One-Car Family

Carmen dropped me off at the hospital for my weekly blood test to see if my anti-coagulent level is within acceptable range. Last week it was at 2.9, just inside the 2-3 range. Today it tested at 5.5, "critically high!" so I have to skip a dose and cut back. I don't know how many more weekly blood tests there will have to be before they pronounce me stable. The whole treatment goes on for six months - until time to move again.

Carmen's co-workers were teasing her today because she left me waiting for a long time. My appointment was for 9:45 - she dropped me off at 8:00. The whole process was finished at 10:30 - she picked me up at 12:30. This is a consequence of being a one-car family in a transit-challenged town. Waiting is something I excel at, and I know not many humans do any more. I can keep myself entertained for hours and hours watching people, reading and organizing my ever-fattening folder of medical information, making notes on the notes from consultations with doctors, pharmacists, purveyors of portable oxygen etc. and keeping track of the time until the next Blessed Event - a Tylenol dose.

Being home is admittedly more comfortable than the waiting areas of the hospital, but for a guy like me who hates to turn on the TV unless The Price Is Right is on, home is much less entertaining.

How did I get to be an American? I don't want a car and I don't want a TV. Good thing I'm not a contestant on The Price Is Right!

Warm And (Mostly) Horizontal

Tomorrow it will be two weeks since my last posting. Whatever happened to my application with the spa people I'll never know. No word at all. I wonder how many of those 82 guys are left now.

Friday the 11th, after shoveling/scraping the last of the crusty half inch of snow from the driveway and sidewalk, which never enjoy sunshine during the winter, I set out walking the mile and a half to the nearest midday bus stop. Just about the time I exited the arroyo path and hit the sidewalk along Ventura, I began noticing my left calf muscle feeling tight, as if I were getting a charlie horse in one of my favorite charlie horse localities. I did what I always do: I ignored it.

I cleaned the shop at Albuquerque Little Theatre. It had been a mess since the strike of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow on Halloween. What with everything there was to do for White Christmas, cleaning the shop never made it to the top of the priorities list. So I made a special trip. Colby wasn't there. I guess he appreciated it- I still haven't heard from him.

By the time I got home my leg was throbbing. Carmen told me I should go to the doctor, that she believed I had a blood clot. I smiled that little smile that says "fuck off" but in a nice way. When I sat in the recliner, my leg felt just fine- swollen to about twice its size, but not painful.

Saturday morning, in pain, I sat at my computer, played a Scrabble word, and checked my email. Lo and behold, there was one from the first exhibit guy I talked to back in July. He knew a guy who desperately needed help with some exhibit work. I called the guy, threw some tools in the car and took off for Corralles. I was able to do some of the work sitting with my leg up. For the rest I was in serious pain. Sunday I dropped Carmen at church and went back for more. By the time I got home Sunday afternoon, the only time the pain wasn't making me nauseous was in my recliner. And the one inviolable rule of the recliner: if Dad's in it, kitties pile on!

Monday morning my plan was to take Carmen to work and head for Corralles again. I got up to feed the kitties and nearly passed out from the pain. Change of plan. She hauled me to the Emergency Room, where they heard my story and took me right in. They thought I probably had a blood clot. Within an hour, Carmen's diagnosis was confirmed (damn it!) and I was admitted to a hospital for the first time since 1977. In 1977 they weren't sure whether the passing-out pain in my lung was an infection or a blood clot. They often tested my legs for clots, but found none. Keeping that experience in mind, last Tuesday evening I began to suspect that what had started as a tiny twinge in my right lung might be a migratory clot. They CT scanned me. It is. Oh, and just to be absolutely clear, officially these are "unprovoked clots."

I won't go into the personalities and relative competencies of my healthcare professionals. Some I really liked, some I REALLY didn't. Some stayed on top of the job. One completely forgot a time-sensitive medication, which I happened to wake up and notice a half hour after the scheduled time.

My doctor was Dr. Pierce- not Benjamin Franklin Pierce, but a good doctor even so. He saw me twice a day while I was incarcerated and we got on well.

By Friday my anti-coagulants were sufficiently settled that they let me come home, dragging my little bottle of oxygen with me. Since then I have been a warm and (mostly) horizontal cat bed in the recliner. Today is the first day Carmen is letting me use her oldest of three laptop computers. No kitties allowed on the computer!

Whew!

