Cultural Popcorn

I received my first Christmas card of the season today, from my high school World Cultures teacher.  World Cultures was one component of a course called “Humanities.”  It included, aside from World Cultures, Speech and English class as well.

Looking back at that course from my life now, I’m almost tempted to laugh.  A sad, somewhat disbelieving, somewhat awed chuckle with a hint of mirth.  She taught us so much, tried to teach us so much more.  She was herself quite cultured in the world and endeavored to share all her experiences with her students.  We were not cultured, our blue-collar town on the edge of a decaying manufacturing giant, a city with ethnic lines left from immigration patterns a hundred years ago, a place where we could tell the difference between those with German, Polish or Swedish heritage, but not between the first-generation Chinese, Vietnamese or Laotian immigrants.  A classroom full of students the majority of whom, I can say from my last high school reunion, were not destined for four-year college or moving out of the state.

It was the 1996-97 school year; she tried to teach us about the Rwandan genocide.  The facts were learned, but nothing really sank in until last year when I saw Unexplored Interior at Mosaic Theater here in D.C.  Her teaching had put a seed in my head, but not like a bean seed to sprout and grow gradually, like a popcorn seed that exploded with meaning and awe as I started to understand just what she had taken on in even trying to get us to understand something so inconceivable to our young minds even while the world was still seeking to understand how and why and what.

She brought in couscous for us try on a world food day.  I’d never heard of it before; I don’t think any of us in class had ever had it before.  I liked it but went home and ate my potatoes and veggies; for the next dozen-some years couscous remained an exotic dish to come across in the fancy instant-food section of the grocery store where very salty little just-add-water cups of soup and grain appeared.  Now, there are 6 tubs of couscous in my pantry, owing to my inability to properly manage my Amazon Subscribe and Save subscriptions, or my ability to accidentally order massive quantities of things I don’t need---however you want to view it.

She organized and chaperoned a group trip to Paris---she was also the French teacher---giving us opportunities to see places like Versailles and Monet’s garden up close.  Again, places I wouldn’t even begin to understand until much later, until some other experience of life connected dots she’d drawn on my brain.

There are probably many more seeds sitting in my head, waiting to pop, many more dots on my brain waiting for life to draw the connecting lines.

I thought of her last week, standing in Switzerland, looking at artistic Christmas cards written in French, wondering if she could have imagined this 20 years ago, imagined that I’d be standing there, in Geneva, yards from my ridiculously fancy hotel, in a suit, on official travel, staring at tiny paper birds adorning a script “Meilleurs Voeux.”  She always saw so much more in us than we could possibly see in ourselves.  She challenged us to dream beyond our classroom walls, our snowy streets, our giant lake.

She taught us about far-off places I thought I’d never see and tried to get us to see the same in the differences, the us in every them.

I am so very thankful for that, and thankful that my Christmas season has begun with a beautiful card from her and a thoughtful note that continues to emphasize the us in every them.  

Are Those Ruffles Under Your Skirt?

Ruffles!

"I call dibs on the bloomers in Mommy's sewing room!" I yelled to my sisters over Twitter.  I'd found them lying around, probably on a pile on the large cutting table that had been pushed to the wall to make room for Munchkinhead and me to share an air mattress on the floor.  It was the ruffles that first got my eye.  Ruffled eyelet against more ruffles in a sort of softened army green.  I love ruffles, almost as much as I love sparkles.

"What's this?"  I picked them up and unfolded them.  "Bloomers!"  Mommy quickly informed me that Munchkinhead had already told her she couldn't get rid of them and very well might have plans for them.  Like an eager toddler yelling "MINE!", I pulled them on, over the skirt of the black suit I was still wearing from playing grown-up at work earlier in the day.  But that was hours ago and 1,000 miles away, literally.  Now, I was home, in Mommy's house, where no one ever grows up,  delighting in the ruffled bloomers with the elastic that easily went over my skirt and rested snuggly against my waist.  "They fit!  They fit!"  I jumped up-and-down.  That means they won't fit Munchkinhead.  I call dibs!"  I tweeted Munchkinhead and Alfred to let them know.  Alfred more as a courtesy, in case aliens had invaded her brain and made her suddenly interested in ruffled bloomers.

Toro toro toro!

Munchkinhead was glad of my excitement.  She had been disappointed that the bloomers did not fit her.  Like many things in Mommy's sewing room, no one had any idea where they'd come from.  Munchkinhead had forbidden Mommy from getting rid of them not because of some grand plan in mind, but because she did not want to see something so wonderful as bull-fighter-covered ruffled bloomers tossed away.   Yes, upon examining them more closely, later in the evening while playing board games with family and The Great Ecclestone, I discovered the pattern on these darling things was little bull fighters waving soft army green cloth in front of angry stamping dark green bulls.  How deliciously what-the-vampire.

I wore those bloomers most of the weekend, sometimes as shorts with a t-shirt---because Mommy's house is the only place one can look that ridiculous---sometimes under my dresses like proper bloomers go.  Then I could tumble in the grass and hang from the swingset to my heart's delight.  And Mommy didn't need to worry about saying, "get down from there, you have a dress on."  I love bloomers.

Bloomers or the clothesline

For Rain or Shine

“Mommy, can we do the umbrella class at Bungalow?”  “Well, ok,” she said, neither of us realizing what we were getting ourselves into.  I don’t know what we thought making an umbrella entailed.  A couple hours?  Some scissors?  Magic?  Well, it turns out to be a little more than a couple hours,  a little more than some scissors, and no magic.

