Tuesday, Still in Nutcracker hell..

     I was able to get two uniforms done yesterday, a deposit made, tickets picked up, some of the desk cleaned, money x-ferred for  for #3's rent, ran to Diamond shop and paid the remainder on the ring, got a note out to parents.  So I felt pretty good when I hit the studio at 3 in the afternoon.  We had our first large rehearsal with the adults and it went well.  We did not finish the party scene but we will on Wednesday. 

     I ordered 4 pairs of pointe shoes for leads and one pair came in too small.  Checked every one's shoes last night and need to order 4 more pair.  No one listens when I call out for shoes.  Then they get to the theater and the shank snaps or the box crushes.  So now I check at least two weeks before the show.  Yeah 4 more pair.  Will do that today.  Little bounders, don't want to break in a new pair, but they will :) (that is an evil smile)

     Hubs came down and put the sleigh together along with the swan pieces and we brought down the puppet theater, which I hope to fix today. I assigned a mom to the ribbon swizzle sticks for the Merlitons, and also assigned a mom to fix and dress all the baby dolls that come out of the toy bag on stage.  Most of them are missing an arm or leg or are naked. I think they have been well used and loved.  I need to run to Jo Ann's and get a few more supplies.

     I am really trying to delegate work out to parents so I have less.  Since I take very little money out of this enterprise and they don't want it shut down, they need to help and they do.  It is amazing how wonderful most of their work is.  I also have a couple of women from my church who are going to come over and help with the sewing and altering of costumes.  I plan to hand out all costumes by this Saturday and then we will know what needs to be fixed.  I believe I only have to make a couple.  I need to take my steamer down to the studio and get a mother to start steaming tutu's.

      Cont:

     Sis and I walked to school every morning at the beginning of second grade.  There were several large concrete basements that were left unfinished on a busy rode that we passed everyday.  These were so fun to play in and climb through.  I always thought they would come and finish those buildings, but eventually they were torn up.  We lived next door to a family that had children our age.  They were very evangelical.  We were introduced to a revival.  It was for kids and in the evenings.  Every night we would go to this big church and be screamed at by some man on the stage, but we got a lot of candy.  If you had a new friend with you you received even more candy.  You just had to listen to the screaming.  It was exciting.  We had a cowboy night where we all had to come in cowboy dress.  You got more candy if you were a cowboy for the Lord and I intended to be the best rooten tooten cowboy they had ever scene.  So I put on a gingham shirt a pair of royal blue tights, then I squeezed into a pair of too small cut off shorts, I took my bros cowboy hat and squeezed into his brown cowboy boots.  I hobbled into the front room with a hair brush and asked Dad to braid my hair.  He took one look at me and sent me into change.  I looked like an idiot. I did not care I wanted CANDY.  I argued and he did not understand.  This was the first real costume I remember putting together and it was a failure.  Alas!

     The family that lived on the other side of our house had only boys.  They had one boy that was our age and the rest were all much older.  Their house was always dark and scary.  Mom told us to stay away from the older boys.  The younger one was quite the Casanova.  He decided sis would be his girl friend.  But then he walked me around the house and said that I was his girlfriend.  I don't remember being boy crazy.  I don't even know why in second grade this would even be important.  He was just such a rough little Marlin Brando type of baby boy.  He must have learned his moves from his older brothers.  I think mom and dad were anxious to get out of the tiny house and away from these neighbors.

     In October we moved to a large newer house in the Cold Springs area of Missoula.  It was still a very rural part on the edge of town.  We had a beautiful house with three large bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs.  There were two full bedrooms downstairs and an unfinished bathroom.  It was plumbed, but the walls were just studded.  We also had a huge unfinished basement room in which to store things and play.

     Sis and I had the downstairs bedroom.  It was paneled in knotty pine.  I loved that room. Grandpa had the other room for his TV den.  There was a huge weeping willow behind the house, whose branches fell clear to the ground.  You could crawl through into a hollowed out area and play.  Sis and I cleaned up under the tree with a broom and rake and made this was our fort.  We played there for hours.

     There was only one second grade classroom so Sis and I were in the same room. If I got a 100 on a spelling test and she did not there was hell to pay and vice versa.  The teacher tried to keep us apart, but we would make smug faces across the room when one of us would do a better job.  This competitive nature of ours would draw us apart.  Sis would not walk home from school with me and I was forced to either walk alone or make friends.  We really had fun with many of the neighborhood kids.  Chinese jump rope and cats cradle were favorite recess past times.  But sis liked to chase the boys.  I loved to swing.

