"4 at 40" Performances in Los Angeles in March

Please come see me perform my one-woman show "4 at 40" in March!

"4 at 40: Mothers’ Letters to Their Daughters" a play written and performed by Daniela Ryan
The women of Adelaide Farms have always written letters to their daughters. Even after the farms are sold their bitter acquisition continues to exert force on generations down the line.

Performances
March 13 & 14 and
March 20 & 21, 2009
at 8:00 pm

WORKING STAGE THEATRE
1516 N. GARDNER STREET
LOS ANGELES, CA 90046
(323) 851-2603

TICKETS: $10.00 at the door or purchase online (click below)
http://www.workingstage.com/now_showing.html

“Ryan gifts us with a tour de force performance… with her thoughtful and compelling play” - Jack Lyons, Desert Post Weekly

What the hell!!?

I mean, I know the economy is bad but come on!

So in December I get pulled over - me and the kids just going home from the grocery store, in the minivan. I know there is not a lot of crime in my town but pla-leese! I think it might have even been a Friday night... anyway, I get a fix-it ticket for an expired (in November) registration. That has never ever happened to me before three months, seriously. You?

Then incidentally the following week I see three minivan's pulled over by cops... Is there some gang that uses minivans? Are soccer moms suspected of some sort of illegal shenanigans?

So I go get the smog check I missed on my registration renewal and then the sticker comes and later the instructions to send in the original ticket signed off that the fix was actually completed as it says "By any local law enforcement office". I go to my town's sheriff department and the tell me "You're in luck, it's not the normal hours that he does this but he happens to be here" Apparently no one can be bothered to look at and verify a registration except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between the hours of 2:30 and 3:30 pm. What!!??

"And that will be $15 please. We only accept cash or check"

Wait, I have to pay $25 to the county court just for them to process the ticket now I also have to pay the officer to sign off on it! So, let's try another local police department.

"Is that our ticket, ma'am? I said is that our ticket, don't you have the original ticket?" Why does it matter I ask (why oh why oh why did I ask a question?) and she scowls at me. She was cranky.

"We need to know if it's our ticket. That's $20 to sign off on it"

What!? Because it's not their ticket it's more, of course....

I know every city is hurting for revenue but really? Seriously?

Voice Lost

I think I made a New Year's resolution last year to "talk less and listen more" but I can't find it anywhere, on blog or otherwise in print. If the universe speaks to one it is talking to me. Over the last few days I have contracted yet another flu/cold thing. Starting the day before Christmas a sore throat began to manifest but I was cooking this year so giving in to illness was not an option. S.O.v.2, the baby gal, had already been to the doc on Tuesday for pink eye but she too was not mending but getting worse. Christmas day I just concentrated on cooking dinner and getting everything out on time and warm - the constant challange! I was sort of oblivious to the family goings on - the kids opening presents, the kids throwing all the sandbox toys over the fence into the neighbor's yard, the toy explosion they detonated.

Dinner complete, everyone fed and a kaluha and coffee in hand and it really hit - I felt awful and had the worst sore throat I'd had since childhood. So, Friday morning, egged on by my mommasita (ironically enough I recall a Christmas dinner two years ago at her house where she was too sick to even come down the stairs so I cooked, she resisted all insistence that she get her butt to an urgent care) and S.O. I hiked mine and S.O.v.2's big and little (respectively) butts off to the urgent care. Two hours later and prescriptions dropped off at the Rite Aid I was beat and didn't emerge till late in the afternoon only to find my family heading off to their hotel.

Oh, did I mention that when I woke up on Friday morning I had no voice? And it has not surfaced yet, two days with no voice. So, yes, universe, I hear you. Talk less, listen more, that is my new year's resolution. Whether I like it or not.

A Pretty Perfect Day

I say a pretty perfect day begins with art and ends with art.

This morning I began my newest job (yes, I have a few of these) as a Teaching Artist with the McCallum Theatre Institute. Well, technically speaking I have already started but hadn't been in a classroom. This morning I joined a fellow Teaching Artist to sit in on her first session in a unit studying flamenco with 5th graders from a local elementary school. I love kids because they aren't particularly charming or adorable or fascination or whatever the many adjective people lob onto them. They are just real, which is frankly, damned refreshing. They aren't particularly trying to 'be' anything or 'do' anything or 'accomplish' anything, they are so busy learning and being and absorbing that they can't help but be real.

Then as I was driving home I heard a thunkety thunk and thunk to myself, "Self, that doesn't sound good, better look at that when I get to my destination" Well some kind citizen honked at me to tell me my tire was flat. So I filled it up but that piece of rubber was having none of it. It blew before I was two blocks from the gas station. So I called S.O. told him the situation, called Triple A. All of this could have pissed me off but I was in such a great mood that it just seemed like the next thing to do. I did worry slightly that I would be late picking up S.O.v.1 from school but I was sure I could flirt the tow truck driver into swinging by the school, so I wasn't really worried about it. BUT the amazing thing was, when I was on the phone with Triple A (I had pulled over next to a vacant lot with a bunch of date palms in Rancho Mirage) I notices a squirrel running across the lot. My eyes followed him and then I noticed a red tailed hawk swoop out of a tree, follow him around and then land on him, grab him, hold him down till he was dead and then eat him. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Yella, weren't you appalled? Where was your compassion for the squirrel" and my answer to you would be "No. It seemed perfectly natural" and it did. It was fascinating. It was, frankly, just life and/or nature (whichever you prefer) in action and so it seemed kind of great that I was there watching it.

Then I had some minutes - uninterrupted!!! - to read over the notes from the session of that morning. Then the tow truck driver - who was a lovely human being - arrived and took my car to the tire repair shop. Whilst there the shop owner recognized my truck and remembered S.O. who had had a tire repaired there just a few weeks earlier. Apparently S.O. made an impression....

