever stamps and one drawer for odd-denomination stamps, to make up extra weight envelopes.

There are boxes for post cards, both to send and those received and then there's this nice sectioned box

It holds various little things that I use for pocket letters.

These days whenever I look at the overwhelming mountain in the living room, I think about what I can store in plastic boxes to keep it organized and dust-free.

Plastics are not going to be the only answer for my office organizing when the room is finished (in maybe two more visits, Ned guesses), but they are going to go a long way to be a good start.  And there are still lots of shapes and sizes of boxes that I still want to get.

Benjamin Braddock would be amazed.

Boxes and Boxes

So many choices...so many decisions.

Today I went to Michael's Craft Shop to look at boxes.  The array is dazzling, the choices mind boggling.  I got a few.

The one on the bottom left is what I hope is the start of making some sense out of the mountain of stickers I have (top drawer, dog stickers; middle drawer, heart stickers; bottom drawer, flower stickers).  The bottom right has 14"square paper, the bottom booklets of it, the top individual sheets.  The box with the pink lock has many sections into which i can easily separate the kinds of things I put in pockets of pocket letter.

Someone told me I should shop at the Container Store.  The nearest one is in Sacramento and I checked out their web site.  What I found was mind boggling.

Just looking at it made my head hurt.  So many decisions!  But I thought I'd start small(er) and go to Michael's.  Even there the choices were staggering.  I bought the boxes that I showed above, but then thought about:

or maybe

Each was 60% off (another plus of Michaels.  Sales everywhere).   Ned had given me dimensions of some of the slots that were going to be able to be filled when this is all finished. 

My goal is to get as much stuff into identifiable containers (i.e., labeled with contents, or clear so it's obvious) to keep it from getting dusty and falling on the floor.  E.g., I want a container for paper scraps, which I sometimes use on projects, but which are too small to keep corralled unless they are put into something...but where to put them?

Ned has certainly given me lots and lots of shelf space to put containers and I just have to figure out how best to utilize it all.  But making the decisions of what to get and what to put into stuff, and how to best put those containers for easily accessibility is starting to give me headaches.

But actually, now that we are this close to the end, they are headaches that are kinda sorta exciting.

It's VERY purple!

 

Omigod, You Guys

Omigod, you guys! Elle Woods is at Music Circus this week!!

"Legally Blonde" is as light and frothy as cotton candy–and just as pink. It has all the story of the movie with Reese Witherspoon, but without the depth.

The songs aren’t memorable (except for the opening and recurring "Omigod, you guys"), but the cast is so enthusiastic and the dancing so infectious that you find yourself enjoying it in spite of yourself.
This particular production is extra special for a reason that I suspect few in the audience realize. The cast includes a member of the original Broadway cast, coming out retirement for one last production.
Chico plays Elle’s dog, Bruiser and is very professional. He’s trained by William Berloni, 2011 Tony honoree for Excellence in Theater and trainer for just about any animal appearing on Broadway, starting with the original Sandy in the first production of "Annie." Chico (his understudy Roxie is also a Broadway veteran) didn’t miss a cue, made all of his exits, barked on command and performed his big moment, running across the room, jumping onto a bed, and into a dog carrier, flawlessly.
I am currently reading Berloni's autobiography and it's fascinating.  His career started when someone told him to go and get a dog for a new show they were developing, a little show based on the Little Orphan Annie cartoons.  Berloni had never trained a dog before and rescued a dog he ended up calling Sandy from euthanasia at the last minute.

The dog was terrified of anybody and everybody, but Berloni won his heart and he was ready to perform flawlessly before an audience opening night, despite having been run over by a truck two weeks before!

There is a trial which takes place during Legally Blonde, during which some stereotypical gay sight gags went on far too long and I would have found them offensive at any time, but especially so soon after the Orlando massacre, though the audience laughed uproariously

On the whole, it was a good production.  Legally Blonde as well as the sequel Legally Blonde 2 are two of my guilty pleasures.  Movies that are pretty dumb, but which I find "fetching," perhaps because of the performance of Reese Witherspoon.

I hope I have lots to say about the show because I and my colleague, Jeff, are being interviewed on the radio tomorrow morning to talk about the show and the rest of the Music Circus season.

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Ned was here today and spent most of the day on the floor strengthening the desk.  No way it is evergoing to collapse.  He also started putting up shelves.  It's starting to look very good.  He thinks another three trips and it might be ready for occupancy.

Then, of course, after all of his hard work, the tables turn and it's my turn to work, trying to organize the room and see if I can find places for everything that I want to move back in again.  I have been slacking off on tossing things out of the living room and must get more serious about that before it's time for the big move back home again.

My plan is to get all of my craft supplies sorted out and in individual boxes so that they are easier to find and less likely to get dusty or fall all over the floor.

I have a feeling that plastic containers are going to become my best friends! 

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Yesterday's mail brought a wonderful surprise--a real letter from Brianna.  She has sent me letters before, but this one was a page long and more like a real letter.  She also sent me two rolls of decorative tape, the kind I use to decorate the letters I send to both of the girls.

I think that my decision to start writing to the two of them six years ago was a good idea.

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I have now finished 13 or so pocket letters now.

I'm having such fun with them.  The one on the left was a dog theme, and the one on the right was an A-B-C theme, where each pocket was a different letter.  I  took it one step further and tried to make all thegoodies inside the pockets start with that letter too.  The H pocket, for example, was full of heart stickers, the G pocket had gum in it.  The B pocket (B for"baby toes") had a letter from me because my name starts with B.  I have five more scheduled in the next month.