Aug. 28, 2007
FORTY THREE!
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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9:44 pm
that’s how cold it’s supposed to get on thursday in vienna.
fortunately we won’t be there yet.
brrr. it’s weird to think about cold weather.
FORTY THREE!
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9:40 pm
that’s how cold it’s supposed to get on thursday in vienna.
fortunately we won’t be there yet.
brrr. it’s weird to think about cold weather.
Wo ist die Toilette?
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9:34 pm
THAT’S what you say when you need to find a bathroom in austria! now BADEZIMMER, because my friend gary wrote to me and said that if you say that, people will think you want to take a BATH.
whew, i’m glad i learned that very very important piece of information before going to austria.
gary also said he hoped we were having fun in vienna, and i had to write and tell him that we’re not actually there yet. maybe he looked at those photos i posted and thought we were there, but i found those on the internet.
but when i tried to send him an e-mail, delivery failed, so he must think we’re there already.
we’re not. we’re here in spfld still where today it was ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DEGREES.
enough already. ENOUGH. it’s supposed to be less hot tomorrow.
anyway, “no reservations,” the movie starring catherine zeta-jones and aaron eckhart.
YAWN. both my mom and amy liked it, so i figured it must be good. if only one of them likes it the odds are 50-50 that it might be good, but i assumed that since they both liked it, so would i.
i say again, YAWN. catherine - an uptight, controlling chef with nothing in her life but cooking (yet somehow she’s incredibly thin). aaron - wacky, unconventional, listens to opera while cooking, bohemian, etc etc ETC.
WILL THEY FALL IN LOVE? WILL HE LOOSEN HER UP? plus, the talented young abigail breslin is catherine’s niece, and her mom dies and so abigail has to live with catherine and OH NO CATHERINE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT TO FIX HER TO EAT, the child doesn’t like the fancy dishes she prepares. WHY DON’T YOU JUST ASK HER WHAT SHE LIKES?
a totally formulaic movie can be entertaining, i feel, if it’s ENTERTAINING. but i’m sorry mom and amy, i just found it long and tedious and totally predictable. OH NO, NOW THAT THEY’VE FALLEN IN LOVE THROUGH MANY CLOYING MONTAGES OF COOKING TOGETHER AND LAUGHING WITH LOTS OF MUSIC OVER IT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THEM, OR MAYBE THE SCREENWRITER JUST COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING MEANINGFUL TO WRITE, THEN THEY HAVE A FIGHT!
and then...and then...THEY MAKE UP!
i’m sorry if i ruined the plot for you. but believe me, you didn’t want to see it.
that’s all on tuesday night.
ok then,
grace
JUST TWO MORE PHOTOS...
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12:16 am
first, an apartment block designed by wagner:
this place is a mile and a half from our hotel in vienna. so we can just stroll down there. and take many photos, so you’ll see some just-taken photos in...oh, in a while, realistically. in a month or so.
and this is the Kirche am Steinhof, the last building wagner was comissioned to do. but the church is within the grounds of a large mental hospital, so i don’t know exactly we’d be able to get in and see it.
i could tell them i’m crazy, and when they let us in i could then say that i really need to pray. in a church.
so, kirche, that means church, i also want to learn some german in the next two weeks. “do you have a bathroom?” is at the top of my list. “aben-ze einen baddenzimer?” that may or may not be correct. and if the answer is yes, or JA, then it’ll be “vo est dinah badenzimmer?”
i know the spelling must be really atrocious, but that’s how it sounded when kevin taught it to me.
here’s what it should be: (in case you’re going to germany or austria tomorrow need to know how to write it out for a german or austrian person. in case you have to go to the bathroom and you’ve forgotten how to speak.)
where is your bathroom?
wo ist dein Badezimmer?
oh yeah, i should be asleep. right now.
goodnight.
yet again.
grace, soon to be fully ready to enter the large mental hospital in vienna.
Aug. 27, 2007
THE PROBLEM WITH RESEARCHING THINGS...
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11:59 pm
is that now i feel that we have to stay in vienna for at least a WEEK in order to see all the wonderful things there.
i’d thought we’d have time to see the major sights - the schonbrunn palace, which looks like versailles, the opera house, a cathedral, the hofburg palace...
but i have these travel books from the library, see, and i finally opened them up today...
