Today is my seventieth Birthday. WOW!
When I started writing this story I wasn't sure where it would lead. It began as a travel log in our electric car and proved to be fun. Then covered two whacko old building restorations that Marshell and I turned into our homes. Then it turned into a sort of life history of how much fun it is to have grown up as a slightly off-beat Baby Boomer. This was in protest to most Baby Boomer stories about the distressing elements of aging, lost of parents and friends, illnesses and ailments.
Last week's story was about my high school musical. This week was going to be about some fun, silly stories that some of my friends have sent me about some of the things they remember. But as with life in general - things happen. Perhaps this week things happened to me that will inspire my peers to enjoy their age and all my young friends to realize age is a number, not a way of life.
Living in a small, rural town in Oklahoma for the last eleven years has been interesting to say the least. My love of performing that began in grade school has never left. Did I really take ice skating lessons at the age of forty and skate in an ice show for five years without ever having finished the lessons? Did I really play Wipe Out on the drums at the age of sixty while still taking drum lessons? Did I really organize a bunch of kids to do the Thriller dance at the age of sixty-five with me out front so they could remember the steps? Did Marshell at age sixty-nine and I at age sixty-five actually rent bear costumes and do a dance on stage? You have to guess the answer on those.
So, we come to today. I woke up at 12:06 this morning to do the old age thing of going to the bathroom. To see if it was time to get up I looked at my cell phone to check the time. Now, I don't usually sleep with my cell phone but since I fell off of the window sill while washing the windows nine weeks ago and broke my arm in the worst possible way I have had to sleep in a chair. The phone is my alarm clock or for something to do when I can't sleep. There was a message on the phone from a sweet gal in Ardmore who said "CONGRATULATIONS! You made the cast". What a shock and at the same time - what a special birthday present.
Earlier this year Marshell and I had the great pleasure to meet a group of young people in Ardmore, Oklahoma while campaigning for someone. We spent several weekends knocking on doors and enjoyed all the intelligent and fun young people we met. Several could not help on certain days since they were in a play at the little theater in town. I told them I thought that sounded like fun and they encouraged me to come to the auditions for the musical Mary Poppins. Could I ignore the encouragement? Being overly optimistic I thought "No big deal" until
I found out that the audition for the show consisted of about one minute of singing and then a dance audition. That was a couple of days before the time to perform.
To fill in the details of my sudden panic attack you have to realize that my right arm has been in a sling for nine weeks with limited movement from non-use. I do dance around the house but that isn't quite the same plus when you produce musical variety shows or festivals you can put yourself in doing anything you want to do. Sweet Marshell is always encouraging even when I stink. I spent two days digging thru file drawers full of music and rummaging through CD's, tapes and record albums to find a Disney song to audition with. All I could come up with was the vinyl edition of the Mary Poppins sound track and a karaoke CD of Bye, Bye Birdie. They did not mention using a vinyl record for music and of course those karaoke CD's do not play on all CD players - mine included.
The trip to Ardmore went amazingly fast. The radio was turned up full blast and I did get some singing practice in singing Billy Joel songs at the top of my lungs. There were a lot of people at the audition. I found my one friend and told her I didn't have a song and she suggested just to get up and sing Happy Birthday. After listening to auditions for an hour and a half I had the brilliant idea to sing one of the Birdie songs Capella, at least that was better than nothing. So with words in hand
I finally heard my name called. I think it turned into a comedy routine.
No doubt terribly off-key, didn't even manage to read all the words but I did manage to move around a little instead of standing like a stick.
Then I was sent off to the dance audition where at least I felt a little confident in my new leggings and knowing I had taken years of dance. HA! The cute dance instructor taught us a very quick routine with lots of arm movements in front of a wall of mirrors. Never wanting to look stupid I forced the arm to move in ways it did not want to and realized how out of shape I had gotten nursing a painful broken arm for nine weeks. Call backs would be the next night so I drove home without much hope.
I did not let Marshell go with me that night as I did not want to see the look of pity in his eyes when I auditioned. I sort of told him how bad I was about the same time Paige, my friend who got me into this, texted me and said I had made the call backs. You cannot imagine my surprise!
Maybe they just wanted to see if I was for real or a mirage they imagined. Paige said call backs would consist of reading a part with a British accent and some singing to see if you could really carry a tune.
Swell.
I asked Marshell to go with me to the call backs. Since he would probably never get a chance to see auditions again it might be fun for him. We sat there for a couple of hours while everyone else was called to read different parts of the script. I did have to do a singing thing with several other girls which I felt I pretty well blew. Then it was time to go home. On the way home Marshell and I talked and he did enjoy watching all the events of the evening. I told him it was a real learning experience for me. I didn't feel bad that I blew the audition but took it as a learning experience as to what I needed to do for the next time. I even rationalized that maybe this was not the time for me to do this since my arm as well as the rest of my body hurt.
So this is why the text message from Paige at 12:06 am on my birthday is so special. I made the cast with some small speaking part. The next five weeks will be filled with rehearsals five nights a week and I am going to love every minute of it. Turning seventy has been a really special day.
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