The hardest part was choosing the fabric.  I had a concept in my head, but nothing was singing out to me, and the fabrics I kept finding myself drawn to didn’t match a thing in my wardrobe.  Mommy, however, little over achiever that she is, found her fabric right away.  She was a good deal of the way into assembling her umbrella before I had my fabric selected.

Mommy chose two complimentary fabrics: a cute  print on white with 1950s-style Parisian women doing things around Paris, shopping, sitting at a cafe, standing by the Champs Elyse or near the Eifel Tower; and a large grey polka dot on white. 

I chose a black and white print of cityscape silhouettes, people in business clothes going here and there with briefcases interspersed with large round clock faces and park bench scenes. I liked the modern, busy city feel of the images combined with the old-fashioned simplicity of black & white.  It seemed perfect for a busy city like D.C.  I had some trouble choosing a complimentary fabric, but eventually went with a black, grey and white flower on a variegated pink background.  I hedged a bit, looked at lots of fabrics, and pretty much just went with this combo because I was tired of looking and race-horse Mommy was on her third lap.  And being the little trouble-maker that I am, that wasn’t enough.  I decided I wanted a binding along the bottom and picked black with small white polka dots.  Mommy and the lady helping us, Peggy, cut the polka dots into strips and ironed it into double-fold bias tape.

First step to making umbrellas is to cut out your 8 panels.  Then – here’s where things seem a little backwards – you hem them each individually.  Since I was putting on binding instead of hemming, I had to sew each bias strip onto the bottom of my panels while Mommy hemmed hers (well after Mommy hemmed hers cuz I’m a slow poke).

Next, you sew all the pieces together, being sure to leave an opening at the top for the umbrella post.  You also make a strap to wrap around the umbrella and hold it closed and stitch that onto the umbrella.  It turns out those are the easy parts.  Then, you put your machine away and take out the hand needle.  Oh boy.

The umbrella frame is kind of scary on its own, like a giant pokey spider.   It comes with 9 parts to be assembled onto the frame, 8 little metal tips and 1 cap.  The metal tips are sewn onto the umbrella covering and then lock onto the ends of the metal frame.  The tips are sort of like little metal tube socks.  At the top end, there’s holes in the metal across from each other for stitching the tips to the umbrella.  It’s a little tricky at first, and it helps a lot to safety pin the tips to the umbrella covering and slip onto the frame first, then slip them off the frame one-at-a-time to sew individually, removing the safety pin after a few stitches.  The really cool part about this step is you get to see how your umbrella’s going to look!

We had to go home before I got to sewing on the tips, but Mommy was able to finish her umbrella during the class.  After she sewed on all the tips, Peggy helped her glue the cap onto the top of the umbrella.

Next, Mommy sewed each seam to the umbrella frame.  When she got home, she added a button and button-hole to the closure strap.

 

 

Voila!  A beautiful umbrella.

 

Mommy’s going to spray hers with waterproofing so that it can actually be used as an umbrella.  I want mine to be a parasol for the hot D.C. summer sun, so I’m not spraying it with waterproofing.  I originally wanted to add lace to it, before I picked out my fabrics, and am still toying with the idea.  But for now, here’s my parasol.

 

It wound up perfectly matching the outfit I had on that day, the polka-dotted side of my wrap skirt and a light pink blouse with black and white spectator stilettos.  Goes ok with my suit, too.

A Dear John Letter to Milwaukee

Dear Milwaukee,

You know I love you.  I do.  Your frozen custard, your seasons, your traffic-free streets and super cheap parking, the way I can get anywhere in twenty minutes, how wonderful it is to see family so frequently.  But, it’s time to go, time for us to part ways again. You make me so very happy, but I want more from life than contentment.  I want adventure.  I have more to give than you can let me offer.

So I’m off, onto something new and big and scary and exciting.

Let others love you as I have, as I do.  Love them back.  And when we meet again, I hope it can be happiness enough to share another moment in time.

Love,
me

 

 

 

Backdated to leaving

Sophisticated Sunday

This Sunday, Munchknihead and I had a theater day.  It turned out to be more of a “professional imitations of life with the Schultzes” day, but it was still rather fun.

Show One

The first show we say was The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] at Milwaukee Chamber Theater.  The play very much reminded me of the NG antics the neighbor kids and us would get into in Mommy and Daddy’s basement.  Friends goofing around, grabbing this thing and that for props, wearing Christmas tree skirts, writing scripts, goofing around, pretending there was an audience.  In that sense, it felt a little silly to have paid to come watch such a thing.

The show was amusing – although honestly the most amusing part was watching a bunch of 70 year-old white woman laugh at what they probably didn’t know was a “Gin and Juice” parody.  I especially loved the local things worked in, like the cheeshead.  The four-man cast included Rick Pendzich, who played Max in the Lend Me a Tenor show Munchkinhead and I saw in April. He’s excellent, and so pretty to look at I’d probably watch him play a tree.

The show’s good for quite a few laughs, and now I know the plot lines to a lot more Shakespeare plays.  It runs at the Chamber Theater through December 14th, so there’s still time to check it out. Warning, it’s somewhat interactive – How Munchkinhead and I keep accidentally going to interactive theater, I don’t know!  Tickets.

