Mimi Le Duck

First, the spectacular Mountain O' Dough:

Then, a squirrel approaches:

Aha! An interesting note, they took the individual baked cookies first, because they could grab one and scamper off. The Mountain O'Dough needs a bit of tooth-chiseling to get a chunk off.

Needless to say, the Cats had a Squirrel TV on all afternoon. It was a mild day and I left the window up, with only the screen as a barrier between the cats and the squirrels, and they wore themselves out guarding the Mountain O'Dough from the squirrels, and then launching themselves at the screen when one of the rodents was chiseling out a mouthful. They screen-bounced, squirrels chiseled chips, and a great Christmas was had by all.

I have a feeling of Christmas guilt wash over me. I haven't baked anything. The girls and I promised each other we would only exchanged baked goods, but of course that fell by the wayside, and I find I have nothing baked. I am awash in remorse and shame. I run across the street and get chocolate chips, etc., and haul out my cookbook (I used to cook all the time, loved it) and found Mrs. Field's perfect chocolate chip recipe. So I get the ingredients and start making it and I intend to use the butter that's frozen in the freezer, from Costco, I thaw it out and let it get to room temperature and do up the cookie dough and bake the first batch and serve it to George with cold milk and he says: "These have a funny smell." I smell them. There's something. . . but what? What?

Of course there is a whole bowl of cookie dough back in the kitchen, and another sheet baking in the oven. I sniff. Indeed, something is OFF. There were other smells in the kitchen, I had baked a butternut squash and made roasted apple and butternut squash soup, and I hadn't isolated the cookie smell, and when I did, yes, painful to admit, george was right.

I go through the ingredients with him. Old flour? no. Chips? No. Baking soda, fresh eggs, fresh vanilla, fresh dark brown and white sugar, butter -- BUTTER! I get up and run to the leftover butter, stick it close to my nose, and inhale. It's turning. It's got that very faint smell that my grandmother and mother used to say "it's turning." Slightly sweet in a sickening kind of way. The butter had been frozen, but it was turning anyway. I look on the label. It says 2005. WHAT?

George, honey, I say, I think that butter from Costco has been sitting in the back of the freezer since 2005. George, who will eat nearly anything, passes. I pass. I offer some to the cats. They run. I am scraping the whole mass of cookie dough, chips and all, into the garbage, along with the finished cookies (which didn't look right anyway), when George says: What about the squirrels?

Ah. The Christmassy thing to do. I open the window to the fire escape and put out the cookie dough in one huge mass. I mould it into a nice shape and leave it for the squirrels to find at dawn. I can see it now - -- they run up the wires, up the first escape -- and see a cookie dough tower. Chirp, chatter. Will they eat it? Will they cart it off and bury it? Or will it sit there? And if it sits there, for how long? Maybe I will just leave it, and see what happens to a pile of Mrs. Field's cookie dough on the fire escape through the winter.

Tomorrow I'll take a picture of the Dough Mountain on Fire Escape, and post it on the blog. Meanwhile, I did my duty, baked the cookies, nowhere is it written than anyone has to eat them.

Somehow I loose four days without blogging. Call the blog police: She's been resting. Bear with me while I plan the next hare-brained scheme, which will come to me as I am horizontal watching Judge Judy. I may skip a few days over the holidays, but will be back in full force with the next Plot!

So I go to Central Park with a friend who's in town from Honolulu (blame her) and I go to sit by the lake. From the distance I see a bride in white, and hear -- guess what -- Eartha Kitt: "C'est Si Bon!" I ask one of their entourage. They're from Korea, getting married in Central Park. They feed the ducks, and then a huge swan (a swimmin') and they've brought along their favorite music, and it's an Eartha Kitt CD.

I listen through the whole CD and then watch as they take pictures of each other by the tree. Suddenly there is a shout, and both bride and groom kick at each other, and I take their picture.

