It's OK; we can deal

I used the watch The Apprentice.  I enjoyed it -- particularly the final challenge -- in which each person would be in charge of putting together an event, and somehow it would all go to shit and you'd have to watch them deal.  At first, I thought that maybe Trump did something in the background to make certain something would always go wrong for each event.  Once I started co-producing our Awards show, I realized that this was unnecessary.  Something will always go wrong on its own.


Here's what happened with our Awards show yesterday...

The plan:  Leave house at noon, pick up sandwich platters (for rehearsal) at Ralph's and pick up balloons at Party City.  Get to theatre by 1:00.

Here's what actually happened:  Small ticketing emergency as we needed several extra tickets for people but were already sold old.  Made calls; sent emails.  Small program emergency in that the programs would not arrive as early as I needed them unless we sent someone to pick them up.  Conveniently, someone had called earlier and asked if we needed help.  Why, yes, we do.  Left house at 12:30.  Got to Ralph's.  Waited in line at Service Deli only to discover they'd lost our food order and hadn't made the sandwiches yet.  Can I come back in 15 minutes?  I can.  Went to Party City.  Got balloons.  Spent 15 minutes cramming 15 balloons in the back of my car while two or three kept floating up to block my vision when driving.  Returned to Ralph's.  Waited some more.  Got platter.

Arrived at theatre to find several of our crew had already gotten lunch.  

3:30 rehearsal went well.

4:00 rehearsal went well.


4:30 rehearsal went well.


By now the programs had come.  Someone picked a random one off the top and discovered it was printed wrong -- two pages duplicated and we were missing two other pages.  Someone else pointed out to me that her program was right.  There followed me and our sound person frantically flipping through 300 programs to sort out the defectives -- turns out only about 10 were wrong -- but I'm glad we found that out before the show.


5:00 rehearsal was supposed to be missing 2 people.  Was actually missing 4.  Ended up fairly concerned about whether this number would actually work, seeing as only two people involved in it actually rehearsed it.  Also:  didn't get started until 5:30.


Around 6:00, it dawned on me that the we were opening the doors at 6:30, and wouldn't it be nice if I was wearing a dress?  Changed in the green room.  While in that delicate ladylike position of hiking up my hose under my dress, our host walked in on me.  Quipped, "I'll always remember you this way."


At some point, it was made clear to me that one of three volunteer ushers was at home sick.


And our second came to theatre sick -- and would help as much as she could, but bail within the first hour.


So I did usher orientation to an usher and a half.


Got presenters oriented, and handed each one a premarked program telling them what to do.  (Did I mention I was marking programs in the background to all this?)


7:30, we get everyone in the theatre and the show starts.  At this point, I am informed that one of my performers from broke a shoe -- I mean broke it -- the wedge heel is in two pieces now.  She'll do the number barefoot.  I am ok with this -- I have to be.  I'd bought a lot of emergency supplies from CVS, but had nothing in the way of "spare shoes" or "really really Super Glue."


I have a momentary "I'm glad that wasn't me," thought, which is, of course, followed by, "what a selfish thing to think, something will probably go wrong for me because I thought that."


I skip the opening number (hey, I saw it rehearse) while I run into the bathroom to do my makeup.




(If I made one mistake in the evening, it was not using a dressing room here.)


Set my eyeglasses on the teeny half-shelf above the sink.  In the process of putting on my makeup, they fell.  I caught them before they clattered -- by throwing my arm against them.  Where the stem of the glasses got caught between my arm and the shelf.  And bent back.  Badly.


I put the glasses on my face and they're sitting at a jaunty forty-five degree angle.


(Yes, I may have deserved that.)


Madly start doing emergency work on the glasses.  (Listening to laughter coming from the theatre -- good, the number is landing.)  While my glasses are apparently very easy to bend out of shape, they seem stiff as a board when I'm trying to bend them back.  I push and shove and, luckily, get the damn things in a reasonable approximation of correct, without just snapping the damn stem off.

Put them on my face and admire the result -- only a degree or two off from normal.  I drop my hand from my face and, on the way down, it brushes my necklace -- snapping a huge piece right off.


("Really?" I think.)


The big pretty dangly bit came off in my hand -- it's now a very delicate choker.


Back to the mirror.  Glasses are straight; remains of necklace work.  Broken bit of necklace thrown in my make-up bag -- I run back to my seat for the show.  It's all good.


The fact that the woman did that one number without shoes made it twice as funny.