Three easy pieces

Reading others’ adventures sometimes makes me wonder if life is passing me by.  I decided that I needed to write a little just to remind myself that isn’t so.  Here are a couple of snippets of the most recent 10 days of my life in no particular order or importance:

Get Well!

When was the last time you got a Get Well card?   From your hospital?  Maybe even they are beginning to think I’ve seen too much of the inside  of our hospital  lately.   In any case I’m taking it at face value and consider it a class act.

Drop Your Pants

I’m told that members of our culture  have many dreams in common.  In one common dream we find ourselves naked or nearly so while family, friends, and relations around us are completely clothed.  Last week I went one better. 

Carolyn and I attended a “Broadway quality” production of “The Book of Mormon” in downtown Sacramento.  It was a rainy evening and we had used my little travel scooter too much.  It finally ran out of juice just as we reached the theater box office.  As Carolyn pushed the battery-dead scooter, we could see we weren’t going to have time for a last minute run to the restroom. **

The play, the sounds of rain outside, the excitement of the crowd all made it impossible to ignore the call of nature.  We were on our feet the moment the house lights came on for Intermission.  We and a few hundred others headed to the doorway for relief. Suddenly,  I felt a distinct draft around my knees and more difficulty than normal moving my feet.  Yup, you guessed it. My wardrobe (specifically my suspenders) had malfunctioned.  With only a slight delay, we adjusted our hand holds (remember we were trying to carry 2 umbrellas, a cane, and my pants) and dragged me to the nearest men’s room where I desperately tried to layer enough  cloth in the suspender clamp mechanism to keep my pants up for the rest of the evening. 

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The Book of Mormon

Speaking of “the Book of Mormon”, I think the Church played a P/R card that was as brilliant as It was unexpected.  In the past the church may have sponsored pickets, nuisance lawsuits, or blanket letters to the editor when something as potentially offensive as “the Book of Mormon” surfaced.  This time the Church ran 3 full-page ads in the program.  The face coming off the page in the first ad  says “I’ve read the Book’; the second ad, “THE Book is always better;, and the third “You’ve seen the play… now read the Book.” It looks as if the Church is partially sponsoring the play.

              I predict that t there will be as many opinions about the play as the number of people who see it.  And the ratio of people offended to those who weren’t  will be unpredictable.  If you are offended by street language and crude descriptions you’ll have trouble with this play.  If you feel that no one, even God, is beyond  criticism(see Fiddler on the Roof”) you will find much to agree with.   But in all cases you will get more out of seeing it than avoiding  it.  Sort of like reading the original ”Book of Mormon”.

Night at the (Wax) Museum

Thinking way outside the box, the Mission Elementary School put on a play adapted from the movie
“Midnight at the Museum” which was adapted from a children’s book of the same name.  The plot, in case you missed it, involves historical characters represented in the museum coming to life and doing battle (small skirmishes, actually) with some children from the present who happen to get stuck in the museum overnight.  The play/show/book avoids dry history by posing interesting questions such as  relative firepower of pirates versus renegade cowboys.

Some very talented local musicians adapted a musical score and the way it was adapted to the stage allowed for few cast members or dozens, singers or not, dancers or not.  And the kids had to learn history like it or not.  Great selection and wonderful performance. 

**A couple days ago, I discovered a useful word in the Urban Dictionary that seems almost made for my situation:

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|| bladderdash ||

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1.       a mad run and/or sprint to the bathroom before your bladder explodes.

2.      the quick sprint or ‘dash’ to the toilet due to the combination of excessive drinking and poor planning
Julia made a bladderdash after she drank a whole two liter bottle of soda.