Geaux Tigers!

Way to win the big one, Budreaux! And you did in regulation game time...no triple overtimes needed.

Beth and Anthony (aka Captain New Orleans) have been rolling in New Orleans all day today as they got their game faces on in preparation for tonight's National Championship Game. And by "got their game faces on" I mean "have been drinking Bloody Marys since 10:00 a.m.".

You gotta love Beth's text messages...

2:00 p.m. The rage is on.

4:45 p.m. The rage continues. Bourbon Street is crazy. ONLY FELL ONCE. OSU boyz helped.

7:51 p.m. No worries baby. We are tigers. (when LSU was down by 10 in first 5 mins. of game)

8:32 p.m. IT IS ON. (When LSU scored 21 unanswered point and the tide turned in their favor)

8:52 p.m. God I love this place.

10:31 p.m. Always keep the faith. We are the tigers.

10:46 p.m. The city is exploding. But in a good way.

So cheers to you, LSU! I have a feeling the great state of Louisiana will be a little late for work in the morning...

Got Fleur-de-lis?

Guess where I spent Thanksgiving?

She Has Blue Hair...Really!

You have to visit my friend Good Beth's blog at www.bigbluemess.com.

Here's a picture of Beth. She's the blue-haired beauty next to the blonde-haired beauty, April.

I've been wanting to write about the influence that different friends have had on me, but since I don't seem to write about anything anymore, for now I'll just tell you that Beth is one of the smartest, most insightful, funny people you will ever meet. Ever.

And we have to be clear that I have two Beths in my life, and I'm talking about the Good Beth. Because there's a difference...

If I was writing a love poem about Beth it would say things like her ripple effect is strong, she's blessed with awareness and she has a wise, old soul. But I'm not writing that soliloquy because I've become too lazy to actually write anything.

Beth's recent blog entries absolutely crack me up, so, enjoy!

If It's Not True, It Ought to Be

A headline from Monday’s news made me remember this story. One of those stories that make me snort laughter when I think about it. Not only because it’s funny, which it is, but because it brings up memories of living with Beth during the summer of 1998 when we were goddesses on Alegria. We told story after story every night while sitting on her porch drinking club soda and wine and trying to stay cool. And nobody…nobody…tells a story like Beth when she’s on a roll.

Beth was a television news reporter in Little Rock, Arkansas circa 1990, her first job out of college. Before she was assigned to cover politics, and a certain Governor Clinton, she was assigned more local-interest type stories.

So it’s a SLOW day in the newsroom when she gets a call from an absolutely hysterical woman who is SCREAMING at the top of her lungs.

HELP ME! HELP ME! COME HELP ME! COME HELP ME RIGHT NOW!

Beth is pretty alarmed and tries to get a word in to ask her what’s wrong.

THERE’S A GIANT DRAGON IN MY YARD!

Blink….blink, blink…blink…

COME HELP ME RIGHT NOW – THERE’S A DRAGON OUTSIDE THAT’S COMING AT MY BABIES!

Beth said she can hear hollering and kids screaming MAMA, IT’S A DRAGON! IT’S GONNA EAT US in the background.

Beth yells at the woman to call 911 who says she has but they hadn’t yet responded. No doubt because this woman sounded like a raving lunatic. Somehow the lady thought to call the local TV station and was put through to Beth.

Beth gets the address and grabs her cameraman and they head out in the station van to a very rural, isolated part of the countryside way outside of Little Rock, figuring that this was a prank. But it was a slow news day so it gave them something to do. The drive was one of those deals where they had to turn right at the red barn, then left when they see the hay stack in the field, kind of thing, but they somehow find their way and eventually drove up to this ramshackle double wide in the middle of nowhere.

When they step out Beth can hear the screaming inside. She and her camera man slowly start to walk up and all of a sudden the door swings open and the hysterical woman tells them to GET IN HERE FAST, THE DRAGON IS AROUND BACK TRYING TO GET IN THE BACK DOOR!

So Beth in her little skirt suit, hose and heels goes hot footing it across the gravel and she and her camera man jump inside where chaos is in full swing. She said there were about six children, all under the age of 10, just wailing and clinging to their mother. Beth finally peers around the cluster of people and looks outside the sliding glass door going out of the kitchen onto the back yard.

