by Jennifer Farlin | Jan 29, 2015 | Life Reflections
A few nights ago we watched the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you aren’t familiar with my stage career in high school then you are fortunate. I was in all the plays. One audition stays with me to this day. I don’t know what I am saying, they all stay with me. A few that randomly come to mind are “the really bad singing incident in 1988” and “the dance crash of 1993.” However, none of them trump my audition for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Debbie I am so sorry. (All names have not been changed.)
I sort of forget some of it. January 15th, 1989. It was cold that day, real cold. The kind of cold that sticks with you and changes you forever. The time was 4:04 pm. The 798 red velvet clad seats in the auditorium held 237 people that day. I wore acid washed tapered jeans that buttoned just under my rib cage and a purple v-neck sweater with pink turtleneck. I cannot recall if my white Keds had safety pins with friendship beads on them or not. That part I can’t remember. But if they did the beads were pink, teal, and purple.
For the audition we were brought up on stage in groups of 3 to sing the following:
So Jacob came to Egypt,
No longer feeling old
And Joseph came to meet him
In his chariot
Of gold
Of gold
Of gold
Of gold
The notes were high. Real high. So high that if you google this music a banner pops up asking if you want to learn how to sing really high notes. I wish had. I wish I had known.
It was not for me that day to be on the side of fate. Debbie and I brought out the worst in each other when it came to singing. And yet there we were, side by side, under the bright lights attempting to sing. Now to be fair, Debbie can hold her own in the voice department. However, with me singing in her ear she became tone deaf. I, on the other hand, cannot sing, so I already was tone deaf. Add in that it was an audition, where, damn it man, even Streisand would have buckled under the pressure, and it was bad, real bad.
At one point Debbie had her fingers in her left ear, I had my fingers in my right ear, our faces squinting trying to find a note, any note. There was no end. No one stopped us. We kept on singing. Singing through the torture and the embarrassment, we even managed to sing the wrong words, at different times, with the sheet music in front of us. At such point, I’m pretty sure this is when the hysterical uncontrollable laughing started.
I remember the producer’s face, Mrs. We’ll-Call-Her-HUBER, standing to our right with her hands on her hips. “Enough!” she said. “Thank GOD”, we said. “NO!” She said. “The two of you–STAY.”
Oh dear.
So the poor soul who had to sing with us marched off and a fresh poor soul came to join us. “AGAIN!” shouted Mrs. Huber. And there we went, off key and lousy, trying to not laugh.
Trying to not laugh when you are not suppose to be laughing is really hard. And we did not do it well, in addition, to the singing.
We were told to stay on stage as one after another fresh faced good singers came and went after auditioning alongside of us. Well, who the hell knows what they sounded like, who could hear them? We continued to stand in the center spotlight trying to not laugh, trying to tune each other out, trying to hit the really high notes and not get the words mixed up, trying to get off the stage. I know whenever the word was Jacob one of us sang Joseph and whenever it was Joseph one of us sang Jacob. To this day I think these names are funny.
Finally the audition that I would be told years later was used as a cautionary tale to future would be actors ended. We were cast, as the camel. One of us was the front end, one the back end–I will let you decide who was where.
We were magnificent. And silent. We also came a part, by accident, on stage, during a show.
If you were entertained by this post then read: Shopping Cart Hell, The Paint Store, Throw-Back Thursdays: Hurricanes
by Jennifer Farlin | Jan 22, 2015 | Interior Decorating
Did you read Smoke and Mirrors Part 1? If you missed it you can read it here. Real life is messy. Distract people from the chaotic mess in your rooms with a statement piece aka smoke and mirrors.
HGTV.com
Love the bench with the E A T pillows. No one will notice the fact that there are piles and dishes all over your table. (The team of 12 that styled this picture shoved all of it in the hallway.)
Found on EverFour.tumblr.com
The big “a” dwarfs any mess–and trumps dishes overflowing in sink.
www.decoist.com
The whole room could possibly be purchased from garage sales but who cares when the Coca Cola sign is so cool.
295luv.com
No one will be able to see anything negative about your house–blinded they will be by this gorgeousness.
castlery.com
Couches are completely stained and covered in dog hair but you are thinking “What Couches?” All you see is the art.
found on Porchlight Interiors
Christmas decorations are probably still up in May but whatever–this green dresser and wallpaper rock.
GreatBigCanvas.com
House is filthy but good things are going to happen because your room is so stylish.
Martha Ohara Interiors-HomeBunch.com
Island overflowing with clutter. Floor sticky, toys everywhere, but all your company will say is, “Where did you get these chairs?”
Joy to You!
Jen
If you loved this post then you will adore:
Sherlock on the BBC is Back…or Why Wallpaper is the Coolest, You Gotta Have Art, Making Art Out of Objects You Love
by Jennifer Farlin | Jan 21, 2015 | Interior Decorating
I am on a moving walkway at the airport walking in the wrong direction with wheelless oversized luggage carrying a toddler with a banana, while wearing stilettos. Not really, but really. Today I have a head cold. My children got me sick for the 800th time this year. I get better, they get sick, they get better, I get sick, I get better, they get sick…when we aren’t doing this fun exchange there is the snow that renders every road in Washington DC impassable resulting in school delays and closures and more time together in my house. As I was saying, it is snowing outside, rumor of early release from school, and a head cold, but that is ok because I just picked up my whole house. I mean it is GOOOOOOD. Piles gone. Dishes done. Beds made. Clean. Filed. Shiney. Did you hear me? Totally ready to go. Immaculate. So naturally today my landlord decides today is the day that the ceiling will be cut out of my living room and dry wall replaced. Saws, tarps, large equipment, ladders, toilets. Yeah, toilets. Because the toilet is being replaced too and in the middle of said replacement my landlord yells down, “Jennifer don’t come up here and ignore the popping sound and smell.”
