Last night we went to see the national tour of "Spamalot" What a hoot!
All of the voices were very good. However, we both had a little trouble in the first act understanding the cast...they were perhaps lazy on enunciation...but the second act was much better. (It was helpful to have heard the CD. Trent had even read over the lyrics).
I have seen the movie about 15 ot 20 times (though not for a few years) Trent has seen it much less...and we both liked the stage version very much. I also had audio recordings from the movie that I listened to regularly in high school; the musical is so faithful to the movie that I was mouthing the words along with the cast in places. Several of them did quite admirable jobs of impersonating the original Pythoners.
I don't know if there is more than one touring company...our has Gary Beach as the star...though the lady who played the Lady of The Lake stole the show with her voice (I don't have her name because I'm at work --at lunch!-- and the program is at home). So if they come to your town, it's definitely worth the price of admission!
So, remember my passive-agressive gas-passer? The lovely company I pay exorbitant rates to for natural gas who forced me into a week long game of phone tag until I got sick of it and called customer service?
Welll! They do have customer service...it just sucks as much as the rest of the company!
So the operator last week scheduled a technician to come out today...between 8 and 12 (I know, I thought that was a pretty big window too--the techs from the two other companies that were out the week before, said 8-10 and both were spot on)...I said sure.
So here I am...not vacuuming so I'll be able to hear the phone...taking the phone out with me when I let the cat out back...waiting, waiting, waiting...
And at 11 I get a call from some guy who says, "Uh, what is it exactly that we are supposed to do out there? The technician with the order called back to find out."
I explained the whole situation. Phone tag. Getting fed up. Calling customer service.
He had to call me back. And he said that their technicians don't do that. that it's contracted out to another company. He was very helpful getting me connected...sorta...see I still had to wait for a call.
I told him this time, I'll be here for another 20 minutes & then I'm gone.
She called back. And said she's waiting for a tech to return her call (well, at least it's a company wide policy) I told her I was leaving at noon (to go talk to the vet)...and she did get back to me...and the tech made it WITH NINE MINUTES TO SPARE!
Never let it be said that VEctren doesn't do the least they can for their customers!
I'm wondering if they get paid by the call...or if they get kickbacks from the phone company for keeping the wires hopping.
I'm also wondering what the phone numbers are for the other natural gas delivery companies in the area.
If you have a choice, avoid Vectren at all costs...because VECTREN SUCKS!
OK, with apologies, since I am again not going to name publisher or author. You might be able to guess from some of what I'm about to say...but I won't confirm or deny (because I reviewed it for someone much like the two previous posts in this series)...
Will someone tell me why mega-authors feel compelled to try their hand at writing for young people?
When your every book for adults goes to the top of the bestsellers list (and I like them, really!) WHY WHY WHY do you think you can write for kids?
Look, people, writing for young people without sounding saccharine, condescending, or lame is HARD. It's harder than writing for adults. This is mostly due to the fact that you ain't a kid any more & being a kid is nothing like what you are telling yourself you remember it being. If the kid you were...read the book you just wrote, they'd probably poke you in the eye...at the very least they would throw it at you.
And publishers...I KNOW the publishing game is about making a profit. I know that if Bestseller Betty comes to you with the desire to write "Equine Magic Dream Mystery" or Bestseller Bob comes with a plan for a series "just like Harry Potter only in outerspace with aliens and a graphic novel to boot!" I'm sure you publishers know their name will sell even the most asinine, brainless barf...but please PLEASE employ some editors! Remember them? They are the ones who used to read manuscripts and tell the author that the characters were cliches, the dialog was unintentionally laughable, there's a complete lack of internal logic in the narrative, and the plot points appeared in pulp fiction when grand-dad was in diapers...
Sigh...I just read one that was all of that and a bag of poo.
My brain is bruised, but at least it's over!
Unfortunately...come on, you know what comes next! SURE you do!
IT'S THE FIRST OF A SERIES!
I'm sure there are vacant lots like this in every city...well, this one actually doubles as a parking lot during the day because downtown parking in Dayton is for shit...so it's not technically vacant 24/7. I park a couple blocks from the library. Because I willfully jaywalk after the police were such rude dorks to Trent about crossing the street in the middle of the block last year & because I want to take the shortest route to work...I walk through this little ecosystem every day at least two times.
