Merry Auld Aquaintence

The lights of my life

Hello, lovely readers! It's been a long time.

You may think I've been sitting around licking my Blogger Idol wounds. I'm happy to say, you'd be wrong.

The last few weeks have seen my little family travel up to Minnesota, spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa, come back again, and watch "My Neighbor Totoro" five thousand times as we recover from a cold virus that might actually be a terrorist chemical agent. I'm not sure. So far no casualties, so I'll assume it was actually just a bout of run-of-the-mill Black Death.

Something magical happened over Christmas. (Never thought you'd hear this Jewish girl say that, didja?) I was too ill to take pictures.

I don't have pictures of my children playing with our friends' kids. That amazing thing that happens- despite never seeing these people you love, YOUR children and THEIR children... they play together. And it's incredible.

I don't have pictures of SI begging Aunt Engineer to take her down the water slide over and over and over again. (Yes, there were water slides this Christmas.) And I don't have video of my humiliatingly public screaming as *I* went down the big water slide.

Reading "Rosie Revere, Engineer"

I don't have pictures of RH at church, laying on the floor with her feet against mine, giggling happily, oblivious to the full congregation or the organist three feet from her head.

I don't have pictures of my children hugging their great-grandmother and telling her thank you for their presents. I don't have pictures of RH hamming it up in the middle of the room with an old toy train and a Care Bear.

I don't have pictures of her sitting like a perfect angel in a tiny chair at the coffee table on Christmas Eve, eating her broccoli off her plate without a care in the world, or a picture of my big girls sitting with their big kid cousins at the big table, participating in their games like children do.

I don't have pictures of them playing Uncle Engineer's drums, riding his tractor tricycle, or trimming Aunt Engineer's Christmas tree. I don't have pictures of them coloring at brunch. I don't have pictures of them making their first Gingerbread Houses.

I do have pictures of the finished products
Aunt Engineer, SI, DD, and me

I only took a few dozen pictures of my children all week. And partially, I'm embarrassed. And I'm sorry. I would have treasured those pictures.

And partly I'm glad, because part of me is tired of always being behind the lens. Of observing and not participating. I feel I do it too much. I'm doing it now.

I did manage to take a few pictures. Of DD and SI playing their new harmonicas (SI is a natural). Of M and Grandpa putting the angel on the tree. Of my children continuing the only Christmas tradition I've ever started- actually eating the apples in their stockings on Christmas morning.

This year is was DD and RH. I'm very proud.

2013 was a long, exciting year. It was a year when I didn't get pregnant or have a baby, it was a year when we assured that I never would again. My children grew, and grew, and grew, and now here we are. Still a family. Still growing.

I've had a lot of chaotic, terrifying, or simply bad years in my life. More than my share, that is for certain. But 2013 was not one of them. For all its frustrations and irritations, this year has done more for me than many. It has done more than most. It has offered me a promise- the next year will only be better.

I wish that promise to all of you. For every year.

Tonight I'm going to mash some potatoes, drink some champagne, and hug my children tightly when I say goodnight.

Tonight I'm going to welcome the new year with old friends, with favorite pastimes, with laughter and promise.

And of course with more Batman stuff than you can shake a stick at.

Thank you for everything, 2013. I will not miss you, I have no doubt 2014 will keep me too busy for that. But I am grateful. And I will always look back to 2013 as a good year, when everyone was happy, and everyone was loved, and the world was full of magic and joy.

Happy New Year.

Brand New Day

That's me- dressed to sing madrigals at Faire
In other words, I am a musical theater nerd.

This week on Mix Tape Tuesday, the theme is... whatever I want it to be! So you can bet I'm finally going for a theme that I hold back on EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Musicals.

Why do they have such a bad rep? Why is it that musical theater is relegated to the deepest, darkest corners of geekdom? I can come out and say for all to hear that I FUCKING LOVE VOYAGER and that the Delphic Expanse is the scariest shit in the entire Star Trek universe... but I can't get some love for some show tunes?

Honestly, geeks. Shut up and dance. And I mean, with choreography. Put on your freakin' tap shoes.

