Friday's Odds and Ends

Eugene Robinson was courageous in speaking out against the death penalty for Lawrence Russell Brewer, who, along with two other men, committed a heinous hate crime in Jasper Texas some years ago. The three white supremacists murdered James Byrd Jr. after offering him a ride. They killed him by dragging him behind their pickup truck. Robinson said in a recent article that if anyone deserved a needle in the arm it would be Byrd, but Robinson is against the death penalty, period. He considers the death penalty to be a "barbaric anachronism, a crude instrument not of justice but of revenge." He points out that most other countries have stopped using capital punishment, and urges the U.S. to do the same.

I would have to agree.

In a recent letter to the editor in The Dallas Morning News Allen Barseth wrote, "As a conservative, I would gladly be more compassionate in giving to others if they used my tax dollars as a safety net rather than a hammock."

I thought that was a telling statement about the legacy of relying on welfare that seems to be passed from generation to generation in some families. Welfare, food stamps, unemployment payments and other government help should be limited to encourage people to find a way out of the need. Members of my family have, at times, relied on that kind of assistance, but that was a temporary situation that we worked through. Granted, some people have no way out, but others have come to accept assistance as a way of life.

 "Until one has loved an animal, part of their soul remains unawakened." I ran across this quote by Anatole France this morning and it struck a chord with me. We are still missing our little dog, and in talking to other animal lovers we have shared how our pets become such an integral part of our lives it leaves a significant hole when they are gone. Some people wonder how one can grieve the loss of a pet with a similar intensity as the grief over losing a loved one. Pet lovers never wonder.

On a lighter note -  We opened "Arsenic and Old Lace" last night at the Main Street Theatre in Sulphur Springs last night and the audience loved the show. One nice thing about live theatre is the interaction between the audience and the players, and we all had a lot of fun. I am playing Martha Brewster, one of the Aunts who "help lonely gentlemen to a better place," and I have really enjoyed working with a terrific cast. Anyone in the East Texas area who would like to see the show, we have performances tonight and tomorrow night at 7, and Sunday at 2. Next week we have performances on Thurs, Fri, and Sat at 7pm. No Sunday matinee.

Pictured here is Martha Brewster and Elaine.

Monday Morning Musings

As if my life wasn't already frenetic enough, things are really going to be busier than ever the next couple of weeks. We are counting down to the opening of Arsenic and Old Lace at the Main Street Theatre in Sulphur Springs, Texas  on September 29th, so I only have two weeks to finish learning my lines. And in addition to lines, I have to learn more blocking moves for this show than I ever have for any other show I've been in.(If you click on the link you can see pictures from one of the rehearsals.)

In addition to that, I have to start preparing for two shows at the Winnsboro Center For the Arts. One, a Reader's Theatre production, will run the last weekend in October, and the other is our annual holiday show. It doesn't open until the first weekend in December, but we need to be in rehearsals by the middle of October, which means I need to be ordering scripts, etc. now. 

I'm also arranging an Author Showcase, to run the first weekend in November in conjunction with the Winnsboro Fine Art Market. Thankfully, there is not a lot of work involved with that, but I do need to contact a couple more authors, and prepare press releases, registration forms, and exhibit space. 

On the home front, we are getting a new deck built, and work will probably start next week. That means I have to finish emptying the "step" flowerboxes that connect two sets of stairs leading up to the deck. They are filled with good, rich dirt so I don't want to lose that when the steps are taken down.  I love those flowerboxes, and in this current drought, the flowers there have been some of the very few to survive.

In the midst of all that, I have to finish editing a book for one client and get started on another right after that. I also have deadlines to prepare Open Season for electronic release in December, and I am really trying to finish writing a new book.

To get through this and not mentally explode, I will have to make lists of tasks and really focus. Sometimes my approach to a daily task list is what my husband calls "push down- pop up". Apparently that was a common term among computer programmers to describe how you would be pushing down on one task and somethings else would pop up that needed attention. My husband says I am much to easily mislead by a pop up.

How about you? Is it easy for you to stay focused on the task at hand?

Opening Night

I got bitten by the acting bug rather late in life. Or maybe I should clarify and say I acted on the bug bite rather late in life.

I've written a couple of plays and several screenplays and directed lots of stage plays. Also worked in production on some film projects, but I never had the nerve to step on stage as an actress. And I hesitated to tell anybody that I always had a secret desire to be on stage until a friend, Mia, weaseled it out of me.

Mia is a wonderful actress and I had the pleasure of directing her in several productions in a community theatre here in East Texas, and when she was putting together a revue to direct she talked me into taking a small part. What she said was, "I really need an old lady. And there are only a few lines. You can do it."

I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted, but she quickly covered, "I don't mean you are "old" old. I just mean you are older than the teenagers who will be in the show."

That was the beginning.

A year or so later, Mia talked me into auditioning at another community theatre for "Squabbles", a comedy by Marshall Karp. I was floored when I got the major part of Mildred, but that unleashed the monster in me. I love performing, even though the rehearsal schedule is enough to wear a person out. But making the character and the story come alive is a great thrill. And working with a talented group of players is magic.

So, now I am in another show. We are doing "Daddy's Dyin' Whose got the Will" at the Main Street Theatre in Sulphur Springs, Texas. We open tonight and run this Thurs, Fri, Sat and next Thurs, Fri, Sat. If you care to see some pictures of the cast visit The Front Porch News (My friend, Mia, is the one on the right in the first picture.)

One thing I have noticed since I have been acting is how much that has helped in terms of writing scenes in my books. I have a better sense of the choreography of how characters would move in a scene instead of being stagnant. When I am stuck on how a scene should go, I actually get up and walk myself through it.

My cat, who thinks I got up to feed him, watches for a minute, then I swear he shakes his head as if to say, "What on earth is she doing now?"