Have you ever carried a toddler holding a banana? You will always end up a mess.
I can’t pretend this is a new phenomenon for me. Crazy and chaos are friends and shadow me closely. Over the years I have developed a smoke and mirrors technique to dealing with this inside my home which I teach all my staging clients. Have one thing in each room that makes a great statement and no one will notice the mess, as much.
For example,
The statement piece in the above picture is clearly the toilet. No one notices the tarp, tools, shoes, dust, or mess.
Clearly the statement piece in this picture is the dog, or the snow shoes. Either way no one notices the crime scene tape on the floor because of the smoke and mirrors…see? You don’t see a thing wrong because you are too busy noticing my statement pieces.
In my next post I’ll show you some more “real” examples. I need to go get my landlord bleach and garbage bags now. Really.
Jen
If you enjoyed this post try: Puke is my Kryptonite, Hey Pottery Barn Check Me Out, and Mess=Creativity.
by Jen | Jan 17, 2015 | Fun Style
I’m not outdoorsy. I like to be outdoors. Then I like to come inside and take a shower. Or just look out the window. My husband likes to camp. He likes the woods. I have a problem with the woods. In my opinion, it is where people fleeing from prison go. I am from Detroit. You don’t camp if you are from Detroit. Yes, I generalize but whatever. If I want to get away and relax I don’t want to cook or clean. Cooking and cleaning do not equal relaxing. Listening for a twig snapping because you are about to be attacked by either the prison people or bears equals–no relax. Then there is this whole mesh/nylon issue (the stuff made out of tents or those pop out things on campers.) Yeah, that will keep us safe. The Dingo Ate My Baby (aka that movie with Meryl Streep in the Outback and the dingo), Deliverance, True Detectives, Dateline— all full of factual information to back up my opinions.
So my husband thinks a camper with no meshy sides and a padlock will possibly persuade me to change my mind. He totally is forgetting 1) cooking and cleaning 2) IT’S A CAMPER. Several years ago he took me to a camper show–lots of etched glass with wolves. Many years have passed since subject was allowed to be brought up again. Last night he took me to another camper show and I am happy to announce there wasn’t a glass to be found etched with a single wolf. Campers have come a long way since the last time we looked. There are all sorts of bells and whistles for families equal to a loaded mini van. My “favorite”, and I use the word loosely, had a rear area with a door for kids–bunk beds, couch, DVD and gaming hook ups. The best part was the additional entrance through the bathroom–no muddy people traipsing through and a place to hose off before entering. Even as I type this those items sound as exciting as getting dish towels for your birthday.
Then I spied the Airstreams. They are as practical and affordable as buying a Mercedes 2 door convertible with white silk interior as a family car. But, oh geez, this I could do. And there isn’t a meshy/nylon side to be seen.
According to the brochure here’s what my life could like with one of these babies:
I googled Airstream when I came home, lots of pictures under Glamping “Glamourous Camping”–now you are talking my language. And the aluminum exterior gives the added illusion of steel–which probably deters prison people and bears.
Found on navigateontrust.com
Buzzfeed.com– 27 Dreamy Campers
Found on Flickr
Just to show I am open-minded. I am willing to entertain one of these as well.
Design-Caster
Jen
If you liked this post:
Camping, and Vintage Cars. They are the Chrome Tiara for your Driveway
by Jennifer Farlin | Jan 14, 2015 | Life Reflections
I’m a puke panicker. I FREAK out during puke events. It’s like my kryptonite. My oldest son doesn’t do puke receptacles–you know like buckets and toilets. He prefers to shock his mother. There was the time he had the norovirus (while my husband was deployed) and he threw up while walking up the stairs. The carpeted stairs. Like, he nailed every single stair. It’s important to note that there was a bathroom at the bottom of the stairs and a bathroom at the top of the stairs, the-stairs-that-were-carpeted. Then there was the time he threw up in his sleep–on an angle with projection. Or the time he threw up on our friends, or another time on our friend’s mother. Oh, then there was Syracuse. He puked the whole way–car seat, no bucket, no paper towels, 10 hours in snow storm, pregnant and morning sick. I had to use the clothes out of our luggage to absorb it out of survival. Fond memories of standing in McDonald’s parking lot off I-81 with coffee stirrers and napkins trying to clean car seat–because after hours of vomit that will take care of it.
My husband and I are ying and yang on this. He quietly soothes puking child. When child was baby he would pick up spewing babe with zero concern for himself or surrounding upholstery. I am the opposite. I do things like yell in slow motion baritone “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” and then alternate with trancelike horrified staring. I intermittently scream things like “where are the Clorox wipes, why are you doing this to me, and for the love of God man go to the toilet”. I pace outside the bathroom and cry (because I do feel bad for my baby) pour bleach on everyone as they pass by me and mentally count laundry loads.
Currently we are in “Hell 2014-2015” as my husband coined it at 5 am. Above mentioned child has had stomach flu of various degrees THREE times starting on Thanksgiving Day, reoccurring at 12:04 am Christmas Day (I am still apologizing to the rug), and now again, as I type this. The rest of the family have had it at least once (I managed twice) since November. Both children are currently on plastic covered couches with buckets while my husband and I mill around like a scene in Outbreak.
I am possibly delirious.
If you like this post: Sick: Or a Tour of Bathrooms, Shopping Cart Hell
