Resting?

Not exactly resting, just moving slowly after the 60 performances in the last two months. I only have two performances set up this month but I've got a lot on my plate. For most of the summer I neglected most of my office work. Now is the time to dig out. Last week I cleared up some of the office supply clutter and straightened up some bookshelves. It would be good to get rid of some of these books, but I find that close to impossible with my storytelling library.

Anyway, here are some of my other current projects:

It's time to work on Punch and Judy. I've got the puppet heads built and need to get the bodies finished. I have materials for a new Punch booth (a.k.a. the stage) in the garage. It it's not too hot this week, my sister-in-law Kate will help build it. Then there are props and, oh, right, the script. There's a standard story, but I'll add in lots of other business, all in keeping with Mr. Punch's insouciant attitude. As he so often says after whacking somebody in the head, "Rootitoot toot, that's the way to do it!" Did I mention that I found a cast-iron frying pan from my mother's dollhouse stuff, just the size for Judy to whack Punch back?

I've been working on a letter to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Institute of Folklore, in hopes of doing some research on stories in their archives in a couple of years. I'll keep you posted on that.

I'm still translating Queen Berthe and King Pippin from Old French (Berte As Grans Pies, for those of you itching to look it up). Haven't touched it for a month or so, but I'm ready to get back to it this week. I'll need to hurry up, because the books are due back at the university library soon--there's a limit to how many times I can renew them. I did find a copy online. The funny thing about it was that it was from a Russian source and they had changed the French accents into Cyrillic letters. After cutting and pasting it into a document on my computer, I had to figure out what accent each Cyrillic letter corresponded to and then change it globally. Oops, my geekitude is showing.

Speaking of that story, we've fallen down on the job of promoting Going Deep, the Long Traditional Story Festival! I set up a blog for it, but have had a few technical difficulties (I think I prefer Blogger to Wordpress).

I'll be telling stories at the Kansas City Irish Festival on Labor Day weekend--need to make sure the Celtic ghost stories in my repertoire are all dusted off and ready to go.

What else? I realize that my website calendar is out of date, so I need to update it. That leads me to think about school work--it will soon be time to send out postcards to the schools in the area, reminding them of my existence. This in turn leads me to think about my marketing materials for my booth at the International Performing Arts for Youth Showcase in January. Is it time for a new brochure? Could be.

Along the same lines, it's also time to do real study guides for my school programs. I've resisted this for years, even though I know it's useful for teachers. Thank goodness I went to an excellent workshop by Lyn Ford at the National Storytelling Conference on educational buzzwordery (that's not what she called it). I've got her handout somewhere in the top pile on my desk.

Also in that pile is the info from iTales. I've been meaning to upload stories to their site. Maybe I'll get to that this week.

Good thing it's too hot to work in the garden or I'd be tempted to use that as my procrastination tool. I'm really going to buckle down here, just as soon as I finish the Sudoku and crossword puzzle from today's paper...