I woke up feeling under the weather this morning.. I had a bad sore throat and a fever.. … I really elt like saying in bed but I had some important meeting and a Jolts and Volts show in the early morning. This time of year I typically do many shows because the teachers seem to be looking for end of the year fillers. I packed my equipment in the van and headed off to Williston Central school. It was wicked hot and muggy this morning which combined with my slight fever to make me feel pretty skanky. I immediately got stuck behind a street line painting truck with no option to pass it took me nearly 30 minutes to get to Williston. I was running late. By the time I got there I was in a pretty foul mood. I barked at the kids who’d been sent to help me unload and barley spoke to the teacher . My good friend Ron had surprised me by showing up to help me set up .. and I think I was even mean to him I even asked him if he could do the show because I couldn’t imagine being funny given how lousy I felt.. but in the end, I decided to go on… It was a 5th—6th grade class just like Gabe’s.. I started slow and serious but my whole mood switched from grouchy to great in about 3 sentences. That’s how much I love doing this kind of work with kids. If I was a jerk this morning to anyone reading this .. I’m really, really sorry ! The show was a pretty routing mix of sparks, dumb jokes and explosions which the kids seemed to love.. Here I am shocking a large ring of kids with 400,000 volts.. What a great job !
One bonus this morning was that my friend Liz D who teaches in Williston was able to come in to watch for a bit.. I also ran into a long lost colleague Dee G. who used to be my travel agent many years ago.. she remembered helping me find vegetarian restaurants all over the world even back then ! The funny thing is that we’d never met face to face.. we’d only talked frequently by phone and that was about 22 years ago.. it was fun to finally meet.
.The rest of the day was a mix of phone meetings. I took a three quarter day and split early to get some of Gabe’s birthday food shopping in.
I got home just before five in time to wash up for our planned grown-ups night out.. Deb, Jen K. Tim K, Tim F, David K., Brian , Dian and I all piled in to Deb’s Suburban for a road trip. We were all bound for the Vergennes opera house to hear our good friend Wendy F. sing in Sondheim’s ‘A little night music’.. Road trip !! On the way down we stopped at the Starry Night Café in Ferisburg for a very nice meal.
Two noteworthy aspects of the meal.: first.. they were selling a dangerous concoction of rum, coconut, grenadine and about 4 other alcoholic beverages to raise money to send some Somali kids to
. Another noteworthy thing that occurred with dinner is that Tim K gave me some of the mussels from his seafood stuff. Sam loved mussels.. so I smuggled one outside and heaved it into the pond behind the restaurant… not sure why I do stuff like that .. but it feels right.
Dinner was so nice that we almost overstayed. We zoomed down to Vergennes and got to the Opera House with only a few minutes to spare.
The production was really good.. funny, a little risqué… The music was really good.. It was great finally hearing Wendy sing.. she has a beautiful voice and can really project. It was a great experience.. Here’s Wendy on the left.
After the last curtain, we grabbed Wendy and all walked down to the Antidote, a great funky bar in Vergennes.. There I ran into Doug, the Opera Director.. We quickly figured out how we knew each other.. We met in 1983 and we’re both very good friends of Catherine Nix and Vince Thomas. Catherine was an actor in the VT Shakespeare company back in 1983. Vince was a close IBM work friend from
After the bar we all piled back in the van and headed home in a beautiful lightening storm.. I’m pretty sleepy so I’ll end now. Tomorrow is Gabe’s 12th birthday so I need to be fresh.
On that topic.. here’s the last children’s price movie ticket we will every buy for Gabe.. Your full fare now kiddo.
I love you all !
-me