Behind the scenes at Vienna's Halloween Parade

Vienna's Halloween Parade participants got their first fright of the night when they lined up on Berry Street to face a green-headed monster lurking behind a fence/Patricia Leslie

And there to scare him off were library literary creatures (with decorated dog) to weave magic and witches brew/Patricia Leslie

Delegate Mark Keam of the 35th District outsmarted everyone with a horse-drawn carriage to safely transport his family away from scary monsters/Patricia Leslie

A loose cow was spotted drinking something besides milk (!) at the Vienna Business Association's pre-parade party at Jammin' Java.  A property tag claimed the cow belonged to Sean Sinclair/Patricia Leslie

A pretty princess at the Vienna Business Association's pre-parade party/Patricia Leslie

Yeeks!  How can anyone eat with these beauties staring at you?  They were found at a Maple Avenue restaurant and bore resemblance to Vienna librarians/Patricia Leslie

Beware of Vienna ghosts!/Patricia Leslie

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Puckheads at the Capitals

Just take a look at these four guys in fancy headgear, the number which just happens to match the number of goals the Washington Capitals earned last Saturday night v. the Columbia Blue Jackets at the Verizon Center in Washington. The final score:  Caps, 4 and Columbia, 1/Patricia Leslie

The ceiling crowd is a mite rowdier than the more sophisticated audience down below which can afford fancier seats.  This was in Section 411, Rows M and N, not far from the ceiling. Up here we are called "ceiling fans." Yo ho ho and a bottle of beer/Patricia Leslie

Before the game started and pictured on the big screen in the center of the ice was a young cancer victim who was honored while Caps Captain Alexander Ovechkin (8) and a Blue Jacket got ready to play/Patricia Leslie

Pictured on the big screen was Corporal Brandon Tillsonkorona from Raynham, MA, honored for his military service and deployment to Afghanistan.  Fans stand, applaud, and cheer the troops, recognized by the Caps at every game/Patricia Leslie

Bob McDonald sang The Star Spangled Banner before the start of the Caps/Blue Jackets game.  Said Patricia:  If I had been near the ice rather than the ceiling, photos of the game would have been lots better/Patricia Leslie

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Sameness at the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post

U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah)/U.S. Senate, Wikimedia Commons

They are at it again.

Is it just me that finds it odd that both newspapers would feature an un-urgent column about Utah Republicans and U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) on the same day, on the same page, and the same size?

Huh?

Yesterday's headline on the front page of the Washington Post at the fold in the left column reads:  "In Utah GOP, some seek to shut down tea party hero."

While over at the Wall Street Journal is this headline above a single column (below the fold) and on the left:  "Utah Senator Pays Price Back Home For Shutdown."

Both datelines are Salt Lake City. They talk about Lee's "cratering" ratings and how mad the business community is at him for voting with the tea party and supporting the government shutdown and how those business Republicans are going after Lee, all right, and looking to put up their own candidate (Don Liljenquist,  Josh Romney, perchance?) by way of "Count My Vote," which would be a new way of nominating an opposition candidate to Mr. Lee. 

Well, take that, Mr. Mike Lee, and get scared.  

The papers did not quote all of the same people, just former governor Jon Huntsman and Liljenquist, another former candidate.

And then there's John Price, a former Republican National Committee member and Bush (unclear which one) ambassador whom Sen. Lee still doesn't recognize.  Oh, dear me, Mr. Price. Throw down the red carpet for you, and let us bow and scrape the floor.

I am one of the last to defend the tea party, but this is a rather strange coincidence, don't you think?

Do the editors get together and decide to run these?  Or does someone on the opposition plant, pitch, and promote them?  

You decide.  (I checked New York and Los Angeles and could not find sameness at either place.)

Too much similarity, if you ask me, and who's asking?  

It is not Mr. Lee.

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$18.50 for 'Gravity'?

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney star in Warner Brothers' Gravity

Yeeks and zowee.

Movie fans, Gravity is (pause and gulp) worth it.  And I'm not even a sci-fi nut.

