We were so fortunate this past year in that a couple of very talented photographers came out to TRF and took some awesome pics of us.  One even prints them out and gives them to us.  I LOVE getting gifts out there.  Some of the patrons are so incredibly generous.  One lady, whose name I HAVE to learn, made many of us in the nobility lovely pomanders and even crochet shawls for some of us.  Here is one of my favorite pics (well, its one of MANY!):

In this shot I was standing in for the actress who normally does this part at the front gate show, as she was at her niece's christening.  I was part of a troupe that was emulating the Marx Brothers, hence the goofy look on my face.  I don't look totally sweaty and gross in this one as it was first thing in the morning. Because let's face it, this IS southeast Texas and the change of seasons here is something like this:  summer, summer, more summer, one day of winter, and more summer.  Its warm most of the year and wearing this stuff is sometimes really hot. I also like it because I was sporting some pretty good boobage that day.  Hooray for corsets!!  The photographer calls himself "Photography on the Run" and more of his photos can be found at http://www.pbase.com/paul42/trf_2003.

Another photographer is Brent Thale who posts his photos on his personal website www.wingedmammal.com.  We love him.

I have some up coming projects to keep my busy while Tarik is slaving away in the desert, namely directing "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" my first venture into directing a musical.  In fact, its only my second time in the director's chair.  But I have done the show before as stage manager, and know the songs, and its a simple show in terms of the technical aspects, so I should be OK.  I have an assistant director who will most likely have to take over during the run of the show because I will probably be leaving to go meet up with Tarik in Italy for his R&R.  Oh darn!  I have to take a two week European vacation to see my husband.  

I'm still temping at the same horrid place and if they have a problem with it, well, that's their problem.  In fact, when I asked them for the day off the day before he left (having already told them everything associated with this venture was last minute in terms of knowing schedules and departures) my supervisor made a snide comment about the last minutes aspects of it.  Nice.  Glad to know they are so understanding.  And they are horrid in another aspect in that the fired the woman I was assisting on this account, who is a single mom, and had just the day before won sole custody of her 4 year old daughter in a nasty dispute.  How absolutely heartless of them!  She has legal bills she has to pay, Christmas coming up, rent to pay, a 4 year old to and herself to feed.  And there was no legitimate reason to fire her either.  In fact, management told us it was not for performance reasons and that she was let go for a fireable offense, but couldn't tell us what it was.  When I talked to HER, she said they made no mention of a fireable offense and that she was let go for performance reasons.  Whatever.  They suck in any event and I am hurriedly searching for something else.  At least the economy here is starting to pick up and it should not be too long.

I am off to do some home improvement shopping!

Song virus do jour: The "Happy Roustabout" song from Disney's "Dumbo"