Greenpeace Storms Mt. Rushmore

From Dustin’s office came the call: “Laura? Your dad’s day is about to be ruined.”

I immediately started worrying about more deaths in some national park somewhere, or a foreign park administrator challenging my dad to a drink-off. It was nothing so heinous as either of these things.

Greenpeace had managed to climb to the top of Mt. Rushmore and hang a banner stating “America honors leaders, not politicians. Stop global warming.” They were streaming live video to their site, and I got to watch the last ten minutes or so as the banner flapped in the breeze and was finally cut down by park rangers.

Exciting!

From the voice-over on the video I learned that they had put up a couple barricades to try and keep the authorities at bay as long as possible, including a bike-lock around a gate and a human chain somewhere along the way. Sounds like they succeeded for about an hour, which is pretty impressive.

The Black Hills fan page over on Facebook got wind of it early and put up a link to the video stream which started generating a lot of exciting debate. There are folks raging agains Greenpeace for daring to “deface” a nationa monument, then other people smacking on them for honoring a monument that defaces the Black Hills, other people railing about misguided patriotism, and a few lonely souls who think Greenpeace is doing a wonderful thing. It’s really a pretty educational and entertaining.

Personally? I couldn’t care less about either side of the debate, but I can’t help but be impressed with Greenpeace’s organizational skills. It’s no small feat to get (illegally, I might add) to the top of Mt. Rushmore with a banner that big, which is just big enough, manage to somehow strap it in place, keep the authorities away for an hour, and get the whole thing on live video. Certainly many of the participants will be arrested, as they should for breaking various laws, but I imagine Greenpeace expects that, and that their volunteers go into it with their eyes open and willing to make that sacrifice for the public awareness they mean to generate. As long as they’re willing to accept those consequences of their actions, I say good for them! No lasting harm was done to the monument, and they are certainly getting their (current) fifteen minutes of fame.

But the moose always cheats…

This photo was taken by my friend Rachel up in Alaska, and I’d like to dedicate it to my mother in law, who is currently stalking wild mooses with her camera up in Maine.

If a moose charges or chases you, hide behind something solid such as a tree. It is okay to run from a moose if you have a head start.

My friend Corey replies: “But the moose always cheats!”

Giant Baby Pumpkin Comes Home

It’s here, it’s here! My giant pumpkin has arrived!

Isn’t it cute and inconspicuous? Well… that is a gallon ice cream bucket it’s in. I suppose “inconspicuous” is relative.

After a whole week of back-and-forth with Giant Pumkin Guru Matt, I finally managed to arrange a seedling hand-off this evening. The reply to the question “what does one do with a 300+ pound pumpkin?” : feed it to the deer, or possibly to bears. Of course. The whole week of back-and-forth was largely due to trying to answer this question. Turns out giant pumpkin growers simply assume you mean “how do I get this thing out of my garden?” (The answer involves a fork lift, by the way.) What happens after that is not nearly as important. Unless you’re my husband. But satisfied that we could feed it to the local bears, he agreed I could try this craziness.

Turns out these things are pedigreed. Check it out:

That’s the seed packet. These seeds come from a 798-pound pumpkin grown by someone named Biga in 2006. THAT pumpkin’s parents were 500-pound and 820-pound pumpkins grown in 2004 and 2005? I’m a little baffled about that, actually. And how do pumpkins come in male an female? Hm. Apparently I have more to learn about pumpkin breeding.

Mostly, I just want a really giant pumpkin to make my neighbors jealous.

I’m going to plant it tomorrow. I expect there will be updates all summer about this thing’s progress. I’m like the annoying cat lady, but with a pumpkin. Speaking of which, “this thing” clearly is not an acceptable reference for my giant pumpkin. It will need a name. Any suggestions?

Lest I be fired…

I’d better get a post up before the end of May. Two whole months missing from the archive is just too much to excuse. What can I possibly say that is witty? I blame my recent silence on the dead batteries in my camera. Dustin’s got a great camera, but if I take pictures with it, I have to find a way to get pictures OFF it, and that’s a little more tricky. If pictures were just a little easier to get to, I could tell you all about my recent adventures in Music Man, kite-flying, onion-shrinking, and giant pumpkin envy.

