This and That

Yesterday I made chex mix, so my house smells like Worcestershire sauce. :) It's nice, actually.

I got my teeth cleaned yesterday. I'm out of dental insurance money for the year so I paid out of pocket. I don't understand how it could cost $110 to clean your teeth. The dentist pokes around with the pointy tool for a couple minutes, then the assistant polishes them for a couple more minutes, then the fun part starts. The flossing. I ask them to be gentle, but they aren't. My teeth are really close together, so the process of jamming the floss between my teeth always ends with the floss slamming into my gums. Sigh.

I saw Enchanted this week. It was very charming. Parts of it were eye-rollingly corny, but they were supposed to be. The big song and dance number in Central Park was really fun. I'd recommend it for a good time.

Today I'm going to broil a steak. It's in my fridge, thawed and ready to go.

May You Live in Interesting Times

To start where the last post left off- the furniture got moved again and we refocused stuff a third time. :P

That was a weird weird tech. The plan was to focus Friday morning, dry tech in the afternoon, tech Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, then open Saturday night. Friday evening's rehearsal was supposed to start at 7:30, and actually started around 9:30. It ended at midnight, and we hadn't gotten trough Act 1. The next day we picked up where we left off, finished the show, and even had enough time to run part of Act 1 before the 8:00 show. Which was opening night. It went surprisingly well, considering it was our first run through!

The director left Sunday morning, but the LD was still there for the matinée. We did a batch of cue notes after the show, then he got on his plane and went home. Things got interesting during the evening show. Let me first say this show is more like a concert than a play. They mostly play songs, and just talk a little. During the evening show, the guitar player skipped a song. Up in the booth, the SM frantically located the right cue, and we jumped forward. Then we had a quick headset discussion about whether he would go back, or keep going. He went back. We jumped back, then got ready to jump forward again. At other points, singers forgot lyrics, forgot to come on, and generally just faked it. The audience loved it. At the end of the show they were on their feet, demanding an encore. Naturally, we hadn't rehearsed that. So the SM frantically found a bright cue and we jumped back again, while leaving the houselights up. After the encore they were satisfied and went home. Whew! I've never used the "Go to Cue" button so many times during a performance before. :P

Why theatre is dumb today

I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30 this morning to get down here and focus lights at 8AM. To start off, there were no spikes on the floor for the furniture so the lighting designer spent half an hour placing spikes. Then we focused the lights for an hour and a half. (It's a very small plot.) Then we took a break, and worked on the cues for awhile. We had a lunch break, then came back to find that the director showed up and moved everything around. Naturally. So we worked on the cues for a few more hours, then spent half an hour refocusing on the moved furniture. There's nothing that annoys me quite like doing work twice because somebody didn't do their job.

Happy Thxgiving

Anna is thankful for blankets.
Hope you are all cozy!

Ain't weather funny?

It's 1:00, and it's snowing. Less than 24 hours ago, it was 75º and I had the windows open.

Mmmm... meatballs

I mostly wasted yesterday's good weather. I had a meeting at noon, and as I drove to it with the windows down, I thoroughly enjoyed the weather. I wished I had some errands to do so I could further enjoy the weather. But I didn't, so after the meeting I helped my mom make sauce and meatballs. I was going to fry the meatballs while mom formed them, but the damn oil kept spattering me so I had to quit. I don't know how she does it. Maybe after years of meatball- making she's developed super heat resistant arms. We switched, I formed some meatballs then chopped onion and garlic for the sauce. My left hand still smells like onions. Does this happen to anyone else? It doesn't matter how much I wash my hand, it still take a couple days to go away.

After meatballs were finished I went back to my place and pretty much played Oblivion the rest of the day. And my hair smelled like delicious meatballs, which I didn't even get to eat. (I'll get to eat them today though, so it's okay.) But it was pretty rough, smelling tasty meatballs all afternoon, then thinking about meatballs at dinner time and settling for macaroni and cheese. What's worse is that I could have had the meatballs for dinner, if I'd only cooked some pasta. I didn't know that until it was too late and the the mac and cheese was done. :(

Re: Cat Talking, Translation

This IS pretty funny. cuteoverload again.

