Who am I?

Ok, so all this talking and thinking about Les Mis has got me so excited for the movie.

This little youtube video just popped up on my facebook page today. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwgQjfg0hZw&feature=plcp

Normally I keep my feelings and expectations in check because rarely do movies ever live up to my lowest expectations, but I think somehow I will be blown away. (I hope, I hope, I hope)

Keeping with the title of this post, I'd like to focus on the actors they chose.  Normally, when they pick an actor for a well known character (cough, cough, Robert Pattinson) I'm usually like, Really?!? Him/her?!?, but thankfully not so much this time.

I think Hugh Jackman was probably the perfect choice for Jean Valjean because besides being a big name movie star, he's also an accomplished Broadway performer and has even won a Tony.

I don't know so much about Russell Crowe, (and his musical experience, except I heard he has a band) plus, I think he looks like he will make an awesome Javert.

Of course I'll hold off my final judgment until I see him sing 'Stars'. He better nail it. (of course, that doesn't look like a guy you'd threaten)

I'm really excited about Eponine.  She's not a big name movie star, but she played Eponine in the 25th anniversary production of Les Mis.  The one with Nick Jonas that played on PBS a couple years ago. 

But I'm really, really, excited about the Bishop.  You know, that small part at the beginning, the guy that gives Jean Valjean the candlesticks and changes the course of his life?  That guy. 

Guess who's playing that part?  Colm Wilkinson!   

I know you all know who I am talking about, but just in case someone is having a brain fart and can't place the face with the name, he is the original Jean Valjean. 

As in, he was the first person ever cast as Jean Valjean when it opened in London in 1985, and then when it came to Broadway in 1987, the producers wanted to cast him again as Jean Valjean, but were told no, becuase only American actors can perform on Broadway, so the producers said "Well, if that's the case, then we were just kidding, we don't want to come to America anyway."  And so the powers that be said they were just kidding, and so Colm Wilkinson was the original Jean Valjean in both London and Broadway. 

That's pretty cool huh?

Three more months :)  I can't wait!  (please, please, please don't disappoint) (but I don't think it will!)

~~~~~

"And so Javert, you see it's true, that man bears no more guilt than you.  Who am I? 24601!" - Jean Valjean from Les Miserables

God put a smile upon your face

Guess who got his braces off?

He was very excited.  We've been counting down the days (and then the hours) to the moment when he would be free.  (mostly.  he gets to wear a retainer.)

After over a year and a half of total abstinence, guess what the very first thing he ate was?

One of my caramels.

I promised him a whole batch if he took care of his braces.

He said it was even better than he remembered.

Isn't that a great smile?

~~~~~~~

"Don't ever say you're on your way down... when God gave you style and gave you grace and put a smile upon your face."  - Coldplay

I dreamed a dream

Once upon a time, I had a best friend named Aaron.  We'd spend our time at school passing notes to each other, mostly discussing the girls he liked and what we were going to do that weekend, like whose house we were gonna hang out at or where the nearest stake dance was, and then there were days after school when we'd spend hours on the phone, with me sitting on the stairs with the cord pulled tight and shut in the door to the basement because we didn't have a cordless phone, discussing the girls he liked and where we were gonna hang out on the weekend.  (I never discussed the boys I liked because it was a good bet he'd let it slip within like 2 minutes.)

Good times.

Anyway, we might have spent a good amount of time talking about the girls he liked, but somehow along the way, he introduced me to two of the lifelong loves of my life-  Harry Connick, jr., and Les Miserables.

Today I want to talk about my love affair with Les Mis.

I remember how it started.  I spent two hours one evening sitting on those wooden stairs leading to the basement listening to Aaron explain the entire story to me.  Later at a party at his house, I found the sheet music to "On My Own" just sitting there on the piano, and although I couldn't read the music, the words found their way into my heart.  I'd always been a sucker for the unrequited romance.  At some point I bought the cassette tapes (which I still have).

Then one day the traveling Broadway production company was coming to town.  Aaron and I stood out in the cold (I think it was January or February) for hours, in a line that wrapped around the building, so that we could have the opportunity to buy crappy second balcony seats.

Even from those crappy seats, I knew I had never seen anything so amazing in my life.

I don't even know how many times I've seen it since. I think the number is somewhere between 6 and 10.   My favorite time was when I got to see it in London.  I've always preferred the London soundtrack over the Broadway one.  

