Snow storms and the Drama play

Poor wee little A-man.


For the past month or so, he has been laminating about wanting snow to arrive. “When is it going to snow?” I would hear at least a couple times a week. I always assured him that it would come, and when it did, it would arrive in abundance.

Well, arrive it has. It all started on Wednesday morning. I woke up to listen to the radio to find out if the gale-force winds were going to keep the busses off the road. I heard that the “red zone” busses to our school were not running, so I assumed that meant my kids were not going to school that day. I didn’t get the boys out of bed, and as I was sitting having my tea, the next thing I know – S’s bus is sitting at the end of the driveway!

I went outside – in my bathrobe and slippers – to tell the driver that I didn’t realize we weren’t in the red zone, and that S was still in bed. When I came back in, I informed the A-man that it wasn’t a snow day and he needed to get up. He rushed around like a wild man to catch his bus. I told him that he didn’t have to rush because I was going to be taking S in anyway, but he told me that whenever I drive him in to school he is always late, so he would rather rush to catch the bus. Brat.

Wednesday was also the first day that the A-man’s play was supposed to be performed in front of a live audience. The A-man is not is the performing cast for this run – his cast is in January – but his cast is responsible for all the behind the scenes items. The A-man’s job is lighting.

Well, since it was a ‘red zone’ day, a number of the students weren’t at the school, so the performance had to be cancelled. Thursday was to be a morning performance and an evening performance. Thursday was also a “red zone” day because of the weather. With this news, we were informed that the evening performance would happen on Monday evening.

This morning… yup, another red zone day. Talk about a grouch! “When is the snow going to stop?! I am sick of this weather!...” and on and on and ON he went. He looked outside our windows and couldn’t understand why it was a partial snow day. It looked fine to him. (Except for the blowing snow everywhere he was correct.) He was so upset about the idea of another day of the performance being cancelled; he didn’t even want to go to school today. “There is no point. No one will be at school – the teachers aren’t going to teach anything. It’s a waste of my time…” mumble, mumble, grumble, grumble...

Snarly-snarky went out to catch his bus. It was shortly after he left that a message came through on Facebook from the play’s page administrator. This student received a text from the son of the Drama teacher – he is also in the play – saying that the show was going to go on. She was not going to cancel today’s performance.

I sent the A-man a text to let him know, but never heard back, so I assumed he was in such a foul mood he had either left his phone at home, or had it off and wouldn’t get the message. I’m not sure how she is going to swing the performance today, but I am very glad that they are going to get to do something. These kids have been working VERY hard on the play – the sets, the rehearsals – and I am sure it is very frustrating to think that they may not get to show off their hard work. They only have Monday and Tuesday as viable options for next week because of the school mass on Wednesday and the Talent show on Thursday. Friday is ‘movie’ day, so it wouldn’t happen then, either.

Got a text from the A-man around 9 this morning: “Thank you sorry for being a chubi.” Not sure what a ‘chubi’ is, but I will assume he was apologizing for the grumbles I had to live through this morning.

This play certainly has opened many doors of conversation between the A-man and I. Since he was staying so many nights to work on the set, he and I have had a chance to enjoy many hours of one on one time. This past Sunday, however, was some one-on-one time I never expected to have with my son. I had to teach the A-man how to apply makeup.

On Sunday afternoon, both casts performed their final dress rehearsals. This was the day that both casts would be videotaped for the making of the play’s DVD as well. About half an hour before we had to leave to head to the school, the A-man tells me that he is nervous about having to put on his own makeup. I had assumed that someone would be helping each of the students with that, but apparently each student would be responsible for their own makeup duties. The A-man informed me of this as he was making his lunch.

As the time to leaving was getting closer and closer, I finally told the A-man to bring his lunch in to my bedroom so that I could show him the basics of makeup application. Cold cream. Foundation – make sure you get the spot under your nose! Setting powder – don’t normally do that step, but okay, I can show you how to do that… the entire time he was eating, and reading from his ‘step by step instructions’ and I was putting makeup on myself. I chuckled when he called it ‘rouge’ – haven’t heard blusher called that since I was a little kid! Anyway, I was pretty spruced up for my trip to the grocery store, and I think the A-man felt a little more comfortable with the process. I assured him that all of the girls on the cast would know how to do each of these steps, and I was pretty sure they would be more than happy to help the guys with the application. (Turns out I was right – shocking, really.)

So, I am looking forward to hearing about how the teacher pulled off the performance with some of the cast members storm stayed at their homes, but I am sure she will just switch some of the performers from Cast B to A. At least he will get the chance to do his lighting today.