That Holiday Season

I have been trying to write a blog for weeks now. I was all busy writing a diatribe about the hateful people in the most recent election, but then the darn holiday season came around. Now I’m so busy being thankful and happy and delighted with the people around me that when I sit down to write I find that my outrage is all gone. Yes, I have just completely lost my “edge.” I guess I am just going to have to wait to tell you about the people I can’t abide. Don’t worry, though, I am sure that once January rolls around I will be in a bad mood again, and I’ll be able to finish that blog.

For now, though, I just love everyone and everything. I can’t help myself. It’s the Holiday Season, which is a diverse and wonderful time in our household. For one thing, we spend lots of time with our families during this time of year, which is always a good thing. It’s no secret that I love my family. On my “Top Ten Words” I used in my Facebook statuses in 2010, “Family” was Number One. This is a lucky thing, because you don’t actually get to choose your relatives, yet I wouldn’t give any one of them up for anything in the world. This was proved when I kept my ex-husband’s family after the divorce.

So, we always kick off the Holiday Season with Thanksgiving in New Jersey, and, really, where else would you want to spend it? We look forward to this all year. We spend the weekend at my in-laws. We very much enjoy spending time with them, and they always act really happy to have us, too. This year we had my son with us – he spends Thanksgiving with us in “even” years - and that made it even more special. The extended family gathers on Thanksgiving Day, this year hosted by my very gracious brother- and sister-in-law, where we engage in those most important holiday activities – lively conversation and good food. As we usually do, we went into New York City for a show the day after Thanksgiving. This also serves as our anniversary present to ourselves as we were married 7 years ago on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This year Hanukkah began just a few days after we returned home after Thanksgiving. I would tell you that Hanukkah falls on different dates on the calendar each year, but that wouldn’t be exactly correct, as many a good Jewish person will point out to their hapless Gentile friends who are trying frantically to explain it, just to have some fun with them. Okay, I’m going to let Judaism 101, a helpful website, explain it to you…

A few years ago, I was in a synagogue, and I overheard one man ask another, "When  is Chanukkah this year?" The other man smiled slyly and replied, "Same as always: the 25th of Kislev”…..the date of Jewish holidays does not change from year to year. Holiday are celebrated on the same day of the Jewish calendar every year, but the Jewish year is not the same length as a solar year on the [Gregorian] calendar used by most of the western world, so the date shifts on the [Gregorian] calendar. ( http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm )

All I know is that I check my Gregorian calendar each year to find out when Hanukkah falls, and my Jewish husband checks with me to find out when Hanukkah falls. Whenever it falls, it has become one of my favorite holidays – this “Festival of Lights” that celebrates the resources God gives us to get through the bad times. I love everything about it- its personal significance to me (as my husband proposed during our first Hanukkah together), the lighting of the candles, the presents, and, of course, the homemade latkes and apple sauce.

Our annual Christmas concert with the Pittsburgh Concert Chorale fell smack in the middle of Hanukkah this year. Always a highlight of the season for us, we would go sing our hearts out about the birth of Jesus and then come home and light the candles for Hanukkah. Somehow, it all seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me.

Now we are in the home stretch. Christmas is coming next week. Because I work in the Cranberry area, in the heart of its awe-inspiring business area, I am now able to slip out on my lunch hour to pick up pretty much whatever I need for the holidays. The Target in Cranberry even carries Hanukkah supplies. My Christmas shopping is all done, a week ahead of time. We plan to put up the tree on Monday when my son comes over for Family Night. Nothing like trimming the Christmas tree with family- and Sheldon Cooper and Barney Stinson- to put you in the mood for Christmas, that’s what I always say!

We went grocery shopping and bought three fishes and all the other “fixin’s” for my family’s annual Christmas Eve celebration. This is when we eat fish and pasta, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus which is another story of God giving us what we need to get through this life. We are especially excited that we will be having dinner at our house this year, as it is our first holiday season in our new home.

As is our tradition, we will celebrate a Jewish Christmas on Christmas Day with Chinese food and a movie. With “Tangled” as our movie choice at a movie theater that happens to have an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet restaurant in the same parking lot, and the fact that my father will joining us this year, the day should be very Merry indeed.

Here’s hoping that you all are also enjoying the blessings of this holiday season.

