Rob patched a hole in his jeans with duct tape. Seriously.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to make the latest and greatest show announcement... So here it is!

The Wiz

Friday, November 7th
7:30 pm

Saturday, November 8th
2:00 pm & 7:30 pm

West Andover Middle School
70 Shawsheen Rd, Andover MA

Tickets are $20 for adults.

ActAndover.com

It's a strange show, but it's fun. I'm on stage a good portion of the first act, there's a bunch of dancing, and I have a fun scene as a messenger to the wicked witch. Plus some...interesting...costumes. :)

The photo site is back up! I know you were all waiting anxiously for that. Well, mom and grandpa will be happy anyway. :)

Sleep time now. I was stupid and stayed up too late. Again.

I caught a mouse under a shoe box.

Good morning. You might wonder why I am awake and just killing time at 7:45am. Well, half an hour ago I was awoken by Simon. Yes, that happens every day. But today was a little different. Today he had a friend with him. He had caught a mouse and brought it upstairs to the bedroom to show us. He was so proud. However, right around where my half unpacked suitcase from this weekend was laying, he dropped it. It proceeded to run through my clothes and hide under the suitcase. Simon chased it and stuck his head in the suitcase. Rob tried to catch it while I tried to restrain the cat and that just resulted in it being chased somewhere, possibly into our baseboard heater. Good morning to us! At least Simon didn't get as far as jumping up onto the bed before he dropped him. That would have been much worse.

Also, on an unrelated topic, this is what I came home to next door on Sunday:

Oh no. They're remaking "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Only the best most horrible movie ever. I'm not sure if that's awesome or awful.

Rob just nearly set himself on fire lighting the grill. And Simon smells like beer. These two things have nothing to do with each other.

As you probably haven't noticed unless you're my mom or grandpa, Rob's computer kicked the bucket, and so our photo site has been down for a few days. Therefore, I must force all my pictures of my handsome cat on you people. Aren't you so excited? :) Also some of our demolished hot tub.

( So there. )

Simon decided he was a dog today. He started chewing on my new work shoes. When I tried to stop him he thought we were playing. After I took the shoes away he went and attacked Rob's sandals. Silly cat-dog.

Yesterday at Dunkin' Donuts I saw a worker reach into a trash can to move it and then go and touch a bunch of bagels without changing his gloves or washing his hands. Gross. Later in the evening I had a lovely dinner on Newbury Street thanks to my sister. Lobster pot pie and the best crab cakes in the world. They probably touch garbage and food with the same gloves there too, but at least you can't see it happen.

I just had to remove a dead mouse from the swimming pool. Ew. Such fun I have while Rob is out of town! Also, every time I go out to clean the pool or fix chemicals or whatever it starts to thunderstorm. Awesome. I guess that's all for now. I need to go return some things at the mall. Woo! Such excitement!

To the front of our house is a very busy road. To the back is a woodsy area, where we've heard coyotes and seen hawks and turkeys. Therefore, Simon is an indoor cat. But lately we've been letting him go outside for short supervised outings. It was mostly for our entertainment at first, because he was horribly afraid of the outdoors and would generally step one foot outside and then scurry back in. It was pretty funny. But nice at the same time because we could just leave the door wide open, to carry in groceries or whatever, and we wouldn't have to worry about him trying to escape. Well, he's been getting more courageous lately. Today he had quite a lengthy outing, and even considered venturing off our back patio and onto the grass. :) ( I took pictures. )

For those of you not in the know, I can now publicly say that I have a new job! It's a staff accountant position with Neighborhood Diabetes in Woburn. I start on August 11th, and I'm excited! Yay! I gave my notice at LN today. My last day is August 6th, so I'll have a couple of free days before I start, so that'll be nice.

My show was this past weekend, and it went better than I expected, so yay for that also. I'm not going to know what to do with all my free evenings now. There are a couple of shows going on in the fall, but I'm not sure if I should do one or not. Sweet Charity auditions are two days after I start my new job, so that might be too soon. We'll see. There's also The Wiz in September, but I don't really know anything about that show. Rob's high school did it, so I asked him what he remembered. Now I know all about how they built the yellow brick road out of frozen bricks and had to climb on scaffolding, but not much about the cast or songs or story. :) Silly. I'm going to have to recruit him to start doing backstage stuff again one of these days.

Also, our pool no longer looks like a sea monster could be living in it. We finally found some nice company to come out and look at it. They fixed our leaks and gave us a whole new filter system, and instructions on how to take care of it. It's looking so much better. We can actually see almost to the bottom of it. Maybe we'll actually be able to use it once before we have to close it again. Yay!

That's all my happy news for now!

I am an inch and a half away from having to use a booster seat when I'm in a car, to stop the seatbelt from strangling me, which yes it does on a regular basis.

Maybe when I'm out buying my booster seat I should also get one of these, since the airbag is also out to get me. Darn you safety features discriminating against the vertically challenged.

Also, I am in serious pain today. Mega dance rehearsals yesterday and today. Fun but ow!

Mini golf, ice cream and old school Super Mario 3 and Bubble Bobble. Good day. Although I did manage to somehow injure my thumb turning off the pool robot thing. It bent backwards and I actually heard it crack and thought I had broken it, but I think it's ok now. So still, good day. :)

Simon fell out of the window again today. Yes, again. I've seen him do this twice now, which means he's probably done it at least 10 more times while I haven't been watching. I look over and he's sitting there peacefully. I look away. Then I hear all this scrambling and when I look back he's hanging off the window ledge by his front claws. Weird cat.

I've had "You Can't Stop the Beat" stuck in my head the entire day. It's not so much a fun song anymore after you've heard it 16,000 times in a row and you can't get it to stop. :( Now I have to go hear it some more at rehearsal.

We got gold top hats for "One" tonight. There is glitter everywhere. I'll probably still have it in my hair for work tomorrow. That'll be lovely. Dance rehearsal for 3 hours tonight. It was fun but I'm in a bit of pain now. And also glittery. Did I mention the glitter? I can't wait for Saturday. I need a break soon or I'm never going to get over this cold. The cat is attacking bugs through our window screen. Guess I should try to stop him.

http://web.mac.com/markgracy/ACT_Backstage/rehearsal_tapes.html

Choose the one dated 6/17.

0:20:50 and 1:05:50

This was the very first time rehearsing this, so please disregard the late entrances and the high note cracking. It's better now. I hope. :) But thought you would enjoy. So please do so.

Some videos from last night's dance rehearsal.

I'm in the front in the pink top & black pants.