AND THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS WE HAVE TO SEE! for example, have you ever heard of otto wagner? well, i hadn’t. he was an architect and designed many many cool things and i want to see many of them. he was part of this movement in austria called Jugendstil. it means “youth style.” it’s kind of like art nouveau.
wagner was part of this movement called the Vienna Secession artistic group. if you want to read about wagner or this style, look it up. there’s all kinds of stuff out there and i don’t have time to write about it because there are SO MANY MANY THINGS in austria to see!
i told kevin that we need to leave right now in order to have time to see it all.
there’s also this place called the Prater, a great big park near the Danube that has a long walking path lined with chestnut trees, plus it has a huge ferris wheel and something called the Volksprater Funfair, an amusement park that i must see. here is part of a description i found of it:
"The Prater also accommodates the oldest entertainment park in the world - the Viennese Wurstelprater. Not only children and kids find attractions to their taste: Ferris wheel and roller coaster, torture chamber and a leisurely train and lots of other fun are here to choose from. The entrance into the Prater is free; the public attractions are opened in summer well into the night. Under cover of the evening illuminations from the shooting gallery, the dodgems or the hall of mirrors one can stroll through this unique facility of the Prater. A genuine highlight of your vacation in Vienna is without doubt a ride on the Ferris wheel. The prominent red cabs bring the Vienna holiday-makers high over the city - an indescribable view of Vienna and the surrounding hills of the Viennese woods is guaranteed.
A further must for every visitor to the Prater: The Swiss house. Here one pauses for refreshments in the beautiful guest garden. Specialties of the house are potato fritters as a starter and Stelze (pork knuckle) with mustard and horseradish as a main course."
how about that! after having fries and corn dogs at the illinois state fair, i can have pork knuckles in vienna! with mustard and horseradish!
but seriously, there are many many things in vienna. i’m almost afraid to keep reading this travel guide because it has lots of color photos and i keep finding more and more things that MUST NOT BE MISSED.
there’s also this other architect, named adolf loos. he repudiated the seccesionist movement, except i read that his work was a lot like that of otto wagner. he designed a bar called the american bar in vienna, and i can’t find a good photo of it right now, but there must be one somewhere because there’s a great photo in my vienna guide book.
it’s almost midnight. PUT DOWN THE TRAVEL BOOKS, PLEASE.
there are also many many coffee houses in vienna. we’ll have to go to at least one, even though i don’t drink coffee. kevin loves coffee.
and i love pastry, and i think there will be one or two of interest.
too many things, too many things.
not to mention the many days before we even get to vienna. luckily we’ll be riding through some much smaller towns, so there’s not as much information about them, or stuff in them that i HAVE TO SEE.
the funny thing is, tonight i was going to write about the movie we saw last night, “no reservations.” but now i’ve run out of energy.
tomorrow, maybe? if i’m not still sitting here poring over the guide books.
goodnight then,
grace
Aug. 24, 2007
a couple more li'l abner photos
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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6:43 pm
here are the four couples in the play; this is after the husbands have all taken their yokumberry tonic and become hunkified. the women are dressed, of course, in their finest traveling finery.
the wives are, left to right - vickie, kim, loretta, and fran. the husbands are jeff, scott, dennis and kevin.
and here, the most bodaciously beautiful couple in dogpatch, Unbearable and Priceless Scragg. dave schaeffer and the lovely and talented bev sanders.
“mr. bean’s holiday” was funny. kevin finds him funnier than i do; i think it’s a guy thing. just like monty python.
but still, it was funny. there were a lot of kids in the audience but luckily none of them sat near us, and they were mostly quiet, except for needing to get up and wander off quite a bit.
at the beginning of movies they always have this little recorded spiel that says not talk or kick the seat in front of you or wander around. this always makes me want to wander and kick.
boy, it’s nice not to have to go put on fake eyelashes and a wig and a very tight dress and be in a show tonight.
ok then,
friday evening grace.
friday afternoon
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4:31 pm
it’s rainy and dark and the only reason i’m not napping is because i got plenty of sleep last night. we’re about to go see “mr. bean’s holiday,” and i hope to see many other movies this weekend.
