Blizzard Nemo... CARnage

A few days ago, the East Coast was hit by a blizzard.  Blizzard Nemo, to be specific because now the weather powers that be have decided that blizzards should be named although, I think a bunch of preschoolers named this one. Who names a blizzard Nemo?

Nemo was scheduled to strike my area in the late afternoon hours.  Since I get out of work fairly early, my commute home was minimally affected.  By the time the howling wind and thunder and lightening (yes, that's right, thunder and lightening!) hit, the kids and I were safely at home watching television and hoping the electricity wouldn't go out (see post "No electricity, No Problem!" from 11/4/2012) but my husband's commute was another story entirely...

He leaves work later in evenings, so when he began the 11 mile trip home, the blizzard had been in full swing for several hours.  He had no idea the weather conditions had become so bad.  When he first called me, it was only about 20 minutes later than he usually arrives home, so I wasn't really worried yet.  He drives a very reliable 4 wheel drive pick-up, so I thought he would be ok.

"I'm gonna be pretty late...  You should see this, there are cars stuck all around me.  I'm gonna have to turn around and go another way..."  We discussed alternate routes.  He hung up and tried a couple of them, only to get stuck behind stranded cars every time, as he told me the next time he called, about 1/2 hour later.  His truck was moving fine, but stuck cars blocked almost every intersection.

He called me another 1/2 hour later. "I'm getting out and walking soon.  I can't take this."  I started worrying.  I've watched too many survivor shows.  Don't they always tell you NOT to abandon your vehicle?

He made it to within about 1/2 mile from the house, beaching the truck on the side of the road after yet another intersection was blocked and this one was also a slight hill covered with ice.   Our neighbor was nice enough to pick him up on a snowmobile.

You should see it out there, it's like a war zone.  Stranded motorists spent the night in a couple of nearby houses.  The picture above is from Saturday afternoon on the nearest non-private road. Six cars in this direction, and another five on the other end of the street.

The neighborhood's dogs were having a grand old time, though.  Here is the other end of the street, with the husky down the road, checking out the scene...

Pretty, right?

Clearing our little road, and our own driveways took ALL DAY Saturday.  And that was WITH the use of a plow (the neighbor plows for us all) and a snowblower. 

Venturing out onto that road shown above on Sunday looked like this:  

Where were the plows?  Of course, it IS hard to plow around 11 stranded cars...  Humm.... what to do, what to do... still, we had seen heavy snowfall before and never experienced this...

But the most annoying thing was that as quickly as we unstuck someone's car, some other bird brain drove by in an ill-equiped car and got stuck all over again.  If you hear conditions are bad, that means STAY HOME!

Today we have this.

Melting, hard-packed snow with water on top.  Nice.

To prove my point that it's not so easy to get unstuck once you're stuck, here's someone's tire.  It came off when they tried to move their car.  

On the public road, the snow is DEEP and slushy.  If you are moving, you just can't stop or  you'll get stuck.  On Saturday morning there was a car stuck right in the middle of this area.   

 Look how deep the slush is... 

...and no matter which way you turn, more slush!

The best way to get anywhere is to walk.  See the walker off in the distance?

Still, by the time we finished our walk, there was a line of cars waiting to try out the road...

These all succeeded.  

But as we walked toward the house, I heard another person get out of their car.  

Stuck again.

The Little Mermaid - Showtime!

This weekend was showtime for The Little Mermaid.  The kids did a great job even with approximately 100 actors and actresses, 20 scene changes, and probably over 200 props.  Here are some highlights:

 
King Triton - he appeared manly and in charge even in a merman tail, and he loved his trident, which lit up when he "destroyed" Ariel's grotto - see the battery pack at the bottom?  The producer and I collaborated on the concept for the trident, and he put it together.

 The Mersisters sing a cute 50's-ish number called "She's in Love." 

Nothing says, "the beach" like a bunch of seagulls standing on rocks, right?

