The Weekend, It Was
Mar. 11th, 2008 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurBefore I forget: it was a fun and interesting weekend.
Friday evening,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
msmemory was busy with an Eastern Star function, so I went down to outlander's church production of Godspell. I was sitting near the front (joined by etherial and rosinavs at intermission), so that we could be flirting targets in her performance of "Turn Back, O Man". I'd never seen the show before (gap in my education, I know), so wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was a fine time. Performances were variable, of course, with the best singers generally in the lead roles, but there were some standouts, including a professional-grade rendition of "O, Bless the Lord My Soul" that brought down the house.
I now understand why this has been consuming so much of her time lately, though: they had an astounding cast of over 80 people, and somehow managed to keep everything together anyway. The first half was dominated by the kids (with what appeared to be one song for each of the classes), but avoided being excessively cute: the kids were working hard and doing quite well. Indeed, the overall stage management was pretty damned impressive, keeping that huge group moving in and out smoothly from number to number. (And the set was faboo: good enough to provoke a discussion afterwards about how much it looked like old North Station. They managed to perfectly reproduce Boston's classic corroded green steel uprights, in graffiti'ed foam-core.)
Saturday was focused ontpau's birthday party. Once again, we found ourselves glad at having bought a house specifically designed for parties, and folks seemed to have a good time. No surprise, the first half of the party was spent pretty much entirely in the dining room (where the food was), and the second half in the living room. This seems to be a general pattern for parties, and may even be consistent enough to quantify. The earlier phases of a party are typically larger, center on the food, and have many small conversations going. The later phases get smaller, move to the comfy chairs, and settle down on one larger conversation. The state transition happens at around 10-12 people, pretty reliably, far as I can tell.
Anyway, party done and we have a clean house again. One advantage of hosting parties regularly is that it forces us to clean the house a bit. A couple of hours of tidying beforehand gets things presentable, and orderly enough that cleanup after the party is quick. So long as we hold parties often enough, the clutter doesn't have time to get too bad...
Friday evening,
msmemory was busy with an Eastern Star function, so I went down to outlander's church production of Godspell. I was sitting near the front (joined by etherial and rosinavs at intermission), so that we could be flirting targets in her performance of "Turn Back, O Man". I'd never seen the show before (gap in my education, I know), so wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was a fine time. Performances were variable, of course, with the best singers generally in the lead roles, but there were some standouts, including a professional-grade rendition of "O, Bless the Lord My Soul" that brought down the house.I now understand why this has been consuming so much of her time lately, though: they had an astounding cast of over 80 people, and somehow managed to keep everything together anyway. The first half was dominated by the kids (with what appeared to be one song for each of the classes), but avoided being excessively cute: the kids were working hard and doing quite well. Indeed, the overall stage management was pretty damned impressive, keeping that huge group moving in and out smoothly from number to number. (And the set was faboo: good enough to provoke a discussion afterwards about how much it looked like old North Station. They managed to perfectly reproduce Boston's classic corroded green steel uprights, in graffiti'ed foam-core.)
Saturday was focused on
tpau's birthday party. Once again, we found ourselves glad at having bought a house specifically designed for parties, and folks seemed to have a good time. No surprise, the first half of the party was spent pretty much entirely in the dining room (where the food was), and the second half in the living room. This seems to be a general pattern for parties, and may even be consistent enough to quantify. The earlier phases of a party are typically larger, center on the food, and have many small conversations going. The later phases get smaller, move to the comfy chairs, and settle down on one larger conversation. The state transition happens at around 10-12 people, pretty reliably, far as I can tell.Anyway, party done and we have a clean house again. One advantage of hosting parties regularly is that it forces us to clean the house a bit. A couple of hours of tidying beforehand gets things presentable, and orderly enough that cleanup after the party is quick. So long as we hold parties often enough, the clutter doesn't have time to get too bad...