Overtime: The Real Life Experience

          I went to a ceremony honoring my mother and four other nurses at Kingston Hospital today. She scored a nice certificate and $1000 for educational purposes. The CEO of HealthAlliance even spoke, though there was a darker side to his words. Benedictine Hospital and Kingston merged a few years ago, but the financial issues plaguing HealthAlliance might force a closure of one of the buildings (most likely Benedictine, a Catholic institution). If this happens, Kingston will lose hundreds of jobs and the remaining hospital won't have the resources to handle all of the patients the pair currently serves.
          At seven o'clock, I went to the high school with my family for Cabaret Night. As an "Intimate Evening Celebrating Performing Arts," there were over a million acoustic songs sung by soft-voiced girls. While this number is inaccurate, the program did run for a staggering three hours, and Mr. Wells was visibly wiped. There were five semi-lame comedic interludes, a brilliant reading of Marty Shoenleber's "Push", and Ian's stirring piano medley of "Light," "Someone Like You," "He's a Pirate," and "The Great Escape." There were also two butt-rock Van Halen "Eruption"-esque guitar solos and no less than six songs featuring Logan. Additionally, the penultimate performance in the first act was a "theatrical ballet," which stretched for ten or fifteen minutes and seemed to endorse murder and sexual assault as a means of starting a loving relationship. For much of the program, I hung out in the back with Katharine, Logan, Matt and Fallows after I'd had about all the subtle acoustic tunes I could handle.
          During one girl's song, an old woman stood up and answered her phone in the loudest possible voice: "Yeah, I can't talk right now. I'm at a show. But you can call me back at blah blah blah. Derp the hurr oh god I am the rudest person ever plus a moron." (Dramatic fictionalization, but you get the idea. It may have been the rudest thing I've ever seen.) During this interlude she was walking toward the exit as if to speak outside, but then said, "Okay, bye!", hung up, and returned to her seat. I was right there, but was too flabbergasted to say anything. Others were not so kind, shushing her and even telling her to shut up. I'm glad some people have enough entertainment savvy to know that it's not appropriate to talk on a cell phone during a performance, especially a live one.
          Quotes of the day:
"Gang Rape: the musical!" - Logan
"NO. You have more Than this, but later you will do something, and Then you will do something else." - Jabs
"You can't do something without liking it." - Fallows