Plus Seven

It would seem that my parents were correct. The older one gets, the faster time goes. I'm not sure if it's because there is more to do or that there's less of my life left and my mortality is sneaking up on me, or what it is but if you can believe it, it's been a whole year and it's my birthday again.
On the one hand it's been a heck of a year, with a lot of things coming and going. And on the other hand, it has passed so quick I can't believe it.
Some of the major events, in no particular order:

• Tarzan accepted the assignment to be bishop(!) of our ward (local congregation) and has been alternately flustered, frustrated, absent and elated at the events and responsibilities of the calling.
• Because of Tarzan's reassignment, I was released from being Relief Society President and was placed back in Primary - NOT the President - so I am happy.
• Another faction was added to the odd list of things I do in the day; in the form of drafting for an architect. Both better and worse than before.
• My hands are refusing to cooperate and I have perpetual trigger fingers it seems.
• Celebrated six years of this blog.
• Based on the title of a post, Tarzan bought me an iPad Mini for Christmas. I find it really fun - books and games and things - but I still wonder at the necessity of it. I feel spoiled.
• Celebrated 12 years married to Tarzan. TWELVE years. That's a long time people.
• Tarzan and I took a road trip in a really fancy RV with Stingy, her daughter and a hired guide through the southwestern states.
• Got to go to the theater to see Jekyll & Hyde.
• We pulled out the apricot tree in the front yard and the weird, termite infested tree in the back yard and replaced them with an avocado and lime tree respectively.
• Watched Les Miserables in the theater with mixed feelings. Our only trip to the movie theater this year.
• Caught some possums in the back yard.
• Welcomed a new nephew and two new nieces. (Not all from the same parents.)
• Visited Rocketgirl for 10 days! Met the Condor and partied hard even though it was freezing rain outside in APRIL!!

It has been a very busy year and this blogging in feasts and famines is kind of challenging. I think I need to work out a schedule.

This is me and I hope I'm getting wiser.

Fire, Fury & Flame

And then there are days when I love The Jungle. (Actually, I always do. It's the people that are sometimes stupid.) This particular time I love that we live in a town with great theaters and I get to see the just-on, just-off Broadway shows.
ATL and I went to see the out-of-town opening for Jekyll & Hyde last night. And it was spectacular.
Not really good, but definitely a spectacle.
It's a difficult musical to be sure. Who wants to go and see the main character die? (We were very early this time - which has never happened before - so we talked to the ushers about the show and one said it was depressing to have to watch Dr. Jekyll die every night and twice on Saturdays.)
I was hoping that this new iteration would have some redeeming quality to the story.
It almost did.
I really liked the journal entries being written across the screen to help us see it from Dr. Jekyll's point of view. I wanted there to be one last entry - just a line or something - to finish the show and bring it full circle but there wasn't and it left a depressing feeling as the curtain fell.
The songs are amazing though. I've listened to the CD from the original show's cast and I suppose I am a little bit spoiled by Robert Cuccioli's performance. That man was amazing. He even changed his voice when he sang as Mr. Hyde. Phenomenal skills.
I may or may not have gushed all over the screen about him here.
(If you want to see the whole show, it's still on YouTube, with David Hasselhoff as the main lead.)
But about the real performance and the real actors this time.
You may have heard of Constantine Maroulis - he was on American Idol:4 - and there's no question he has the voice. He's of slighter build than I expected him to be after all the promotions. But he has a really great voice and he sang well. I just felt he was too anxious to get to the angry, mean guy and didn't spend enough time on the calm, rational man. There were a lot of pyrotechnics, and video tricks which sometimes worked and were a little over the top. 'Confrontation,' which is possibly the hardest song in the show, just had too much fire and was MUCH too loud. The amplifiers could have gone down a few decibels (try 50) and been just fine.
True for most of the show actually. The whole good vs. bad thing plays better when the good guy is calm and in control and the bad guy is wild and crazy. Doesn't work as well when both of them are belting it to the ceiling and lights going off everywhere with smoke and strobes. Constantine needs to finesse the role a little but he could be great.
Deborah Cox, as Lucy, was outstanding. I liked the character better this time than any other before. She played it well, she sang it fantastic and she finessed it all over. Really marvelous performance.
I still think Emma is my favorite part in the show. She was a little more snobby than I wanted but Teal Wicks played her well enough. Obviously she can sing. (She was Elphaba on one of the Wicked tours through The Jungle. I saw her UNDERSTUDY. Oy.) Together, she and Deborah did a really phenomenal job on 'In His Eyes.' Brought down the house.
Laird MacKintosh played John Utterson, Jekyll's best friend, and he was good. He wasn't a bass, which I think works better sound wise but whatever.
And that is pretty much the cast. It's a small group and most actors play two or more parts because they are so limited. It's almost a one-man show.
ATL and I had an excellent time. We do love live performances and it's always a thrill to go to the theater. It might need some tweaking before Broadway but I got to see it before New York did!

