Twelve Angry Women - play review

The local community theater for which we have had season tickets for several years now are presenting the play "Twelve Angry Women", a complete "rip-off" if you will of the play "Twelve Angry Men". The latter play was made into a movie in 1957 starring Henry Fonda in the pivotal role.

The plot is simple and straightforward - the 12 angry women constitute a jury which has been listening to 6 days of testimony and explanation of a murder in which a young man is accused of killing his father with a knife. As the play opens they are just receiving the judges instructions about needing to be unanimous if they vote guilty and about voting "not guilty" if they have a reasonable doubt about the young man's guilt.

It sounds like everyone feels it's an open and shut case so a show of hands vote is called. Everyone expects a unanimous verdict and it is, almost. There is, to everyone else's chagrin, one lone hold-out. She is accused of stupidity, being a liberal or bleeding heart, or just a plain troublemaker. She tried to make her point but no one is listening. Finally in frustration she says that they should vote again and if she is still alone, she'll capitulate. The vote, secret written this time is 10-2.

So it goes throughout the whole play with the count slowly and sometimes uncertainly moving to not guilty. Along the way we see how "reasonable doubt" can be adapted by different people in different circumstances. We also see how tempers can flare with hot and uncomfortable conditions under stress. We also naturally see how 1 person can make the difference between "not guilt" and the death chamber, although that wasn't emphasized. During this election time I thought it had an additional message that the more certain we are of our position, the more we should be listening to the other side to see if they might have some of the truth as well.

The Chautauqua players did as good a job as they have ever done, to the point where most of the audience began thinking they were watching a real jury.

Highly recommended.

Making cookies with Grandma

Last weekend we made one of our barely necessary trips to Costco. It was mainly for a gourmet lunch consisting of a Polish Hot Dog and drink. But we don't pass up the opportunity to sample the various offerings around the store to add to our dining pleasure. It also gives us a chance to see new items on the shelves. This weekend one of the new items was a box of Christmas Cookie makings - 5 pouches in all and with each pouch you can make either Drop Sugar Cookies or Roll & Cut Out Cookies. Carolyn figured the roll out cookies would be the most fun so she mixed the dough and refrigerated it until Tim and Jake arrived.


It turned out the most fun was playing with the flour. Carolyn showed the boys how to roll out the dough so they could use the cookie cutters but they were more fascinated with the sifter and the tactile feel of the flour.



Finally, she was able to get them to cut out the cookies in the various Halloween shapes including pumpkin, witch, ghost, and bat. By the time some of them got on the cookie sheet you really had to use your imagination.



Carolyn convinced the boys that white frosting was more appropriate for ghosts than chocolate would be and it would look better. After the frosting, Tim and Jake applied the sprinkles liberally as you can see from their staged display. We went as many cookies home as we could. (And threw the flour away that had been played in so much. The flour on the cookies was baked but we didn't know what would happen with the rest of the flour.

By the way, the cookies were tasty and the mix is easier to do than mixing from scratch so you might want to check it out.

Just mail it in

I was shocked, absolutely shocked to learn that the great American ballot box may soon go the way of stage coaches and Hula Hoops - everyone knows what they are but no one really uses them anymore.

Yes, in our little corner of the world (Sacramento and surrounding counties) more than 1/3 of the voters in the 2004 election chose to mail in ballots rather than making the effort to go to the polling place, wait in a very short line, and have the pleasure of actually seeing your ballot gobbled up by the magic ballot box. The election officials are predicting that this year it may actually be as high as 50% that choose the mail box over the ballot box. I mean, what part of "ABSENTEE" don't they understand? I understand the whole state of Oregon votes my mail but that is to be expected by the laid back populace of Oregon.

Actually, I think we should go all the way and allow voting online and by phone. We can already pay most of our bills and even our taxes online. That would have the advantages of voting by mail but be much quicker to count since it would already be in electronic form. And it's important that we know who won as soon as possible after the polls close.

