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Make Way for Ducklings
Until last night, I had no clue that ballerinas put a mixture of Baby Orajel and Preparation H on their sore toes before dancing. My wife picked up that tidbit in a backstage conversation with the mother of a dancer in the Oak Ridge Civic Ballet Association production of “The Ugly Duckling” and “Masquerade.”
It was moments after the curtain closed last November on “The Nutcracker” when my friend Heather Tang enlisted me to be the narrator for “The Ugly Duckling.” The adaptation of the famous fable was paired with a ballet called “Masquerade.” They had a matinee and an evening performance yesterday. Kylee Haskell and Julianna Romanoski, the same two girls who alternated the role of Clara in “The Nutcracker,” alternated the role of the Ugly Duckling between the two shows.
Sharon Nicklow-Cousins directed the ballet from a script by ORCBA’s Brian Quist and Glenn Arnold. Heather and Sharon gave me free reign to interpret the script as I liked. I only changed a few words here and there. My main contribution was to give the Old Duck a voice that was supposed to sound like Julia Child but came out sounding like a Monty Python character. When the Ugly Duckling encounters other animals after fleeing from the farm, I gave a ridiculous French accent to the leader of a flock of wild ducks. At one point during the evening performance, I may have referred to some farmyard chickens as “Angry Birds.” I got the idea from seeing some kids playing the popular game on their iPad between shows.
All of the folks at ORCBA were remarkably kind and gracious to me. They put my name in the logo on the t-shirt and on the cover of the program. They put my photo and bio inside the program as well. I had to smile when I realized that most of the bio came from my Wikipedia entry.
Donna Jett, the mother of ballerina Sarah Jett, sent me several of her photos from the evening performance for use in this blog post. Sarah and Jenny Collins alternated the roles of the Lark and the Duckling-turned-Swan. Sarah and Jenny also danced the lead roles in “Masquerade,” which was directed by Molly Koon Quist. They played two women competing for the affection of a Gentleman Suitor, played by Taylor Gober.
Batkini Traffic School
The original Batmobile is in one of the family photos that my daughter and son used to decorate the tables at my wife’s surprise party. While working at Power 106, I had the opportunity to meet and interview George Barris, who created an astonishing array of custom vehicles for TV and movies. He had just restored Batmobile #1 from the TV series. There were others that were used for stunts and promotional appearances. The interview went well and George invited me to come back to his North Hollywood showroom with my family. We timed the return visit to occur while my friend and former WAVA colleague Janet Elliott was in town.
A popular new video on YouTube shows a drag race between two replica Batmobiles. One looks like the 1966 classic and the other is a copy of the car Michael Keaton drove in the 1989 movie. Marisha Ray, who bears a resemblance to Poison Ivy and may have an affinity for Dexter Morgan, hosts the debate between two comic-book fans. She sides with the 1989 Batmobile and makes a bet with the fan of the 1966 version. The loser has to wash the winning car while wearing a bikini.
Swagabus
Almost all the passengers had already boarded the Megabus. My two kids were aboard as were several Karen students who now live in Smyrna, Tennessee. The students had arrived in a Rutherford County Schools bus. My wife wanted to wait until the Megabus left. We sat across the street in our car, which is how I had the chance to ask the Rutherford County driver about his group.
A few minutes later, a fully-wrapped SUV pulled up behind the Megabus. The name and face served to advertise local attorney Stephen A. Burroughs. At that same moment, a KAT bus plastered with a giant Burroughs ad drove past. I shouldn’t have been surprised when Burroughs himself stepped out of the SUV, yet I was. His passenger walked to the bus and he carried her luggage. Burroughs drove away but before long I saw him walking back to the bus. He saw me looking and said he was headed to D.C. for a quick trip.
Shared Celebration
Fr. Michael Woods thought that celebrating my wife’s birthday at Friday’s Lenten Supper was a great idea. When I first asked him about it, I mentioned that our fellow parishioners at All Saints are like family to my wife and me. My wife sings in the choir and is on the liturgy committee. Fr. Michael also liked that my kids and I wanted to surprise her again.
It was important to me that the birthday party would complement the Lenten Supper, not overshadow it. I also wanted to make sure that everyone felt welcome whether they knew my wife or not. Fr. Michael and Deacon Tim Elliott told me to inform the Hispanic Community that there might be a few extra people at the supper. Fr. Miguel Vélez assured me that there would be plenty of food for the guests. Chris Kite, who makes cakes for many parish functions, offered to make a sheet cake big enough to feed over 100 people.
My daughter created a private event listing on Facebook. She and I invited as many of my wife’s friends as we could. I am definitely not impressed with Facebook as a tool to plan parties. 73% of the invitees never responded. I think most of them never even looked at the event listing. Nevertheless, we had a decent turnout, including some non-Catholic friends and some friends from other parishes.
A few weeks ago, my daughter asked me to send her some pictures of my wife. I emailed pictures that I had saved from different vacations and family events. In addition, my daughter found some old snapshots at my mother-in-law’s house and scanned the images. She had a coupon for some free prints at CVS but instead of having the prints made where she lives in Virginia, she arranged for them to be printed at a CVS in Knoxville. All I had to do was pick them up. She also twisted some wire to make a spiral on one end and a ribbon shape on the other. The spirals would serve as picture holders and the other end would go into a bud vase with some flowers.
On Thursday night, my son and daughter surprised my wife by arriving just as we were about to order dinner at Chesapeake’s. On Friday, they planned to decorate the tables in the parish hall while my wife was still at work. We had to rush things along when my wife announced that she got permission to come home a little early so she could spend more time with the kids. I made arrangements to carpool to a speaking engagement at St. Mary’s in Oak Ridge so the kids could use my car.