She said she jumped back and screamed “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?” She was looking at a gigantic 10 foot long…dragon.

Her language sort of stunned all the little kids quiet. You just have to know Beth and watch her reenactment to know how funny this is. While she didn’t admit it, I think her second reaction was probably to throw one of those little children out in the backyard to act as a decoy so that she could safely bolt out of there, back to the van.

But the camera started rolling and Beth is trying to collect herself and report on the story, but she keeps getting distracted by crazy wailing kids and the fact that there is a mean looking alien animal 3 feet away from her that might possibly be capable of breathing fire. She calls someone from her station, explains the situation and tells them to send out animal control.

While waiting for help, Beth tries to check the thing out – its giant tongue was flicking on the glass, and she swears it was is 6 feet long and a foot and a half tall. It looked like a Komodo dragon, but it was the type of giant lizard that had one of those collars that flares up around its head when it is defensive. That collar thing was in full flare, it’s big tail was curled up and it looked mighty menacing.

So animal control shows up and the same scenario ensues with them dashing into the double wide, then not believing their eyes. They don’t know what to do about it, so they call the zoo, which sends people out and they go through the same thing of rushing in, only to stare. The zoo then called the wildlife department and the same scenario played out. Beth said that by the end of it, there were about 30 people all jammed into this ramshackle trailer with everyone yelling and screaming and not having a clue what to do. The owner of the house kept shouting SHOOT IT! JUST SHOOT IT!

Finally, someone takes control and they decide to shoot it with a tranquilizer and then this whole funny scenario ensues about how they picked the person that was going to have to go around back and do the shooting while 30 faces are pressed up against every window on that side of the double wide watching in horror.

I think the brave soul with the tranq gun got in a pick up truck at the front of the house and drove around back and shot it out the window, then peeled away when the dragon ran towards him before the drug took affect.

I don’t remember where it went from there but the zoo ultimately carted the beast away for observation. And Beth got her story.

When she got back to civilization, Beth researched the history of that area and discovered that the University of Arkansas used to have a biological/zoological research center near there that had long since been shut down. She figured that maybe the animal escaped or had been let go from that place, which had been closed for 20 years, and had been living in the Arkansas jungle all this time until it stumbled up onto the double wide.

There are a couple of Beth’s stories from her reporting days that get me laughing hard. This one, the one where a Slavic band of gypsies slaughtered and roasted a goat at a local Motel 6, the time she went with the DEA to report on a drug trafficking story on the border and ended up in a Mexican jail, and of course when she was an embedded reporter in Saudi Arabia for six weeks during Desert Storm.

Is it any wonder she eventually chose the relative safety of public television? The most dangerous thing Beth had to worry about there was avoiding being goosed by the pervy, old donor, and surviving the waitress at the Hole in the Wall (our lunch hot spot) who used to ball her out for being a bad tipper.

Mungojerry and Rumpleteaser Were A Notorious Couple of Cats

Yikes! Seeing this ad in Sunday's paper for Cats coming to OKC in May made me feel as freaking OLD as Gus the Theater Cat. How is it possible that this show is celebrating its 25th year?

I saw first saw Cats in New York in 1985 with my mom. The show was at the Winter Garden Theater and it was all the rage. We had great seats, fairly close to the stage, although the stage wasn’t traditional at all – it jutted out into the audience all over the place.

When the lights dimmed and the orchestra began playing I was almost breathless. And then it was ON… cats were jumping and playing and dancing and singing and shouting and crying and being nice and mean and sweet and sad and it T.S. Elliot’s poems were coming to life.

It was unlike anything I had ever seen, and I loved it. But at one point I looked over at mom and she looked totally perplexed. And sort of annoyed. A look that said she wasn’t sure what to make of this musical melee with its no-dialogue-having plot being nothing but a loosely tied together string of songs sung by bulge-showing leotard-clad actors who were jumping and hissing around like banchees, with crazy lighting effects, and a giant descending spaceship. This was the closest thing to “performance art” either of us had ever seen and it pushed the limits of our Helena, Montana sensibilities.

The day before, we had seen the incredible musical 42nd Street at the Schubert Theater, which was right up our alley. Now that’s how musicals were SUPPOSED to be, right? A simple, straight-forward plot that involved a sweet love story and “saving the day”, fabulous songs, big tap dance numbers and lots of high-kicking Bob Fosse feather and sequin costume-wearing chorus line choreography. THAT was a musical.