Because people park there during the day, the build up of junk is curtailed. No washing machines, abandoned mopeds, or broken office equipment...I have seen rags and shoes...but usually it's empty bottles. Beer, rum, vodka...the bottles hang around for a couple of days to a week then they get broken.
Once there was a used condom & I got to clock how long it took to biodegrade or be crushed into the gravel. (two weeks)...just this morning I saw something that made me laugh out loud (likely causing others around me to mistake me for one of the mumbling eye-rollers that inhabit the area)...that something was a pregnancy test...and I thought it made perfect sense...
Rum...beer...condom...pregnancy test.
A natural progression! Circle of life!
Welcome to the city!
3:45 am ... we're awakened to the sounds of what we think was a cat barfing...or trying to.
Bruegel our 17 year old was on her side and panting. In my panicked state, I thought she stopped breathing a couple times, but when Trent made an unexpected sound in the hallway...she startled at it...The cats got new flea collars yesterday & we thought that was what caused the problem--I took hers off immediately. Trent found a 24 hour vet. And off we went. He insisted on driving (though he hates to drive at night & wouldn't you know it's the foggiest day of the year so far!). Trent wanted me to talk to Bruegie on the trip which was a good idea; she minds car rides less than her brother, but they aren't tops of her list of exciting morning activities. After passing it once, we found the place.
Surley receptionist checked us in.
Gay Bear technician checked out the cat who now seemed perfectly healthy (except for a low temperature--just like me!) She was all purrs...so much so they couldn't do one of the tests.
No-nonsense vet asked some questions...and Trent mentioned the new food too. Some new "healthy" stuff from Purina that Bruegie really liked...the vet, of course didn't know which of the new things it was...but suggested a bath, a shot, and some pills.
Home through the fog...and by the time we got there--Bruegie seemed completely normal.
Sigh. I'm happy for that, believe me...but stress, we don't need!
Hey! We just had an earthquake!
Around 5 this morning Trent and I woke up. The bed was shaking. He said, "What was that?"
"Earthquake?" I replied. "We had one when I was in high school. Maybe it was a plane flying over." (Wright Patterson flightpath, right over head...pleasant :-p
"Planes don't shake the bed!" Trent said.
"Ooo! Maybe they were experimenting at Wright Patt and they opened a dimensional door. Let's watch for the mist!"
Dang if it wasn't only an earthquake! I'd prefer aliens...this reality is so dang boring!
It was a 5.2 quake centered about 300 miles away near West Salem, Illinois...ooo! maybe WITCHES!
Nobody likes their natural gas company now. Mine, Vectren, is really on my tits.
Usually I am just disgruntled about the size of the bill...oh, and the size of my customer number...it won't all fit on the memo line on my check; it's like 35 numbers long. And this stupid thing they have called "Vectren Rewards" where each dollar I spend on natural gas gets me the equivalent of frequent flayers miles that I can "spend" to buy cheap crap made in Korea...ACTUALLY I only get a discount on cheap crap made in Korea...AND I get to read my own meter five or six times a year...OK, I usually don't like them much.
Last week we got one of their little hangy things on the front door. Usually this just means I have to go read the meter, give them a call, and follow their contradictory directions (if the numbers in the two grey boxes aren't important why put the two grey boxes on the form?!). This time they said I had to schedule a visit from one of their inspectors.
As if I hadn't had enough boot-wearing strangers in my house in the last week!
So I called & got a machine. I hung up and called a half hour later...got a machine again. This time I listened to the cheery chick tell me she was sorry they couldn't take my call, but I should leave a message and they'd call back. I left a message & the next day when I was at work they called and left a message.
So I tried calling during the day--and got the machine...see Vectren can't be bothered to take my call when I have time to call them. In classic passive aggressive style, I have to leave them a message and take a call at their convenience. Two more days passed this way. I left them a message...they left me a message...(I can't take cell calls at work unless it's an emergecy & I'm not often at my desk so leaving any other call back number is out of the question). So yesterday, I told the cheery chick, this was my last call...
Yes, folks...Vectren sucks. You know PUCO puts that flier in your bill about comparing "apples to apples" about getting your gas or electric from a different company...maybe it's time to look into another apple vendor...
Remember when I said I "felt published" when I saw my book in my library's catalog?
I was premature.
