Friday Flashback # 20 – You're the One That I Want

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Sherry

Every once in awhile a song I haven’t thought about in ages will suddenly just pop into my head, usually when I’m doing the dishes. I hate dishes because I don’t have a dishwasher, so I pass the time by listening to my iPod or by just singing random songs.

The other night, I suddenly found myself singing “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” from Grease. When I was still taking acting classes and wishing I was brave enough to just GO somewhere like Toronto or New York or L.A., I auditioned for the theater program at one of our local colleges. When I tried out I knew that I couldn’t actually go; I wasn’t living at home anymore and had rent and bills to pay. The theater program is so intensive that you can’t work. I could have applied for financial aid but since the school itself is free, it only would have covered enough to pay for textbooks and student fees. It was utterly impossible. Still, I applied to the program and got an audition date just because I wanted to see if I could get in.

We had to prepare two monologues. One had to be classic (in other words, Shakespeare) and one had to be modern. I hired my acting teacher for a couple of private lessons in order to prepare. For Shakespeare, I pieced together a monologue from Julius Caesar, playing Portia* and for the modern monologue I created one from “I Am A Camera” which was the play that inspired “Cabaret”. I did Sally Bowles, the character later played by Liza Minelli.

We also had to sing a short song (I forget the suggested length now), and I froze in a panic because sing? What, in front of PEOPLE?! I love to sing. I sing a lot. But not in front of PEOPLE. As much as I love a good musical I wouldn’t likely be in one, unfortunately. Unless I could drink a lot of wine before going on stage.

Anyway, it wasn’t because they wanted great singers, apparently it’s a way of seeing how well you can project to the back of the theater. Nervous, I chose “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” from “Grease”. Sandy may be the big part in “Grease” but I always wanted to play Rizzo because she’s more fun.

God, this is turning into the longest flashback ever. So I did my two monologues and then I took a deep breath and belted out my song. A month later I got something in the mail. I totally made it. And then I wondered why I had done that to myself because you have no idea how hard it was to pick up the phone and call them to say that I was very grateful but my “circumstances had changed” and I would not be able to take the course since I needed to work. Heartbreaking. I still wonder what would have happened if I had told my ex I was moving back home with my parents so I could study theater. Ah well.

I chose to sing that song because it wasn’t out of my range and was a solo. But my favorite song from “Grease” is definitely “You’re the One That I Want” by Sandy and Danny.

God. I love “Grease”. I got to play Cha-Cha DeGregario in my high school drama class but I always wanted to be in the full thing. I guess I’ll settle for singing the songs while I wash my dishes.

*I did the whole monologue, on the suggestion of my teacher, in a British accent. I do it quite well, especially when I’ve been practicing. I delivered a very killer “Dwell I but in the suburbs of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.” One of the women holding the audition told me my accent was AWESOME. Blimey.

House of Aches and Pains

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Sherry

Yesterday morning I woke up and felt fine, if a little tired. At lunch time I took the dog for a walk and realized I had a bit of a headache. That’s not much of an observation for me. I have a headache pretty much every day, I just ignore them because they aren’t all that bad. I think it’s hereditary because my grandmother on my dad’s side was the same way.

It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies in that shade of blue that you only see in winter, and the temperatures weren’t awful. When I came back, the girls and George were just finishing lunch so I told them that I would give Breanna a nap and then we would go outside to play in the snow.

It never happened. By the time Breanna went to sleep my head hurt so badly that I felt like the back of my skull was going to shoot straight off my head. I tried to sleep with her but I could only close my eyes – there was actually too much pain for sleeping. After she got up, I went back to bed until I finally picked up the phone and used the intercom to call George in the living room – because I couldn’t even will myself out of bed – to ask him if he could please go get some Advil at the store since I had taken the last two a few days earlier (for carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms – getting older totally rocks).

He did and I took two of them, then passed out for a couple of hours. Miraculously, the pain had dwindled down and thank GOD for that because I honestly started to wonder if there was something wrong what with the amount of pain. Have you ever had a headache that is so bad that you start to wonder what it might be like if it just never goes away, and how long you could last before you’d throw yourself in front of a bus? That was me on Saturday afternoon.

I took another dose every four hours until bedtime and managed to feel much better by evening. I took the dog out after supper and was shocked by the brilliant full moon in a cloudless sky. I actually felt well enough that I ran back upstairs to grab my camera, the monster lens (70-300mm), and my tripod. I’m pretty thrilled with the results.

Since I was already outside anyway, I walked down to the corner and played with long exposures to capture light trails.

And I had some fun with the traffic light, making it an impossible light altogether.

After the kids went to bed, I managed to stay up to watch “Ghost Town” with George. I had never even heard of it before but what a great feel-good movie! I highly recommend it.