Ursula in her lair...  What are the "white things" (my daughter's friend's question).  Ursula's lair is in a whale skeleton.  the curved things are rib bones (thoroughly doused in florescent paint).  She is sitting on the tailbone.  I take credit for the tentacle design, although, not the construction - my friend who made all the rest of the costumes actually did the sewing... and as both girls who played Ursula told us, "it's HEAVY!"  See Flotsam and Jetsam in the front?  They light up, too.  My idea, thank you very much!  :-)

Ariel's grotto was a total team effort.  This started out as an entertainment unit to which I applied aluminum screening.  Then the producer sprayed spray foam insulation all over it to make it appear like barnacles and coral were growing on it.  Another couple of people sprayed with paint, and still others gathered and attached the "human stuff".  When Triton "destroys" the grotto, actors turn it around to show the back of it, which has broken human stuff attached.  By the way, isn't Flounder's costume awesome? It took over a dozen hours to sew, and was so thick in places my friend the costume designer broke at least 10 sewing machine needles making it.

Flounder and the jellyfish with Ariel on the rocks (LOL - sounds like a beverage - Ariel on the Rocks).

I consider the stage crew "my" kids and when the curtain opened and I saw this tablecloth, I just had to laugh - it was something I could see my own, real life kids doing.  But look - the table is perfectly set!

"...and Girl, you've got to pucker up like 'dis."  Our Sebastian did a pretty nice job with adopting a Jamaican accent like Sebastian in the movie.

All those animals... all those kids, not enough light!  It was hard to get this shot, so it wasn't as nice as I was hoping it would be, but you get the idea.

SO much fun! Now, go on and Kiss the Girl!

Four Fish (of forty-two lagoon animals...)

Just finished the four leaping fish (that's four of forty-two animals).  They still need to be outlined in fluorescent paint, but I think I may have help with that task.  Hopefully, since we are approaching the final week before the play and I still have lots to do.  Lots to do = not a lot of time to post.  More this weekend.  Wish me luck.  At this point, I need it!

Spray Foam Rock Formations

  Apparently, I like to make things out of wire.  I say apparently because I didn't quite realize this until this evening.  A few months ago, when we started this play, someone suggested we make rocks out of spray foam, and I said, "Sure, cool!"

So first I designed a two-step rock.  We started with two oddly shaped pieces of plywood, separated by 2x4s.  We put a third, smaller piece of plywood on the top for a second step.  Here's a picture I previously posted...

 Next, we stapled on some heavy duty wire to give it some sturdy but rounded shape, and over that I attached some aluminum screening.

See my foot in the lower left?  I was standing on the table for some good staple-gun leverage.

 I kept the top of each level clean so that when the kids step on it in their stocking-feet, they don't get boo-boos.  Sorry about the blurry photo - I didn't check it for clarity till the moment had passed...

It's going to get completely coated with spray foam insulation - here's how it looks after it dries, but before it's painted. Lumpy looking, but it dries nice and hard, but don't get it on your hands or your clothes - it's like epoxy.  As a matter of fact, maybe it IS epoxy.

In the picture above, there is a flat, one level rock sitting on top of my two level rock.  

This evening we also formed a round rock out of a box from a former play...

... and we turned an old entertainment center into Ariel's Grotto.

 We added a piece of luan across the back (I'm thinking something thicker may have been better - easier to staple into), and I added a couple of rocky outcroppings with screening.

Then we wrapped the edges with screening to round them out.   

In the play, Kin Triton is going to flip this around and show the back after he "destroys" the grotto.

When we get a dry day, we're going to drag the stuff outside and cover it all in spray foam insulation.  The stuff shown above was the canned stuff, but it took FOREVER to get that as shown.  It sprays out of a tiny tube that's smaller than a drinking straw.  We decided to spring for the two large "professional" cans.  They mix together, epoxy style as you're spraying them, I believe.  We're doing it all at once because once you open the cans, you only have a few days before whatever remains in the cans hardens up into an unusable mass.   I'll post again after we spray it, which is scheduled for Thursday or Friday.  

Scenery Update in Pictures

Update:  Paint cans everywhere.  Painted objects everywhere.  

Plans getting revised...

 and revised again.

Forty-something animals, all painted black on the back, and painted with colors on the front...

...and various glow-in-the-dark paints, that have yet to be decided upon. 

Semi-circular "whale bones" for Ursula's Lair.  (They're primed in this picture -  I told my helpers for today to paint them bright white.  Of course, bright white latex does not glow under black lights - 

Who Knew?

FORTY-SOMETHING animals, I tell ya. Painted multiple times. 

