By Sally Gracie
I mentioned the play Over the River and Through the Woods last week, didn’t I? But at lunchtime, Jocelyn Murray came walking from the highway into the Hank’s Harvest Foods parking lot as I was leaving. She saw the play over the weekend and liked it so much she wanted to be certain I’d write about it again.
It has been pointed out to me that the poster shows only the grandparents (played by Marc Holm, Jane Pappidas, Donald McLane and Robin Wheeler) and not the grandson (Ray Sanders) or “the girl they invited to dinner” (Julie Tate-Libby).
Unfortunately, the play poster may lead you to believe the play is about — how shall I put it delicately — people with gray hair. It’s not. Without the younger characters we wouldn’t have laughed so much, as the main thing, the humor of the play, comes from the generational differences.
My favorite scene puts Nick (Ray) at his grandparents’ house where he is recuperating from a panic attack. He and his four grandparents begin a game of Trivial Pursuit, and the elders’ roundabout way of grasping the answers from their memory is hysterical (and pretty typical of some conversations I’ve had with friends as I’ve gotten older). My theater date Elva Scott and I laughed and laughed. Actually, she says I “hoot;” she laughs. (We used to go to Jane Orme’s middle school melodramas together and do the same thing).
Anyway, go see the play! This coming weekend is your last chance: Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7 p.m.; Sunday matinee at 2 p.m., at The Merc Playhouse.
Last Monday I had loads of energy and wrote the Twisp column quickly and surely. I had spring fever.
Today, not so much. The sky is blue, and my car says it’s 51 degrees, but the blustery wind makes it chilly.
Anyway, one morning last week I told Terri at the Chevron that I had spring fever. And she said, “I know I do. I want to get out and get my hands in the dirt.” It was still pretty cold still for that, she knew, so Terri satisfied the urge by repotting all her houseplants.
I began spring cleaning by taking all 19 pounds of my cat Barley to Terry DeWeert to have the feline shaved. She doesn’t have as much of a lion’s mane this time as there were too many dreadlocks, but she looks swell with her spring cut. And, with all that hair gone her body is smooth and nice to pet.
While I was in Wenatchee on Friday, Beebe was with her pals Patrick and Kathryn and all their doggie guests at Rover’s Ranch, and my friend Emily came in to clean my house. After dinner at The Pub that night, I returned to find my home blessedly free of black dog hair. It stayed that way until Saturday evening when Beebe came home from playing at Rover’s.
Then, on Sunday evening, an unexpected guest arrived. My grand-dog Willow was found wandering on the Loup Loup highway by a father-and-son team who took her into their car and began a search for her owners. They eventually connected with Salyna by phone, but by that time they were close to the valley, and they delivered her to me. Zane Strome, a fourth grader at Methow Valley Elementary School, and his father Greg went out of their way to rescue Willow and bring her back to us. Thank you so much.
What a place. I love it here.
