Lorraine Mszanski

Sex and the City

2008-06-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

Did you know that there are VIP seats at Lowe's Theater in the Waterfront?

There are.

And we got 'em for last night's viewing of Sex and the City.

Life is good.

Over the past few years I have been told numerous times that I resemble Charlotte from Sex and the City. I guess you could say I resemble her vaguely in appearance. Charlotte runs every morning, I run...every so often. Charlotte loves being all domestic-ey, I love being all domestic-ey. Charlotte is often refered to as the "cute one," my dad has called me cutie ever since I can remember. Yeah, Charlotte it is, Charlotte I am. And damn proud of it.

The movie was really great. With the exception of one fairly major plot turn, I was very happy with it. But really, isn't it also so very much about the company? You can't go see a movie like that by yourself. It's all about getting dolled up and hanging out with the girlfriends (and I include Jeremy in that mix of girlfriends, because he's close enough). Company. What a wonderful addition to life. I'd like to raise my perverbial glass to good company. I'm going to try to make sure that I've always got it around. And maybe start caring about designers? Nah :-)

Mmmm pancakes!

2008-05-17T14:06:00.001-07:00

This morning mom and dad came over for brunch. I made these great lemon ricotta pancakes! mmmm! I got the recipe from Lauren Braun (aka, my hero) and she got the recipe from this website. We had them with whipped cream and strawberries on top. Enjoy :-)

Fluffy Ricotta Pancakes
makes 8
1 cup ricotta cheese
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
pinch salt
3/4 cup milk
3 eggs, divided
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Set ricotta in a fine mesh strainer about 30 minutes before you start cooking, to drain off excess liquid. We used fresh ricotta from Whole Foods that was pretty dry. If you are using a commercial brand that's runny, you may want to drain it longer (or make your own).
Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Combine ricotta, milk, egg yolks, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Beat the egg whites in an electric mixer until stiff. Add the dry ingredients to the ricotta and milk mixture, stirring gently until just combined. Whisk in a small amount of the egg whites to lighten the batter, then fold in the remaining whites.
Heat a griddle over medium-high heat, and brush the surface with butter. Use a ladle or measuring scoop (we used a 1/3 cup measure) to pour batter onto the griddle. Cook pancakes for about 3 or 4 minutes, then flip, cooking until both sides are golden brown.
Spread lemon curd between pancakes and dust with powdered sugar. Or serve with syrup or fruit.

Notre Dame Trivia

2008-05-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

This weekend my parents traveled out to South Bend, Indiana to visit the Seidls and to spend some time at Notre Dame. They didn't take me. I am instead here at work. Alas. Woe is me.

So, here's a bit of Notre Dame trivia to help take us all to South Bend for just a little while, without having to leave the comfort of our own desk chairs.

Notre Dame has won 11 football national championships, the second most championships won by any NCAA Division I team.

Notre Dame has the most Heisman Trophy winners of any college football team - 7. That includes the only offensive lineman to ever win.

The University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842.

Notre Dame faculty members have won 29 fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the past eight years, more than for any other university in the nation.

The statue of the Blessed Mother which sits atop the beautiful Golden Dome, was a gift from Saint Mary's College.

The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame were the legendary backfield of Notre Dame's 1924 football team, under the coaching of Knute Rockne. The players that made up this group were Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley, and Elmer Layden.

I was a member of the Notre Dame Marching Band, which is the oldest college marching band in exsitance. It is also the only band anywhere to have a section comprised of "Faltos", the instrument I played. While other bands call them melophones, or marching horns, the ND band created the name because they are alto horns in the key of F. F-altos.

About a decade ago, the Notre Dame stadium was updated to create more seating for the thousands of football fans. Instead of destroying what was there, the builders constructed the the stadium around the old one. So, when you enter the ticket gates, you can actually see the old stadium in front of you before you head in to your seats. That's why coach Lou Holtz says you can hear the echos of Notre Dame's past in the tunnels leading onto the field.

Coach Lou Holtz took the Fighting Irish to bowl games for 9 consecutive seasons, a Notre Dame record.

ND's full name is The University of Notre Dame du Lac, meaning Our Lady of the Lake.

Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College are separated by the Saint Joseph and Saint Mary Lakes

Notre Dame was always an all-male school, and Saint Mary's was it's all-female sister school. But it 1972, when my dad was a sophomore at ND, school president Father Theodore Hesburgh made the decision to go co-ed. St. Mary's remains a women's college.

Near the lakes is the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, which was built in 1896 as a replica of the original in Lourdes, France.