Hmm. I can find a picture of a giant pumpkin somewhere online. Let’s do that.

Photo filched from blackhillsgiantpumpkins.com

I wanna grow a giant pumpkin. There was an article in the Rapid City Journal last week about growing “extreme pumpkins,” and now I have pumpkin envy. Who doesn’t need a 700-pound gourd in their backyard?? Though seriously, if I was going to grow a pumpkin that big, I’d have to do it somewhere where the neighbors could see it too. Y’know… so they’d think I was overcompensating for something. (What do women overcompensate for? Hmm…)

But there’s a problem. I searched the Giant Pumpkin Website and found no answer to it there, so I sent an email to the Giant Pumpkin Gurus, Lisa and Matt:

I saw your article in the RC Journal last week, and I’ve been daydreaming about growing giant pumpkins ever since. I have the space and the interest – there’s just one problem. My husband says I’m not allowed to grow anything that weighs more than I do unless I have a plan for what to do with it at the end of the year. I know you have a pumpkin fest where I can come show it off (assuming I can even find a way to GET it to the pumpkin show… I don’t think my Toyota Camry will quite cut it), but then what? What becomes of all these prize-winning pumpkins? Do they get baked into 6000 pies? Sold as playhouses? Mulched for canabalistic fertilizer of next year’s crop?

I’d love to hear back from you. Thanks!

I am waiting anxiously to hear what they might have to say.

In the meanwhile, I’m going to have to assume I may not be allowed to grow my pumpkin after all (or that it may simply be too late in the year to start) and will have to content myself with trying to grow spaghetti squash – the newest addition to this year’s garden.

Updates to follow.

The Pickle Ladies

So after discovering our parts last week, Anne took to calling me the Principle Pickle. I can’t blame her. “Pick-a-Little” sounds a lot like “pickle ” to me. And so I was inspired to a flight of artistry. Check it out:

The Pickle Ladies! Hahaha. I think I’m very funny.

And, because we’re the Principle Pickles (by our own designation, not by any sort of actual superiority):

Pickle Anne

Pickle Laura

The Agony & the Ecstacy (of waiting for the cast list)

Four whole days to wait for the cast list! Evil, I tell you, evil.

Even in high school, the cast list went up the morning after the second day of auditions. There were usually a couple of casualties as kids stormed the announcement board (mostly tramplings, but I think once a fist fight broke out over a disagreement on one of the director’s choices). Somehow, my eyes were always drawn like magnets to my name, if it was there. If it was not, I would stand there and stare at the list for an inexcusable length of time, sure I’d see my name if only I looked a little harder. A good elbow to the kidney from someone shoving in from behind is the sort of thing it took to break me away.

But four whole days they asked me to wait, and then I didn’t know if there’d be a list or if I’d get a call or if there’d be some sort of general announcement at the getting-to-know-you meeting on Thursday that I can’t go to anyway…

So as I mentioned in my last post, I have to work in the same office with one of the directors. I still hadn’t decided on my strategy for handling that temptation on Monday afternoon when she walked up to me and said, “Le sigh!”

“Oh no!” I gasped. “You weren’t supposed to see that yet!”

Yes yes. I know. Don’t put something on the internet if you don’t want people to see it. But I had no reason to expect Sarah to go looking at my blog! It was my tattle-tale mother-in-law who told her about it. I had to immediately run upstairs to re-read what I’d posted, and make sure it wasn’t too damning. I do try very hard to make sure my posts won’t offend anyone, and though I do come off as a little crazy some days, I think it was okay.

Once again, and fortunately, Sarah thought I was funny. Whew.

But did she leak any information? Did she take my silent hint that I would reeeeally love her to spill a few details? Nope.

But since she now knew what I was up to, I developed a strategy: I would sigh and give her sad eyes every time I walked by her desk. The first time, I sighed so loudly I think I actually startled her. I also enlisted Anne’s help with this. Did it work? Nope. Nothing. She smiled at us and kept right on working. Curses.

Later I explained to Dustin that I was giving Sarah a new nickname, Sarah The Impervious. Even when she talked to me about my blog, there was nothing in the conversation that gave even the slightest hint away. No half smile that said “I have a secret I think you’re gonna like!” No shiftiness in her eyes that said “We’re so not giving you the part, and I’m just putting off having to disappoint you.” Nothing. She’s so good!

