Strude

Can you believe the snow on Memorial Day? Okay, to be fair we were up a mountain at over 8200 feet. It was awesome.

For more pics, click here.

Last week Buddha, 7-years-old, asked if he could audition for A Christmas Carol at the theatre where I am currently performing Secret Garden. He has done a few small roles in children’s theatre. Very small roles where the auditions were pretty much show up and get a part type deals.

This would be different. A “real” audition with call backs and competition. But he wanted to do it, so we of course said yes. He has enjoyed what theatre he has done, and we want to help our kids discover what they enjoy doing and help them do it. But this was also going to provide his first chance at rejection and we wanted to make sure he knew the difference between these auditions and the others he has gone to.

He said he was prepared if he didn’t get called back or didn’t get a part. Well, he was called back. As was I. He wanted me to audition, too. I would really rather have a break, but it would be awesome if we could do a show together.

Again, after callbacks, he said he would be okay if they didn’t call. However, the next day after coming home from school the first words out of his mouth were, “Did they call?” I was and am more nervous for him than I have ever been on any audition for myself.

We still have a day or two before they will call, if they call at all. Did I put my parents through the same thing every time I auditioned for something growing up?

As you know, we loves us some Training Table here in the old Strude household. In the newest version of their menu, they mark what they consider to be the menu favorites with a red oval that contains the letters TTR inside.

My wife and I were wondering why they choose those letters.

“TTR? What is that? The Training R…. TRT would make more sense. TRaining Table.”

“How about The Training Table.”

“That would be TTT?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m tired.”

Now this wasn’t like we were trying to solve world peace or anything, it was just annoying. Like realizing you have a wedgie, but you’re in public and can’t pick it. Then Buddha spoke up. “Mine says it, too. Training Table Restaurants.”

Well, there goes my plans to audition for “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” Apparently I can’t even beat my first grader.

Sitting at the old Training Table restaurant, eating dinner by myself, I came to a couple of realizations.

First, I suck at eating and reading at the same time. Now, I don’t mean that the put-words-together-to-make-sentences part of my brain shuts off whilst enjoying a tasty burger. I am talking about the physical logistics of trying to hold a book open with one hand well enough to manage my food and drink with the other. Granted, this was a two-fisted, messy burger, but even the heavenly cheese fries proved to be too much.

After this humiliating defeat, I felt so pleased when I was able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Look at me, Ma. I’m gonna be alright.

Second, I really love my wife and hate when we are apart. This, of course, wasn’t a new revelation by any means. But I was halfway through my cheese fries when I realized I was tunneling through to the fries in the middle of the pile: the ones that don’t have much cheese on them. I usually do this when eating with my wife so that she can get more of the cheesy fries but she wasn’t there and instantly my heart hurt.

No matter how tasty the food. (And it was.) No matter how entertaining the book. (And it really is.) I would have much rather been doing anything else just as long as my wife was with me.