Day Two. Handled.

Day II.
Rather uneventful morning. Fully prepared for and expecting eventful, I went so far as to shower before I left on my walk to the theater this morning.
When I arrive, I immediately eat an entire box of pretzels and set a medical record for fastest human temperature shift from sweaty mess to solid block of ice. I've got my burgundy hoodie Mr. Brendan fancies, so I'm alright, but I cut Mr. Paul a look and am considering approaching to investigate how much paperwork would go into potentially adjusting the thermostat, but I stop in my tracks when he cuts me an even sharper look. It is then I notice he is wearing a new teal bandanna. Mr. Paul has an impressive array of bandannas. As I've seen him every single day for the past three years, I've seen most of them. Teal is new. I don't know which mood teal signifies. Mood bandannas. I back away.*
I wander out onto the stage where I sit next to Mr. Brendan. We watch, transfixed, as two slight young ladies in black spandex I-am-in-shape-and-do-something-athletic-for-a-living attire wriggle their way gracefully up enormous sheets of blue fabric to the ceiling. These are aerial silk artists. I turn to Mr. Brendan.
"What's that fabric?"
Mr. Brendan looks at me.
I go get a cup of coffee.
Once we establish that the silkists** are safely able to slide 900 feet down 900 yards of fabric at 900 miles an hour without setting their inner thighs on fire from the friction, I am dismissed to go home for the day.
[Sidenote: The silkists are part of a group called "Host of Sparrows." They are my charges today, along with the Adult Choir (more on them later). The "Host of Sparrows" are lovely to work with and it's no small bonus that all day I privately considered myself Lady Miss Audra of House Sparrow, thanks to their moniker.]
While I'm at home, I make a short film of myself pretending to play bingo and email it to some people.
[Sidenote: I have very relevant and recent bingo experience thanks to Mr. Paul and his Nanny. Mr. Paul's Nanny lives in an assisted living community here in town and once weekly the residents engage in bingo. Mr. Paul invites me to go play. So I do. I think I am in for a relaxing, diverting evening and hopeful for one of those cookies you can wear on your finger like an engagement ring. I am INCORRECT. Know- those of you who also make such erroneous assumptions- that assisted living bingo at this establishment is no joke. There is cold hard cash. Over one hundred players. Row upon row of tables full of people whose faces you never see. They are face-to-the-card focused. Bingo is run by a wheelchair bound bespectacled woman with sweet red ringlets and a doughy looking face. She is barking pleasantries into a microphone to all the attendees and filling them in on which flavor cobblers she picked up at the bazaar last weekend when suddenly, there's a buzz at the door. Her head whips to the left. Her voice instantaneously drops two octaves and she roars through the glass sliding doors at the wizened gentlemen on his motorized cart who has just pressed the buzzer to gain access to bingo- "NOT TODAY NORMAN! NOT TODAY! YOU'RE TWO MINUTES LATE! TURN AROUND. TURN AROUND!!!" It was one of the most nerve-wracking nights of my life.]
Anyway. I'm eating whipped coconut yogurt out of a bin on my couch when I receive a call from the theater.
It turns out the Adult Choir has had the unmitigated gall to show up to play practice.
Unannounced. (Scheduling mix-up.) I am needed at once to come down there and handle them.
Now. This Adult Choir consists entirely of my friends: Katrinah, Jessi, Karla, Todd, William, Anthony Cosby-Knowles, Durron. I'm not stressed. I mean, I can handle Durron.
[Sidenote: There's a whole other story coming soon on why that last statement is entirely a lie. There may be multiple installments.]
I go. I handle.
Following the rehearsal, everyone leaves except for the staff and crew, who meet in a long hardwood floored room to rehash the evening's events. Many excellent and important points are made over the course of this meeting, but the biggest physical and vocal reaction from the group by far came when it was revealed that, over the course of the day, someone had misplaced their lunch.
Gasps, moans, people jerking upright where they had been hunched listening intently in their chairs. Sympathetic sighs and looks. Slow shakes of heads side to side as if to deny that anything like this could have happened. Warning glances pass around the room in case it wasn't an accident and there is a guilty party who might be thinking of striking again. It takes the room a full minute to settle. When it does, things resume. The leader of this meeting is an excellent and impassioned leader who I will wish to my dying day I could see play Catherine in "Proof" at Barksdale Willow Lawn one more time. She is speaking on the importance of responsibility and focus. The failure of whipped coconut yogurt to nutritionally cut the mustard is to blame for the fact that I ironically choose this moment to become completely distracted by Mr. Paul's emergency room grade metal clipboard. It seems to have two strips of black Velcro running lengthwise down the back. If I got get that clipboard out of his hands right now and throw it against a wall, will it stick? Does he do that at home? It would be hard not to throw it like a Frisbee. I hate throwing Frisbee. I'm not good at it. Bruises my wrist. Like golfing. But I love golfing....
The meeting is over.

*For the record, all Mr. Paul's bandannas with the exception of this one seem to signify nothing but the biggest, kindest, most generous, trustworthy, and reliable heart there is. This temperature issue merely exists because Mr. Paul, like most people, has blood in his veins and can feel comfortable at normal temperatures whereas I am a reptile who needs you to carry a fleece blanket in your trunk for when we ride to class together. I'm gonna get him a bandanna with polka dots and see what happens then.

**Tony Foley calls them "silkists." I don't think that's the technically proper term, but I like it very much.