Another wonderful weekend, good weather, nothing on the calendar for the whole weekend…ahhhh…

Yesterday, hus took me to his favorite local wings, etc. bar, Chicken Bone Saloon, for lunch…had one of the best cosmos I’ve had in ages!  Then we went grocery shopping, both for this weekend and for Thanksgiving.  Got a beautiful boneless turkey breast, a couple of bags of local cranberries with which to experiment, cherry pie makings, haricot verts, delicata squash…combine all that with the last of our homegrown potatoes and it will be fun cooking Thursday.

Last night, we had steamed mussels (with white wine, lemon juice, garlic, diced tomatoes, basil and parsley), amazing brussels sprouts (olive oil, kosher salt, pepper, sauteed, then baked in 300 degree oven for a while, then drizzled with maple syrup as it cooled off) and roast beef with horseradish…can we get a HUGE YUM!!!!!?

Football Sunday…Pats don’t play until 4pm…time to get a few chores done beforehand and eat leftover medium rare roast beef and make up a cheese plate and cook little weinies and cook up some spicy tempura-d haricot verts…and the sun is shining outside…and we’re nearing the end of November?????

Son’s latest is that he has joined his sis, BIL and BFF in running for fun…something about running and fun don’t go together to me, but I admire them in getting exercise while working many jobs simultaneously.  His BFF got new glasses this week and I can’t wait to see them on her…hint?  Love his photos…

Daughter and her DDH ate and blogged vegan this week and it has been really interesting to see how many young (under 30) women in particular participated with them.  Not something I would choose, as I love lots of different foods, but have been reintroduced to butternut squash and reminded how much of what I eat contains animal or bee or other surprising non-vegan elements.  I want to give a shout-out to all the moms of these under thirties…a very impressive generation of women.  Hats off to you all!

What a night last night…hus was away, so I shared my bed with baby Sophie kitten.  All was well until around 1am, when Sophie woke up and decided it was time to play…and she didn’t want to play alone.  She attacked my feet, purred and buzzed and head-butted my hands, turned over on her back and rabbit kicked me…after about ten minutes of this, she suddenly relaxed and fell sound asleep…too bad I couldn’t.  I finally fell asleep, only to be awoken by Phoebe the dilute calico jumping on the bed…she came up for a scratch and a snuggle, but little Sophie came instantly awake and decided to play with Phoebe…Phoebs was not happy with that and the two of them romped about the bed until Sophie flew off the end of the bed to try to draw Phoebe off…I’m sure you get the picture.  Then they both disappeared and I tried to get back to sleep again.  That worked until 3am, when I got up to use the WC…instantly, I had a little Sophie scrambling onto my lap, attacking my hand, falling off and trying to save herself by digging her tiny little claws into my flesh…sigh…let’s just say it was not a restful night.  As soon as hus gets home, we’re going to trim those tiny little SHARP claws…

But I do love my kitties…

Yesterday was my first full day post-Prelude to a Kiss.  I got home from work, folded and hung up loads of laundry (huz was home doing laundry all day), took a nap, ate homemade turkey chili (ohmygosh, so good!), fresh sheets on the bed and to bed to watch Monday night football.  What a luxury…

Darling daughter and beloved son-in-law are taking part in #VeganWeek…interesting to watch them eat…I would starve!<G>

Have I mentioned lately that my son is a baker and works for The Best Bakery in Vermont, maybe in New England, maybe in the US?  This while pursuing his BS in Web Site Development and Design?  Gee, is it obvious that I am besotted with my grown children and their significant others?

All right, let this Tuesday begin…

Sophie, the wonder cat, has either caught her first mouse or hijacked one of Phoebe’s freshly killed prey…she pranced into the bedroom moments ago with the mouse in her mouse.  She dropped it so I could see it and I praised her fulsomly as I went to get toilet paper to pick up the trophy and make it disappear.  Mouse is gone, kitten is pleased, we are all happy…didn’t think to take a photo of this first, it happens so frequently around here…

Is this sweet face that of a killer?

I had a great weekend…two fine performances of Prelude to a Kiss, a wonderful cast party and a quick and orderly strike attended by all cast members…how cool is that?  Now to try to catch up on all the areas of my life that suffered the last few months…

Tonight is our second opening night for Prelude to a Kiss.  I can’t wait to see what the actors bring us tonight…they have entranced me each night so far.  I also look forward each night to what I call the “wander” scene…the two actors meander from the bar to her apartment through a wonderland of gobo’d dappling and the faint sounds of crickets…ahhhh…so beautiful.  I will miss this show once it is done tomorrow night.

I am making a signature drink for tomorrow night’s cast party, a drink that I am calling Prelude to a Kiss.  I’m not giving anything away until after the party, want to be sure to surprise everyone.  It will, almost certainly, be vodka based.  I will, of course, also be bringing Molsons and Dewars (if you’ve read the play, you’ll get the references).