My hand still hurts from my job application today. If I get it - and who knows if all 82 guys in front of me have jobs yet (see "Another Defeat" from August 31 in this blog) - I'll be building hot tubs, spas and outdoor buildings like sheds and such. I looked at their stuff, and it looks interesting to build.

First I had to hand write the list of previous jobs covered so well in my resume, which they also have. Then I had to list FIVE personal references! I went with people whose numbers I have in my cell phone. AND THEN! I had to take a fifteen page test on vocabulary skills, number sequences, word scramble things, cryptograms, pattern recognition- all the stuff you need to be a good carpenter. Well, I'm pretty darn good at that stuff, so maybe those 82 guys will eat my dust - in which case it was a wonderful test. But my hand still hurts. Arthritis, you know. I'm old.

And speaking of old, I suddenly got in the mood to listen to the Gershwin on my Media Player music list. An American in Paris just finished, and Rhapsody in Blue just started. I love that stuff. I was reminiscing just the other day about the time back in the eighties when we went to the Tupperware Auditorium in Kissimmee to hear an evening of Gershwin, and the guest pianist couldn't play the Rhapsody worth a crap! What a disappointment that was. I'm betting the rest of the orchestra hated it even worse than I did.

Remus J. Lupin wanted his own Facebook page, so we tried to get him signed up. At first we put his real name and his real date of birth. Facebook locked us out for a day - evidently they don't cotton to six-year-olds on FB. Once they let us back in, we tried a different birth year, and that was fine but they wouldn't let the name Remus Lupin pass. So we tried Yin N Lupin, and they loved it. So now, in addition to everything else I do for those kids, I also have to share my computer with them. What the heck, they've been stealing my chair for months.

Anyhoo, Carmen is home from her three-day ministers' retreat, and will be home tomorrow and Saturday - two days in a row! It's been weeks since that happened. Maybe I'll paint the ox head tomorrow, if the weather warms up. Christmas eve is in two weeks, you know, and we don't need no stinking naked ox in the pageant. Not that I'm going, hell no.

Who'da Thunkit?

I now have four Facebook friends in Albuquerque, two of whom I never see, one of whom I see sporadically, and one is Carmen, whom I see a lot of, but not lately. She got home from San Francisco Sunday afternoon, after being gone since Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday she left at 8:30 and got home at 9:30pm. Today she left at 9:00 and will be at a retreat center until tomorrow sometime. She has a wedding to perform this Saturday and the church office holiday party Saturday night. The kitties and I miss her.

Speaking of those kitties, they haven't asked to go outside this whole month. They are content to bask in the sunshine on this side of the glass doors to the back patio. That's good, because I have to be out there with them, and baby it's cold outside! We had another big scary winter storm last night. It dumped about an inch and even covered the roads this time- until the sun came out. Now the driveways on the north side of houses all still have snow on them, and the ones in the sunshine are clear and dry.

I used my newly acquired computer prowess to create our first annual newsletter. It has to be proofed by Carmen when she has time, and then they have to be printed, inserted into some sort of snail mail technology, addressed, postaged and sent. Don't hold your breath.

So that's the news. Over on the other side of the blog wall there is a post named "Holes In the West." It's a long one. See? I'm trying to keep up with it.

Ministerial Ballbuster

Today is the big momemt we've all been waiting for. This afternoon Carmen stands before the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, delivers a ten minute sermon, and is harangued for a half hour about her fitness for ministry - as if there is a question about that! If (when) they give her a #1 rating, she can immediately begin her search for a settled ministry, and eventually we'll find out where we'll be moving in June.

One of my projects recently has been to put together photo montage pages for sections of her search packet. I have, during this blessed time of unemployment, learned a lot about my computer, including how to manipulate pictures and do other fancy things in Word. So that's ongoing.

December is a ballbuster month for ministers, as well as ministerial interns and ministerial intern spouses. Yesterday I finished up her music CD for her "Reliving The Christmas Event" service she's doing in a week or so, and cleaned up and updated the script sent us by Marni P. Harmony, formerly of Orlando. I also created a fancy CD label with a picture of our snow-dusted holly tree ghosted behind the music list. It's beautiful.

As soon as the weather warms up, I'll paint the ox head for Christmas Eve Service #1. We still have to decide on how we're accomplishing the body of same. The prevailing thought is to cover a couple of bean bag chairs with a hairy blanket that attaches to the head. It'll be wonderful, whatever we do.

Meanwhile, there is a possible wedding coming up and a memorial service, both paid projects for the intern, and we are going to see White Christmas on the 18th! January will be here before we know what hit us!

