Happy Halloween? Bah Humbug!

"Happy Halloween? Bah! Humbug!"

"Halloween a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's
nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "Happy Halloween! What
right have you to be happy? What reason have you
to be happy? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you
to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur
of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up
with "Humbug."

"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I
live in such a world of fools as this? Trick or Treat!
Out upon Happy Halloween! What's Halloween time to
you but a time for buying candy on credit; a time for
dressing up in a goofy costume, pretending to be
Jack Sparrow, a ghost, a crayon, or a can of SPAM,
finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer;
a time for balancing your books and having every item
in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead
against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly,
"every idiot who goes about with 'Happy Halloween' on his lips,
should founder on tootsie rolls, and be buried with a pixy stik
through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Halloween
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you
don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done
you!"

"There are many things from which I might have
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare
say," returned the nephew. "Halloween among the
rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Halloween
time, when it has come round--apart from the
veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything
belonging to it can be apart from that--as a
good time; a kind, spooky, charitable, pleasant
time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think
of people below them as if they really were
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark
for ever.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said
Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Halloween by losing
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,
sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you
don't run for Governor."

A Brush With Greatness

And what is the point when greatness brushes us?
Is it to prove the common touch?
Or is it a desire to be above and have admirers?
I don't know.

A brush with mediocrity,
What can be the point?
To lower and to condescend?
To feel and be above!

Or can it be to pull and lift and wrench
until in imitation,
(from common clay),
the great are reproduced?

Ah Superman,
your love and hope for Lois I can see,
but why give that watch to Jimmy Olsen?

The reality of Fiddler on the Roof

Well, the run of Fiddler on the Roof is done. It ended up being a pretty good show. I made a few mistakes here and there. Mac was quite good, and lots of other people were good as well. I made some new friends and got to hang out with some old friends. Scott Black and I were both in Oliver, 1776, Fiddler, and now Christmas Carol. Danny Ray was associated with the last 3 shows. Mac is associated with 3 of the 5 shows I have done in the last year. 5 or more of the Fiddler cast will join the already in progress Christmas Carol rehearsal process.

No bottles were harmed during the wedding bottle dance in the last three performances. One thing that I observed on Thursday that Beth McVey, our director also mentioned after the show. On Thursday during a morning student performance, a couple of bottles went falling to the floor. They didn't break, but they fell nonetheless. And because they fell, the ones that stayed up there were proved to be more authentic. Authentic actions sometimes involve risk. Everyone wanted all of the bottle dancers to keep their bottles "on-hat". But because a couple of them fell, everyone in the audience knew that there was no velcro, glue, or trickery. There was risk.

We could have used bottle hats with glue or velcro, but the guys that did our dance were not acting. They WERE bottle dancers. There are, within the play, moments of pure unadulterated reality. My reality in the play was less exciting. I was sitting on a bench, and on a stool at a table with my dear friends, and that part was reality. Of course, we weren't drinking alcohol. We were only pretending to be drunk, but when Tevye and Lazar hug at the end of the play, there is some reality there too. And Reb Mordcha was really singing. Motel really did a somersault. (Somerset to you Beatles fans.) The fiddler really was on a roof. Was the fiddler in Tevye's imagination? Is that who he talks to when he breaks the fourth wall?

Sometimes reality invades our play. There is no avoiding it. Right now, I feel like plays are invading my reality, and that's ok too.

$60,000 a year for wandering in the parking lot from 9:30 to 3:30 one day per week.

Crossing my clawed fingers as I sit looking out the window, one of many puppies, waiting to see my master's car in the driveway, to hear the distinctive squeak of his brakes gently applied as he coasts to a stop. Will Ronnie return today? I wag my tail. Today could be the day where his warm gaze and kind eyes will once again bathe us in their love and concern as he pours the kibble. Anticipating the sound of the canine cereal bouncing about in and out of the plastic bowl, I salivate.

A pound of salt, please.

My head is stuck

So, I like plants and animals. I always have. I have owned a series of cats, turtles, newts, fish, frogs and snails. (A snail is perhaps the easiest pet to keep, as the nastier their container gets, the happier they are. But I digress.)

I own no pets at the moment, but I do feed the feral cats at school (work). I used to feed them daily, but lately, due to a big construction project tearing up their world, or some other reason known only to the feline mind, they haven't been around in the morning or evening. Some of them will disappear for weeks and then show up for no apparent reason. 5 or 6 of them were here every day all summer. They have been coming around less and less as school is in session and they don't like all the people and the cars. One showed up today, as we have no school on Columbus day, so I went out and dumped a can of food out. A second one showed up. The first one was frightened and ran off a ways. These two cats are siblings and eat together all the time, but not today, at least at first. The first cat, the one with the bandit mask, was very wary and stood off a bit. The second cat was wearing a red and white babushka.Well, that was my first impression.

What it was actually, was a tubular plastic wrapper that used to be full of hamburger. Like a large sausage skin, but made of vinyl. Evidently, the kitty had been trying to get the last morsel out of the wrapper, and had been unable to back out of it. The cat eventually had the major portion of it wrapped around her neck, and her head was sticking through. Comical, yes. Dangerous, maybe. I thought, I need to try to get that off of her. Now, I have (two small and one big) scratches on the back of my hand. Why would the cat scratch me? Well, I grabbed at something that was hanging around her neck and held on, as she leaped in the air and bared all of her claws. Was it worth it? Yes, I will heal. I washed the wounds, so I should be OK. The cat will be happier, now, even though I scared the heck out of her. I don't think she has any idea that I was trying to help her. She was in defensive mode. If she had known me and my heart, she would have laid down and waited while I got some scissors and carefully, slowly, gently removed her burden. Fear! What a waste of the cat's energy and my skin.

"Swing down from the winner's seat, ears ringing to an ancient beat, lie down in the grass, lie down in the grass! A voice in the daytime, a dream at night, out the screen door, in the moonlight, LIE DOWN!" - Charlie Peacock