Lame!

The new rule in my house is to never tell my father behind-the-scenes theatre jokes until the show is completely over.

We went to see Fame! at the school where my mother teaches. The school normally puts on really terrific productions, and there's the added benefit of having my mother whisper "he's such a quiet little math geek normally" with great affection.

This show was horrid. There are a lot of shows known for their dance that you can fake and put on quite successfully with non-dancers. Anything Goes, for example. Heck, I've seen A Chorus Line with none of the main characters played by dancers. Fame! is not one of these shows. Or at least it wasn't here. It seems to me if dance is your weak spot, you cut those scenes. You trim them. One of the best way to make an actor who can barely walk and chew gum look like a spectacular dancer is to give the actor extremely short dance numbers. Not five minute dance numbers. Because if he can only do four steps, and only two correctly, five minutes is a lot of repetition. When you are a huge fan of theatre, when in fact bad, terrible theatre is far better than no theatre at all, when absolutely any day can be made better by theatre, and the highlight of your theatrical experience is the two small girls sitting behind you, one of which wraps her arms around your husband's neck to prop herself up so she can see better and the other spends a good portion of the show braiding your hair (without your permission) you know this is not a good show.

At intermission I leaned over and mentioned to my father one of the spoofs used in a previous production (at another high school) of Fame! I don't think I've ever been in a musical that didn't come up with various word changes to mock their show. This particular one is based on the title song, the correct words to which are "Fame! I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly!"

When you're in the show, it becomes "Lame! I'm gonna limp forever! I'm gonna learn how to cry!"

But don't tell my dad that until the show is over, because when they begin singing that song in the curtain call, he will begin laughing so hard that tears are streaming down his face, and people around you begin asking if they should call 9-1-1.

Today I had the house to myself. I spent a good portion of it unraveling the tangles yarn I dyed in the dye workshop at the retreat last weekend. I took it home and followed my recollection of the directions for the final rinse, but I think I missed a step (I haven't actually looked at the directions yet to see, but I think it's a safe assumption) because what started out as four lovely hanks ended up as this



But it's okay, because I actually enjoy untangling yarn. Why wouldn't I? I get to play with the yarn and no one cares if it doesn't fit at the end!





Then suddenly after all that fiber-detangling, I was struck by an urge to spin. It has been a Loooonnng time since I've done any spinning. I didn't even bring Fiona to the retreat (which was fortunate, since Martha gave me a ride home and between the two of us we managed to stuff her station wagon to the brim (we blame the extraordinary bulk of Dulaan project donations and not lack of will power on our part) and though I did spin on several other wheels while there, I hadn't spun in months before hand. It's complicated, but the easy explanation is that the last thing on the bobbin was a lovely blue/pink wool for a special baby toy.

Nevertheless, Fiona called to me today, and for some reason so did one of the balls of fiber I bought at MD S&W so I dug through my stash and pulled it out so it would stop yelling.


Before long I had this on the wheel and a fake-three-ply sample that looked like this










As I continued spinning I was thinking that I must have accidentally set my chair on top of the roving, because it wasn't coming off the ball very smoothly. A quick glance explained that it wasn't actually my chair, but the fact that the roving is mohair that was causing problems.



The mohair police had attacked.