More Glimpses of Lettice and Lovage, with mud between my toes...

I'm still in grieving mode for Lettice and Lovage so I shamelessly have included even more photos from Morris and few backstage.

The cast and crew had our "wrap party" already tonight.  I don't like ending things before they're done, but I was grateful for the occasion anyway.  Of course I told my boys, "Please be careful and respectful," but they hit the dirt piles around Morris' house just as soon as we arrived and by the time the pizza arrived, Weston was creeping up the steps in a guilty fashion: he had slimy clay-like mud clinging to his hands and feet, and almost up to his knees.  I gulped, and thankfully Trisha was there to help me take him over to a cement slab and hose him down.  'Course after all the tepid water ran out of the hose he began to whine and shiver, but the mud did not come off so easily.  Finally we made it inside where my other non-bread, non-cheese eating son was wolfing down his home-brought noodles, and slurping Root Beer.  I moved him over to the table, not wanting him to spill his pop where he had settled himself on the floor, and when I caught a glance of him later his elbow had nearly hit his can of pop onto the floor so I asked him to move it.  Finally Dave arrived but just as I was about to tell him about little mud monster Weston,  I turned just in time to see Donovan knock over a stemmed wine glass and hear it crash to the floor, wine and all.  Now... this is understandable... this is forgivable... but in my tiredness and frustration, this became uncanny.   You see, the last time we risked having the boys over to the Ertman's "cottage", Weston broke a glass of grape juice that got all over Joanne's white table cloth.  I remember before that asking Joanne if she had any plastic cups and she had said no.  Then another time before that, I can't quite remember what my boys broke... but it was something.  O dear, so now one can appreciate why this spill was "uncanny".  Uncanny is a strange word.  Yes, stem glassware breaking is un-cann-y, it is glass-shatteringly scary and messy.  Especially with Donovan and I both in bare feet.  Again Trisha and Leah and others were trying to help clean up by the time I got a couple of rags over there.  Donovan was pretty crushed, but I made him help wipe the chair anyway.  I nearly cried down there on the floor.  This was not how I wanted my wrap party to go.  I felt foolish feeling so sorry for myself, but I was discouraged.  Dave and Morris were late because of a promotional recording for Man of La Mancha... the "other woman" as Morris usually calls another show.  But in this case, HE is the one spending time with the "other woman" and we, the cast of Lettice and Lovage, were waiting in his house, wiping muddy toes on his towels, and waiting for some significant closure.  I suppose it came in the form of all of us gathering, children and all, to remember our endeavors over the past three months.  Yes.  And now we are all off to our other affairs until next show, still with mud between our toes and tiny flecks of wine on the wall.  This is life.  This is parenting.  This is the stuff of which plays are made of.  And we must go on.  Not unlike Lettice and Lotte.  We need to show some spunk.  I need to quit feeling sorry for myself and attack life with all the capableness I can muster.  Enlarge, enliven, enlighten!  Amen.