Tuesday I came up with a new strategy to try and shake out the information. I spent some time in the kitchen having a loud discussion about cutting all my hair off. I was sure she could overhear me, but maybe she wasn’t listening. She certainly didn’t come barging into the kitchen to say “No! You need to leave your hair long!” (Obviously I didn’t follow through on my threat anyway. Maybe she knew that. Oh man is she good!) Though I guess, on the other hand, she also didn’t say “How terribly cute you’d look with a bald head, so by all means, get it chopped off!”

Then later in the day, as we were walking over to a mixer down the street, I pointed out that I wouldn’t be able to attend the getting-to-know-you meeting on Thursday. I didn’t expect that ploy to jar any information loose right away, but thought it might butter her up for when I went grovelling on Thursday morning. Her expression of disappointment that I couldn’t come was completely sincere and yet completely devoid of any sort of intonation that would suggest that my presence – as the future lead – would be terribly missed, or that my presence – as the nanny assigned to keep track of the kids backstage – was completely inconsequential anyway.

Impervious! Brilliant! Fascinating!

Because, you see, by today, I’d pretty well decided that I didn’t really want to win this game. I was pretty sure that if I came right over and asked, she’d tell me, and that would be so anticlimactic. It’s like the week before you go on vacation, you get to look forward to it and plan for it and that’s nearly as good as the vacation itself. Getting on the plane is great, but there’s something so nice about waiting for that moment to arrive. It was sort of the same thing.

And I don’t think I’d feel that way if I was hell-bent on getting the lead roll. If that was all that would make me happy, I’d probably be worried sick, and instead of playing games with Sarah (which she probably didn’t even notice I was doing), I’d have resorted to grovelling before noon on Monday.

And so, when this evening after barely surviving Archaeology After School Program with a bunch of wily 7-year-olds, she asked if I wanted to know, of course I said yes. If she was asking, she was obviously ready to tell. I hadn’t done anything in my campaigning to twist her arm (I hope!)

With the hemming and hawing that accompanies giving bad news, she told me I would not be the lead.

Sure, I’m disappointed. It would have been fun. But it would have been a lot of work, and this way the whole event will be so much more laid back for me.

So it’s not such bad news at all. I hope she believed me when I told her that. Anne and I really will have a riot being gossippy townspeople together, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the cast looks like. I don’t envy Sarah and Dave the job of putting it together, and I seriously applaud them for being willing to undertake this whole show. Bravo! When Anne and I aren’t busy misbehaving, I happily volunteer us to help out in any way they might need. Except for babysitting the munchkins backstage. I just volunteer Anne for that. *whistle*

I want costumes like these!! Do you see their hats? Where can I get a hat like that?

Oh, and I’ve been helpfully thinking up suggestions for next year’s musical, since being a Pick-a-Little Lady this year obviously means I have another shot at getting a lead role next year, and it might as well be in one of my many favorite shows instead of one I barely know anything about. So without further ado, I present for you a list of plays you could direct next year, and the part I think you should give me.

Into The Woods (I wanna be the Witch! But I’d settle for Cinderella, the Baker’s Wife, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel… Look at what a great show that would be! Lots of parts! And I have something to make up for after flubbing my college audition… And this has the bonus of being an awesome community theater play. I mean… lots of parts, and a family-friendly story. The music could be tricky, but eh… we could do it. )

Les Miserables (Shh, this is my fantasy, I can dream big if I want. I should be Fantine in this play, though I’d also settle (haha, “settle”) for Eponine or Cosette. I don’t think I have the oomph to pull of Mme. Thenardier,  but she’d be fun too. Lots of parts in this one too!)

Beauty & the Beast (speaking of dreaming big… I could so be Belle. Costumes might be a challenge…)

Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (The Narrator, and why not? So high Es aren’t my specialty, but I’m sure someone could accomodate for that. Might be a little male-part heavy for our crowd, though.)

