“A Dash of Catch-Up” or “Thank You, Sir. May I Have Another?”

Here we go again…you probably recall from a prior post that there were two phases to our massive, all-consuming project at work.  Phase II begins tomorrow.  I often grab lunch with the primary consultant on the project, and he just told me today that he’s convinced this go-live is going to be worse–much worse–than the first one.  Oy.

But why dwell on the negative, especially when there’s so much good going on in my life?  Such as…

- Brian and I attended our first gay wedding a couple of weeks ago.  Jim and Cary, two good friends of ours in New Hampshire, were legally wed in a very traditional, New England-WASPy ceremony.  Cary teaches at Exeter Academy (one of the nation’s elite prep schools), and the wedding was held in the Episcopal church on campus.  Full-blown religious ceremony, conducted by a gay priest and his wife (still not sure about that one) who made references to the first book of Samuel, which discusses the pure love between David (slayer of Goliath, future King of Israel) and Jonathan (son of the reigning King), and who spoke of “convention and tradition being swept away by love and joy”.  Except for the fact that there were two grooms, the whole day could have been pulled straight from “The Official Preppy Handbook”.  (Cary would have it no other way)  The men’s suits were linen; the women wore pearls; the formal reception included delicate finger foods and a string quartet; the informal afterparty was held in the garden of their restored Victorian mansion.  We really, REALLY enjoyed their friends, and are really hopeful these are the kind of good-hearted, open-minded folk we’ll get to know when we move there.  And yes, we couldn’t help but talk constantly about elements we want (or don’t) at our own ceremony.

- Just got back from a long weekend in LA.  (I know, I know…I keep complaining about work, and then blogging about trips.  But these were my first two trips since Ft. Lauderdale in January, and I’ll need the memories to get me through the next month, so cut me some slack.)  Brian was raised Mormon, and the church youth group he belonged to when he first moved to Southern California was having a reunion.  He met his wife through this group, and wanted to reconnect with some of them, so we built a trip around it.

We started off Friday in Echo Park, a beautiful neighborhood of big old Victorian homes perched on a hill, with views of Downtown.  It almost made me want to live in LA.  Next we were off to Hollywood, (referring more to the conceptual Hollywood that the actual neighborhood) shopping Ventura Blvd while waiting to watch to our very first TV show taping.  We got tickets to the new Betty White sitcom “Hot in Cleveland”, and we loved every minute of it!  I’ve never enjoyed those studio tours, where they take you around on a little trolley, toss a few famous names about, and show you some empty sets.  I’m sure that’s fine for the star-struck, but I’ve always wanted to see HOW the actual product gets churned out.  Watching this taping was a nice little glimpse.  It’s like a hurricane.  The actual set is like the eye of the storm, with the actors in a relative state of calm, discussing lines and delivery and what could work better in the next take.  Then there’s the noisy, swirling frenzy of activity (writers, directors, makeup artists, camera people, sound people, lighting people, props people, script people, etc., etc., etc.) surrounding them. I expected the audience to be told to be church-mouse quiet the whole time.  But the “fluffer” kept telling jokes and eliciting laughs from us even as taping occurred.  The entire taping (two takes of each scene, plus a “pickup” of any snippets that were unsatisfactory) took about 3 1/2 hours, (for 22 minutes of actual footage) but we were told it often takes longer.  The good people at the studio fed us sandwiches and cookies during the taping, too. (a nice touch) If you happen to follow the show, it’s the episode where the tornado hits.  I think it’s set to air next week or the week after, on TV Land.  If you happen to hear a high-pitched yelp when Susan Lucci makes her cameo, that would be a star-struck Brian.

We spent Saturday morning in Pasadena, continuing our tour of college football stadiums by visiting the Rose Bowl.  We noticed a huge banner hanging from the Norton Simon Museum (which you all know from watching the Rose Parade every year like I do, right?) advertising an exhibit by the Japanese artist Hiroshige.  Brian, having twice lived in Japan, begged me to go. (as if he had to)  It was a spectacular exhibit, and the museum itself is a gem…not too large, but full of high-quality stuff.  And the gardens are beautiful.  Next we were off to South Central to see USC and the Coliseum.  Impressive campus…I guess cheating at football DOES pay, after all.  Saturday night, while Brian and his sister-in-law went to the reunion, I rode the subways around LA-LA Land.  LA does have a transit system, you know.  And while it’s far from all-encompassing, it is impressive, it’s expanding, and it seems to be well-patronized.  Keep it up, Metro.

