A Girl and Her Gargoyle - At Wicked

Last night I took Newton to see Wicked. I couldn’t take any photographs during the show, but the picture above is the curtain before the show opened. Newton kept trying to talk to the giant dragon over the stage, but she wouldn't have anything to do with him.

The show was awesome. I won’t spoil the plot for those of you who haven’t seen it , but I read the book when it came out several years ago and the musical follows the plot nicely. The stage sets and costumes were incredible, and the cast was outstanding. If you haven’t seen this musical you should make it a point to go.

We did have a few tense moments, though. Apparently Newton thought that Wicked was an all-you-can-eat buffet (most of you who follow my blog know that gargoyles protect from evil). He was ready to fly up to the stage and start chowing down, but he never detected any true evil and was hungry during the whole show. Stone stomachs are very loud when they rumble, FYI.

Almost as soon as he saw Elphaba, Newton fell in love with her because he could relate to being different and not looking like everyone else. Next time I’m buying Newton a ticket to sit in his own seat because every time Elphaba started to sing he got excited and started flapping his wings in my face.

Other than the frequent gargoyle-induced drafts, the play was a great experience.

The family Business - Part 2

Continuing my effort from yesterday, I've searched the Internet and come up with another strategy to enhance business meetings and applied it to the family dinner.

Strategy Two: Create a list of the top five reasons why people shouldn’t miss the meeting.

Applying this to dinner, I’ve come up with the list below. Note how I'm still attempting to make dinner time fun and exciting (per yesterday's strategy), especially for kids.  Here’s my top five list:

1. You need to eat and I, the almighty household dictator, control access to all the food. (Fridge is now padlocked, FYI.)

2. Your parents are going to be there - live and uncensored! You won't want to miss what they say next! Engage in exciting conversation with old people!

3. The food is free (… if you show upon time. Rates increase five minutes after the official start time).

4. You’ve run out of legitimate excuses to miss time with the family. Save your creativity for more important things.

5. Parents are experts at causing emotional distress that will last a lifetime. Kids, surrender now — while you still have a little sanity.

The Family Business

I attended a conference this past weekend and one of the guest speakers was a communications expert who gave people some coaching on how to have effective personal discussions on difficult topics. I recognized a number of the techniques as corporate communication skills used in diffusing potentially flammable situations.

So this got me thinking …

What if we applied more business management techniques to family life? Surely, if the communication skills transfer from business to personal situations, then other techniques should transfer, also. So, with this in mind, I’ve decided to give it a chance and attempt applying the same strategies used to make business meetings less boring to spice up the family dinner. There were several suggestions I found on the internet. Here’s he first one:

Strategy One: Set the tone before the meeting by making the agenda interesting, fun, and grabbing.

First of all, I never thought about having an agenda for dinner, but it seems like a brilliant idea to keep things on task. So here’s what I came up with:

1. Sit down at table. There will be one less chair than number of family members. When the music stops, sit down. Person without chair is “out” but will be allowed to watch the others eat.

2. Serve finger foods. This means that family members must pay for food with their fingers. How hungry are you?

3. Eat salad. Use a fork if you still have enough fingers to do so.

4. Main course. Smear your meat, vegetables, and potatoes into an imitation of a master work of art before eating. You may not eat until someone else at the table recognizes the work of art and names the original artist.

5. Molotov cocktails for dessert. Siblings may not bomb one another’s rooms unless the destruction is mutually agreed upon in advance.

I think I’ve made the agenda both fun AND interesting!