The Sound of Music and other wonderings.

I think you will find this quite interesting.

Our friend Derek invited Dave and myself over for dinner last night. We had no idea who else was going to be there but graciously accepted. One thing you need to know about Derek is that he has had a fascinating life and has meet all kinds of people from his time working at Cambridge and after from his church goings.

Of course Dave and I get there first, we were running a little bit late too. It just meant more Veuve Clicquot (Champaign) for us. Derek already had his friend, Ralphie baby, there. He is staying with Derek visiting from London where he is retired from the BBC as an actor and producer.

Now being as bad as I am with names I don’t remember the rest of the cast of characters name’s there at the dinner. And this isn’t because I had too much wine or anything like that. I’m on the end of a very bad cold and had a hard time going to begin with so names were going in one ear and out the other. We had a mother show up with her 8 month old absolutely adorable baby. We also had an older, very eccentric lady that use to work for the Washington opera.

All these people with the most entertaining stories. Ralphie baby (whose name I do remember for some reason) had all these great stories about when he was in school for theatrics and who his class mates where. Mind you, I didn’t know most of them because they were English but every so often he would spit out a name that I knew. We also came to find out that he was the producer on Doctor Who, the third rendition. Now if you are an American of my age group, there is only one doctor who and that’s the one with the really big nose and really bad curly hair played by Tom Baker. Well Ralphie baby produced the one before that played by Jon Pertwee. Jon is the same person that comments on the Little Britton comedy show from the UK.

Such great stories.

Now for the interesting bit.

Seems that the lady who was sitting next to me all night does some work for the Kennedy center. She use to be really big with the opera here but retired so now she’s doing part time work. When she worked for the opera every so often she would have to get some “extras” for the shows. So she’s telling about going to JR’s (local gay bar) and going up to boys and telling them that she’s casting for some opera but that she needs men without hair on their chest.

She said she had never seen men pull their shirts off so fast. That had me in stitches I thought it was so funny.

But this is the bit that really got me.

Every since we were children we watched the Sound of Music almost every holiday season. It was a tradition and we can sing all the songs. So there she is in the middle of JR’s getting guys to take their shirts off for an audition when she notices that the Sound of Music is playing. She comments “Oh, the Sound of Music, I was in that. I’m the short nun behind the head nun in the climb every mountain song.”

Well, she was popular before but after that the boys were all over her.

My jaw dropped to the floor. There was someone who was in one of my all time favorite movies sitting beside me for a casual dinner on a Monday night in Washington DC!

I do have to say, my life is never dull.