Camelot (One of my favorite shows. Though I actually like the song about Guinevere better than most of the songs she sings…)

This list, by the way, is completely different from the list of shows I think would actually be good for our community theater group – this list is all about me. I’ll drum up a copy of the other list some day when someone is actually interested in thinking about another play. For now, I suspect everyone’s hands will be full with the one at hand.

I can’t wait to get started!

My Life in (Melo)Drama

It is that happy time of year again! Our production of Fiddler on the Roof was so successful last year that they (the Opera House and the Arts Council) have decided to make Spring Musicals and annual tradition.

Up next on the program: The Music Man!

Do you SEE? I even have the right hair!

This is one of the very rare shows that I know almost nothing about. I can hum “76 Trombones,” of course, but my father and even my sister have managed to sing bits of songs to me that I didn’t know before I got a copy of the CD the other day.

So here’s my problem. Last year, I was totally stoked about the idea of just getting to be IN a musical. Then they gave me a real part, and I had an absolute blast, and now I’ve gotten greedy. You see, there is a part in this show that is quite suitable for a young woman of my age and stature. (Yes yes, Marian the Librarian, I’m sure you can sing it for me too.) And upon reflection, I decided I was the only person who would qualify to play her. No, I’m not the most talented singer and my acting is decidedly overdone, but of all the people I could imagine trying out (based on last year’s show), I was it.

I started strutting around, acting like I already had the part. My friend Anne and I spent some time trying to decide who should get the part of the Music Man, based on who we thought it would be least repulsive for me to kiss. The top two options seemed to be one of Anne’s gay friends and an Episcopalian priest. Talented and safe!

Then I couldn’t show up for the first night of auditions, so I had to get the skinny afterward from Sarah, my coworker who is also co-directing the show. I tried to be nosy without making it too obvious that I was trying to fleece her for information about my competition. As you’ll see, I wasn’t very convincing.

Apparently, a whole slew of unexpected and unexpectedly talented people showed up, mostly from out of town. A few of them even brought resumes, and one brought head shots!

What are these big fish doing in my little pond??

So I started getting paranoid. I even had to go ask Sarah if head-shot-girl’s name happened to be Penelope* – my old nemesis. (Though to be fair, you can only have a nemesis if you have roughly equal levels of talent. Penelope is so much more talented than me that calling her my nemesis is just my ego talking. Again.)

No, said Sarah with a great big grin. Her name wasn’t Penelope.

She’d found me out. Asking that question had been too much – my obsessiveness had given itself away. Fortunately, she thought it was funny. Whew.

So then it was my turn. Second round auditions were this afternoon, so I toodled myself up to Deadwood. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been trying to pick out an audition song since I got the announcement a month ago. I’ve cycled through several choices, and finally settled on “Every Story is a Love Story” from Aida. It’s one of my favorites, I can sing it in my sleep, I can sing it well, and it shows off my range nicely.

What I always forget (selective amnesia?) is that audition nerves KILL me. Cripple me. Turn me into goo. It’s terrible. I nearly threw up after trying to audition for Pippin my freshman year of high school. I forgot all the words to my song. Senior year, I didn’t think I sucked too bad, but apparently I was too short to get cast anyway. In college, I squeaked through my Into the Woods audition, and LAST year I got away scott free for Fiddler because no one really even asked me to sing.

But this year, the room was full of perky, Marian-aged faces and I could just tell they all had resumes and headshots, and once again, I squeaked my way through my song. I totally missed a not-so-high note, and decided I’d never make it through the end of the song where there is a really beautiful high G that I can totally nail when I’m not busy freaking out. So I just quit halfway through.

Le sigh.

I read some lines then, and that went just fine, but there were other young women there who are clearly more talented than I am. My only hope now is that they’re too busy to really want a lead role.

Later that night, I got on the phone with Anne and we spent an hour gossiping about other try-out-ees, and why – despite my sucky audition and mediocre talent – I am still obviously best for the part. I love Anne. She’s so supportive.

And I am being so ridiculous! My whole day has turned into this giant melodrama. They’re not posting a cast list until Thursday. What am I going to do until then? If I have to talk to Sarah at the office, I can’t think of any way to prevent myself from begging her for information. My only other alternative is to turn around and run every time I see her, which could be somewhat damaging to her perception of me as a not-crazy person.