Sunday was family day–a long lazy brunch with Brian’s sister-in-law Wendee, then dinner with his Aunt Bert (wife of Uncle Pat) and her daughter Linda.  It was great hearing Aunt Bert’s stories…about her parents emigrating from Germany…about Orange County when it was still full of orange groves and vegetable farms…and about her kids, lying by the window every night, watching the fireworks at Disneyland before they went to bed.

Monday was spent at Venice Beach, my favorite part of LA because it’s so funky-cool.  I’m always drawn to places where the hippie in me can set himself free.  And yes, Virginia, we ate at C&O Trattoria, one of my favorite restaurants in all the world.  I first stumbled on it during my very first trip to LA, fourteen years ago (Ohio State – 20, Arizona State – 17), and I’ve gone back nearly every trip since.  And it’s not just great because of the memories, either.  It’s REALLY good.  While Brian and I were there on Monday, an Australian cooking channel was filming a feature on it.  We were told we might see the segment on The Travel Channel here in the US someday, but they couldn’t get more specific than that.

So now, as I prepare to dive back in to go-live hell, I have a few upcoming nuggets of excitement to remind me why I work so hard in the first place:

1) Our little Benjamin is heading off to college.  Sad as that may be, I’m so excited for him, just like I was for his brother and sister before him!  Bless his heart, our gentle giant is really finding it hard to face adulthood, and is really dragging his feet every step of the way.  It’s to the point where he’s admitted he needs help, so we’re trying our hardest to encourage and nudge without criticizing or pushing.  Although he’s been accepted to the Newark campus of Ohio State, he applied too late to get on-campus housing.  He realizes he really needs the sheltering and nurturing provided by dorm life, so he’s also applied to Wright State.  I know, I know…how great can a school be if they’re STILL taking applications and STILL have housing for THIS FALL?  But actually, it’s good (not great) school for Theatre, and Ben has been approached by a drama school about attending, so we’re thinking that maybe once he gets his feet wet and finds life on the outside ain’t so bad, he’ll take the plunge and really go after his goal of becoming an actor.

2) Look back just a few posts, and you’ll find me gushing on and on about my BlackBerry Storm.  You’ll actually find the word “inseparable” somewhere in there.  My, how the times, they are a-changin’.  My BlackBerry died on me a couple of months ago, and although it was still under warranty and was replaced for free, that naturally soured me on it a bit.  I’ve also never been thrilled with the web browser, which is painfully slow. I got excited about this new Android phone from Motorola (the “Droid X” it’s called, continuing Verizon’s branding of Android phones as “Droid”).  It’s a beast, with a 4.5-inch screen, an 8-megapixel camera, high-definition video screen, and screaming-fast processor.    I pondered the Droid X, then decided I should just make a few tweaks to my BlackBerry so I’d fall in love with it again.  Those tweaks included nothing more than a new “theme” to change the look-and-feel of the interface, plus a different web browser (Opera Mini) to make web surfing on the phone more pleasurable.  But you know what?  Those two relatively minor changes caused my phone to go haywire.  Totally.  Utterly.  It’s as if the damn thing knew I thinking of cheating on it, and was taking its revenge proactively.  How bad was it?  Every 10 seconds, the phone would show me an hourglass, and for the next five or so seconds, it was useless.  Imagine that…being able to use the thing only half the time, and then for only 5 seconds a pop!  And I don’t know what it was doing during that five-second hourglass span, but the processing was so heavy that my battery was draining in an hour.  Of course, the low point was while I was in LA, trying to navigate the city without the aid of Google Maps.  I was livid.  Since I got home, I’ve managed to completely reset the thing to its factory settings, and the problem has gone away.   But hell, I’m stuck with the default, out-of-the-box device again.   If I can’t make the icons look like I want, and I can’t browse the web the way I want, and I can’t download the apps I want, I may as well have an iPhone. (“oh, no he di’nt!“)  So I think I’m going with the big, fancy new Droid X, which comes out in exactly 37 minutes.  But I find I’m really torn.  I loved that Storm in its day, and as always, I’m racked with Catholic-bred guilt over spending money which could go to Doctors Without Borders to satisfy my materialistic lust.  Ick. Just writing that makes me feel dirty.

3) Last, but not least, we managed to book one other trip, for next month, to coincide with some work Brian’s doing.  Three days in Seoul, 5 days in Beijing.  ’Nuff said.

Over the course of the past few months, as I’ve found myself with a fleeting spare moment or two, I have begun to draft a couple of different blog entries.  Since much of this go-live weekend will involve just sitting around and waiting for jobs to run, I’ll see if I can finish those off and share them with you.

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