Too much reporting of too little news

I don't know about you, but I'm just a little disturbed that our news agencies have so much time to fill up on TV that they have not only predicted the winner of the presidential race but are now beginning to speculate on what Governor Palin's post-defeat role will or should be in the Republican Party. I have seen an article speculating on the reaction of African-Americans to a defeat of Senator Obama. Another article make the statement that the Obama team willl need to have a shadow government in place during the transition period so that our allies will not be caught short on January 20.

Come on, folks. Can't we wait until the election is over before moving on to the next phase? After all, there's still a strong possibility that McCain will pull a Harry Truman on us and surprise the networks. In 2000 we had to wait a couple of weeks before we knew who our next president would be. (Everyone credits the Supreme Court for callilng the shots on that one but I believe the winner was determined by whose moving van showed up at the White House first.)

Please join me in saying "No!" to pre-election reporting of post-election events.

Grandkids' Halloween

Turned out that our Sacramento family had their church Halloween party the same time we did so even though they hurried over after theirs, they arrived only in time for the final portion of hot chocolate.

Tim arrived as Jack Frost complete with icicles and snowflakes and hair that looked like the frozen north wind. We were all glad to see that the stuff washed out easily.


And in a costume that definitely reflected his hyperactivity for the evening was Jake dressed as a pirate.


We were able to convince them to come over to our place for desert.

Ward Halloween Party

Saturday evening was our ward's Halloween Party for which Carolyn was responsible. Costumes were encouraged and we had some great ones. Carolyn managed to find some ribbon stickers so that everyone in costume won at least a ribbon.


There was also a competition for creative pumpkin carving. Although there weren't many entries, it appeared that they at least had fun doing them.


While people ate their chili-dogs and salad in the center of the cultural hall there were several activities taking place around the periphery of the cultural hall such as

a cupcake walk


fishing


and family photography



by our trusty and highly competent photographer.



There was even a table for the littlest kids to play with orange and "black" play dough using Halloween cookie cutters and to decorate a "haunted house" with stickers.

After the food, the games, and the contests, everyone was shooed outside for "trunk or treat". Everyone who stayed behind was drafted into the chore of cleaning up. With 10 people working, it went very fast.

The little ones visited the dozen or so cars that had been decorate and staged for the giving away of treats. This has become somewhat traditions now in our area. After Trunk or Treating, all were welcomed back to the rear of the church for hot chocolate.

We breathed a sigh of relief as the party was over and to all appearances very successful. We handled probably 50% more participants than expected but no one complained.

Now on to the next party!

Happy Father's Day!

Almost exactly four months ago, Carolyn surprised me with her usual Father's Day card. But this one had something else with it in the envelope - tickets to see David Sedaris and writer and comedian. The tickets were for 4 months in the future which was almost beyond my comprehension. Could I wait that long? Not that I had a choice, mind you. Sedaris was only in town for the one night.

So last Thursday evening, Carolyn and I dropped everything else we had to do and made it a date night. Neither of us had been inside the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium which, as you can see above, is an impressive building.


It is at least as impressive if not more so inside. I couldn't even imagine how many seats were set up for the performance. We had great seats on the inside aisle, row N which should be the 14th row back. In any case we had no trouble seeing Sedaris or hearing Sedaris.


Sedaris pointed out that he is very ordinary looking and most of his fans have no idea what he looks like. They've heard his routines on radio or CD and haven't a face to put with the voice. So one of his favorite things to do is to meet people and talk to them. For example, one night he asked one of the ticket taking ushers to let him do a few minutes. As he would beep the little ticket validation machine at the ticket he'd ask the ticket holder things like "How far did you have to drive to come here tonight?" or "Did you really buy these tickets yourself?" Oddly enough for someone coming to a comedian's performance the ticket holder would often give rather rude answers. Other times he's ask people what their names were and why. His example of oddball answers for this one was a Jewish couple who named their kid "Christian" because it sounded so solid and positive. Another explained to him that her son's name was pronounced "Sheee -thade" even though it was spelled shithead.

