Life

It's Friday morning, and I have a bit of a sore throat. It's not bad enough to keep me home, which I suppose is a good thing, since I've cashed in a lot of PTO recently. Besides, Miss V has the day off today, so I'm on the spot to take notes for the leadership staff meeting. On the upside, since our division head is also off today, along with my boss and several of his peers, it should be a short meeting with very few notes to transcribe.

Tonight my daughter's elementary school is having a student-parent back to school celebration: a sock hop. Not really the way I want to spend my Friday evening, but my daughter is excited about it, so we're going together.

Hopefully Saturday morning will be a sleep in day. In the afternoon I'm taking an NRA class called "Pistol Basics," which will involve a drive out to a firing range in a little town I'd never heard of before. The class is for people who are generally curious about handguns, safety, and how to shoot. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time.

On Sunday, queenofhalves is visiting, which is always A Good Thing.

Lots going on in my spiritual life, but most of it isn't stuff that I want to be posting about right now. It needs to be pondered silently and digested before sharing. But it's good.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

I love images like this.
There is nothing more glorious or awe-inspiring to me than the majesty of the stars and deep space.


For those interested in the scientific details and complete credits:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070921.html

Disappointment: The Pirate Queen

I'm not an obsessive fan of the musical Les Miserables, but I enjoy it very much, especially Javert's songs. I am also fascinated by stories of Grace/Grania O'Malley, the so-called Pirate Queen of Ireland.

So of course I was delighted when I heard that the creators of Les Miz were doing a musical about Grace O'Malley called The Pirate Queen, and I was ecstatic when I found the CD of the Broadway cast on Amazon and ordered it last week.

It's awful.
I really, really want to like it -- but it's awful.

I've never heard a more boring score or mundane lyrics. There's no excitement to the story, no complexity to the music or the characters, nothing either sweeping or hummable. Whoever wrote the lyrics was so focused on the woman-in-a-man's-role-but-still-a-woman aspect that there's little room for anything else. But even that is handled in the most conventional, flat way possible.

This could have been a wonderful show, but it's not.

At the Hop

I'm at the sock hop listening to Elvis and doo-wop music, watching kids -- including little girls wearing poodle skirts -- tossing around balloons. My daughter is off on her own, socializing, while I guard the chocolate bundt cake she won in the cake walk. I've also been chatting with Laura, who lives across the street and whose kids are my daughter's playmates.

I also met the principal, who hugged me and told me he read my letter a couple of times to the staff and shared it with the superintendent. He said he'd received a lot of supportive feedback but that my letter was the best, most meaningful. So that felt good.