🎭 Theatre Writeups, 🛣️ Highway Updates, 📰 Musings on the News, and other 🗯️ Rants and Roadkill Along the Information Superhighway
Why the title? Of course, we spent the day dreaming of California at the Oakland Museum of California. When I say “we”, I mean ussens plus 1cricketsong and dragon_fairie, the delightful younger daughters of deedeebythebay. We started with the exhibit on the early history of Disneyland, which was interesting. I was familiar with a lot of the history, but it was interesting to see the artifacts up close, including an actual “E” ticket. We then went downstairs and looked at the Walk Across California exhibition on the natural history of California. The girls had fun here: NSS&F loved the marine biology section, and deedeebythebay‘s girls loved the eggs and the animal exhibits. gf_guruilla then took deedeebythebay‘s girls to the Gallery of California Art, while NSS&F and I visited the California: A Place, A People, A Dream exhibit and the Oakland to the Rescue exhibit. Everyone had a blast. We’ll be seeing DeeDee and the girls again next Wednesday.
When we got back to the hotel, I found a really nice email from one of the producers of Dirk Gently. They were investigating the source of a burst of website traffic, and discovered my blog entries. She wrote that they always like to encourage younger people to get enthusiastic about theatre, and offered NSS&F 2 free tickets for her birthday that she can use during the run of the show. She also indicated that they offer group rates, and might also be able to do a Q&A with some of the cast after the show. I think we know which show we are going to; this is a very generous offer. [Don’t worry, shutterbug93, we’ll also go see The Marveous Wonderettes, just not as the party.]
This evening we’re getting together for dinner with bdot and tsgeisel at Fiesta Del Mar Too in Mountain View. No one else has indicated yet that they are joining us, although we still would love to meet new folks.
My daughter turns 12 in November, and she has decided she wants a theatre party on the Sunday afternoon after her birthday (Nov. 18) (i.e., taking a few of her friends to the theatre). We have two possibilities for non-Christmas shows (being Jewish, we’re not fans of Christmas shows):
Dirk, a play based on Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. This is being presented by the Road Theatre Company, a small house in North Hollywood. Stock ticket prices are $20 for students, $25 for adults. The description of the play is as follows:The stage has had a long tradition of great detectives. Dirk Gently does not belong to it.
A 200-year old Greek pot. An ordinary modern salt cellar lodged inside. This is impossible (or at least inexplicable)! From the mind of Douglas Adams, who brought you The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, comes DIRK; a ghost/horror/detective/time-travel/romantic comedy/epic that begins with a seemingly innocent conjuring trick and ends with the most devastating secret of humankind!
All this and a musical number!
The Marvelous Wonderettes, a cotton-candy colored, non-stop pop musical blast from the past! This is being presented in the small theatre at the El Portal, also in North Hollywood. Written and directed by Roger Bean, THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES stars Kirsten Chandler (The Rocky Horror Show, The Wild Party) Kim Huber (Laguna Playhouse The Last Five Years, Broadway’s Beauty and the Beast), Julie Dixon Jackson (Colony’s Side Show, The Wild Party) and Bets Malone (Reprise’ On The Town, Musical Theatre West’s Guys and Dolls). Of these, the latter two are good friends of our own shutterbug93. Tickets appear to be around $40. The show is described as follows:Featuring your favorite songs from the fifties and sixties, THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES takes you to the 1958 Springfield High School prom where we meet the Wonderettes – Betty Jean, Cindy Lou, Missy and Suzy, four girls with hopes and dreams as big as their hoop skirts and voices to match! As we learn about their lives and loves, we are treated to the girls performing such classic 50’s and 60’s songs as “Lollipop,” “Dream Lover,” “Stupid Cupid,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me,” “It’s My Party” “It’s In His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song)” and so many more! You’ve never had this much fun at a prom and you will never forget THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES – a must-take musical trip down memory lane!
Hopefully, if we get a good enough group together (perhaps 10 people) we can get good prices for the shows. With Wonderettes, shutterbug93 might even be able to arrange for us to meet Bets and Julie (NSS&F has met Julie before, at the Pasadena Playhouse). But it’s still a hard decision. Which one to choose? We’d love your opinion.
… my daughter is cleaning her closet… willingly… even giving up the option of going out to dinner to keep working on it… and she says she only wants a yogurt for dinner (and she split a single order of nachos with my wife for lunch)…
So far, she’s cleaned out one big green trash bag of clothes that are either too small, or that she has decided she will not wear… they have been added to the donation pile for the National Council of Jewish Women (the LA office picks up and inventories).
NSS&F just walked in with some great news. She got an “A” on her Science test. She got an “A” on her History test.
Oh, and her teacher recommended her for Algebra 1AB next year, instead of Honors Math 7. So what’s the difference? I found this description on the web site for the Portola Gifted Magnet of LA Unified:
(Oh, and not to brag, but Nobel’s scores are significantly higher than Portola‘s, even though Portola has the gifted magnet)
Way to go, NSS&F. It will be hard for her, but she loves math.
This has been an incredibly busy week. Other than my shoulder still bothering me, I’ve been going like gangbusters. So what’s going on:
My wife normally goes out walking with our former neighbor (Steve) in the mornings. She just called him to schedule tomorrow’s walk, and I heard her say they were going to run around the mall. So I kidded her about running around with a strange man.
My wife said that was true, and they don’t come much stranger.
NSS&F, without blinking an eye, turned around and said, “But what about daddy?”
Well, it looks like NSS&F (my daughter, for new readers) isn’t going to camp after all. She had been scheduled to go to Hilltop (Session Noar)… but a month ago we discovered she is gluten-free like her mom. Hilltop will still be on the temporary kitchen after the fire last summer, and there is no way they can guarantee it will be safe for her to eat, and the kids come first.
Today, we went up to camp to talk to the camp director. He’s willing to listen about next summer, when the new kitchen will be in place. We think we should be able to work something out; Gerh, the asst. director at Hilltop, seems to agree. So we’ll talk to him more after the summer. We also got him to agree that NSS&F could go up for Noar next year–she’ll be too old grade-wise, but not age-wise, as she is the youngest in her class. This will still permit her to move from the 8 day session to the 14 day session, without having to make the leap right to a month session. We’re also going to go up for one Shabbat this summer, just to keep that camp feeling.
We may also explore renting the facility for a Celiac Camp (or at least get enough Celiac Jewish kids up there for the same session that they have to do something).
I think it will work out eventually, but at least we reached the point where NSS&F wanted to go to camp. Still, I hate for her to miss a summer, but at least we now all understand.
I don’t remember food sensitivites being this prevalent when I was young and going to camp (1969-1979). Everyone ate everything. Times are changing, and I’m not sure for the better.
[Crossposted to cahwyguy and ghc_for_life]