It was definitely an evening of fun. Surprisingly, he did not get very political. Probably the closest he came was in a dig at "undecided" voters who, when presented with a dinner choice of chicken or human excrement would think a moment then ask, "And how's the chicken cooked?" Oh, and he also claimed that anyone who called himself a Maverick, wasn't.

Thaks, Dear, for a wonderful Father's Day.

C-day plus 25

Several days ago, in the middle of Carolyn's first chemotherapy cycle, she was feeling so "up" so energetic and able to take on the world, that she actually told me she was seriously considering going back to work, at least on a limited basis. I cautioned her to make sure her supervision would be okay with her scaling back significantly once she did go back or even change her mind completely. Now that she's in the middle of her second cycle she is feeling like she won't be going back until the end of the four cycles she's been scheduled to take.
This time around she has much less energy and more stomach and bowel problems. She can attend events or meetings for 1 or 2 hours but anything beyond that is risky. A quick nap may be called for. She thought she had her stomach all figured out and had quit drinking milk but now she finds that even a milk-free diet doesn't guarantee no stomach problems.

She's not ready to say she's out of the woods just yet.

iGoogle "stuff"

I'll admit that I'm hooked. I've been using the Google screen for my home page for several years for the simple reason that Googling something is the main way I start to use an unfamiliar service. Once I'm familiar with a site I put it on the bookmark toolbar.

A couple of months ago, when I saw Google's advertisement for iGoogle, I decided to bite. At first it was only one or two "gadgets", then it was a change of artistic heading, then a couple more "gadgets" or small applications that serve a utilitarian purpose or tempt you with new ways to learn things on your computer.

For example, I was well aware of Wikihow, the "How To" library of the Internet. But I'd really never used it. But when iGoogle puts in front of me every day a selection like the following how I not try out at least one:
More than 30 Ways to Reuse a Toothbrush

Information is temporarily unavailable.

9 Ways to Get By While Living in Your Car

Information is temporarily unavailable.

How to Riffle Shuffle a Deck Like a Pro

I have a weather gadget, a top news story gadget, a translation gadget (very handy when I was taking German last year), and several others. It's like designing your own newspaper front page. And if you don't like a gadget, it is really easy to zap it - bye-bye.

So if you think you're not spending enough time in front of your computer - consider iGoogle.

Phone Court

No, I don't know who this person is. The reason I took the picture was the sign above the doorway and the fact that just moments before I took the picture, there were several people milling around here, each of them on a cell phone. It occurred to me that someone ought to start pushing the idea of a Phone Court - a place where people can use their cell phone without disturbing other people.

The idea was reinforced a couple of days later when Carolyn was in the hospital for her chemotherapy treatment. I needed to make a call and I didn't want to ask to use a hospital phone. I had my cell phone but there are signs up all around the hospital prohibiting use of cell phones because of interference with sensitive equipment. And, of course, all the public pay phones have been removed long ago.

I think we would all be in favor of every public building or open space having a dedicated spot with sound and electronic baffles so that cell phones would work well without interfering with other electronic equipment and the people who feel they have to shout into their cell phones wouldn't bother the rest of you.

Serious business

Those of you who follow this blog with any regularity know that I randomly stick in the blog a picture of my grandchildren. Here for you enjoyment is Carolyn with a very serious Camdan. He does smile but he considers the situation very carefully before he'll smile.



On the other hand, here is a picture of me with my Grandma McDonald. Although I also think life is serious, I don't let it affect my smile which is on my face almost every time I have a picture taken. C''mon Camdan, lighten up!

