More About Rubbed Out at Ruby’s

Posted on February 8, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I have been promising a full blog post about Rubbed Out at Ruby’s, the interactive murder mystery to be presented by LiFT Theatre Company at the Overlook Mansion in Little Falls, NY.  Excitement is building!  The event will take place on Saturday, Feb. 25 starting at 6 p.m.

The production involves more audience interaction and less performance than previous murder mysteries I have written (notably Engaged to Be Murdered, presented last April at Morning Star Methodist Church; perhaps you read one of my blog posts about it).  Oh, we’ll still get to ham it up.  You know how I love to ham it up!

The story takes place in the 1920’s and centers around the death of Benny Bottini, Little Falls’ most beloved bootlegger.  Benny’s body was discovered on the ground floor of the mansion some days previously.  The audience will have a chance to read a few details about the murder in an article from Little Falls Confidential, a rather sensational newspaper.

Located in the basement of the Overlook is Ruby’s Rathskeller, the hottest speakeasy in town, which is run by George Raffle. He named it after Ruby Van Renssalaer, a rich society lady who loaned him the start-up cash.  Upstairs of the Rathskeller is Mavis LaLonde’s very fancy bordello, which features Zelda Helsinki, Little Falls’ most sought-after good-time girl.  Benny was in love with Zelda, but her boyfriend is Jimmy “the Shiv” Schlavinsky, George’s head muscle man.  Also on hand are Dianne Enger, George’s new torch singer;   Vivian Velasquez, who runs a rival speakeasy;  and Avery Wainwright, the new bootlegger in town.

Audience members will have a chance to talk to the suspects and search for clues in the basement and first floor of the mansion. Hors d’ouvres will be served with a cash bar available. Participants are encouraged to dress to the period.  Tickets are $25/person.  The Overlook Mansion is located at 55 Douglass St. inLittle Falls, phone number 315-823-1907. For more information you can visit the Overlook’s website at http://overlookmansion.com/mansion/ or visit their Facebook page.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

I’m Not Moldy; I Showered!

Posted on February 7, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Oh dear, time passes quickly when you have to be somewhere at 6:30.  Of course this is not always the case.  Sometimes I sit here, stare at the clock and think, “Dammit, can’t it be time for rehearsal now?  I’m going to be tired at 6:30!”  Well, I guess I can say that today, but in fact I have been tired most of the day.  Maybe I had too much fun over the weekend.  We’ll go with that, because it makes me look like a wild child, not an moldy oldie.

I was late getting home today, because I made a couple of stops.  I am searching for costume pieces and props for both Steel Magnolias and Rubbed Out at Ruby’s.  I met with no success.  The Dollar Store (I think it is actually Family Dollar; they’re all Dollar Stores to me, but this is the one near Wal-Mart in Herkimer, and everything really is a dollar.  My favorite kind of dollar store)… I’d better start that sentence over; I got a little lost in my parenthetical comment.  The Dollar Store, I was saying, did not even have any play money.  I thought they always had play money!  They’re toy aisle was shortened.  Of all things!

I also went to the Arc Thrift Store next door.  I tried on two red evening gowns (I’m Ruby).  One fit, but I felt my flab was too lovingly detailed.  It was definitely not a 20’s outline.  The other one I couldn’t even get on.  I mean, maybe I was too fat, maybe I wasn’t.  The fact was, I couldn’t get myself into the damn thing.  It was a lined sheath, and I could not seem to get myself into both parts at the same time.  I would have laughed had I not felt so frustrated.  I caught sight of myself in the mirror after I had given up but before I had put my own clothes back on, and I said, “Damn.”  I positively must eat less.

When I got back home I was too tired to make the guacamole I had intended for my flat bread sandwich tomorrow (on a whole wheat tortilla, by the way).  So I’m afraid it’s Cotto Salami.  I’m sure that’s more fattening, but I comfort myself with the thought that it is better than crap out of the vending machine or deep-fried yumminess from the cafeteria (why is my computer underlining “yumminess”?  Isn’t that a word?  I’ll be damned!).

So that is my Monday Mental Meanderings for the week.  Did anybody notice that I did not whine about not being able to make a blog post today?  Can I get a brownie point for that ?  Mmmm…. brownies.  No wonder I’m fat!

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, Monday Mental Meanderings, personal and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Holding On Till The Next Hot Flash

Posted on February 6, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Welcome to another Wrist to Forehead Sunday post.  I did not get much done today, although I tried.  I don’t know why I thought I could get anything done.  Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

It has been a cold weekend in the Mohawk Valley.  I know, it’s February, what can I expect?  As a matter of fact, I did expect it to be cold.  And I did not expect to enjoy it.  However, I will admit to feeling… not good, but as if the cold was doing me good as I walked through the Hannaford parking lot after picking up a few groceries.  You know, like an ice pack or a cold shower is sometimes just what you need.  I couldn’t pinpoint for you exactly what about me I felt needed icing at at time, but I decided to go with it.

