"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."{Walter Elias Disney}
For the past two weeks I’ve been home, doing something I love – assistant stage managing a community theatre production of RENT. Every theatre geek has “their” show and RENT is mine – I came across it at just the right time in my life when I thought the life described on stage would be my future. A good rendition of “La Vie Boheme” still makes me want to quit my day job, move to NYC, and become an artiste. So when I found out this show was coming to one of my favorite theatre groups, I couldn’t not do it, and I’ve been so thankful to be there.
But.
Oh but, the exhaustion that comes with Tech week. The long nights, the focus on details, the desire to beat actors…oh I am so ready for this to be over that I’m actually counting down hours. I’ve promised myself that I can sleep until I’m done tomorrow and then spend the rest of the day in the pool. After that, I might be human again and heck, the cast might even start to like me again…that would be nice.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Blame It on My Big City Upbringing
So as it turns out, the reason the stepkiddo had to be remeasured was because one of the other mom’s has offered to buy all the dresses for the choir. She has two stipulations – one is that she measures them all and the other is that she pick the dress.
And I have to tell you, while I recognize the generosity of the offer and I can see why the chorus teacher agreed to it, I’m a bit perturbed by it. It just doesn’t seem right to me that someone gets to come in and throw money at a situation they want to control. I mean, in this case it’s because the mom wants a more conservative dress and that dress was more expensive (and I don’t even know how she knew what it would be, we weren’t in the loop at all on it), but what if we didn’t want that and decided just to throw more money at it. Who would win then? And does this mean that whenever she doesn’t agree with what’s going on she’s going to offer to pay for something? Or that she’s going to demand things be her way just because she paid for the dresses.
I’m probably not being fair. I’m sure it’s just a kind gesture from someone who is trying to balance her daughter’s extracurricular activities with their value system. And I respect and admire that. And I can see where paying for all the dresses is her way of making up for picking a more expensive dress and pick all.
Still something about this whole thing just rubs me the wrong way. Boy can I look a gift-horse in the mouth.
As a post-script: Kevin was kind enough to understand that my work load did not allow for that number of errands today, so he took care of the running around. So his afternoon schedule went like this: home for lunch, take the kid back to work, run out to a going away party, run kid to school, wait at school, bring kid home, relax briefly, take kid to hair appt, come home, pick kid up. …he’s a good man, that one.
And I have to tell you, while I recognize the generosity of the offer and I can see why the chorus teacher agreed to it, I’m a bit perturbed by it. It just doesn’t seem right to me that someone gets to come in and throw money at a situation they want to control. I mean, in this case it’s because the mom wants a more conservative dress and that dress was more expensive (and I don’t even know how she knew what it would be, we weren’t in the loop at all on it), but what if we didn’t want that and decided just to throw more money at it. Who would win then? And does this mean that whenever she doesn’t agree with what’s going on she’s going to offer to pay for something? Or that she’s going to demand things be her way just because she paid for the dresses.
I’m probably not being fair. I’m sure it’s just a kind gesture from someone who is trying to balance her daughter’s extracurricular activities with their value system. And I respect and admire that. And I can see where paying for all the dresses is her way of making up for picking a more expensive dress and pick all.
Still something about this whole thing just rubs me the wrong way. Boy can I look a gift-horse in the mouth.
As a post-script: Kevin was kind enough to understand that my work load did not allow for that number of errands today, so he took care of the running around. So his afternoon schedule went like this: home for lunch, take the kid back to work, run out to a going away party, run kid to school, wait at school, bring kid home, relax briefly, take kid to hair appt, come home, pick kid up. …he’s a good man, that one.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Divide by Three and Carry the Carpool Lane
I rely, perhaps a bit too much, on scheduling, organization, and planning. I don’t do well when plans change at the last minute, I don’t like changes in my schedule, and I’ve never quite learned to plan for the unexpected (I hear you laughing over there, Air Force).
It should also be mentioned that due to my constant travel/work schedule we have one car here in the wild west and one car back in DC. My tight rein on our schedules makes this work, but throw in an almost-driving teenager and this option is becoming less and less feasible.
Now add in the fact that said teenager processes about 30% of what is said to her and parses out what little information she does process on a need-to-know basis and we end up with days like today where her father, the car, and I are trying to figure out how to be in three places at once while missing as little work time as possible. These negotiations lead to emails with complex time and distance formulations and calculating for variables such as phone call duration, meeting schedules, and wind shear.
Today, it looks like I’ve drawn the short stick so I’ve gone from an afternoon of quietly working to taking part of my lunch break to take Kevin back to work after his lunch break so that I can keep the car, taking the rest of my lunch break 2 hours later when I run the kiddo up to the school to be measured for a new choir dress by the choir mom (something I did just a week ago, but nevermind that), running back home to wrap up work for 30 minutes, driving downtown and dropping the kiddo at an hair appointment, turning around to pick up Kevin from work, and then running back to pick up from the hair appointment.
How on earth do people to this with more than one kid? I think Kevin’s going to have to start biking to work…or hitchhiking…that could work too.
It should also be mentioned that due to my constant travel/work schedule we have one car here in the wild west and one car back in DC. My tight rein on our schedules makes this work, but throw in an almost-driving teenager and this option is becoming less and less feasible.
Now add in the fact that said teenager processes about 30% of what is said to her and parses out what little information she does process on a need-to-know basis and we end up with days like today where her father, the car, and I are trying to figure out how to be in three places at once while missing as little work time as possible. These negotiations lead to emails with complex time and distance formulations and calculating for variables such as phone call duration, meeting schedules, and wind shear.
Today, it looks like I’ve drawn the short stick so I’ve gone from an afternoon of quietly working to taking part of my lunch break to take Kevin back to work after his lunch break so that I can keep the car, taking the rest of my lunch break 2 hours later when I run the kiddo up to the school to be measured for a new choir dress by the choir mom (something I did just a week ago, but nevermind that), running back home to wrap up work for 30 minutes, driving downtown and dropping the kiddo at an hair appointment, turning around to pick up Kevin from work, and then running back to pick up from the hair appointment.
How on earth do people to this with more than one kid? I think Kevin’s going to have to start biking to work…or hitchhiking…that could work too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