C-day plus 21

My how time flies when you're having fun. Yes, this is the 21st day since Carolyn had her first chemotherapy treatment. And since she is scheduled to have four of these treatments at intervals of 3 weeks, it was time to have the second one.
By this time we knew the drill. About the only difference was that Carolyn had to h ave lab work done 24 to 48 hours before the chemotherapy and had a doctor's appointment just prior to the actual infusion. The infusion time was also shorter since they felt a little more comfortable with the one chemical that they had to gradual titrate last time. They still titrated the dosage this time but did it twice as fast.

During the 4 hours that Carolyn is being filled with all these strong chemicals, this is what she gets to see:

The view out the window

And the view of the infusion room core:

As with last time, Carolyn took anti-nausea medicine before and during the chemotherapy session so she did not have any nausea. She was quite tired and napped through most of the treatment. Or at least it looked like it. She may have been listening to her book on a chip.

The chemo has taken a l ot of energy out of Carolyn but if that's the worst of her symptoms, we'll feel mighty blest.

Waffles

It's taken us a while to figure out a breakfast schedule with just the two of us and that schedule changed when I retired and again when Carolyn is off work .

We don't have waffles all that often so they can be a real treat, a time to get out all the jelly and jam in the fridge, and even go overboard a little. At least that's what Carolyn thought I was doing as I covered my waffle with a 2 inch blanket of instant whipped cream and freely drizzled chocolate syrup on the waffle AND over the whipped cream. Believe me, it was delicious.

Bartholomew Cubbins

Like Bartholmew Cubbins of Dr. Seuss fame, Carolyn is on her way to having 500 hats. Inspired by the hats made for her by Jessica and Norda Brimley, but needing something a little lighter during our warm days, Carolyn has begun making her own version of the "biker's do-rag" which has as long a history for keeping hair in place as for keeping the head warm. Here are some of the hats that has made so far:

Note that some of these are reversible and match dresses that she can still wear.


This is how they look on Carolyn.



For more formal affairs, of course, she still has her wigs which look incredibly like her own hair.


By the way, what do you think of the dangly ear jewelry by Kami?

Exercise - Why?

I just got back from spending a little more than an hour at the gym. My routine is such that I finish before I can get too bored. And just in case I might get bored I take along a book on a chip (also called a Playaway) or a book on CDs or if I'm really having trouble finding something, my iPod.

But I do have to ask myself, Why? Why do I do this 3 or 4 times a week? I don't really enjoy it. I'm no losing weight. I'm probably not gaining strrngth since the numbers on the weight machines aren't changing. I certainly could find other things to do with my time.

I think exercising has finally habit status in my life.

Our living trust

It looks like a nice, padded 3-ring binder, the kind that you'd pay $5 for at your local Office Depot but it's a lot more than that.


Open it up and you see that it is a complete package containing our brand new living trust (which is a restatement of one we did exactly 8 years ago), a new will, a durable power of attorney and advance health care directive, and a durable power of attorney for financial management for each of us. Everything is neatly organized behind the proper tab and there are even instruction about what to do and when - such as extra copies of our advance health care directive so that our physicians and hospital can have them on file as well as those we've chosen to "look over" our care. Of course the law firm of Drobny Law Office, Inc. always stands ready to help.

In fact, we don't even have the original documents so we lose nothing if the house burns down or some zealous lawyer steals our binder. The original is in a fireproof safe in the attorney's office. The attorney also promised to send a letter each year asking us if certain things have happened that would affect the trust. If we call him, he'll make the changes necessary - free. If we don't call him, he'll call us. And the changes will still be free. Heck of a deal!

It was interesting to see that our previous living trust was signed on October 13 exactly the same day that we signed this one. Maybe we get anxious about such things every 8 years or so much has happened to us these past 8 years that we just had to do it. But this time was handled so much better than the experience 8 years ago. It was like night and day. I think we got the one 8 years ago in a charity auction and the guy treated us like he couldn't wait to get us out of his office. This time we got the feeling like he would spend as much time as we needed but we didn't take any more time than the last time.