A rock in its preliminary stage of development.  (flanked by some of the animals in their primed state...)

One of the stairs onto King Triton's throne, currently holding up a whale bone as it dries...

The back of King Triton's Throne - behind the framework of a stair for the pit. 

Find something you love to do, and fit it into your life

I spent much of the day painting these frogs for the play.  All that's left for them to be complete is for me to paint their eyeballs and nostrils (not too time consuming), and if it works under the black lights we installed, give them some florescent highlights.  Then I have to paint their backs black, so that if the kids accidentally turn them the other way while on stage, they become invisible.  A friend took eight cranes home and painted them (thank you, CM!) and we are going to meet up again after school tomorrow to move along to the next groups of animals.

A nice quiet task like this leaves you with plenty of time to think.  A few friends of mine are going through some tough times right now, and while I painted, I thought of them.  I thought of them, and the healing power of creativity.  When you are low, nothing picks you up like creating something beautiful, or something funny, or just something that makes someone else happy.  If we are created in God's image, and God is the ultimate creator, isn't it logical that creating would make us happy, too?

To those in pain, I wish you peace, and then, when you're ready, happiness.  I hope they find something they really love to do and make time for it.  Like I make time for this, because, quite frankly, my house needs some organization, but that doesn't give me joy the way this does.  And if they are lacking for ideas of what they can create, I have 27 more animals that need painting.

The "Holy Crap" stage of Scenery Production

We are now solidly into the Holy Crap stage of scenery production for The Little Mermaid.  In case you've never heard of the Holy Crap stage, it's the point at which you examine your list of things that still have to be done, and then you look at the available dates left on the calendar, and you are completely speechless except for the words, "Holy Crap!" which you keep uttering to yourself during your waking as well as your sleeping moments.  I reached the Holy Crap stage while I was at work today.  When I did, I took a moment to run down to the green room and snap a couple of pictures so I can help move the others I'm working with into the Holy Crap stage as well. Most of them won't take more than a nudge to get there, but one in particular seems throughly ensconced in the "we have PLENTY of time" stage.  He even offered to help me complete my tasks, which is more than just a little ironic, because he is one of the primary reasons I'm floundering in the Holy Crap stage right now.

For your amusement, here is a run-down of the situation as it stands at this moment...

The Separate Scenes, and their stages of development:

The Ocean - this mainly consists of fabric waves, which will be awesome when completed, but...  they're not.  The plan calls for two separate lines of fabric waves, one in the pit just in front of the stage, and one on the stage, further back - probably somewhere around the mid-curtain.  Each wave line will have 4 or maybe even 5 separate pieces, each held vertically by 2 actors.  the blue ribbons of fabric you see in the picture above is one of the fabric waves.  I have 1 completely done, and 3 more mostly done. that means with 5 in a row, I need 6 more... plus the extra tall one to conceal Ariel as she walks up the stairs and onstage from the side door.  Here's  a picture of the finished wave on the stage floor...

...can you say Holy Crap?

oh yeah, and this scene will also have a BOAT in it.  Kids will carry this boat onto the stage and then set it down behind the waves where they will then go about their sailorly duties, such as swabbing the deck, etc.  Here's the boat:

This boat is hinged in the middle so that when the kids cross the stage and arrive backstage on the other side, they can fold it up in order to get the whole thing behind the curtains until we need it again.  This is a cruddy brown color because this was OOPS paint that I got at Home Depot - 10.00 a gallon for paint is a vast improvement over 35.00 a gallon for paint that is not an ugly color... and who cares on the primer color, anyway?  It still needs a second (real) coat of the good brown color, and then I roll on faux wood grain on top.  Wondering - do you think we should paint the back side as well?

The Beach - This plan is for sand dunes on one side, with maybe a beach fence, some grasses, and a couple of rocks.  The rough interior of a rock is here:

See the curved wire on top of the plywood?  It's just sitting there because we need some hammer-in staples to attach the wire to the wood.  Or we need an air staple gun to shoot the staples into place.  Then I cover the wire with the screening I purchased, then we spray insulation foam onto that to make it look rock-like. THEN we paint it.  Notice all the times I used the word THEN?  Each "THEN" is a separate day.  Just saying.  And I need about 4 of these rocks.  Holy Crap.   If I really run out of time, I am going to cancel the dunes altogether and blame it on Hurricane Sandy.