we RODE OUR BIKES yesterday, all the way to chatham, about a 19-mile drive roundtrip. i think each day on our bike trip we won’t go more than 25 miles a day, so it’s going to be no problem. because i’ve been running/weight training, i wasn’t sore at all today. so i’m FIT without actually looking so fit or feeling that i’m such a very fit person.
mollie has stopped limping; jim said that maybe she hurt her leg. i think he’s probably right. today we ran, then we took a walk, then she got some old ice cream that had been in the freezer for a long time then she got a CAR RIDE. so her day has been jam-packed with excitement.
kind of like mine. only i got the fresh ice cream that replaced the old ice cream.
one advantage of being a human instead of a dog. but of course mollie ADORED the old ice cream.
i’m starting to obsess about what clothes to take on our trip, even though it’s two and a half weeks away. the thing is, won’t i want to take a pair of jeans? but all my jeans are BELL BOTTOM JEANS. i finally bought a couple of pair of bell bottom jeans, but now somebody, probably amy, said they are NO LONGER IN FASHION. i hate buying new jeans. i didn’t even want to try any of the bell bottoms until i finally did and realized that they were actually pretty flattering.
it took me at least a year or two to finally buy the bell bottoms, and now i’m expected to abandon them? i guess i should keep them for when they come into style again. but also, this is springfield, we’re always way behind the times, aren’t we? plus, who knows what they’ll be wearing in AUSTRIA. i’m sure they’ll be very fashionable in Vienna, but most of the time we’ll be in these little towns on the way to Vienna. probably i could wear whatever i want.
i could always wear the jeans that i had before the bell bottoms. but then i’ll have to try them on and make sure they still fit, but what if they don’t?
new jeans seem fairly inevitable at this point.
i did buy some pretty cute bike shorts yesterday, but i can’t wear them out to dinner, not even in little towns in austria.
maybe i’ll take a skirt.
at least i have two and a half weeks to worry about it.
ok, time for a movie,
friday grace.
Aug. 21, 2007
get moving, please
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5:16 pm
the play was a success. i have one very funny photo that i need to put up here, but i don’t have time right now. maybe later.
the party, too, was a success but why do i have to obsess so much about cleaning the house before a party? perhaps if i’d try to clean on a regular basis there wouldn’t be so much cleaning to do. just a thought. not that i’ll actually do it.
so now i’m tired of this summer. i can’t believe i’m feeling that way, but ENOUGH WITH THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY. it’s a pain to even go outside. this morning i took mollie running before it became unbearable, but then she started limping and now she’s limping even more and i’ll have to take her to the vet in the morning if it’s not better. there’s nothing so sad as the sight of mollie limping around.
people asked me about the next thing i’m doing. i dunno. well, i DO know...we’re going on a bike trip along the danube river IN THREE SHORT WEEKS FROM NOW.
i have all this literature the bike tour company sent us and one thing i read last night was DON’T WAIT UNTIL TWO WEEKS BEFORE YOU GO TO START RIDING YOUR BIKE.
WE’VE ONLY GONE ON ONE BIKE RIDE THIS SUMMER.
and that was weeks ago, when i was still getting over being sick forever. WE MUST START RIDING. RIGHT NOW.
EXCEPT IT’S TOO DAMN HOT OUTSIDE.
so there’s the problem. we were too busy with the play, and now the heat is too much.
so i guess we’ll be lucky to ride our bikes two weeks before the trip.
plus, kevin is all about no pre-planning. he went on a bike tour to ireland a few years ago and i remember him standing in his bedroom throwing a bunch of stuff in a huge backpack on the MORNING HE WAS LEAVING.
that trip, though, was a guided bike tour. he biked with other people and they all stayed in the same hotels together and had meals together and hung out together. and they had a van that drove with them, in case people didn’t want to keep cycling. kevin kept cycling, even when it rained and was very very windy and everybody else rode in the van because many of them had crashed and hurt themselves or were just too tired.
this trip, even though it’s a tour, is a self-guided tour. we got a list of hotels, and when we get to the first one we’ll get more information, hopefully good maps, plus our bikes. but then we bike on our own, we’re all on our own, except they transport our suitcases from hotel to hotel. so we don’t have to strap them on our backs.
but we’re on our own and it would be good, for example, to know the particular sights in the different towns where we’ll be stopping, and maybe to have some maps of the hotels, and certainly to find out about vienna, where we’ll be spending three nights at the end of the tour.
travel stuff. not to mention proper cycling gear. i have two pairs of bike shorts, hopefully that’ll be enough. and i’m sure kevin has enough other bike stuff for both of us.
but still, there are things to do, we can’t just waltz out the door on the day we leave without some planning and some stuff that has been researched. and stuff like that.