I will close today (sounds sepulchral, doesn’t it?) with something for which I’m thankful…I’m on a mission to remind myself of the good things in life.  I am SO thankful for my extended family.  I grew up in a home with my three sisters and my mom and my dad…around the corner lived my aunt and uncle and their 5 kids…in a different part of town lived my Grandma and Grandma…more aunts, uncles and cousins were a constant.  After my generation grew up and we all scattered to the four winds, it was really important to my Mom (G & G, to be more specific) that the family as a whole remain strong and connected.  She instituted family reunion every two or three years.  At first, we crammed up to 25 people into G & G’s little house in midcoast CA which overflowed with kids and imagination and really good food.  Since then, we have reuned in California, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Maine…ocean and sand dunes, mountains and streams, rafting down the icy Coeur d’Alene River, reveling in the flora and fauna of Homer, climbing on the rocks of coastal Maine’s shore…the one constant is family and generations…so important to us.  So, thank you G & G for making it so important that we know each other and love each other, no matter what.

Needed to start my Thursday morning with a little alliteration…it is that kind of day.  Thursdays aren’t Monday, with Monday’s attendant beginning of the long week blues.  Tuesday is a chance to catch up with what didn’t get finished on Monday.  Wednesday is hump day and Friday is…well, Friday.  Thursday is just that day that is stuck in between to hold a place.  Sometimes…

I’m writing something here, knowing that I am baring something I probably shouldn’t…I am a complete, total and utter dental phobe.  Because of the blessings of genetics, I was born with problematic teeth…little craters in each big tooth required instant filling.  A huge overbite necessitated orthodontia from childhood through the end of high school…what we called a “hayrake” installed in the roof of my mouth to stop tongue thrusting, retainers with wire, retainers with rubber bands, outside mouthpiece, braces…you name it, I had it.  Needless to say, this all meant hours and hours of my life sitting in a dentist’s chair with things in my mouth, shots of numbing meds that only sometimes numbed, misplaced injections, drills drills drills…you get the picture.  I never had a happy moment in that chair.

Check out the overbite even after a couple of years of orthodontia.

Fast forward to adulthood, where going to the dentist is something I do only when I am in pain and can’t avoid it.  Yes, I know, if I went to the dentist regularly, I might be able to avoid these panic visits, but…now I’m in pain and I don’t like the dentist I’ve been seeing (well, I like him/her but don’t like how expensive and gadgety he/she is)…so I’m trying to find out if there is a dentist locally who caters to dental phobes and who is a good dentist (helpful if they accept my dental insurance )…not easy.  It is just one more thing on my list that has to wait until after strike (dismantling the set and returning the theater back to its native condition) to be done.  Waaahhhh…I just want someone to knock me out, do everything that’s needed on my teeth, then wake me up.  Too much to ask?

HUGE GRUMBLE…I don’t know if I mentioned in a prior post that I whacked myself in the glasses and they are broken…still useable, but seasick-making (progressives in wireless rims…important that it be calibrated perfectly, but mine are swinging to and fro).  I’m due new glasses with my vision insurance, but not until January.  So, I’m trying to make it through ’til then.  I tried my multi-focal contacts for one morning, but couldn’t see the computer screen well enough to do my work.  So, I continue to seek a temporary fix…worse comes to worse, I am going to take Hus up on his offer to slip a drop of super glue in to stabilize things.  I would have let him do it last weekend except that I am terrified it will get fixed in the wrong position.

So far, there is only one con to having a new kitten in the house.  The litter box.  Our cats are indoor/outdoor cats and they do all their “toileting” outside.  But Sophie isn’t fixed and she is an indoor cat until then.  So, we have reinstituted the litter box.  Silly me, I started with the Feline Pine that we used for the other cats, which is “green” but it isn’t scoopable.  And little Sophie, it turns out, has a very efficient elimination system.  She poops a LOT!  So, I guess I’m going to have to switch back to scoopable litter so that we can avoid the odor.  It’s funny the little things one forgets between kittens.

After I posted yesterday about our incredibly delicious thin crust pizza orgy on Sunday, a couple of you asked about the recipe.  Ummm…well, this time, we used store-bought pizza dough, the kind that comes in a squishy ball in a plastic bag in the dairy section of the grocery store.  We normally make our own, using one of two recipes we have honed, after trial and error, but we both wanted to watch the Patriots play, so we took a short cut.  However, I think the secret behind the wonderful crust was the roll-out method.  Peter rolled it out as thin as he could, then let it rest for a minute or more, rolled it out again, let it rest again, then rolled it out a third time.  The rest time helps allow the dough to stretch and relax so that it can NOT relax too much after your crust is thin.  Also, don’t let it rise at all.  Use it straight out of its resting state.  Good luck and let me know how it works for you.