The cold did not continue to do me good (or feel as if it was doing me good, I guess), but you’ll have that.  As usual, I just tried to hold on till the next hot flash.

We had another rehearsal for “Rubbed Out at Ruby’s,” the 1920’s murder mystery LiFT Theatre Company will present at the Overlook Mansion in Little Falls.  This week I positively will write a full blog post about it.  In the meantime, I’ll try to find a link you can click for more information.  You can also go to the Overlook’s or LiFT’s Facebook pages.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal, Wrist to Forehead Sunday and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Snow, Costumes and Oolong Tea

Posted on February 5, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Well, I am going to try to make my Scattered Saturday post before Steven comes home and we go out to meet good friends for dinner.  For one reason, I thought I would refrain from drinking and typing, as I sometimes do on a Saturday.  At least for my blog post.  About Facebook I make no promises (note to self:  make a Facebook page for Mohawk Valley Girl, in case my readers would like to Like me there).

Mmm… I paused to sip my Oolong tea.  I LOVE Oolong tea.  Why have I not been drinking it every day?  Points to ponder.  Then I paused again, because my laptop told me the battery was low.  Silly me, not plugging it in between Facebook breaks.  I moved to a different chair, plugged the damn thing in, moved my tea, which necessitated moving a piled up lace dress (that I’ll tell you about in a few), sat down, remembered my mouse, went back across the room to get the mouse… I tell you, it’s not easy being me.

We slept in this morning, because Steven did not work till 10:30.  Oh, the laziness of staying in bed till almost seven o’clock!  It was great.  It was after eight when Spunky indicated it was time for his first business meeting.  I put on a bra (do NOT tell me TMI!), my flood boots and my warmest coat.  It was still pretty frigid out, and snowing.  Spunky barked at a neighbor as she came out of her house.  We exchanged good mornings, and I told Spunky he was a silly dog (he already knew).

Steven had sensibly put off clearing the cars since more snow would fall before time to leave, but I saw that we also had to shovel.  After I got Spunky back inside, wiped his paws and gave him a treat, I went back out and started.  Steven soon joined me.  At least the snow was lightweight.  Pushing it worked fine.  Our neighbor shoveled the sidewalk in front of our house and started helping on the driveway!  How awesome of her!  I thanked her profusely, and Steven and I introduced ourselves.  After she left and Steven and I had finished up, I paid it forward by doing the walk in front of the house on the other side.

After showering and getting dressed, I wrote my weekly postcards.  My first stop on leaving the house after Steven was the post office.  Then I gassed up, got some money from the ATM and a drink at the Nice N Easy.  The drink took some debate, since I am avoiding sugar (on a doctor’s suggestion) yet wanted more than mere water.  I finally got Poland Springs Sparkling, black cherry flavor.  That stuff is awesome!  It tastes like soda only not sweet (I often don’t enjoy sweet soda after the first few sips), but there are NO calories!  Score!

I drove to Ilion Little Theatre, where a few people were hard at work on the set for Steel Magnolias.  I hope to show you a photo of the beautifully painted backdrop when it is finished.  I went upstairs to look for 1920s type costumes for the upcoming murder mystery, Rubbed Out at Ruby’s, to be presented by LiFT Theatre Company in Little Falls.  I did not have a whole lot of hope, because I went through every dress in that place when we were doing Leading Ladies and I did not remember anything I thought would work.  However, I was mistaken.  I found a few things I liked, including the lace dress I mentioned some paragraphs ago (was that mention even worth foreshadowing?).

After those exertions, however, I started feeling not too well again.  How stupid of me!  Why can’t I just be healthy?  And why do I have to be such a baby about it?  And here I am, troubling my readers with my complaints.  So sorry.  This is what happens, though, when I’m typing away with one eye on the clock.  I have to plug in the curling iron and do my hair (an unaccustomed chore, to be sure).   Well, I hope you have been moderately entertained by my Scattered Saturday gyrations.  As for me, that Oolong tea has given me my first hot flash of the day and all I can say is, Thank God for menopause!  I have been freezing!  Happy Saturday, everyone.

 

4 Comments

Posted in humor, personal, Scattered Saturday and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

On the Set

Posted on February 4, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I know some of you have been waiting for an update on the set of Steel Magnolias, the play I am in at Ilion Little Theatre.  At least, I know any fellow cast-members who read my blog (DO my fellow cast members read my blog?) would like an update.  Before yesterday’s rehearsal, I remembered to pull out my tablet and I took a few shots.  I got more of the cast than the set, but, after all, isn’t it all about the people?  I think it is.

20170202_184109

We love each other at Ilion Little Theatre.