King Triton's Court - This is a full cast scene, so there's not a whole lot of scenery, unfortunately, me and my big ideas - I made the planned on pieces elaborate and huge.  King Triton's throne will go on the platform shown in the top picture, I'll add it again here below just for clarity...

See the large box in the center?  You can't see the steps cause they're in the back.  In a perfect world, I would have painted this numerous times with lots of shades of coral and pink but THIS IS NOT A PERFECT WORLD.  I had this paint, and I showed four girls how to dab it on, and I think it's good enough.  There will be two additional side pieces so that king Triton can walk up one side of his platform and down the other side, so he won't have to look ungainly while maneuvering his merman tail.  I was also thinking, these platforms will be ALL THE WAY BACK by the back curtain, and the audience probably won't see much of them.  What they WILL see HASN"T EVEN BEEN BUILT YET.  That is, a seat made of tubes with an open clamshell on top.  And his seat will be flanked by two 8 foot pillars, painted to look round, and each one topped by a repurposed Starbucks-like mermaid traced into foam core.  Now everyone say, GREAT PILLARS of HOLY CRAP!

Triton is also supposed to carry a trident that lights up for when he casts impressive spells, but I'm hearing that Hurricane Sandy may have shorted out his Trident.  We'll have to see...

The Palace Hall - I'm not even sure what goes in this scene except for a large dining room table and some chairs.  We have a smallish dining room table in the basement prop room, and a can scrounge up some chairs, but they don't match, so I might have to staple some fabric chair covers on them.  oh, and the director wants windows with curtains on them in this scene.  Here is my one window in it's current state:

Sad, right?  and Calico curtains don't really belong on a palace, do they?  Which means I'm either making them or taking a trip to the cheap curtain store.  In all seriousness, I think it might be better to have the lighting guy project a very large bank of window shapes onto the back curtain instead.  Go ahead and google "Little Mermaid Palace Hall Scene" and tell me that's not what you find as well.  

Palace Kitchen - this is more prop heavy then scenery heavy.  I originally thought I had to make a freestanding oven for the chef to run around while he chases Sebastian, but thank GOD I don't have to do that.  I just have to make a extreme fish-dishes - you know, the kind where the fish look exaggeratedly large and sad, stuck between two pieces of bread.  Yeah, fun stuff.  I'll save this for last.  when I am at my witt's-end.

Ursula's Lair - Ursula's lair will be shaped like a whale skeleton, but each of the ribs will be free-standing and held up by a Poor Unfortunate Soul.  These are the poor slobs that Ursula took advantage of in her quest for power before the play starts.  They will be dressed in grey, and looking rather glum.  Ursula's tentacles will be intermingled with these bones.  Oh, by the way, did you know that Ursula has 8 tentacles?  Apparently, I may have told someone to make 4 tentacles, but even if, in a moment of idiocy, I did say that, wouldn't most people know that an OCTopus has 8 tentacles?

Oh, and I also have to make a bowl on a stand that has a fan and a light concealed inside of it so that she can mix her spells in there, and some fabric flames can shoot up in the air via the fan, and illuminated by the lights.  Cool.  But I may have to cut it out if I don't have time.

The Grotto - Ariel keeps her stuff in a grotto.  We have a shelving unit that I had great plans for, but then it was decided that what we really need is a SMALL piece, which is also fine.  But we need some way to show whole human-stuff treasures, and broken human-stuff treasures.  So I finally came up with the idea that the backs of the open shelving would spin to show broken stuff on one side, and whole stuff on the other side.  which means, construction man has to make this, I have to paint broken AND whole stuff, and then I have to round out the whole thing to make it look like a pile of rocks.


Finally, there's The Lagoon - The main piece in the lagoon is this dingy...

Which was loaned to us by the science teacher, Mr. K - he ROCKS! I think it looks awesome, and weathered and now I don't have the build a dingy.  Ariel and Eric sit in the dingy and almost kiss while the boat is surrounded by literally DOZENS of animal cut-outs, all painted and highlighted with florescent paint by ME.  There were supposed to be some overhanging trees as well, but you know with the hurricane and all... Holy crap.