This is me and it was a big show.

High School Revisited

So, all these years I have been using Facebook for games and checking out photos posted by family. Sometimes I comment on thought provoking status-es from friends. I have searched for and found friends from high school, or grade school, always with half excitement of catching up and half trepidation that we won't have anything to talk about.
Inevitably we "friend" each other and maybe a brief message or two pass and then we cease to communicate ever again. They have lives, I have a life, we don't have much in common anymore except the few years at the same school.
It's not like I was an uber-popular thing anyway. There aren't THAT many for me to find.
I never parted from a boyfriend in anger, so there's no angst to meet them online again and most of them are married, I'm married, we're all happy, so no dramas or anything.
Again, not like I had a string to leave behind in any case.
In short, I've seen no need for FB. In fact, I stopped even logging in for about six months this year because there was no reason.
But recently, I received a friend request from a guy I went to high school with. Yes, we dated for a while and he was my first kiss, but neither of those are the reasons we got in touch and apparently can write miles of messages to each other. He is a really nice guy. Still a really nice guy. He had dreams of writing music when we were younger and he's actually gone on to do it - all without getting a big head about it. He loves musicals and get this - 'Wicked' is his favorite Broadway show too! He also likes 'Jekyll & Hyde' which makes him my best friend ever. (Tarzan is a doll and has many good qualities but he thinks musicals are dumb.)
For once I really am able to pick up where we left off, like the intervening 18 years don't matter. It's nice to have friends like that.

This is me and some things really are as good as I remember them.

New Month, New Meme

Well, maybe not a new meme. New person tagged me though. My brother - who knew he was into this blogging thing?
Instructions:
This task is to compile a list of your 25 favorite songs. These are songs that you cannot live without. They are songs that have made you who you are. They make up the sound track of your life. They are the songs that you would want with you on a deserted island. These are...okay, you probably get the idea by now.
Once you have the list, tag 25 friends and share it with your world. Then, of course, your friends do the same.
By the way, it would be great to share the name of the artist.
Here is my list (in no particular order, because that would be impossible)
Though I may find selecting ONLY 25 songs to be impossible. I listen to and love a lot of music. How does one choose which song from Wicked is the best song? The whole musical changed my life. And I too have to save #4 because, well, it's awesome.
1. For Good, Wicked (the Broadway Musical)
2. This Is The Moment, Jekyll & Hyde (the Broadway Musical)
3. I Am Woman, Helen Reddy
4. November Rain, Guns 'N Roses
5. Standing Outside The Fire, Garth Brooks
6. Pour Some Sugar On Me, Def Leppard
7. You're The Inspiration, Chicago
8. Pomp And Circumstance, Edward Elgar
9. Jumpin' Jack, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
10. Fever, Peggy Lee
11. Separate Ways (Worlds Apart), Journey
12. Dancing Queen, ABBA
13. Jupiter, Gustav Holst
14. If I Had A $1,000,000, Barenaked Ladies
15. Marble Halls, Enya
16. It's Raining Men, The Weather Girls
17. You're Still You, Josh Groban
18. Oh L'Amour, Erasure
19. Black Velvet Band, The Irish Rovers
20. I Write The Songs, Barry Manilow
21. Stone In Love, Johnny Mathis
22. The Sound Of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel
23. Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring, Johann Sebastian Bach
24. Save A Horse Ride A Cowboy, Big & RIch
25. America, Neil Diamond
Since I got chided the last time for no tags, I will include some. There will not be 25 - I don't think I know 25 bloggers - and don't feel you have to, only if you like memes, music and me. Therefore: RHM, Rocketgirl, Elizabeth, Keah, Juliann, Phatfiddle, QC and Lola.

This is me, with my favorite songs. Honorable mention goes to Kristin Chenoweth, Stephanie J. Block, The Carpenters, Reba McIntyre, Yanni, Joan Baez, The Bangles, Idina Menzel, Elvis and John Denver - there just wasn't room for them all.

Latest Craze

My latest obsession is another Broadway musical - never fear, Wicked and The Pirate Queen have NOT left the building - called Jekyll & Hyde, based, unsurprisingly, on the book 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' by Robert Louis Stevenson. Very intriguing. I think I have to read the book now and see how accurate the show is.
My path of travel for this season's fixation takes a trip across the sea to China and back. My sister, ATL, is completely obsessed with a singer, Kris Philips, or Fei Xiang, who is HUGE in China. We got her his 2-CD Broadway album set for her birthday a couple of years ago. 'This Is The Moment' was one of the songs he sang in English. (I don't get a thrill from the songs sung in Chinese, but ATL does.) 'For Good' was another song but that's a different story. 'This Is The Moment' was such a great song we looked up the musical it came from. We Googled Jekyll & Hyde but it wasn't playing anywhere around us and we thought it was likely pretty depressing based on what little we knew of the book. Wicked took over my brain shortly thereafter and then my love affair with Stephanie J. Block and The Pirate Queen and I didn't think of Jekyll & Hyde until a few months ago when ATL and I discovered we could record snippets of songs on our phones and make them our ring tones. I know - we are SO behind the technology. Whatever. ATL recorded 'This Is The Moment' as her ring tone. So whenever she gets a call "...when all I've done, all of the dreaming, scheming and screaming become one..." blares across the room. So it was in my recent memory when I was ordering CDs in December. I was due some free ones, so I searched for Jekyll & Hyde and the Original Cast Recording was available. I figured, why the heck not? (I also got The Boy From Oz because Ms. Block is in it - but another day, another post.) It finally came and I finally got around to hearing it last week. OMG - so good! I love the rhyme schemes, I'm a sucker for clever rhymes and patterns (dialysis...pal, a sister anyone?), I think all the talent is great and Robert Cuccioli, especially, is awesome. Not as depressing as I thought it might be...it IS a little dark, naturally, but in a self reflective way. Classic Good vs. Evil plot. Am loving the character of Emma. Truly. She's strong, independent, smart, loving, and she doesn't apologize for any of it. Nothing to "get over." She doesn't waffle about her decisions, does not spend a lot of time questioning herself or motives. Does not develop any complexes. She makes up her mind and carries through. I like her a lot. Lucy, the other female lead, gets all the solos but she's the typical prostitute with a heart of gold. Ehn. I see a reason for her but I don't get behind her.
After devouring the CD and committing most of it to memory I looked the show up on YouTube in the hopes someone got all illegal (as they did with Wicked) and loaded the entire show so I could pretend I was seeing it live. Even better, a legit video copy - in 16 parts, but still - is available to see. The sad part; it's not the original Broadway cast. The funny part; it IS David Hasselhoff. I know - sad to say the first thing I think of for him is Baywatch - but he's not that bad. His performance does not blow my mind, but he does not stink. I just don't think of him as a song and dance man. It's interesting to get my mind around this concept. I am totally loving Andrea Rivette. Great performance. Great voice. Great character - I have to admit she is where a lot of my respect for Emma comes from. Just...great! Not to say the original girl, Christiane Noll, is a slouch, she is very talented as well. I am just in love with anything related to the show right now I think. Can't wait to find a live production somewhere, ANYwhere. Is it playing in your town right now?

This is me, happy in my obsessions.