Dreams

I just got back from a two month stay in Cincinnati...  Prior to this visit, I had only been to Cincinnati once, and that was for the world's worst wedding, which left an understandably bad taste in my mouth. Literally.  The food at the reception was a build your own sandwich stand with only the finest of Oscar Meyer products.  Moreover, the wedding service was two hours long, the bride had found out about the groom's infidelities the day before the wedding and was still pissed, six of us were jammed into a dusty room at the Red Roof Inn for two days and the bride actually set herself on fire during the ceremony. I later found out that an anonymous "someone" sent one of the bridesmaids unflattering photos of herself, each bearing the caption "Ugliest bridesmaid ever."  Moreover, the drive to the foreboding church took us through an epic cemetery, and both church and cemetery have figured in my most hellish nightmares since that time.  So, yeah...  Up until two months ago, that was what I knew of Cincinnati.  Horrors, self-immolation and salty lunch meat.

Then, I took this job, doing 8 shows a week at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park.  I could document every lovely moment, every thing that made me supremely grateful to be able to wake up and go to work each day, every single delightful reason I adored the rest of the cast and crew, but that would lean dangerously to the saccharine, though I'd mean every syrupy word. Suffice it to say, it was a dream job.  And Cincinnati was astonishingly lovely, fun and full of surprises.

When I got home, I found a couple of souvenirs that I didn't want to just paste into an album.  The memories that they invoke were just too wonderful not to be reminded of every day.  So, I put them into a bottle that I call my "Bottle of dreams I never knew I had that came true."  And here it is:

Inside is a ticket from a baseball game where I got to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with the rest of the cast, standing on top of the Reds' dugout.  At the bottom is a layer of penguin feathers from when we had a behind the scenes tour of the zoo and met Charlie the penguin.  I have been obsessed with penguins since I had a dream a few years ago that I a penguin jumped into my arms and someone said "This is your new daughter!"  Much better than nightmares of churches and graveyards...  At any rate, when Charlie walked in the room, I burst into noisy, joyful tears.  The zookeeper left the room for a minute and when she came back in, she handed me a paper cup full of penguin feathers. "Take this, please," she said, "I've never in my life seen anyone react like that.  You just made my day." I tickled Charlie's stomach and cried some more.

Dreams come true, people.  And sometimes the best dream come true moments are the ones that take you by surprise.