Dinner

After playing dress-up with the Shakespeareans, Munchkinhead and I decided to do dinner somewhere on KK we hadn’t been yet.  So we drove down KK.  We seemed to comment more on the places we had been, as if checking off “nope, can’t go there.”  As we neared the end of the Bay View part of KK, we passed Pastiche.  Neither of us had been there, so we triangled around the block (KK is a crooked street) and parked next to the restaurant.  

Woo eee! Fancy!  There was a couple dining there so finely dressed, the man entered in a top hat, a long black coat with a cape on the shoulders and a tall cane with a metal knob.  Very elegant!  There was a sign on the table in French.  Neither Munchkinhead or I knew enough French to parse it out completely, so we took out our phones to find out what it said.  It said “please don’t use your mobile devices.”  Oops!  Good thing we had explained to the waitress when she came to take our order that we were just looking up the words we didn’t know.  She politely explained douphinoise potatoes to us.

The food was delicious.  Munchkinhead even had the waitress pair a wine with her meal!  Though I still don’t understand ratatouille; it always feels like someone forgot to put pasta under the sauce.

Show Two

After dinner, we headed back downtown to see Harvey at the Rep.  Yup, we went from four guys playing in their basement to a man with a giant invisible rabbit.  You see what I mean about this “life with the Schultzes” thing?  (Lewin would.) 

Harvey is a very cute play, so of course the show was cute.  But it wasn’t nearly as good as the production I saw with Daddy Bunny (his post here) at the Contra Costa Civic Theater.  The Rep has a much bigger budget and quite frankly, it just feels like they’re trying too hard.  A lot of the characters felt too high-strung.  Not quite over-acting but ridiculously intense in a way that made intermission feel like coming up for air.  The one exception to that was Mr. Wilson, played by Justin Brill, who felt properly toned.  The person in a bunny suit behind the windows was also over the top.  Imagination is far more powerful than a man in a bunny suit.

Still, as I said, Harvey is a very cute play.  It’s running at the Rep through December 21.  Tickets.

9ja in Mill-town

Thanks to huge heads from my buddy, Midwestphoto, I learned that Milwaukee has a Nigerian culture festival.  Woo hoo!  Now how could I miss out on that?  It was held at the Nigerian Community Center up on Appleton Ave at W. Hampton.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was sure it would be an adventure.

I had to laugh as I pulled up to the building.  The parking lot was being used for the festival, so attendees had to park on the street.  Except the street was under construction.  The far left lane was torn up, a lane of gravel about 4” lower than the street itself, marked off by orange construction barrels.  So where had the Nigerian’s parked?  In the under-construction lane.  They’d just driven between the barrels, gone down the lip and parked on the gravel.  I went the extra 20ft to the end of the block, turned onto the cross street and parked on the empty street.

At the festival, people were milling around inside and out.  Lots of bright colors and a mix of Western and Nigerian clothes, just like in Abuja.  The inside of the community center had something going on in nearly every room.  Outside, a stage area was set up and a row of booths ran down the parking lot from the stage to a giant bouncy castle.

The festival booths reminded me a lot of the booths at the Nigerian Bar Association Meeting I attended several years ago, except without the magical potions.  There were clothing booths with both traditional and club wear, and lots of food vendors.  All of the food vendors were local catering companies.  I talked to a couple of them.  They make the food in their homes and then take it to whatever function has hired them.  As most Nigerian food is not vegetarian-friendly, I had only a couple of fried plantains off my friend’s plate.

We watched two fashion shows: a club wear show and a traditional wear show.  Both shows featured local designers.  The club wear  show models were all grown-ups (thank goodness!), and many of the outfits were rather risque.  There was one white model and in one of the outfits, you could see her lower back tattoo through the dress fabric.  None of the club wear left much to the imagination.

Outfit at the club fashion show

The traditional fashion show models were area students.  They looked awesome.  Some of them were a little shy and it was adorable.  The designer had tried to feature outfits from multiple tribes.  The models had to change very quickly and there weren’t a lot of them, so there was often a lull.  But, the show overall was very nice and well done.  Plus, the soundtrack for this fashion show was all Nigerian music. :)

Outfits at Traditional fashion show

Other performances on the stage area included a gentleman playing the talking drum and cultural dancers.  The event was running about 2 hours behind the program schedule (I wouldn’t have expected anything else), so we didn’t stick around for the cultural dancers.

We did, however, check out the story time inside.  That was very interesting.  Gentlemen from different tribes took turns presenting traditional stories from their particular tribes.  Mostly.  There was a great rendition of the story about why the tortoise's shell is cracked.  But there was one guy who got up and instead of telling a story – maybe he did eventually – he went on a 10 minute rant – at least - about how his tribe was the best tribe in Nigeria.  Sadly, this was less surprising than it ought to be.  I don’t know if he ever got to a story because we, like many others in the room, left.

Overall, it was a very fun afternoon.  I felt a bit like I was back in 9ja.  The Nigerian Community Center is having an Independence Day Celebration on Oct. 4th.  Maybe I’ll go check it out.  Maybe I’ll even be gutsy enough to wear one of my traditional outfits.

After enjoying enough Nigerian fun for an afternoon, I went for absolute culture-shift shock and headed to Cudahy for Sweet Applewood Fest. Twenty minutes and a world away.

