Many years ago, my cousin was a student at Gallaudet (the only university for the deaf in the US), and she asked if I wanted to come to a play that night on the campus.  Sure.  I’m always game for theater.

But my takeaway from the performance — seeing theater signed — was an emotional expansion of the experience of theater.  I’m not deaf, but seeing a play signed changed my world. It was like… theater+ to see a play paired with a language that naturally complements the art in the same way that the round vowels of Italian lend themselves to opera.

Then, a few years ago, we were watching the Tony’s and caught Deaf West’s performance of a scene from Spring Awakening.

Again, it was theater+. I couldn’t stop talking to people about that performance.

Josh mentioned about a year and a half ago that Olney Theatre was going to workshop The Music Man. The idea for the performance came from Joey Caverly, recently in Children of a Lesser G-d on Broadway, and it grew and grew, looping in deaf and hearing actors alike (including the actress who opened that clip from Deaf West above). For a year and a half, the kind people at Olney Theatre got to endure me asking whether I could sit in on a day of the workshop over and over again.

Fast forward to last week. I got to sit in on two hours of rehearsal.

It was incredible. Mind-expanding. Emotional. Beautiful. I walked out of there grateful that I got to witness it. Turner Hitt’s write-up about the experience says it best: “This week-long workshop would light a fire under the pants of every single person involved.” The fire is lit. I’m just a witness, and I’m now dedicated to doing everything I can to help them bring it to the stage because I want everyone else to get to see it, too.

So expect me to talk about this. A lot. Because it was that good and everyone should get a chance to sit in a room and understand how much larger theater can be.  Or as Turner so perfectly puts it:

Every single one of us walked away with the realization that this kind of process and product has the potential to radically change musical theatre–to make it more inclusive and accessible, and to celebrate what every individual has to offer.

Have people been watching The American Farm on the History channel? It’s on Thursday nights at 10 pm EST. It covers a year of family farms, following them through the ups and downs of farming, season to season.

There was a line in the description that crawled under my skin: “America’s farmers are heroes who gamble every last dollar on their own two hands.” It reminded me of the line from “Inútil” in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights: “He cut the cane / He came home late and prayed for rain / And on the days / When nothing came / My father’s face was lined with shame.”

Because planting crops is an enormous gamble. Raising livestock is an enormous gamble. Having inventory that is completely outside your control; that can shrivel up or get sick and die makes year after year a gamble.

If you’re not watching it, go DVR it. Now. Or watch it online on the History Channel site.

*******

Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Uterus Monologues has a roundup of 75 pieces of advice after baby loss. She writes: “Just about managing to cut its way through the white noise and static of shock and grief is a notion that this is something that will take time to heal from. But what is less clear is what this actually looks like. What exactly do you do? What do other people do?” So she set out to learn what other people do. And she presented the findings in a post. Brilliant and helpful.

Everything Comes with Pancakes has a post about donor eggs and “So what happens when the babies are old enough to understand it all?” It’s what we’re preparing for all through that babyhood. But it’s what we can never really prepare for, right? I love this line: “She is exceptional and teaches me more about who I want to be every time we connect.” Everyone should have someone so wonderful in their world.

Lastly, I snickered over Torthúil’s panda bear post mostly because my brain works the same way. You’ll need to read it to see what I mean.

The roundup to the Roundup: Farming is fascinating.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 5th and 12th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

The twins (clearly) share a birthday, so we’ve had a tradition since birth that every year, they would each get a surprise extra day that was their day.  They would choose the activities and meals and be generally celebrated like a birthday.  They wouldn’t know when this extra day would appear; they would just wake up in the morning and see the decorations and have 24 hours to be smothered in attention.

A few months ago, I started seeing ads on Facebook for a museum in Delaware (Winterthur) that was hosting the costumes from The Crown.  Can you imagine anything more perfect for ChickieNob Day?  We got tickets for this past weekend, and I spent the weeks leading up to it doing everything in my power to not scream, “I HAVE A SURPRISE PLANNED FOR YOU.”

She had no clue where we were going or what would be there until we walked into the building.  Her little mind was blown.

And it was such a good exhibit.  They did a great job giving a behind-the-scenes look at how the costumes and props were made.  It was amazing to see them up-close.  Can you name the scenes where these were  worn?

Afterward, we went on a tour of the grounds.  (Oh, and we kicked off the visit with a guided tour of the permanent collection.)

It was such a great day.  And the exhibit is there until late December if you’re on the east coast.

There’s a vegan restaurant nearby that changes its menu four times per year.  There are one or two items that remain constant, but most of them change from season to season.  I know this would be a big plus for some people, but I hate it.  If I like something, I want to be able to get it again, and there have been too many times  when I can’t find anything I want on their menu.  When that happens, I need to either avoid the restaurant or go with a salad I could make at home until they change their menu again, three months later.

Today is the menu changing day.  They finally had something I really liked on their menu and now it’s gone.  I’m going to spend the morning hitting refresh on their site until they post, moping that they took away my sandwich.

*******

Our amazing vet sent a letter that she is retiring this summer. I immediately called the office, trying to keep the tears out of my voice. Why did she have to retire? Why did she have to enjoy golf and hanging out with her husband? Why did she need to purchase a house in a different state?

They don’t have anyone else on staff who can take care of Linus. They are working to get another vet who specializes in small mammals, but baring that, I need to go to a different practice. We have a backup vet that we used for Truman once when our main vet wanted a second opinion, so we’ll go to her if they don’t get another vet in our main office, but I’m really sad.

A theme to my week may be “I don’t like change,” but it’s more than that. She coached me through Cozy’s death and Truman’s death. She was there in my hardest moments, when I was all alone in the office, needing to make a terrible end-of-life decisions. She was so caring, with Cozy and Truman AND with me. And I’m going to miss her. I’ll miss her guidance, but I’ll also miss her care.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

*******

I just learned a new word: Waldeinsamkeit.  It means “the feeling of being alone in the woods” or something close to that.  Which implies peace: finding a peaceful moment while you’re on your own in a dense forest.  Which doesn’t sound peaceful to me… at all.

I’m an indoor kid.

I don’t really cherish my time in nature.  I like bodies of water, so if there was a word in German that captured the feeling of being engaged in a good book while on the beach, I’m all over that.  But barring that, I don’t really crave finding solitude in the woods.  While I am fond of the concept of trees, I don’t spend a lot of time with them.

What’s a new word you’ve learned recently?

*******

Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.