Here, for your enjoyment, are my favorite songs from my favorite musicals. Enjoy the hell out of them.




First up- some Sondheim. A little info on the song and the scene. "A Little Night Music" is all about missed opportunities, sexual tension, regrets, and longing. The only character who is happy with her life and lot, who doesn't pine for the past and weep in the present... is this one. She's a servant, and she doesn't give a crap about all the drama going on with her employers and their crazy relationships. She's a realist. And I love her life's philosophy.



This song makes me cry but HARD. Not only is it one of the sweetest love songs I know, but as with all musicals, the killer is context. This is the second appearance of the song in the play. The first time is when Angel and Collins fall in love. They sing this song to each other, in a happy, upbeat, gleeful way. When Angel dies, Collins sings the same song- he's saying that her death changes nothing. That not even death can change the way he feels. Oh- and the coat he's carrying... that coat was the first gift she ever gave him.

My first words when I walked out of the theater after seeing the film adaptation was, "Well, that was a pop culture abortion."* This scene still slays me.



Let's get happy for a minute. What? You've never heard of Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog? Where have you been?!? Maybe there's a funnier, quirkier, more delightful bit of actually tragic musical storytelling out there. If you find it, let me know.

While we're on the subject of pure entertainment...



Oh, Angela Lansbury. How I love you. I love a good burn, and this song is just the most morbid ways Sondheim could come up with to make fun of people of different professions. "The problem with Poet is how do you know it's deceased?" HA!



While we're being morbid, let's get a little more serious. If you haven't heard of this show CHECK IT OUT. It is spectacular. It's essentially a biography of Andrew Jackson, told as a rock opera. This number is an account of his systematic persecution of Native Americans. The staging is chilling. And of course, each "little Indian" is a metaphor for the different actions Jackson took against native people.

Keeping it serious...



About once a week, I need a good cry. And I almost always go for a musical. This song- this song will do it. Most adaptations of brilliant books don't hold up. This is a HUGE exception. The Color Purple is devastating. And the play... Through the whole thing, Celie is just crapped on all over by life. Her father rapes and impregnates her and then takes the baby away- probably to kill it- TWICE. He sells her to a horrible, abusive man. He threatens her sister, who then disappears into Africa. And then, finally, somebody rescues her. A woman saves her from her abuser, and they fall in love. Then one day that woman tells her she's leaving for a teenaged boy. Celie, who's spent nearly the entire play curled over herself, singing softly and meekly and fearfully cringing from everyone on the stage... she stands up and sings THIS.

And I weep inconsolably.



In addition to being SUPER upset whenever source material is crapped all over in a reproduction, I get ridiculously upset when something is taken out of context to give it a totally new meaning. Every time I hear this song in a car commercial, a little piece of my soul dies.

This is NOT a happy song. The premise of this scene (the finale) is that Berger sneaks into the barracks to replace his friend for an afternoon so he can spend a little time with his girlfriend before he's shipped off to Vietnam. Only orders come while he's there, and Berger is shipped off in his place, and he dies in Vietnam. "Let the Sun Shine" is a call for peace in the midst of a culture of death.

Whenever I hear this song, I cry. And that makes me all the angrier that I'm crying at ads for sandwiches or Labor Day sales.



Back to happy! One of the many reasons I hate Disney's Cinderella is that I grew up on Rogers and Hammerstein's version. Which is superior in every conceivable way. Music being the first and foremost.



While we're on the subjects of musical numbers I love because of my own life being filled with musicals... The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I used to audition with this song. It is NOT EASY. There are about a million key changes in there, and it's so simply orchestrated- really lets the soloist stand out. (Can you tell why I love it?) And that last phrase... so many key changes in one sentence. What a great finale. So Bond.



Oh, how I love this musical...

Whenever I need a pick-me-up. If I'm down in the dumps, or over exhausted, or hungry, or anything... the cast of the Book of Mormon can pull me out of my sorrows and make me laugh.

And thank you, Church of Latter Day Saints, for advertising all over the Playbill for this musical. You guys are real sports.



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*Those words exactly.