This is most mysterious. Did they meet in karate class? Are they Jackie Chan fans? Or do they do Black Belt Sudoku together?
My camera takes on a life of its own. It suddenly swings downward, and clicks a picture of the brick pavement, including a bit of moss between the bricks. I put it through Photoshop. It is clearly a Wedding Oija

I immediately google Oija, and come up with the following site:
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/WebOuija.html
So I'm now going to stop working, reconciling LeDuck accounts, and spend some time asking this board pertinent questions. Why were the bride and groom kicking? Why did they bring an Eartha Kitt CD all the way from Korea to play on the banks of the lake in Central Park? And what is next?

incredible recording sessions! Everyone upbeat, happy to see each other, sang their hearts out, ate, and said goodbye. Candy Buckley:

The gang

More of the gang

Suzanne the violinist

Chuck, Ricky, et al

Hail Hail more of the gang. See Allen Fitzpatrick? Beard gone. Haircuts all around, even Ricky and Chuck.

Will these people never stop eating?

After the recording last night, we congregated at a nearby restaurant for a bite and a glass of water, full, with ice, was knocked over and shattered into Gena's lap. (Gena's dressed like Santa's elf in the picture). Chuck said he paid to have someone knock it over.
More tomorrow, including a funny story from Tom Aldredge. Happy Saturday night!

and it seems to be a I-spent-all-morning-at-the-doc's kind of day, with knees that aren't being nice any more. I hobble back to the office and work for two hours and then go to a long meeting about the LeDuck cast album. We're laying down voices on Thursday and Friday, and everyone is in a heightened state of frenzied work. I hobble home and find that brother and wife have sent a giant giant Christmas gift box from Island Cookies in Hilo, on the big island.

There are brownies, macadamia nuts, shortbread dipped in macadamia nut chocolate stuff, there must be 100,000 calories sitting here looking at me. I vowed after LeDuck closed to start on the torturous path back to exercise and weight loss. I bought a book called "Mindless Eating," fascinating reading; vowed to be mindful, and now I am mindfully looking at the 100,000-cal-basket and mindfully thinking about mindlessly eating some of it.

The only way out was to leave the room and blog. Brownie Blog, MacNut Blog, Shortbread Blog, Guava Cookie Blog, Mac Crunch Blog, MacNutPopcorn Blog, MacBrittle Blog. . . quick, call the Mindless Eating police and send them out here, armed and ready to wrestly this gift pack from my arms. I will now disown my brother and his wife for sending it.

I'll take pictures and document the laying-down-of-voices Thursday and Friday and post. Another fascinating chapter in the never-ending tale will be the Cast Album.

Boring Brownie Blogging, Better Blog Tomorrow.

So things are winding down. Paperwork, paperwork. Filing, reports, filing, reports,blah blah blah. Closing a show is just as time-consuming as opening a show, minus the fact that the body must be at the theatre. The claim for the ruined costumes goes to the insurance (yes, yes, they washed the choir robes, yes, they're wrecked, yes, Clay's emboidered jeans are wrecked, yes, you want to come over and see? And Eartha's Dress? What do you mean, you don't understand that they were washed. They were washed. No, of course not on purpose. By accident. You don't cover accidents? This wasn't our accident, it was the laundry's accident. No, I won't speak to the laundry now, I'm speaking to you."
Squawk, squawk. I don't feel all Polite and Nice-Nice today. So I find the download-thingie and capture the picture of the Grinch in Union Square giving singers a tickets:

Take that, Meanie. And who else wants one?
My daughter sends me a new pair of tennis shoes because by the time the show was over, I hadn't shopped for anything for 5 months and my tennis shoes had holes in them. I barely noticed, but I took out the shoes and while putting them on, the cat hops in the box. What is this Obsessive Compulsive Box Disorder?

It's dark. Macy's windows are so packed with shoppers in front of them, blocking the sidewalks and gawking at the roaring lion, taking pictures, I walk uptown to the 42nd Street Q Train instead of picking it up at 34th.
Today I walked over to Bryant Park and had soup for lunch. Skaters in the rink in the middle. I write. Sanity reigns. Quick, call the Sanity Police. Where are they? Giving a ticket to the Ticket Guy in Union Square.

In Union Square this afternoon a great blue-grass washtub groups of musicians was playing up a storm. A large, appreciate crowd was stomping and hooting. Everywhere, artists, street peddlers, Christmas booths, and then the Park Police marched up and dispersed the crowd and gave all four of them TICKETS.

