Penultimate

All the rain has made the driveway a ski-run, so I park at the bottom, hike in and out with an umbrella, feeling like Mary Poppins. because I've never used an umbrella before. I twirl it and do little dance steps. Awake early this morning, to rain on the roof, go over the check-list it my head, prioritize. Spend three hours trimming 150 labels, while James sorts out the electric line to feed the diaramas, I start adherring them to the walls. We use a story stick that's more like a sick joke, one of those tool/jig things cobbed together for a show years ago and still in service. Two yard-sticks taped together, with a cleverly attached horizontal that foots at 57 inches, with a torpedo level taped on the bottom of the horizontal. It works pretty well, actually, but you notice, if you do this (attach labels) that both the loops of painter's tape and the small pieces of velcro (the panels are carpeted, the ridged firm half of the velcro, with adhesive backing, sticks to the back of the label, and the carpet pretends to be the other half of the velcro) but both methods of attachment tend to slide just a bit on initial contact, so there are a lot of minor adjustments. Level is a relative concept. The world is round, for god's sake. Also the floors are not perfect and the panels might not be perfectly plumb. Final adjustment is by eye. Every item has a label, then are is label/signage for the artists, a little bio, then there are these other, larger, black type on yellow paper, with cool circus font title, mini-panels, that explain different aspects of the traveling circus. The finish, installing a show, is a triad. First it is hung/installed, then it is lit, then it is labeled, then you clean up. I'm sure it's been done this way forever. This is the way you do a show. Counting theater, opera, and museum installations, I've got to be over 200, I can't even think that far back, and this one is special for me. A lot of reasons, which is why it becomes special. To wit. Lily is gone, and the B thing; this is a major show, two years in the making, a huge effort on Sara's part; I'm installing this show without Darren, except for the Monkey Aviators, where I really did need help; and the fox is back. I hoped I had been a good neighbor, it's hard to tell, cross-species. I roll apples and hope for the best. Glenn mentioned that I was more careful with my punctuation, and that's certainly true, it's a tool I can use. I need to sharpen my chains and get a gallon of bar-and-chain oil. I'm not transparent, but I try to be. I'm flat-out on this, nothing in reserve. I should hold something back, but I can't, even when I know I should, to protect myself or whatever, but the show is everything. Sara completely understood that I might not stay for even the opening, much less drinks and dinner, that I would have to get home, because my house would be cold, and I'd be wasted. I am now, and I look forward to tomorrow, tweaking things; then coming home early, deciding to build a soup, deciding what soup, then building it.