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Mom's
I bought this magnet at the Smithsonian...how could I not buy it??? Mothers-in-law What does your phone number
spell? I am a theatre critic OK...so it's a new "career", but if you're interested in reading my reviews, go here WHAT I'M READING Lynn left this book for me; I'd just seen a discussion on Oprah about it and was anxious to read it. That's it for today!
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THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF 6 February 2001
The presidential seal stands propped behind an old refrigerator in the carport. I don’t know how long it’s been there. So long that I don’t even think it’s strange to open the front door and find the presidential seal staring me in the face.
The leg of mutton is left over from a production of Alice in Wonderland done by the Sunshine Children’s Theatre. I can’t remember why we originally hung it in the bedroom, but apparently we just needed to put it somewhere where it wouldn’t get damaged, and just never took it down. Now the room would seem incomplete without it. I can’t remember what the presidential seal is left over from (but I’m sure Jeri will write and tell me). I also can’t remember what the block in the driveway is from, but some show that Jeri designed when she was in college. It’s a cube with Swiss cheese-like holes cut in the side. Walt keeps it in the carport because it’s a good place to put his glass of wine on those nights when he likes to sit outside, read the paper, and watch the neighbors pass by. For years we had a stage rock standing in the driveway. This was for a Davis Comic Opera production of Pirates of Penzance. Walt is the tech director for DCOC and often builds sets or pieces of sets in our driveway, and so they tend to just stick around. I think the rock was in the driveway for about 10 years. It’s now made the move from driveway to back yard, and rests against the side of the house. Hey--you never know when you’re going to need a rock, you know! Perhaps our eclectic collection of "stuff" and the fact that Walt builds sets in the driveway has contributed to our negative standing in our neighborhood. People just don’t like it that there is a table saw going now and then. I remember one time when it was early evening and Walt had just started to do some building when we had a call from an irate neighbor saying that the sound of the saw came through the open widow of their children’s bedroom and was keeping them awake. (They couldn’t close the window??) There is a noise ordinance here in town and you are not allowed to make noise after a certain hour. Walt has always complied with the noise ordinance, but one time he had just one more cut to make. It was 2 minutes past the noise ordinance. He cut one piece of wood and within 5 minutes there was a police car in our driveway. In this particular incident, Walt was getting help from Victor, a man from Zaire, who was living with us at the time. Victor’s English was minimal, at best, and his experience in Zaire had not been a good one. In his country, he explained, when the police come to your house, it’s usually to kill you. So poor Victor was in a real panic when the police drove up, but it was just to tell Walt not to make any more noise.
There are perks to being a theatre family. I always know where to get fake trees to dress up a room, for example. Some years ago, when Jeri had completed her degree in scenic design from UC Santa Barbara, she brought her things home. Among them was a backdrop she had painted for some show she designed. When she gave it to me to hold for her, she assured me I did not have to hang it on the refrigerator. |
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Some pictures from this journal |
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Created 2/2/01 by Bev Sykes |
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There is a flying leg of mutton hanging from
the cross beam in our bedroom. It’s covered with
cobwebs. It’s been hanging there for 20 years.
This is the sort
of thing that happens when you are a theatre family. I
know a lot of homes with children have their kids’
art projects on display, or picture hanging from the
refrigerator. We take it a lot further.
The picture on the left is the cover of
Lawsuit’s album, "Emergency Third Rail Power
Trip." The kids built a wooden structure and then
just put all sorts of items that had signifcance to them
on it, took a picture, and did a graphic design against a
red satin background. The album came out many years ago.
The picture
on the right is what is left of the structure they built,
still with some of the items on it. We can never throw it
away because it is right outside the front door and acts
as kind of a wall, hiding Walt’s bike from the
passersby on the sidewalk.