Isn't playing music in the park covered by free speech? What a grinch. I took a picture of him giving the ticket, and I'm going to post it just as soon as I find my download-thingie. It's like the Standpipes of New York: The Grinches of New York.

Call the Park Police! There are two squirrels stealing nuts! Quick! Get'em! Give 'em a Squirrel Summons.

"Your honor, we were just doing what squirrels do."
"There will be no music or nut-thefts on my watch. Bail denied."

You can see that I'm doing a lot of work this afternoon. Click on "Sneezing Panda"

Today, the Christmas Spirit premeates the air.

On the train coming from Brooklyn today, at Atlantic Avenue, a Romanian guy gets on with a boombox around his neck and a battered silver trumpet in his hand runs into the car, plants himself at the end, and quickly starts trumpeting.

Right on his heels, three African-American men, the "doo-wop" singers that always ride the R train, jump on and try to muscle him out of the way.

"This is my train."
"It's my train too"
"You can't take this car."
"Well I've got this car now"
"We were in line first"
"I got on first"
"That's because you got off the other car before us."
"So?"
"We're singing Christmas stuff, man. Doo-wop, doo-wop, Rudolph the Red-Nosed, man"
"I'm doing Christmas music too. I'm doing Ave Maria."
"You weren't doing Ave Maria in the last car"
"I decided to do Ave Maria in this car."
"We're doing Rudolph in this car."
You can shove Rudoph up your #$%^&"
"After you shove that trumpet up yours, Maria!"

By this time we were on the bridge, and there was no way for anyone to get out of the car except by going through the window and over the side into the East River. The three doo-woppers chased the Romanian Trumpeter down the aisle and took a swing, and he advanced toward them, swinging his trumpet like a musketeer's sword. Doo-wop # 1 pins the Romanian back against the door. It's a stalemate. Doo Wop #1 wants to hit the Romanian, but doesn't want to be bonked on the head with his trumpet.

Meanwhile, Doo-wop 2 and 3 turn, snap their fingers, and head down the aisle, jingling a cup, singing Rudolph. Defiantly, the Romanian turns on his boom box at full volume. The acapella singing goes up a notch. Passengers have flocked to the far end of the car. No one is making eye contact with anyone. The train pulls into Canal Street with Rudolph and Ave Maria blasting, and we boil out of there like lobsters from a hot pot toward the next car.

But the dueling musicians bolt too, following us toward the next car, so like a flock of birds, we turn 180 degrees in unison and flee back into the car we'd just left.

Dueling musicians are flailing, grappling, in the doorway of the other car. The conductor tries to close the doors while they're beating on each other, trying to claim the car and shove the loser out the door. Suddenly, all of them fell out on the platform, and the conductor, who has been leaning out the window, slams the doors shut and pulls out of the station. We sail past the four guys, now in pitched battle, and the last sight we have of them is a silver trumpet in a mass of puffy black winter jackets.

I get off at Prince to do an errand, and run smack dab into two artists, shouting and yelling at each other. Jewelry Man has nabbed Canvas Man's place.

"This is my spot, man. You can't get into my spot."
"I was here first, man"
"There's rules, man"
"Where? Show me the rules? Where are they, man. It's first come first served."
"I'm here every weekend, have been for years."
"So what?"

Canvas Man upends Jewelry man's table. Hand-made jewelry and artistic coasters and knitted hats go flying. Jewelry man rips the paintings off Canvas Man's man cart and sends them flying down the sidewalk. Shoppers, gawkers, tourists, vendors flee, like a flock of birds, clearing the sidewalks to make room for the two street peddlers to duke it out.

Ah, that Christmas spirit.

Thank you to all of you who sent in the phone number and contact information to the NY dog police! I did my due diligence yesterday, got the address, and turned that sucker in. The doorman confirmed that the skinny dalmation lives there. So I will follow up and see if the guy has been put in a cage and starved (he looked as though he had never missed a meal).

So I go home last night and open a tin box to organize and keep the cleaning going after a year of no cleaning, and immediately one of the cats squeezes himself into the box, and won't get out, and the other cat comes up and tries to bully him out, and then climb in, and its obviously too small for two cats, but it's a battle of wills, and the cat in the box wins and doesn't get out for a few hours.

This cat-in-a-box psychosis is here to stay. Put down any empty box and there's a cat inside.

