Skidding Sideways Into the Holidays...

...and landing with a soft 'thud' against the new year, legs splayed, eyes glazed, wondering 'what..the...HELL?'...

Oh dear. When I last wrote, I had all good intentions of keeping you apprised of all my doings (or as many as might make for good anecdotes), but I had no idea that my life was about to go into hyperdrive with a turbo boost and an everclear chaser...three and a half months straight of six-day weeks of two-call days, a death and two pregnancies in my family, a nasty cold, dramas galore, and--surprise surprise!--a new relationship--have all conspired to keep me busier than a bulldyke in a hardware store. This week is, honestly, the first chance I've had to catch my breath since, oh...August?

But I didn't come here to complain, yet again, about how I don't have time to write. I came to give you a couple of juicy tidbits and a promise of more (hey, I'm not doing anything else this week except walking the dog and waiting for my man to come home from the East Coast...) in the next week or so.

First, some highlights;

So, in Tannhauser...the men in the Pilgrim's Chorus had to walk, stumble, and crawl across stage bare-chested, with their 'sins' scrawled on their chests in (fake) blood....in English. (In a German opera, mind you.) Thoughtful of them to try and close-caption the men's chorus, but rather wasted effort, as, with the lighting and staging, they couldn't be read from the stage anyway.
The men were also less than thrilled with the blood as it basically had the same consistency as the decorating gels you buy to write 'happy birthday' on baked goods--and the men had to put shirts on OVER the blood, then rip the shirts off for the next costume change after the blood had dried, taking bits of dried corn syrup and manly chest hair along with it. Strangely, though, when they complained to us women about having to rip out great hunks of excess body hair, they weren't getting as much sympathy as they had expected....I wonder why...(as my sainted father actually and in all seriousness said to me once, "You want sympathy?? It's in the dictionary....between 'shit' and 'syphilis'!" Gee, thanks, Dad, I feel better already...)

And, as if the men weren't happy enough about having to be half-naked for their art, they had to cross over to the stage right side of the opera house to go onstage....right past the women's dressing rooms. Don't THINK we weren't there to cheer them on.
Oh my yes, we were. Right there. Of course we were.

With scorecards.

(WHAT? I don't know what they were bitching about---the numbers were all eights, nines, and tens. Well, OK, except MAYBE one or two of them. And we only used those cards once or twice. For guys who reallllly deserved it. YOU know who you are.)