One of my favorite books as a kid was The Secret Garden. I was especially taken with the mansion (Misslethwaite Manor) with 100 rooms, and when Mary went exploring in them and found the collection of ivory elephants. I guess I'll never have my own collection of ivory elephants now, but I still can dream.

This is the third time I've seen the musical, and Rich's first. I got the music after the first time (1994) with Bernadette. She was also my companion for the second time. Wowbagger saw the movie with me. The movie is somewhere between the book and the musical. The PBS version is the most faithful to the book, so Rich knew more or less what it was about. After I saw the musical the first time, I reread the book. (For one thing, I hadn't realized Dickon was a teenager when I read it as a little girl.)

The musical is pretty much a ghost story, but I also knew I would weep buckets, so I went prepared. The woman next to me was also wiping her eyes over and over. Death is so much a fact of everyday life in books written 90 years ago! It's a real eye-opener as to the advances we've made this century. I did cry all the tears Roni was expecting at her shower.

The little girl who played Mary has a great voice. She comes from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and has only done local things before this, so I don't know how the casting person found her, but I'm sure we'll hear more of Caitlyn Caughell. Every person in the cast was great. Martha, the maid, had played Cleo the best friend in "Most Happy Fella", but most of the main characters were new to Sacramento. I really enjoyed it, and "Lily's Eyes" (I'm tearing up just thinking about it!) played in my head all night.

I took Sam to the Science Museum today. I haven't been there for a while, and a lot has changed. The entry is entirely different and the atrium is gone. I was pleased to note, though, that Vince's Eagle project, the outdoor cages for the animals, is still in use. The main exhibit is the archeology one from downtown, which was interesting. Sam may have learned something about it. It goes well with the trash exhibit. I explained "Reduce Reuse Recycle" to Sam, but I don't know if any of it sank in. We saw that 10 hills of trees goes for a Sunday paper across the US. Every man, woman, and child in this country generates 4 pounds of trash a day, and Californians twice that. We put marbles representing toxics into a pinball landfill and discovered that it needed to be lines to avoid the toxics getting into our ground water. And I found out that 50% of trash is paper, and that plastic is only 10%. We junk cars the height of a 42 story building every 14 minutes!! (I suppose this is where I should tell Vince's sad tale? Later!)

Then Sam and I went outdoors and worked on some reading and phonics. Sam got tired and doesn't like being read to. I am going to stick it out, though, as learning to listen, even without pictures, is a good thing.

Rich actually has a glut of tomatoes. I took some to the foster-family. Last week Roni was delighted to get some, and it came just after we were talking about the dried rose petals her mother-in-law-to-be wants for the wedding. I suddenly thought maybe, since we have so many cherry tomatoes, we should throw those instead. (Roni thought I was kidding. Ha ha, will SHE ever be surprised!)

R.J.'s mother wrote and asked us to dinner and cocktails on Friday. I properly R.S.V.P.ed.

And this is what I wrote about Vince in the eCircle: "Vince has finally, Ryder truck and all, escaped from Kalispell. He's in Billings and hopes to get the heck out of Montana early tomorrow. The plans to see Devil's Tower and the Badlands were shelved, even though the Badlands are not that far from the road... he needs to keep going. (Sad: this is a trip I'd love to drag Dad on, showing him all the wonders of the area (though I never saw Devil's Tower.) I would also show Dad the Custer Battlefield. Interesting area, if one has time to peruse it.)
"Mr. S. is going to have someone look at Thor and decide what to do and what it would cost, then Vince can suggest stuff. (I'm sending these people flowers! Yes, we would have done the same if their daughter were stranded here, but it was still really nice of them.)
"Currently Vince is not at ALL happy about the truck. The rental, at least, is air-conditioned, the radio works, and he has a Montana leadfoot."

He has said he will, indeed, stop at Wall Drug and send a postcard. Wall Drug is an event, so I'm glad he isn't missing the whole experience!