Drama Club and Urban Hiking

(I'm a little behind on posting; this blog covers Tuesday 19th through Wednesday the 20th)


Hi Mom and family,

I'm finishing writing this a little after midnight, early Friday morning. My shuttle van comes at 3:30 AM. "Yawn!"

Tuesday morning I went by Office Max to make a copy of the song I sent Oscar, then  went up to the post office to get the song in the mail. I found a traffic jam in the Post Office parking lot there, with cars lined up to try to get into half of the parking lot because the other half was getting new asphalt.

I parked across the street and just jay-walked over. The part which had not got new asphalt was all dirt, where the old asphalt had been taken up.

Exiting the parking lot across the street, I was right "on the heels" of a fender-bender! The car in front of me was signaling a left turn, and I thought "Oh, this will take a while." The person pulled out sooner than I expected, and slowly and methodically drove right into a car which was stopped in the middle turn lane!

The driver in front of me must have been looking to the right so long that she or he forgot that things might have changed, meanwhile, on their left.

I had to get home and finish getting the casting figured out for the drama club.  It turned out I had plenty of time because my tutor called and asked that our session be moved to Thursday. Which was a relief.

I decided that, for my third, fourth and fifth graders,  I could use a scene which I had previously thought would be too difficult for this age group. By splitting the one "mean girl" role into three "mean girls" I could reduce the number of lines each girl must remember and the scene would still "work".

For the first and second graders, I am using an easy but well-written skit by Laurie Allen. A friend helped me simplify years ago when I first started working with the elementary age kids.  It is about some kids who find a birthday card with some money in it, and one of them convinces the others to do the right thing and turn it in.

I jotted down how I would organize the hour I have with the kids. It really helps me, with a group of rambunctious kids, be well-prepared. . For instance, during the time when the littlest ones had to sit while I was auditioning the older ones, I tell the little ones I need their help in deciding who should play which role, and give them a little form to fill out.

 Of course, I would be making up my own mind and didn't need their input, but if you give them some task to do, it's much easier for them to sit. This is a trick which my friend Laure pointed out to me, years ago when she helped me do the drama club at the high school, that first scary year after Lyssa graduated and could no longer help me with it.

The older ones can be sent to a corner with their scene to read through it on their own, while I work with the little ones, but "vice versa" does not work at all!

Starting the second week of February, I will go there for two sessions each week, one with the older ones and one with the younger ones.

I stopped at Starbuck's on the way home. It finally gave a chance to look through e-mail, check the meetup pages for messages, check the facebook group pages, and do the blog for the last few days.

There was an e-mail from Kathy saying that our main other friend from Jr. high and high school, Alice Kalmar, would be in Berkeley the weekend of the reunion!!! Alice is not attending it the reunion, and does not wish to, but there is a possibility of seeing her, which is quite exciting for me. I have not seen Alice since high school.

I also got a very nice e-mail from one of the women who came to the music jam, whom I had given one of my cards as she left, when she asked for my e-mail. She's the one who lives in British Columbia. Her e-mail said that the Sunday music jam was lovely, and then she went on to rave about my personal website. Quite gratifying. Motivates me to go ahead and finish all the pages on it! (I haven't finished the "travel talk" website either.)

By the time I got home it was almost nine-thirty, and Dale Sr. and Ziggy asleep. I thought I'd read for a while, and dropped off myself, completely forgetting my medications and vitamins. Aaagh!

Yesterday morning I spent a couple of hours doing some overdue watering and weeding on the lot across the street. It was so pleasant outside in the cool, bright sunshine. I then  drove into Tempe for my Arabic lesson.

As you know, I have resolved to do one long walk per week, at least six or seven miles. The reason for this is to toughen myself up for the week-long hike in Mexico (six to ten miles a day and sleeping on the ground) which I plan to do with my friend Ann in May.

I decided to do my weekly walk right there in Tempe after my lesson,  in more interesting surroundings, and end with a meal in a restaurant. First I walked down the picturesque several blocks of Mill Avenue, an area where little shops and restaurants compete for the college student crowd.

This fountain and the large statues of rabbits, is right outside the parking garage: 

Then I walked down to the river, past Tempe Town Lake Park and across the bridge to the other side.

Mill Avenue is a pleasant street to walk down. I turned into a pleasant little courtyard with a garden and fountain.

The historic Hayden flour mill is a landmark on Mill Avenue:

This poster shows projected building for the block on which long-time local landmark "Monte's La Vieja Steakhouse" has stood for almost a century. They are keeping the steakhouse, but it will be dwarfed by the proposed building around it.

Above: Tempe Town Lake Park. This park was built when the river was dammed to make the lake. It is the scene of many events such as the Oktoberfest, marathon runs,and daily dog walking, jogging, etc.

 Below, some of the new corporate buildings which, during the last decade, have been built around Tempe Town Lake.

The bridge was built after the old one washed out in the floods of '78 (the year I moved to Arizona. The new bridges, one for north-bound and one for south-bound traffic, were built to replicate the style of the original bridges. The north-bound one has a nice wide sidewalk, welcoming to foot traffic.

 These people, in Tempe Town Lake Park, were doing a kind of bicycle roller derby. They were riding around in circles and making sudden turns in order to cause other riders to lose their balance. I'd never seen anything like it.

View of the train bridge: the "light rail" metro train crosses here.

I wondered if  this huge"First Solar" building, just north of the river, was actually powered solely by solar!

I walked up a winding walk on the other side of the Salt River, called the "Crosscut Canal Shared Use Path". It suddenly felt like I was out in the desert. Occasionally a jogger or someone on a bicycle would pass me.

There were signs saying "Beware: Disc Golfers". Then I saw  baskets with numbers on them which looked like they were a part of the disc golf. I later learned from Dale Sr. that disc golf is played with frisbees, and that it has become more and more popular.

 

Walking back through the venerable Moeur Park picnic area with its Conservation Corps-built picnic sites, I climbed up and down this set of stairs five times, to get some hill-muscle-strengthening going on.

I walked back down, back across the bridge, where I saw these rowing teams getting into the water. 

Next to the hulking, long unused Hayden Flour Mill, there was a display about the proposed project which will house a museum in the first floor of the famous Tempe Landmark. These photos show the Mill as it once was.

I was so glad to read about this project and the museum which will be part of it.

Then I went up the Hayden Butte trail as far as the lookout point but not to the very top. I was huffing and puffing a bit but it felt good.

In this photo from the look-out, you can see the new "light rail" metro, moving along its track, and other views of the Mill Avenue area:

I walked back down, and did a little more walking until I reached my 5:30 PM goal. (I'd started at 3:00 PM).

I had a plate of Döner Kebap (like gyros but on a plate with rice) at the Turkish Grill, where the staff is friendly, the food is good, and you can sit outside and watch the street. My effusively friendly waiter, who had time to talk because their dinner rush hadn't started, was a student from Saudi Arabia.

I should have taken the photo of my dinner before I took the bite out of the pita bread!

  
 My "urban hike" only totaled around 2 and 1/2 hours of walking, probably only five miles total.In order to meet my goal, I walked another hour the following morning. Clear, very breezy chill air and bright sunlight.

The entire day Thursday was very full. I had a hair appointment, my computer tutor, a stop at the library to compose the permission letter for the drama club kids' parents to sign, back to Office Max for more copies, and then drama club itself.

In the evening one of the women who had come to the music jam meetup last Sunday came by to borrow one of the copies of my big song book. I'm sure she'll bring it back, I have that feeling about her. But if worse came to worse, I do have two other copies of it. And I was glad, because it showed she was really interested.

Love,
 Lennie