My book is in Worldcat! I have an OCLC number! I have real Dewey numbers! I have subject headings! My book is a bildungsromans! There's even a link that will automatically give you citations of my book when you quote it! (I heard that laugh!) in APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, and Turabian styles! I don't even know what a Turabian IS!
I'm all tingly!
I talked about the water in this old building a while back: each drinking fountain and each sink has its own distinct flavor...
Well, today I noticed the smells. Now, like all public libraries we have our share of fragrant patrons...but I'm not talking about the miasmic clouds that waft around the public areas each usually centered on or in the wake of a shambling mumbler. There were several distinct scents afloat in the office areas this morning.
The symphony of smells started before I even got to the library; I stepped out the back door and the whole of my neighborhood smelled like an overheated wire. I even stuck my head back in the house and looked for plumes of smoke above my house and my neighbors' houses. Nothing seemed to be (visibly) burning. ("Smoke, smoke, sign of the devil! City on FIRE!") I guess this beats Dayton's usual pong: something between a fart and aged Gouda.
I stepped into the loading dock and I thought, that smells like elementary school. Scents have always been difficult for me to describe. I know that sense of smell is most closely linked to memory and so I sometimes name a smell with the memory it brings up. (e.g. Hazelnut coffee smells like college. <--I got my first coffeemaker for Christmas my Sophomore year & experienced flavoured coffee for the first time...at every opportunity). This is a slightly industrial smell, a little concretey with a hint of cereal.
In the backroom near my desk, which is actually the most newly remodeled and cleanest part of the back area, smelled of dust. It's a Grandma's attic smell that's strong in my own basement and the lower levels of the library (when said basement and lower levels are not damp).
Near my supervisor's office someone was making coffee...now, this wasn't hazelnut so it didn't sell like college--it smelled like buttered rum...so strongly that the inside of my nose felt a little greasy.
That coffee could be responsible for the smell in the telephone reference room (or maybe someone made popcorn last night) but it smelt of cheap butter salt in TRC.
I moved out to the public area to do my morning walkthrough (this is still pre-patron time) and I thought, doctor's office. Faintly of disinfectant, dust...and very dry. While I was cleaning up a mess out there, the doors opened...and in comes a flood of perfume and body odor and the cold, green smell of early spring.
I haven't been upstairs yet. Last week it smelled of sausage.
Watched an interesting movie last night: Chabrol's "La Damoiselle d'honneur" based on a Ruth Rendell novel. Odd. "Strangers on a Train" meets "Fatal Attracton" inf French. It's definitely worth a watch.
Young man strangely fixated on both his mother and a stone bust meets and is seduced by a stranger young woman who suggests that they prove their love for each other by killing someone.
Very smart dialogur and good performaces...I think I'd like to read the book.
Dayton, Ohio likes to think of itself as a bigger town than it is. A couple years ago even the library changed its name from the more rural sounding "Dayton Montgomery County Public Library" to "Dayton Metro Library." (How cute!) Our population is under 160,000...I think of us as a big town...not even a small city...I know others might not agree.
And I AM quite bitter, though I try my darndest day in and out NOT to be.
I am bitter that Bush was allowed to be appointed to office by his party's Supreme Court appointees in 2000. I'm bitter that he was allowed to lie to congress repeatedly after 9/11 and then allowed to get away with it. I'm bitter that because of those lies my civil rights have been curtailed & race relations have gone into the toilet. I'm bitter that he was allowed to lie to congress about WMD in Iraq and START a war with some yahoo-saber-rattling, tin-pot dictator and screw the world up for generations to come.
I'm bitter that his campaign was allowed to use the issue of gay marriage to steal the election in 2004. I'm bitter that he and his buddies in the Oil Industry have demolished the economy and padded their pockets. I'm bitter that my state is still hemorrhaging jobs, and my city is hemorrhaging people (110,000 since 1960...we're back to 1920 in population). I'm bitter that over 4,000 young people have been stolen from their families and countless people in Iraq (who we never hear about) are dead because of this administration--all that potential forever gone.
I am bitter that what I was taught in elementary school about America has been turned to ashes, that progress has been reversed in science and civil rights and medicine and social equality, that the respect this country once commanded has vanished.
So...yes...I guess you could say I am just a little bitter. And I am ready for change. If I was wavering at all about who I want to see in the White House--the wavering is over.
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