I left off last mentioning the Christmas Parade. Since the theatre wasn't participating this year, a few of us went down to watch it: me and The Boy, Little Jeff and Little Jeff's Girlfriend (she needs a name of her own, because we like her in her own right rather than just 'cause LJ does, but thus far hasn't got one), and also Designer Beth and Mr. Beth (Beth's husband who shares a name with at least half a dozen other people we know, and this is an easier way to differentiate).
We were right in the middle of downtown this year, so we got to hear a little bit of the commentary. Honestly, the parade wasn't as good this year. I know they were advertising for a co-coordinator this past year, so I suspect that a lot of people didn't get asked to participate in time. It was also the same day as two huge basketball and football games, I guess, so none of the university organisations represented at all. Even the Pagans didn't come out.
It was a pity because it was a gorgeous night. I prepared for it to be cold (because last year I froze my toes off), and it actually got warmer as the night went on. (Thanks to that storm pushing its way across the northern end of the state, we got all the hot air pushed down on us.)
Sadly, we weren't in quite as good a spot as I was last year in terms of pictures. I was on the hill last year, and this year we were just around the corner from the judge's booth, so most everyone was coming down the end and ready to be done with the parade. My pictures are pretty pitiful, and the video I took in hopes of pulling stills is bad because of the settings. (Besides, video on a digital camera is rarely amazing quality.)
After the parade, Designer Beth and Mr Beth had movie tickets to go see a sneak preview for Golden Compass. I've never read those books- published too late to really blip on my radar. TB, LJ and LJ'sG went to dinner and then Little Jeff decided that we didn't need to go home, and that he really wanted to try out his truck tires.
Little Jeff is from a very small town. On top of this, he's an engineering/physics major before getting into theatre. It kinda shows. He was a volunteer fireman for a while and has a big truck. TB had a big truck (did I mention his big green Truckie Monster bit the dust?), but Jeff's is bigger. It's an extended cab GMC with the eight foot bed. (Pretty sure it's an eight foot.)
Anyway, he put monster tires on it. He's got a good 3/4 in of tread on them and he figures the price of them was a good deal because they'll outlast the truck unless he does something absolutely ridiculous with them. And he wanted to try them out. Try them out meant driving around outside the south end of town looking for little rutted roads with grass higher than the truck bed.
That was fun.
We drove out to Little Grand Canyon when I realised we were on the road anyway and had LJ ever been there? He scoffed at my protest that we didn't really need to go at ten o clock at night, because, what Ranger was going to be out in the middle of no where at that hour of the night?
We drove around the farm buildings section of the university for a while while LJ'sG and TB professed their ignorance of cow breeds. I don't know 'em all, but I can tell an Angus from a Hereford from a Holstein from a Swiss from a Jersey, and I know what the world "polled" means. Apparently, if you're a city kid, this is more than enough to impress. Who knew?
After that, t'was back to the theatre. It's good to be in the crowd with the keepers of the keys again. Seriously, you want to get to know a theatre, make friends with the techies. There are plenty of rooms in my high school I'd never have been in if I hadn't been friends with the costumers and the electricians.
This night was a trip up to the grid. For those of you unfamiliar with theatres, the grid is the place at the very top of the stage ceiling. Above where all the curtains go up in the air is usually some metal grate. I'd never been up to the grid for this theatre, and I'd only been up to the one back at OldUni a handful of times. OldUni has much better access- a staircase that goes all the way. Here, they have a tiny spiral staircase (if you're a big wide, you'd have a hard time going up it) that goes up to a ladder and then onto the grid. Now, why would you need to go up here?
In some theatres, this is another place to load weight for fly systems. We don't use bags of sand anymore. This is also the place that all the cables go to all those bars that the curtains hang on. It is always the absolute highest point in the building and almost always has a way out onto the roof.
Which is, of course, where we went. LJ says that the wind is pretty much a constant up there. We looked out over the Western horizon and could see the glow from both St Louis and a town an hour south of us. You can see the whole entire town from the roof because of the hill the university sits on.
I dunno, it doesn't describe the way it was. It's been such a long time since I did anything quite like that. There's a part of me that would love to be an Urban Explorer, and another one that absolutely loves to drive in the dark.
When I was a kid, a couple times in the fall my parents would pack up the car and we'd go places. They had a habit of not telling us where; I don't know if it's because when told we were going someplace we'd never been before we tended to complain, or just because we never asked. It was invariably fall, because I associate these trips with the jean jackets my brother and I had. It was cool enough that you wanted to wear the jacket, but warm enough that your ears didn't get cold. We'd always end up driving back as the sun was setting and getting home after dark.
I don't know that I remember many of the trips specifically or all the way through, but I remember the feeling of having been somewhere, of having done and seen things, and it's one that bubbles up in the fall and makes me restless. I'll be driving home from someplace and have to convince myself to go back home, not just to keep driving and call TB from Indiana en route to Boston, or something.
But wouldn't it be fun?