PS - We're Number One! We're Number One!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Professor Hinkle Would Say...

Busy busy busy! I went with Carmen to work this morning so I could drive home, load up my sneezy girl and haul her to the 9:30 vet appointment. Before leaving, I brought a cat carrier from the 40 degree garage into the house to warm up some. It rattled. Cats scattered. I was glad to let the hink factor settle down some before 9:00.

I also responded to the two mobile vets before departing, letting them know that we had made an appointment with a stationary vet during the twenty hours it took them to respond to my calls and emails. I guess I should have let them stew for a day or so, but I didn't.

ReLu was centered under the bed when I got home to get Yin. She was under the dresser, her little orange striped tail poking out in full view. I stroked it, and she ran out. She ran out of the bedroom so I closed that door. ReLu had full access to food, water and litter boxes from the bedroom. I opened the top lid to the carrier and left it in the hallway before going after my quarry. She was under a chair in the living room. I rousted her out of there and she ran to the hallway, smacking her little blind face into the carrier, then on to the bedroom door, which she also smacked. On her way back I grabbed her and stuffed her in. They don't call me a world class cat juggler for nothing.

The new vet was very nice and she fell in love with Yin- who wouldn't? She took the dreaded anal temperature. It was normal, so no infections. She pumped some flluid into my 5.25 pound girl, installed a topical mite killer on her back, and reintroduced Yin to an old "friend," Neopolydex eye drops, with which we had tortured her for five years of her life in Orlando. All in all, it was a good vet visit (my opinion, not Yin's) and I hauled her home to recuperate in her fleece bed- where she resides at this moment.

I pounded down some breakfast and lit out for the church once again, to bring home my other girl so she could pack for San Francisco. Two hours of rushing around ensued before we loaded the car and headed to the airport by way of our favorite Albuquerque restaurant, Zea's, where we had a nice liesurely late lunch. Then on to the airport to check in, check a bag, and hang out together people watching until Carmen felt it was time to do that Security thing and head for the gate. Then I drove home, arriving about 6:00. I have been checking the US Airways Flight Status page. Everything has been on time so far, so she should be on her connecting flight in Phoenix awaiting departure at 9:14.

Other than that, not much going on today.

Sneezy

Despite phone messages and emails to several mobile vets, I have not heard anything from them. I understand that procrastination is a New Mexico thing. It wouldn't fly in Boston, but we're not in Boston any more. But we now have an appointment for tomorrow morning at a stationary vet nearby.

My little blind girl has been sneezing recently. Years ago she had an upper respiratory infection that kept her from eating- they won't eat what they can't smell. She's still eating fine, but we're hoping to avoid a crisis situation, especially since the big MFC interview is this week, and we're trying to avoid crises on all fronts until that hurdle is cleared. Meanwhile, Miss Yinny Yin Yin is sleeping comfortably in her fleece cat bed, completely unaware of the flurry of anxiety raging on around her.

We decided to try a veterinary house call due to our current status as a one-car family, plus her long history of frequent visits to the vet. Two weeks after we rescued Yin and Yang, dumped by a breeder at four weeks old, our vet bought a new Lexus. Coincidence?

Yin used to have itchy skin. Sometimes she would make herself bleed from pulling out her hair. One time I called the vet to ask about treatment. He said, "Can you bring her in right now?" I said "Sure!" and hung up the phone. I looked where she had been two seconds ago, and she was gone! I searched the whole house. I looked in all of her best hiding places- in the tub, between the shower curtains, under the bed, behind the sectional sofa, under the recliner, in the kitchen cabinets, behind the washer and dryer- to no avail. After a half hour of searching I stopped to think about where she might be. The only place I could think of that I hadn't looked was in the three-inch gap between the kitchen wall and the back of the refrigerator- but she couldn't even fit in there, could she? I got the flashlight and looked. There she was, crammed in the far corner. I closed every door in the house and slowly rolled out the fridge. It was forty five minutes after my phone call before I ran to the vet, carrier in hand.

She's a wily one, that blind girl. And how did she know I was talking to the vet? Did she hear and recognize his voice? I'll never know. Nowadays she hasn't been to a vet in almost a year. She's still hinky about being picked up or even being approached. She'll come to us if we're sitting or lying down, but we can't walk toward her without triggering the vet alarm. And if she hears the cat carrier rattle, forget about it! And I'm sur she has all of her new hiding places mapped out in her cute little head. Tomorrow will be interesting.