"Huck Finn" and Me

From the time I was old enough to take a bus by myself, there was nothing I liked to do better during my summer vacation than to take the 61B bus from my hometown of Swissvale to the main branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Oakland, which was one of my favorite places.

As a child I was rarely alone. Wherever I went – home, school, church- there were lots of people there. I didn’t actually think to seek out solitude because it was a concept that was outside my experience. The quiet majesty of the library and the adjacent Carnegie Museum and Scaife Art Gallery filled me with a strange mixture of excitement and complete serenity. I would spend a couple of hours each time I visited, often wandering through the museum or the art gallery before returning to the library, which held more books than I could read in a lifetime.

Each visit I would choose nine books, which was the maximum number you could check out at a time. Finding the books was like a treasure hunt to me. I favored historical fiction and 800-page family sagas that started with two teenage sisters attending the party-of-the-season in turn-of-the-century Austria and ended about a century, two world wars and three generations later in Manhattan. I also liked stories written in the first person, as I liked to experience the story through the eyes of one particular individual, speaking in his or her own voice.

The summer I was 12 I picked up Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as one of my selections. The first thing that appealed to me about the book was not only that it was written in Huck’s voice, but that his voice was so strong and specific. Mark Twain wrote it so beautifully that as I was reading I almost forgot that Huck was a fictional character. It felt as though Huck was telling me his story.

I also immediately identified with Huckleberry Finn. On the surface, aside from the fact that we were roughly the same age, we had little in common. He was a motherless child with a drunken, abusive and mostly absently father living in a rural town in Missouri in the mid-1800’s. He was left on his own to fend for himself most of the time. I was living in a small blue collar town on the edge of Pittsburgh in the 1960’s, the third of four daughters of strict, loving, and oh-so-present parents. I was essentially never left unsupervised.

Huck was the ultimate outsider in his society, and I also always felt a little bit different – like I didn’t really fit in. In the beginning of the book, Huck had been taken in by Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson, who were trying to “civilize” him, but he wasn’t responding very well to living among people. I knew what he was going through. I too spent much of my time wondering why people acted the way that they did, and trying to make sense of the rules of my society, some of which I didn’t understand, and others that I just couldn’t believe. As with Huck, the authority figures in my life insisted that I conform or face some pretty dire consequences. The threat of Hell was thrown around with reckless abandon for both of us.

At one point, Huck’s father abducts him and holds him captive. Huck escapes and is presumed dead. He happens upon Jim, Miss Watson’s slave, who has run away because Miss Watson was planning to sell him – a move that would take him away from his wife and children. Jim has a plan to travel to Illinois where he can obtain his freedom. Huck agrees to join him even though he knows, as removed as he is from his society, that running away from your owner is a very serious offense for a slave.

I, on the other hand, was more than eager to accompany Huck and Jim as they set out on that raft down the Mississippi River, which seemed like a wild and fantastic undertaking to me. Remember, my idea of an adventure was taking the bus by myself to Oakland or downtown Pittsburgh. On their travels they encounter a number of colorful characters, some good, some bad, but most of whom in the end either act foolishly, or badly.

The one constant in Huck’s adventures is the presence of Jim, a decent and moral man who cares about and for him, and a rare stable adult influence in his life. Nonetheless, Huck is convinced, because it is what he has been taught, that he is doing something terribly wrong by aiding and abetting a runaway slave. Huck decides to pray to God that Jim is recaptured and returned to Miss Watson. He tries, but he can’t find the words, and finally concludes that “You can’t pray a lie.”

“You can’t pray a lie.” I was awestruck by the essential truth in that statement. Huck couldn’t say a sincere prayer for Jim’s capture because he didn’t believe that Jim should be captured. At his core he wanted Jim to be free because he thought that Jim deserved to be free. Slavery may have been sanctioned by the society in which they lived, but Huck knew Jim as a man, not a slave. He is willing to suffer the consequences, even Hell, rather than betray his friend, and I admired his bravery. I realized then that the mores of any society are not irrefutable, and they can be wrong and immoral. I knew then that we each have a responsibility to be ethical and thoughtful individuals in this life, finding our own truth and moral direction.

In the end of the book, Jim is set free and Huck discovers that the father he was running from is dead. Huck decides to “set out for the territory ahead of the rest” – to make his own way in the world, rather than return to the Widow Douglas and try to fit into society.