Why do I love it so much?  It's hard to say. Or maybe not.  I don't know.  I'm usually not a fan of the tear jerkers, but this makes me cry every time. (knowing this, I still usually forget tissues) I could go into a whole post about the characters I love and why and the themes of love and forgiveness and redemption and charity and sacrifice, but I'd be writing for hours I am sure.

Anyways, as a parent, you dream of being able to share the things you love with your kids, and eagerly anticipate that moment.  I shared with them the story line and the music and although I think ideally I would have preferred to take them to a show at the Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake (cause that's my favorite theatre) we purchased tickets for everyone's birthday when it came to Gammage at ASU this last week. 

So we bought tickets.  Good tickets.  It was for all our birthdays.

And I would love to tell you that it was all worth it.  That I and my kids loved every minute of it.  But I can't.  I think Maddie did, but she is young and naive and hopefully there were things that were over her head.

It was a brand new production for the 25th anniversary of the show.  (whose idea was that anyway?)

For starters they changed the scenery. I've been watching this show for 20 years and this was the first time I'd seen any changes.  The jury is out how I feel about this.  I'm told the backdrop was based on Victor Hugo's art work, and some of it I thought was pretty cool.  I don't like change, and I think mostly I'm of the mind of "Hey, that was great for a change. Now Put It Back."  For instance, in the opening scene, you have the convicts in the prison, but for some reason they were rowing. Like they were on a boat. I don't understand why they were on a boat?  I don't know much about the French prison system from back in the day, so I was very confused as to why they were rowing.

And worse yet, they messed with some of the music. Some songs were faster.  They messed with the tempo.  And the instruments.  There were certain instruments playing that shouldn't have been.  I didn't like it.  The music DEFINITELY needs to be put back.

But worst of all, it was a little more, shall we say mature, than I am used to.  I know parts of it are pretty lewd.  Lovely Ladies comes to mind.  But it was just more so.  And more violent.  And maybe I've gotten more prudish with age, and I think being a parent will probably do that to you, but still.

And then there's the Thenaridier's and the scene at their inn.  First off, I hated the Thenardiers.  I've seen shows where in years past they have stolen the show.  The show is so heavy and dark at moments that it needs a little levity, a little comic relief.   Yeah, it's always been a little crude, but they took it to a whole new level this time.  And the Thenardiers made my skin crawl.  Seriously, I would cringe whenever they were on stage.  There was no comic relief.  But worst of all, there were some things going on during the big Master of the House song which were a little horrifying to me especially sitting next to my two kids.  Despite the fact that the couple was fully clothed, the words "graphic" and "obscene" come to mind.  

Nick asked me about it later.  "So you mentioned they added some stuff to the show that you weren't happy with, what about that part with those people on the balcony?"  "Yes.  Your dad and I were horrified at that.  That was definitely new."  "Oh ok, I was worried you had let me see it knowing it was in there."  (it was that bad!)

When it comes to all of that, they can definitely put it back to the way it was.

It wasn't all bad.  Javert's new suicide scene was pretty awesome. (As far as you can call a suicide awesome.)   Speaking of Javert, both of the performers for he and Jean Valjean were stellar.

And Eponine was AMAZING.  I usually cry when she dies, but I think that was the first time I had literally been moved to tears during her performance of On My Own.  I've heard that song a thousand times by incredibly talented artists, (it's one of my favorites, and as a teenager I identified with the whole unrequited love thing) but I think this was a first for me.

I think I can even settle for a compromise.  The new scenery can stay.  Every other change must go. 

