Whoops

Yesterday I was supposed to go to work at the Rep at 9. I completely forgot about it, woke up at 10, and called in. It was no big deal, since they hadn't started working yet anyway. I got there about 10:30. We worked until about 2. And that's it for the Rep this summer.

And there you have it folks, the most interesting thing to happen this week. Mainly I've been sitting around reading, or wasting time on the internet. I break that routine with periodic bouts of laundry, or I wash some dishes.

Up above the set so high...

Tonight for Carter's Way strike, I went up in the focus track to strike a few things. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, a focus track is like the track a curtain goes in, with an attachment for people to hang from. The purpose is that you can focus lights from up there, without a ladder or genie lift, and no matter where the set is located. So I was 30 feet in the air (or so) sitting on a little seat not much bigger than a swing. It was pretty cool, actually. I'm glad I never actually went up to focus lights that way though. That would be really hard- it's kind of hard to control how you're moving, since you are dangling from a point a little over your head. And of course, I'm short, so I have short arms, which makes it pretty hard to reach stuff. :D Pretty neat.

from my notebook

I wrote this haiku last year and I called it: "girl with a red popsicle"

she walks with no coat
winter crispy snow sidewalk
strawberry on stick

hee hee, haiku tickles me.

quotes for today:

"You can't get a dollar out of an ATM"

"It's okay, I have an imaginary condom"

New York in a nutshell

Since Donald isn't going to ever get to it:

Friday after we got settled into the hotel, we took the hotel shuttle in to Times Square, and gawked like the tourists we were. We happily wandered, and got a bite to eat, then eventually took the subway south. We got off, and walked until we found the restaurant in Chinatown where we were meeting Victor for the 11pm dinner with theatre folks. We had a great time there and ate all manner of good food. Then Victor drove us back to our hotel, and we slept.

Saturday, Donald and Jon and I took the shuttle in again, got bagels from a little shop, and took the subway even more south, to the South Seaport TKTS. We bought tickets for that evening's performance of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and then walked to the WTC site. On the way Donald and I got Dunkin Donuts, which we approved of heartily. Then we met up with 2 of Jon's local friends, and walked to Battery Park, where we looked in the general direction of the Statue of Liberty. After wandering in any direction but the right one, we located a subway station and went back up to midtown, where we walked and walked more. I eventually got cranky from the walking, and we stopped and got something to eat. Somewhat rested, we walked more, and went through Central Park, ehich was very pretty and FULL of people. Then more walking, to Lincoln Center. After a reception, we got rained on some and took the subway back to Times Square to see our play. It was very good (and the lead actor, won a Tony the following week.) Afterwards, we got pizza from a little shop (SO good. *drool*) and Victor kindly drove us back to hotel again.

Sunday, Donald and I struck out on our own. Shuttle again, bagel, then walked all the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bad idea, but we didn't realize how far it was. Depite our tired feet, the museum was awesome, and we only got to see a little bit of it. We stayed about 3.5 hours, then walked to Lincoln Center again, to help take down UMKC people's portfolio exhibits. After that we went to a Japanese place for dinner (tempura and tonkatsu, *drool*) in a small group, and had a very nice time. Then we walked to Times Square, and had some cheesecake and bought some t-shirts. More walking and wandering, a potty break at the Trump Tower, (cleanest bathroom we'd been in) walk back to Lincoln Center where Jon's car was, and he drove us back to hotel.

Monday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, and Jon and Jen kindly dropped us off at the airport. We were back in KC by the afternoon. The trip was a success, and we muchly enjoyed it. Looking forward to going back next year.

That is all! More detail available upon request. :D (whew)

Errands and all

Monday was still the weekend, because Donald didn't go to work. He had a dentist appointment at 11. While he was getting drilled and filled, I went to a thrift store, and happily got 3 shirts for the grand total of about $6.50. I love thrift stores. Then he called me, I picked him up, and we did some shopping, surrounded by driving around sweating. (With any luck, his A/C will be getting fixed tomorry.) We went to Best Buy and half considered buying a tiny dishwasher. After more running around, we got some food and went to Target, which was our main goal, in search of laundry baskets, etc. Don't ever go to the Target near 39th st. in Independence. We wandered in circles for friggin ever trying to find stuff. After that we went home and sat in front of fans to cool off. Robyn and Joe came over later and we ordered pizza. It felt like a Sunday.