The Season

I went another round with the job search machinery. It's a desert out there. And it's not even a pretty New Mexico kind of day. It's cold and windy, with dark clouds that threaten rain and/or snow. The news people have been trying to scare us with a severe winter storm warning for days now. If I hadn't lived in Florida with hurricane warnings every other minute from June through November, I might have been scared. Plus, the last big scary winter storm that blew through here dumped almost an inch of snow on us. After four years in Massachusetts, anything less than eighteen inches is a flurry.

So White Christmas opened Friday night at Albuquerque Little Theatre. I got my (tiny) check and my six comp tickets Friday afternoon. I wish I hadn't picked up a program while I was there and seen that my name was never mentioned for building almost the entire show. My Facebook friends are outraged over that oversight. I must admit I'm disappointed. I was going to mail it to my parents. The review, out today in the Abq Journal, is very complimentary about the show, but never mentions the sets. They seldom do, I suppose, unless the sets are the best thing about the show. We'll be seeing it in a few weeks, after the dreaded MFC interview, coming up this Friday.

Carmen flies to San Francisco this week so she can stand before the Ministerial Fellowship Committee and be grilled about her fitness for ministry. This is a big fat hairy hurdle, one she's been preparing for for several years. If (when) she passes that test, she can begin earnestly searching for a congregation that is searching for a minister. The Unitarian Universalist Association has a whole online system in place for that process. How did they used to do it? On horseback?

I have the last of the music in hand for Carmen's "Reliving The Christmas Event" service. That I can wrap in a few minutes. More problematic is the ox for the Christmas play. I promised that the head would pivot back and forth. Now I have to figure out how to make that work. BUT- I have more time now that I don't have any sets to build. Assuming I don't suddenly get a job out of nowhere- because nowhere is where the jobs all seem to be at this time.

The good news for you five- I'll be writing much more often in the weeks ahead. "Dial M For Murder" is the next show at ALT, and it ain't no White Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2009

I'm thankful for many things today. First and foremost, the cats are fed, the litter boxes are scooped and the kitchen is clean, including a freshly clean load in the dishwasher. Second and fivemost, Carmen is cooking her famous honey-mint carrots to take to somebody else's house for dinner. Who knew she had a famous dish in her tiny cooking repertoire?

Four years ago I heard an advertisement on the radio for a live theatrical production of Irving Berlin's White Christmas at the Wang Theatre in Boston. We bought tickets for the Christmas Eve performance. I had some trepidation about it. I was sure they would have rewritten the movie (which has been on our Favorite Christmas Movies List for over twenty years) to adapt it to the stage. Would they ruin it? Our favorite moment is when Phil and Judy dance their way out into the Florida sunset for "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing." That had better be good! And there were some awkward things in the movie that I would have deleted if it were me rewriting the script. We went and were blown away. The basic story is the same, but the awkward stuff WAS deleted, the story details are better than the movie, the production numbers were spectacular, and it was better than my wildest hopes.

So Bob and Phil go to Jimmy's Back Room to see the Haines Sisters. The set is small and intimate, in the center of the stage way down front. After the "Sisters" number, all four sit at a table and talk for a few minutes, then Phil and Judy get up to dance. As soon as they're off the set, it splits in two and leaves the stage to both sides, leaving the stage empty with a sparkling star drape across the back and sides. Fog blows in, and there they are, Phil and Judy, with the whole stage a dream world where the best things can happen while they're dancing. Then, at the end of a beautiful and exciting dance routine, they dance their way front and center, the set moves back into place, and they sit down again with Bob and Betty. Double you oh double you!

The next day after we saw it (some folks would call it Christmas Day) I was online ordering a ticket in the balcony for New Year's Eve. I had a big head in front of me the first time around, and missed some scenery changes. It came to pass, however, that I couldn't make it that night, the closing night of the show.

Two years ago I heard an advertisement on the radio that White Christmas was coming back. We got four seats in the balcony and went with our friends Misty Dawn and Jenna. I was able to see everything, and during the two years in between, I had worked on a couple of Show Motion projects with automated scenery technology, so I even knew the mechanics of all of the magic onstage. This knowledge would spoil the effect for some (including Carmen) but it just gets me excited to know that I am capable of creating that same magic.

So now we fast forward to October, 2009. I walk into the scene shop at Albuquerque Little Theatre. Colby Landers, the Technical Director, is cautiously hopeful about my coming. Once Sleepy Hollow is staged, he has to build eleven sets for Irving Berlin's White Christmas, and here I am, a huge fan of the show and a professional scenic carpenter unemployed in Albuquerque.

