HOOORAY FOR ME!!!!  I got home from work and saw that I had a message on the machine.  Unfortunately, the caller did not leave a message when the device picked up.  Fortunately, the caller id listed her name and phone number.  I had to wait until the parents got home so I could use her cell phone (yet another reason I need to look into one of those) as we do not have long distance at the house.  While waiting, some of my best friends who have been as anxious as I to learn the results of the audition called to find out.

I eventually got a return call informing me that I did indeed get a part.  I think this will be another memorable role.  I will be playing Grandpa Prophater, the father of Mrs. Smith.  I was informed that this is a wonderful character part.  HOW DID SHE KNOW!!!  Maybe it was the bio sheet I turned in last night.  After thinking over the lines I read last night at the audition, it occured to me that it would be great fun to wear lots of make up in order to look like a 60+ year-old.  The director even told me that she had me down as Alonso, the patriarch of the family.  However, she informed me that I would be able to do a lot with the older man.  The websites I checked out to see in which musical numbers I will be part of, I could find none but I was sure he had parts in songs which the family was a part of.  I will know more tomorrow after our read-through.  Plus, after I discussed with my friend, I decided that venturing out to another theatre is definitely a great thing.  Can you tell that I am really excited about this?!  Another great character role!!!!!

I dunno all this and I have known the director for about an hour.  What an impression I must have made!!

Last night, in the sub-zero actual temps not to mention the wind factor, the electricity for what seemed to be the whole town went out about 10PM.  We lit some candles for a bit of light.  I decided to finish the novel I had been plowing through this week and was requested to voice my comments on it. So for new commenter, Paul I will relate my feelings on Doctor No.

At the conclusion of From Russia With Love, 007 was seen unconscious and near death from a lethal stab inflicted by the boot of the evil Rosa Klebb.  Of course, he survived or else we would not be discussing the follow-up.  To further his physical and emotional recovery, the agent is sent on a relatively breezy assignment to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of service man Strangways and his secretary.  Bond’s investigation leads him to Crab Key, a small island off the coast of Jamaica where the mysterious Chinese-German Dr. Julius No operates a seemingly innocent sanctuary for birds and harvests the guano (bird dung) for use as fertilizer.  I know, I know… goofy.  However, that is only the genius’ cover for his ingenious plot for world domination.  And I actually think this is my favorite of Fleming’s villains so far.  We get to delve into the good doctor’s past (although I think the title is more self-proclaimed, unless I missed something).

When Bond arrives on Crab Key with his associate, Quarrel, he finds the lovely Honeychile Rider.  He finds her armed with a small knife protecting her trove of seashells.  And unlike the movie, she is NOT clad in the MEMORABLE, eye-catching white bikini with weapon belt fastened to her waist… use your imagination.

This is the first novel to feature a bit of the fantastic.  One of Dr. No’s items of destruction is a fire-breathing dragon… the same as in the movie.  It is used to keep visitors away from the island and eventually captures Bond and Honey and brings them to Dr. No’s fortress where his ultimate goal is explained.  Bond and Honey are separated and face torturous demises.  The evil doctor has a fetish for studying the pain and endurance of his victims.  Bond is put through a gauntlet of increasingly deadly obstacles.

The best thing about reading these novels is being able to see inside the mind of the characters.  What does Bond really think about his profession?  Who is he?  What makes him tick and how much pain can he endure?  Fleming’s study of ornithology is also put to good use.  Oddly enough, Bond’s name comes from the author of a book on the study of birds.  OK… GEEK… it’s all right.  Even through 22 movies, there is more to learn about him.  However (hopefully) this may well be the last literary adventure I get to experience for a few months as the stage may be calling me.  Thankfully, I had only a few pages to finish.  I don’t think my eyes could have taken a lot more as the candles did not put out much illumination.  About 1.30am, I was awakened by the power coming back on or maybe it was the grateful feeling of the warmth returning.

Tonight (as opposed to last nigh for some reason… can’t understand why), I made my way to auditions for Meet Me in St. Louis.  Very strange, because I was informed by my dear, sweet brother that they were at 5pm.  I arrive at the theatre at 4.45.  I am always the first to arrive and usually the last to leave.  So, I try the door… locked.  I go back to my car til 5… still locked.  Ok… maybe he misunderstood and it was at 5.30.  So, I go to McDonalds for supper and wait.  5.30… nothing.  So, I decide to travel to brother’s house to see what was up.  I get to the house and he asks me why I was not at auditions.  Were they not at 5 o’clock?  No.. they were at 7.  Apparently, he called my house at 4.45 to tell me this.  OOPS.  So, I head BACK to the theatre.

