Yesterday it was 75°+  and glorious. Today, it’s snowing.

People all over the blogiverse are having a hard time…kitties passing, divorces, separations, depressions. I feel lucky that my worst problem right now is a little precipitation.

I think I’ll go home in a bit, kiss my hubby, hug my kitties, and thank the stars above that life isn’t so bad right now.

Funny things my husband just might have said during climax (the short list…I’m sure I’ll remember more later):

• “Kajagoogoo!”
• “All this AND it’s payday!”

…and today’s clever outburst:

• “Release the hounds!”

It’s been a blur since I last updated the ol’ blog-a-roonie…it’s definitely been a challenge keeping theatre alive in the Wild, Wild West, and I’ve been working my tail off and ignoring writing.  Bad me.  Here’s the high (and low) points of the last few months:

March: Kid’s musical (Seussical), and then a road-trip to Las Vegas.  Both were excellent good times.  We got to see the Divine Miss M in concert while in Vegas, and yes, I bawled like a baby when she sang “Hello in There”.  We also got our first doses of In-N-Out Burgers and Trader Joe’s, and I was hooked.  I could be a West coast girl for life just for those two establishments.

April/May: Nothing new to report…just the “will spring ever arrive” blahs, and rehearsing for our musical revue (Starting Here, Starting Now). Also dove into my new job of graphics designer for the theatre (as a cost-cutting measure), and designed my first-ever show poster.

June/July: Intensive rehearsals & performances of the musical revue, then a crazy three-week rehearsal period for our summer musical, which just opened Thursday night.  On top of stage-managing that beast, I also designed the graphics, which was a feat in and of itself…I think the poster design went through 999 changes before it was approved to go to print.  And by “go to print”, I mean before I printed all of those puppies out myself for distribution.

June & July have been a blur for the most part, except for two things:  my mother found out she has breast cancer, and yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of my dear high school friend Donnie’s death.  Luckily, my mom’s cancer has been caught early, and right now her treatment has been a lumpectomy and radiation treatments, which begin on Monday.  I’m flying to Nashville in two weeks to visit her and my dad, who will be celebrating his 65th birthday.  Truthfully, I can’t wait to see the folks, and my adorable nephews!  I’ve missed them all terribly.

So that’s it, in a nutshell.  As soon as I finish this online poker game I’m in the middle of, I’m off to work to continue fine-tuning the projections I created for the show, work on some of the props, and rehearse an understudy who has to go on tomorrow night.  I can’t wait to get my schedule back to “normal” so I can resume my South Beach dieting and exercise routine!

Kisses to those who care…

Me!

I have always tried to live life in such a way that I don't have to look back and say "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda", but as I'm getting closer & closer to 40 years old (yargh), I do find myself looking back and wondering what might have been. Damn this Plinky thing for bringing up the right question at the right time.

I wonder what would have happened if I had been more aggressive in the group interview for a high school student exchange program. Would spending a year in Germany have made me a different person?

I often wonder what kind of love I lost when I didn't act on my crush on my dear friend Donnie in high school. He was simply amazing, and now he's not with us. The fact that I'll never know if he felt the same way towards me is a major regret.

The decision to stay in Tennessee and work at a small, non-profit theatre company was never a regret for me…I learned a lot, did quality work, and had a steady paycheck for almost 14 years. I met my husband and got married there. Even so, sometimes I ponder what might have happened if I'd decided to move to New York and tried to be a working artist in the "big city".

I'm terribly afraid that I'm going to be one of those women who wakes up and realizes that she forgot to have kids…I have put off having children for so long now (due to concerns over money, mostly), that I'm afraid it's never going to happen. I wish I hadn't been so cavalier about time. It flies, whether you're having fun or not.

I hope that this doesn't come off as a sad-sack post. I'm really pretty happy with where life has taken me. I truly don't regret anything so far…except maybe the kids thing. That will come back to bite me in the ass, just you wait and see.

Plinky asked me to name three songs I'd put on a road trip mix tape. Only three? I almost always play these songs on the road…especially the first one. Goddamn right it's a beautiful day, uh-huh!

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am blogging from work, and my Christmas recap will be postponed indefinitely.

Thanks, Apple.

Just before Christmas, I noticed that my beloved MacBook had developed a small crack beneath the trackpad.  Nothing huge, just a little hairline crack that ran vertically from the trackpad button to the edge of the computer.  I made a mental note to call Applecare when I got home from vacation.

Lo and behold, last Saturday morning I noticed that there was another crack forming – on the right wrist rest area, exactly where the little plastic tab on the screen hits when it closes.  I called Applecare immediately, and had no problem setting up a mail-in repair order.  Later that night, the plastic near the new crack just fell off.  Nice.

Anyhoo, Applecare rocks, and the box to ship the computer to repair was on my doorstep Monday afternoon.  I sent the ‘puter off on Tuesday, and had it back in my hands yesterday morning.  Awesome turnaround, although I was completely lost without the laptop for 3 nights.  I actually read a book.  Hardcore.