It's almost enough to make me think there might be a god.

NAAAAAAAAH.

But it does make me thankful that all these insignificant elements of the universe found their way to this happy union. And tomorrow I can pick up my check. For that I'm very thankful.

That's What I Get...

So last week the construction was finished for White Christmas. Since then I've worked all day Thursday, all day Friday and all day today on- you guessed it- White Christmas. I'm going back tomorrow, too. What there was to do was stuff I didn't know about, like trim all the way around the exteriors of the flats on the pivoting platforms, wainscotting on the interiors of the flats on the pivoting platforms, changing out the casters for bigger, locking casters on the tap-dance piano, shoring up the supports under the tap-dance piano, fixing a chair the actors broke in rehearsal, fixing a table that broke in rehearsal, installing mini blinds on all six train windows, cutting down a too-big existing flat for the roll-aside barn door, building a hang-like-a-picture window frame, you know, little things. Oh, and getting my paperwork squared away for my 400 bucks Colby is paying me out of his production budget. That's a biggie.

My other Christmas projects, the ox head and the music for Carmen's "Reliving The Christmas Event" service were moved ahead over the weekend. A week ago, while I was enjoying my two-day vacation from the theatre, I cut plywood to the shape of the top view of the ox head and shaped chicken wire (oh excuse me, Poultry Netting) into the head, horns and ears. Saturday and Sunday I covered it with plaster cloth. Then I took Carmen's "Reliving..." script, graciously provided by Marni P. Harmony, and sought out all of the music specified for it. Some we had in stock. The rest I ordered by MP3 download, from Amazon. Before she got home from her afternoon church event, I had a CD ready to plug and play with all but one piece of music, which is not available by MP3 download- I ordered the CD.

Add in my cooking, cleaning, scooping, cat juggling, grocery shopping and Star Trek watching, and it's no wonder I haven't blogged in a week!

Broken Covenant

As you five well know, if I'm home during the day, all the mammals in the house get to go outside for a spell- sometimes several times a day. Today I crammed three big bags full of leaves from the back yard. Add that to the two yesterday from the front. Anyway, it took about three hours to carefully rake leaves from the gravel parts and sweep and cram and tie and set out front to take to Colby (mulch boy) in the car next time it goes to the theatre.

Little Miss Yinny Yin Yin didn't much like the sound of the rake or of the cramming of leaves into bags, so she didn't spend much time out there. Professor Remus J. Lupin, on the other hand, was pretty much out there the whole time. He spent a lot of time along the side of the house, gazing longingly at the gate. Gazing is allowed.

I glanced down there periodically to see where he was and what he was doing. The last time I looked he was sitting up on the four foot high adobe column that the gate attaches to, gazing longingly at the street. I didn't want to go get him, lest he jump down on the other side to elude capture, and maybe run out into the street. So I went back in the house, propped open the front screen door, and came at him from the front. He hissed at me as I approached. I grabbed his ass and lugged him inside, while he writhed and struggled against me. Me, a World Class Cat Juggler! Needless to say, he wasn't allowed out any more. He's mad at me now, and sleeping in my desk chair. Boo freakin' hoo.

Endings

Tomorrow, after I visit my financial planner to work out the last piece of my new IRA that combines what's left of my savings from 401Ks from Image International (1988-1994), F/X Scenery and Display (1996-2005) and Mystic Scenic Studios (2005-2009) into one account, I'm going to Abq Little Theatre to finish up the last of the construction of the quick-change set pieces for "Irving Berlin's White Christmas." I may go back to add details like plugs for the switchboard and attachment technology for the ski lodge front porch- stuff like that. Painting will be done mostly by student interns (if they show up- they sort of have trouble in that area,) and Colby is still thinking about seat cushions and table transportation methods.

I poured on the steam this month, even working two full Saturdays, because the cast needs the pieces to rehearse with, and the scene shift crew needs to practice the fifteen fast and fluid scene changes. The show opens a week from Friday and runs through Christmas Eve. I will be paid in comp tickets to the show. I hope it's REALLY good.

"Dial M For Murder" is the next show, and I'm invited to work on it, but I'm taking some time off. The White Christmas set pieces not onstage will be stored in the shop, so there will be little room to work anyway. And I'm still hopeful that I'll get a job soon. Hope springs eternal.