A terrific dinner last night with old friends, and this morning I start on a new writing project, plus work on the stuff for the cast album being recorded this next weekend. Onward and upward. I can't wait to get the first words on paper, its a terrific idea (albeit hare-brained). So the whole weekend is devoted to words, not paperwork and contracts and cleaning up LeDuck, and going forward (with a little dog agression) is a good thing to do.

And no, I'm not going to stop blogging, we'll go through this next project together as well.

and guest lecture about the LeDuck Experience. I hope no one was taping that one. I spilled the beans, telling all the intimate details, for example, what bra size Bob DuSold's Miss Marple Bra was (no, Marie told that story).

The temperature's dropping and it's downright mean outside. On the way home I finally get the #$%^& cats the only kind of catfood they'll eat. On the other hand, if I just didn't feed them. . .

Speaking of which, walking down 4th Ave toward the school, between 13 and 12, a guy comes out of a high rise with a Dalmation that was so severely emaciated it could hardly stand. I stopped and stared at the dog. The man was shoving him toward the curb, impatiently, and his legs kept giving way. I just stared at the guy and the dog and I didn't quite know what to do. Maybe the dog was old and sick, but maybe the guy kept it in a crate in his apartment and didn't feed it. I went up to the guy, who interestingly enough was in shirtsleeves with huge sweat circles under his armpits, and said "Is your dog sick?" "It's none of your business," he said. I just stood there and stared at him. I was thinking: who do I call? I walked away and turn and look back and see him go back into a highrise, so tomorrow I'm going to be a busy body and go back and get the number of the building and contact someone, don't know who yet but I'm sure someone out there knows how to find really agressive dog Dalmation rescue people who will track down this sad Dalmation?

I am sure that highrise has a doorman, and he must know who owns the Dalmation, and would probably give him up for a Ben Franklin, or maybe for free, if he was a doglover.

I should have yanked the dog away from him, but what then? What if the dog is just very old and sick? I was not prepared for something like that. I've thought all evening about what the options are -- not many. If it was a mother with an emaciated kid, you can call a cop. But 911: "There's an emaciated Dalmation on 4th?" How fast would they be out there?

So tonight when I get the cats their Turkey Florentine With Delicate Souffle Sauces in Basted Buttered Fish Fillet and Sauteed Garden Gourmet Greens,, I think about the dog, and hope it's okay until tomorrow. when I'll take a couple of hours off at lunch and be Dog Detective. I think a little Dog Agression is probably good for the soul right now. Oh, Claude Duluc, AKA Miss Marple, with your 40-D Bra, where are you when I need you?

Here's a happy photo: Ken and Candy, as the Spanish Gypsy and Clay, heading to Barcelona.


And another part of the set before it came down:


No more nostalgia. It's time to get out there and find that Dalmation and George, when you read this, I swear, I won't bring it home.

Costumes, shoes, hats, etc., went into storage today. Bits and pieces hauled out. U-Haul truck in midtown traffic. Inch by inch on Brooklyn Bridge. Props and salvageable sets pieces to New Jersey. Load-out 99% done. I think. Waiting for the other shoe to drop: "Oh, and by the way, there's this extra giant room off the main stage that more stuff is stashed in. Come and get it."
Last photo of part of the mysterious woman on John Arnone's set, before it was gone forever:

Trying to create giant digital file of all pictures of the making of Mimi, snapshots in rehearsal halls, clowning around, formal, informal, for the cast. Looking at the photos: Claude, the Spanish Gypsy and Peter sing:

The whole cast on stage at once, as the House, listening to Peter and Miriam argue.

Already, nostalgia.

Mystery of the day:
THE SPANISH GYPSY TOILETTE SIGN IS MISSING. Here it is, photographed just before the last performance on Dec. 3, 2006:

When I went looking for it yesterday, someone had snitched it. Now, this is not nice. Whoever took it, please return it. Drop it off at the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, 113 2nd Avenue, in a plain brown wrapper, marked: ATTENTION MARIE. Big Reward if you saw who took it and tell Chuck or me. If you took it, and don't give it back, each time you look at it on your wall as you go through your life, it will remind you that you are a thief, and not an honest one.
Load Out at New World Stages Continues. Sad news: We couldn't save the Eiffel Tower. George is out on the stage under dangling lights with no hard hat talking to a guy in a hard hat.

