All That Jazz

So yesterday the curtain fell on the "Hobbit".
We will be putting on some extra performances in the Fall but it was still kind of hard to face the "it's all over now" thing. So one started crying and then we were all at it.
I know, you are probably thinking "What a soppy bunch" but when you have been seeing someone at least three to four times a week for almost five months...
I only started working with them in December and I was rather moved last night.
Just as well that a few friends came round in the evening and we emptied a bottle of "Baron de Roubiac" 2005 Bordeaux (well almost, having the rest now...) and watched Lee Evans. Now there's a way to completely take your mind of things!
So this morning I had some appointments but instead of doing that I was looking after my older one who was coughing her lungs out. So we had a stay at home day with lots of hot tea and DVD's. I actually managed to do some of my correspondence today.
Today was a Jazz and Blues day for me. A lot of Miles Davis, Etta James, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughn and many others. There is a kind of honesty about that sort of music. I close my eyes and go back in time (not my time). Sitting in a Bar in an evening gown, the singer up on stage together with a fabulous band and some gentleman in a tux asking me to dance...
Nowadays, when you want to go out to dance, you have a hard time finding somewhere where asking someone to dance doesn't involve screaming at them five times and then reverting to some kind of sign language...
I guess all those classics my kids are watching all the time made me kind of sentimental about the "good ole days". I realize of course that every generation thinks that some time in their past were better times than now. And it will always be like this. Every new generation thinks they know better until they hit the time in their lives where they tell their parents or grandparents that they had it so much easier and that they wished they had lived in their time. (OK read this five times and it will make sense...)
So, Jazz and Blues!
Some of my favorites are:
Pete Fountain and Al Hirt - Lazy River Life Performance from ???
Oscar Peterson & Itzhak Perlman - Georgia On My Mind
Oscar Peterson - Someone To Watch Over Me
Miles Davis and John Coltrane - Jazz Selections
Ella Fitzgerald - Oh, Lady Be Good - from My First Jazz - what a fantastic song!
Coleman Hawkins & Ben Webster - It Never Entered My Mind

Or how about this Miles Davis and John Coltrane Performance:


These are just a few from a very long list.
I guess I inherited my love for music from my father. He has shown me that there is beauty in any kind of music and how to really appreciate it.
If you have any personal favorites. please feel free to share them with me!

Poor Professor Higgins

Yesterday (Saturday) was a busy day!
My youngest had a football (soccer) tournament. Her team made second place and she walked around proudly wearing her silver medal for the remainder of the day! :-)
She didn't actually shoot any goals but she did 3 assists (which in my opinions is more difficult to do - the getting the ball right in front of the other teams goal so your team mate can kick it in). She is going to be in the paper in the next couple of days. I am proud of her!
Then I had to go and work on "The Hobbit". My assistant is still ill, so things were a bit hectic again.
Oh and I had baked a cake for the football tournaments bake sale but because there were too many mine wasn't even brought out, so we took it to my mums and each had a slice - what indulgence! We left the rest at my mums so we would not be led into temptation...
Spoke to Simon last night and it seems there might be problems coming over at the beginning of February as they can not tell him whether he can have the time of or not, since someone else has already booked that time off... Simon booked his plane tickets two months ago! He was told then, that all he needed, was to make sure that he and the boss weren't off at the same time! I don't know what to think of that...?
I rescheduled going to Oscars to Tuesday so I don't have to dash an run straight away and spend a little time over there.
Today is the last performance of the play (until October). I have got Tickets to see it again with my children and I am really looking forward to it, as Actors are usually up to no good in the last show, so it is bound to be a lot of fun!
Bummer is, that we also received a last minute invite to see the dress rehearsal of Riverdance today. That would have been nice to see. A couple of years ago my older one actually had a training session with two of the cast and has signed shoes and all. :-D Oh, well... maybe next time.
This coming up week is packed full of appointments, including a long chat with my doctor to discuss further treatment. Something has got to happen! I just don't want to hear, that there is nothing further they can do!!!!! Maybe we should try the homeopathic route again or acupuncture or something if conventional medicine is at a loss! I just want to have a little while without pain, so I can recharge my batteries, so to speak.
It's raining. Again. Although yesterday was beautiful sunshine, birds chirping, flowers and trees budding, and round about 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 degrees Fahrenheit). How depressing!
I want snow!
My older one is constantly moaning how she can't use her Christmas present (snowboard remember) and the younger keeps asking "When are we going skiing again?"...
"Kid, you are welcome to try and go down a grass slope! Be my guest!"
I have yet to build a snowman, -woman, -person... stupid political correctness!