Meanwhile, I've applied to six jobs this weekend and kept up with cat feeding, scooping and cooking for us humans. I have sadly neglected my blog, and the trees around the house have dropped a buttload of leaves which I'll be cleaning up this week. It snowed overnight last night, so they're wet and frozen at this time. They'll be warm and dry by Tuesday, I'm sure.

The kitties are missing their outside time, although I did let them out this morning. It was 42 degrees, so they scampered back inside pretty quickly. They'll be happy to have me home during the days again. And I'll get to watch The Price Is Right!

As much as I have enjoyed building nearly all the pieces for White Christmas, I'm glad to be done with it. Seeing them in action will be the best reward.

Time

Carmen and I went to the little desert town of Edgewood Sunday. The tiny congregation there meets in a yarn shop owned by one of the members. It's a satellite congregation of the Albuquerque church, and they usually just watch the sermons from First Church on DVD and discuss them. This week they got a live in person intern. Nine people were there to hear it, including me.

The title of the sermon was "A Fulcrum of Time." The crux of the message, for me anyway, was that we must change time into life. It started out with a comment on our times here and now, including the fact that her husband has been unemployed for five months. That's me! She quoted William Ellery Channing, Henry David Thoreau and others who advocated self-culture, improving ourselves for the ultimate improvement of the world.

The congregation passed around a "talking stick," and when it was passed to her unemployed husband, I went on at some length about the wonderful things I've been able to do with my windfall of time- and I didn't even mention my ongoing Scrabble games on Facebook or my ability to watch The Price Is Right.

Three things are paramount: I'm volunteering in a real theatre for the first time since the 80s, I'm writing more than I have ever written in my life, and I'm walking more than I have since I left Vero Beach in 1987. All of this is a treasure for me. I'll be glad to finally get a paying job again, but I'll always look back on this time as a precious gift. Sure, I've been sadly neglecting my blogging lately, but the scenic work I'm doing is just as important to me. And when I finally get to see my work as part of a highly entertaining show, it will be a watershed moment, comparable to seeing my news sets on TV.

Walking has always been a spiritual practice for me, time away from everything that distracts my train of thought. I went to the bank and the grocery store this afternoon. A forty minute walk to the bank, ten minutes to the store and thirty five minutes back home. An hour and a half on the road, off the leash. It was wonderful. Of course nowadays, my cell phone leash is with me, but it never rang.

But now, Remus tells me, it's time to feed kitties. And this time it really is time.

Chug-A-Chug-A Motion

So Monday I arrived at Albuquerque Little Theatre ready to finish my cabinet for the switchboard, and whatever else happened along. Colby came at (about) 8:30 and told me he was going for plywood as soon as he could get away, and if I finished what I was doing on the switchboard before he got back, I should bolt together the four four by eight platforms on stage into two eight by eight. Then I would be putting straight (non-swivel) casters on the bottom side such that the platforms would pivot. Then I would flip them over and put another layer of plywood across them to solidify them big time.

All of this came to pass. The HMMMM moment came in mid-afternoon when I had lag bolted all twenty four casters to the bottom, each at ninety degrees to the line from the wheel to the pivot point. I told Colby I was ready to flip. He looked at my casters and said, "Is that gonna roll?" I told him it's the way I'd always done it. So we flipped one and it pivoted like gangbusters. Hey, I been doin' this a long time.

Tuesday I finally started on the train set. It's three benches with windows behind them and a luggage rack overhead, which clamp together in an eighteen foot long bench. Each has straight casters running forward so that when the scene comes up, they can be rolled downstage as the lights are coming up. Today I finished the construction, clamped them together, and everybody liked it. Yay. I went home early in celebration.

On the way I stopped into the Home Depot to investigate chicken wire. Rev. Robinson at First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque asked Carmen to ask me about creating a talking ox and I just wanted to see what was available and for how much before I proposed my plan. Well damn it, my plan was dashed. There on the floor below the rack of pristine rolls of wire was a beat up, dirty, squished one for half price. I bought it, because you never know when old gnarly roll of chicken wire will come in handy, ox or no ox.

So now you're up to date at last. Boy this working thing (paid or not) sure cuts into my blogging time.

The Biz

I read my previous postings and had to laugh. I've worked in show business for twenty two years, and still I have the temerity to try to predict what will be going on tomorrow. I went to the theatre Friday ready to finish my 12 foot jacks for the barn wall and start on either the barn or the train. Of course I did neither. There is a lot of business with a telephone switchboard at the ski lodge, so Colby and I dug out an old TV cabinet, disemboweled it, mounted a switchy thing on it, built a cabinet around the switchy thing, and voila! a switchboard. It's magic!

