Tiny Little Triumphs

Sometimes, you just need to step back, and celebrate the small accomplishments that occur along the way to bigger things.

For example, little Sydney now has 2 teeth poking through her gums, both on the bottom. This milestone was marked by some minor whining accompanied by biting of anything she could get her little hands on... including her Daddy's fingers. "YOWSA! What the hell - is that a tooth mark? ... Hey, way to go!" She's still number one in my books, even if there's lots of number 2's to clean up... ugh.

Mack and Mabel is still going strong. This is great, considering we're still 10 days from Opening Night. However, a weird thing is happening to me now... There is a tap number in the show -- I know, I know, I won't ruin it for you -- and by the time it's over, the stage is littered with tiny little beads from the tiny little beaded dresses worn by the tiny little dancers. When I come on for the next scene, somehow these beads end up embedding in the rubber soles of my shoes, so that by the end of the scene, I'm skating on glass. Well, for the second show in a row, I have slipped and nearly fallen on my ass, which as funny as it sounds, is tweaking my lower back a bit. Anyhoo, the costume folks are looking at changing my shoes, or at least the rubber soles, or as per my suggestion, removing the tiny little dresses from the dancers. We'll see what happens...

On the CD front, there's some good news. I had a photo session with David Cooper (Shaw photographer extraordinaire) the other day. The shots look great, and I think we've settled on a cover photo! (The photo above is NOT the cover photo - although this one is nice, it was taken at a recording session with my camera.) David took sooooo many good ones, and it's really difficult to settle on just one. But, there will be other photos included too, so we've got lots to play with.

Also, I got to hear 7 more tracks mixed by Freddy Gabrsek (Shaw sound-technician extraordinaire) bringing the total up to 10 of the 14 songs. They're all sounding REALLY good, and I am so pleased. We're almost there now, and after a couple more sessions to tweak things, we can move on to the mastering stage. I have lined up potential Mastering Technicians, but as it's not a done deal yet, I won't mention their names (but trust me, they're extraordinaire too...)

And, to top it all off, "Tristan" rehearsals start next week. I am SOOOOOOO looking forward to that show. Can't wait.

So, it's definitely exciting times right now. We're inching closer to the light at the end of this extremely long tunnel. And celebrating those tiny little triumphs along the way.

Have a good one, everybody.

Jeff
:)