Here is a quick update with as few emotional flourishes as possible. I may choose to embellish upon any of these at a later date. I may not.

The plays closed last week and went really well. Really well! I was even happier with my performance than I thought I’d be. It’s nice to not have to spend my weekends in the theatre.

Emily is wonderful. But she never stops talking! New words and sentences every day. The verbal linking of ideas is quite impressive.

It is officially hot in Spain. Oy.

Looks like I’ll be in another HP training video next month. Good for a laugh and very good for the bank account. I’ll try not to swing my arm so much this time.

I got a call today from a recording studio that wants my voice for some sort of McDonald’s thingy. I might not be available on the dates they want. I’ll find out more tomorrow.

I’m off to England tomorrow morning with the family for five days in Jersey with Jan’s mates. This marks the beginning of our Summer of Travel Extravaganza. Also known as: Get It In Now Before She Turns Two And You Have To Pay Full Fare.

And here are a few pix:

Well hello, Clarice

Take Time

Gaze

While I attempt to recuperate from this weekend’s theatrical extravaganza, here are a couple of videos of the little girl jumping – a favorite pastime here at the Zamrycki home.

Jump I depicts Emily and daddy taking turns climbing on the couch and jumping off, and even attempting the death-defying Jump Real High, all seen through the exclusive Bird’s-Eye-View cam:

Jump II has Emily and mommy practicing the art of the couch jump in an attempt to perfect the subsequent landing, taking time out every three jumps to violently plow into the daddy cameraman:

Jump III does exist, but I couldn’t be bothered to upload it. If anyone really needs more than the already displayed 7+ minutes of jumping, just let me know. I’ll see what I can do.

Two shows down, two to go. No time to write. No time to eat. No time to breathe…

Totally sold out our opening night. Great show. They were a bit taken aback by the second piece. Last night was a smaller audience but the laughed a lot more at the darker material. Both great nights. Very much looking forward to tonight which is selling very well and tomorrow which is almost sold out.

Here is a great piece written from an interview I gave to the Catalonia Today newspaper.

And here is a nice little preview in Life In Cities.

Directing a play (especially one written by Christopher Durang) tends to affect your life in strange ways.

On Friday, my shopping list was as follows:

• a dirty old armchair
• 2 garbage pails large enough for me to fit inside
• a French maid’s frilly apron
• a whip
• a large gold medallion
• white tights
• 15th century executioner’s axe

Though not an easy task, I had successfully crossed all of those items off my list by Sunday.

I spent most of Saturday night looking for the perfect piano music that would insinuate a hotel on the French Riviera in the 1930’s. This was, of course, after I had spent two solid hours listening to helicopters and harp music.

On Sunday, I made sure everyone was kicking, spitting on, slapping, and throwing my lead actress to the floor in more or less the same fashion. Consistency is highly underrated.

And tonight was spent atop a very tall and shaky ladder, hanging and focusing very old lights as they precariously dangled from rickety old iron beams.

Tomorrow is our tech rehearsal. I thought it would be a good idea to rehearse at least once with the lights and sound before we open on Thursday. Have you bought your tickets yet?

As promised, here is the next video of the series. This time, we begin with our darling little girl narrowly escaping death in a misguided attempt to get her groove on.

I’ve got so many videos of Emily stockpiled that if I don’t start posting them now I’m afraid she’ll be in college before they ever see the light of day. In an attempt to not overwhelm anyone with sheer toddler cuteness, I’ll start off slow and just post the one for now.

On a side note, Emily relates the exact same snorting sound with both pigs and her granddad in England (aka Dadda). The common answer to the question, “What does a pig say?” is “Chhhwww chhhwww [snorting sound]… dadda!”. He snores quite impressively.