Excellent Day

Took the hedge trimmer out for a trial run this morning, and hacked at the hedge in front of the house. Got it looking not ragged. Was unable to do the ones on the far side of the house because there are no outlets here and the cord is only 25'. Maybe I'll look for a cordless. Or buy a longer cord.

Got to the Farmer's market at noon, found my youngest sister and her hubby right away. We went to DishDash for kebabs and chatted for a long time, then drove to the house. On the way there my next younger sister phoned, so after I gave to tour of the house I called her back and we all speakerphoned until she had to hang up and bake something.

Spent the afternoon chatting with sis & husband while Domino alternately made the rounds and perched where she could keep an eye on us and the bird feeder. At one point I needed to take out the Audubon bird book so they could look up what was at the feeder. A finch which is not native to where they are from (Olympic Peninsula). They even said the seagulls are different here. I pointed out that they had Puget Sound gulls while we have Baygulls. And out feed at the sewage treatment facility and the landfill.

At about 5 they took off to get a picnic lunch and possibly eat it at the park near the theater. I went online just long enough to find out I am stuck with the dozen bags of coffee flavored "caramels" I'd bought online (I thought I was buying caramel flavor) and to nuke a comment I made on the Little Shop Facebook page which garnered rude comments from cast members who ought to have hit "like". They were saying that my comment was better to be told privately to the stage manager, but their responses ironically would have been better to have either privately messaged me or told me personally.

Thence to the theater, where we had the biggest audience yet. The show went well, except for some feedback and high frequency noise from the sound system. And the band was WAY too loud, Again. Very odd audience reactions. Major laughs at all the laugh lines, but hardly any applause after each number. At the curtain calllots of applause for each character but it wasn't sustained through our 2 company bows. Huge applause again for the band, but they had mostly run out of steam for out final company bow.

After the show I introduced sis & husband to everyone in the cast (I missed the Dentist, though, he had his own posse there, and was sneaking off to host a birthday party for one of the younger (19) chorus girls).

Reheated lasagna and dolmathes for dinner, plus a sourdough English muffin with a bit of olive + blood orange oil which was part of a housewarming gift from sister. Very interesting taste, olive oil with a slight orange overtone. She picked up two types at the farmer's market. The other is balsamic strawberry.

Plans for tomorrow:
Not much. Recover from tonight, head for the theater at 12:45. 2:30 show.
Maybe do some more gardening.

Boy Am I Sore

Usually just the exercise of being in a show is enough to make me hurt in the usual places, but that wasn't enough today.


Had a very long sleep this morning, after staying up too late last night after the show. Went looked online for cordless hedge trimmers, and the corded one won;t do for the hedges on the side of the house where there;'s no outlet within 50 feet. Home Depot's web site had what I wanted, so I headed there, but while they had the trimmer, they did not have any extra batteries. They had plenty for some Korean brand they were pushing, but no Black & Decker. I was also looking for a garden hoe, and strange but true there were none of the type I wanted. And the "help" was no help at all. So I put the trimmer back on the shelf and went to Lowe's.

They wanted $10 more for the trimmer, but they had batteries and a hoe. The batteries come with three free spools of weed whacker cord which I have zero use for unless I need to garrote someone for fun & profit or maybe set up a Rube Goldberg door opener. But the price was the same as without, and they had no without.

Home, had just enough time to unpack the trimmer and set the battery on the charger before heading for the theater.

Sundays are always late, because the crew doesn't have to build the set (Thurs-Fri they have to take down the set after the show because there's children's theater performing in the following afternoon). So being 15 minutes late nobody noticed.

My microphone pack went south during the mike check, it took them a while to get the replacement up and running, but after that delay we were good.

For a sunny Sunday (80°) it was a big house. For Easter it was downright miraculous. About 100 people. This means word is getting out. The show went very well, lots of audience reaction, but after the show the big WTF is only half a dozen people stayed to meet the cast.

Stopped off at Denny's and tried the new bacon bourbon BBQ burger. It was pretty good. Would have been better without the burned bacon. The waiter kept speaking to me in Spanish. I guess the mustache makes me look Mexican.  He also kept calling me "patrón". Kind of amusing because literally it means "boss" but implies I Am Old. It reminds me of a song by Shel Silverstein called Time, in which a man is bemoaning his getting older, and says "Today in the park, a grown man called me 'Sir'".

Home, slapped the now-charged battery into the trimmer and attacked the two way overgrown hedge plants on the side of the house. They are on the border with the neighbor's carport, neighbor has a narrow strip which is part decorative stone, part dirt garden with a pile of rust-colored large-stone gravel in between. I had to trim back the plant so it wasn't taking over their property. Previous owner had let it go way too long.

Raking up all the trimmings both from today and yesterday was a lot of work too. It all went into the garbage, the trimmer went into the shed and the battery into the laundry room to re-charge.

All that needed recovery and rehydration. My recliner and the standing fan helped. So did a couple of glasses of seltzer with lime and one of coconut water. Watched some mindless TV too.

Caught up on FB and Quicken. And here I am. Debating whether to have dinner, or if the burger at 5-ish was dinner, or maybe I just need a couple of scoops of ice cream.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work.
Maybe BASFA, mostly to hype the last weekend of the show.