TIME’S A WASTIN!
i’m glad we don’t have to go out to new salem to the show tonight. too hot.
ok then,
travel grace.
Aug. 18, 2007
BEV!!!
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9:48 am
i was going to write this yesterday but caught up in a whirlwind of cleaning, because we’re having a cast party tonight.
yesterday morning bev, a delightful, funny, and incredibly multi-talented woman, who also plays multiple roles in “li'l abner” including a dogpatcher, an acapella-singing secretary, and a Scragg, a seedy character missing teeth with a unibrow, was ON THE TV.
she was on the sunrise news show because she made a BLUE RIBBON recipe at the fair, some kind of bars made with EAGLE BRAND MILK. that was the contest, and eagle brand milk contest, and she made up a recipe involving devil’s food cake mix, butter, chocolate chips, and nuts. who could go wrong with that? because she won the blue ribbon, she got to be on tv...at six o'clock in the morning.
first, here’s a photo of the mighty bev.
that’s her with my mighty kevin.
so, thursday morning she got up at five in order to bake her award-winning bars PLUS an apple pie. she took the pie to the fair, then she went to work. on her lunch hour she raced to the fair to take the bars for judging, and found out that she’d won third place for her pie, in the fruit pie category. not bad, third place.
she dropped off the bars, collected her ribbon, got her photo taken with the other winners, and dashed back to work. (by the way, last year she won “best secretary of the year” here in springfield, but i truly think she needs to do something where she makes a lot more money and has a lot more responsibility!) at 5:15 she roared back to the fair, thinking she’d pick up her reject bars but instead she WON THE CONTEST. more photo ops, ribbons, a cash prize. she got a call from EAGLE BRAND MILK HEADQUARTERS, and the lady said bev needed to send in a tape of her on TV.
ok, this was thursday, she’d been up since five. because she had to bake the bars again on friday morning, after the show thursday night she went to the grocery store to buy more ingredients. she then had to bake some other thing for some other culinary fair contest (i think she said she entered 17 things this year. last year she only entered some muffins, but they won FIRST PRIZE, so she figured she’d expand her entries this year), plus she had to find something to wear to be on tv early in the morning. i know she had to do many other things but i can’t remember what, all i know is that she said she only slept an HOUR AND A HALF on thursday night.
we taped the morning show and she looked very cute and good, even though the woman interviewing her seemed a little lame and bev didn’t get to actually do much baking on tv. but it was very fun to see her, and we taped it and are going to play the tape at the party tonight.
after she was on tv yesterday morning she stopped by the fair to take in her other entry, then back to work, back to the fair...
i felt like i’d done a lot in the last couple of days, getting ready for the party. but bev makes me feel like a BIG LAZY SLACKER. i don’t know how she has that much energy. she says she drinks a pot of coffee in the morning. maybe she laces it with speed.
last night she wanted to leave the party at about one, because of course she was READY TO DROP WITH EXHAUSTION. except we noticed that even though she had to be amazingly tired, she still talked a mile-a-minute.
only two more shows left. i’ll be glad to never have to zip up this dress anymore.
i’m wearing all my own dresses in the show. i’d forgotten about this one; i bought it so long ago that i can’t remember exactly where i got it, or when i ever wore it. it’s very tight, but at least i can zip it up. but they have to shove a big microphone battery down the back of it, and then i can’t breathe much. kevin is again looking like a cute sailor; in the play he gets transformed by mammy yokum’s yokumberry tonic, and turns into a total stud.
here’s his regular dogpatch costume. and me in my gold dress, the one i wore as a bridesmaid in ricky dunham’s wedding, and then wore to a couple of other things. this dress gets a lot of use.
here’s kevin (who is HUSBAND #1 in the show) with substitute husband, scott. scott is a great guy - they had a horrible time trying to find four husbands for the show, and when we got one, then we’d lose him. finally they had all four, but then a couple of them said they couldn’t be at the performances every night. i don’t know how linda found scott, but he’s great - a nice guy, very funny, and a quick study. plus, he brought every woman in the cast a rose one night!
