photos.. older productions

I was talking to Tracey yesterday and she was asking about older productions and was surprised how long it took us to put something together..so I told her I would put up some pictures showing what we have already done.. in front and behind the scenes. Sadly I don't have any better pictures than these... but this year I promise to take better ones.

so here are some of the pics, I hope you enjoy them. :)

Dormons!


again Dormons!


behind scenes, waiting



Hippies :)


Les Abeilles


The Male Bee .. Bzzz!!


Les Policemen d'Amour


Demoness


Always wanted to be a goddess


Les Champs


Again Les Champs:


Makeup


Cerebus and friends


L'Oiseau


Dance:

all better now.

Day before yesterday I whined alot about the crummy day I had. Yesterday started off in such a way that I thought, "Oh, no.. not again!"

In the morning I went out to get the mail.. and when I opened the door..the outside handle..literally came apart from the door.. and a few pieces fo the mechanism fell out .. and the handle did a 180 degree to rest upside on the door.

Last year, I received a gift from a friend at Xmas, of a olive tray. It's like a skinny baquette out of white porcelain with the middle dug out. I have never used it but it was pretty so I kept it. The problem is that it is about 16" long. So I couldn't put it in any drawer of or cupboard.. it just wouldn't fit.. so there it was on top of the microwave.. gathering dust... until today.. when putting away the dishes. I nicked it with my hand and it went flying across the kitchen.. and smashed on the ceramic floor into a million pieces.. ok, ok.. not a million..but a lot. Well, now I don't have to find a place to put it anymore. :-P

This wasn't the greatest sign that the day would be good.. I tend to believe that luck (good and bad) is like sausages.. it arrives in links.

Then in the afternoon.. someone told me something that truly made me feel happy and made me feel very accepted by my peers. If you could have seen the smile on my face .. you would have seen what a world of good hearing that did for me.

Just a heads up .. if you have something nice to say to someone .. don't hesitate.. you could really make their day.
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Today it snowed a bit.. yes there is still winter here, but right now it is very wonderful.. because it is so pretty without being blistering cold.

I had practice tonight and arrived at least a half hour early. I've been doing this since the last few weeks as when I arrive the only person that is there is James and he is playing piano.. He is a classically trained pianist.. (I'm not talking Liberaci here). He plays so well.. and I get a private concert. We have a grand piano in our rehearsal hall.. and the top is up.. and I just lean with my elbows on the corner.. ( I love being so close up) and I just watch and listen. Sometimes I 'll ask for something.. Tonight.. a little Rachmaninoff.. ah.. think romantic.. beautiful music....ah... it was sublime! There is no cd or record that can replace hearing music up close like that.. you can literally feel the vibration in the floor.. in your knees .. in your heart. It's very touching. I also like looking at the fingers moving so fluidly even though their job is so complex.

Later we worked more on the portion of the last act where "Bob the terrible" walks the plank.. there is a part .. just he guys sing... the music is so well composed.. you can literally feel the waves of the water.. just by the juxtaposition of the voices... one against the other. Pretty awesome stuff!

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Crummy day

I guess you could say my crummy day sort of started last night. Yesterday, I was talking to Heather about the Haiku contest and saying how I was entering because it would be fun and easy not having to shovel out 500 words. We talked a bit and I told her I was intimidated about writing and she was very sweet and supportive and said.. no..no.. write.. just write.. doesn't matter if it's crap.. just do it.. just let yourself enjoy it.

Last night, I decided to jump in with both feet. I sauntered over to the text contests and found the current one is : Opening Paragraphs. Overdone Openings. Just my luck, it's a contest for no-talent hacks. I could literally write something out and not have to edit it. LOL!

Anyways, I took her advice. I sat down in the livingroom ... pushed my back deeply into the corner of the sofa and with a writing pad on my knees and Bic in hand I was all set to "enjoy the experience".

