Fifty More Please
My kids, my husband, stuff, and the occasional rant.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
A Triumphant Return
This is a post from my friend Peggy's Caring Bridge website. However, many of you know Conchita and those of you who don't should so I thought I would repost here.
It looks like both Peggy and her friend Scary Conchita will be finished with their cancer treatments this week. It is so ironic that these two old showgirls would end up in treatment together. It’s been a long haul and they are both sick of having cancer and ready to get back to work. While Peg has a few things lined up, Conchita has not been as successful at procuring employment. Since many of you do not know her she asked me if I wouldn’t mind saying a few words about her resume here in case any of you hear of anything for her. Since she and Peg go way back I don’t think Peg will mind us using her webpage.
Scary Conchita made her debut when she was simply known as Conchita. She appeared in Evita at the Grand Dinner Theater as Peron’s Mistress’ Doll. The Mistress was played by the talented , lovely and then young Beverly Ward. Even though Bev was fantastic in the roll the scene belonged to Conchita and from out of nowhere a star was born. When Evita closed she was thoughtlessly put into storage by Propmaster Graham Poole until she emerged one Halloween night during the run of Sugar Babies. Among the “Sugar Babies” were Peggy Hickey, Beverly Ward, Tracy Lore and myself, DeAnne Spicer. That Halloween night 1986 Bev rescued Conchita and one of her mistress slippers from a box and the two of us ran in to each dressing room yelling, “OOH Scary Conchita” and “AHH Scary Slipper.” I remember people basically ignored us, but what happened later is dinner theater history. As if by magic Conchita, now known as Scary, would start appearing on stage. We never knew when she might jump in and join us in a dance or sketch. On night when the curtain went up we found her sitting at a front table in the audience swilling martini after martini and once while we were sitting on stage during the Minstrel number we saw her swinging from the lights overhead. Sometimes her lack of professionalism was astonishing and it was always very very Scary.
Sugar Babies closed but Conchita was now hooked. Hi Ho the glamorous life! She continued to appear in other Grand Dinner Theater productions such as La Cage Aux Folles, and GiGi. Eventually she left dinner theater and found work in numerous productions around the country. Sometimes if she didn’t feel like performing she would just turn up sitting in your tap shoes during a quick change. This usually meant there was a particularly hard nosed director or producer lurking nearby who did not appreciate her talent.
After a while she felt she wasn’t being recognized as a true artist in Musical Theater and that her talents were being wasted so she decided she would upgrade to opera. She appeared in The Merry Widow, Don Giovanni and a few others. You might think it would have been difficult for Conchita to get past the opera stage managers at the Dorothy Chandler, but you don’t know our girl. In The Merry Widow she managed to get a table at Maxim’s and in Don Giovanni she performed her most dramatic roll to date, “aborted fetus #1”, carried by a harpie sent to drag the Don to hell.
She spent a few years in retirement but the bout with cancer has reminded her of what’s important… a triumphant return to the stage! She is in pretty good shape for her age, but unlike Peggy she has lost her hair. However, she comes with her own trunk of costumes and several wigs by Rick Geyer. That’s more than most of us can say.
For more information about Conchita please contact Peg. She’d love it.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Art in the Wasteland
Friday, September 2, 2011
In Fellowship
I am in Portland. I arrived yesterday, ate from a food truck, went to Powell's book store, a three story block long stuffed with books haven (where I would like to have my ashes spread) and saw a foreign film in a theater that uses real dishes. Fabulous. I was planning on taking a vacation at the end of September, but I got a job that starts September 9, so I took it now.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Unclean
One of the not so nice things about being fifty is that doctors start to stick things in places where things have never been stuck before. I am prepping for my colonoscopy tomorrow and I figured everyone loves laxatives so here is my day so far:
Breakfast- 2 cups of coffee
Lunch- Diet Coke and 5 laxative pills
Not too bad yet as this was pretty much my diet from 1980-1995. The only difference is back then for dinner I would have a martini (with olive if I needed roughage) while tonight I shall be swilling a cocktail of gatorade and Mirolax. Yum.
5:15pm- 10 ounces of magnesium citrate
Yuck!! So sweet. It reminds me of what I had to drink when I was pregnant with Andrew for a glucose tolerance test. I found the test completely barbaric. After making me, a pregnant woman, fast, I had to drink this yucky stuff and have blood drawn every half hour or so to see how I processed the glucose. Well, after the first blood test I threw up and was told I would have to come back and do it again. I politely said, “No way. I threw up. Write down in my chart: does not tolerate glucose test.” I thought my body handled it perfectly, it got rid of it. O.K. Just finished the mag citrate and I am starting to get scared.
8:15pm- It is now time to start drinking an entire bottle of powdered laxative mixed with 64 oz. of gatorade. This does not taste nearly as bad as the liquid laxative. I mixed it in a a blue glass pitcher and it looks a lot like a pitcher of margaritas. What a fun party that would be! Ole!
Blogus Interuptus
I was planning on reporting on the rest of the evening, but I was in dispose. It was a loooong night and I think I only slept about two hours. The actual procedure wasn’t bad at all. In fact it was a great nap. They gave me warm blankets, pillows, drugs, and then after they asked me if I wanted apple juice. It was the most I have been taken care of since I was twelve. Don’t misunderstand, I do not want to be in the hospital, but it would be nice to be taken care of once in awhile instead of being the one taking care of everybody else. It did feel a little weird being wheeled out in a wheel chair as my friend with breast cancer jumped out of her car to open the door for me and drive me home, but oh well. The only problem is that I have to do it again because I wasn’t “clean” enough. Don’t ask. Also I am told I have to have an anesthesiologist next time because even though I was unconscious on the drugs they gave me apparently I was uncooperative and I fought them. That’s right even passed out I am difficult. I’m sure this will not surprise you. So in two weeks I have to do an even longer fast and cleanse and go back for colonoscopy number two. That’s o.k., at least I’ll get warm blankets and apple juice.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Summer Light
We are on vacation in Carpinteria. I should say the kids are on vacation and I am on a trip. It's not really a vacation when you still have to clean, cook, and do laundry and I don't even have to do that at home. Still, it's really beautiful here and the view from the laundromat is nice. Yesterday I even had an entire hour to myself to lay prostrate in the sand and listen to the waves. Bliss.
So, as the sun sets slowly over Carpinteria we say a fond farewell to Summer 2011. Summer 2011 has been really difficult. Kid issues and my best friends cancer diagnosis have not been conducive to enjoying these "lazy, hazy, crazy days". (If you are not old enough to get the song reference I do not care.) I have had to do some growing and changing this summer and I didn't like it. I am generally of the mind that I am pretty perfect and it's all of you who need to grow and change so it is not easy. What has been confirmed however is that even in the darkest moments there is beauty, humor and a faint glimmer of hope and light if you look for it. I have watched a marriage grow stronger and a family come together to face a really scary disease with so much courage and love. They were close before, but now they are a formidable team. I have witnessed a teenage girl bravely begin to face her immeasurable teenage angst. And, I have been fortunate enough to sit on the beach looking at the darkness within for that faint glimmer of hope and light only to look up to find myself bathing in the awesome, magic, golden light of sunset reflecting off the faces of my children and realize what is really important......... me. Joking. Kind of. Happy Summer.