This is a post from trying out for a play that I may have written a while back.

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I am venting. I know that I shouldn't have taken it so personally but I have.

The try-outs were not good. Everyone at the try-outs knew each other. There was a stunning lady of a certain nationality who I expect will get a part. A woman past a certain age who had long hair and a top knot was there and she was very good who will probably get the part of the _____, and one of Peaches’s teachers from _____ High who was terrific for the lead will probably get the part that I was trying out for. This is not said with bitterness but rather a sense of defeat.

I did the first part of memorized dialogue pretty well, then it came to script reading. Four people went up and read. Then I went up, reading for the female lead. I was originally planning to stay knowing that the teacher would get the role, but they didn’t fill in all the people for MY reading so I was reading off the assistant director. Then she cut me off and called for the next people. She filled all of them (including the lady from the other country) and they read through to the end of the scene just as they did with the teacher.

I recognize writing on the wall and acted like I got an emergency text message and excused myself. As I was leaving, the director asked if I was coming back tomorrow. I said that I hoped so, only because if I was really in a rush I’d not get ticked like I was and say, “Why are you asking me that? So I can waste our time?”
Surely they know that everything the directors do is being read into. Do they like me? Am I good enough? They were expecting 30 people to show up, not the 6 that showed up.

It is not anyone's fault, but I really hate being asked to hang around just so I can be told that I am not what they are looking for.

Thinking out loud

It has been a awhile since I wrote. Summers are long for me. I never wanted to be one of those parents who had the kids home over the summer then was counting the days until school resumed, but I am one. I am not short on imaginative ideas to keep the kids occupied, but I am short on cash. A lack of money combined with kids with short attention spans makes me not happy. Teachers are trained to work with kids and the kids of course have their pals at school.

The summer has been fun, however. I take the kids to the lake-- there is a little public dock near a local club that I take them to. I have three friends who belong to the club but they don't actually go. At some point I am hoping that one of them will sponsor me in so I can actually go there and volunteer and be active and by the way, enjoy their nice lawn! One of my friends has four children who are good friends with my children and I watch them for her (actually Cloud watches them for her at our house) and they have been fun. A lot of extra work, but never the less, fun.

I have covered two pageants. I was in a couple of pageants several years ago and enjoyed them. I like being on the other side of the camera. A dress store owner has been hinting to me that gravity has not been kind to my hips which I find irritating, but since she is happy that I am writing, I take the good with the bad!

Pageants are wonderful. More than an excuse to launch potential governors, they showcase women who are living and doing thing things in their communities. I have an issue with the swimsuits and have been appointed at large to be Ms. Alaska All American Woman for 2010. My goal is to bring this multi-level pageant to Alaska or at least help women who are in it representing Alaska to be able to go down. You don't have wrestlers competing in the same weight class, and marathon runners don't compete in the same age class. Who would pageant contestants compete in the same class? All American is like this. The two pageants who are up here are fabulous and very different, but they only choose one winner. The judges need to choose the contestant who is most likely to bring home the crown, but this means that a woman who is a size 20 does not really stand a chance against a women who is a size 6. If you look at the women who are winning the national crowns for the other pageants, they are in the 25-40 age range, size 4-8.

Raising money for this will be a challenge. I need to raise 3-5,000 for me to fly down to Florida. I do not have extra cash lying around. I have to raise it. While it seems like a lot to me, if I cannot raise this amount for me to go down, I will have a rough time raising more money to actually get with a talent agency to put this on and bring this pageant up.

My mom is getting married this weekend and I am officiating. It's a "God's eyes ceremony" where she is married but not officially. They have each other as powers of attorney should they get sick and they have everything lined up. Otherwise, if one gets sick, the other may go bankrupt trying to help the other. He's a really, really nice guy. My mopm thought he was shy. LOL After 48 years with my Yosemite Sam-John Wayne type father, he seems shy. He's respectful! But opinionated-- YIKES! Dyed in the wool Republican, and my mother is Progressive, but they get along well. I'm excited to get to officiate. It's a huge honour.

May I have some cheese with my whine, please?

I'm ticked.

I covered the Mrs. Alaska United States Pageant and had a blast doing it. I used to make fun of pageants but after I did one on a lark when I was pregnant with Starshine, I got hooked. Pageants represent the present culture and the women who maintain those norms. Writing this, I see exactly how what has upset me represents this idea.