Now I have a new dream.  To take my kids to see the London production of Les Mis.  I did some research and right now they are one of the few (maybe the only one) who are still showing the original production.  Thank heavens for those British and their love of tradition.  Who knows if we will ever make it, but it's good to have a dream.

~~~~~


"I dreamed a dream in time gone by.  When hope was high and life worth living. " - Fantine from Les Miserables. 

Stormy Weather

Right after we moved here to Arizona, I met a girl at the gym and we became friends. 

I mostly thought she was crazy for various reasons I won't get into here, but she was a good workout buddy.  Part of her craziness was that she was quite the control freak, which I used to my advantage cause I knew she would get super mad if I was ever late to the gym (let alone decide to skip a day).

Anyway, (and not that I thought this was particularly crazy, just a little odd at the time) she was all excited one day because the skies were gray and overcast.  "I hate the sunshine! It's so depressing. Some day I am going to move to Oregon or Washington where it is hardly ever sunny!"  I used to think that was a fairly odd point of view. What kind of person hates sunshine?

Of course after living here for another decade, I'm starting to come around to her point of view.

While I still think hate is a strong word when it comes to sunshine, and choosing to live with gray and gloomy skies day after day after day still strikes me as odd, I have long since been able to appreciate the beauty in rainy, gray, overcast days.

Actually I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who has lived in Arizona for more than a year or two who doesn't think rainy days are the best.   The dust storms I think we can all live with out.  We had a pretty good one yesterday, and as I was pulling into the neighborhood where my kids take music lessons, a lady in her car flagged me down.  "We're from out of town, is this normal?  Is it ok to be out driving in this?"  I replied that this was our version of fog and to just take it easy.  As long as you can see around you (vision at that point was limited to about a half a mile) you'll be fine.   Nick and I had a good chuckle over that, (dust! ha! nothing to get too worked up over)  but I am sure that although I grew up driving in it, the thought of driving in snow might actually give me a panic attack.

A friend of mine and I like to go walking together in the mornings, but only during that half of the year where the weather is tolerable.  In other words, it's been months since we've been able to.  But this morning the temperatures were lower (80's) and the skies were overcast, so I wasn't surprised to get a text from her asking if I wanted to go walking.   Given the fact that I could hear thunder in the distance, I responded that I wondered if it would rain, but that I was up for the challenge of beating it. 

Chances are it wouldn't be a sprinkling we would be racing against, it would be a downpour.

As I walked to her house I noticed how absolutely gorgeous the skies were.  Every shade of gray, fighting with each other. Some places looked as though the light was trying to break it's way through, and other areas were so dark it looked fairly menacing.

Seriously gorgeous.  Love. Love. Love.  I don't know that I would be able to live with that on a regular basis, but today all that grayness just lifted my spirits.

We did beat the storm for the most part.  Big fat raindrops started falling as we were parting was on a corner half way between our homes.  It was a full downpour by the time I reached home, and although I was pretty wet, it was actually a welcome relief.  We only walked three miles, and it wasn't too hot out, but it was pretty humid and sticky, so the cool rain felt nice, and I was only out in it for a minute.

So, to sum up-

- It's funny the things you can get used to.  Giant dust storm on the horizon heading straight at you? No biggie.  I've seen worse. That's nothing.  When it looks like a giant wall is coming at you, then you might not want to leave the house.

-I know I've already whined about this, but man, I miss winter. I miss walking and socializing, and getting out and just enjoying being outside.  I wish I could say that today is the beginning of the end (of summer), but I'm not going to hold my breath. Today was just like a lovely little oasis.  I'll take what I can get.

-Despite some one's general appearance of craziness, you might find yourself some day agreeing with some or all of their point of view.  Now who's crazy?

~~~~~~~~

"Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky, Stormy weather.  Since my man and I ain't together.  Keeps rainin' all the time."-  Billie Holiday

The Power of Love

Ok, I know, the title is a stretch.  A big, big stretch. But you try finding songs about computers and more specifically computer storage.

Honestly it was a toss up between Power of Love, and Memories from Cats. And honestly, although I think the Cats one was probably more fitting, but I just couldn't do it. (Sorry aunt Vickie, I just really, really dislike that show.)

So, you know.  Power.  Computers.  They kinda go together. Right?

Anyway...

Once upon a time when I was young and skinny and single and in college, I had computer issues.

 My dad had given me an old computer to take to college and had actually upgraded it so it was a 286 or a 486 or something, with like 40 megs of hard drive space, and I was using WordPerfect and that was fine, it worked for me, until I decided I needed to add Microsoft Word to it because I didn't have a printer, and the school's computer lab only used Word, and naturally those programs were incompatible.

So...

I enlisted the help of Bob, an older guy who worked with me at Media Play (in the computer department with John) and he came over to my apartment one day to help me install it. 

Side story- Bob used to work for the government, and he was kinda crotchety and didn't like most of the cashiers except me.  He thought they were all incompetent idiots.  I thought he was hilarious, one time he came up to my register and looked at the giant Coke display, and made a comment something like this "You know Coke has done a real snow job with those polar bears.  They aren't all cute and cuddly.  Those things would rip your head off as soon as look at you.  Don't ask me how I know this, something to do with the Russians.  If I told you, I'd have to kill you."  And then he just walked off.  But the thing was, I knew he'd meant every word of it.