here’s me with my longtime friend tim roseberry. i’ve known tim for years and years, and we actually did a little improv together many years ago. we also briefly worked together. he’s a great guy, and VERY funny in the play. he hasn’t been in a show since he was in high school, i believe.
in li'l abner, he’s senator phogbound, a blustery blowhard politician.
and this is evil eye fleagle, doug mcdonald, another great guy who i just met in the show. his wife kim is one of the wives in the show, and their two kids are in it too.
doug is hysterically funny, with this funny little prancing walk he does; i tell him he reminds me of a pony. he’s very cartoon-like, which is the goal of this show based on a comic strip.
and here are joyce, karen and bev, the three singing secretaries.
one final photo for now...this is the other dress i wear, yet another dress i’ve worn out and about. randy bought me this one for christmas.
i have to get ready to go FENCING right now. FENCING?! i have many things to do to get ready for tonight. but first, i fence. en garde.
ok then,
grace Von Climax
Aug. 15, 2007
LAXADASICAL
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11:20 pm
yeah yeah yeah i know that’s not how you spell it. it’s LACKADAISICAL, but i feel there should be an “s” sound there in the middle.
so. that’s how i’m feeling. the show opened and it went well but then it got hotter and hotter and by sunday night i was pretty sure we were all going to roast, right there on the stage.
but we didn’t. but it was very very hot.
there were no mishaps to speak of, nothing bad happened, except it was so hot on sunday night that i looked out at the audience and they were all kind of drooping, listlessly fanning themselves with their programs. i felt bad for them, wanted to offer them a cold beverage - but at least they weren’t up on the stage in a wig.
but my friend karen had to wear a wig AND a wool jacket. AND she plays bassoon in the band when she’s not onstage! karen is quite multi-talented.
by the second act on sunday night some of the people in the audience had left because they just couldn’t stand the heat.
but it was ok. we did it because WE’RE TROOPERS.
it was very nice to have two nights off. tonight we had a pickup rehearsal, where we just ran through the show without costumes and props, and it was inside which was great because it was over a hundred outside.
before rehearsal we had some delicious homemade pizza that had been in the freezer. we each had a couple of pieces, and then i put about eight leftover pieces on one plate and three pieces on another plate and we watched an episode of our show “as time goes by” before we had to leave. i left the pizza on the counter to cool b4 putting it in the fridge.
as we got ready to leave i was about to put the pizza away, but there was only one plate, the one with the three pieces. i asked kevin if he’d already put the other one away. no.
MOLLIE ATE EIGHT PIECES OF PIZZA.
kevin asker her if she’d eaten them. the upside-down plate was lying on the floor. mollie didn’t show even a glimmering of remorse of any kind. she wagged her tail, and if she could talk i’m sure she would have said “NOW CAN I HAVE THOSE LAST THREE PIECES?”
she had managed to knock them off the counter and eat them very very quietly, because we didn’t hear a thing.
tonight when we got home from rehearsal she was all WHERE’S MY SNACK WHERE’S MY SNACK WHERE’S MY SNACK???!!!! but no snacks for her. she had plenty of them earlier.
tomorrow night we’re going to remember to bring the camera to the show, so maybe on friday i’ll post some photos of my dazzling dresses, and kevin’s very cute dogpatch costume, plus his all-white outfit after he’s shipped off to washington d.c. and given yocumberry tonic which turns him into a big stud.
so STAY TUNED. and if you get a chance, come see the show because it’s allegedly going to be less boiling hot this weekend.
ok ok ok,
grace.
Aug. 10, 2007
OPENING NIGHT!
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4:41 pm
there’s lots of reasons for ALL CAPS as well as exclamation points! this week. tonight our play “li'l abner” opens.
it’s going to be hot. very hot. right now it’s 92 degrees. tomorrow or sunday it’s supposed to reach 103.
and yet last night linda, our director, said that tonight’s performance is almost sold out. that’s good, but it still doesn’t feel completely like i’m actually in this play, and that it’s opening tonight. we have been rehearsing every night since sunday, and it has been ungodly hot each and every night.