When the director arrives, she announces my identity as a Shaffer but does not remember my name.  SHe is exceedingly glad to see an adult male at the auditions (they must have a an ample amount of younger fellows Tuesday night).  That is a good sign.  I think the two parts I read for (Alonso Smith and grandpa) would be great.  We sat around a table, very informally and read a few scenes.  In one scene, Mr. Smith comes down stairs for dinner and trips over his daughter’s roller skate…. you can take it from there  That could be fun to play.  The scene I read as grandpa was hilarious, too.  I would be willing to wear lots of makeup.  That would bring a laugh in and of itself.  We then sight-sang a few songs.  I thought I did reasonably well for not knowing either piece… but there were some wierd harmonies and interval leaps, but I think I did well.

Then, we were asked if we had brought anything to sing.  Always prepared as I am, brought “Benjamin Calypso” from Joseph.  Complete with strangely cool accent, I sang a bit and drew a chuckle from the crowd.  Following that showstopper, we all joined in a chorus of “The First Nowell” which is part of the show.

Well… we are to learn of the casting choices tomorrow night with a read-through Saturday afternoon.  It sounds like a fun time and the director seems to be very personable, so… we will see what happens.  Show dates are March 6,7,8… so really not a lot of time to produce a full-scale musical.  Now time to joing the gang at Dunder-Mifflin in a new episode.

I’m just looking to see what sort of age groups you might be interested in teaching if you ever decided to teach.  Feel free to choose more than one.  You will note that there is some overlap in grades since not everyone defines the categories the same way.  For example, in some places middle school is 6-8, other places 7-8, and still others 7-9.  I am told there are even places where 5th is considered middle school, but I am yet to be convinced that is actually middle school or combining disparate grades in a building due to space or some other special reason (sorry, L).  I do know a district that has a school for just 5th and 6th grades due to a gang problem.  This district considers 6th to be middle school, so the 5th grade were on an elementary program while the 6th grade switched classes as they would in a regular middle school.  I am almost certain that 5th grade will always be on an elementary program even if inside a middle school, but please comment if I am wrong about this (please, even if you don’t normally comment on my blog 🙂 ).  So anyway, vote away!  Later, I’ll ask about favorite subjects to teach, whatever the age group.

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I have said in other posts that 5th grade is probably my favorite grade followed by 4th and then 6th.  Well, yesterday I had a late call to sub for 5th and 6th grade.  I knew I would be late and I wasn’t disappointed in this regard when I ended up 15 minutes late mostly due to the snowy roads as we got another couple of inches overnight.  This district by the way is famous for its schools closing their parking lots when the buses arrive.  I thought I was safe from this at this school since the buses don’t go into the parking lot area.  I was wrong, but didn’t realize it right away so I turned into a drive that had cones only halfway across.  This is a common tactic when they only allow one-way traffic so I thought nothing of it until a teacher started blowing her whistle behind me.  Well, I will now add this school to the list of the district’s schools I can never be late for if I actually want to park my car.  Since I was already in the lot, she let me park.  This time.

So, once I got in, there was the teacher, still in the room.  She was still getting things ready and hadn’t left yet.  She would come back in the afternoon too to test some of the kids one on one.  She got the kids started while I looked over the plans.  There were only two things: math in the morning and language arts after lunch.  Oh, there was a special in the morning so I had a half hour off to continue to look at the plans.  Besides the special, I had math all morning because I taught two classes.  First was 5th grade, then they went into another room and 6th grade came in for their turn.  Following lunch, I continued with 6th grade for writing before swapping back for reading with the 5th graders.

All in all the day wasn’t too bad, but these kids were talkers.  Whenever they had a chance they would chat it up.  By the end of the day this really wore me down.  The last three short nights for me probably added to this too.  I was glad when it was over.

Today I was set to do 7th grade science.  Then every sub’s favorite “you are no longer needed” call came in first thing in the morning.  Apparently the districts didn’t wan’t kids coming to school in -8ishºF weather as all of them around me called a day off.  Unfortunately, tomorrow looks like another non-payday for me too with a forecast of even colder morning temperatures.  What a day today for a plane to end up in a freezing river.  I pray that all involved fare much better than the bird the plane apparently hit.