I finished the book but Huckleberry Finn and I weren’t done with each other. I bought a paperback edition of the book that I read and reread so many times that I lost track, and I developed a life-long love affair with the works of Mark Twain. I dressed up as Huckleberry Finn for Halloween in the 9th grade (if I wasn’t an outsider before, I sure was after that). Twenty years after I first picked up the book, I chose the character of Huckleberry Finn as the topic of an annotated bibliography that I completed for a Methods of Research class in graduate school. In 2006, I had the privilege of playing the Widow Douglas in a local production of Big River, a musical version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Basically, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had a profound effect on me. Since reading it, I have believed wholeheartedly in the equality of all people, and learned to think for myself instead of blindly listening to, well, anyone. And I never again doubted the ability of a book to change a life.

My Husband Makes Dinner

My husband has many, many fine qualities. He is smart, funny, kind, and a very talented performer and teacher. His support and love for me is unwavering, and he is very devoted to his family and friends. I have more fun with him than I do with anyone, and we can have fun whether we are going to Lowe’s to pick up picture-hanging hardware or spending a week in Disney World.

My husband is also trained as a professional chef. He has a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, and worked for many years in the food service field.

I did not know this about my husband for the first year or so that I knew him, when he was just a friendly theater acquaintance of mine. I did know many interesting and sometimes obscure factoids about him. I knew that he was Jewish. I knew that he had a dog, two cats, and three pianos. I knew that he wore a fedora well. I knew that he would insist that any wife of his carry a cell phone. I even knew that he had seen “Lettice and Lovage” on Broadway with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack because he was thoughtful enough to give me his Playbill program from the show after seeing me perform in the Heritage Players’ production of the play in Bethel Park. I thought better than to ask him whether he preferred Margaret (who won a Tony for the role) or me in the role of “Lotte.” No one ever mentioned that he was a chef.

So, it was in complete ignorance and with the purest of intensions that I offered to make him lasagna if he would make practice tapes for me for potential audition songs. I didn’t think it fair to ask him to do this for me without recompense and since he was a single guy who lived alone the Italian mother in me thought it might be nice for him to have a good meal. Oh, did HIS mother laugh when she heard this story!! He graciously agreed to this barter, by the way, without mentioning his culinary background, and held me to my part of the bargain, even after I discovered the truth and was pretty embarrassed to have made the offer.

Just to clarify, my respectable lasagna aside, I am not much of a cook. Cooking stresses me out. I prefer making one-dish meals because I have difficulty timing different dishes to be ready at the same time. I follow recipes religiously, and still things turn out wrong. The first time I attempted to cook a turkey for a family dinner, I called my mother about four times with questions, and still managed to cook the bird with the giblets inside. I figured out long ago that I could purchase some pretty fine baked goods at the supermarket that were far superior to anything I could make. If I lived alone, I would probably exist on cereal and sandwiches.

My husband, on the other hand, is a natural cook. His parents love to tell the story about waking up one Saturday morning to hear my husband, who was three years old at the time, asking his fifteen-month-old brother, “So, how would you like your eggs?” Cooking relaxes him. He loves to make gourmet dinners from start to finish. He sometimes looks up recipes but rarely follows them, using them as a kind of general guideline. He often creates meals from scratch. He’s the kind of person who can walk into a kitchen where there is nothing to eat, and “whip something up.” In these instances, he will call you down 20 minutes later to a delicious chicken parmesan dinner, complete with pasta and a spinach side dish. He bakes his own bread on a regular basis.

Naturally he does the cooking in our family. Really now, why wouldn’t he? It gives him such happiness – why would I take that from the man I love? Once a co-worker asked him if he did most of the cooking at home, and he responded that no, he did ALL the cooking. That isn’t strictly true. I have a few specialties (that I can count on one hand). These include two kinds of lasagna, Waldorf Salad, Strawberry Pretzel Salad, and the appropriately-named Pork Chops, Sweet Potatoes and Apples. I can also usually make a presentable plate of spaghetti but eggs? Well, eggs are trickier.