When I got home from Oak Ridge, my wife and kids were using her new mixer to make bread, cookies and banana muffins. They asked if I wanted to go to Stations and the Lenten Supper. I said I would see how I felt after my nap. I set an alarm for 90 minutes later, which gave me enough time to get ready and even stop for coffee on the way to church.
Each week, a different group at All Saints takes responsibility for the Stations of the Cross and the Lenten Supper. On Friday night, it was the Hispanic Ministry’s turn, which meant that the prayer service was bilingual. The odd-numbered stations were done in Spanish while the even-numbered stations were in English. The Men’s Ministry will lead the prayers and provide a fish dinner on March 23. The Singles Group will lead the prayers and provide an Italian dinner on March 30.
After the Stations, I knew to delay my wife a few minutes so Fr. Michael and Fr. Miguel would have time to make bilingual announcements about the upcoming surprise. The crowd walked from the church to the parish hall ahead of us. When my family and I walked in, Fr. Michael used a wireless microphone to lead everyone in singing “Happy Birthday.”
In addition to the initial shock, my wife was surprised to see the tables decorated with her favorite flowers and an assortment of photos from her life. She was surprised again each time she saw an unexpected face and when she saw her birthday cake.The first cake was finished quickly. There was a little bit of a second cake left over. We put it in the freezer at home with the intention of using it as my birthday cake in June.
Chesapeake-a-boo
The kids and I decided to do something big for my wife’s milestone birthday this year. We began our plotting at Christmas when we elected to pool our resources and buy her an expensive mixer. That was the easy part. My son and daughter each purchased an Amazon.com gift certificate and sent me the redemption codes. All I had to do was place the order and pay the difference. My daughter sent a text in the style of “Mission: Impossible” telling me to wrap the gift. She followed it up with a text that read: “dundun dun dun DUN DUN dundun dun dun dun dun dundun… bleedoodoo… bleedoodoo… bleedooodoooooooo… doodoo.”
The real fun came when the kids decided to travel to Knoxville as a surprise. My son bought an airline ticket to Washington while my daughter purchased two Megabus tickets to Knoxville. I made dinner reservations at Chesapeake’s for three reasons: my wife could get a birthday lobster, it was one of the restaurants for which I had a gift card, and it is walking distance from the Megabus stop.
The bus was scheduled to arrive at 6:50 p.m. I made the reservations for 7:30 to allow a little cushion. They were still on I-66, barely an hour into their trip, when the bus got a flat tire and had to pull over at the nearest rest stop. It took about two hours for a replacement bus to arrive. The driver said, “to avoid any animosity between passengers, please just take the same seats.”
Meanwhile back in Knoxville, I was trying to keep my wife distracted with other birthday festivities. I dropped by her office unannounced with a cupcake and a birthday card. Then I went home to nap before dinner, hoping that the Megabus would make up some time by shortening the planned rest stop in Wytheville. My daughter sent some texts that would look innocent if my wife saw them but contained hidden phrases I would recognize as estimates of their time of arrival.
The staff at the restaurant knew about the surprise. They were expecting to seat my son and daughter first and then lead my wife and me to the same table. I called and pushed our reservations back to 8:00 p.m. As it became obvious that the plan would have to be changed, my daughter called Chesapeake’s and told them to remove two place settings and to seat her parents first. My wife and I took our seats and started studying the menu. We noticed that they had printed “Happy Birthday Jere” on the top of the daily specials menu.
I realized that I had inadvertently left a $5 coupon from the school coupon book in my car. I ran out to the parking lot to get it and used the opportunity to call my daughter. She was still speaking in code in case my wife was listening. I told her she could speak freely and she told me that they were getting off the bus and would be there in about ten minutes.
Once I got back to my seat, I told my wife I wanted to take her picture. She innocently touched up her lipstick while I nervously fumbled with the camera. The kids sneaked up behind her and said “happy birthday.” My wife was completely shocked. I felt good that I was able to fool her with a stunt similar to one I pulled several years ago. I’ll tell you that story in an upcoming post.
Sat Down Beside Her
If no one but my children read my blog, it would be absolutely fine with me. I consider myself fortunate that my two kids are my two most faithful readers. They are usually the first to notice a typo or other glitch and let me know. For example, my daughter found a broken hyperlink in Tuesday’s post that I was able to fix as soon as I got home from work.
Yesterday, she sent an email that cracked me up. The subject line was “Google knows you well…” The message read: “I was browsing your blog when along came a spider… see attached.” The attachment was a screen capture of my website with a very bizarre Google Ad displayed.
The image in the ad could also be a scorpion with a human skull. Or maybe it’s a locust. Either way, I’ve hit “refresh” a dozen times hoping to see the ad myself. I’m curious to know what it’s advertising. I still haven’t seen it because the ads I’m getting are geared toward my local area. Since my daughter lives near our nation’s capital, perhaps the ad is for whichever political party you currently oppose.
Shopping Lister
A clerk at a Walmart in St. Louis was changing an end-cap display from one item to another as I walked by. It caught my eye and I bought some store-brand whitening mouthwash on a whim. I’ve used it almost every day since. When I ran out, my wife bought a similar product at a Target in Knoxville. I thought it was odd that, except for the labels, the two plastic bottles are identical. They have the same caps and the same grooves on each side. Most importantly, the ingredients are the same.
I mentioned the mouthwash in a conversation with two people at work yesterday. We were talking about how there isn’t always time to wear a whitening strip. Or more likely, it’s easy to forget to wear one when there is time. I drove all the way to Sevierville on Saturday with a strip in my pocket that I forgot to apply. One of the sales guys agreed and pointed out that the hydrogen peroxide in the mouthwash helps to heal the little sores that come from biting a cheek or burning a tastebud.
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