After a satisfying opening night Friday, followed by one too many cosmos at the local watering hole, I slept in on Saturday morning…slept until 8, didn’t get out of bed for a long time after that.  Ahhhh…

After another performance Saturday night that had me grinning like a fool in the balcony as I watched, followed by just the right number of cosmos at the local watering hole and getting to know cast members in a very different way than I had over the course of rehearsals, I slept in again on Sunday morning.  Later Sunday, we made the most incredible thin crust pizza (my side was mozzarella, parmesan and carmelized onions sprinkled with a little garlic powder, huz had all that plus red bell pepper, black olives and sundried tomatoes) we have ever made…so thin it crunched, so tasty I ate half a large pizza in one sitting.  So not me…YUM!!!!!!  I then took a nap, woke up in time to go to bed and slept happily ever after.

Speaking of sleeping, I just LOVE having a kitten in the house again.  I know I have mentioned this ad nauseum since Sophie came home, but it is absolutely true.  She is fun to watch…every little sound or movement grabs her attention…she is already a mighty bug hunter and has dealt with her stuffed mouse over and over again, throwing it up in the air, turning flips trying to catch it, grabbing it in her teeth and shaking it mercilessly.  She is a blur of activity and then…she is asleep…sound asleep…so asleep that she falls over and doesn’t wake up…this morning, she was passed out on the top of one of my pillows…she started rolling down the pillow in slow motion, landing upside down on the bed snuggled up to me, still sound asleep.  Just ADORABLE.  I think that owning a kitten would have good therapeutic value in keeping the elderly and incapacitated amused for hours at a time.<G>

Sophie chasing a lady bug in the shower

Settling in...

'night, 'night...

Can't you almost hear her snoring?

Finally, this whole blogging thing is so strange.  I blog because I love having an outlet for the thoughts that race randomly through my ADD brain.  Plus, both my children (plus my son-in-law who is now one of my children) blog and encouraged me to come along.  But it is funny that my blog randomly shows up on other social networking sites.  One of my friends pointed out to me Saturday night that my new blog posts show up on Plaxo, maybe similar sites.  So there are probably a lot of people out there for whom it might appear that I am attempting to force-read my ramblings.  Please feel free to ignore StarStruk by Life…also feel free to leave me comments!

Final dress went well last night, with just enough “crisis” to ensure that opening night will be brilliant!  I am so pleased with my actors…a combination of seasoned actors and newcomers.  They are awesome.  Plus, I hopefully found someone to run sound for me on closing night, one of the last little details that has had me awake at 3am freaking out.  Now it is pretty much out of my hands and into the capable hands of my stage manager, her backstage crew (thank you, Joe) and the actors.  My final contribution to the show is that I am running house lights.  And watching…

I am down to a couple of doses of ibuprofen a day to combat the funky back…much better.  Now it just aches instead of burning and throbbing and dominating my consciousness.

Dinner last night was a small chocolate shake from BK early, followed by three orders of apple fries after rehearsal.  I only mention that because many of the bloggers I follow are foodies and their blogs are always full of really healthy greens and veggies and smoothies.  My diet is normally a lot healthier than it has been recently…stress stress and more stress have made it really hard to eat as I should.  I’m working on the stress and making sure I have a good, BIG salad at least once a day.

And, the best news of all, IT IS FRIDAY!!!!!  Tomorrow is SATURDAY!!!!  I love weekends…have I mentioned that before???

Final dress rehearsal tonight for Prelude to a Kiss…it is always thrilling to see a show come together.  And I have a GREAT ensemble cast…they have been fun to work with and I will miss them in a couple of weeks.  Here’s hoping that my intimate little audience set-up has all the seats full for each of the four performances.  You won’t be sorry.

Doesn’t it always happen…?  This week has been a blur of things that need to be done, two days flat on my back in bed with heating pad and drugs, and MORE things that need to be done.  Then, on top of everything, I whacked myself in the eyes yesterday morning as I was putting the top up on my convertible and broke my glasses.  So, add in a trip to the eye doc’s office to get them fixed…I am absolutely blind without them.

I am LOVING having a kitten in the house again.  Sophie is a charmer in every possible way.  She is fearless…bounces from floor to bed to floor, down the stairs, up the stairs…Phoebe is starting to come around, appearing more frequently in Sophie territory (our bedroom), but still hisses and growls a little.  Only time will tell if they make friends with each other.  She is the cutest thing, too…one of her sisters is a gray tiger, one a siamese and then there is Sophie…she has faint stripes on her tail, the back of her head and on her legs…she has siamese colored fur and bright blue eyes…and, she has snowshoe feet.  So cute.  And even better, she is a bedroom cat, so far…she snuggles with me in bed most of every night.  I’m hoping that when the play is over and hus’ stories are in the can and we have more time at home, she doesn’t lose her bedroom qualities.