Luckily for us, Tuesday’s date night was not hindered by the recent barrage of snow in any way.  We ventured to the larger town nearby to see what all the Golden Globe fuss was about Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, Gran Torino (they didn’t have Slumdog Millionaire).  But after the previews and especially when the movie started, it became painfully obvious that there was something wrong with the theater’s sound – you couldn’t hear the dialogue.  My husband went to report it, and all that did was cause several loud popping noises and lengthy annoying electronic burps while they tried to fix it.  There were 3 other people in the theater with us, and we all left – seemed like a movie where you really need to hear what the characters are saying.  They offered our money back, but that wasn’t really enough because we had spent $7 on pop and popcorn that we wouldn’t have bought if we weren’t going to a movie.  The incredibly flustered but sensible kid working the counter saw our point, and apparently his manager agreed, so they let us go into another movie AND get a refund – COOL!  Earlier in the day, we had been up in the air trying to decide between seeing Gran Torino and The Unborn anyway, so I guess the choice was made for us – We only had 20 minutes to kill before a showing of The Unborn.

The Unborn was just as I expected – a PG13-rated supernatural horror movie, not quite as good as others in the genre like The Ring, Shutter, or One Missed Call.  There were some jump-out-of-your-seat moments in The Unborn, but it was obvious when they were coming, at least to me.  I don’t want to give away too much like an article did that I read in the newspaper, so I’ll just say that if you like the supernatural horror genre, check out The Unborn because it’s entertaining.  Back to the newspaper article I read…  seems the little boy who plays a scary kid in the movie is from the area where I grew up, so they featured him in the suburban Chicago newspaper I sometimes like to read online – but they spilled a major spoiler about the movie at the end of the article!  But anyway, that’s another thing I enjoyed about The Unborn – it is set in Chicagoland, so I enjoyed the sweeping overhead views of the city and some of the familiar sites in suburbia.  Apparently the screenwriter of The Unborn, David Goyer, has a fancy for Chicago since he also wrote The Dark Knight which was filmed in Chicago, although set in Gotham City.  But anyway, enjoyable movie for what it was – I might have liked Gran Torino better, but I guess I’ll have to see that one another time.

And that brings me to the Applebee’s saga.  We don’t really like Applebee’s.  They try to tell us we belong there, but I don’t buy it.  Their food seems pricey for what it is, and we stopped going there when the kids are with us because their food takes forever to come out (that and the small fortune it would cost our family of 6 to eat there).  My husband was given an Applebee’s gift card for serving on the board of a local non-profit agency (no, I am not talking about the community theater – did you really have to ask?), which is really nice of the agency of course.  We got the same gift card last year, and so back then we decided to give Applebee’s another chance.  Last year, we got some sort of bland pasta dish and an appetizer sampler and shared everything, but we left there hungry AND having to add money to our gift card in order to cover the check.  Flash forward to now, and we find ourselves with another gift card.  Time to give Applebee’s another try, we decided; after all, how bad can it be?  They have lots of corporate suits overseeing those kinds of places, so maybe they’ve implemented lots of changes in the past year to make it a better establishment.  Not the case.  First, our food took forever to come out.  I had gotten a soup-and-sandwich combo, and the waitress came to tell me they burnt the soup and it would be a few minutes while they made a new one.  My husband wondered if that meant his food was sitting under a warmer while mine was re-prepared, and his concerns were legit because when he got his food, the shrimp was cold.  Not only that, but they had given him the wrong kind of buffalo wings.  So they apologized, and that’s another thing about places like Applebee’s that really bug me – the pesty fake gushy niceness.  I do appreciate a friendly server, but the people who work at these places are way over the top…  I will cite an example in the hilarious movie Office Space – there’s a character in the movie who is Jennifer Aniston’s coworker at a TGIFriday’s type of place who acts just like these people…  annoyingly and unrealistically enthusiastic about his job – funny stuff, but only in the movies.