Adventures with Ivory and Munchkinhead: German Fest

One of the best parts about Milwaukee is the weekend ethnic festivals down at the lakefront.  Back in June, Munchkinhead and I headed down to check out Polish Fest.  In July, we headed to German Fest.

German Fest had lots of fun adventures.  We started in the culture tent where we learned about different German groups in the area, perused some fancy crafts and practiced our colors auf Deutsch with one of the local immersion schools.  We also entered a raffle which resulted in us being on the mailing lists for darn near every county in the state.

We went through the various shopping plaza areas.  Munchkinhead got some sort of adorable shirt.  For a moment, I wanted a drindl; then I saw the price tag.  I was also eyeing up a very non-German handkerchief dress, but decided not to get one.

There were a lot of patrons in lederhosen and drindls, which was pretty awesome.  The music was fabulous – lots of trombones in the various large bands on stage.  And all around, happy, smiling, rather large folks enjoying the best Milwaukee’s Germans have to offer.

The best part of the summer ethnic festivals is always the food.  Mmmm… German food, so many options for a vegetarian.  Wait. What?  Well at least Munchkinhead found some super good eats and shared her sauerkraut wit mir.  I found my own deliciousness from the roasted nut haus.  Mmmm.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Yesterday, we celebrated Mommy’s birthday.  It’s been all the buzz around these parts, “Mommy’s sixty!”  “Mommy’s turning sixty?!”  “Can you believe Mommy’s sixty?!”  But it didn’t really hit me until we were sitting at her birthday dinner and I saw the front of the card Munchkinhead made her.  “Happy 60th Birthday Mother.”

The numbers looked big and scary.  60?  I feel like I remember when my grandparents turned 60.  Maybe I do, maybe I don’t really, but it’s a number I associate with a certain image that Mommy doesn’t fit at all.  The math may say 60, but the fun factor is still stuck at 32, or at least somewhere in the 30s.

Just the other day, Mommy and I were in the pool pretending our floaty rafts were bumper cars and crashing into each other.  Old people tell me all the time, “when I was younger, I used to wear shoes like you; when you’re older you’ll be stuck in ugly shoes like mine.”  But Mommy’s shoes are still as fun as mine, so she can’t be old.

We had a fun evening out on for her birthday.  First, we all went to Cafe Centraal for birthday dinner.  Minus the less-than-stellar surprise live music, it was quite fun.  Munchkinhead was the designated driver and drove Daddy’s car.  Daddy called dibs on the front seat even though it was Mommy’s birthday and Mommy let him take it.  She, RonnyLew and I squeezed into the back.  And I do mean squeezed.  Munchkinhead dropped everyone off near the door and I took over the wheel for parking just in case parallel parking was required.  After dinner, we took Daddy home and went to Leon’s for frozen custard.  Yum!

I’m guessing Mommy finished the evening in her sewing room. That may sound like an old-people thing to do, but she’s been spending evenings in her sewing room since I was a little girl, so it’s not.

Happy Birthday Mommy!  This one’s for you.

Adventures with Ivory and Munchkinhead: Harley Museum

Back near the start of summer (when it was still cold), Milwaukee had a gallery night in which downtown galleries and museums were open for free to the public, including the Harley Davidson museum.  Munchkinhead and I didn’t actually know it was gallery night, we just knew the Harley museum was free that evening.  We both love Harleys – I mean, we are from Milwaukee – so we headed down to check it out.

The museum was really neat!  Munchkinhead had been to the Harley museum before, so she was sort of my tour guide.  We started upstairs, looking at the history of the company.  I was spent a bunch of time reading the old incorporation documents and board meeting minutes and such.  Munchkinhead liked the old pictures and history of how the bikes had changed.

We learned some neat stuff looking at the wall of gas tanks.  Neither of us realized AMF – as in the bowling company – had bought Harley at one point, or the fight that was put up to buy it back.  I also learned that Harleys used to be the racing bikes.  That surprised me a lot.  Munchkinhead already knew this because she’d seen the exhibit before.

There was a photo gallery that featured some pretty crazy people riding all over the place.  And an ears-on exhibit where you could test your knowledge of the classic Harley sound.  Telling a weedwacker from a Harley was easy; telling a crotch rocket from a Harley wasn’t too hard, but trying to tell one Harley engine from another, I had no idea.

Of course, the best part of the museum was the seats-on part where we could sit on different Harleys.

Munchkinhead like the army bike, of course.

 

And then she made me get on the scooter because she thought it went well with my outfit.

There was also a stick-your-head-here place where you could pretend to be Evel Knievel.  The giant face-less photo had a platform behind it that made it rather difficult for me to be Evel.

 

I still tried though.

Adventures with Ivory and Munchkinhead: Polish Fest

Luckily, that one part of a weekend I was home in June was Polish Fest weekend.  I love me some ethnic lakefront festivals.

Munchkinhead and I both have ridiculously crazy schedules, but we decided we could spare a couple hours for Sunday’s Polish Fest, especially since tickets bought before noon were only $4 each.  We started the day with church and went from church down to the Festival grounds.

Polish Fest is one of the smaller festivals – well I guess they’re all small compared to SummerFest – but there’s still plenty to do.  We checked out the special exhibit on Polish citizens who hid Jews in their homes during the Nazi occupation.  There were lots of pictures and personal stories.  We saw the standard commemorative board display for Pope John Paul.  We looked at the Polish rabbits and chickens.  We browsed through shops – were Ivory got to have her little moment of I-don’t-think-their-trademark-attorneys-would-like that.