luckily i don’t have to do any cartwheels. i can’t do cartwheels anyway, but at one point a few of the women have to cartwheel across the stage. at this point i get to stand in the back and file my nails. i enjoy this tremendously, because i get to watch the entire dance but i don’t have to do anything at all. except for the nail-filing. i decided to try fake nails and i spent a good portion of last night trying to cut them down and paint them. i’m a litle concerned that they’ll go flying off onstage, but on the other hand, it’s not such a big deal. as long as i remember my (few) lines and don’t get too caught up in trying to squeeze the nails tighter onto my fingers, like i kept doing last night.
as you can see, it’s a taxing part. very strenuous.
there have been a few comments from cast members about the relatively small and tight dress that i wear, but i feel very fully clothed, almost nun-like, compared to my outfit in “noises off.” i didn’t feel the need this time to try to lose a lot of weight, or at least those vexing five pounds. i think i lost weight anyway running around getting ready for kevin’s SURPRISE PARTY. while doing all that preparing there were all kinds of things i wanted to write on here about it but of course i couldn’t write anything at all and by now it’s long-forgotten by me.
we’re having a cast party next weekend, and i said it should be a SURPRISE CAST PARTY.
SURPRISE, i’ll yell when everybody gets here. because now i feel comfortable with the planning of the surprises. if you need one, just let me know and i’ll be glad to help.
last night a lot of us in the cast went to the barrelhead and i, personally, ate and drank quite a bit. a blt and tater tots. not so good for zipping up the dress, especially because i rent it asunder last night and one of the costume women, sherry, sewed it up and then said she hoped i’d be able to zip it because she had to TAKE IT IN.
i wonder if it’ll make it through the entire show. if not, i’m bringing a backup dress.
sherry and debbie iams, the main costumer, are very dedicated. i’m sure debbie will still be adding things to costumes as the show progresses. they just get funnier and funnier. sherry is so dedicated that last night she sewed my bra together for me WHILE I WAS WEARING IT. dedication.
when this play is over, i don’t see anything on the horizon. randy keeps saying YOU NEED TO DO ANOTHER “GRACETALK,” and maybe he’s right. oh, and by the way, randy was INSTRUMENTAL in putting up all the decorations for kevin’s party.
kevin is busy making t-shirts with pictures of horse flys on them, that read OFFISHUL BIRD OF DOGPATCH (dogpatch is, of course, the place where li'l abner and all his kinfolk and friends live). kevin loves making t-shirts. soon i’m sure he’ll have over a thousand of them.
ok then, i hope your weekend is good,
grace.
Aug. 08, 2007
SURPRISE!!!!!
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2:19 pm
it was a SURPRISE PARTY for kevin’s 50th birthday on saturday! this is what he looked like walking into my parents' house.
that last entry i typed on saturday, i only did it because i thought kevin would check the site and i wanted to make SURE HE DIDN’T KNOW.
but i had a horrible suspicion that he did, indeed, know all about the surprise and everything was RUINED. i spent most of saturday afternoon worrying and being mad that he’d found out and deciding there was nothing i could do about it anyway. plus i was looking at the radar map onlin every
three minutes because it was suddenly raining.
it all turned out well. the rain did cool things off a little, and he was completely surprised.
here he is with his birthday sash and crown.
whew, a surprise party can be a little bit maddening. i missed him when he was off at fencing coaches college but there’s no way i could have planned the party if he’d been here. i had almost two weeks to cook things and buy things and organize and find lots of old photos of him. i wish we’d taken photos of the photos; i blew up six of them and mounted them on foam core, and i made six more photo montages of different things in kevin’s life, like the many cars he’s had. one of them was “kevin’s other women,” and i included a couple of photos of mollie, and i found some random photos of different women, none of whom i recognized. there was a great slide of him in high school in a tux with a YELLOW jacket, his date in a yellow formal. i think i’ll see if i can take some photos of those photos because many are very very funny.
there was another woman i didn’t recognize, and he said that was his first wife. i’d never seen a picture of her up till now. there are also some very very funny photos of kevin in college, posing for some fencing photos. HILARIOUS, i’d say. i’m going to frame at least one of them and display it in the living room.
i made way way way too much food for the party, because i usually manage to do that. i made a cake in the shape of a guitar and it turned out pretty well. here it is.
