Goodbye 2005

Howdy everybody! Hope you all had a great New Year's eve last night. As you probably saw on the news (or experienced, if you live here in Portland), we've been dealing with a lot of rain over the last few days. Fireworks weren't exactly in fashion here in PDX, so Trish and I just stayed home and bundled up by the fire.

So, it's been almost the entire month since I posted... sorry about that. "Holiday stress" takes on a new meaning at our house... aside from the usual what-present-will-we-get-aunt-Martha and where-are-we-going-Christmas-Eve running around, we've got shows to put on. It's just the nature of a life in show biz - Christmas-time almost always means work-time. The only Christmas I haven't been involved in some kind of performance was last year when Trish and I went to Europe... and that year felt really "off" because I wasn't doing some show somewhere.

Our holiday murder mysteries with Wild Bills went well... we did about four of them for various organizations who'd hired the company to do their annual holiday parties. One show was especially fun, at the Grey Gables in Milwaukie. The people we did the show for had a blast (it was for a Harley Davidson dealership, so you can imagine how uptight and staid the audience was... not!) and the venue was INCREDIBLE! Not only did the management at the Grey Gables treat us really well (they even fed us after the show - a rarity with Wild Bills Murder Mystery shows), but the place is totally beautiful. I'd certainly recommend the place to anyone who's got a wedding or some other event coming up... it's a rich, pastoral setting that feels both elegant and comfortable at the same time.

Once we were done with Murder Mysteries, it was time to get crackin' on Mt. Hood Rep's holiday show, Christmas Shorts. We decided that rather than do a play for our Christmas show we'd put on a program of dramatic readings (sort of a modified version of National Public Radio's "Selected Shorts"). Once we'd picked the pieces we just needed to get together with the cast, read through them, and put on the show. Easy, huh?

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of dice and hens... lots of things went wrong. Our keyboard player Marty Gallagher caught the flu and couldn't be part of the show (thankfully cast member Nancy Sievert could play the piano and took over for him). The rehearsal with the cast pointed out (rather painfully) that one of the stories we were planning to read was too long for the program and had to be cut. Another piece we were planning to do (a sketch about Martha Stewart doing a cooking show in prison) was left out of the final script and had to be added at the last minute. Then we had the ice storm the Sunday before the first performance and had to cancel the show.

Finally, on the afternoon of Christmas eve, we all bustled into the Reynolds Middle School theatre and put on our little show to a small-ish crowd... and it turned out great. How did on earth did it all come together after the huge mess I mentioned above? It's a mystery...

Because we had a show on Christmas eve, holiday travel had to be postponed until after the holidays. We had a nice Christmas day at home (with Trish's son Jesse, his girlfriend Jessie, and a Honeybaked Ham) and then hit the road on Monday the 26th to go see my family up in Washington.

We pulled into my parents house in Custer, WA at around 4pm and had a nice couple of days with them... we got to hang out with my brother James, his fiancee and her two girls, play lots of mahjong, see the new Harry Potter movie (fun, but didn't begin to dramatize all that was in the book... they should have "Kill Billed" it and broken the film into two parts), and enjoy a nice long visit.

Then we headed down to Seattle to see our friends Walter Baker and Beth Cooper. Had a wonderful day and evening with them, as well: went shopping at Ikea (a first for Trish and I... what an experience!), had dinner at an OUTSTANDING southern restaurant in Columbia City called The Wellington (pork chops you could cut with a spoon, cheesy grits, buttermilk fried chicken... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm) and played even MORE mahjong.

By the 30th we were back in town for the Murphy Management holiday party at Aura (a lovely suare' with a lot of people in a very small space... but we had a lot to celebrate. Kaili's been very very good to us, and we're sure hoping we'll continue to be good for each other in 2006 :) ).

That brings us to yesterday, New Year's Eve... we spent most of the day in The Rogue Isles and Paragon City (after a week away, we started to miss those familiar vistas and our super-suits. Ok, I guess our dual-citizenship in these locations is starting to become like an addiction... so what's your point?) Like I said above, the wind and rain kept us inside, so most of our traveling was virtual. We did, however, take a moment to kiss at midnight and toast the new year.

And here we are today... wrapping up our 2005 stuff in preparation for Tax season (and tallying up the bills for our holiday spending... eouch!!!), and looking forward to what 2006 has in store for us. Hope you're all recovering from last night, and that you've got positive things ahead in the coming year. I'll be here... however infrequently :).

-Harold