Cats was much more “out there” than we were used to at that time. And it’s funny to think now that I actually thought Cats was “out there”, then. But I digress…

Mom was a really good sport and she hung out with me afterwards at the stage door so I could see Laurie Beechman who had played Grizabella (and sadly, has since died of ovarian cancer when she was not much older than I am now!) and that foxy Terrance “Rum Tug Tugger” Mann. Meow…

From that point on, I was pretty much eaten up with Cats. I thought it was awesome. I got the soundtrack on audio cassette and listened to it so much the tape warped. I bought the score and tried to learn to play some songs on the piano, but sounded fairly atrocious.

On that note, I have a funny memory of my wonderful grandmother, Mom Jo. As I’ve said before, Mom Jo was an extraordinary pianist and a musician of some renown in the gospel music world. Mom Jo had a VERY distinct style of playing that I don’t even know how to describe in words. It’s the sound that I will forever attach to old-school gospel quartet music, if that means anything to anyone. She would play songs in a real boogie-woogie style with a double-time bass line. Anyway, it’s hard to explain, but Mom Jo was visiting one summer and I was upstairs doing something and she was downstairs playing the piano and I could tell she had found the Cats music because I heard her playing the beautiful, haunting song “Memory” in that boogied-up, double bass beat gospel style. It was hilarious.

Fast forward some period of time, I really don’t remember how long, and the Broadway production of Cats was touring through Denver. My buddy Steve and I were pretty pumped and we had fun seeing the show together. Steve had seen the show in New York before I did, AND he had sent a Laurie Beechman a fan letter, to which she responded with a personal letter and picture, so he was a bigger Cats nerd than me.

Steve and I share a totally ridiculous Cats memory, but we thought it was hysterical at the time. There was a fairly small Cats promotional poster hanging inside the theater that I really wanted. And while I am completely embarrassed to admit this, we concocted this elaborate scheme to take the poster that involved waiting until everyone was gone. So we lurked and hid in dark shadows until the theater was clear. Then Steve held the door open and I quickly untacked and grabbed the posted and put it in my coat and once outside the doors we “walked/ran” as fast as we could to the car, laughing the whole way, thinking we were pretty Oceans 2 clever for getting away with stealing the Hope diamond. Never mind the fact that the theater had 100 copies of that same poster in their office and probably would have just given me one if I'd have asked, this was a treasure and it was MINE. I had it mounted and framed and it hung on my wall for years. Classy.

I had eagerly anticipated seeing Cats on PBS when they aired the show some years ago as part of Great Performances, but alas, I was disappointed. To me, Cats isn’t something you can watch on TV; it’s something you have to experience, and that only comes across to its fullest in the theater.

So now Cats is 25 years old and not so avant-garde, anymore. It’s one of those musicals that I don’t think I can ever see again because I over dosed on it years ago. I know it too well. I would want to fast-forward over certain parts. It would be a little bit tedious. It wouldn’t be the same as it was low those many years ago when I was a wide-eyed teenager being exposed to a little NYC culture.

Oh, what the heck…in the spirit of feeling really old as Cats celebrates its 25th:

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

My Funny Valentine, Sweet Comic Valentine

I made it through St. Valentine’s Day yesterday and it turned out to be okay. Choosing not to spiral down into a funk for not having a sweetie, my strategy was simply to ignore it as any kind of special day other than a Wednesday.

But there were a few nice moments.

Really delicious cookies baked by my friend Holly. Aren’t they pretty? They tasted even better.

And this righteous ring from my friend Sam. I love it so much. It’s called a roe ring because it looks like a cluster of fish eggs, made out of glass beads. Truly fabulous. Sam mailed it to me, because he’s out of town. He and I are just friends, so the jewelry was a surprise, but he’s goofy like this. He often shows up bearing gifts, which is kind of fun. He's given me everything from African sandals to watches to crystal glasses to rings. He's sort of my high roller friend, which cracks me up, because I'm not a high roller girl. At all.

I got a call last night from an ex-boyfriend from YEARS ago, which was a huge shock and awkward conversation. But ex-boyfriends are a story for another day.

And I received some nice valentine cards from family and friends, too.

So I survived Valentine’s Day feeling pretty good about things. Yea, me!