I left a comment on someone else's Thursday Thirteen, which raised a question with me:
When you ask children what their favorite movie is, how many 9 and 10 year old kids do you know, that would rattle down the following list:

Sound of Music
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
My Fair Lady
Paint your Wagon
Fiddler on the Roof
Gigi
Casablanca
and, last but not least
Wet Side Story

Isn't it odd that from the Disney Movies, Pixar Animation and all the others they can choose from, these are the most liked and watched?
I am certainly not complaining! Apart from maybe the fact that my ears are forever ringing with "Doe, a deer, a female deer...". They know all the songs to all those movies by heart and when your 9 year old raises her glass (of water) at the dinner table and says "Here's looking at you, kid" that kind of cracks you up!

Oh well, I must have done something right! :-)
Got to go and make breakfast now - Fresh fruit with yogurt and honey. Yum!

... The Full Story

Grrrrrrrrrrr I am not a happy bunny!!!
I was in the middle of writing a very long blog when my PC crashed!
Do you know how, when you have written something, and you lost it due to your computer hating you, you really don't feel like writing it all again!!!

Oh, well.
Here I go again:

After the kids woke me up this morning I turned the dishwasher on and then considered going back to bed for an hour or so. I decided against it and went to check my email. While I was sitting there, reading and replying to my mails, I wondered what that smell was. Then I remembered: Six months ago my dishwasher was on fire. Electrician came and exchanged the circuit board. Dishwasher has been fine since.
Now this smell was exactly the same. So I dashed into the kitchen and low and behold:
There were flames coming out between the top of the dishwasher and the worktop accompanied by malodorous wads of gray smoke!
So I ran to my fuse box, turned the power of, ran back to the kitchen, opened the dishwasher (carefully) and drenched the whole thing in lots of water. (Thank you for expandable kitchen sink hoses!!!!) After that of course I had to mop up my kitchen before all the water started to seep through to my downstairs neighbors.
And that stench is persistent. Even though I had the windows open all day (which is why I came home to an icy cold flat this evening) what greeted me on my home coming was the rather irritating, eye watering, making your throat scratchy stink of burnt plastic...
So tomorrow I will kick up a stink with the shop I bought it from and the manufacturer as well. No more fixing it this time! I want a new one before my entire flat burns down and we get killed in the process!!!!!
A bit dramatic I know but hey, I work in the Theater and Film Industry!
What do you expect?
Which brings me to the remainder of my day today (and I am now constantly saving this post as a draft - think I am getting paranoid).
Bilbo was early and Beorn was late but my Dwarfs were terrific today and all in all it was pretty stress free.
Next Weekend will be the last two performances. Kind of sad that, saying goodbye to all the people and not having the hustle and bustle anymore. For a little while the stage sort of becomes your home (even if it is just an amateur stage). I never like leaving a set or a stage.
While you are there you kind of "leave earth and go to a different planet". (saved it again...) I sometimes find it difficult, at least for a short while, to cope with the real world again. Oh well, there will always be a next time. :-)
Well, now I am at the point where my computer crashed previously and I am tired!
Writing a blog (you don't really want to re-write) whilst having a skype conversation with three people, isn't the easiest of tasks... :-)
Until we meet again!

I will leave you with my favorite poem (not by me, obviously)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet No. 116 by William Shakespeare



Above picture can be found on this website: www.literarycalligraphy.com/

In Limbo

Some detail work I did a couple of months back.

Today was an inbetween day. Not good but not bad either. We got up earlier than I would have liked and tidied up, did the washing, put all the recycling rubbish into the car to be gotten rid of on our way to my friends house. I actually felt quite well during all that time. We had lunch (rice with fresh tomatoe and pizza flavoured Tofu) and then left. My friend had made me a cup of cappucion (as per my instruction) which I had in record time. I then left the kids at her house and dashed of to work (still doing make-up for the theater production of "The Hobbit"). Things started to go down hill from there. Now because I have an assistent doing the make-up with me we Today was an "in between" day. Not good but not bad either. We got up earlier than I would have liked and tidied up, did the washing, put all the recycling rubbish into the car to be gotten rid of on our way to my friends house. I actually felt quite well during all that time. We had lunch (rice with fresh tomatoes and pizza flavored Tofu) and then left. My friend had made me a cup of cappuccino (as per my instruction) which I had in record time. I then left the kids at her house and dashed of to work (still doing make-up for the theater production of "The Hobbit"). Things started to go down hill from there. Now because I have an assistant doing the make-up with me we had said that two hours should be more than enough for the dwarfest, Beorn and Bilbo. But... she called in sick. So I had 12 people to do in two hours and two of them take about 25 minutes on their own, each!
But, I can handle stress! At least as long as it is required of me. I am very good at keeping myself together when is needed but as soon as the pressure has gone I start to shut down. I then usually need a cool down period. On the way back to my friends house I almost ran over a roller balder. It was twilight and the stupid person was in the middle of the road, wearing gray and no light or reflectors!!!
Got to my friends who had made dinner (rice with sweet and sour chicken).
After dinner I sorted out her computer, got rid of all the junk and unused pro grammes and files and set up an email account for her (she is a bit of a technophobe). So by the time we got home it was 9.30 pm. Kids went straight to bed and I talked to Simon on the phone, talked to my mum, checked my emails and now I am in so much pain I don't think I can go to sleep. I am also having real problems with my left hand so I am typing this thing one handed (not fun!). I think I am gonna have to take a painkiller as I have to work again tomorrow and I really need some rest. Bummer...
Oh but something good has happened yesterday.
My older one has qualified for the German Nationals in Irish Dancing.
Now all I have to do is find the money to send her there...!
Also I am now in negotiations with an Artist Agency. They want to sign me!!!! :-)

Concerning Hobbits (and Burgers)

I am depressed today. I found out that the house I used to live in, where I was really happy and we had ample of space, has become available again. But as things are at the moment, it might as well be a villa in Monte Carlo. There is just no way I could ever afford the rent. What makes it even more frustrating is that I live in a very small flat at the moment where my girls have to share a room and I sleep on the couch in the living room. I know this is only a temporary situation but it sucks all the same! On top of that there is the fact, that I have to drive by the house every time I go to my mothers.
There is no other route.

On a good note: I am working on a local theatre project at the moment "The Hobbit" and we just scheduled some additional performances because every date we set sold out within a matter of a couple of days! I have to make-up Thorin Oakenshield and the dwarfs, Beorn and as of next week Bilbo as well. (Bilbo is being played by 11 year old Amelie and she is fantastic!!!!!!!) Here are some pictures of the play . Keep in mind that this that this is a production staged mainly by children and teenagers. And yes, Tolkien would turn in his grave if he new of the liberties they took when adapting the book for the stage but I think it is great and all people involved (well over 100) are doing an incredible job!

Double shame on me by the way!
Neither have I made that phone call to VW nor have I taken down the Christmas tree...
Mainly due to the fact that I wasn't in most of yesterday and today and also me forgetting that today is a holiday in Bavaria (Three Kings Day/Epiphany). Which also made lunch an adventure.
We cooked and had lunch at my mums today. I had thawed some minced beef which my younger daughter only eats in form of burgers or in lasagna (both of which hide the fact that it "looks like worms" according to her). So we were going to make beefburgers today. We were going to buy the tomatoes and the lettuce and the buns on out way to my mums but of course, it being a holiday, the shops were shut. (And yes there are countries where the shops aren't open 24/7. Bavaria is strictly against it. The rest of Germany wants to loosen shop opening laws. I think Bavaria will be the last State to follow suit, if at all.) So I already had the moans in the car all the way to my mums (going past "my house" btw...). When we got there I raided my mums cupboards and fridge. We ended up making burgers without buns with a side of boiled potatoes and green beans. It tasted lovely but it wasn't what the kids wanted so I still got the "but you said we were going to have burgers" through a mouthful of food. Well we did! Just not they way they had envisaged them!!!
On Thursday I bought two games at the local shop. They are a sort of cheap version of Trivial Pursuit for children. One is about space and one about the other one about Technology. We have been playing the space version a few times since and the girls took it with them when I took them to work with me today (after the lunch at my mums).
Some of my dwarfs played it with them and I was so proud of my daughters! They actually remembered a lot of the questions from the two times we had played the games previously. And the questions aren't all easy or would you have know what an apogee and a perigee is and which is which. Or what the German space shuttle carrier rockets are called!
Well I was quite amazed anyways!
After I was finished we went round a friends house where my kids behaved like they hadn't eaten for years and ate one slice of bread with pate after another. (What must people think of me...) we had a good time and because they had behaved so well while I was at work I bought them both a magazine at the petrol station (about the only place you will find open today apart from of course the restaurants and pubs and clubs). They were so happy they even did their chores when we came home without me having to remind them 10 times, got themselves ready for bed and listen to the audio book CD which was attached to one of their Magazines.
Hooray for me! O got at least somewhat of a chance to relax and wind down. I am so glad school starts again on Monday!

PS I have edited this post seven times now. I guess today is not my day so if there are any more mistakes I haven't spotted please tell me!