Ok folks, it has been quite the long stint since I last posted here.  Every blogger says it on a regular basis, but life has just been totally crazy.  My last post was in May, before I went to camp, before I got married, and before the current season at the theatre.  It was almost before the summer really started and now winter is starting.  I have been kind of bad about lots of things in the digital world of communication though.  I have been very slow at responding to emails, I have been behind on processing and sorting photos, and apparantly I am behind on getting videos together from the summer to go online.  Then there are the actual things that I havent been doing, like going to the gym.  Great.

So, will this just be a feeble attempt to try to get things moving on the blog again? I have no idea, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

So, if you got through that first paragraph and didn’t have a “wait, what?!” moment, you probably either already knew that I got married this summer, or you just missed that part.  Yes, since August 25 I have been happily married to Ruth and life is pretty good.  The wedding was beautiful, and everything seemd to go smoothly despite being out of the state at camp for the two months leading up to it.  We held the ceremony and reception at the Alta Lodge and we were happy to celebrate with friends and family.  Good times were definately had by all.  The weather was beautiful, the montains were beautiful, and the over atmosphere was great.  With a ceremony that we wrote ourselves, we were married by a mutual friend in one of the most beautiful places I can think of.  Don’t believe me? Here, see for yourself:

Here we are standing under the canopy that was built by Ruth's father, with our friend Warren officiating our wedding.

Working backwards in time from the wedding, the summer at camp was not one of the best.  Maybe that is why I refrained from writing during it.  I don’t know that I will say too much, though there is plenty to say about it.  The camps were under new ownership as of this past summer, and for some that transition was not so easy.  Suffice it to say, I saw some good friends mistreated in a very public manner and it got dragged out for the better part of the summer.  While I managed to spend the summer flying under the radar, there were grumblings about me as well.  Camp can be strange like that, it is just unfortunate and really hard when friends get hurt.

So let’s not dwell on the ugly past.  The theatre season is in full swing so life has been very busy.  Getting Annie up and open was a killer, but now there is a little room to breathe.  So in the mean time I have been prepping a bunch of my photos for my first ever gallery display!  I will be showing photos at the JCC in SLC for the month of January.  This is pretty darn exciting.  I have the prints on order and should get them soon and I am really excited to see them.  I am having all the prints done on metal with float mounts.  The test prints I had made earlier look amazing, it is a really cool finished product.  It would be hard to show what the prints look like in a photo, so any of you who find yourself in the Salt Lake area during January should stop by and see the gallery!

With that, I think that I need to stop staring at this computer screen. I have spent a lot of time in front of it in the past couple days. Besides being warm in bed sound much nicer!

It is hard to believe that the end of yet another season at the theatre is coming to an end.  This is going to mark the end of my fifth season at the Pioneer Theatre.  That is five years living in Salt Lake City, five years out of college, and five years living in the real world.  Five years is not a super long time, but it is nothing to turn your nose up at either.  It is kind of hard to believe that I am getting information about my five year college reunion.  I probably won’t make it to that since I just went this year to the big theatre reunion, but we shall see.

I often write about how time is such a funny thing.  Usually in relationship to camp, but it applies in all things.  Here we are at the end of the season and it feels like the beginning was so long ago, a distant memory.  At the same time, we actually have to go on a little longer since they added a show, but it will probably just feel like business as usual until we get to the end of that.

At this point I have been feeling like I just want to move on to that last show.  Not because I want to be done with the season faster but because I just want to be done with the current show.  We are currently working onSunset Boulevard which is to be followed by RENT.  There is just something about Sunset and the way that it has all been fitting together that has made it just a nightmare to work on.  it is a huge show, but nothing terribly out of the ordinary as far as musicals go for us.  It just feels like it has been a constant fight.

We were off to a flying start when the designer got into town early, I was even able to make time in the schedule to go to a Passover Seder.  Then the whole thing ground to a halt as hurdle upon hurdle was thrown in the way.  It felt like there was just not enough forethought that went into planning some things with this show.  I know that I am not the only person who feels this way as our new Sound Designer had to deal not only with the sound but also with projections for the show.  needless to say, we all have been spending long hours in the theatre and he was still there working when I left at 1AM last night (this morning).  Having a day off today could not be a more welcome thing.