C-day plus 16

As promised, when we reached the 14th day after the chemotherapy Carolyn's hair began to fall out. However, it didn't quite fall out in the way it was described to us. We expected big clumps to fall out as she brushed her hair. It was more like 10 times as many stray hairs in her hairbrush than usual. Or she could run her hand through her hair and get a couple dozen strands.


That was okay for the first couple of days but it gets old fast. So tonight Carolyn asked me to give her the same trim job I have - a #1 clipper attachment buzz cut.


It was much harder than I expected because she had so many long, wavy strands. I had to make two or three passes just to get to the point where I could seriously give her a buzz.


And here you have the happy bald couple (I'm the one with the mustache). The main thing Carolyn noticed right away was how much colder it was without her head covered. She'll be wearing her hats, scarves, and wigs for more than just decoration and distraction..

Are you feeling chipper?

If I had to give credit for the one piece of machinery which allowed us to recycle our leaves and branches while providing some good mulch or carbon matter for the composter. That is the Sears shredder chipper. So I was tickled when our old shsredder ended up at Ed & Tiff's. Their yard can easily produce as much organic matter as the Ancestral home.

This time, however, it was more of a rescue operation. The neighbor was trimming trees and left a huge branch on Ed & Tiff's patio, essentially blocking their patio doors.

I'm sure that Ed could see how much work it would be to cut and bundle all the pieces of this huge branch but Mom and I assured him that it would go almost as fast as one could put the branches in a row.

With Mom on one side of the huge branch and Lisa on the other they were keeping Edward very busyl
Edward was moving the branches from the patio out to the middle of the lawn where we had set up the shredder. It seems like this makes more work but actually it is much safer as the shredder is unpredictable.

Steven and I manned the shredder. It has two openings - the front for branches over 1/2 inch in diabeter and the othe for everything smaller. Unfortunately, the blade for the front chipper is badly in need of sharpening, so we put most of the branch & leaves in the shredder.

Now if I lived a little closer to E & J,,,

Eeny, meeny, miney, mo

Listening and watching the presidential debates and few (very few) TV ads, I get the feeling that the differences between the candidates is often more style and presentation than actual difference of beliefs. Of course there is also a major difference in the support structure of the two parties because the president can do very little without the support of Congress.

Anyway, for comparing candidates at the local level I've always appreciated the local newspaper running side by side columns of the candidates stands so I could pick which one I agree with. ABC News has come up with an interactive presentation of the same type for their Internet site. Click on http://abcnews.go.com/politics/MatchoMatic/fullpage?id=5542139 to take this little quiz (12 or 13 statements) to see which candidate you really agree with. You might be surprised.

Jake tries out a puzzle

It's been fun. As Ed & Tiffany's boys have grown older they have figured out some games and puzzles that they're now suited for. A good example is the picture below. I announced that I would like to do someting with Jake or Tim. Tim wasn't sure since he had some new electronic games. But Jake took the opportunity to learn how to work "big boy" puzzles. I think this one was just over 100 pieces.


Regular jigsaw puzzles, of course are quite different from pre-school puzzles. The concept of building the picture "outside the frame" was the first one Jake saw as we separated out the "border" pieces. Once he saw what was going on and what we could do, he really got excited.


Once we had a border in place Jake had to understand the concept of matching colors and shapes so that you gather together all of a particular color or shade or line. I was particularly impressed how quickly he caught on to the concepts and began building inside segments on his own.

The one concept he had been clear on from the beginning was "can we glue the whole thing together like my parents always do?" Somehow we persuaded him to take it apart and try putting it together another time.

Chutes and Ladders - adult style

I don't remember which pundit said it first but I think he said it best about the recent stock market "adjustment". He said, "All you people out there who thought you had 401k plans--- they're now 301k plans."

I"m told we're still a ways away from the market crash in 1929 and 1930 when the market lost 80% of its value from the high in 1929 to the low in 1930. So far we've only lost 30% from the value we had in our 401k's. That was the 30% we were going to be able to pass to our children when we die. But if the market goes down any further, it will start affecting us. We'll need to reduce our quality of life a bit.