It's absolutely the highest price by a long shot I've ever paid for a movie, but this was the IMAX with those funny glasses and the crashing sounds and music and floating debris you'll swear is going to smack you right in the head.

And it's Sandra Bullock all the way.  You go, girl!  We are only too proud to see you in the lights again. Pox on those who make you unhappy.

George Clooney plays a minor role, little more than a cameo, a halo (!) appearance, but to see him up close is a nice touch. (A girl can dream, can't she?)

You must know something about the plot by now, and all I will say is another flick about man rescues girl entered my mind. (Yawn.) Never mind.  You keep hoping (?). 

Why does it always have to be the fault of the Russians?  What about the Chinese? Or the North Koreans?  Do they have space stations?

The film's not without its faults, namely, an embryonic Sandra Bullock floating in space in her underwear.  Rather tiresome, and I wondered if the film had broken except she kept moving.  I guess the producers felt obliged to enter sex somewhere.  Those space suits don't seem as cumbersome as NASA might have us believe.  I wish to see George Clooney in his underwear.  Red is a good color.

This is an intense movie, not recommended for children under age 13, or those prone to dizziness. (Take your pills.)

It has a PG-13 rating with one F-bomb in addition to other expletives, I believe. Why are they necessary? They are not.

Without question Sandra Bullock will be nominated for Best Actress and there'll be a few other nominations to come out of this, too, I'll bet: Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing and Editing, Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron who co-wrote it with Jonas Cuaron), and Best Original Score (Steven Price). 

IMDb says Clooney is an "uncredited" script collaborator, and just take a look at the huge crew.

It's great to see product from Mexico, Cuaron's homeland.

Oh, and if you really want to know how accurate the show is, read what retired astronaut Garrett Reisman says about it in Forbes.

Hang on.  You may get lost in space. To quote the late great Bette Davis:  "Fasten your seat belts.  It's going to be a bumpy night."  

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Keyless in Carolina

The keyless wonder, AKA a Nissan Altima with round wheels, at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina/Patricia Leslie

At the Raleigh-Durham Airport I picked up my rental at the Thrifty counter and took off for the coast and the mountains and a reunion with high school girlfriends. 

Oh, boy!

Thrifty had give me a new Nissan Altima which is a lot bigger than my trusty 1999 Volvo. I've had a Volvo since college.  Which means before 1999.

I tooled down Interstate 40 for a few minutes and, being without lunch, pulled in to a McDonald's to get my bearings and cheap nourishment, and, upon returning to the car, could not start it.

This is a car, mind you, without a key.  They don't make cars with keys any more. 

Who knew? 

At the Thrifty counter, I had requested a PT Cruiser, and Avery (the manager) laughed heartily and exclaimed:  "They haven't made those since 2009!" 

Well, I said, do you have a used one I can have? 

Nope.
 
Was anything said about a keyless car?
 
Nope.

Directions on how to drive one?

Nope.  I guess everyone else knows.

This is what I really wanted to drive.  Ain't it cool?  And look it's already at the beach, waiting for me!/carautoportal.com

At the McDonald's parking lot, I pushed a bunch of buttons, and a dashboard screen flashed "brake and start button" or something, and I thought, I've braked this car.  What does this mean? 

I called the service number listed on the rental agreement, and a woman told me to put my foot on the brake and push the button at the same time. Who knew? 

You have to read a dissertation to find out these things before you drive them? 

Her quick response told me she was a mechanic who had answered this question more than once.

I got the car started and headed back to the interstate where the heavy bass on the radio was giving me a headache, but how to turn it down?  You know what it's like driving down the interstate at 75 mph in a rental and trying to find the right buttons to push?

Guess how close that start button is to the radio button?

Inches.

What would happen if you pushed the start button instead of the radio button barreling down the interstate?

Never mind. 

I called Service to see how I could tune down the bass, and Service put me on hold while someone went to read a dissertation. It didn't take long for Service and me to become fast buddies.

A few minutes passed before somebody beside me in the adjacent lane started honking his horn.  I knew it had to be a "his" because "hers" don't do this kind of thing.  Besides, we'd never notice.