Anyway, Bob came over with a NFR copy of Word (not for resale - Like a demo copy for the store, but since the store didn't have use for it...) and tried to install it on my computer, except apparently 40 megs of hard drive space is next to nothing.  Just to install it, he had to strip the program down to nothing so that all I could do was type and save to a floppy disk.

John heard about the pathetic-ness of my computer and jumped in to help (I can't remember if we had started dating yet, or were still "just friends")  He managed to procure me a hard drive with a whole gigabyte of space on it for only $50.  (it was worth at least $500 back in the day) (Wow, isn't it good to have friends with connections?)

Of course I was like "A Gig?!?!  When am I EVER going to need a GIG?!?!?"   I thought it was total over-kill.  I was totally dumbfounded and one might say I pitched a bit of a fit. (Cause that amount of space was crazy!)  But at that price, it was a heck of a lot cheaper than something half the size so I went with it.

Fast forward to now. 

I'm having storage issues.  Once again my hard drive isn't big enough. 

See that big red line?  It's not supposed to be red.  It's telling me I am quickly running out of space on my laptop.  I only have 12 gigabytes of space left.  I'm seriously in crisis mode over here.   I think most of it might be pictures,  and I suppose I could save the older stuff to disks somewhere, or better yet send them to Costco to be printed AND save them to disks, but I like the convenience of being able to go back and find an old picture that fits my story (see the above picture of me) and add that to my ramblings.

Good thing I know a guy... Unfortunately I think it will cost more than $50.

~~~~~~


"The power of love is a curious thing.  Make a one man weep, make another man sing" - Huey Lewis and the News

American Pie

Several months ago, my good friend Chelsa sent me an email with a link to one of those group discount coupon things.   This one was a two for one cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu.  (Not the professional "I wanna be a pastry chef" classes, more the "I want to not suck when I make stuff for my family" kind of classes. Apparently they do both kinds there.)  "You wanna do this with me?"

It was a no brainer. "YES!"

It took awhile for us to coordinate schedules, and finally with time running out, and only like 4 classes left to choose from which included things like making salads (might be informative, but not exciting), brining and smoking meat (don't have a smoker), etc. So we settled on a pie making class.

Here's where my snobbishness is gonna show through.

It was fun, but Paris was so much better. (you can read about that adventure here and here  which by the way, as I was re-reading those posts, I had to laugh because I actually compared it to Le Cordon Bleu, and in my head the bigger institution came out the winner. Ha! )

First off, there were like 20 people in the class (compared to 5 in Paris) and we sat on stools around the demonstration table while we took notes and were shown how to make pie crusts.  Then, we got to back to our station for the "hands on" part where we were handed pre-made and pre-rolled out dough and we pressed it into the bottom of the pie pans. (we each made three pies)  I felt like I was being humored as they had us roll it out slightly to make it a little thinner if it was too thick for pressing into the pan.

Then we went back to the demonstration table where they showed us how to make three different pie fillings- apple, cherry, and lemon. After that we went back to our stations where they ladled the pre-made fillings into our pie crusts.

I kinda felt like a kid in a kitchen helping my mom to cook.  And by "helping" I mean dumping pre-measured ingredients into a bowl. Not anything remotely difficult. The only part I actually felt like I was doing anything was when we did the top crusts, or piped on the meringue. I did those myself, and was especially proud of the lattice crust. And using a blow torch on the meringue is always fun. ( I was seriously surprised they let us do that for ourselves. )

The apple pie was by far my favorite.  It turned out the best.  I don't think they cooked the lemon curd long enough because hours later when I cut into the pie, the lemon was still soupy and just completely spilled out every where.  And I thought the cherry had no flavor.  I know that the quality of fruit can make or break a recipe, so I don't know where the fault lies (recipe or ingredients) but I was disappointed.

On a more positive note-

Hanging with Chelsa is always fun. Paying half price for something AND hanging out with someone awesome? Win-wn.  I can't think of a time I didn't have fun with her.  I also did learn a few things. Like the pros and cons of flaky vs mealy pie crusts.  And that lattice pie crusts aren't as difficult as they look.

Would I do it again?   Maybe. But I definitely wouldn't pay full price.  If the right opportunity came along with the right price and the right person(s), then I would definitely think about it.

~~~~~~

"Now do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul? And can you teach me how to dance real slow?" - Don McLean