*******

Tonight I am grateful to not have a headache because in between writing this up, I’m also watching the Golden Globe Awards, which is cool because I really enjoy awards shows but it’s also for work so I can feel like I have a good reason to be watching celebrities.

Having to stay up though to watch this and manipulate images to put up on PittWatch with a headache like yesterday would have been impossible.

*******

Last Monday, the last day we had before Hayley went back to school, I made a joke with George about how we had all been healthy for two weeks, but once she went back to “that petri dish of germs” someone would be sick within a week.

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Hayley spent most of today on the couch, lying down and moaning because her stomach hurt her terribly. A couple of times she even spiked a low fever. She ate a bagel for breakfast, but almost nothing after that until a bowl of applesauce before bedtime.

She was so worried about having to go to school sick tomorrow. I put her to bed and said not to even think about it. I will call the school before bed and leave a message to say she won’t be in because she’s sick and I’ll let her sleep in a bit so she can feel better. At least we got her homework completed today so she won’t have too much to catch up on.

Poor kid though. Seriously, what the hell do you have to do to keep your kids from getting sick at school all the time? It’s insane. We’ve all been sick since she started in September, one after the other, over and over with only the two-week holiday for a reprieve. I’m going to start sending her to school with a can of Lysol and instruct her to spray it around herself every five minutes.

And on that note, it’s time for me to make some tea and dig out the ridiculously delicious maple cookies we have in the cupboard – I hope your weekend didn’t involve headaches or tummy aches!

The resolution I didn't make but sort of just did

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Sherry

I’ve never really made any fitness related resolutions. Oh, I’ve made the half-hearted “I should move more” goals, but never those really big ones that gym owners love, the ones that get people flocking on January 2nd to the nearest gym to sign up for a year-long membership. It wouldn’t do me any good anyway, I know from past experience that I really hate gyms in a major way.

The thing is, though, while I’m not looking to lose weight, I do miss the feeling of being fit. When I did kung fu so many years ago (I can’t believe it’s been ten years!), I had muscles, flexibility, balance (something I’d never had before, not even when I did ballet!), and stamina. Now I get tired so easily, I have less energy than I ever remember, and while I may be small I have no tone. None. I am a noodle.

I still had no real concrete plans to, you know, do anything about it. And I’m not completely sedentary. I do a fair amount of walking thanks to the kids and the dog, and when you have 35 steps to climb up and down each time, that helps too. But I know I need more.

So enter Laura. I went to her blog solely because I know she’s been doing Holidailies as well and thought she might have a new entry. She did indeed, and in it, she mentioned that she had signed up for the SparkPeople Boot Camp. To put it simply, the Boot Camp offers up a workout video each day for a month, starting today. They mix it up so that you aren’t always doing the same thing over and over again (which is why I have several workout tapes that are covered in dust). Today’s video incorporated a bit of kickboxing, something that I obviously can enjoy what with the roundhouse kicks and sidekicks that I used to love.

The videos are only ten minutes long and that includes the warm up and cool down time. It’s not hard to fit into my schedule no matter how busy I think I am. Aside from that, they encourage 30 minutes of any type of cardio five days per week. Since I walk the dog for 20-30 minutes once or twice a day, that’s not a problem.

So I signed up. I did it for a lot of reasons. The main ones are that I want to be fit again. I want to FEEL like I’m in shape and not be so tired all the time. I’m sick of the panic attacks but I’m still scared of medication so I’m going to try exercise as a non-medicinal approach. Also, if you’ve ever been pregnant, you know that frustrating ache in your calves that come from nerves being pushed around by a baby, especially the sciatic nerve. Well, with Breanna I waited and waited to give birth so that ache would go away. Three years later, I’m still waiting for it to go away. Hopefully some regular exercise will do something to help.

If you want to join me or if you’re already a SparkPeople member, you can see my page here. Let me know if you’re doing the boot camp challenge too, even if you join up later than the 4th of the month.

Here’s hoping I can do this – they say it’s 21 days to build a habit right? Let’s see.

Bye 2008, hello 2009!

Posted on December 31, 2008 by Sherry

Overall 2008 has been a pretty darn good year for me. Other than the sheer volume of germs that invaded our home thanks to what got passed onto Hayley at school, we’ve had good health. We certainly aren’t rich, but we managed to get by and then some, finding enough left over for fun stuff too. We had a good year here in general so I can’t offer up any substantial complaints about 2008.

That being said, I love New Year’s Eve because no matter how good a year has been, I am always eager to see what’s in store for next one. I don’t know what will happen in 2009 although I certainly have my hopes and aspirations. But just the fact that it’s a brand new year is good enough for me.

