Monday, December 22, 2008

Happy Hollandaise!



We, the crown in exile, are most pleased to wish all visitors to our little cyber palace a

Happy ChristmaHannuKwanzSticeEid and a Merry Diwali to YOU!
Hell, our palace is for everyone so how could we just wish happiness to a chosen few, now I ask ya!


With Affection,
The Shoestring Prince & The Old Queen (and for those who have asked NO, I am NOT Quentin Crisp!)

Saturday, December 20, 2008

NUTCRACKER!

(The SP backstage after his first evening performance of The Nutcracker. He's loosened his coat and is showing me the shockingly tiny and cramped "gentlemen's dressing room"
In the time honored tradition of the female dominated world of the dance the girls get a whole floor for their dressing room while the three boys have to make do with some old flats propped together in a corner to spare their modesty. Hey, at least it's something!)


It's that time of year again; the time when every ballet school, ballet company, or person who has ever been in the same room with a pair of ballet shoes decides to produce a version of NUTCRACKER!
From ABT to the little ballet school down the road in Yourtown USA, comes the Tchaikovskian sound of nuts being cracked.

The prince's school is no different. Today he performed as...what else...the Nutcracker Prince in our own local Nutcracker.
I don't know if any of the other Nutcrackers feature a self deprecating royal personage who smiles wryly down on the dancers from his throne in the Kingdom of Sweets but this little Nutcracker did.

Every royal should have a good strong sense of the ridiculous. It keeps him from taking it all so seriously. The one thing the SP seems to take seriously is dance. I'm thinking this could be the real thing.

Friday, December 12, 2008

In The Bleak Midwinter

Well, I don't suppose it's quite midwinter but from where the prince and I sit it is certainly bleak.

There hasn't been much doing on the blog because, really, there isn't much doing here. We are still in preparation for the big Nutcracker production which will open next week.

I could eke out the blog by complaining about my boredom with Wisconsin winters. I personally am not a person who enjoys being glued to a house and a tv, eating and feeling my ass spread as I worry about driving conditions and other outcomes of weather extremism.
The original palace was in northern California where the first rain is justification for everyone to slow to about 5 miles per hour while hunched, white knuckled and grim lipped over the steering wheel.

Imagine how badly I handle snow! White outs?? You must be freaking joking!

Nope, I'm not a country queen. I, like Marie Antoinette, am happiest at the center of an active and funloving court---yes, yes, I know about the Hameau but even that was plunked down right in the center of the park of Versailles, where the action was.

There were no Home Depots, no McDonalds, and no JCPenneys in MA's little hamlet.

I need shopping (real shopping; self respecting women don't like shopping at a clothing store calling itself a "Barn"), and cabs, operas, and ballet companies, theatre and restaurants (No, not Olive Garden and Applebees)
And if I see another Hobby Lobby I will surely puke.

The prince needs to know that food comes in more ways than through a drive through or on a bun.
Winter, however makes it hard to get about, and that makes for a cranky queen.

Since even deposed queens should refrain from dumping on those around them I've kept shy of the blog.
As it is, I sit on the floor in a corner of my room, hugging myself and rocking back and forth as I monotonally (is that even a word? It is now!) murmur "Chicago" to myself over and over.

Hell, we'll take a train.