But who knows, maybe those actually were licensed.  Anyway…

Munchkinhead and I also listened to plenty of polka at multiple performance stages and at the obligatory pierogies.

It was a short adventure, but we had a lot of fun.  And went home with a jar of fried carrot.

AMAZING!!!

When Alfred and I were little, we had a couple of cassette tapes that we absolutely loved.  Somehow, Mommy seems to now hate the one that was mine yet still enjoy the one that was Alfred’s, but I digress.

One of the fabulous songs from Wendy’s Little Brown Tape, which has made it into quite a few blog posts over the years, was “Mr. Computer Man.”  Mind you, this is on a cassette tape. This song was written, at the latest, sometime in the early 80s, when few people had computers in their homes.  It’s about how super smart computers are.

Alfred being a computer man.

There’s the computer, Mr. Computer Man, who probably would have talked like Stephen Hawking if Stephen Hawking had talked like that back then, and was a robotically clipped, stern male voice.  And then there were all the super impressed children who asked him questions.

“Mr. Computer Man, how much is two plus two?”
”Four.”
“AMAZING!!!” the kids would all yell.

Mr. Computer Man puts up with the kids’ questions for awhile, and then he starts getting smart-aleky.

“Mr. Computer Man, how do you spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?”
“With Letters.”
“AMAZING!!!!”

And of course, in a sort of Mr. Roboto fashion, a machine cannot be truly human and we must distinguish ourselves from the machines.  Human concepts cause overload.

“Hello, Mr. Computer Man, my name is Jenny.  I have a question for you.”
”Wait, Jenny does not compute.  What is your number please?”
”Number? I don’t have a number. I’m a person.”
”A person? A person?! AMAZING!!!!”

It’s difficult to spend more than a couple of days with any combination of me, Mommy, Alfred or Munchkinhead without hearing someone say “AMAZING!!!!”  not to mention answering questions with smart-aleky responses like “a heck of a lot.”

If I ever get one of those smart phones with a personality in it, I’m totally going to say “AMAZING!!!” to it every time it answers me.

Pool Time!

Daddy loves us so much that he always made sure we had fun things to do outside.  He put up a swingset, or 3.  He built  a sandbox, or four.  And each summer, he’d put out a swimming pool for us.

When we were very little, it was a plastic, put anywhere and fill with water do-dad.  When we were older and moved into the new house, it was maintaining the in-ground swimming pool that came with the house.  That was a lot of work.  But the ones I remember most fondly were the couple of small above-ground pools he put in the backyard at the old house.

Munchkinhead and Alfred in the pool

He had to start by clearing out a perfect circle in the grass, leveling it and laying a base of sand.  - I just put all the super hard work in one sentence like it could be done in a day. – Then he’d unfold the crazy, floppy, vinyl pool side and he and Mommy would fight with whatever other parts went with it to get it into a circle shape on that flat, sandy base.  I think the only easy part was filling it with water once it was up.

I loved that part.  I loved splashing in the first rush to come out of the hose.  The water would feel so nice and warm, heated from the sun.  It would quickly turn cold and the full pool, on it’s first day open, was often quite chilly.  It would warm as the summer went on, well theoretically.  Alfred and I splashed so much, the pool needed to be topped off frequently.

We had so much fun playing in those little pools.  Daddy taught us how to make whirlpools.  How to get the water going round and round where we could lift up our feet and be carried away by the currents.  He taught us how to float and how to dive for things that sank – or at least reach down and pick them up.

My favorite part of the pool was when Daddy would come for a swim.  Or rather, a sit.  He’d take up almost the whole pool!  Stretched out across the middle like a diameter line, a barricade of Daddy down the middle.  He’d relax with a large cup of ice tea and a newspaper while Alfred and I would use him as a shield in splash fights or something to jump over.  And by “relax,” I mean sit there until it was impossible to read or sit or do anything other than get wet and go deaf from squealing girls.

We were so lucky.

Green!

When we were little girls, we rode in the car with Daddy a lot.  He took us most places we needed to go, especially to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Even when Mommy was going somewhere with us, too, Daddy drove.

Daddy had magical powers when he drove.  He used to show them off at the intersections on Howard Ave, particularly Whitnall and Howell.  Daddy could make the lights change.

We’d be sitting in the car at the intersection, stopped at a red light.  Daddy’d ask if we were ready to go.  He’d pause, he’d smile with this twinkle in his eye, and then he’d command “Green!”  And the light would change from red to green!  “Daddy! How’d you do that?” we’d exclaim.  Daddy had very magical powers indeed.

Eventually we realized that Daddy was just watching the lights for the cross traffic and knew how long the delay was between when the cross lights turned red and our lights would turn green.  Still, it was quite neat when Daddy would appear to make the lights change.  And it hardly hurt Daddy in our esteem when we stopped thinking of him as magical and thought of him instead as very clever.

When I sit at traffic lights with one eye on the cross-lights, waiting for the lights to change, I hear Daddy’s voice in my head, “Green!” Occasionally I say it out loud, too.  Green!

Theater Review: Lend Me a Tenor

This weekend, Munchkinhead and I went downtown to the Milwaukee Chamber Theater to check out Lend Me a Tenor by Ken Ludwig.  It was fantastic.