I suppose that work cannot be completely fun all the time though I do try to have a good attitude.  It doesn’t always happen, especially when I am running on not the best nights of sleep and frustrating situations.  I still try really hard not to just grump around at people, but I know that I do from time to time.  Of course the next day I get a good night sleep and come in with a much better disposition which drives everyone else nuts since they are grumpy.  Go figure.  Sometimes I just have to remind myself that at the end of the day there will just be a whopping pay check with lots of overtime.

On the other hand, I take a day like today off and think about all the things that I still need to do.  I have two shows worth of photos to sort and get posted online.  There are a bunch of theatre department students who want them.  I have wedding things that I should take care of, like calling our photographer or checking the address list.  Yet I didn’t really do anything today except make breakfast and watch Stargate Universe.  That is how a day off should be right?  Plenty of time for everything else, just not today.

There are few things that truly make me upset.  The biggest is ignorance.

“…she [Anne Frank] died three days before the camp was liberated, it makes me ill.  They knew the liberation was coming and they still went to the gas chamers?!”

~A Patron after the show

Ok, so you sit through two-and-a-half hours of a wonderful production of The Diary of Anne Frank in Salt Lake City, UT and this is what I hear people saying as they leave the theatre.  Go figure.

Go figure also that this comment came from a woman who looked to possibly have been old enough to at least have been born shortly after the war, it would seem to me that someone of that generation should have a little more understanding of what went on.

It amazes me how many people are just completely ignorant of the things that happened during World War II, especially people who are my age or older.  Are events from less than 100 years ago so quickly forgotten all the time?  Did people not learn about this in school like I did?  Does world history not get taught as thoroughly when you move this far west in this country?  Seriously.  Is Utah just that sheltered?

I can’t imagine that all of those things are true or that this is an isolated case.  Mostly because I know that when the show was being produced in Indiana they received similar remarks and questions there.  I will be very intrigued to hear the talkback after the student matinee on Wednesday.

I am having a hard time forming coherent thoughts, can you tell….

This is a period of history that I am sure that many people would love to forget, but it is something that we never should forget.  Sure, it didn’t happen here, in the United States, but it happened.  Even more forgotten is the fact that it almost did happen here, with the Japanese.  How does it come to pass that over a span of over 10 years the world was plagued with some of the grossest violations of human rights that have ever been seen.  How can we combat the continuing threats of genocide in other parts of the world today when we can’t even remember one of the biggest?  Why is it that people just don’t seem to understand history.

I grew up going to religious school, “Hebrew school” as we called it.  I was taught there about the Holocaust.  In public school we read books like The Diary of Anne Frank, Number the Stars, and The Devil’s Arithmetic.  I know some kids who even read Ellie Wiesel and Schindler’s List in high school.  I am pretty sure that at some point in my public school career we watched Schindler’s List.  All of this is grounds for not only a great English class, but for great history classes as well.  Anne Frank was 13 years old when she was writing, and her words were more powerful and better written than many modern published authors.  She wrote a perspective on the war that we see very little of.  Most books and movies focus on the ghettos, the concentration camps and the war itself.  This look at a life of hiding, waiting, never being able to get away from the people you live with is just so different.  It also shows that despite some of the darkest times in our history, there is still some light.

The other day a colleague asked me how watching this play made me feel, did it make me upset, is it hard to watch every night?  In all honesty, no, it isn’t really.  This is something I grew up with, grew up learning about.  I am proud to work on this production, especially on nights like tonight when i know that someone was actually touched by the story.  Zachor – Remember.  To me, that is what it is all about.  We need to remember, and if this helps, then I am happy.

Are there still things that make me upset when I think about the Holocaust, of course.  Could I walk through the museum in D.C. or Yad VaShem in Israel without being moved, no.  It is part of our history as a global community and it is part of my history.  On Passover we remember the Exodus from Egypt by saying “I was there when God took us out of Egypt…” and I think that there are many who feel that the Holocaust needs to be remembered the same way.

As bloggers, many try to leave what they hope will be a lasting impression on the world. Some might actually do that.  We all want to be remembered.  The real question is, will anyone be able to do it the same way that a 13 year old girl did with a fountain pen and a diary?

