It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...

Ok, it's been neither, but i figured the sitch was ripe for a dickens quote.

And i will admit that the inspiration for that particular quote was wednesday, which would have to qualify as the worst day i've had since i've been down here in roanoke. Poor sleep the night before, and i woke to a cold and rainy day. And, since the day before my tennis partner was unable to locate a wal mart he promised existed, and the thanskgiving feast-coordinator had been unable to find butternut squash or apple cider, i had to run out to do some shopping. On the day before thanksgiving. In the rain. I really only had a little to do, so i figured an hour would take care of it... three hours later, wet, famished and in a vile mood, i finally returned to the atelier to begin working on the soup i pledged to the company feast. Really just no way to describe quite how unpleasant this all was, but as a little treat to myself to assuage the hunger (and some of you know how nasty i can be when i'm in need of foor), i picked up some comfort food: fried chicken, (real) mac and cheese, and collard greens. Which i was really looking forward to at this point, but i wasn't prepared for the stuff to have slipped just this much on the floor of the back seat, so that the juice from the greens formed a little pool in the bottom of the bag, which then leaked onto the upholstery as i pulled the bag from my car. So i cursed the heavens (still raining, by the way) did a wee bit of damage control, and unloaded the bags.

Then i went into a frenzy of cooking. Which was very good for me. Made two big batches of squash and pear soup, enough for a party of 13, plus leftovers. The chopping, peeling and immersion blending was first rate for me to unload some aggression, and fortunately i escaped the process uninjured. Plus, if i may say so myself, the soup rocked.

I'd thought i might get in a nap to make up for the previous night's fitfulness but that turned out to be a teasing fantasy. SO... it was off to the second preview of xxxmas carol. Which was fine, for the most part, but... remember those drywall stilts? Well we'd worked out the changes a whole bunch of times, and had them down so there was (almost) time to spare. Still, this night, about a third of the way through "yet-to-come's" scene, i noticed that my left foot was slipping out of the binding of its stilt. Now it's kind of important for the phantom of the future to be, well, motionless unless he's supposed to be moving. Kind of diminishes his awesomeness if he's wriggling around trying to get his foot secured into his stilt. So i kept that to a minimum, but when i moved on to the scene at old joe's junk shop, the foot came almost all the way out. I made it to a ledge to sit down on (it was emergency time now) and tried to fix the sitch - no go: the bindings were too far out of whack, and without the use of my hands (which were holding onto big scary arms that were now extending somewhat less than ominously from my big black robe) i realized i had to get off stage for wardrobe help. Mrs. dilber and old joe haggled away downstage, as i limped along the platform towards stage left. But the platform ends about 5 feet shy of the wings, and without a handhold, there was no way for me to make it off. So there i was, leaning on the platform as the audience starts to murmur just a bit (and the director has cardiac arrest) and hoping one of the wardrobe gals will realize what's going on. I held that for a few moments, and when no one appeared i whispered from underneath my hood and veil: "i need a little help here.' Still nothing, so i try a bit louder: 'guys, i need some HELP.' Backstage rumbling and rustling, then i see katie and whisper again - 'you've got to come out here so i can lean on you' Which she did, and we took care of it, and i made it back out before we had to cross to the other side of the stage to point at scrooge's dead body.

All in all, we handled it very well, but talk about nervous-making. Mad props to the wardrobe crew, as always. They ROCK!!! And i don't know where this show would be if they didn't completely fucking rock every night.

Happy to say that since wednesday, things have been great. The weather is now unbelievably great, and though i've been working pretty hard (about to do my 5th show in 50 hours) that's what i am here for.

More updates to come...