What's That Again?

Last night Jim and I went to see [title of show] in the Studio at the Repertory Theater. I admit to being a little confused when we first got the tickets in the mail. I should explain here that a friend of ours has great season tickets (second row, center) at the Fox and (fourth row center) at the Repertory Theater. He and his partner also own a condo in Hawaii, so when they are out of town we get first dibs on their tickets. This year for whatever reason the Rep had assigned them tickets to Rep and Studio shows for the same night, January 31st. Luckily they asked no questions when I called to exchange tickets, and we saw "39 Steps" Sunday night and the other show last night.

Anyway, when I saw that the tickets said [title of show], I assumed that the play had not yet been selected. Wrong - that is the name of the play. It turns out that it is a play within a play within a play. Mind boggling, I know. It is actually based on a true story of a couple of friends who wanted to write a play and enter it into a competition, where the winning play would be performed in a theater in New York. They just made the play up as they went along. It is a musical and a comedy as well, and we very much enjoyed it. Evidently we aren't the only ones as they added a second week to the production.

We are through with plays for the rest of this month, which is fine with me. I like them spread out a bit so I can anticipate date night with my hubbie. In the meantime, I now have construction dust from one end of the house to the other, so I have plenty of work to keep me busy. Yuck!

Musings from the Toilet Bowl

Last night I finished clearing out the bathroom so that the workmen could begin today. As I did a final cleaning of the tub, sink and toilet prior to their removal, I thought back to when we purchased the house in 1987. Andy was two years old when we moved in the end of June. While the house was pretty well emptied out when we arrived, it had not been cleaned. At all. Before we could give Andy a bath that night, I practically had to sandblast the tub. Ancient non-skip strips refused to be budged, clinging on for dear life to the bottom of the tub and God knows what other various substances. Mountains of old lady hair clogged the drain. Yek!!!

Wielding my toilet bowl brush last night, I reminisced about potty training Andy in that bathroom, and his sister after him. Both of them swam in that tub, then graduated to using the shower like a "grown-up". Is it weird to be sentimental about a toilet?

Well, no matter. The guys came today, and the bathroom is now just a shell. Interesting that they found hot and cold water pipes on the opposite wall, leading us to speculate that at one time there may have been a claw foot tub in the room. There is also some framing indicating that in the past the back of my closet did enter into that space. I'm thinking that before indoor plumbing was available, they probably used all the space for storage. Just a guess.

Apparently the fact that the tub will take two weeks to get here is an issue. Only the electrical can be handled in the interim. They can't do the drywall or the cement board, which means no tile can go up (or down, for that matter). This will put the whole project behind two weeks. Yippee! I tried to tell Jim that we shouldn't start tearing out until all the parts were in, but nooooooo...he just had to get them going. Men!

Step by Step

Last night Jim and I went to see the play "39 Steps" at the Repertory Theater. The play is based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name, which apparently was originally based on a novel. The play, however, has been turned into somewhat of a comedy. I imagine Alfred Hitchcock is doing a little turning of his own. Three men and one woman made up the cast, with each playing several different roles, sometimes at the same time. It was cleverly done, and the cast was exceptional. I'm not a big fan of British humor, so I probably didn't enjoy the play as much as some of the audience. The props were funny though, with ladders turned horizontally to be held by the actors as if in a plane, dust mops trimmed creatively representing dogs on the hunt (though they could have left out the "humping" activity), and doors being swung to and fro to show the actors entering and leaving a room.

There was a little extra step action going on during intermission when an elderly patron took a tumble down the stairs on the way back to her seat. Intermission was a bit longer as we waited for the paramedics to check her out and remove her from the theater. Watch that 39th step - it's a doozy!