No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on October 28, 2013

The coffee maker broke this morning. I fixed it but I am being to think that it is on its last legs. It has something to do with the electrical because it resets while grinding the beans. Then I have to reset all the controls to get the coffee the way I want it. Took three tried to get the doggone thing to brew this morning.

So I am behind on the day due to lack of coffee.

I was proud of dinner last night. I made chicken paprika and broccoli with hollandaise sauce. Hollandaise is not the easiest thing to make and mine tasted like the kind my mother makes so I was very happy with that. I enjoy cooking especially when I can recreate the tastes I enjoyed so much when I was a child and young adult.

Football was a mixed bag. I got to see the Giants/Eagles game. I have to say that I honestly have mixed feelings about the whole game. They didn’t score a touchdown but a series of field goals. And they almost gave it up until the Eagles gave it up with an interception. I think the less said about the Jets this week the better. Not a great year for the football teams I follow on both sides of the pond.

I swear that the World Series is going to be won or lost on a call from the umps. The end of the 3rd game was a farce and the middle of the 4th wasn’t much better. Someone needs to remind the umps that they are there to call the game not make it about the umps, which is where it seems to be going rapidly.

Enjoyed Once Upon a Time last night. Thought it was rather fun and set up the game board nicely from last weeks “reset” as Pan called it. So who do you think is in the cage next to Neal? I have a guess. Next week Ariel splashes onto the scene. Homeland worked the twist that they dropped last week well and added one heck of a ticking clock. And then there was the reset for the rest of the season for the Good Wife. It did need some shaking up.

Today is all about Caroline’s costume. I have a lot of work to do before Thursday so I had better get things started well today since the EL wire is going to take a bit to add to the dress once it is done. I really wish I had a dress form I could put this on and work on it but alas I don’t.

I also have the usual household chores that need to be done. A mothers/caregivers work is never done.

I am grateful for the sewing skills I have learned over the years.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 27, 2013

Last night we went and saw “Waiting for Godot” at the Cort Theater in Manhattan. It was starring Patrick Stewart as Vladimir and Ian McKellen as Estragon. Shuler Hensley played Pozzo and Billy Crudup was Lucky. We saw Aidan Gemme as the Boy.

This is a play I know all to well having stage-managed it more than once in my lifetime. I was surprised how much of the dialogue was still rattling around in my head.

We took Caroline to see it. Her review is that she understood what they were saying but she didn’t understand what they were saying. She liked the slapstick and some of the broader jokes but over all it is not her favorite theater experience. I didn’t know that Peter had never seen it either so it was interesting seeing it two people who didn’t know much about the play. I told her about my parents dragging me to art museums when I was a kid and at the time I didn’t understand why but now I appreciate what they were showing me and besides she will be the envy of many fans of different fandoms.

Overall I liked it. I thought of the two that Sir Patrick was the better of the two of course he had the role with the most lines. Sir Ian was being a bit of a mumbler at times and I had to translate what he was saying to Peter. It was basically done without mics with the exception of some floor mics that were being used for effects. So projection was the order of the day. I think Mr. Crudup needs to understand how much the human body absorbs sound especially when you have to project. The Lucky speech was hard to hear at times especially in the beginning. Mr. Shuler had no problems being heard.

This was pretty much a standard version of staging of the play. The set was down to pretty much the basic objects that you need to do the play. Minimalism seemed to be the theme of the day. So there were no real surprises or “oh I hadn’t thought about it that way”.

This is one that you go to see the performances rather than the play. It is not stunt casting since all the actors could hold their own on stage without microphones for the most part. If this is your first exposure to Godot and to Beckett, it is a good place to start. You will figure out pretty fast whether is absurdist theater is for you or not.

I am grateful that we went to see this play.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 25, 2013

New thing I am trying out. Not sure if it is going to stick but I thought I would give it a go.

More recently I have found that if I have a topic for the day (i.e. Crafty Tuesday or Conventional Wisdom) it gives me a focus rather than this being a series of Random Thoughts Before the Coffee Kicks In. Not that this isn’t going to be random because the brain is random. I figure a brain dump before the weekend might not be a bad thing to do. I am limited myself to four things that are foremost on my brain or things I have been thinking about this week.

1) Halloween is less than a week away. And I am far behind. I have part of Caroline’s costume cut out and all the pieces. I have part of the Halloween decorations out and the rest need to be put out. So I am about two days away from total panic. This means that I start at point A and work my way through all the things that need to be done before next Thursday. My focus needs more focus.

2) The gym has become my me-time. I was told back when I added the title of caregiver to the litany of things that I do that I needed to find a way for some time that is just for me. It took a while to work out when I could do that and I have now made my gym time, my time. I don’t hurry but do what I need to do for the day. I use the time to figure things out and work on me for a bit both mentally and physically.

3) Going to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot tomorrow with Peter and Caroline. This is a show I have stage managed more than once in my career. I know it very well. This will be Caroline’s first exposure to absurdist theater and I am really wondering what she is going to come away with. She has some interest because of who the actors are. I am going to be really interested in her comments about it. I just know I am going to be calling lighting cues in my head but I am going to try not to.

4) Wow, I am coming up with a blank for the fourth item. I mean I have things rattling around in my head but nothing I care to share yet. I could check around and see what comes forward but I don’t think I am going to do that. My head is firmly into what I am going to do with the rest of the day and in what order. I need to get interfacing for Caroline’s costume. I need to pick up a few things that I didn’t get from my grocery shopping yesterday like coffee filters and bread. I pulled out the loaf this morning to make Caroline lunch and realized that I had a lot less than I thought I had. Then I need to finish cutting out Caroline’s costume and start on sewing that. I need to get the rest of the decorations out of the garage and in front of the house so the neighbors can stop asking me if I am putting up the graveyard this year. There are families that have pictures taking in front of it for just about every year I have put it out there. So my brain is off to the races and I guess I should join it.

I am grateful for everyone who reads my ramblings and gets something from them.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 23, 2013

Last night Jon Stewart had Malcolm Gladwell on to talk about his new book entitled “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants”. I have read a couple of books by Mr. Gladwell including Blink. I find his style easy to read however I tend to take some of his simplifications of complex problems with a salt lick.

He touched on something that I have been living with my entire life. I don’t exactly hide it nor do I talk about it a lot. It is just part of me and I have, over the years, learned to deal with it.

I am dyslexic and rather severely so. I have learned a number of skills that makes it less obvious to the world at large but it comes up in the oddest places.

I didn’t learn there was a name for what was going on in my head until college and I got a freshman English teacher who was studying dyslexia.

What I did know is that I had no idea that there was a difference between my right and my left until the fourth grade where my left was when I dropped my arms down next to my desk, my watch on my left hand would make a clicking sound when it hit the desk.

Now here is the funny thing, I may not be able to call up my left from my right but I am very good at directions. Take me somewhere a couple of times and I can find my way back to it. And I retain things that I learned years ago. The GPS arrow has been my friend because it gives me a visual of how I need to go. Don’t ask me how to get somewhere because I have to really work on the lefts and rights. But have me take you there and I am golden. Over the years I have gotten better about left and right and, for the most part, I can tell one for another but it can be a struggle.

In elementary school and high school I got low marks for spelling. I was informed that I was a lazy speller on my report cards. “Kathleen is a wonderful reader however she can work harder on her spelling.” I can’t tell you how many Happy Brithday Cards I created. And it was very frustrating for me as a child. It didn’t look wrong when I wrote it and even when it was pointed out, it would take me a while to see it. I hated spelling a lot because I couldn’t get it right no matter how hard I studied.

This still happens. Spell checker has become my best buddy and I have worked hard to learn how to spell things. There are words that I recheck several times because I know that they are my problem works.

Numbers and I get along just great. Mathematics makes sense to me. I don’t change them around. I had more fun with higher math. I could see the patterns in the numbers. I enjoy deconstructing a problem. I still do long division in my head to get to sleep. I love math so much.

The other mad skill I have is spatial relations. Peter is always impressed how I can look at a pile of suitcases and boxes and the like and get them to fit into the car for a convention. I can look at an empty space and figure out how I can Tetris things into it. If I say it is going to fit, it will fit. 3-D works in my brain. However 2-D and I have issues which explains my negative drawing abilities. I think it might have something to do with the dyslexia or something else my brain does or doesn’t do.

I have learned to live with my dyslexia. I really don’t know what would have happened if it had been diagnosed earlier. And frankly I don’t care. I think there are things that I do better because of it. I don’t make a big deal about it because it really doesn’t define me it just a part of me like my height or my blue eyes.

I am grateful for spell checkers.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 22, 2013

I was talking with another person who makes puppets the other day. Not an usual activity for me really. And we got to talking about going through a store and seeing it a little differently.

I walk into a dollar store or a thrift store and look at things not for what they are but what they could be. Pillows are a good source of fur fabric for puppets (Shout out to Liz at Puppatoon for that one. She is the queen of thrift store puppetmaking). Kids clothing can become puppet clothing. Odd bits and bobs can be used for all kinds of things.

Hardware stores are material central for me. I find more stuff at better prices there than at the craft store. Cheap Rubber mats can become armor really easily. Plastic is in many forms there.

Even at the craft store, I look at things in terms of what I would use it for and not necessarily the original purpose. Halloween is a bonanza of stuff after the sales start including wigs. Easter can be even better. Christmas has a few items that I pick up on sale but not many.

There are also the times that I buy something for one project and end up using it for something totally different.

It is a matter of seeing beyond what the object is to see what it could be.

I am grateful for finding things that help me finish my projects.

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