The big news is that last night I went for the strike of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. An hour and a half of unscrewing and unbolting later, the stage was clear. Now we can stand up the barn walls, hang a traveler track for the cyc, and mount the pivoting set platforms.

Also in the news: Colby's purchasing account has been replenished, so he can buy plywood for the train car set and other needs. Things are poised for action. Now if he can only convince the Board of Directors to pay me for the run of the show, we'll be all set, because if I happen to get a job (I'm applying for two of them as soon as I finish this) he'll be hard pressed to get it all done for opening November 27th.

The one thing I know is that I don't know anything, and that's plenty.

Suddenly Winter

It was pouring rain when I left the house for the theatre yesterday morning at 7:00. I trotted out two pieces of technology unused since my public transit commutes in Boston: my Red Wing waterproof boots and my desert camouflage poncho. When I bought the poncho four years ago, I laughed at the desert camo. "This is for all those desert rain storms," I said. Well, yesterday I would have been invisible in the Albuquerque landscape.

The number two bus was right on time as usual, and I played my hand-held Free Cell game as usual on my way down Ventura, east on Academy and south on Eubank. Long about Interstate 40, I looked up from my game and thought I saw a snowflake hit the bus windshield. I kept watching, and soon there were nothing but big fat flakes everywhere. I called Carmen. "Is it snowing there?" No, it wasn't.

I got off at Central Avenue (Historic Route 66) in a blizzard. I put my poncho back on and made my way to the bus stop for the next bus (route 66) and by the time I got to downtown, the snow was rain again. The only visible sign of all that snow is the picturesque dusting of the Sandia Mountains that line the eastern border of Albuquerque.

It's 34 degrees at this time. The kitties have not asked to go outside this morning.

I Love A Piano

One of the big production numbers in Irving Berlin's White Christmas is "I Love A Piano." When we saw it (twice) in Boston, the set changed three times during that song and dance extravaganza. Colby at Albuquerque Little Theatre is hoping to maybe change it once,

Today we finally finally were able to get started on White Christmas. My project today was to modify three pianos. The little prop piano will have kids dancing on it, so I added four more legs to it to keep it from flipping over when they dance. The baby grand is an old real piano that will have adults dancing on it. I added some structure under the lid and attached it to the heavy duty dolly. The console piano will be used in the rehearsal scenes. I changed its straight casters to swivel casters.

If the plan holds, Wednesday I'll either be building the three-section railroad car that will roll on and off stage, or the back wall of the barn with the sliding doors.

I love real theatre. It's good to be back.

What's The Buzz

I don't believe I've mentioned yet that we live next door to The Snake Man of Albuquerque. His license plate says "Slither" He's been telling me for months about his rattlesnake-hunting expeditions, and about the feature story about him upcoming in New Mexico magazine, but until a week ago, I had never seen any evidence. Monday night he came home after a weekend jaunt, and called me over. He unloaded a tall wooden box out of the back of his SUV. It hit the driveway with a thud, and the box began buzzing.

He carried it into his garage, right up to the chest freezer, which he opened. There were a bunch of plastic "burlap" bags in there, which he said were all frozen rattlesnakes, all still alive, and a plastic 5-gallon bucket with a four-inch hole in the center of the lid. Dave opened the end of the wooden box and thrust his snake-catching stick with a loop on the end into the box. He snatched the loop tight and pulled up a five-foot rattler by the neck. It was writhing, rattling and biting the stick all the way to the bucket. After many tries, Snake Man finally fed the tail end into the bucket, which he said they couldn't escape from, and dropped the rest of the snake in. He repeated the process for two more future snakecicles. The fourth one wriggled enough to pop the lid off of the bucket! Dave looked in and saw that one of the first three had gotten out of the bucket and was trying to escape the freezer. He slammed the lid down on his stick, let loose of the fourth snake and snaked the stick out before any could escape the freezer. He smiled and said, "I guess the lid wasn't on very good." I guess not!

At least now I know that the Snake Man of Albuquerque is on top of things next door.

The Furnace Man Cometh

Carmen and I were at a small dinner party last night at a fancy dancy house up in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Just before everyone arrived, our host dropped a six-pack of beer in the garage, and was in the process of cleaning it up when we arrived. This reminded me of a classic Emerson moment from January of 1968 in Odenton, Maryland.