Tonight, George is entertaining a bar full of drunken people by playing and singing live music, and while I wish I was there, I’m having a quiet celebration here at home with my girls. We have wine (mine is red wine, theirs is actually 7Up in fancy wine glasses), we have snacks, we have good music (somehow I only just discovered Jason Mraz today but holy crap is he ever amazing. Check him out here, you won’t be sorry! This song in particular may make you need to take a cold shower.), and soon I’ll turn on the television to watch the ball drop. For me it’s just not really New Year’s Eve if I can’t see Dick Clark’s Rocking New Year’s Eve special. I don’t know if Breanna will hang in there that long, but Hayley will.

I have a few traditions that I incorporate into the new year. Dick Clark is one of them. I also make resolutions, though I try to be reasonable; they’re probably more like goals than resolutions which is less intimidating. And on New Year’s Day I serve something with beans for supper because I once heard that beans are good luck. Tomorrow I might make chili with a ton of beans in it or I might just serve a cold bean salad with a take-out pizza.

As for my resolutions/goals, here are my modest attempts:

1. Make the effort. A good friend came up with that a couple of years ago and I have loved it ever since because it’s all-encompassing and forgiving since it’s all relative.
2. Read more. I did so much better with reading this year, having read a good chunk of books, but I could still read more than I do.
3. Deal with the panic attacks in some way. While it was cathartic to write about it last month, I’d like to just get rid of them altogether thanks.
4. Find a better balance between work, kids, and home.
5. Do something for my photo habit – whether that’s to find a class or a local club or group, it doesn’t really matter. I just know that while I still enjoy “in the moment” shots and while I do like a lot of my pictures, I want to get better and learn more. Until I find something, I’m making good use of several photography books and websites.

Basically, numbers 2-5 fall under number 1 right? But those are just my very specific goals.

I’m heading over to the couch to see if anything is on the TV yet, and if not I’ll load up another Jason Mraz album on the iPod and see if the girls want to dance for a bit.

Happy new year to you all! I hope that 2009 brings you whatever you wish for most. See you next year!

Portrait of a Saturday

Posted on December 13, 2008 by Sherry

Weekends are sometimes the two days of the week we look forward to the most. We might have plans with friends or just an outing of some sort – park (not now with all the snow, mind you), shopping, the used bookstore, whatever. And sometimes they are just really quiet and low-key.

Especially when you have a six-year-old who comes home on the Friday from school, looking a little tired and grumpy, only to realize she’s actually coming down with a mild gastro. At that point, she spends most of the day lying on the couch, watching movies and looking much smaller than she really is.

I felt so bad for her because she would be hungry (she was starving at lunch time and ate four slices of toast), but then her stomach would hurt and she’d end up on the couch again.

Then I had a little three-year-old who was apparently going a little stir-crazy.

I would have taken her out in the snow – or at least a walk, since playing in the snow gets old for her after ten minutes – but George wasn’t home today and Hayley certainly wasn’t in any sort of shape to accompany us. I’m not sure she would have had the energy to even get outside, let alone have fun.

And to round it all out, we also had the innocent looking Beagle, looking all pretty and angelic.

Looking at that cute face, you would never know that just last night I nearly traded her in for a goldfish because when I got up to refill my glass of water, she jumped up on my chair and ate the last giant piece of delicious butter chicken that was still on my plate. DEVASTATION is what that is.

As for me, I took it easy and hung out with the girls, trying to keep Breanna entertained (thank God for her dinosaurs) and tried to help Hayley feel better. We had never seen High School Musical so I put that on. Because I am still a teenager on the inside, I LOVED it and can’t wait to see the second and third one. That movie only reinforced my belief that life would be so much more fun and exciting if we all burst into song and dance at random intervals.

It was a quiet day, but that’s okay sometimes. It was warm and cozy inside, I got to play in Photoshop for awhile, had good (if a bit sickly) company, and found out that this picture was nominated as the photo of the week in one of my Flickr groups:

That’s pretty cool if you ask me. So altogether, not a bad Saturday at all.

Belly shot, 27 weeks

Posted on August 25, 2005 by Sherry

I’m 27 weeks and 5 days today, so I used my handy dandy self-timer to take a new picture of my big old torpedo belly.

It totally cracks me up to see how much my belly button is sticking out.

Saturday night self-portrait

Posted on August 22, 2005 by Sherry

My sister is moving to Halifax, two provinces away, on Friday so she came on the weekend to spend the day. I’m sad that she’s leaving because that means no more spontaneous “do you want to come over?” visits but I’m happy for her.

I had intended to get George to take a couple of pictures of us but he had to leave right after supper and I totally forgot. Good thing I’m getting better with the whole stick your arm out and press the button photography.

I think I should have brushed my hair first. Oh well.

Chaos Theory

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