Even simple stand-bys like mine can become complicated when you are married to a chef. Take my Waldorf Salad, for instance. My mother made this dish at Thanksgiving, and it couldn’t be simpler to assemble. Cut up apples and celery, throw in some seedless grapes and walnuts , toss it all up with some Hellman’s and voila! – a tasty side dish that is sure to please. The first time I planned to make this, my husband was surprised when I mentioned grapes. “You use grapes in your Waldorf Salad?” he said, full of professional curiosity. It seems that, at the Culinary Institute of America, they put raisins in their Waldorf salad, not grapes. Well, I don’t care what those high brow food people do I’m putting grapes in my Waldorf Salad.

I found that any delusions I may have had about my cooking abilities were quickly and summarily dismissed when I married a chef. The first meal my husband made my 18-year-old son and me after we moved in was a very simple chicken dish, made after a long day of moving. My son took one bite, and his face lit up. In clear admiration and astonishment, he declared, “This is the BEST chicken I’ve ever eaten!” Now, I know for a fact that it was boneless chicken breasts baked in barbecue sauce from a jar, and I had made this same dish many times over the years. Maybe it was my husband’s careful basting technique that he explained to me (I just poured the jar of barbeque sauce over the chicken) or perhaps he just used a better barbeque sauce than I did. Oh, who am I kidding? The truth is that the man just has a way with food.

Don’t get me wrong – I am delighted that my husband is a chef. It is a win-win situation, a blessing really. My husband loves to cook and I love to eat. We are the perfect pair.

Straight Man Dancing (the Great Swayze Debate)

I came across this never-published piece that I wrote circa 1994. Here it is, as I wrote it, when Patrick Swayze was very much alive. I dedicate this to his memory and to Jen, wherever she is.

Deep in the bowels of a Student Union, in an alternative universe known as a college campus, there once was a spot known as the Times Suite. Every Wednesday night about 25 students, largely between the ages of 18 and 25, worked late into the night to put the student newspaper to bed. We were dedicated to the truth, the article, the paper itself, and to satisfying the requirements for our Journalism classes.

Among the typing of articles, the laying out of copy, the developing of photographs, and the all-important making of coffee, was the sharing of minds. Debating the larger, and some of the smaller, issues of the day, we discussed the sexes (and the battles that persist between them), music, politics, school, campus issues, and the MTV Video Music Awards. But the topic that was to shatter our little group, to inspire the hottest controversy among us was…Patrick Swayze.

To this day, I am not sure how he came up. All I know is that the mention of his name provoked an extremely violent physical and emotional reaction in my young friend, Jen.

“EWW,” she shuttered as though she had just heard fingernails on a blackboard. “Patrick Swayze??” I HATE him,” she said with a vehement loathing I had not witnessed in her since we had discussed cheerleaders, homecoming queens, and other girls with big hair.

“Really?” I said, surprised. “”I like him.”

“NO!” Jen stared at me in abject horror as though I had just told her that I admired Adolph Hitler. “You can’t like Patrick Swayze. You really don’t, do you?”

“Well, yes, I really do,” I answered, not seeing why I should deny it. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t the only woman in America who felt this way. Nonetheless I felt compelled to rationalize my fondness for Mr. Swayze to Jen, who was obviously not a fan.

To risk sounding shallow, Patrick Swayze looks really good all the time. This was especially true in Dirty Dancing, a movie I have seen several times and have every intention of seeing again.

Furthermore Patrick really can act- believable enough for me in any role. He displays a certain passion in his roles and takes chances in his choices of roles. He considers himself to be an actor, not a star, and is dedicated to his craft. That sort of purity of purpose is always attractive in a guy.

Finally, Patrick seems like a genuinely nice guy and decent person in real life. He adores his wife openly, calling her his soul mate. He is sensitive and open, even crying in a Barbara Walters interview. But obviously I’m missing some horrible flaw; some big reason I should be repelled by Patrick Swayze.

No one’s mind was changed that night. Jen remained firm in her distaste for Patrick Swayze, and I found myself suddenly in the mood to see Dirty Dancing again. Maybe it was an age thing. I WAS older than the other kids.

The incident left its mark on me. One day at work someone mentioned a Patrick Swayze movie. Like an alcoholic caught in her addiction, I nervously confessed that I liked him and launched into all the reasons why.
My friend Christie listened for a few minutes before she touched my arm and shook her head gently to stop my long-winded explanation. “Sharon,” she said wisely, “he’s a straight man who can dance.”