Kim Darling and Kara Buttermore, who play Truvy and Annelle, were working on the set when I started to click.  They immediately posed for me.  I knew that would make a good photo, but I wanted an action shot.  They offered me this scene from the beginning of the play:

20170202_184204

Annelle does Truvy’s hair as part of her job interview.

Meanwhile, in the audience, Kaylynn Iglesias, who recently joined the cast as Shelby, consulted with Cindy Shepherd.  Cindy, in addition to playing Ouiser, is assisting Rick Vroman in his directing duties.  I had a little problem with my tablet getting this shot.  I hope it looks OK.

20170202_184510

We do a lot of consulting with each other. Theatre is such a collaborative art.

Then I realized I had not gotten a shot of Kelly Stone, who plays M’Lynn.  She and Kaylynn decided to do a mother/daughter shot.

20170202_184534

Their characters really do love each other, although they bicker a lot in the play.

Sadly, I did not get a picture of our awesome sound and light guy, Rick DeJohn, nor of our delightful director Rick Vroman.   Perhaps in a future post.

I’ll close with a couple of shots of the set itself.  More work will be done on the set tomorrow (I’m supposed to go help.  Yikes!  What a lot I have to do tomorrow!).  I hope to include more photos in future posts.  I’d better charge up the tablet.  Happy Friday, everyone.

20170202_184230

The driers don’t actually work, which is actually too bad, because the sink on the other side of the set will.

 

20170202_184237

A center view. Alas, I did not get stage right, where the sink that will actually squirt water is located.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in community theatre, humor, personal and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Steven and Me and Bobby McGee

Posted on February 3, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I’ve been sitting here staring at the blank screen and half watching a re-run of Reba, and I feel completely unable to write a blog post.  Now Reba is over and Steven has found an episode of Snapped on Reelz.  I have to leave for rehearsal for Steel Magnolias (at Ilion Little Theatre, remember?)  in about an hour.  Oh, crap, and I have to curl my hair.  They’re taking head shots again.  I hate having my picture taken!

So I’m having a kind of a mental meltdown.  How embarrassing.  I am such a huge baby! In my defense… OK, I have no defense.  I had a migraine today, but it wasn’t all that bad of a migraine.  I made it through work.  It kind of went away when I drove to New Hartford for a doctor’s appointment.  Now it’s back.  So what?  Many people have headaches.  They take an aspirin and drive on.

Speaking of driving on, the Mohawk Valley weather has been living up to its “wait five minutes” reputation today.  When I drove to and from my appointment, the snow came down like it meant business.  The roads weren’t too bad, but they were wet and no doubt would get worse.  Yikes!  I got back to work and the sun came out.  A beautiful afternoon!  Swell!  The snow dumped down again as I drove home. OK, whatever.  The sun has come and gone twice since I’ve been home.  Go home, February, you’re drunk!

AAAAAAaaaand I just remembered: it is Non-Sequitur Thursday.  All I have to do is think of a catchy headline that doesn’t have anything to do with this foolish post and I’m done.  And, yes, I did feel I needed all those a’s in the first word of this paragraph.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in blogging, humor, Non Sequitur Thursday, personal, writing and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Steven and Me

Posted on February 2, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

There is nothing like not having a damn thing to post about to make one less self-conscious about the thing she did NOT want to post about yesterday (one and she being, of course, me).  Additionally, when I asked Steven what I could make my blog post about, he said, “ME!”  Well, it will be about him and me, as I share a few photos and memories (yes, I’m still relying on the find a few pics method of blog posting.  I kind of like it).

The first photo is from our wedding day, back in 1990.  Check out my ugly big glasses!  Big ugly glasses are coming back into style, but I don’t think we’ll see these again.

10955739_10205122570363760_3727385023224486303_n

How handsome Steve looks! He still is pretty cute.

We are drinking the toast offered by his best man.  I have no memory about what was said.  I don’t even remember if it was a good champagne.  I like dry champagne now, and I prefer to drink it out of a flute.

This next picture was taken at the HALO Luau Fundraiser, a few years ago.  I think I wrote a blog post about it.  I wonder if I can find it and make a link.

603301_410231419039735_1818827328_n

Us get silly for a photo op? Say it ain’t so!

This next one is more recent.  We visited Woodland Hops Farm.  I don’t think I made a blog post about it, but I wrote an article for Mohawk Valley Living magazine.  My sister Cheryl took the picture.

12805730_1056438707752333_6348197769067026206_n

Cheers!

It’s kind of too bad that we are toasting in two but not three of the pictures.  It would have been nice to have, you know, kind of a theme. On the other hand, they are all pictures of a happy couple enjoying themselves.

 

2 Comments

Posted in humor, personal and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

I Ax You: Is This a Good Picture of Me?