In artsy news, here's a review for quixotic:
www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/11937986.htm

cool. :)

And there it goes

The Quixotic "Performance Fusion" is now done. All that's left is to strike it. It turned out well, and was pretty cool overall. Robyn and Donald came to see it last night, and they had a good time, and had a bit of free beer. :) Mike was going to come but he had to go to a father's day dinner instead. That's okay, I'm not sure he would have enjoyed it. They had shirts and posters for sale, so I got a t-shirt and a sleeveless shirt, and the 3-posters-for-$10 dealie. Therefore, instead of getting paid to do this job, I paid them $50. I consider it worth it though, since I had a good time doing it, I got to feel involved in the art scene for a bit, and it will look really good on my resume. It doesn't hurt that they were really nice shirts.

We ate at Bo Lings for dinner, and after the show, of course, went to the coffeehouse. When we left the barista said, "see you tomorrow!" we laughed, and Donald and I simultaneously said "maybe." I hate when we do that. Of course, he's probably right. We probably will go tonight. I need to think of something else to drink, or I shall turn into a squishy latte-beast. Maybe juice. They have nantucket nectar juice, which is very good. Or tea. Tea can be good for you.

Walking in the dark

Tonight Donald and I made walking to the coffeehouse new again. On the way there, Donald shut his eyes, and I led him (almost) all the way there. On the way back, we switched. It was kind of fun- once you get used to it, the feeling of immiment running-into-something passes and you can enjoy listening to things. Weird, but neat. Robyn, I bet you one shiny new nickel that Joe can't do this without opening his eyes. :D

Tonight was the first of 2 Quixotic performances. It went well, and finally seeing everything come together was really cool. Since it's an all new thing, everybody's learning as they go. One thing they've learned is that having more than one dress rehearsal would be a good thing. Even so, there weren't any major problems tonight, which is pretty amazing considering that we are coordinating lights, sound, projections including live feeds, dancers, and sometimes live music. All of this in one former bank. All of it is so very arty, meaning dim. The space doesn't really have any lights in it (or a bathroom) so the houselights are clip lights that I added to the light trees. Come on down, it's at 8pm tomorrow night at 12th and Walnut downtown, and there's free beer. I'll be the one behind the "light board." (2-scene preset, lolz)

Whew

I called Victor and told him that I don't want to clean up after his tenant, and he said that's okay. He didn't want me to do that in the first place, but he'd given her my number to contact, so she called and asked me. I was in the coffeehouse at the time, and kinda distracted, or I probably would have said no from the beginning. I took her scribbly ass notes over and left them there for somebody else to deal with. So it's basically even right now, although I think $14 is a bit of a rip off for what I've already dealt with.

How did I get dumped with this?

Victor left me his key in so I could collect his mail for him when his tenant moved out. Well, she's moved out, and now I'm somehow dumped with cleaning up after her. She left me $160 and a pile of sloppy notes explaining what to do.
One task was to mail these 4 boxes. These are not ordinary boxes. They are boxes of BOOKS. Large boxes. I barely could lift one of them. I took them to UPS and the grand total? $146. Two of them weighed nearly 55 pounds, and the other 2 were about 20. I called her and left her a message telling her all about it. There had better be more money coming my way, because I won't be cleaning anything for $14. How did this become my problem? I don't like to clean, and I certainly don't like to clean other people's crap. Other people I've never even friggin met. Oh boy, do I not care about this.
Now I'm still supposed to bag up a whole lot of trash and move crap to the basement, etc.

In geographically closer news, crazy neighbor girl planted some tomatoes and basil on the south side of the house yesterday. (No, she hasn't replanted my friggin bulbs yet) That's all well and good, but the problem lies in little rodent teeth. Our area has a LOT of bunnies. I predict that they will eat her plants.

At least she doesn't play the tuba

Yesterday my downstairs neighbor dug up my flowers. They were actually blooming at the time. She said she didn't know if they were weeds or not. Granted, they were kind of straggly poppies, but dammit! She said she kept the bulbs she dug up, and I said she should just put them back when she plants whatever on top. I'm not so much anrgy, as kind of amazed that she just went and dug shit up. I told her that I planted stuff on the other side of the sidewalk, so don't dig there. wtf.