Doesn’t that just sum it up?! As convincing as he might have been in To Wong Foo, we know he’s straight. And even Jen couldn’t deny that he could dance. Isn’t that what most women are really looking for in a guy? Some nice, sensitive, straight man who can dance, or who would at the very least be willing to fake it at our cousin’s wedding? That’s exactly why I like Patrick Swayze so much. And he can dirty dance for me anytime.

Wedding Bell Views

Chelsea Clinton’s decision to keep her wedding private was totally understandable. She never asked to be in the public eye, and has chosen to live a private life. It was certainly her prerogative to refuse to have her wedding videotaped and broadcast live to a worldwide audience.

I must admit that I do like to watch when certain famous people get married. Take the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, for instance. Now THAT was a wedding! No private, simple affair for those two. I happened to have the day of the wedding off work (complete coincidence, I swear!), and I got up at 5 a.m. to watch the wedding. Armed with lots of coffee and Kleenex, I watched every bit of that coverage. Sadly, that union ended badly, but the wedding was spectacular.

I also like to watch weddings of obscure strangers who happen to get lucky when applying to be on a reality show. I’m the person for whom they created all those wedding shows on cable. The first one I watched, and still my favorite, was “A Wedding Story” which was on TLC. It was very simple. They interviewed the couple who gave their back story, and then the cameras followed them around for a couple of days before the wedding. I absolutely loved it. I don’t think it is still in production, but “Whose Wedding is It Anyway?” (from the viewpoint of the wedding planner), fills my need to watch the wedding plans of total strangers.

I would say that how Chelsea Clinton conducted her wedding was none of my business, but the Clintons and I go way back. I’m practically an old family friend – I once saw Hillary and Bill speak in person in Market Square in Pittsburgh. You know, I did have some small part in contributing to their success. Heck, I’m STILL supporting Hillary for President. Come to think of it, I’m surprised that I didn’t make the guest list for the wedding of their only daughter. But it WAS a small affair – just 400 of Chelsea and Michael’s closest friends- so I was okay with staying home that day, just like Barack and Oprah did.

Nonetheless, if I couldn’t actually watch the ceremony I was still really, really happy to see some photos of Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Chelsea looked lovely, didn’t she? The dress, her hair, the makeup all looked just perfect on her. I liked the fact that it was an interfaith wedding and that the groom wore a tallis and a yarmulke. And they looked SO happy. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get a better look at Hillary’s dress, but it WAS Chelsea’s day, and given her penchant for privacy, I was just grateful for the glimpse I did get.

For the record, my interest in weddings of political figures and their children is totally bipartisan. I got pretty excited when Jenna Bush announced her engagement- I hadn’t seen a good White House wedding since Tricia Nixon got married so long ago. Imagine my disappointment when Jenna decided on a simple, private affair at the family’s ranch in Texas. Again, I was very happy and satisfied to see their pictures.

The truth is that I just love to look at wedding pictures- anyone’s wedding pictures. The wedding photos themselves are something to see nowadays. The photographers are suddenly doing all kinds of fabulous, creative, artistic photo shoots. Honestly, though, the pictures don’t have to be fancy to please me, and I don’t even have to know the people involved. I just like to see the dresses and the cake and the ceremony and the party, and all the smiling faces.

Seeing all these photos and watching “Say Yes to the Dress” does keep me up on the latest trends in wedding fashions, which interest me a great deal even though they are of no importance in my everyday life. For instance, it seems like nearly every bride must have a strapless gown nowadays. Some people benefit greatly from a well-placed strap, and don’t the brides today want some individuality? I do like that some bridesmaid dresses now are shorter and/or more individualized in style to each individual woman. Let’s face it, the bride’s dearest friends come in all shapes and sizes, and you really CAN wear some of these dresses again.

Personally, I believe that the best weddings are the ones where the couple do it their way and make it their own. And the best pictures are those where the happiness of the couple outshines everything else in the picture. So my advice to those planning their weddings: Wear the burgundy dress with straps and eat the cake made of cookies, if that’s what gives you pleasure. Remember to relax and have fun!

Oh, yes, and please don’t forget to post those pictures in Facebook so that I can see them.

A Back Breaking Performance, or, The Show Must Go On

It seems that Melissa Gilbert was performing on tour in “Little House on the Prairie- the Musical” with a broken back. Her back had been bothering her, but she put off seeing a doctor, because she knew that the show must go on. When she finally saw the doctor, he said that her back was broken, and had been for months. Now, THAT’s spunk! Melissa obviously thinks she really is that plucky little pioneer girl that she portrayed on “Little House” all those years. Or maybe it’s just that strong work ethic that Michael “Pa Ingalls” Landon instilled in his little protégés on the set. Whatever, she’s a rock star in my book.

Not that she’s the first performer to work hurt. A lot of us who perform, both as amateurs and professionals, take that theatrical expression “Break a leg!” far too literally. In fact, I got into theater as a hobby because of a broken pelvis. I decided to take an acting class to give myself a diversion during what was going to be a long and painful recovery period.

My husband once performed in a musical revue despite having shattered his ankle early during the rehearsal period. One of the first calls he made from the emergency room was to his director. A fellow cast member was nice enough to give him a ride to rehearsals, and the director choreographed the “Smokey Joe’s Café” number so that he was in the center and everyone danced and moved around him. By the time the show went up, he was using a cane, and he was able to use his prop rifle like a cane in the “Les Miz” medley. It’s all about being innovative.

The appropriately named “cast” of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” put on by Stage 62, a community theater in Carnegie, PA, a few years ago took this “show must go on” thing to an extreme. Four of the cast members in a show with 29 performers and a children’s chorus performed with an injury, and those were just the ones we knew about.

I had auditioned for the show and was “cast” as assistant stage manager, an important behind-the-scenes "role," and one I accepted because I knew I would be working under the tutelage of an experienced stage manager. It was a Murphy’s Law kind of show from the start- everything that could go wrong did. The director exercised the patience of Job as we faced one obstacle after another, obviously taking his inspiration from another Biblical story. He became very adept at keeping his head when all about him was losing theirs. First, he had to replace Joseph before the show even began rehearsals, but during the rehearsal process we lost and replaced the music director, the choreographer, and the costumer.

When I returned to rehearsals after a few days off while we determined that we did in fact have the rights to do the show, the director matter-of-factly told me that I had been promoted from assistant stage manager to stage manager. The actor playing Reuben had to drop out, and the stage manager was now Reuben.

Did I panic? Well, as a matter-of-fact, I did, but the promoted stage manager pledged that he would continue to mentor me, and he did. My friend Marilyn, who also had no stage management experience, agreed to help me, mostly because we bonded when we played Pick-a-Little Ladies in “Music Man” a few years earlier and had been show buddies ever since. It was a very young cast, and they started referring to us as the “Stage Moms,” but I am sure there was nothing but affection in the term.

Ah, but I digress. About those injured cast members….

One of our children’s chorus members had broken her thumb prior to the show, and was sporting a colorful cast when she showed up for rehearsal. Luckily, the children’s chorus members were wearing colorful t-shirts, and we just made sure to put her in a shirt that matched her cast.

One of Joseph’s brothers was also working as a camp counselor that summer, and had had an unfortunate freak accident where he cut the area between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand with a knife when opening a large cardboard box full of camp supplies. He was also a pianist, and so it was especially important that he heal completely and properly, and he was fitted with a metal contraption that held his hand together while elevating it. This contraption was decidedly new-age, and definitely would have been out of place in ancient Eqypt, but the young actor just took it off before taking the stage and put it back on when exiting.

During the dress rehearsal, one of Joseph’s brothers' wives sprained her ankle, but went on to perform in the show with some slightly modified dance moves. When I was giving her a ride home that night, she let it slip that Potiphar/Jacob had broken his foot but hadn’t wanted to mention it to the director or me. I asked him about it opening night. He explained that he had gone to the doctor but his options – a cast or surgery- would have meant that he wouldn’t be able to continue in the show, so he was putting them off until after the show was over.

Anyway, the show was just as glorious and joyful a production of “Joseph” as there ever was. I’m sure that the audience never even noticed the cast, or the strangely elevated arm, or the modified dancing. The director didn’t even know about Jacob until months after the show closed. I have seen many amateur and professional productions of “Joseph” since, and it is still my favorite- Donny Osmond’s nephew and company had nothing on this cast. Since I have seen all the productions of “Joseph” that I think I need to see in this lifetime, it will undoubtedly remain my favorite.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I now wish actors “Good show!” instead of a “Break a leg!”