Posted on February 1, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

 

Oh I am having a dreadful case of Writer’s Block.  Seriously, my brain is blocking me from writing this post (I know, I know, that’s not writing, that’s typing, as Truman Capote said).  It is Tired Tuesday, but I truly did not want to spend 200 or so words whining about how tired I am and how I can’t think of anything to write.  So I went to my new standby: looking through photos we’ve downloaded to this laptop and picking a few to write about.  I had found some good ones of me and my husband, Steven.

I don’t want to post any pictures of me!  I don’t even like looking at pictures of me!  Many people feel this way.  Most of us look better in pictures to others than we look to ourselves.  I can’t tell you how many times people have said, “Oh, what a great picture of you,” and I have thought, “Wow, I’m not nearly as cute as I think I am.”  I don’t even like to have my own picture as my Facebook profile.  This is what I currently have:

14601127_569210533270207_287460256763850175_n

I was having a Lizzie Borden kind of a day.

The caption doesn’t show on my Facebook.  I prefer threatening people with an ax on general principles, not to get candy.  I can buy candy.

Oh, OK, I have never actually threatened anybody with an ax in real life.  On stage once, I held an ax over the guy who was playing my husband, after I had shot him and he had fallen on the floor. However, I was not threatening; I actually brought the thing down on that bastard.  He had it coming.  This was in Roxy, a play about Roxalana Druse, a famous local murderess. Herkimer County Historical Society presented it at Ilion Little Theatre in September of 2015.  Perhaps you read some of my blog posts about it at the time.

So now I am over 300 words.  Whined a little, showed a picture, shared a memory.  I call that all right for a Tired Tuesday.  Now I’m off to my rehearsal for Steel Magnolias at Ilion Little Theatre.  Maybe I can find my Tablet and take pictures of the progress made on the set.  I think it’s looking pretty good, and will make a marvelous Wordless Wednesday post.  Hope to see you then.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal, Tired Tuesday and tagged , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Any Anniversary at my Age

Posted on January 31, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

So there I was, looking at Facebook and wondering what I could make a blog post about when on my On This Day, I noticed:  Five years ago today was my first Middle-aged Musings Monday!  I know that has largely been replaced by Monday Mental Meanderings, but it just seems so perfect:  I’m looking for a topic, I notice an anniversary.  So I’m going to middled-agedly muse.

OK, so far I don’t have much to muse about.  I had kind of a lost weekend from not feeling well and not being especially ambitious before I started feeling unwell.  There must be some sort of truism about how your level of ambition is usually indirectly proportional to the amount of things you need to accomplish.  Indirectly proportional, if I am remembering junior high math class correctly (if that was even where I learned it) means as one goes up, the other goes down.  In other words, I have a lot to get done. I need to make a list.  And then start actually doing the things on the list.

Naturally the first thing on my list would be Make Blog Post.  It is, in fact, one of the few things I reliably get done.  Not always easily.  For example, just now it took me several tries to type in a sentence because I couldn’t quite make up my mind if using “reliably”  and “on a regular basis” in the same sentence would constitute a tautology.  Tautology is when you say the same thing more than once.  It is redundant.  Yes, that is a joke I make on a regular basis:  You used a tautology by being redundant and saying the same thing more than once!

As you may guess, I am not feeling a whole hell of a lot better than I did yesterday.  I went to the doctor today, and I’ll probably have something else to complain about soon.  In the meantime, I need to eat more chicken soup.  I’ll try for a better blog post on Tired Tuesday.

 

2 Comments

Posted in blogging, humor, Middle-aged Musings Monday, personal and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Wrist to Severed Head?

Posted on January 30, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I interrupt my Severed Head Sunday entertainment to make my blog post.  I did not realize this was going to be a Severed Head Sunday.  I thought I was having a perfectly normal Wrist to Forehead Sunday, not getting enough done, sorry I have to go to work tomorrow, feeling a big angsty about it all.  But Steven and I decided to watch movies instead of our usual Snapped marathon.  When we agreed on Lake Placid, I realized what kind of Sunday it was.

Lake Placid, for the uninitiated, is a horror movie from 1999 about alligators terrorizing a Maine lake which is, in fact, not called Lake Placid.  I wrote a blog post about it some time ago (I wonder if I can find it and make a link).  I think it is a fun flick.  Of course, to make this a true Severed Head Sunday, it might be nice to watch at least one more movie that involves decapitation.  Or there may be an episode of Snapped that can fulfill that requirement.  I am nothing if not flexible in these things.

I have done some writing today, but not much.  At the risk of becoming tiresome, I will just mention VERY BRIEFLY that my cold seems to be back.  Perhaps I do not get enough Vitamin C in my life.   However, I liked what I wrote and I may write a little more, when the movie watching, hanging out with husband portion of the day is over.  After all, one must hang out with one’s husband.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in humor, personal and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
← Older Posts
Newer Posts →