Movie Review

2008-04-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Last night Devi and I went to see a movie.

"What are you up for?" I ask, innocently enough. "I was thinking I'd really like to see Leatherheads, because George Clooney is beautiful; or perhaps Baby Mama...seems pretty funny; or Smart People, which has that girl from Juno in it, and I just love her!"

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" Devi replies, equally as innocent.

"Oh yes...that'll do."

Dear Lord. What did we get ourselves into? Yes, it was funny. But wow. Dirty dirty dirty. There were several moments when I had to shield Devi's eyes (yes, she's 20 years old, but she's still like a little sister to me!) and there were several moments when Devi had to shield mine (such as when the idiot new boyfriend got a chunk of coral lodged in his thy and heroic ex-boyfriend had to rip it out). In the movie, heroic ex-boyfriend passed out. I almost did, too.

Awesome.

All in all, it was a pretty good movie. It has a good ending which anyone who's worked on so-bad-it's-almost-good musicals can truly appreciate. But this isn't a take-your-grandma-out-for-some-fun kind of material :-)

Devi and I topped off our evening with a delectable piece of tarimissu(sp?) from Olive Garden after the movie. So really, we couldn't go wrong.

2008-04-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

It's been an increadibly busy week. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent at PANDA camp out in the middle of nowhere OHIO, which was really kind of a cool thing for me. Joe first got started in these drug prevention programs through the PANDA organization at his school. So, having not known him at that time, it was cool to kind of catch a glimpse into that part of his life. It was a lot like Teen Institute, which is the program I've been doing for several years now, so that was nice. But there was a whole other group of people I got to know, and new friendships made...and if that's what a big part of TI is about, than I don't know what is :-) For those of you still don't exactly get what it is I do at these things (and I can't blame you...it's kind of hard to explain!) I've included the PANDA and the Teen Institute websites. They help explain what these weekends and summer camps are all about...it's really great!!!
http://www.commhealthcenter.org/PDF/Project_PANDA_brochure.pdf
http://www.lifechangingleader.org/

This week has been just back to the grind of things. Work at South Park is finally starting to pick up, and my "free" evenings are quickly becoming not so free. Last night Joe and I went to Joe's little brother, Jimmy's, baseball game. He's a pitcher for the high school varsity team, but forgot to mention the fact that he'd pitched the night before, and thus wasn't playing at all that night. Alas...but the other guys on his team played a great game!

I guess that's about it. I'm feeling kind of lonely because of my lack of comments, so if you are actually reading this, feel free to send a note - even if it's just hello :-)

The Name-Dropping Blog

2008-04-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow! These past 24 hours have been WONDERFUL!!! Last night was my "going away party" hosted by City Theatre. The staff took me out to Nakama for happy hour to celebrate my time there, and congratulate me on my new adventures at South Park Theatre. It was AWESOME! I was actually quite nervous at first, to have all that attention on just me (which is SO out of character of me ;-) ) But it turned out to be great...all of my staff friends came and we had a swingin' good time :-) While there, I ran into Jodi Polizano and Lori (Jen Hagan's best friend). It was crazy that they even knew each other, let alone that we were in the same place at the same time! I probably haven't seen Jodi in 10 years! (Crickey, that makes me feel old). And running into Lori brought up all kinds of conversation about Jen and how much we miss her! Afterwards I walked down to Joseph-Beth Booksellers to visit Mo. She had an event going on (some speaker who wrote a book about his friendship with Fred Rodgers...very sentimental!) so I kept her company and FINALLY bought myself a copy of "French Women Don't Get Fat." HaHa...my best friend Sarah has been recommending it for years now! Anyways, good times. On the walk down to the bookstore I talked to the wonderful Paul Granger for a while and we remeniced (sp?) about our fun times with dear friend Katey Lauer and consipred numerous plots to get her back to Teen Institute this summer:-) On my walk home from the bookstore I left a message with my college roomie Katie Nix, whom I haven't seen since she BECAME Katie Nix (i.e. got married last summer)...THEN got a CALL FROM JEN HAGAN!!!! HAPPY DAY!!! She is, of course, doing fabulously in NYC. I'll tell you, that girl has got THE LIFE. Successful architect comming from London, recently moved into a great Brooklyn neighborhood (3000ft from my brother!) with fiance John (who is great!), advocate of public transportation and long walks, and extrodinary cooker of unique and healty cuisine. haha...oh Norwin Girl! Anyways...the evening continued with a lovely time at home with the Joe-meister. We felt like we hadn't seen each other in weeks, so it was nice to take that time together:-) THEN! This morning I got a GREAT gift in my email inbox- an email from none other than BEN MERELLO!!! Holy cow!!! Ben is my really good friend from Notre Dame. We were in the marching band together. I think he was two grades ahead of me, but we both played the Falto (mellophone), so we hung out alot. And his awesome girlfriend Amy is my always-happy inspiration. Did you know that Ben is an ACTUAL rocket scientist? Yup. He's a smarty :-) And he's doing really well. Working his butt off, but his company is apparently sending him, or has sent him, to Colorado for a bit to do more work there, so at least it will be a change from the normal California scenery. Yay Ben!!!!!!! Here's a picture he sent me of himself backpacking through the Grand Canyon. He inspires me with his sense of adventure and love of traveling. Now if only he'd gear that towards Pittsburgh, we'd be all set! Guess he's too busy launching satellites or something. (yeah, literally!)

