One More Day!

Thanks to my girl's present obsession with That's Entertainment, I've had musicals on the brain all week. This is no complaint. If I had to choose between "Clang, clang goes the trolley..." and anything that comes out of Dora the Explorer's mouth, I'd take perky Judy Garland ANY day... ALL day. But it's a little odd to hear a four year old walking around the house humming "It's A Most Unusual Day."

So we're humming show tunes and it's beginning to be a bit ingrained. Tonight, while I was cooking up dinner and reviewing my plans for the Lexington trip, I thought, "Oh, it's only one more day!" Immediately the image of the French barracks pop into my mind, and suddenly I'm off into Les Miserables-land, standing atop a pile of broken tables and wine casks with the tri-color unfurled defiantly beside me. Or maybe it was just the Chardonney going into my stroganoff that caught me in a French moment. I dunno.

This all takes me back to my first year in the conservatory. We designers (and other nearly normal people) were stuffed into the dorms with all the other firsties, which meant we lived in close proximity to dozens of musical theater majors--all of which had recently graduated from their respective high schools thinking they were seriously hot sh*t on engraved silver platters. They also thought lunchtime was the right time to treat us all to their talent. Folks, it was like living on the set of Fame--day after day after day after....well, you get it.

The fundamental rule was everything was fair game for a song cue. Peas look good for once? You got "Peas, glorious peas..." and other references to Oliver. If you were lucky, and the kids were sharp that day, they'd take a theme and run with it. In this case, you'd probably get a hard-luck kid theme with at least a couple of tunes from Annie, followed by "Castle on a Cloud." Some performances were fun; some of the performances were amazing. But a steady diet of musical theater while you're trying to wolf down over-cooked penne with red sauce was enough to nearly kill my enjoyment of the art form (and pasta, for that matter).

Fortunately, by the end of the sophomore cuts most of them had either moved off campus (like me) or simply gotten too tired from the late hours and the hard work to play Fame anymore. But then, there were always new freshmen...

So we're back to songland here and I got to take a little trip down my shortish memory lane. I'm not complaining, really. And I'll miss the fun with T because I'll be gone for a few days. Instead, T will have to entertain Nana and Papa with her attempts at "breaking the ice" (T's description for the astounding Eleanor Powell/Fred Astaire tap routine to Begin the Beguine--which is danced on a highly reflective black floor that does look remarkably like ice).

However...if Lisa jumps atop the hot tub cover and begins to belt out "The Trolley Song," I may just have to steal her keys and beat a path to the airport.

The Trolley Song ["Meet Me In St. Louis" Original Cast Album Version]