One of the biggest frustrations with this financial crisis is trying to determine who's to blame. As near as I can tell, President Jimmy Carter has been the only notable person willing to blame the present administration and that won't be around after January 20, 2009.

Photos of DMTC productions

Talk about an unpublicized treasure! We've been attending the performances of the Davis Musical Theater Center (DMTC) for some 6 years as season subscribers. I can't think of a show that has disappointed us although there are naturally some better than others. But there are many people in the Sacramento area unfamiliar with the DMTC and it's low price/high quality productions. So the DMTC itself is an unpublicized treasure.

But what I want to write about today is Dannette Vassar's marvelous photography regarding the DMTC. For as long as we've been going there, the DMTC has had photos of the cast members along with their "bios" in the lobby rather than trying to include that material in the program. I believe these photos have all been done by Dannette. I have yet to see an unflattering portrait. Since at least 2003 Dannette has also been photographing the DMTC performances. And at least since late 2007 has posted these photographs on SmugMug, a web site designed specifically for professional photographers to display and sell their best work. SmugMug takes all the work out of taking and fulfilling orders for these photographers work.

To me the amazing thing is that although Dannette has excellent photographs of 29 DMTC productions, there is not a word or link on the DMTC website referring visitors to her photo galleries on SmugMug. I only found it by coincidence while looking up a name of a cast member on Google. Here's the link again

http://dvassarphoto.smugmug.com/DMTC%20-%20Main%20Stage

and an example from the play Oliver! in which I played Dr. Brownlow (handsome chap in the second row with a top hat):

When a thumb just isn't enough

Ed and Tiffany's youngest son Camdan shouldn't have a problem sucking his thumb. He goes for the whole hand technique. He's even been known to stick both hands in when he really gets going. Way to go, Camdan.

C-day plus 9

I've been lax at updating everyone on the status of Carolyn's health. This is mainly because that condition hasn't changed much - until a couple of days ago, that is. But the change looks like a bad head cold with chest congestion as well. Carolyn says she feels achy all over from her head on down. She doesn't have any pep and her favorite thing is to curl up under a stack of warm covers and take long naps. Second favorite is stretching out in our recliner with a good book. She hasn't lost her appetite but has lost a couple of pounds due to "carb dumping" a condition she thinks is more related to her stomach surgery than to her chemo.

We're not sure whether she's just caught the first cold of the fall season or if this has to do with the nasty chemicals they pumped into her. Either way, we're counting on the symptoms to ease up by the weekend.

She does appreciate a phone call or short visit (call first) but you may have to do most of the talking.

Black T Shirts

Our youngest son Steven, like many of us, gained a bit of weight after getting married. But he has done a marvelous job of losing the weight and getting back in great shape. In the process, he has made obsolete, several black T-shirts which were his favorite fashion statement. And I emphasize the word statement because most of the T'shirts had some sort of humorous or darkly significant message on them.

Rather than throw them away or use them for cleaning rags, Steven and Lisa are in the process of making a T-shirt quilt. Here are some of the results so far:
Lisa and Steven are shown here placing the cut out portions of the t-shirts on a green backing cloth just to get an idea of the balance of colors and sizes and themes represented by the various shirts.


This is the result - a chaotic but somehow coherrent placement of the statements Steven has worn most of his adult life.



At this point Carolyn, Steve, and Lisa refolded and placed the t-shirts back onto the backing sheet so that no green was showing. Their intention is to have a completely black background made up of the t-shirts only.


The net result is similar to the previous layout but it now ready to make quilt pieces out of each t-shirt remnant and to begin to back and sew these parts together.



Lisa holds the yardstick which Steven tries to cut the material without cutting his wife's finger off.

Unfortunately, the weekend just wasn't long enough to complete the project as well as clear away a large tree branch at Ed and Tiffany's and still get some visiting in. We'll report back when the project is complete.