The winner was someone who really had her stuff together and who told me that her platform was instilling confidence in young women, starting with the mothers. Her real agenda is marriage as a one man, one woman thing and denying rights to others who are biologically inclined to their own sex. Never mind that gays have families and are like the rest of the population, good or bad, but not because of their orientation.

Forty-six hours after her win, she was on TV getting press, leading children and protesting the municipal ordinance that would grant equal rights to everyone.

The pageant organizer told me that "I was there to make sure that she represented her position without taking an anti-gay position. She was clear that her position was neither for or against homosexuals, but was against her right to vote on this issue." News footage suggests other things. This woman is a member of Prevo's church and what she had said her platform was is quite different from what she is saying now.

This is probably under the carpet now-- but I am not happy that a pageant winner would be so openly against equal rights and be wearing a tiara and sash to get press on it. Gays are huge in pageants. You don't bite the hand that feeds you. I regret that this may have temporarily sullied the Mrs. Alaska Pageant, which is not like this.

I'd publish her picture, but it would probably just inflate her ego. She had seemed so nice!

I am still here but not sure how to blog about life!

Ropi just asked if I am being fine as I've not been blogging lately.

Where do I start? Life is downright busy! I don't know if I have ever been this busy or been having as much fun doing it!

I have started getting some shows together for a small public radio station. I knew that being a housewife and not really getting out had taken a toll on me, but one of my friends there, and I think we are friends, had to tell me to stop apologizing to the people I was interviewing. Things would go wrong with the equipment and I'd be like, "OMG! I'm so sorry!" He told me that I am a professional, stuff happens with equipment, people get stuck in traffic, etc. and to just flex with the problems and waste no time saying I was sorry and to get on with things. I have been grateful and fawning to some big names that have granted me interviews to which he said, "You are media. You do your job, they interview with you and get publicity and time spent on telling people their story. It's a symbiotic relationship. STOP KOWTOWING!"

I am learning about putting together an actual NEWS story versus wanting to make my people look good. I have been asked, "Are you doing news or propaganda?" He was not suggesting that I be destructive, but honest. I just had to delete some of what I observed in a taped phone interview and when I did my cut of the show, he asked why I left a certain interchange out. I said that it wasn't flattering; he said, "An image is being portrayed by ______ and this contradicts that. You are contributing to their image by taking it out. Is this your intent?" (If it is, maybe I should be directing infomercials.) There was a lot to think about. I can leave it in and let listeners observe it without me pointing to it. They knew they were being taped.

The manager let me play with his i-phone and now I am hooked. This got me into using the equipment, too. I don't know why I had an aversion to using it. All I needed was for someone to show me what to do and spend an hour or so sitting with me and giving me direction, then turning me loose while they stayed in the room and acted busy and I could ask them questions when I needed help.

After we did that, I came home and edited alone and for the most part, was just fine. He was always a phone call or email away if I needed direction. Like me, he is a parent and stays up late with his technology so literally at 2AM we were Instant Massaging about what I was having trouble on. Radio is a medium like painting or writing. Once you have the tools and can use them even in a rudimentary manner, you can take off with them. I don't like the touch of plastic-- has that affected me? Every day I am getting better.

My eldest daughter gave me a laptop for Mother's Day. (One of her friends was selling hers as she updates every May for some reason so I got her old one.) I was shocked by what she spent and she said to me, "This is your tool for radio and writing. It's my contribution to the arts for now." She is an angel. I have an idea of what she spent, but it's not that that impacts me so much as the thought, her knowing what I so much needed, and her finding a way to get me something so important.

I have been writing for a paid news listing. My coverage of thoughtful things was getting a decent amount of hits, then I covered a beauty pageant. What do people want to read? They want lite.

I have been invited to the opening party of a local wine bar and restaurant because of another article. I will be covering a beauty pageant because a pageant organizer liked what I wrote about someone elses' pageant. I am really happy about this.

