Mom's Blog Book

The book I made from Mom's Blog and gave her a copy for Christmas:

Sirius

Thoughts from a Tra...

By Dannielle Leaverton

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Two New Demos for Dad's Website

I don't know if the people who bookmark Dad's website pay this much attention but we always do new demos at Thanksgiving. And this Thanksgiving was no exception. I did a little card weaving for the first time EVER...and we filmed it. Heh...weaving it isn't the trick though. Stringing it is. But the fun for the demos is the weaving--seeing the tool in action, you understand. We also went to an assisted living center to listen to Dad's neighbor, Jack the engineer, play in a Bluegrass band. I striped off the music for the card demo. So it's our first demo with music:

Card Weaving on The Roller Beam Loom @ Yahoo! Video

For the second one, Mandy and Beth need a bunch of straps for some bags they are making done. Dad and I brought another Nakadai to her place and I started a pattern Mandy has never done before on it. I made the demo super quick like, so that she could finish the project on her own.

It's another silent one and the pattern is pretty easy but turns out rather cool and strappy:

A Pattern Demo for the Takadai @ Yahoo! Video

So...what do you think?

Jr. High School Drama Reunion at “The Music Man”

I thought the Cascade Jr. High School Drama Reunion at “The Music Man” was very fun! Bonnie Bensen found about a dozen of us on Facebook. She also found the director of Cascade Junior High’s drama club from our years there—Mrs. Semen. When she learned that Mrs. Semen’s next school show was coming up she put together a group to go see it. Both Mandy and I went.
We all met at Round Table Pizza. There was a whole table in the party area full when Mandy and I arrived. We were a tad…well more than a tad late to the dinner due to my last online class I had to teach.
There were five or so children running about, but other than that, it seemed like everyone was just the same. It didn’t take long until we were once again making each other laugh. Amy and Scott were there with their three children, a girl and two boys. Anna brought her two daughters who were both uniquely named. Monika brought her fiancé to meet us. Rachel, Kat, Bonnie, John and Heidi were also there but they were alone. So that’s a pretty nice crowd huh?
When we got to the high school, the parking lot was packed full. We were pretty impressed until we marched into the school and found out we were at the basket ball game. Alas. The theater was on the other side of the school and the parking lot was a little bit more what you’d expect for closing night of a musical in high school.
It didn’t take long until we were all greeted by Mrs. Semen. She was very happy to see us. Teachers don’t usually supply much of an audience…directors even less. We weren’t able to do much more than say hello and give her a hug because the show was about to begin. We sat in the back of the very small theater on Audience Left. They weren’t bad seats.
The highlight of the performance for us all seemed to be the Wells Fargo Wagon. It was quite a nice prop and it marched in right in front of us.
The weakest part of the performance was the band. They were extremely weak…especially the brass section which is the most important part of The Musicman’s key song “76 Trombones”. I don’t blame Mrs. Semen. There are two possible reasons why this happened I would guess. In my senior year, we fired the band of “Guys and Dolls” for zero commitment to the show and, in general, playing awfully. You see the director of the musical that year was a community volunteer and she didn’t have work ramifications of such an action. Our band director consistently put the high school musical on the lowest priority bracket beneath his own performances, competitions and football game pep band performances. If that was the case here…who could blame Mrs. Semen? The other possibility is the WASL. My sister says that if a kid doesn’t do well in the WASL then they aren’t allowed to take any electives and must take remedial courses. This has severely depleted several bands in high schools…because how well do you think a kid with musical or kinesthetic intelligence is going to do in a test like that?
If that was the case then the kids were trying their best but weren’t capable of pulling it off. I do have one suggestion for Mrs. Semen though in either case. As a member of an ensemble…there is nothing that makes us play our best more than when we are recorded. Since you can’t see the band anyway—pre-record them. Trust me…they’ll play it over and over again to make sure they don’t miss a note.
After the show, we were reluctant to part from one another. But we had to bid adieu to the parents with children in the crowd. The remaining eight of us went out for deserts and drinks at a local restaurant. As a completely unplanned bonus, Mrs. Semen showed up there with a small crowd of her own and told us once again how pleased she was to see us all. Before we parted ways for the night, we pledged to get together once again. I hope we do. The reasons were all still there why we all became friends in the first place, even after all these years and a great deal of maturity was added to us all. We are still birds of a feather.

Weekend Alone Report

With Frank off to visit his cousin Mande and spend a few days in Portland (and see Wicked), I was faced with a weekend alone with the cats.

Saturday:

I had a class to teach virtually…so my voice and my computer made an appearance in Greater Prudhoe Bay. But though we offered 4 classes total for the weekend, only the first one on Sunday filled. So I was free after that. I got an invitation to a birthday party be a new acquaintance in the puppet guild. As I would like to turn that acquaintance into a friend, I determined myself to go.