I started off writing some ridiculous story of someone being awakened by a noise in the middle of the night and something I had written about having one beautiful eye open and an equally beautiful one closed (ok, I wouldn't actually write that way, but I wanted it to be really cheesy for the contest) made me change my mind and I then decided to change it to someone looking in the mirror and looking at herself.

I started writing about her.. and then all of a sudden it was no longer her I was talking about; it was me. I didn't really see it coming... it sort of just happened.

I am always amazed at how Heather seems to be able to spew out words as if she is breathing them... and here I was flowing ... but it had turned into "cry me a river" flowing. I had written myself quite a "pity party". Feelings and emotions just came spilling out.. easier when you don't have to share them with anyone. I wrote 4 full pages, my emotions vascillating between feeling very self-indulgent and pitying myself to feeling angry at myself and feeling guilty for not appreciating all the good things I have. Ask someone who hasn't eaten in 2 days if they really care if they lack affection, I assure you that is the last thing on their mind. At that point, I just wanted someone's shoulder to cry on... someone to give me a huge hug and a pep talk and make it all feel right again.

There is a German word, schadefreude, which means to be happy/sad at the same time. I have always liked that word and wished there was an English equivalent. Last night I wished they also had a word for self pity/feeling guilty about it at the same time that I could use to explain how I felt.

This morning I woke up kind of cranky I guess... still trying to shake off the negative feelings from the night before.

Knowing I was going to have to deal with the tax guy again didn't improve my mood very much either. I re-emailed "Dean" but didn't get an answer so later on I went into their Live Help again and was told that my best new friend only started work at noon. I finally did get in touch with Dean (in chat at 3:39) who didn't remember who I was, what my problem was, and why was I bothering him again?

He says: " I got your email today only (while he knew perfectly well I sent it while still online with him), and it didn't specify what the problem was so I put it aside." .. Pardon me? You told me to send it and you would reply in 10 minutes.. and you just never responded at all. "Well, could you tell me what the problem is again because I don't remember."

I go through the whole thing all over again, until a light flickers on in his brain and he says.. "ah! yes.. now I remember!". Of course, he is still as clueless as he was yesterday, except this time he has my tax returns in his hands. After an hour we find that the software didn't transfer one amount.. not in the forms but in the worksheet.. grr. I thank him for his assistance, he closes the chat without even saying "You are welcome" or "Good Bye!. Oh, anyways.. the taxes are finished, filed, finito, finally!

On the weekend I installed Grablt on my computer. I couldn't get it to work for me. At first I thought I had not entered my server's new address properly or my password.. but I checked everything with my service today and I'm not doing anything wrong. Just to be, sure I even subscribed, as a test only, to some news feeds to see if I actually could receive anything here. Well, they work just fine.. but, of course, I don't want to hunt down songs through hundreds of newsgroups.. that's Grablt's job.

I visited the Grablt webpage and waded through several forum threads of people having exactly the same problem as I am having. There didn't seem to be a corrective procedure to do. The only suggestion was that it could possibly be an Earthlink problem or installing an older version of Grablt might solve the problem. Ok, I 'll take an older version.. who cares! Well.. the two sites that were offering it were both temporarily down. When they did finally get back online, I was able to download it .. but after installing it, it still wouldn't work. :-(

I swear I'm almost finished my whining... but one more thing happened.

A couple weeks ago on Artalyst, I won "Picture of the Month". People that frequent the site nominate their favorites and then everyone can vote and the winner gets a spot on the front page as well as a print by an artist that is also one of our members.

I was very excited about getting the print. I never win things.. and this was just the coolest thing to win. Today the print arrived at my door. I was very anxious to see it but the delivery man says: "that's $40.00" .. Pardon me? He repeats: "$40.00" and some amount of change that I don't really remember. I'm flabbergasted. I'm going to have to pay for this? That's quite a prize! He says, "well.. he didn't send it as a gift, he sent it with a value and you have to pay duty and taxes.. $40.00 please." Well, thank you very much but no thank you. Geez.

So.. sorry for the long rant, I just needed to get it out of my system. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

taxes

I started doing my taxes by myself when I got my first job and then added Sylvain's to mine when we got married. It has never been something I have particularly liked, just something that had to be done. I've never complained about it but must admit as the years have passed I have come to dread it more and more each year.

Anyways, this week I did ours. I gathered up everything.. then started.. then procrastinated and stopped and then started again to finally finish them today. Well, almost finished them today.. unfortunately, I'm still going to have to deal with them tomorrow.

When completely finished, I went to file them via internet. Since the last 3 years I have been using software to do the taxes, not that it is any easier but you can't upload via the internet otherwise. The software does a review of the taxes. I have done a joint return and the software says no errors. Great!!

When you actualy file, you must file individually.. so I upload Sylain's Federal and Provincial returns (yes, I have to file one for each .. argh!! ) and everything is fine.I get the receipt from both governments.

The software then says that my return has an error..it says I have an amount that I have overridden and I must cancel the override or I'm not able to send file via the internet. Of course, I haven't overridden any number on my return but as a fool I check it anyways... of course, I'm human and must be wrong and the software must be right. Nope .. nothing.. I ask it to cancel the overrides but it just keeps giving me the same error. So I try to get it to ignore the overrides and then it says .. if you do that you will not longer be able to file your return by internet. The only reason I'm using this stupid software in the first place is to do exactly that.

I visit the company's support page online... hey!! they have "Live Help". I get a rep right away and he was courteous but as lost as I was. He keeps telling me to recheck everything over and over because I must have made an error. He has no idea how to fix it.

I end up having to send my tax return to the company for him to review and re-email me in 10 minutes. 10 minutes, 20, 30.. yep, you guessed it.. an hour later and still no email. Now I return to "live help" to find that "Dean" my representative has gone home and was not thoughtful enough to email me and say.. "hey, there!! Don't wait around .. I'm not here anymore."

Tomorrow I have to try and contact them again.. if my new friend, Dean, doesn't work only on the weekends, I may finally get these done quickly. If not, I am going to have to go through the whole rigamaroll of explaining everything all over to someone else.

They say that the only things that never change in life are death and taxes. Hmmm.. when you finally do go.. I wonder if they screw up and say.. "Sorry.. the gates are closed right now.. Pete's gone home for the night .. Could you come back tomorrow?"

a lot not alot

Ever do write something one way your whole life and never realize it's incorrect?

The other day I took a "Live Help" and I was answering the guy and I guess I kept saying things like alot of the time etc., because all of a sudden he says: "Is alot a Canadian thing? " ... what? ... I'm perplexed. What do you mean?

He's says: "Everytime you say the word "alot" I circle it in red on my monitor". As constipated as this seems to me, I quickly open a new browser to dictionary.com .. and find out it's not a word. Geez, I have written it like this all my life.

Guess it's time to go back to grade school. :-P

pirates and merry men

Just like every Wednesday night, last night I had rehearsals and as always it was fun.

Last night we worked on 2 specific parts.

First we worked on act one... Think Robin Hood with his band of merry men frolicking and making folksy music. Lots of fun!

Then we worked on act three. The section with pirates.. HA! wonderfully boisterous, loud, noisy, raucous, rough, rowdy. At first the women try to lure the men with food.. but they reply that as much as they like food, they would prefer beer. We finally get them to pay attention to us using our womanly wiles and pretty much offer ourselves up for dessert.

Les Pommes d'Adam! On aime les bons desserts
Les Pommes d'Adam! Mais on préfère la bière.

Gentils pirates et mousses
Cessez cette vilaine chanson
Il faudrait que vous tous
Et nous s'embrassions
À l'amour, à l'amour, à l'amour

Les Pommes d'Adam. Les Pomme d'Adam s'emballent,
Les Pommes d'Adam. Pour commetre l'adultère!




We are supposed to be on a pirate ship. Of course we won't have a ship like that on stage but we will have portable port holes that we will open and close to offer a bit of hanky panky .. come and get us!!