The kids are doing well, but if they are not entertained 24/7, they make mischief. I would so much like to have more money to be able to get them all into camps for part of the summer. We visit the library and go on hikes, but it's me just trying to give them something to do. I have started to feel like a prison guard as they spend a lot of time trying to get out of doing chores. The day before yesterday they didn't do their age appropriate jobs and yesterday they asked if I'd take them to the park and Cloud was mad that I didn't wake her up to go to someplace that she'd wanted to go (after staying up wayyyy late.) I told them that they had to do their jobs so I'd do the things that they wanted that we fun. I said that I was not doing wear and tear on my car if they were not helping to take care of where we live.

Calamity Jane has found a love of recipes in a children's party book. She is 6 and has found a notebook and has carefully started to plan out every member of the family's birthday parties and what is needed, from cake mixes to streamers. She loves going to the grocery store to price things out. She is a planner.

Yesterday I had to see the doctor for a cut finger. Mudd kept going up to the receptionist and offering her a toy banana that he said was a phone. She kept telling him that she was busy with her job. FINALLY after 30 minutes while I was getting stitched up, he offered her the plastic banana and she accepted. She pretended to talk on it for a couple of minutes, then she gave it to him, "It's for you," she said. He took it from her and looked at everyone in the waiting room, "She doesn't know it's just a banana!"

(That is one of his favorite jokes.)

A Trail in Mat-Su

One of the fun things that we enjoy while living in Mat-Su is hiking the local trails. With over 2,000, I feel like we are living in the Smithsonian of hiking trails! If we chose to hike a new trail each day, it would take us almost 6 years to start repeating them! Many places have pay-per-vehicle parking that today we couldn't afford, so to save money and going along with reccession thrift, we looked for a place that wouldn't cost us anything.


We decided to go to the Palmer Hay Flats. Anyone who commutes to Anchorage sees them every day, but how many go out to take a closer look? In almost 12 years of living here, and almost every time driving past them and thinking, “I really need to go out there,” we finally did!


We went on the Scoutridge Trail and Overlook at the Wasilla entry to the Hay Flats. The overlook is about 400 feet up the trail and is handicapped accessible. Of course between all of us with cameras, we all thought that someone else was getting a picture and no one did. There was an eagle who was perched in a tree and looking at us, and the kids were awed. (I couldn’t help but remember my first encounter with one at the Dutch Harbor dump, but I shut my mouth as the kids gave it adjectives like, “royal,” and “magnificent.” The kids are right; eagles are impressive.)


The trail was easy. If I had just had a baby, this is a trail that I would happily take a new baby on and carry in a baby carrier. We packed a light lunch, but unless you haven’t eaten, you don’t need to bring your lunch. (To the kids, it's a picnic! For what little trouble it is, do it! With kids over 8, they can help.) It’s just over a mile long and took us an hour only because we had to look at everything. Little Rose had to get a drink every three minutes, as did Mudd. She is 3 and he is 5; it’s their age. We expected it and just told them that it was good that they loved to drink water. The only problem was that we didn't see any outhouses. (Trying to teach a 3 year girl old to "use the bushes" is not easy, but once a 5 year old boy learns to use them, he could spray the whole trail. My husband says it's a male issue. I wish we'd told him to wait.)


The sun was warm and the air smelled wonderful. Alaska's flowers are starting to come out and attract the bees with their scent. I think I identified the flowers correctly—in the slide show, I am holding my hand next to a trailing bunch of flowers that I think are red currants. They make delicious wine or jelly in the late summer!


We walked up to an old gold panning area. We stepped over it with all of the older kids getting their feet wet. I held my husband’s hand to get across and (I wish I had taken pictures!) my husband stood with one leg on each side and picked up the smallest kids to hoist them over.


Cottonwood Creek’s bridge was out and while I went back with the small ones, my husband and the bigger kids walked down a muddy path to cross it. He said that it was worth it—they took the trail on the other side to look over the flats and see the arctic terns and eagles flying over the flats.


The Flats themselves are beautiful. At this time of the year they are still brown, but they are alive as new life pushes up through the grass and mud. We drove down a single lane hill to park and there are little puddles and ponds all over the place. My kids in crocs were not a great thing, but they were usually able to stay dry. Had it just rained, we’d have had some issues. We saw some falcons out, and I thought I saw a falconer in the distance. It’s hard to imagine that before the 1964 earthquake, that land had been rich farmland. Now it belongs to the arctic terns (who are gracing us with an appearance from their winter home on the other side of the world, Antarctica) and other birds that live there.

I have a slide show at the end of this article that you may like to see!