Hyperfocus of the Week(s): Broadway in the Basement and Girl Scout Cookies

The last two weeks have been bonkers. Someone at Girl Scout headquarters decided to start regional cookie sales a week earlier this year—after I had put Broadway in the Basement firmly on the calendar. So last weekend between shopping, prepping, and cooking/performing, Violet and I did three cookie booths. This weekend we did three more!

Broadway in the Basement is the fundraiser series that Northwest Women’s Chorale began back in 2020 to commission original choral music for our group. This was our third event, with three courses of appetizers, a dessert auction, and some amazing Broadway musical performances by members of the chorale. 

I cater the event, with help from some of the lovely choir members, and this year my amazing daughter, Pepper, and her boyfriend, Unico. The picture above is Pepper and I, two coolers, five boxes of supplies, and my performance outfit moving from the prep kitchen to the serving kitchen, all in a Jetta; Unico is just out of shot! I couldn’t have done it without them as they held down the fort during performances, and Pepper single handedly made up a gallon of cucumber sandwich spread. 

Along with planning and cooking I sang a song that I had learned from scratch and still didn’t quite have memorized by the performance (truly my hyper focus of the week was learning song lyrics). All of it went well, with minor hitches that worked out okay in the end (there was a rumor of meatball shortages, but it turned out to be a serving tray snaffoo— which for someone who second guesses their counts until the final second, was literally my worst cooking nightmare.) 

As for cookies, Violet sold 905 boxes over the first two weekends, including three straight days of Safeway booths—two of them doubles—this weekend. It was a slog this year; the first time in 15 years I have had multiple >50 box booths in the first weekend. Violet was a trooper however and made it through. 

I have mixed feelings about Girl Scouts and the whole cookie nonsense, but we keep on with it.

To round off the crazy weeks, both Tuesdays and Thursdays I had my wood turning classes. We finished up our projects with a pen and a “box” or lidded vessel. My box took a little longer to make, so my new friend Craig invited me to his shop to finish. This new hobby has brought several new friends into my life, all but one of them retired guys over 80. It has certainly skewed my friend group up in age. 

I had three pieces of great news writing wise. First, a blog post I submitted to Historical Novelist Society of North America is going to be published in July. Second, my Residency application to Hypatia in the Woods is under consideration. Third, Moss and Linden have been accepted into the alternative school in our district next year; for my mandatory volunteer hours, I likely get to teach a writing class over the year. 

All in all, it was a good couple weeks for us. Exhausting, but good. 

Happy Writing this week! Next week my Hyperfocus is going to be finishing my two workshops for SquatchCon! Stay tuned!