Lend Me a Tenor is a fantastic comedy set in an Ohio hotel room in 1934.  A visiting Italian opera star is going to perform with the Ohio opera.  Then everything goes crazy and the opera’s lackey winds up stepping into the role instead.  Confusion and hilarity ensue.

The cast was excellent.  Both tenors, the Italian opera star, Tito Merelli played by Steven M. Koehler, and the Ohio opera lackey, Max played by Rick Pendzich, have beautiful voices.  The Italian opera star and his wife, Maria played by Rána Roman, were superb.  They’re accents were very believable and Ms. Roman had the attitude and veracity down to a T, allowing her small statured character to fill the stage.  The cast played well of each other, there were no forgotten lines or stumbles.  Mr. Koehler handled it very well when one of the props had blown away from where he was supposed to find it.

Of course, I did have one issue – I always have at least one.  The actress playing Maggie – huge fan of the Italian opera singer and desired girl of the opera lackey – was played by Hannah Klapperich-Mueller.  Ms. Klapperich-Mueller is a student at Marquette.  She played the part really well and I find no fault with her general acting abilities.  However, her Wisconsin accent is so strong, I couldn’t get past it.  She sounded too low class for the surroundings on stage and made me feel like I was talking to your average sales girl at a mall clothing store.  It drove me nuts the whole show – just ask Munchkinhead.  Despite this, I still loved the show.

I adored the set.  The colors and styles made me feel like I was back in the 1930s.  The entire play takes place in two rooms, both of which are visible the entire time.  There is a door and an imaginary wall separating them.  At the end of the show, the cast re-enacts the entire play in super fast-forward and the actors hesitate at the invisible wall and then step through it.  That was quite cute.

The costumes made me jealous.  I want Maggie’s dresses and shoes, especially the grey shoes from the opening scene.

My favorite part of the whole show was near the end when the various characters begin to figure out – or think they’re figuring out – what has happened.  You can see the wheels turning and their faces lighting up as they solve the riddle.  That is magical.

Lend Me a Tenor at the Milwaukee Chamber Theater is an excellent production of a funny and well-written play.  It runs through April 27th.  Tickets are available here.

A Different Kind of Cudahy Pride

The Southside of Milwaukee accent has been cracking me up since I moved back here, and I know by now I sound as funny as everyone else around here and I love it.  I wish I could type it for you, but I cannot.  I just don’t know how to add that drag on the o’s or that slightly nasal pinch to the rest of the vowels with a keyboard.

As delightful as that accent is, it was only the tip of the funniness iceberg at A Cudahy Caroler Christmas at In Tandem theater this holiday season.  We went the last weekend of the show – Mommy, Alfred, Munchkinhead, me and Mr. Trizzle, who was visiting from Cali.  Daddy wussed out and stayed home.

Apparently this is a long-running show that’s been quite popular for several years.  Having been gone quite awhile, I’d never heard of it and was ecstatic when I first heard of it.  A parody of the Southside set to familiar Christmas tunes, it is exceedingly cute ,though also a little more vulgar than one might expect.  The overt sexual humor in this play makes it not for young children (or my mommy).

The characters are a collection of former-singers from a defunct caroling group in Cudahy.  The main character, Stasch, is attempting to get the group back together for a special cable access tv program.  In the midst of this there’s a pending divorce, a unrequited love/obsession, a mother-daughter squabble and some old pain to be dealt with.  All of the characters, their hair included, are very typical southsiders.  Though for some reason Stasch sounded rather Scottish.  I hadn’t been this proud to claim Cudahy since our glory days of marching band championships.

Many of the jokes are cute and local – Edna wins the lottery and plans a future living the good life in Whitefish Bay; her daughter’s big dream is to be the water skiing queen at Tommy Bartlett’s; there’s mentions of Jack DeSalvo’s which was one of my grandpa’s favorite restaurants when I was growing up; and other such goodies.  By the end of the show, I really wanted to go bowling.

My favorite part was that there were just as many Polish last names in the cast list as there were in the character’s names.  My second-favorite part was the surprise added bonus  that it helped Mr. Trizzle understand Cudahy and the Southside of Milwaukee.

I don’t know that I’ll see this production again next year, but if you’re a Southsider and haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth at least one viewing.

Les Mis is anything but Miserable

Last night, Munchkinhead and I went to see Les Misérables at the Skylight Theater in the Third Ward.  We’ve both seen Les Mis live before – I saw it in London and the touring Broadway production in Milwaukee – and we saw the film together when it was in theaters.  This production blew all of that out of the water.  I was thoroughly impressed with everything from the theater to the performances to the sets and costuming. 

We had mid-level price tickets as all the cheap seats were sold out; high in the balcony in actual chairs perched behind a padded balcony.  We could see everything as long as we were willing to lean forwards every once in awhile.  I loved how embellished the stage floor was, such that you almost couldn’t see all the little tape L’s marking prop placements.  The theater provided the usual Footlights program as well as an Audience Guide with an extensive history of Victor Hugo, his works and the Les Mis musical.

The costuming of the production not only helped place the show in the property historical period, it also helped tell the story.  The ensemble in any given seen was dressed in dirty beige while the main characters wore colored garments.  The wigs were occasionally a little distracting – Munchkinhead and I were both surprised to see Fantine pictured as blonde in her headshot because she looked so awkward in that blonde wig – but it’s theater, everything’s supposed to be a bit over-the-top.