So I’ll just have to pretend I am not, in fact, crazy and maybe maybe maybe she’ll volunteer some information.

And that’s my story. Okay, not too brilliant, but I guess I’ll link Anne to this, and at least she’ll appreciate it.

(Incidentally, as a footnote – Dustin is currently searching for some new ring-tones on his crackberry, and he’s flipped through a couple of Abba songs. This gives me totally the most brilliant idea in the universe. Today I sang my audition song a capella. Next year, I’ll have a ring-tone as backup music. Wouldn’t that be a perfect small-town theater thing to do? What a great story. “You’ll never guess what this whacko girl did at auditions today…”)

*Names have been changed to prevent me from looking any more idiotic than I already do.

An Honest Valentine

Though I don’t celebrate most holidays, I can appreciate ironies, excesses, sillinesses and – in this case – blatant honesty as well as anyone else. Now tell me. If this isn’t the most honest valentine you’ve ever seen, what is?

This was discovered by my friend Teri, floaing somewhere on the internet. To help out the searchbots, it says: “I want to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day but unless this card is going to finally get you naked, I have to admit my heart’s not really in it.”

My Crush on Brevity

My vacation in Mexico is about to end with no further adventures other than watching (”watching”) the Super Bowl with a spanish commentary and spotting a gecko living under the TV. So rather than put up another long-winded account of my day lounging around, here is an ode to the delights of brevity.

A couple weeks ago, right before the inauguration, I heard a show on the radio talking about a contest hosted by SMITH Magazine and the National Constitution Center. The challenge was to submit a suggestion for a six-word inaugural speech, meant to inspire President Obama. Here are a few of the more entertaining entries, which I can’t find on the website, but I remember from the radio program:

“I will put away my blackberry.”

“Fellow Americans, meet our new puppy.”

And the winning entry was: “Divided by fear, united by hope.”

Now TODAY I have discovered another wonderful site dedicated completely to brevity. The site is called “One Sentence,” and it records true stories. The catch? They must be written in a single sentence. Here are a few good ones I picked out of the most recent submissions:

“Somewhere in the Colorado penal system, there is a man named David with my name tattooed on his chest.”

“When the cashier at the grocery store called me ’sir’ without really looking at me, I was tempted to pull up my shirt and show her my boobs.”

“It took the internet to find out about my uncle’s successful career in porn.”

“My cat challenged me to a game of “Guess Where I Pooped Before You Step In It” and I lost.”

Now I need to come up with one to submit. I’m having a lot more difficulty with it than I think I should. Maybe I’ll use this thought to ponder myself to sleep. I’ll check back when I have a brilliant one-sentence story.

Puerto Vallarta Day 7: I’ve Already Been Here A Week??

Ah, how time does fly!

Today was very nice and laid back. I slugged around the condo until well after lunch, working on yesterday’s blog (ssh, I didn’t really write it yesterday – don’t tell!) and finishing one of my books. I’ve nearly run out of books to read. I only brought four, which I was sure would be enough, but I’ve been gobbling them up. I found a whole stash of Abandoned Vacation Reading under the TV, though, and plucked up a copy of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Timequake. It could be one of the strangest things I’ve ever read, but it’s fast reading, so I’ll keep at it.

The grand victory of the day was spotting some sea-life in the ocean. When we arrived, Bonnie told us we could see sting rays and pointy-nosed fish and schools of crazy little fish all from the balcony, using the binoculars. She also told us we would see whales. Seven days of looking later and we’d seen nothing. Today was nearly a bingo, though. Dustin started us off by spotting crazy little schools of jumping fish, then, a bit later, the pointy-nosed fish. We decided these must be needle fish. A bit after that, I spotted a couple dark blobs that turned out to be a pair of sting rays. Success! Now we just need to spot some whales before we go. I don’t even know what sort of whales.

We went into town for dinner at a place called Cafe de Olla which turned out to be super delicious. I got beef enchalladas which I could hardly finish because I also got an apatizer of “tamal” (not sure why they weren’t “tamales”) which was so good I ate nearly the whole thing all by myself. But now I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow, which is really good news, since I’m a little tired of our regular options.

And now here I am, writing another blog. No great Tales of Interest for the day, but that’s not such a bad thing. Be back tomorrow!