change your ways or you are doomed

First, thank you to all of my friends and family that supported my art by coming out in the dark to see me onstage for about three minutes in Gilligan's Island. I made some new friends with whom I would like to stay in touch, and I enjoyed working with Carly and Dawn and Jeff from Mattress. The show was lots of fun and now, like all shows, it's over. After a long day of striking the Gilligan set after a rather late cast party, it is time to move on to the next shiny object; Dickens Christmas Fair.

Workshops for DCF started up on Saturday (one day overlap with GITM) and wow it was so great to see so many faces of friends I knew. The all cast meeting had about 500 people in it. I think I hugged most of them. There were many new faces too and I hope that at least a few turn into new friends to hug next year.

Tonight we attended a rosary for our friend Shirley. It was very emotional and there were quite a few people. Following that most of the people who attended the service walked the block and a half from the church to Shirley's house where her four children and their children had set up to entertain us all. On the way, we all carried candles and the sheriff sent a patrol car to hold traffic as we crossed Woodside Road. The irony of this was palpable.

I had a pretty good phone interview on Friday, but I'm still working on finding the new perfect job.

Here kitty kitty

Our friend Lucy called us the other day. "Are you interested in a kitten. I can't keep her." or something like that. You get the idea. Since this is a blog, not USA TUDAY, I'll tell you the whole story.

Her daughter picked up the kitten after seeing/hearing her several days in a row. The little dear was hungry and shedding alot but otherwise OK. She was pretty frightened. Lucy calmed her down and started looking around for a better home since her old cat was distinctly negative on the "new kitten" thing.

So we said, "Why don't you just bring her over and we'll see how she reacts to the dogs." This is code for, "We would love a new kitten no matter what." So Lucy brought the kitty round to the casa.

What a nice kitten! Full bred Siamese, blue eyes, dark points. She was very mellow with the dogs. She hissed at them to ensure they knew who was boss, then settled down and didn't mind getting her ears licked by the big doggie. Well, not too much anyway.

We mused, "Is she chipped?" (RFID chip so the animal can be uniquely identified) Sure enough she was. You can feel the capsule under the skin near the shoulder. It feels like an oversized grain of rice made out of glass. So this morning Sharon took her to the vet to get her chip scanned so we could find the person associated with the chip.

Sharon called the lady. She had got two kittens from the same litter from the shelter one male one female. They had been spayed/neutered, had their first round of shots, and got chipped. She took them home and realized in a few days that she was really allergic to cats. Oops. Hello craigslist. She listed them online and gave them to what she thought was a worthy home in Redwood City.

She contacted the new owners about a month later and they said everything was OK. Then she was contacted by someone who had found the male and had his chip scanned just like we did. Then she contacted the people again, and they said everything was OK. She told them about the found male and they then admitted that they had actually "lost" (read dumped) both of the kittens.

So the nice allergic lady said we could keep her, and that she had named her Coco. Nice name except that the dog's name so we'll have to come up with something else, as if the cat really cares.

Cute huh?

In which I relate the events of the past

Bad movie night was a success, especially because the movie was so freakin bad. There was random sound effects, fishes popping out here and there, nudity where it hardly made sense, and a bad plot I can hardly remember, something about zombies I think.

We had a great time getting drunk ready for the movie, (thanks for the gin Carl!) and a certain guest brought the weirdest host gift of all time, wait for it... mammogram films. Apparently these are the pictures that didn't turn out and they get held for a month and then pitched. So I was gifted a few of them, because I am apparently a boob man. (Shocking I know.) That wasn't enough embarrassment, so she dug out some nipple markers (see illustration) out of her purse, much to the stark amazement of all the guests. These are round nipple sized pieces of tape with a little metal ball, about 1 mm attached. They get stuck on the nipple for the mammogram so the radiologist can determine the location of the nipple in the radiograph. There was much laughter about all of this, with one male guest covering his nipples with his hands and saying softly, "I'm invisible". Dude, you crack me up.

Seriously, mammograms are a good thing, even if as Danielle put it, "it's like having your boob slammed in the refrigerator door". I have a friend that works for a company called R2 that makes a device that scans a mammogram radiograph and highlights the points where the radiologist should take a good look. The scanner uses an algorithm that was developed by analyzing many radiographs and determining how to find the beginnings of tumors. He tells me that around their office they have seen thousands of radiographs and that he has seen some that were really bad cases where the cancer was advanced. In those cases the women had waited too long to get a mammogram and their first news was, "You have a bad case." That's pretty sad.

I mention all of this serious stuff because both my mother and father both waited too long to seek effective medical care for what turned out to be really bad diseases. In dad's case he ignored the pain until he couldn't walk any more. It turned out to be cancer and it had advanced quite a ways. He died two years later after enduring a lot of very unpleasant treatment and really bad days. If he had sought treatment earlier it might have been different. Mom failed to deal with her arterial disease, denying that it was a big enough problem, then had a massive stroke that could have been prevented. She will never fully recover. She lives in an assisted living home. She can't carry on a normal conversation because of the ephasia and short term memory loss; she can't speak very well and she can't remember enough of the conversation to continue it. The stroke took away an enormous amount of who she was at 62, and she'll probably have to live this way for a long time.

I love my mom and loved my dad. It really hurts that they could have avoided some really bad things if they had taken care of themselves earlier. Don't scrimp on the medical stuff. It really can matter a lot. Sorry to go all serious on you there.

So the audition for Gilligan went well, though I haven't heard back yet. I leaned and sang a song, did a few dance steps, and read a couple of scenes. It sounds like a fun show. You'll all be informed as soon as I know. I will expect you all to come see me, clap loudly, and gushingly praise my talent in glowing terms.

So we all (ok the majority of us) went to casa faire today to get our gate passes so we can go there and act like people who died a long time ago in a country far far away. We saw a lot of people we know and there was hugging all around. Then we built the stage which consists of legging up four platforms with varying height legs to make a flat level place on top of the up and down ground. Everyone cheered when it was done. That was nice. I'm excited to be able to be involved in faire because I can finally get in on all the fun that the ladies have been enjoying and I can be there with them instead of home alone. We just need to figure out the kid care.

We're all trying to figure out when exactly we'll be where and the schedule of everything. It seems that we'll all be busy from now until Christmas eve with renfaires then Dickens Fair. There may even be a musical comedy in there.