The set design was elaborately simple.  Props felt minimal and many, many pieces were reused in many, many ways.  The wagon cart that falls on the man Val Jean rescues was also Fantine’s death bed, part of the courtroom, part of the barricade and a table at the Thénardiers’ inn.  Trap doors in the stage were well utilized, as were rotating set pieces.  This is only one area where Skylight’s production far outshone the traveling Broadway show I’d seen back in ‘02.  The Broadway production tried too hard with it’s sets.  This production was well-balanced.  The sewer scene was very neat, though the running water sounds near the end of a 3-hour production are a little cruel.  And Javert’s suicide scene was exquisitely done.

The show was exceedingly well cast.  When Fantine, played by Susan Spencer, walked onto the stage, she looked like a tiny little thing compared to the other cast members.  I expected a squeaky little voice like Bernadette in Big Bang Theory.  Then she opened her mouth to sing and had the most wonderful, thick voice that filled the auditorium and wrapped the audience in a wool cloak.  I melted into my chair.

My favorite character, Enjrolas – because he his is the only part I can actually sing-a-long with somewhat decently – was played by Tommy Hahn and did not disappoint.  His swagger and bombastic manners were perfect.  Little Cossette, played by Harper Navin for the night we saw, warbled a bit during “Castle on a Cloud,” but it seemed fitting for a scared, cold young girl.  I wondered why Gavroche, Luke Brotherhood, pointed out to the audience so much, but his singing was very good.

Val Jean, Luke Grooms, and Javert, Andrew Varela, played well off each other, almost as good as Chris Barrie and Craig Charles in the 8th season of Red Dwarf.   The costuming and hair did a good job of making it easy for the audience to tell the two similarly built men apart.  Their duet was fantastic, especially since they did my favorite verse combo, unlike the film version.  And of course, the Thénardiers, Eric Mahlum and Rhonda Rae Busch, kept everyone laughing with their silly antics, expressions and physical clowning around.

Munchkinhead and I both absolutely loved the show and were very glad we came.  As splendid as it was, I could only think while watching, “the book is so much better.”

 

Les Misérables plays at the Skylight Music Theater on Broadway Ave until December 29th. Tickets here. 
If you’re in Milwaukee, I suggest checking it out. 
If you like the Les Mis musical, I suggest reading the novel.

Don’t Shoot, I’m not a Real Princess!

The thing I remember most about my childhood is being afraid.  I had – and have – wonderful, loving parents who did everything to keep us safe.  I had no reason to be afraid.  But, I also had a very active imagination.  I could turn anything into a terrifying situation.

I was afraid of monsters and ghosts and death, burglars and murderers and wild animals, escaped prisoners – in 5th grade I couldn’t sleep for a week because I was afraid of Jeffrey Dahmer, after he was arrested – you name it, it probably scared me.  Disney movies, closets, basements, stampeding cattle in my bedroom, the bathtub drain, things Daddy got from estate sales because they’d belonged to dead people who might be angry I had them now, streets with tar lines, swimming pools – there might be sharks! – the dark, bathrooms especially with mirrors – Blood Mary was very popular at my school in 3rd grade – my sister dying in her sleep, my parents dying in their sleep, me being murdered in my sleep by those burglars/murderers/escaped prisoners or because I was a princess, like Lincoln.

Wait, wait!  It totally makes sense in princess child logic. 

The old house, as Alfred and I still call it, had a large yellow bedroom that she and I shared most of the time we lived there.   It was bright, happy room with orange carpeting and a rainbow wallpaper border around the top.  The room had a special nook area in it where the ceiling was lower and sloped down to short walls.  This nook wasn’t yellow like the rest of the room but instead wallpapered in a fun primary color plaid/stripe type design.   There was a scalloped white, wood edging around the slanted entrance to the nook. You can see the nook and a bit of the edging off to the right in this picture of Mommy and Alfred.

At some point, we didn’t use the beds as bunkbeds.  My bed was in the nook, head against the back wall, feet sticking out towards the entrance.  It made me feel like a princess, being in this special area with scallops coming down from a point above my bed, with the ceiling sloping down from a point above my bed, it was like the drapery around the princesses’ beds in fairytale movies.  I was a princess!  And I was terrified.

Princesses are the daughters of Kings and Queens.  But in America, we don’t have Kings and Queens, we have presidents.  And being President is dangerous because people may want to kill you, like they did Lincoln.  Lincoln was shot and died in his bed because he was President.  I’m like a princess now and a president is the closest thing we have to that, so I might get shot in my bed, too.

Never mind that Lincoln got shot in a theater and then carried to the White House and died in a bed because that’s where they put him.  I didn’t know any of that.  Never mind that Lincoln was shot for more reasons than just that he was President.  Never mind that a princess is really nothing like a president and never mind that I wasn’t a real princess.  In my young mind, the logic was solid, and I was scared.

I was very glad when Munchkinhead moved into the yellow room and I moved into the nook-less blue room.  Then I only had a giant closet to be afraid of.