Soon, out of the corner of my eye, I could detect a waving hand.

We were doing about 80.

I guessed I was going to have to move my eyes from the lanes in front of me and look over in the other lane to see what was going on, and there was a black dude waving and pointing to the left front tire.  

Now, I thought, this is a new car!  What's wrong with the tire?  Nothing could be wrong with the tire.  Come on!

I drove on and exited at the first place, which, of course, was an office park where U-turns are prohibited, and you have to drive five miles before you can make one.

I turned right, and then right again, and, maybe another right before I found a left turn lane where I pulled into a dirt driveway where a house was for sale, and I got out and inspected the tire, leaving the engine running.  No sense in being stranded in rural North Carolina and losing (more) beach time.

Nope.  

Nothing wrong with the tire. 

Not flat. 

Still round.

I got back in the car and tried to find the interstate.

Was it a right turn here and a left turn there?  Where was the interstate? 

I made it back and called my sister who said she would not talk to me since I was driving.  We chatted about 20 minutes, and I asked her why a man would play a mean trick on me to get me to leave the interstate.

We talked about man's inhumanity to man.  And mean tricks.  Like what they do on Capitol Hill.  Not women.

I sailed on, happily anticipating the beach, cold beer, and old friends.  Ten minutes later there was a collision. 

Coming towards me in the right lane in the opposite direction was a huge piece of… floating heavy duty plastic, about the size of a beach towel. 

Where are those environmentalists when you need them?
 
Slam! 

It attached itself to the grill and made a ratatatatat sound which interfered with the loud bass which was still giving me a headache since I had hung up the call with Service which, I guessed, was still reading the manual. 

The plastic addition served me right for becoming hysterical upon spying the overturned semi filled with hundreds (thousands?) of filled plastic garbage bags at the Baltimore-Washington Parkway off-ramp that morning on the way to BWI.

I am not getting off the Interstate again for a piece of plastic, I thought.  No way.  Get real and get over it.  I am not stopping again.  I was never going to get to the beach, and, at this rate, the waves would be stopped by the time I got there.

I drove on with the plastic flying in the breeze and some of it, I supposed, melded (melted?) on the grill. Who cared?  Not me.

A few minutes later while cruising about 80 mph (this is no lie),  the driver of the tractor trailer I was passing dozed off (!) and began drifting in my lane.

Whatzzis?  

I rapidly woke him up when I beat on the horn which I could barely hear over the ratatatatat flapping in the wind and the boom-boom-boom of the bass which kept the drums in my head pounding. 

He moved back to his lane. 

I needed a break.  This was tooooo much.

ezilon.com

By that time I had reached South Carolina and pulled into another (fast and cheap) McDonald's to get a coffee and hamburger without catsup.

Pyramids rise near the South Carolina coast/Patricia Leslie

Out in the parking lot, a uniformed, older-than-teenaged employee spied the plastic dragging on the ground and attached to the grill, and looked quizzically at it. 

Oh, that, I said, and I pulled off the new decoration.  That's the way Nissan is designing cars these days, to make up for a lack of keys.

He asked me about the new car, and I said I wouldn't have it:  You can't see out of the rear window and it drives loose.  My 1999 Volvo is much better.  Besides, it has a key. 

Oh, that's because of the price, he said.  Those keys are $300, and they're trying to save money.

I got back in the car and hoped that braking and punching the start button would make the danged thing start.  At least, if I hit the wrong button the car wouldn't suddenly stop on the interstate since I was still parked.

Just as I was ready to back up (always dangerous) and exit McDonald's, another man walked up to the front of the car and without speaking, smiled, and motioned to the hood. 

Oh, that, I motioned back.  The car's okay. 

He pointed to the hood.  It was loose.

He slammed it shut, and off I went. 

Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  The back space key in my brain brought up the image of the black dude.