You know what that means, right? Yep, I showed up at yet another party where the only people I knew walking in the door were the host and hostess. theBut I struck up a few conversations and wouldn’t you know it? There were actually 2 people there I had met before…at an SCA event with Dad where I demonstrated the Takadai for them! Amy and Alex knew my father from other events as well…of course…in the SCA we all dress so differently that you can hardly blame both Amy and me for not recognizing each other out of that setting. Guess what? I’m almost convinced that Amy is a polymath! She is a knitter, for one. She has a few lucets too also one could argue that knitting and luceting are the same subject. But as the conversation went along, I wasn’t thinking she was much into costuming, since they stick to the basic tunic in the SCA, until she told me she was also planning on going to the Steampunk Convention in Seattle and was currently working on her costume too. How about that? Two subjects at least!

Oh as for the party, you’ll be proud of me, Mom…I brought a whole plate of homemade deviled eggs. I dressed up a tad…the host had originally asked in the invitation for people to wear something different, so I wore the Chinese top Mandy gave me…I’m glad I didn’t go too crazy though. No one else wore anything “Different” but the host and me. He wore a very tall top hat, in fact.

Sunday: Put on my Sunday clothes, there’s lots of world out there! We saw the show at 5th Avenue and we closed the town in a whirl! Yes! Mandy and I saw Hello Dolly at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. We began our evening by putting on nifty clothes…I wore my little black dress with my silk michiyuki over it…Mandy wore hers with a black and red Chinese top and a red shawl. We looked good. Check us out! We had dinner at Red Lobster because Mandy was dying for their cheese bread rolls. I enjoyed the clam chowder like I always do. I got stuffed mushrooms too but they weren’t anything special. Our waitress was very envious that we were off to see Hello Dolly and said “I wish you were just coming back from it so you could tell me how it is!” Well, I think both Mandy and I could now tell her that we enjoyed it very much! We had cheap seats way up on the balcony. But it was a good day to go because right before the show began we could move way down. The balcony was only 2/3 full…maybe less. We rented binoculars, which I would do again now having done it once. It was so nice to see close-ups! During the show we giggled, laughed, and mouthed along with the songs we love. Oh! Musicals are wonderful and Hello Dolly is nothing short. The costumes were great and I was taking notes for my Victorian costume. Mandy and I both agreed that it would be a great thing to show up at the Harmonia Gardens and have a Hello Dolly welcome. Hello Elly and Hello Mandy would both work in the song, you know. So we had to take top-of-the-stairs pictures in the lobby. Note to Mom: you would have loved it too! They are doing South Pacific next year. I’m just sayin’…

Hello Dolly

Mandy and I are going to put on our Sunday cloths on Sunday the 15th and go see Hello Dolly at the 5th Avenue Theater. I’m really looking forward to it. I do enjoy musicals very much. Frank will also be seeing a show that day. He’s going to Wicked in Portland with friends. I’ve already seen Wicked and enjoyed it very much, but I have never seen Hello Dolly done live. I’ve seen the movie, of course, but going to the theater is a whole different thing.
Mandy and I also plan to go see “The Music Man” in Auburn the following Saturday. A group of old school mates of mine proposed going to see the show together. We found each other on Facebook, you see, and naturally that lead to a desire to meet once again face-to-face. Mandy and I both moved in the drama club circle in school, so we both know people who are going to be there. It should be interesting. Mandy has kept in touch with a lot of her school chums, I haven’t so there’s a lot of catching up to do. The drama circle was more my thing than Mandy’s, so she won’t have seen this crowd in a long time either. Oh yeah…and “Music Man” is one of our faves too. Let’s not forget that!
To round out our theater month and to get in one more blast from the past. We also plan to see “The Merchant of Venice” that weekend as well. The Seattle Shakespeare Company is presenting it at the Roundhouse Theater. In high school, Mandy and I were both in it. We played Solanio and Salerio, the two *male* gossips who serve as an effective substitute for a Greek chorus in the show. I still have old picture of the two of us with glued-on goatees.

So how about that for a theater-going month!

Polymathic Mandy: Mardi Gras Party

In a fabulous display of her diverse skills, my sister gave her annual Mardi-gras party. I’d heard stories of this party and her bread making skills she employs for the king cake. It has to be kneaded and let rise twice, rolled into a ring, baked and decorated. I was rather happy at this picture of her mid-sprinkle:

I dressed her up in my purple 7th Sea LARP costume. She looked great in the purple…much better than me. I wore the blue one, which I think is the better of the two colors for me.

There were about a dozen people in attendance and we didn’t do much besides eat, drink and be merry. I took pictures, of course. So did Dylan, but he had to borrow my camera to do it…he forgot his.
Why is Mandy a polymath? Check out her kumihimo:

And her scrapbook pages: