odds and ends

I have been more than a little neglectful of this blog lately. As the August is turning to September the pace of things has been picking up both at home and at work. As far as work goes, my big goal for the summer was to get the theatre recarpeted. That was accomplished last week. After jumping thru all the hoops of the university bureaucracy, the actually work only took three days. The new carpet looks fine; it is darker color than the original, which I hope, will not show stains like the older lighter carpet. Woes betide they who spill the first soda or cup of coffee on the carpet. Supposedly no food or beverages are allowed in the theatre, this is not really a problem for events in the space but it is used as a classroom during the daytime and the students ignore pretty much all the rules. And it is my experience that most of them don’t seem to care, given the amount of empty cans, bottles and food wrappers left after a class.

One final work project is to refocus many of the stage lights and replace the color in them before the beginning of term. The lights get bumped and moved the course of the year, and the gel coloring the lights begins to fade over time, so at least once a
year the lights need to be checked and maintained. It is a slow job, each light needs to be turned on, checked, focused and recolored and then compared to any lights that it is working with as a group. It means a lot of ladder work, or in the case of the front coves, crawling along a metal catwalk. The latter part I really enjoy, NOT! I dragged the boy into work with me to help out one day last week, (His summer program finished a week or so ago and he doesn’t start back to school ‘til Sept 9!) I positioned him on the floor with the remote control unit for the dimmers and had him turn the lights on while I did the physical labor. It worked out pretty well, he got the hang of the remote quickly and with his help it cut a couple hours of the job that day.

Keeping him busy when both his mother and I work is tricky. Beside the me keeping him busy at my work, his mother has also brought him with her on a few days. She has had him stuffing envelopes for a mailing that she is sending out, and on another day they needed some kids to be models for a local ad campaign they are doing so he was up for that. Who knows his picture may be all over in New England publications in a month or two.

We have been invaded by Guitar Hero. This is another reason the get the boy out of the house for hours at a time. He had wanted the game for sometime, but we had resisted. While visiting Seattle he had the opportunity to play the game with his cousins, which only increased his desire for the game. Upon our return to Boston the entreaties increased, so we told him that if he wanted it, he had to buy it himself. And that he did. He had a little money saved from different sources and by saving his allowance for a couple of weeks he had enough cash to make the purchase. Off to Best buy and then back home again to marathon of hard rock hits of the 70’s through today. He took to the game almost instantly. The little bit of playing he did is Seattle gave him the basics, but his actually guitar playing gave him the dexterity he needed. Within a day or two he had pretty much mastered the ‘medium’ level of the game, having bypassed the ‘easy’ level as being just that, too easy. Part of the fun of the game is to hit enough consecutive ‘notes’ too activate ones ‘star power’. This is a bonus phase where one has to use all you rock and roll moves to get extra point and earn larger bonuses. The object of the game is to play each song well enough get earn money to purchase new songs to play, add additional character and buy different guitars. It is fun to watch him play. If only he would put as much time and effort into his real guitar playing. But isn’t that the lament of every parent? One small consolation in all of this is that his preferred songs all tend to be good solid rock classics, and not too many head bangers from the 70’s, and now he wants to learn a few of the songs for real. I will admit to trying the game for a few minutes, only to find that I really suck at it. I think I need to spend some time in ‘practice mode’ while no one else is around.

As the summer winds down, one of the things I will miss is the gathering in the ‘triangle’ across the street from our house. The triangle in a vacant lot the neighborhood has been tending as a green space for the last 25 years or so. We make a point of gathering at least once a week for a potluck barbeque. There are a couple of stalwarts who come every week, we being one of them, and then some who just stop in occasionally for a little food and a few laughs. We are a diverse bunch, professionals, artists, stay at home moms, and retired; you name it. We gather, we cook, we eat, we drink a bit and on Sunday nights try to drown out the services at the adjacent Baptist church with out laughter. I think it is unusual these days for people to get together with their neighbors on a regular basis like this. It really makes a community out of our little street.

Miss Carol gives the boy a pointer on a karate move.