This is what I saw on the beach in South Carolina once I finally got there/Patricia Leslie

Another one on the South Carolina coast/Patricia Leslie

I made it to the beach, all right, where I had to take to my bed for 15 minutes before I could start the party. I felt like I had been tossed around on the shore by Hurricane Karen which was nowhere close.  I knew where she'd been though:  all over me somewhere in Carolina.

Volvo for Life

A 1999 Volvo/Volvo cars.com

A South Carolina shore/Patricia Leslie

Patricialesli@gmail.com

Miracle on the W and OD Trail

The Herndon Moose Lodge #2274 welcomes all to the W & OD Trail/Patricia Leslie

Attention, ladies of the Washington region:  I have an unbelievable find. One that is astonishing and shocking.  

Ladies(shhhhh), I have found the place in the D.C. area, maybe the only place, where men exceed women by a wide margin. By a ratio of, like and gulp, 4 to 1. I counted and thus, I know.  

This was one.  To protect the safety of all, most shout out "on your left" when passing/Patricia Leslie

The Gardner Family welcomes all to the W & OD Trail, a good place to walk dogs/Patricia Leslie

Or take a survey.  The surveyor said he thought they were measuring for a new water line/Patricia Leslie

Or inventory bees?  (What was he doing?)/Patricia Leslie

Or catch up on local history.  This marker describes Sterling Station/Patricia Leslie

Sometimes (rarely) the view's not so good/Patricia Leslie 

But usually, like this and easy on the eyes/Patricia Leslie

Perhaps it is like this all the time in Loudoun County? Another reason to go west, go west.

In Loudoun County along the W & OD Trail, you might see some smart folks taking outdoor siestas after lunch.  Why don't we all siesta after lunch?/Patricia Leslie

Ladies of the jury, it is time to get out your helmet and your bicycle and get to riding on the W and OD Trail.  They are there.  Whizzing by. And trim. They do not all appear to be the same-sex variant. (Or would that be "variation"?)

But you have to stop your bicycle and get off to "engage." And you may want to think about "needing help."  Leave your bike tools at home.

Why at one point when I laid down my used pink (found at the dumpster) bicycle (no kick stand) and sipped some water and munched on my pear snack in the shade, a right good-looking dude flew past and yelled:  Did I need any help?  

Y e e-haw, come on over, dude!  

Help?  

Help?  

Yeah, I needed some HEP.

"No, no need for help.  I am okay," I shouted.  (What was I thinking?)

Let's have lunch on the W & OD Trail in Loudoun County/Patricia Leslie

Then, at the same stop a couple of minutes later, another right handsome cowpoke came along carrying a plastic bag and set himself right down at the picnic table across the lanes from me and proceeded to eat lunch in the sunshine and yelled across the trail, something about

"It's a great day!"  

"But you're in the sun," I hollered back.  Even with a breeze cooling you off riding the trail, it was hot.

And he said: "I like the sun." 

And I said, "I like the sun, too, but it's a little bit much for me today, and I really like this shade" even if I was standing in rather high grass where, I later discovered, flying varmints resided, which bit the blood out of my left forearm which to this day still bears their marks, and it is possible snakes lived there, too, but having snake experience, I maintained a snake lookout  and saw none, but ignored my arms.  Drat it all. 

The buzzards flew overhead/Patricia Leslie

He and I ate our food in silence a few minutes, enjoying being outdoors and away from horns and the sounds of the city, listening to nature's music:   the soft rustle of the wind and leaves, the buzzing of insects, the overhead vultures (they make sounds?), and then it was time for me to leave because of the huge, loooonnnng uphill slope I still had before me.

And he hollered across the way: "Well, have a nice ride!"  

And so I did.

Along the W & OD Trail/Patricia Leslie

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Hitchcock's '39 Steps' soars in Herndon

Emily Levey is Annabella and Pamela and Margaret, and James Finley is Richard Hannay in NextStop's 39 Steps/photo by Rebekah Purcell, VSION

Way out in Herndon, professional theatre? 

Oh, come on! 

Theatregoers, this is for real.  A top-notch production crew and cast.  You'll be awestruck. 

Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps is on stage in the inaugural season at Herndon's NextStop Theatre (formerly the Elden Street Players) and whoever thought Hitchcock could be so funny?