i addition to all the cooking and baking i did, i also had to make two pizzas and then freeze them. kevin had said he wanted pizza for his birthday, and amy said that he would DEFINITELY FIGURE OUT it was going to be a surprise if i didn’t make him some pizza. i wasn’t serving pizza at the party because it would have been a logistical nightmare to make other people bake all of the pizzas, but i made two and froze them and that’s what he’s carrying into my parents' house.
i was so happy he was surprised, and happy that he had a good time. we played a “kevin trivia” game, where i asked people different questions about him. i made the questions, but i didn’t know the answers to some of them. kevin had to try to figure out how many cars he had over the years, but i’m sure he missed a few (i think it was around 35, maybe?).
my family worked hard helping with the preparations and by saturday i couldn’t do anything at all to help, so they had to do it themselves. it went ok except at 4:30 when mom called me and said IT’S POURING DOWN RAIN, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?
there was nothing i could do about the rain.
later we also played kevin pictionary, where people had to draw things on photos of kevin. personalized pictionary is all randy’s idea, and it’s always a popular game. but at that point we totally forgot to keep score.
jill helped a lot with last minute things, too, and here she is.
oh, and here’s mom and randy in front of one of the blown-up photos of kevin.
bev also helped a lot; here she is now helping kevin with the cake.
she looked really nice in that flowy orange skirt; she’s also in “li'l abner,” so she’s usually just wearing some show t-shirt and jeans, or else in the play she wears mismatched outfits.
the play opens FRIDAY NIGHT, by the way. at new salem. get your tickets soon, they’re selling like hotcakes.
surprise! i think that’s the last surprise party i’m having.
or at least that’s going to be my story, in order to throw people off the track when i start planning another one...
ok ok ok,
wednesday grace.
Aug. 04, 2007
RAIN
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grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
@
4:17 pm
it’s raining, buckets. we did a lot of fencing this morning and then we ate a lot of mexican food at lunch, plus the cupcakes i brought with the very delicious chocolate frosting, and soon we’re going to amy and jim’s house for pizza and yet more food.
it would be nice to sit outside, though. except that it’s raining buckets. and buckets. plus thundering.
buckets-o-rain. maybe it’ll let up in a while.
that is all for now.
ok then,
birthday-celebrating grace.
p.s. by the way, today is also barack obama’s b'day. good men born on this date in history.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN!
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grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
@
9:42 am
5-0 today! the big fifty. we’ll start the day with fencing and cupcakes!
gh
Aug. 02, 2007
I FORGOT TO MENTION THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!
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grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
@
10:57 am
kevin is turning FIFTY on saturday. whoo hoo! happy birthday in advance, honey.
xxx
grace rabbitt
thursday
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grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
@
10:51 am
and all is well. kevin got back from colorado springs at 5:45 last night, and we left for rehearsal at 6:15.
perhaps he’ll get unpacked before we take a trip in september. but maybe not.
here’s a very official-looking photo from his last day of fencing coaches college.
kevin told me a funny story about his instructor, a french guy, but it’s funny because of the accent. so if you see him, ask him about it.
i think this must be the garden of the gods, where he went on the last day, but i can’t ask him right now because he’s having a meeting with a man in the kitchen.
because kevin is having a meeting with a man in the kitchen, mollie is sequestered in our bedroom. AND SHE HATES THIS A LOT.
SHE JUST WANTS TO GET OUT AND KILL THE MAN.
she barks and barks and then she scratches on the door and this has been going on for about 20 minutes now and you’d think she’d be getting tired but apparently not. we all went running this morning, and now with this barking opportunity, she’s bound to sleep a lot later.
not that she doesn’t sleep a lot all the time anyway.
last night at rehearsal, the very first time that kevin and i were at rehearsal together, things went pretty well. on monday i had some serious concerns of it ever looking remotely like a play, but large portions of it now seem to be coming together.
i think i’m going to be wearing a very bright red wig. it’s exactly like jessica rabbit’s hair in “who framed roger rabbit.” i’m going to be wearing this little dark purple dress, and i tried it on for kevin and he said “why haven’t you worn that before?” if you could see the dress, you’d know why i don’t go around wearing it. too short, too tight. i bought it so long ago that i have no idea where it came from, but i do have a very vague memory of wearing it out in public. eventually i’ll post a picture of me in it, with all that red hair. and kevin in his dogpatch bumpkin outfit. we’ll make quite the dashing couple.
ok then, the weekend is fast approaching...
grace
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