Catch-up post!
It seems I’ve neglected my LJ again. I haven’t posted since before Christmas. Where did the past seven months go?
As I’ve just arrived in New York for a visit and hope to post about my activities here for the next few days, now seems like a good time to catch up on where those seven months went, and what I’ve been doing for the first half of the year.
So…let’s see. I’ve been taking care of my Granddaddy, of course. He’s had his ups and downs for the past few months, but he’s still hanging in there like the trooper he is. He spent a week in the hospital in April and then a month in residential rehab, then continued his treatment at home. So we’ve had a busy schedule of appointments with doctors, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and whatever else his treatment required. On the upside, we’ve also had visits from my aunt, uncle, and cousins with their families. My aunt and uncle are back again this week, which is how I’m able to jet off to NYC for a few days.
Also in my activities since December, I rehearsed and performed in a local production of Into the Woods, playing Jack’s Mother. Our performances were in March, so it’s been over for quite a while now, but looking back on the experience a few months later, I have so many feelings about it. For starters, it was the first full scale production of a musical play that I’d been in since high school. We’re talking a quarter of a century ago, people. I was very grateful that I’d done the Christmas show aimed at children back in the fall. I was able to get the worst of the OMG-I-haven’t-been-on-stage-in-25-years nerves out of the way then. So on opening night of Into the Woods, I was nervous, but not in a panic attack kind of way. Our rehearsal process was long and grueling and had its share of problems common in the theatre, but was also oh-so-much fun and really, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Where else in my hometown would I be able to hang out with a group of people who share my special flavor of insanity?
Our performances had a few glitches of course. Just for me alone, I remember one night that I completely flubbed one verse of my lyrics while singing my solo bit, and on another night threw my son Jack almost head-first into Rapunzel’s tower. Oh, and let’s not forget the night that I walked backstage after my death scene, and, unaware that my mike was still on, announced to everyone in the building that I was glad I would finally have time to go pee. Good memories. Hard work, embarrassing flubs and all, I would gladly do it all over again. And I hope I’ll get a chance to do more productions with my local community theatre group.
Knowing that I would likely experience a loose-ends feeling after Into the Woods ended, I wanted something to look forward to shortly after our closing night. (For my non-theatre readers, you have no idea how much being in a musical takes over your life. And when it’s over, you find yourself with all this free time and thinking, what do I do with myself now?) So I planned a trip to NYC in April.
My main purpose in going was, as always, to see Broadway shows. I saw Finding Neverland and the revival of The King and I on Broadway, and also traveled out to NJ for a brand-new production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Papermill Playhouse. I was joined at Papermill by a nanny friend of mine who still lives in NJ, and she also came into the city one day for us to have lunch and hang out together. I also went back to the NJ town where I last worked and visited with my former nanny family there. I went to a brunch meeting in the city with several ladies that I know from online fandoms, the first time I’d been able to attend one of those monthly brunches since the previous summer. And for the rest of my NYC April visit, I just kind of wandered. I lucked out with gorgeous spring weather for my entire stay, so I walked parts of Central Park and also the High Line, I wandered Greenwich Village and other downtown areas that I hadn’t explored much previously.
And after that early April NYC visit, I settled in to day-to-day living in NC, and haven’t done any travel or much of anything exciting till my journey back to the Big Apple yesterday. Hold on, I take that back. I was able to visit with two of my former charges who currently live in China, and were in the USA for their annual summer visit. That was definitely exciting.
And I had a bit of unwanted excitement on Tues evening of this week, when I had a tire blowout while traveling to Raleigh for my flight the next morning. Fortunately, I have a great best friend who came along with her husband to pick me up from the side of the road and help me get the tire fixed.
So…I got to NYC, not without a few bumps in the road and not without leaving rubber trailing after me, but I got here. And now, it’s time to get off the computer and go out there and see what kind of trouble I can get into today.
To be continued…..
As I’ve just arrived in New York for a visit and hope to post about my activities here for the next few days, now seems like a good time to catch up on where those seven months went, and what I’ve been doing for the first half of the year.
So…let’s see. I’ve been taking care of my Granddaddy, of course. He’s had his ups and downs for the past few months, but he’s still hanging in there like the trooper he is. He spent a week in the hospital in April and then a month in residential rehab, then continued his treatment at home. So we’ve had a busy schedule of appointments with doctors, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and whatever else his treatment required. On the upside, we’ve also had visits from my aunt, uncle, and cousins with their families. My aunt and uncle are back again this week, which is how I’m able to jet off to NYC for a few days.
Also in my activities since December, I rehearsed and performed in a local production of Into the Woods, playing Jack’s Mother. Our performances were in March, so it’s been over for quite a while now, but looking back on the experience a few months later, I have so many feelings about it. For starters, it was the first full scale production of a musical play that I’d been in since high school. We’re talking a quarter of a century ago, people. I was very grateful that I’d done the Christmas show aimed at children back in the fall. I was able to get the worst of the OMG-I-haven’t-been-on-stage-in-25-years nerves out of the way then. So on opening night of Into the Woods, I was nervous, but not in a panic attack kind of way. Our rehearsal process was long and grueling and had its share of problems common in the theatre, but was also oh-so-much fun and really, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Where else in my hometown would I be able to hang out with a group of people who share my special flavor of insanity?
Our performances had a few glitches of course. Just for me alone, I remember one night that I completely flubbed one verse of my lyrics while singing my solo bit, and on another night threw my son Jack almost head-first into Rapunzel’s tower. Oh, and let’s not forget the night that I walked backstage after my death scene, and, unaware that my mike was still on, announced to everyone in the building that I was glad I would finally have time to go pee. Good memories. Hard work, embarrassing flubs and all, I would gladly do it all over again. And I hope I’ll get a chance to do more productions with my local community theatre group.
Knowing that I would likely experience a loose-ends feeling after Into the Woods ended, I wanted something to look forward to shortly after our closing night. (For my non-theatre readers, you have no idea how much being in a musical takes over your life. And when it’s over, you find yourself with all this free time and thinking, what do I do with myself now?) So I planned a trip to NYC in April.
My main purpose in going was, as always, to see Broadway shows. I saw Finding Neverland and the revival of The King and I on Broadway, and also traveled out to NJ for a brand-new production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Papermill Playhouse. I was joined at Papermill by a nanny friend of mine who still lives in NJ, and she also came into the city one day for us to have lunch and hang out together. I also went back to the NJ town where I last worked and visited with my former nanny family there. I went to a brunch meeting in the city with several ladies that I know from online fandoms, the first time I’d been able to attend one of those monthly brunches since the previous summer. And for the rest of my NYC April visit, I just kind of wandered. I lucked out with gorgeous spring weather for my entire stay, so I walked parts of Central Park and also the High Line, I wandered Greenwich Village and other downtown areas that I hadn’t explored much previously.
And after that early April NYC visit, I settled in to day-to-day living in NC, and haven’t done any travel or much of anything exciting till my journey back to the Big Apple yesterday. Hold on, I take that back. I was able to visit with two of my former charges who currently live in China, and were in the USA for their annual summer visit. That was definitely exciting.
And I had a bit of unwanted excitement on Tues evening of this week, when I had a tire blowout while traveling to Raleigh for my flight the next morning. Fortunately, I have a great best friend who came along with her husband to pick me up from the side of the road and help me get the tire fixed.
So…I got to NYC, not without a few bumps in the road and not without leaving rubber trailing after me, but I got here. And now, it’s time to get off the computer and go out there and see what kind of trouble I can get into today.
To be continued…..