Setup- not too bad

Yesterday I (with the invaluable assistance of Kevin) got the lights pretty much set up for the quixotic show downtown. I belive that we successfully plugged the dimmers into enough outlets to prevent blowing circuit breakers. Of course, in saying that, I have cursed it. Bah. That took us most of the afternoon. We took a break to get some lunch about 2, and we walked to City Center Square, which has a lil' food court. We had some crappy chinese food. It was weird being there, since I haven't eaten there since high school, back when I actually spent some time downtown.

Last night Donald and I had hot dogs for dinner, washed a few dishes, and went to the coffeehouse. I'm on the last Lemony Snicket book. :(

The electricity returned sometime yesterday afternoon. All is well with the world again, at least for the moment. We still have to go across the street and get all our frozen stuff back. And the cable came back this morning. So for the first time in several days, I'm actually using my computer at home. yay!

Yesterday was largely unproductive in a theatre sense, as I mainly sat around and did nothing. Not a problem really, since I was happily sucking up air conditioning and wireless. I also chatted with Ken and Macaela, so that was a nice surprise. We were going to go to Robyn's new place last night, but that got cancelled because Joe had to work. Just as well really, since it kept raining. Cookout+ rain= bad. Instead, Robyn came up here and we went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which was good fun and enjoyed by all. Stuff blew up, the actors were nice to look at, and it was funny too. Go see it, it entertains.

Plans for today include cleaning, laundry, and relaxing. This has been my first day off since before we went to new york. Ahhh... so nice.....

Electricity, or the lack thereof

I started my day by waking up, unhappily, to no more electricity than there was when I woke up yesterday morning. Then we loaded up all the food from the freezer, and took it to my parents house and put it in their freezer. Then we took showers and ate breakfast there. That shower was pretty odd- I haven't used my folks' shower in over 2 years. But at least now I feel clean and pleasant. Then Donald went to work, andI came over here to work on stuff more. I just ate my lunch and I think I may take a nap. Soon there will be all kinds of loud children here for this dance show. I'm tired...

w00t! wireless

Holy crap, there's unsecured wireless everywhere I go. I'm in the theater where the jesus freak dance concert is happening. We just finished running some pieces, and now I'm bored. I sure didn't think I'd find wireless in here, but I found 2. Gee whiz.

I was here until 12:30 or so last night working on this show, and I missed the whole storm. Bad thing is, the electricity still wasn't back on as of about 4, when I called Donald. That sucks. It's really hard to counteract the instinct to flip a switch when you walk into a room. Carrying around a flashlight just doesn't quite cut it.

Momentary respite from tech hell

Monday is the day off for people in the professional tech world. Therefore, no evil lighting designer today. Not a day off though, because stupid me agreed to do something else. So I spent all day with Sean setting up for the jesus freak dance show. Tomorrow is my last day of tech hell, and then I spend Wednesday through Friday and part of Saturday in jesus freak hell. Bah.

Post, bastards! Post! I manage to and I've been in tech 14 hours a day. :)

Still in tech hell. Yesterday, I spent 3 1/2 hours over the light board to try to make an accurate spread sheet of when the color scrollers change and what color they change to. This wasn't easy for a number of reasons. To begin with, the numbers aren't all together, so I had to go through the whole show several times. Please end, tech. Just open now, show. I started working on that fucking file at 8:30 am. I didn't get a break, or lunch at all. Then when I get downstairs, I'm just in time to see Chipotle being handed out to people. Nobody asked me if I wanted any fucking lunch. Nobody gave a shit. Let me clarify, the lighting designer, who should be making certain that the people working for her get breaks and meals, didn't give a shit.

Last night I had a weird dream. There was a litle piece of elastic sticking out of the back of my thigh, like a thread. So I pulled on it to see if it would come loose. It didn't, and it got bigger as I pulled, and the skin around it pulled up and I could see through a hole around it that there was more clear stretchy stuff inside and it was all attached. So I snipped that part that was sticking out, and patted the skin back down in hopes that it would stick.

That is all.

still in tech rehersal hell. crapity crap

chrissy: congrats on new kitty
robyn: congrats on new home
jim: see above
donald: yes, jersey is truly the armpit of america

suddenly oddly busy

Long story short, we had a great time in NYC and now that I'm back I've gone directly into tech at the Rep. Therefore, Donald will have to describe the trip. I'm going to sleep.