Tell you what. This is great.

Right now I am in the midst of my second day of work at South Park Theatre. Obviously there isn't too much to do yet, as I sit here and blog and blog and blog, but once the season gets started in May I'll be busy busy busy. I'm really liking it here so far. I LOVE that I'm in the middle of a park, and walk-breaks to just enjoy the outdoors are encouraged. My one reservation is that I could easily fall back into the "box-office" girl here - doing nothing artistic and everything mundane and officey. I'll have to keep myself in check and make sure that doesn't happen.

So that's my fantastic past 24 hours. If I didn't drop your name yet, I apologize...I'll get there.

For now, it's back to work.

...or maybe I'll go take a walk :-)

...of the day

2008-04-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Music of the day: Martin Sexton.

His latest album is called Seeds and it's glorious. Joe and I have already seen him live several times, including when he came to Pittsburgh on his first stop as part of his Seeds tour. He gave away bio-degradable postcards with seeds imbedded in them. You can send the postcard to someone, and they can plant the whole thing, and soon you'll have a flower!

Book of the day: "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" a novel by Michael Chabon.

I'm reading this right now. Well, not RIGHT now. Right now I'm typing. But in my free time I'm reading this book. Typical Michael Chabon - much pittsburgh nostalgia, wierd, twisted, drug/alcohol enduced adventures, and some really good writing. I picked this book up because I read Wonder Boys a few years ago and loved it. And since Joe had 2 copies of it sitting on his bookshelf I swipped one for myself and had at it. I love the way Chabon can describe the details of a person or a room or a situation. He paints the picture so explicitly using such obscure metaphores and big words! :-)

Food of the day: baked pita chips

Couldn't find a good picture of these, but wow. So good.

Breath of Fresh Air

2008-04-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

Freedom.

Lydie Breeze, Part 2 opened last night. Translation: no more 6:30-12am rehearsals. Significantly less stress in my life. More time with my friends and family. Life is good.

After the show, Mo, Hal, and I went to Sing, Sing - this awesome dueling piano bar in the waterfront - and we had ourselves a spankin' good time! Thus begins phase 1 of my new life plan. Well...I guess it's not really a plan, and it's not really layed out in phases...
But, thus began my getting-back-in-touch-with-the-person-I-want-to-be-and-life-I-want-to-lead. It will look as follows:

1. re-institution of weekly coffees/lunches with Devi
2. weekly (if not bi-weekly) yoga at Breathe Yoga Studio
3. running several times a week - yes, I WILL run that marathon in September!
4. more frequent phone calls/visits to family
5. that whole "eating better" thing I keep thinking about (for me AND joe!)
6. MUCH more time spent outside
7. reading...lots and lots of reading

Lucky number seven. So there it is, in black and white. If anyone reading this would help to hold me accountable for these seven goals, it woudl be much appreciated!

Until then, give me a call...I've got some free time now :-)

Pictures!

2008-04-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of Sam and I at the Pirates game Monday.

Isn't he so cute in his little Pirate hat?!!?!?

Yeah...the cuteness factor wore off quickly when he began squirming and fussing. ;-)

Let's Go Bucs!

2008-04-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my grand adventure to the Pittsburgh Pirates home opener against the Chicago Cubs at the beautiful PNC Park. I love baseball in Pittsburgh. I don't love baseball in general, but there's something about PNC Park that truly makes you feel like spring if finally here - and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing! In fact the only thing that could possibly diminish the clear, glorious, and hum-drum lolligag of an afternoon ballgame...is being accompanied by a 5 year old that doesn't want to be there. Poor Sam...by the second inning he leans over to me in our increadibly amazing seats, second row behind the Cubs dugout, and says "Lorraine, I'm ready to go home."
Awesome.
Well, we stuck it out to the 7th inning, when I finally conceeded, and took the poor, tortured child out of the park and out of his not-having-caught-a-hotdog-from-the-Pirate-Parrot-hotdog-toss induced misery.
We ended up losing the game in the 12th inning, or something like that.
But that's the bucco's for ya.