     I would watch the older kids jump out of their swings and I thought that was so wonderful.  I tried it and had a perfect landing.  I was so proud I just stood there beaming and feeling really good about myself, when whop the swing came back and hit me behind the ear.  I didn't get the part where you jumped, landed and then got away from the swing.  I remember laying face first in the sand and a couple of teachers helping me into the school.  Sis and I had long thick blonde hair and it was always in braids.  I was amazed by my braids they had red ribbons running through them.  I did not remember mom putting ribbons through our braids that morning.  She would do this sometimes at Christmas.  The teachers were putting my head over a sink in a room I did not recognize.  They were un braiding my hair over the sink, the water was dark pink.  I never realized I was bleeding from a gash behind my right ear.  Everything was fuzzy.  Mom came and I went to the hospital and had stitches.  I do not remember any of the hospital.  I just woke up on the sofa at home and Uncle Duane was looking at my eyes.  I mean deep into my eyes and he was nice to me.  I remember thinking I was dieing.  Not because my head hurt but because Uncle was nice to me. 

     The Beatles had come to America, Herman's Hermits were popular, Paul Revere and the Raiders were on TV.  Nero jackets and white go go boots were all the rage.  Mom bought Sis and I little white pleated skirts Navy Nero jackets and white go go boots with black heels.  We were the bomb! I remember running over to my friends house across the street and showing her.  She started to cry because of my outfit.  I felt so bad, I did not want her to cry.  I certainly wanted her admiration, it was my first experience with jealousy in a friend and I felt so bad.  But I clomped my way to school and I clomped my way everywhere so people would notice my new outfit.  I made several trips to the pencil sharpener a clomping all the way, until the teacher told me my new outfit was very nice but I needed to be more quiet.  I am sure I simpered as I sat down and smoothed out my skirt. ( Don't you just want to hate me right now?)

     Mom had to press three cotton dresses every morning for school. We had to find socks in the sock basket.  Mom was always hurrying us.  Hurry, and get up, hurry and eat, hurry and find your socks, hurry, hurry.  Lots of yelling.  Grandma and the Uncles would often be having morning coffee.  It is Swedish tradition to join for coffee clatch break in the morning.  Uncles would come from their stores and routes.  This usually happened after we kids left for school.  One morning as mom was yelling and we were scurrying, I was coming up the basement stairs with my white knee highs.  I was hurrying and I fell and smacked my face on the metal coping on the stairs.  I of course started to cry and I held my hands over my left eye brow.  Mom was at the ironing board steaming and pressing the pleats in a dress and she told me to quit bawling and get my socks on, which I did.  I did not remember grabbing red and white socks, but I was not going to not obey my mom she was in a wooden spoon mood.  I put the socks on and blubbered the whole time.  Mom tossed my dress to me and I put it on.  She came over and jerked me around to button it up and tie the bow.  I kept blubbering softly and was told to go get the hairbrush so she could braid our hair and to quit bawling.  Just then Uncle Duane came in for coffee, he was a little early but in the neighborhood on route.  He took one look at me and my mom as she was tying my dress and said, "Je#$# Ch$%^# Madonna what are you doing to that kid?"  I had split my eyebrow wide open and the fat was hanging out and blood was all over.  Mom was horrified.  Everyone else was sent to school and Uncle cleaned me up. He was going to take me in his work Van to the Hospital, I did not want more stitches.  So he butterflied it closed.  He had been a boxer in the Navy and had a couple of these himself.  The cut was right under my eyebrow and it hardly left a scar.  Stitches wold have left a bigger scar.  Uncle to the rescue again.  I got to stay and have coffee and warm cake.  Uncle even gave me two pieces because I had earned them by not crying when he cleaned me up.  What he did not realize is that I was too scared of him to cry.   Then he made me go to school.  I got to ride in his work Van which was full of tools and smelled like grease and machine oil.  Uncle smelled like grease, machine oil and alcohol in that order.  On his days off he just smelled like alcohol.

Cont:

     Just received another full set of dress blues so now I have two sets to complete before I leave for the studio.  I love my life.  I am waving at Sluggy right now!

Out My Window:  The larch trees are finally losing their needles out back.  One much sooner than the other.  The girdled one must be a little slow for a tree and doesn't quite know how to do winter right. See even trees can be slow and abnormal.

Have a great and productive day.

Kim