A Semi-Rural Suburban Area

Buying the house was like being swept up in a huge whirlwind. When we landed we were living in this great house, dazed and happy. And then we opened the door and found ourselves in a brand new bright, shiny land called Oz! Well, actually, it’s Franklin Park. We never specifically set out to live here. It’s just where the house was when we found it. I must say that we couldn’t have accidentally landed in a lovelier spot for happily “ever-aftering” than here, but it was different kind of place than any we had ever lived in before.

While we are now just about 10 or 12 miles north of our former home on the North Side, which was within the city limits, my husband quickly noted that we weren’t in the city anymore. Well, that is certainly true. There isn’t anything even remotely urban about this place. Technically Franklin Park is a suburb, as it was clearly designed with residential living in mind (it is dotted with planned housing communities, including ours) but it doesn’t feel “suburban.” Those wandering through who don’t know better might mistakenly think they are in the country. There are lots of trees and other green areas everywhere, and we are literally within walking distance of two farm markets and within easy driving distance of several others.

But I’ve been to the country, and this definitely isn’t it. The easiest way to tell this is that if you are lost in the country you can go for miles and miles (and sometimes hours) without seeing one landmark or business to help you find your way back out. In the city, on the other hand, even if you are lost in the seediest neighborhood you will shortly come upon a gas station, or a convenience store, or some shady character, or possibly some entirely different neighborhood to help you find your way. In Franklin Park, you can’t drive far without coming across some sort of landmark, although that landmark is more likely to be a church or the sign of a housing community as it is to be a convenience store.

Our welcome packet from Franklin Park arrived in the mail one day and cleared up the confusion. Franklin Park describes itself as a “semi-rural suburban area.” Well, now that’s it – exactly the right description for the area. This place combines the best features of the suburbs and the country, while still being convenient to the city and all its amenities. We are minutes away from the highway, McKnight Road or the Cranberry Township shopping areas, Wexford, and all our old shopping and dining grounds.

There are nearly 12,000 residents and 14 churches in Franklin Park, according to the 2000 Census and Franklin Park’s promotional materials, including a Universalist Unitarian Church. No synagogue, but the nearest one is just 6 miles away in Allison Park. There are lots of activities available to residents, including a monthly ballroom dance and movies in the park. What Franklin Park does not have is a post office of its own; instead residents share a zip code with one of the three neighboring communities of McCandless, Wexford and Sewickley.

While we are close to our former home, we have had a whole new area to explore and discover. And we are delighted with what we’ve found, even within a mile of our new home. There is T-Bones, a tiny grocery store with great prepared foods and pastries, located conveniently off the 79 exit. We like Soergels’s Farm Market and Kaelin’s Farm Market, with their fresh produce and greenhouses. And there’s Bella Frutteto, which has quickly become one of our favorite restaurants. It’s a wonderful little Italian place with good food and interesting décor that is perfect whether you’re having lunch with a friend, or a birthday party for 15 people. Whether or not you live nearby, Bella Frutteto is worth the trip. (http://www.bellafrutteto.com)

Now, I would like to take a moment to give a shout out to the Wexford Giant Eagle, my new favorite supermarket of all time. It’s not just one thing about the place that I like – it’s everything. The people who work there treat their customers with the utmost courtesy and respect. They act as if they are happy to work there and to assist you. No, really! They are concerned that you are finding everything alright. True story- I’m at the deli one day, and I ask the person working there for some ham-off-the-bone. “Very good, ” she said, “and while I am preparing that for you, would you like to try a sample of our pork loin?” When my husband was looking for rye flour, just to discover they didn’t carry it, an assistant manager asked him what brand he liked and said he would look into ordering some. It’s just a very pleasant place to buy food.

Speaking of “finds,” you won’t believe what I found in Cranberry Township, in addition to two Burger Kings, a Perkins Restaurant and a Dress Barn Woman (reason enough to move). A job in my field, just about 5 miles and a 10 minute drive from my new house! This place really is too good to be true.

There’s one big difference between Dorothy in Oz and us in Franklin Park. Dorothy spent all her time in Oz trying to get back to where she came from. We on the other hand aren’t going anywhere.