Ceilidhs and poets and stagelights OH MY!!

This has been a whirlwind of a week. Each night I think that I am going to get a chance to sit down and write a post. hahahahaha !!! What a silly woman I am!

Monday and Tuesday were filled with music, story telling and lots of children. Monday was Peakview K-8, where the Ceilidh Peppers played, and Joe Lang and I told stories as well as dancing and drama. A long day. Joe is a sweet Scot. About 78, and full of wonderful tales. Speaks Lowlans… a dialect of Scottish, and sometimes I had to remind him of an English word. Tuesday was La Veta and Gardner Schools. K-8 as well. Lovely time.

We went to the Fox Theater to see about the lights. Barbara had finally decided that she needed help with the lights and took Dan’s offer. Barbara is a dear sweet woman, but has a hell of a time delegating. She tries to do too much and then gets overwhelmed. As the driving force of the Celtic Festival, it really is more than any 10 people ought to handle and she tries to do 90% of it.

Well, there was some sort of mix-up, because instead of a lighting run, there was some sort of Christian church gospel night going on. Dan was already working on the lights, and one of the gospel guys who said he knew lighting was “helping” Dan. The idiot KICKED the big spotlight and broke the bulb. Grrrrr!!!! What you need to understand is that the Fox Theater is OLD. Most of it’s equipment if not “original” is new circa 1930’s. Some of it might be as new as 1970, but… the spot hails from the 40’s or 50’s and did not take kindly to being kicked.

Meanwhile, while Dan tried not to give into the urge to kill the guy, we went backstage to work on the lights so that they could have their gospel hour… As we got the lights up, they started to perform. Now this might not have been too bad had we been on the right hand side of the stage. However, we were on the left and trapped. 2 hours of Gospel later,… they finally quit!! (hallelujah ???) Dan had recognized one of the guys as a scumbag he knew from Nashville and therefore wanted to kill him twice over. The guy didn’t recognize Dan, and actually gave us three of their CD’s. We donated them to Rev. Tinsley, the minister hosting the music program.  We were so grateful to get out of there!

Wednesday, we had to be up and about early. I to work by 8am to make up lost hours and Dan to the Fox Theater for lighting work.  So, while I worked at the Chamber, Dan played ladder monkey. After I got home and just started sipping a cup of tea, Barbara called. So, off we went to the theater. There was a rehearsal going on, and Barbara was getting frazzled. Dan and I dealt with the four men rehearshing while Barbara went off somewhere. Hopefully to rest.  We got the whole thing straightned out and headed off home.

Thursday started up easy and then the phone rang. Any Guesses?  Yup…. Barbara. So, Dan dropped me off at the Chamber and headed to the Theater. I’ve been doing a lot of work on the Chambers’ website and the various files. I went down to the Theater after work and Dan was just wrapping up the lighting when I got there. I got to meet John Carlson (?) the gentleman who helps the library with movies. A very nice man. We chatted and then headed over to Mike’s Coffee Bar.

Mike Hurley is my boss, and runs the coffee bar. We went over there to pick up tickets for the three shows in town as payment for all our work. Funny thing is that every time we go in there, the shop is dead quiet. The minute we start to talk to Mike, it gets busy. The guys joke that I need to come in at least once a day. While we were there, Heather Yule and her hubby Davy came in. (Barbara’s daughter) We chatted with them for a bit which was lovely. Then it was off to the Business Finance Round table. Wheee…

That was a spaghetti dinner and speakers talking about where to find info on financing your business. It could have been better. Dan asked a question that the one guy really didn’t have an answer for and flubbed it. sheesh ! We left around 7:15, because we had to be at the Ceilidh up in Gardner.

The Ceilidh was the opening salvo of the Celtic Festival. A preview of all the acts to come. Plus, I think it is the one time that Jack Yule relaxes that dour Scots demeanor. He was cutting up and smiling!!! The various acts were wonderful. Dan and I really enjoyed ourselves. Got home at 12:30am!

Today, I’m working the chamber office till 3pm, then after a few errands, it’s off to the theater to learn how to run the spotlight. Whee…..  Tonight’s concert is “From Tango to Jig”. A Paraguayan harper, Alfredo Ortiz starts out followed by Jerry Sullivan on Uilleann pipe, Aine Minogue and Kevin McElroy on harp and mandolin and banjo. Should be very good.