Easy to Please

For dinner last night I made hamburger gravy. This is very simple, and Donald loves it. You brown hamburger and onions together, drain, then add chopped celery. Next, dump in a can of cream of mushroom soup. Finally, let that simmer for awhile. You eat it over mashed potatoes or noodles. Cream of mushroom soup makes beefy goodness.

The sun is coming in the south windows of the computer room right now, hitting Anna who is flopped on my lap purring. What could be better? Sun and lap, all in one. Kitty life so easy!

T-shirt isn't usually appropriate clothing in November

My thermometer says it's 74 outside. Even if it isn't quite accurate, that's pretty warm for the middle of November. It's warmer outside than it is inside again! I just walked over to the Rep to pick up some keys, and I had to stop and take a drink of water when I got back, because I was hot. In November. I went out with a jacket, but didn't wear it because it's all sunny and hot out there! It feels like April. But global warming doesn't exist, nope.

In a stroke of poor timing, Coldstone emailed me a buy one get one free coupon today. It's good until the end of November. Somehow, I don't think I'll use it. Then they'll email me another one.

Screw Coldstone

Donald and Mike and I are hooked on Miami Ice. It's this ice cream shop located entirely too close to Mike's house. They have several fantastic flavors of ice cream, including cheesecake, peanut butter, cinnamon, and coffee. They have a cold stone to make concretes. There's also the namesake "Miami Ice" which is a shaved ice with your choice of about twenty flavors, and has a dollop of custard at the bottom. They have way too many tasty treats, and their prices are really low. Did I mention the ice cream is really good?

We went in Friday night and found that our treats would be buy one get one free because they're closing up for the winter. The helpful guy behind the counter told us that Sunday (today) would be the last day of the season and if we came back after 7 we could do buy one get one free on the hand filled pints on whatever flavors were left. How could we resist? Mike got cheesecake with strawberries smashed in, Donald got cheesecake with oreos, and I got mint with oreos. Of course this was after two of us had cones and one of us had a milkshake. I'm so full right now, and happy to know that there's more ice cream in the freezer.

Holiday lighting

Despite saying that it's too early for christmas stuff yesterday morning, I helped my dad put up christmas lights yesterday afternoon. His reasoning was that it's warm now, so let's put 'em up! We usually put them up on Thanksgiving, so it isn't all that early.

In the beginning, my dad used to string colored lights across the front of the house forming one horizontal line. (My parents' house is ranch style.) This involved a short ladder and a whole lot of green garden twist-ties. Eventually, I realized that the single line looked majorly half assed. For a couple years, we added lights in the bushes. We also tried adding more to the single line, extending around the south side or along the front of the garage. Then we had the genius idea of putting blue lights around the 3 big windows as well. That idea was a definite keeper. Conveniently, they string right around the shutters and are very easy to put up. A couple years ago my dad started stringing the colored lights down the fence along the driveway. It looks pretty, you can see them when you turn the corner all the way down the hill at 52nd street, and is much much easier to put up. Now I'm working on convincing them to buy LED lights. Dad's been using the same strings of lights for a long time and they're about worn out anyway.

I'd like to put lights on my house, but there doesn't seem to be any good way to do it. I'll make do with my lovely LED lights in the windows. I never took 'em down last year, so next week all I have to do it plug them in. :)

"Cooking" etc.

I had a rather busy week. It was the week of X-Mas Carol load- in. What's that, too early for christmas stuff you say? Why yes it is, but ACC (for short) always opens before thanksgiving, ensuring that everyone working on the show will be thoroughly sick of the holiday before December even starts. Anyway, we hung lights then installed all the practicals and stuff then focused it Thursday and they're in tech today and will open tomorrow night. It's a really short tech, but since this is the 26th year, they're all pretty familiar with what to do. It used to close a couple days AFTER christmas. Yeah, it was pretty dismal that last week. Lucky for me I'm pretty much done with it, unless Jon needs me to fill in for him at some point.

I did more non-cooking last night. Robyn helped me out:

nessa33: hmm. what to make for dinner?
tinydryad: make me something too
tinydryad: I got nuthin
nessa33: i dont want to defrost anything so i think its frozen chicken strips
tinydryad: I could make chicken too
nessa33: i also have french fries and green beans
tinydryad: so do I!