I laughed myself silly and that's what it's all about:  entertainment.  Why pay to see a play and go away depressed?  It won't happen here.

Last Friday night almost all 114 seats were taken and now, a ticket discount is available.*

You know the story of 39 Steps, don't you?  It's really not necessary to know it to enjoy this farce, this slapstick of a show which moves so fast your mind will whirl, and this is not to scare any potential theatergoer who may anticipate the plot is too complex a la Shakespeare, but this is Hitchcock and Monty Python rolled into one and quite easy to follow, as long as you don't get dizzy from the nonstop action. Whew.

James Finley plays Richard Hannay, a sophisticated 37-year-old Englishman, a bachelor, who gets caught up in the murder of a new lady acquaintance (who parks herself at his apartment, and away we go).

Four actors portray 140 characters, and you'll be swept away by the fast costume, voice, and mannerism changes, all carried off with deft aplomb.

The leading man (Hannay) is the only character who does not change his person or clothes.  Emily Levey is Annabella/Pamela/Margaret, the new acquaintance, the murder victim who becomes the librarian, the farmer's daughter, and the girl on the train, though not necessarily in that order.  (Who can keep them straight?)

The show stealers are the "everymen," the "clowns" played by Evan Crump and Nick Rose who are hotel operators, policemen, airplane pilots, a Christmas tree, a farmer, train passengers, and a few more.

Evan Crump, left, and Nick Rose play multiple roles in NextStop's 39 Steps.  Is that the McGarrigle or the Bates Hotel?/Photo by Rebekah Purcell, VSION

(You'll blink twice to make sure Rose is not Robin Williams.  Or his first cousin.  Or, was that Crump?)

One of the funniest scenes is when they sit on a train with Hannay and change seats. They move and jerk to the rhythm of the vehicle which soon becomes real enough when a chase ensues on top of and in-between cars.  Oh!  And there is an airplane crash, a leap from a bridge, and a wee bit of sex. With handcuffs.

Before the show starts, you may wonder about the cluttered set but most of the components play a role in the action, and the scene changes so much, the extraneous parts become part of the background, and fade once you become engrossed by the speed.

Evan Hoffmann is NextStop's producing artistic director who directed 39 Steps.  Before the show started, he came out and addressed the audience, unable to contain his enthusiasm and energy, and repeated what he says in the program:  "We are going to work towards the dream of making the Dulles Corridor the future of great theatre in the DC Metropolitan area."  NextStop is well on its way.

The play runs through October 20, but hurry since many productions sell out.  This is too funny to miss.  Why stay home when you can laugh and have fun and support the arts which support more arts? It pays to get out.

Special recognition goes to Stan Harris, the sound designer, assisted by Brian Christiansen.  Those two rigged up so much Hitchcock music, a tally sheet couldn't keep track. Who is old enough to remember Hitchcock's TV show?  It's there, too.  All, synchronized magnificently.

Of note are costuming by Jenny O'Donnell, properties design by Kevin Laughon, and period hair styling by Kat Brais, assisted by Lorraine Magee.

Applause all the way around to cast and crew for a great night at the theatre!

What:  39 Steps

When:  Thursday (7:30 p.m.), Friday (8:00 p.m.), Saturday (8:00 p.m.), and Sunday nights (7:00 p.m.) and Sunday matinees (2:00 p.m.), now through October 20, 2013

Where:  NextStop Theatre, 269 Sunset Park Drive, Herndon, VA 20170 at the Industrial Strength Theatre located in the back right corner of Sunset Business Park, near the intersection of Spring Street/Sunset Hills Road.  Right off the Fairfax County Parkway.

Parking:  Available near the door at no charge

*How much:  Click tickets which start at $25 but a discount of $7 per ticket is available for two or more.  Use the coupon code: GO2NEXTSTOP. Call 866-811-4111 for assistance.

Rating:  G.  Appropriate for all age levels.  "Street talk" Is absent.

For more information:  703-481-5930 or info@nextstoptheatre.org

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