Our friend, Bob the terrible.. a mean ol' pirate. (trust me, he sounds much more like a swashbuckler in French .. pronounce it as Bubb.. le terrible!) is going to have to walk the plank to be thrown to the sharks. In the pit, the orchestra will all be wearing shark fins on their heads. If you haven't guessed by now.. this is a comedy. LOL.

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One of our members from a few years ago (Jean-François) is gong to be singing with us. The last time I saw him was about 6 years ago. He was just a kid.. only 20. Now all grown up.. he's married and has a little boy that he brought to practice last night. The child was adorable. Once in a while when James would say something like.. yes.. that's what I want.. the kid would say.. Bravo! Bravo! It really was the cutest thing.. and yes, I guess you had to be there! :-P

new theatre

Yay! Finally, our theatre is finished and ready. It's been closed for a year now so they could rip everything out .. redesign the stage .. change the seating and most importantly the acoustics. It reopens this weekend with a concert by Boom Desjardins, lead singer from "la Chicane" doing a solo concert. I guess it's sort of appropriate since he's from our town.

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Surgery.. ok, nothing major, nor minor..okay... let's say micro-minor surgery. Okay, okay.. I'm joking. Today I had a splinter in my finger that I just couldn't get out no matter how much I prodded and probed with a tweezer. It was very tiny and too deep under the skin. Tiny as it was it bothered me alot. So.. I did a little self-surgery if you will.

I took a little scalpel with a fresh blade and burned the blade to sterilize and then disinfected with alcohol. Geez... that sounds pretty crude, doesn't it?


Well anyways.. I cut the tiniest sliver. Yes.. I could feel the eebie-jeebies in my knees and in the pit of my belly, but thought it too ridiculous to go to the hospital to get it taken care ; it's such a tiny thing ... and besides I hate going to the hospital. At least doing it by myself I felt I had control over the situation.

Anyways, the splinter is out, the patient is fine. :-) Looking back on it now I don't know if i was being brave or just crazy.

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Oh.. and I want to send "Get Well" wishes to Heather, CCZ and to tiny Emma, who are all under the weather today and feeling pretty crummy! I hope you all feel better very soon.

Butterfly effect :D

A couple of week's ago Sylvain was working late and called and said, "I'm not sure when I'll finish.. Don't make supper .. I 'll bring home a pizza".

When he finally gets here.. he's a little upset. He wanted a large pizza because they had a promotion on them (something like 99 cents more than a medium) and that would leave plenty for cold pizza the next morning... and a snack later.

He's says: "They made me a medium. But I didn't want to wait around for another 25 minutes.. so I took it."

He opens the pizza box and it's pepperoni and cheese. Of course, this is good, but he wanted all-dressed.

Now, we've both eaten a couple of slices and there is just a little left over when the phone rings.

It's the pizza place. "Hey! ... aren't you going to come and pick up your pizza that you ordered? .. we want to close shop and are waiting on you!"

"Come and pick up my pizza? I already came and got it; it was the wrong size and the not even the way I asked for it."

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Fast Forward to yesterday.

He tells me .. "Guess what?.. Remember that pizza I went to pick up and the order was wrong?"

"yeah, sure.. what about it? "

"Well, what I didn't mention to you when it happened was that I asked my client to dial for me ... and he handed me the phone." I ordered one large, all dressed pizza.. that I would pick up on my way"

then he says:

My client stopped by to see me today and told me the Pizza Place called him and asked why we hadn't picked up the pizza. He told the guy, "heck if I know.. I just dialed the number."

Turns out .. instead of dialing ***-4111 he dialed ***-1111 which turned out to be a completely different pizza place.

so because of this one number.

We didn't get the kind or size of pizza we ordered.

Obviously some poor guy went to pick up his 'medium pepperoni and cheese pizza' and it wasn't there so they had to make up another one ... and he had to wait another 25 minutes for it.

The other pizza place stayed open late waiting for the customer that never came!

and

Sylvain's client got a snarky phone call from the pizza place.

Isn't it funny to see how one little finger on the wrong button.. changed so many things in one evening for so many people.