Still, what a beautiful day :-)

Brief Sigh of Relief

2008-04-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

Last night was certainly an eventful and cathartic night (is that the right word/spelling?). The first half of my show, LYDIE BREEZE, opened to a wonderful crowd and it seemed fairly well received. I'm finding it's usually a bit of a let down, though, when you're involved in such an abstract, dense project that you've spent weeks and weeks investing yourself in and thinking about and figuring out, only to find that an audience doesn't immediately "get it" within one night's viewing. I know that it is the director's job to make apparent to the audience every single nuance, connection, subtext that has been worked out in rehearsal, and that is no small task. But sometimes, I guess, you can get so involved in the process of rehearsal that certain things become obvious to you because you've known them all along. It's important to take that step back and view your peice of art as someone who knows nothing about the world you've spent so long creating.
My totally awesome friend Maureen (but you can call her Mo) volunteered to accompany me to the show and I was ecstatic!!! We had a great time!
Next, we headed off to the lovely Youngstown Ohio where Joe's band, Erin's Vineyard, had a show.
They rocked.
It was awesome.
It was 12:45.
That's right...Mo and I drove out to Ohio at 11:30, listened to some blaring (but really good!)hard rock/screamy music at 12:45, then drove all the way back to Pittsburgh. That puts approximate bedtime at 3:45ish. I'm not going to say that I'll do that again anytime soon, seeing as I almost killed the two of us while practically falling asleep at the wheel! But I'll admit it felt SOOOOOOO good to be out on the town again on a Friday night!!!

Now that LYDIE part one has opened, I'll kind of have my life back. I'll still have some dress rehearsal this week for Part 2, but that should be a piece of cake.
Speaking of cake...going to moms house for dinner tomorrow night!!! Then off to Jeremy's for poker night!

CAN'T STINKIN' WAIT!!!!!

My first, well kind of, Blog

2008-04-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

Let me explain...

I am certainly no self-proclaimed computer qiz, but creating a blog seemed fairly simple to me. Or so I thought. Until about a month ago when I created my first actual blog (lorraineelizabethannmszanski.blogspot) and it was promptly locked by the mean and vicious blogger peoples who somehow thought my one and only post may have been...oh what were the words they used...in violation of their code of ethics or something like that. I mean, c'mon! Though, I have the feeling that the title "chocolate covered strawberries" may have been what aroused these hypothetical blogspot peoples' suspicions. I can see how Chocolate Covered things may lead to inappropriateness...but it was completely innocent! I swear! I just really like chocolate covered strawberries. They are indeed my favorite food!
But I digress.
I've tried for weeks now to get the original blog back up and running, but to no avail. So herein begins my second attempt. I am very much looking forward to keeping the interested public informed about my ever so fascinating life, to creating an aesthetically pleasing format for my own personal estate on the world wide web, and to sharing inspirational photos and interesting internet links with you friends and family that will so tirelessly be checking in on my wellbeing.
So let the games begin!
Here's a quick bit about what I've got going on right now:

Tonight is (one of) the opening nights of the show I've been working on for about a month now at Open Stage Theatre. It's called LYDIE BREEZE, and it's a beautiful story about love, the pursuit of an ideal, utopian society, and the tragic fall of the human race. Deep stuff. I'm the Assistant Director on the show and I'm really proud of it! The play is actually written in 2 parts, so part 1 opens tonight, and part 2 opens next weekend. Then they'll continue playing in rep. throughout April. So I'm not quite done yet, but it still feels good to get at least one of the plays on its feet. Then, Joe's band has got a gig tonight, so I'll be heading out to Ohio after my show to watch him play.
Other than LYDIE, I'm still working in the box office at City Theatre, but that will be cut back significantly next week, when I begin my position as the "Executive Assistant" at South Park Theatre. That gig will last throughout the summer and will hopefully be much more fruitfull for me artistically than the mundane box office tasks I've been doing at City Theatre lately. I'll keep you all up to date on this as I go :-)
And lastly, of course, I am still Nanny extrodinaire. I spend all day with darling little Sam on Mondays, and take him to preschool all other weekday mornings.
Yep. I'm pretty busy.
But life is good. Life is very very good.