Effectively it has been a month since I last posted anything, go figure.  It is so strange how sometimes things just fall by the wayside.  Life I suppose can get in the way.  When you work like crazy and then go to your cousin’s Bat Mitzvah on the other side of the country and also try to plan a wedding, well, things get pretty darn busy.  Heck, as usual for the past 5 years, I am sitting in tech on my birthday.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful fiancée and good friends to make a birthday at work more enjoyable.  Whether it is breakfast and lunch from Ruth or a cake from @sunreon or an uglydoll from my favorite stage manager or phone calls from friends who I haven’t heard from in a while, it all is great.  I don’t really count my inbox full of notifications from facebook that people have posted an my wall, mostly because I don’t really spend tons of time on facebook, and because most of the people just post birthday wishes because facebook tells them to.

It is worth mentioning that my cousin actually had the same Torah portion for her Bat Mitzvah as I did.  They wanted me to read some Torah or Haftorah, but the temple wasn’t really so keen on that.  So, my aunt asked them if there was any way that I could participate in the service.  I got to sing at the end of the service with the choir which was actually a lot of fun.  Everyone enjoyed it.

Ruth and I have settled on a date and venue for the wedding.  She is going up tomorrow with her mother to deliver the contract and deposit.  I suppose that means that I should actually read the contract.  There is a lot to do and think about now that we have settled on this information.  We can move forward with invitations and we still need to find some music (ie. a band).  We will have to finalize a menu and what we want for the ceremony.  Lots to do and time just ticking away.  Crazy, fun, exciting.

In knee news, I think that in general it is getting better.  I have more mobility and it really doesn’t hurt as much in normal use.  I am finally starting to walk normally again.  I don’t think that I will actually be doing any skiing this season.  I think that it is probably better this way, to heal and then hopefully be fine to get back on the hill next year.  However, one of my camp friends pointed out that it is a good excuse to be able to park at my cabin this summer at camp.  Hopefully I won’t need to actually use that as an excuse!

I really don’t get it.  Ok, I understand, they are an insurance company, and the only way they make money is by not actually paying out on claims, but seriously.  Weeks ago I went to the Orthopedist for a follow-up after I had the MRI.  If you didn’t already read about that saga, you might want to read this post and this post.  At that follow-up the doctor prescribed and gave me a brace for my knee.  It is specially designed to help hold things in the right place.  When I say prescribed, I mean that I literally have a copy of the scrip in my folder of paperwork for this injury.

Well, I got home last night (after over an hour of wasted time at the theatre) and opened the mail to find a bill from the supplier of the brace.  This was an actual bill, not just a statement saying that things had been taken care of.  Since I received the bill I was at first thinking that WCF must have denied that claim.  This seemed a little strange to me as they had not notified me of the fact that that was the case.  Since one of the first things that WCF sent me upon filing my case was a prescription card, it seemed very strange to me that this prescription would be denied.  I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the brace is significantly less expensive than many pharmaceutical prescriptions so why would this be denied.

Then it occurred to me that since I had heard nothing from WCF about this claim being denied that I really have actually no idea if the supplier even contacted WCF to event try to get them to pay.  So, despite the late hour and all the other things that I have been dealing with (like planning a wedding) I sat down to write to both WCF and the medical supplier.

I have come to two conclusions which I outlined in the emails both ending with the fact that I am not going to pay this bill until some of my questions get answered.  I conclude that WCF needs to actually tell me that this claim was denied and must do so for any future claims.  I also conclude that I have no proof that the supplier talked to WCF at all.  Therefore I won’t pay without further information.  As I said before, I don’t see any reason why this would be denied at all.

There is one other thing that I outlined in my email to WCF, and that is that if the claim was actually denied, it an be submitted to my personal insurance.  However, I can’t make that claim to my insurance without proof of denial.  Also, I don’t want to have to deal with anyone else, so I want the WCF people to deal with talking to my insurance.  Since this case is supposed to fall under their purview I shouldn’t have to be the one stuck in the middle.  I don’t have the time or the patience for it.  Besides, it is what these people are paid to do, fight with eachother over money, I have more important things to deal with.

Needless to say, I am sick of bureaucracy standing in the way of my recovery.  I would just like to be able to walk without limping or hobbling and I would like to it to be comfortable to bend my knee.  It is such a great thing that our healthcare system works