"At a time like this, talk about the chickens!"

Chug chug chug went the motor...

I'm having an evening in with Judy Garland and the "Meet Me In St. Louis" gang. I've been having bizarre flashes of wishing to see this movie again for a few weeks and tonight seemed like a great time to get to that. I do love this movie. I re-arranged some furniture in the room where my VHS tape player is located and now the tv is near the open window. I would think that those who walk down the sidewalk below are hearing show tunes this evening floating down to their ears. We're moving into the Autumn part, so it's more appropriate, even.

It's been nice to spend an evening at home tonight. I like being busy and having people to see and things to do, but I also tend to get socially-exhausted pretty quickly. This week has been a lot of fun and a lot of hanging out with people, but I'm glad to have an evening to relax by myself. I had to do a little public speaking at one point this week at a dinner event and I was nervous about it, but it went okay. I'm better at public speaking than I used to be, but I still hate it. Being the center of attention is not something I enjoy. I'm more of a 'blend-into-the-background' sort of person at large social gatherings. This was an appreciation dinner for our volunteers at work and we had it at a nice place in downtown Columbia. I think the volunteers really enjoyed it. I did, too. It was nice.

"Annie" is being performed by a combination of a children's theater group and a local adult theater troupe in Columbia. One of my co-workers is in it and so a few of us went to support her. She did good. The musical was way funnier than I think it was supposed to be due to a hilarious little girl who played one of the orphans. She was really little, with pigtails and glasses and was also really hard to understand, but for some reason, all of this equaled that she was hilarious. There were about 12 or so girls who played the orphans and they were always kind of funny. During one number, they tried to do a chorus line with high kicks and that's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. It was total chaos with girls kind of flopping around with the taller, 11-12 year-olds practically pushing over the littler ones with their enthusiastic kicking, and the little girls just trying to get a kick in now and again without kicking each other. This was community theater, like whoa, and although there were a few good acting/singing performances, it was much more of an 'I'm here to support my friend, not see a truly well-done play'. Once you bought into that, it was really enjoyable. There was a kid next to my friend who had brought along some handheld video game and played it through most of the show. I don't know why parents allow that? He wasn't a little kid, he was probably 9 or 10. Old enough to sit through a play. His mom made sure he didn't have the sound on, but still, the glow from the game was sort of obnoxious. After the show was over and we were talking outside, the kid and his family came out and somehow the kid dropped the game on the sidewalk and it broke. Vindication! Needless to say, we were not sad for him.

We're heading toward October! I'm beginning to think of getting my Halloween costume together. The event I'm taking part in is about a week before Halloween, so I need to get started on it. It shouldn't be too difficult, but I do have to search for some "parts". I'm planning to be a Beekeeper and all I have so far is a hat that I think I can use. I'm on the lookout for some other things. It's Halloween right now in the movie... I'm so glad that the weather is turning cooler. Wearing sweaters and jeans is so nice. Happy days, every day.