Then the tow truck driver dropped me off close to my neighborhood! Nice! I mean, I was well within walking distance anyway, but he just saved my bunions a little bit of wear and tear. I just had to tell him it was good karma.

So, got home, drove S.O. to work, went and returned an unneeded cork board and left with seldom seen cash right next door to a Coffee Bean. Had 45 min. till time to pick up S.O.v.1 so sat and had a coffee and !!!!45 min. of UNINTERRUPTED time to brainstorm some story ideas!!!

Picked up S.O.v.1, went to return my brand new glasses with the antireflective coating melted on and manager apologized profusely. HAD two quarters to get S.O.v.1 a treat from the candy machine, came home, did his homework, picked up S.O.v.2 from school, shopped for dinner, ate and then....

Went to see a Flamenco dance group from Spain at the McCallum theatre with S.O.vs1&2. The look on S.O.v.2's face alone was worth the imminent fuss that comes along with starting an extracurricular activity AT bedtime! She was just beside herself happy within the first two minutes of the dance. And during the second act I noticed S.O.v.1 doing flamenco hands in the air while watching riveted! For an artist there is just nothing better.

They were just amazing. Muscular, passionate (I do not use that word often), sinuey, emotional, raw and human. Compania Flamenco Jose Porcel. If they ever happen to your town, I wag my finger at any who miss it.

And then we went to pick up the S.O. at work. Yes, at 10:20pm there was indeed fuss but I would do the day all over again, exactly the same way. I don't even miss the nap I desperately needed all day after being sick with a cold for the past three days... sometimes joy just wins out over ill.

The Cynic Will See You Now

I sit here this morning happily eating crow for my cynicism over the election. I must say, you surprised me America. I was not convinced you had it in you. Perhaps it is because I live in a primarily conservative area where even the working class are Republicans (oxymoron perhaps?). Perhaps I was just so hurt by 2000 and 2004 that it was my defense mechanism. Or perhaps I am just more of a negative sad sac than I ever realized.

No matter. I was wrong. Today I happily admit that I didn't think you had it in you to elect the smartest candidate America, but you did it. Congratulations. How does this shade of egg look on me?

Will They Ever Stop Patting!

It's bad enough that The Greatest Generation, boosted by their lobbyist Tom Brokaw, does it constantly "We saved the world!" But now the Baby Boomer Generation has started in on it (and they are different from their parents how again?), "We changed the world!".

http://www.usaweekend.com/08_issues/081026/081026health-forever-young.html

Well grand, congratulations you Boomers, you all must be so proud... all that protesting and burning of draft cards worked out just grand. So now groups can't really protest anymore - note both political conventions this year: sure protest is 'allowed' (those are strong air quotes) but was so shoved to the fringes as to be irrelevant. And what about all the protest over the Iraq war? Millions of people marched, made signs, wrote letters, yelled pleaded and what happened? (What generation was George Bush born in again?) Now government just ignores protest and does what it wants anyway. They're mavericks!

And we no longer have a draft. Now we just have stop loss. But that volunteer army feels so relieved that there's no draft. "Phew! Wouldn't want that common rabel with us here for three, four tours... oooo pinch me, come on tour five!" The Boomer parents must be so proud of their kids and grandkids in Iraq and Afganistan.

As you can see from the attached article the Boomers are lauding themselves for changing medicine (thanks for all that Vioxx and Viagra), changing the way we eat (that high fructose corn syrup was a GREAT idea), the way we exercise (OK, I'll give you that one) and communicate (except with their own kids who they just keep saying "Good job!" to but keep forgetting to remind them that they will actually have to work hard and have integrity on the job").

And you know, I wonder, what generation Alan Greenspan belongs to? And all those other guys, Senators who decided to forego regulations, or CEO's who created fancy financial 'products' (I would really like to pop the person who coined that phrase one, it's not a cookie for christ's sake!), real estate folks who pushed the second home market and said "We can list your home for $15,000 more than it's worth and probably get even more on top of that!" that indeed have changed the world. Even before the 'financial crisis' the Greatest Generation had left their grandchildren and the Boomers their children in a position where they were NOT better off than their parents. But a shrug of shoulders and a shout of "Charge it" and they looked the other way - for all the many years the economy moved away from industry and manufacturing, to service now to... what, consumming.

Where were the hippie values when food became industrialized? Where were they when cars and car culture grew from necessity to insanity? Where were those values, that angry protest when our government stopped calling us citizens and started referring to us as consummers? What's next? Maybe someone would like to just be honest and start calling us cogs.

Yes, they saved their own world the Greatest Generation, just not for us. And yes they changed the world, for the better, then for the worse, and now disaster (the ultimate flip-floppers). They say all parents want their children to be better off than they were. But they also say actions speak louder than words. I guess the Boomers were just so mad at mommy and daddy that they didn't care if they scorched the earth for their own kids, and grandkids... and maybe their kids too....

Keep patting yourselves on the back.

McCain's new slogan "If Elected I Will Save You Money!"

That's right, if elected a female Republican Vice President will be cheaper to pay! Since Republicans do not adhere to the equal pay for equal work doctrine (oops, sorry threw a confusing word in there, doctrine another word for 'plan') then that means we, the country will be able to pay Sarah Palin less!

Best figures I could find:
Cheney salary $208,100 per year
Palin will save us over $40,000 a year (Cindy can buy a new pair of shoes on that!) at a frugal $160,237 a year.

Wow, pretty and a bargain! Why didn't we think of it sooner! Who says McCain doesn't care about the budget!