My dad had a tooth pulled on this bitter cold Saturday morning. The dentist stuffed his mouth with gauze and sent him home. Our furnace was on the fritz, so we built a fire in the fireplace in the basement, and my dad was lying on the couch recovering in front of the fire. I was also in the basement, playing with my new birthday present, a road race set.

The furnace man was coming sometime around noon, so my mother went to the grocery store right after bringing home the tooth-pullee. They liked to watch Saturday Night At The Movies with a tall glass of Squirt spiked with gin to drink, and they were out of gin, so she also went to the liquor store. She came home and carried in the groceries through the basement and up the stairs to the kitchen- only the handrail snagged the paper bag, ripped it, the gin bottle fell out and shattered all over the basement floor.

Princess, my big ol' German Shepherd dog had two pet peeves: people who came in trucks, and the ringing of the door bell. So when the furnace man came, he racked up two strikes with the dog. Princess was already growling and barking when the door bell rang, and she ran to the front door to refine her warning. My dad bellowed, "Get the dog! Get the dog!"

I ran up the stairs in my socks. Oh yeah, did I mention that my mother had just waxed the floor at the top of the stairs? So I hit the wax, fell and slid across the short stretch of floor until I was stopped by my shin bashing against the corner of a doorway wall. "Waaaaaaaaaaahhh," I screamed in severe pain. (I still have a crease in my shin bone at that impact point.) Dad was still yelling "Get the dog! Get the dog!" with a big wad of gauze in his mouth. I grabbed Princess' collar and opened the door.

I wish I had had a camera handy to capture the look on the furnace man's face. Here was this teen-aged boy, limping and howling in pain, barely restraining a big German Shepherd that was barking and growling and straining to get at him, my dad bellowing unintelligibly from the basement, and the house reeking of gin. He ran in, dashed down to the furnace, also in the basement, fixed it in no time flat, and got out of there as fast as his legs could carry him. We would love to have heard what he told his wife when he got home.

Shopping Tips

Yin didn't finish her scoop of canned food last night, which was a good thing because what she left in her dish was all the Yin food I had left in the house. This morning I served up that last bite before I got ready to finally walk to the grocery store after rainy weather kept me home for two days. My list had grown so long during those two days, I knew I had to fire up the Old Lady Grocery Cart for the first time in Albuquerque.

One good thing about all that rain: the path beside my shortcut arroyo (a New Mexico thing- it's a paved drainage ditch that can contain flash floods through the city) that leads to the main road would have most of the dog turd land mines washed away. They're not a problem for walking, I can watch my step and be okay. But Old Betsy's wheels would be more problematic, as the path is narrow and the mines are usually along the edges.

I took my Old Lady Cart to the store many times in Massachusetts, along paved pathways and sidewalks all the way to the store. The biggest problem was that smaller items, such as cat food cans- did I mention I was out of canned cat food?- would fall out of the cart while shopping unless I loaded stuff into my reusable bags at the bottom of the cart. I'd been cogitating about this disasterous consequence these couple of days, and came up with a brilliant solution. Do you know those big, wide blue bags you can get from Ikea? Well, it just so happens that we have a couple of those. I lined the bottom of OLGC with one, and it fit perfectly! I tied the handles to the cart to keep it from collapsing, loaded my reusable bags inside and was off!

While the land mine situation had indeed improved since my last trip along the arroyo, there was another intermittent problem I'd never encountered in Albuquerque: mud! Usually any water that hits the ground dries the instant the sun comes out- but the sun hadn't come out yet at 7:30 this cloudy morning. But we persevered and made it to the store, my Old Lady Cart and I.

Starting with canned food and other structurally secure items, I filled my Ikea bag to the brim, topping it off with produce, eggs and a loaf of bread. I got to the checkout, and thought, "Hey, maybe I can just lift that sucker out of there and unload the cart in one swift fluid motion." This is what is referred to in literature as a best-laid plan. It was a motion, well, a series of herky jerky motions, accompanied by a lot of grunting, not a little cursing, and the little woman behind me in line trying to hold onto the OLC, which was flopping around like a big, ungainly rattletrap fish. I did get the bag out, though, and set it on the belt, a satisfied smile on my beet-red face.

The trip back was the same as the trip out, with the addition of fifty pounds of groceries in the cart. It sank in the mud once, and grazed a freshly supplied land mine, but we're home now, groceries are put away, Cat Juggler is almost posted. It's time to invent a South Beach Diet friendly pumpkin goo dessert! Life is never boring for a minister's wife!