So anyway, we’re waiting for my husband’s new wings when the manager comes out to say that they have now put the wrong sauce on them, and they’d have to make him yet another order.  Honestly, what is the cook doing back there?  Again, for the second time this day (see my Dawn’s Great Idea post), my fears of starring in a hidden camera show run rampant…  And what has happened to all the food that they’ve messed up?  From just our party of 2, they must have had 2 orders of wings and a bowl of soup all go to waste.  I’ve often thought that restaurants should have a deal with local homeless shelters, giving them their leftovers and food mistakes, but I guess that wouldn’t be considered sanitary.  I wish they’d change this; something tells me that food is food and many people would be very grateful for restaurant “leftovers”…

We calculated our bill correctly this time, and we were about to rid ourselves of the entire giftcard, when the waitress showed up to tell us that because of all the errors, they were going to give us the employee discount on the bill.  That was really really nice of them, but that means we STILL HAVE $ LEFT ON THE GIFTCARD for another trip to Applebee’s!  I told my husband, maybe we’ll just stop in for a couple drinks sometime, but of course, you can’t use a giftcard on drinks, at least on alcoholic ones, and after trying their flavored tea yesterday, I won’t be stopping in for any more of that – yuck!  And in case you’re wondering, both my sandwich and my soup were virtually tasteless, save for the cheese on top of the soup – that was really good!

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Ah yes, Monty Python. From a BBC comedy series, to full length movies. Then the comedy troupe went their separate ways, sort of. A few of them combined talents again in Time Bandit, A Fish called Wanda and Time Bandits.

There is a reason I bring this up, and it isn’t that I saw any of the shows or movies. I haven’t read any news on any of the members of Monty Python. I was skimming through the channels and saw a commercial for a nature show, in it was a python. Yep, that’s all it took for me to jump to the comedy of Monty Python. And if you think about their comedy, it fits. Off the wall and sometimes completely unexpected.

I remember when they were first on PBS, my parents did not want me watching that filthy British show. I’m thinking they only saw the beginning credits, and didn’t know what the show was. I would try to watch it whenever they were out during the air time. I didn’t get to see too many, but I saw enough to shape what I considered to be funny.

And now for your enjoyment try here.

My husband and I were in charge of our local community theater’s version of the Oscars ceremony (ours is called The Willies™), so it was our responsibility to organize the skits, songs, and entertainment for the fun evening in December.  In doing so, we needed to borrow a specific camera which played a prop in a very funny show that was staged in our community theater last year.  My friend had borrowed the camera from her workplace, so I asked her if we could use it for a skit in the awards show and she obliged.  She couldn’t make it to the awards show, and I still haven’t gotten the camera back to her.  Through a series of email exchanges about how to get her the camera back, she came up with an idea:  why not just drop it off at her husband’s workplace – which is only 2 blocks away from my house – rather than drive the camera all the way out to her house in the country.  Great idea, I told her, and I meant it… until I found myself walking into the county courthouse carrying an ominous large silver metal case.

Turns out, my friend’s husband works in the county’s adult probation department, and so now I’m walking around the courthouse with something that looks, well, extremely fishy to say the least.  My husband was with me, thank goodness, and I was glad to have the moral support because of the many strange stares we received…  We found her husband’s office, and when you enter the adult probation department, there is a counter with a bulletproof glass above it.  So evidently, they tend to be skeptical of their visitors to begin with, and now here we are with our peculiarly large metal case.  We asked to see my friend’s husband (he knows us at least), but as luck would have it, he was out to lunch.  “Can we just leave it here?” we were forced to ask, prompting a very skeptical probation officer to ask, “Is it ticking?”  I started thinking about those signs they have at the airport that explain how joking about bombs or explosives is a felony offense, so I bit my lip, worried I might accidentally utter some sort of lame quip that would get us into deep trouble.  My husband opened up the case and showed them what was inside…  just a camera, we swear!

Not really a big deal, but a funny experience nonetheless.  Had we been in a bigger city, we might have been thrown to the floor and cuffed – it really was a shady looking case, and I can’t blame people for being a little cautious and apprehensive about it, especially in this day and age.

So thanks for saving me the trip out to the country, Dawn, but honestly, I don’t think either of us thought this idea through…  unless you were setting me up to get some sort of hidden camera prank footage, maybe to be shown at next year’s Willie Awards™?  🙂

Two different family members sent me an email forward with the following video because they knew I’d love it.  They were right!  The following is a touching story about the unlikely but very true friendship between a dog and an elephant – you have to see it to believe it!

The big game is only weeks away.  Will you be doing anything to celebrate the occasion?  Do you know which big game I’m referring to?  If not, then disregard the following poll…

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