A "carp" adjusts the bottom of a scaffold-rig-thingie.

Silver snakes in heaps across the stage.

Note to Chuck's Mom: Here's a picture you need to ask him about. Who are the beautiful women, one on each arm? Why is one smiling? What is in that white styrofoam cup? And what is the meaning of the scarf around his neck? You need to come and get this kid before he gets tangled up in. . . green. I'll send the lump of coal for his stocking, fedex priority.

So Sunday matinee, here's the theatre before the last show.

Saturday night, an hour before the performance, the theatre is blasting with Michael Jackson, and I someone yells for me to come up and dance on stage, so I do the moonwalk, and someone takes a picture, so on a dare I'm posting it on the blog. Moonwalk with Angela, Karen and Diana on the second to the last performance of LeDuck:

So its December 4, and LeDuck is closed, and today the lights, sets, everything, comes down, and it once again looks like something exploded in the theatre, dangling wires, conversations, props. Last night, after the performance, Annie says she could hardly get through the last 5 and a half minutes. Just before Garden is Green, she comes through the brick wiindow with Ernest Hemingway and she said "I heard Allen say: I am calling can you hear me," and Allen's hand was shaking, and when one by one the cast comes out and shows her the garden, Claude: It's a canvas; Eartha: Use your paintbrush; and the ziggy comes out, she said everyone was saying goodbye to each other, and she was ready to break down and then, in typical Annie-Golden-style, she says "Honey, I told myself, I can't afford to go there, I have 5 and a half minutes of singing left to do."

Other tidbits, stories, will follow,but right now, numbness and complete exhaustion, and I finally came home and ran a hot bath and drank a vanilla cream soda in the bubbles and finished my James Lee Burke book I started a month ago.

The cats are shocked I am home early. they nervously pace back and for th in front of the tub. A clutch of people email me: you can't stop blogging. Okay, I say, so what new project, what new hare-brained gumshoe scheme shall I embark on next? Let me think. Give me 24 hours to cook something up. Meanwhile, I'll keep blogging.

Thekla and Heidi came from Atlanta and San Francisco to be here for the closing, just as they were here for the opening, and the hardest thing was Sunday morning, to leave home and go to the theatre for the last time, but they were there, as were Marie and Paul, and George, and old friends Mike and Brent, who sat behind us, and at the last curtain, the standing ovation, I turned around and there was Mike, and I had the hug of a lifetime, which seemed to go on forever,because if I let go of Mike, then it would be over. And I did, and it was, and all that remains is to strike the sets and pack the costumes and that's what we did.

Eartha says she wants Clay's tricycle, the one with the clay wheel on the front. I say: "Eartha! I'm shocked! You want the clay male reproductive organ too" And she says no, she wants the tricycle to put her grandchildren on the back of and bike them around. So I'll try to get you a picture of the trike that Eartha wants in the next blog.

Eartha's lighting the national Christmas Tree on Thursday at the White House, years after she spoke her mind about the vietnam War to Ladybird Johnson. I tell her: Eartha. We have cash for bail money. Just call us. And don't touch anything in the Lincoln Bedroom." "What?" someone says, and in unison, five people turn and say "Danny DeVito was in there, iddn't you see his interview on The View?"

George is sound asleep, it's only 7:53, he's so sound asleep that the cats are draped next to his legs and he doesn't even know it. I'm signing off, tomorrow is another day, but tonight, it's the rest of the cream soda and reruns of Law and Order.

A couple of you thought the post from Pond Scum was something I somehow agreed with! Chill! Chill! I don't! Actually, I thought it was funny in a wierd way. As one comment back this morning pointed out -- if he hates what you write -- why does he keep reading the blog?

I promised the blog would be honest, no hype. You would not have a true idea of beginning-to-end if you did not know what really goes on. It's not being negative. It's just not icing the cake every night.

I'm proud of the show, proud of what I wrote, proud of the cast and crew, and we did the show we wanted to do. It will have a life. This isn't a comment on the show; it's showing you, dear reader, what really happens.

Con calma!

:)