So Robyn and I made the same dinners last night. :) It was a decent meal. My fries were Ore Ida "Zesties" and were pretty tasty. My green beans came from Costco, so I have about 4 more pounds of frozen green beans to get through. They're organic baby green beans, so they are quite a bit better than the regular frozen green beans. Macaela says that if you apply heat to something it counts as cooking. In my mind, I have the impression that "cooking" should involve some stirring as well. Oh well, it was a nice change from frozen pizza.

Yay!

Donald fixed my laptop yesterday. It developed a crappy flicker in the screen when you moved it, or didn't move it. He looked up how much it would cost to get a whole new screen, and it was about $150. Then he looked up how much it would be to just buy a new cable, the one that connects the screen to the laptop. That was about 5 bucks. He ordered that one. he installed that one. No flicker! I'm so glad to not need a new laptop.

Driving sucks

I hate driving. Actually, I hate all the other people driving. The people who don't follow the traffic rules. The people who run red lights, don't yield, switch lanes without signaling, take up more than one lane when driving, park in places that block the street, and talk on their cell phones while doing all that and more. It seems like every time I drive, some stupid fucker nearly causes an accident. I wish we had a subway system.

Hanging lights

Today's light hang went better than I expected. We started kind of slow, but once we got moving we had enough people to get a lot of work done in a decent amount of time. Since I was the Master Electrician for this one, I didn't have to hang any lights myself. I answered questions, and told people where to hang the lights, and kept the paperwork up to date. I prepared the plot to hang earlier this week. I drew circles around groups of lights on the plot indicating where they should be plugged in. This sounds like a silly thing, but it makes the hang a LOT easier in the long run. I didn't bother plotting the plot in half inch scale for several reasons: because the plotter can be a pain in the ass and I didn't want to deal with it, because half inch scale is really bigger than necessary, and your sheet of paper is unwieldy and it's a waste of paper because you're just going to throw it away at the end of the day. (Plotter paper is expensive.) I printed the plot in 4 sections on regular 8 1/2 x 11 paper, so each person can have their own piece of plot. That way everybody knows what's going on. We managed to be finished by 5. That's damn good for 116.

Things I've been doing lately

• Hung lights at Copaken for a show that doesn't focus until the day after Thanksgiving. It's the sure-to-be-glorious John Denver Holiday Show.
  
• Re-watched the miniseries and first few episodes of BSG while at the opera. What an awesome show.
  
• Prepared gel and plot for UMKC student show I'm ME'ing. Hang is Saturday. Boo for getting up early Saturday, yay for getting paid to do it.
  
• Played Oblivion with my new character, even though I never finished it with my old character. Donald challenged me to make a character who isn't a sneaky thief, so my new character is a Redguard who uses blunt weapons to bash the crap out of her enemies. And mudcrabs.
• Made a tasty apple crisp from Granny Smith apples.
• Got coffee with Donald and Mike, played Quiddler.
• Went to the dentist, got my bite adjusted AGAIN. Picked up copies of my x-rays. It's pretty interesting to see pictures of all your teeth.

Today I'll wash the dishes again, and possibly produce something to eat. I won't say "cook" because I might just take something out of the freezer and bake it, and that's not really cooking.

Oh boy, more subway conductors

Enthusiastic conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, the last car is not the only car on this train. If you spread out, you get on the train faster, we get moving faster, and you won't be able to complain that MTA trains never run on time. It's simple mathematics, ladies and gentlemen. Get up on it.

Conductor over loud speaker: In case you didn't stop to look at what train this is, listen up, because I'm telling you now. This is the C Train. This train will be running express from here to Canal Street. I repeat: This train is running express from here to Canal Street. If you need to get to a local stop in between, you must go to 14th Street and take the C uptown. Uptown trains are stopping at all stations. Next stop: 42nd Street.
Teen girl, as train approaches 42nd: Excuse me, is this train stopping at 23rd Street?
Conductor: You didn't listen to the announcement at all, did you?
Teen girl: No.
Conductor: Then I'm not telling.

Conductor: Attention! You've boarded the ghetto express. Next stop, Deep Ghetto. If you're trying to go to any of the Ghetto Light areas, please transfer at this stop for the Ghetto Local. Thank you!

