Friday Rapw

All Thursday it felt like Friday, I was so out of it. The only thing which kept me on calendar was band rehearsals.

Real Friday was busy busy at work, made more tense by my body totally ignoring the four hits of Immodium. I think it's time to stop taking my Diabetes doctor's advice of snacking on nuts. Or snacking all day.

Side issue - there has been a lot of moaning and groaning in California that something like 40% of the water in our drought-stricken state is fed to almond trees. Almonds are hard on my mouth, because they are so hard that when I chew them, my dentures dig into my palate, causing irritation and sometimes sores. So for the past couple of weeks I have been removing the almonds from the mixed nuts**. It doesn't matter what brand, every can of peanut-free mixed nuts is 50% or more almonds. So I'd be very happy to see the almond growers cut down half their trees and replace them with something else. There aren't enough macadamia nuts in the world, for instance. **I put the almonds into a bowl, and when there are enough of them the bowl goes to the coffee break area where the other engineers are happy for the treat. 

Just before lunch I spent about 10 minutes on the ceramic throne remembering my late, great oldest brother-in-law's line "the older I get, the longer "it" takes." After a quick stop at my desk to pick up my jacket & hat, I pointed the Prius at the new shopping center with several places to eat, but by the time I got within half a mile, it was clear that my 10 minutes had not been sufficient. So instead of eating first and then going to Target for tooth whitener, autopilot got me to Target, where they have "clean air vehicle" parking close to the front, and The French Store's clean restrooms are right near the entrance. Just in time. But another 10 minutes...

Bought the tooth whitener, and also some SodaStream diet ginger ale and diet orange soda mixes. Not feeling hungry, and having dawdled a lot in front of the display of very expensive tooth whiteners, I went back to work.

Stuck around till 6:30 because (a) there's a restroom and (b) several friends were involved in the play at nearby Santa Clara Players, which I figured I'd go see.

It was too early for the box office to be open, so I went to Peet's, bought a coffee and used their wi-fi to download some Kindle books I'd ordered during the day.

7:15, at the theater, a little nervous about leaving the car because there was a car load of jocks hanging around who definitely were not there for the theater (the parking lot is huge, and is not just for the theater, it's also for the museum and overflow for city offices across the street). As I waled away, one of the jocks walked in front of his car, into the not very dense shrubbery and took a leak. Then they started tossing a football.

My buddy George was at the box office, gave me the senior price on a ticket. He also had produced the show, designed the set, and with his daughter built it. For such a small, limited space it is a beautiful set.

You Can't Get There From Here by Pat Cook is a fast-paced, cleverly written story about a B&B in a small town which doubles, triples, quadruples, etc. as the HQ for all the town services, so when the reporter in search of a story hits a pothole and then a light pole, he has come to the right wrong place. Ian Douglas, with whom I have done a couple of shows, plays the reporter, my daughter from the TheatreWorks 1984 production of Oliver!, Helena G. Clarkson, plays the B&B manager, Liz. Carolyn Ford Compton is Myrtle, a retired and somewhat demented Shakespearian actress and Liz's sister. When it appears that the reporter is single, they push B&B maid (and probably Liz's daughter?) Ann (Tonya Duncan) at him. Amy Wright plays Queenie, the local newspaper editor, tall redheaded Elizabeth Lawrence is  yuppie spitfire Dolores Van Damm, the reporter's boss, and her boss Horace is played by SCP regular Steve Corelis.

It is a total romp, a laugh a minute, with a good mix of funny lines and physical comedy. The whole cast has superb comic timing, and director Cindy Powell has done an excellent job (we were in a Lyric Theater show a couple of years ago). Everyone had their lines down, entrances were right on time and the characters were well drawn.

Worth full price. It plays weekends through June 6.

Home after the show, had dinner, went to bed with Spook splayed on the other side parallel to my arm.

All Futon-ed out

Little by little today, with enormous amounts of sweat, the futon assembly was completed, the mattress was cut loose from its badly battered cardboard and tape sheath which was a box before UPS got ahold of it, and wrestled the mattress into place. I can haz futon. The frame without the mattress was able to open into a bed and fold back into a sofa, but I haven't tried that with the mattress in place because (a) there is no reason to until October and (b) I is all futon-ed out.

Each major step in the process required about 15 minutes in the recliner, applying hydration to my innards, removing saline solution from my head and brow, while my heart rate normalized. With a fan turned on and pointed at me. Once or twice I went outside and did other stuff:

- Watered the gardens & hanging plants and the lime tree
- sat on the porch in the rocking chair and watched the birdies. We have one extremely vocal mockingbird which was warbling all sorts of things. It can also caw like a crow, which probably comes from battling the neighborhood crow near mockingbird's nest.

Before futonification, I had a brunch on the porch of herring in sour cream & onions with ginger ale

4 pm meant a trip to Janice's to show her how the remote I programmed for her worked. She had figured out most of it already, the annoying part being it did not work as Logitech said it would. And it ignored the keys I had programmed for the TV inputs.

We went to Starbucks, had a chat, and were annoyed by a man who was sitting at the next table, looking very suspicious, who said his name was Rajiv M____ and he made a big deal of asking if I knew him. I have no idea who he is, but I do happen to know two other people with the same first and last name. I wouldn't be surprised if he's on a Most Wanted poster somewhere.

Home, gathered up the mess which had been the mattress box & plastic bag and piled those on top of the boxes for the frame. I had been hoping to bring those to the dump today but ran out of time. Not tomorrow either.

Plans for tomorrow:
Train to Sacramento in the morning
Attend some of the music festival, people I know from NOLA and Sacto are playing
Stay overnight
Return to SJC noon-ish Monday. Iolanthe rehearsal at 8 pm.