My First Insta-Dress

I call it “Insta-dress fabric.”  Munchkinhead probably knows the real name for it, if there is one.  It’s the fabric that’s pre-smocked up top.  Usually, the design is some sort of one-way pattern with lots of stuff going on at the bottom.  I call it insta-dress because all you have to do is sew one seam joining the two-sides of your fabric and you instantly have a dress.  You don’t even have to hem it; the printed pattern goes all the way down to the salvage edge.

Last summer, while visiting home, Mommy and Munchkinhead helped me make my first insta-dress.  It was a little more difficult than it was supposed to be.  Either the fabric was improperly cut at the store, or we didn’t quite have enough, or my legs are just too long. 

When you buy insta-dress fabric, the cutter is supposed to cut through the smocked part and then tear down the remainder of the fabric.  This is so the tear follows the fabric grain and you get a straight edge.  Because of the smocking up top, attempting to cut the rest of the fabric tends to result in a very crooked cut and much narrower fabric at the bottom of the dress.  Narrower bottom means more difficulty walking.  For whatever reason, my insta-dress had a bottom too narrow for me to walk.

Mommy helped me trouble-shoot the narrow bottom.  We had more fabric than we needed at the other end of the dress.  So we, trimmed some from the top and middle and added a gusset to the bottom.  It’s a fairly narrow triangle, about 6” wide at the bottom and 14” high and it’s set into the bottom of the back (and only) seam.  It provides enough room to walk comfortably, though not enough to effectively carry a couch up stairs.

Insta-dresses, by default, are tube top dresses.  I’m not a great fan of tube tops, so I wanted some sort of strap.  We made two long straps and tried them out in various positions.  I decided on having the straps come from the center in the front and go to regular strap spots in the back, rather than tying.  Munchkinhead gave me a beautiful bead from her bead collection that perfectly complimented the black and white floral pattern of the dress.

I love the dress. It fits wonderfully and is super comfy.  Unfortunately, it’s mostly a travel dress as it’s rarely warm enough in the Bay Area for such a summery dress.

I’m working on a new insta-dress fabric dress now, but this one’s much less instant.  Stay tuned ;)

Bungee Fun, or Not-So-Fun

There was a comic in the paper the other week that made me chuckle quite hard; one of those ones that’s super funny because you see your own experiences in it.  It was from Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott.  Mom and Dad are in their bedroom trying to figure out why their pajama and sweatpants  are missing the elastic from around the waist.  Hammie and Zoe, their son and daughter, are in the back yard.  Hammie is high atop a ladder with a string of elastic tied around his waist, wearing a football helmet and saying “I’ve always wanted to bungee jump.”

We tried that once, too.  Only instead of stealing the elastic out of our parents clothes – which as someone who sews, I can tell you would be a lot more trouble than it’s worth – we got a bunch of bungee cords from the garage.  We climbed onto the top of the large monkey bars in the back yard and hooked one of the bungee  cords’ metal ends through a hole for the swing’s S hook.  Then I held onto the other end and jumped.

Monkey bars and S hooks for swings.

It didn’t work.  The bungee cord hook came out of the S hook hole.  *Thud*  I hit the sand hard. 

Luckily, the swing set wasn’t that high, only about 8 feet or so, and we fell and jumped off it so often that it didn’t hurt.  Well, it hurt, falling 8 feet hurts, but we didn’t get injured.

Alfred jumping from the swing and missing the monkey bar grab

Next, we tried making bungee swings by putting bungee cords into the swing S-hook holes and hooking the other end of the bungee cord into the swing’s chain links.  That sort of worked but wasn’t nearly as much fun as it seemed it ought to be.  In the end, we decided the swing set was far more fun without bungee cords.  Now I only use them for moving furniture.

 

 

A Pirate’s Life for Me

The waves crashed into the side of the boat with tremendous force.  A storm was brewing for sure, and it was only a matter of time before the pirate ships headed on a collision course would meet.  The larger ship had recently been captured and still held its precious cargo.  Unfortunately for the pirate captain, the ship hadn’t been transporting gold or even something useful like cannons.  No, this ship belonged to a zoo and was transporting a large menagerie across the wide ocean.

The smaller ship had no cargo, only a lone, fierce and brave pirate and her monkey.  The monkey had a small treasure chest of its own, but the pirate had nothing other than her wits and trusty combination-rapier-and-telescope to guide her through the menacing ocean.  She buckled down and prepared for battle as her tiny boat neared the massive zoo ship.

The pirate captain couldn’t maneuver the massive zoo ship, and the spunky little pirate drew close enough to attack.  A raging battle commenced, and as the pirate captain’s sword was chopped to pieces, she began off-loading her cargo, flinging tigers and raccoons and chipmunks at the little pirate.  The little pirate began filling her boat with the valuable animals-turned-ammunition, but she didn’t let up.  She continued her attack and seized the large ship pirate’s captain hat.  “Ha ha! Now I am the captain,” she cackled, launching animals back at the zoo.

The battle raged on and on until both pirates’ combination-rapier-and-telescopes were broken into tiny unusable pieces, the ocean was littered with swimming, floating and sinking animals, the pirates were too exhausted to keep fighting, and and the pirates had to summon their daddy to put the smoke detector back on the ceiling.

Ok, ok, so the ocean waves were only Mommy’s green carpeting, the small boat a Dell computer box and all the zoo animals stuffed, but for me and Munchkinhead, it was a real pirate adventure.  And one of our favorite games to play at Christmas time when wrapping paper tubes combination-rapier-and-telescopes are common.