So yesterday morning I was ecstatic about the return of my beloved MacBook.  On first glance, it looked very pretty…a new keyboard cover was in place, and I think they may have put in a new keyboard and trackpad as well.  Then I tried using the computer.

Something is very, very wrong…whenever I place any pressure on the wrist-rest area, the computer acts like I’ve pushed the trackpad button.  It moves the cursor, it selects text, it deletes text (like a cut & paste, without the “paste”).  Meanwhile, the trackpad button no longer clicks.  So, I’m back on the phone with Applecare.  Once again, the customer service rep was very nice and apologetic, and put in a new repair order.  The box should be here on Monday.

But wait…there’s more!  I was rooting around online last night to see if other MacBook users have had the same problems that I’m experiencing, and find out that everything I am experiencing is a known issue.  Great.  Then I see that people’s external cases are cracking as well, so I start checking out my case a little more closely.  Crap!  I have a crack on the side where a screw was obviously tightened too hard, a crack on the front edge of the case, and a crack on the back near the fan!  My beloved MacBook is falling apart!  Not to mention that the new keyboard cover was kind of buckled on one side and gapping.  Argh.

So this morning I spoke to my third AppleCare rep this week.  Jose was a pretty nice guy, but he obviously didn’t believe me when I said that there were no Apple service centers in my immediate area, and had to spend a few minutes confirming it for himself.  (For the record, the nearest one is 130 miles away.)  Eventually he understood that I just wanted to put a note on the existing service order to look at the issue of the cracks & gaps, and did so.  Thanks, sweet Jose.

I love Apple.  I love Apple products.  If I made more money, I would own Apple stock and every Apple product out there.  This MacBook is the fourth Apple laptop I have owned, and it saddens me that it is falling apart at less than one year old.  It’s obviously just not made well.  As always, I have purchased the Applecare Protection Plan and have faith that Apple will continue fixing the unit…but why would they WANT to continue having to repair what is obviously a design/manufacturing defect?  Sigh.

Long story longer, as of Monday I will be without my sweet, sweet laptop for another 3 days or so.  I’ll be reading blogs, posting on Twitter, checking on my Facebook peeps, and playing poker watching CS3 tutorials on my super-crappy work computer until the Mac is back.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I’m pretty sure that this is the same plane that is supposed to carry us to Dallas tomorrow morning, where we will hopefully connect with our next flight to Nashville.  If all goes well, we should be home by 2:30p.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed, since we had a huge snowfall yesterday (at least 8 inches fell at our house), and another major storm is supposed to blow through tomorrow and last through Christmas Day.  Forecasters are saying we might get one or two feet of snow.  Not inches;  FEET.  If we don’t get out tomorrow morning, we’re probably not getting home for Christmas.  If we don’t get home for Christmas, Tracy is going to be one sad, sad puppy.  I’ve been looking forward to seeing my family & friends for weeks.

I hope that everyone whose travels have been disrupted by the crazy winter weather finds their way home to family & friends safely.  Happy holidays to all, and if I don’t make it back here before New Year’s Eve, I wish everyone the best for 2009!  Merry Christmas!

I’ve spent the day working on Christmas-related activities.

Christmas tree?

Check.

Cute little Christmas treats?

Check.

Christmas cards?  Get off my back.  I’m working on them.  Didn’t you see all the other stuff I did today? 

Happy Holidays, you’ns! (Really, I wish you could hear me say that word. “You’ns” is a distinctly East Tennessee version of “y’all”. I didn’t even know it existed until I moved there.)

We officially opened our holiday show last night, and I can only hope that ticket sales will pick up a little bit next week.  Last year’s production was so traumatic that I was in a foul, foul mood for the entire week of Christmas.  The set was never finished, and we never ran Act II until we were in front of an audience.  This year, we have a complete and detailed set, much better costumes, and a stronger cast overall.  If only we weren’t struggling to pull in an audience…this would be a magical holiday show.

Anyhoo, now I have to actually think about Christmas.  We’ve basically finished our shopping (we’re only buying for parents & the nephews), but we haven’t touched any greeting cards or our little fakey tree.  I have two shows today, one show tomorrow, and the Survivor finale tomorrow night, so it looks like Monday will be the day to get the tree up, cards thrown together, and presents in the mail.  I have my priorities straight, don’t I?  Our South Beach diet went the way of the buffalo this week since we didn’t have time to eat at home, so tomorrow night I plan on making chicken & dumplings and sitting in front of the TV to see if Sugar takes home the big money.  I hope she does.  Plus, I cannot wait to see that bastard Randy on the reunion show.  He got what he deserved, and got served well.

In other news, we got 3 1/2 inches of snow overnight, so I need to get out the snow shovel and clear the driveway.  First, though, I’m going to call my BFF, who had surgery this week.  Things went well with the surgery, but I am a bad friend and haven’t had a chance to talk to her.  It’s time, daddy, it’s time.