Conductor: This is Fifth Avenue. Transfer here for... Aw, hell, there ain't no transfer here. Get in the damn train.

Conductor: Okay everyone, we're going to evacuate the train now. Just stay calm. This isn't the Titanic. I repeat, this is not the Titanic.

Conductor: Board the train so the doors can close. [Girls slowly shuffle around doors.] You must physically board the train to ride. The platform does not move.

Conductor, very politely: Ladies and gentlemen, please stand clear of the closing doors so this train can leave the station. Thank you. [Later, not as politely] Sir, maybe the fact that you have to hold on to the outside of the car to stay inside is a sign that you should wait for the next train!

Conductor: Y'all, these suckahs gon' be on this train for hours!

thanks to Overheard in New York again.

Please explain

Monday night was the first of NINE Garth brooks concerts at the Sprint Center. NINE, holy crap. My route to both theaters I work at downtown goes past the Sprint Center on 13th St. My routes back vary slightly, due to the one-way-in-the-wrong-way nature of downtown streets. As I left the Lyric Monday night, I intended to go east across 10th St, south on Main, west on Truman (south of the highway) and go south on Oak as it turns into Gilham and eventually Rockhill, taking me home. My plan was foiled by the post- Brooks traffic bullshit, which seems to mainly mean cops blocking off streets in an apparent effort to make traffic smoother, but which actually causes people to have to go around making it all worse. I don't get it.

The police blocked off Main past 12th, so I had to turn east on 12th St, well before my intended destination. That's when I saw them. The limos. It seemed that every limo in a 10 mile radius had been drawn to the Sprint center, and had lined up along the surrounding blocks. I saw literally, at least 25 limos of all shapes and sizes. This is the part I don't get. I'm fairly certain that Garth Brooks already has a ride, and if he didn't that he could only physically ride in one limo at a time. Who are all those limos for? And why must they block the streets so?

overheardinnewyork.com

"Conductor: Attention, passengers, this J Train is now going express to Myrtle. You hear me? Express. Express! There is a local train right behind this one. This train is going express! [Mob of angry passengers exits train.] Psych! This is a local J Train to Manhattan. Next stop: Chauncey. Please enjoy the leg room brought to you by the New York City MTA."

Subway conductors must get really bored, going back and forth all day.

It's funny if you're a lighting person

Today we hung lights down at Camp Copaken. Nick and I were working onstage, while Jon and Porter were working in the first catwalk. Jon yelled down that he'd forgotten the color, and would I bring it to him. I told him no problem, send down the bucket and I'd bring it up. I went to the cart, looked for the appropriate pile of color, and located the 1st Catwalk page of the instrument schedule. All 21 lights were N/C. (That's short for No Color, meaning the whole catwalk has no gels.) I thought, that's pretty weird, showed the page to Nick, then decided it would be funny to put the single sheet of paper in the bucket for them. They took the bucket up, got their paperwork, saw that they needed no gels, and we all had a good laugh. Whoo! Lighting humor!

Downtown Moment.

I saw a neat Downtown Moment yesterday on my way to the opera. I passed 3 guys in suits who had removed their jackets, and were playing frisbee in a parking lot. This Downtown Moment has been brought to you by the letter F, and the number 3.

That took long enough

My dad asked me to help him install track lighting in their kitchen yesterday. Back in the day, Dad installed a skylight in the kitchen, removing the light fixture. My mom has wanted some kind of lighting in there since then. That was the year we moved into that house. That was somewhere around 1986. For about twenty years, my mom has waited to have some lighting in the kitchen, and it took us one afternoon to do it. :P It took about 4 hours, and my dad didn't fall off a ladder, or through the ceiling from the attic, or set the attic on fire. Success!

Another one down

Opera tech is over. It went pretty well in the end. There were the usual screeching halts, where we encounter some stupid problem and come to a complete standstill for awhile. I say usual, which is sad but true for the opera. Opening is Saturday, and I'm pretty sure there won't be any surprises like last time. Yay!

Last night I went out for a drink with the opera stage management gals. We went to a bar with video touchscreens in the booths and played video Monopoly. Long game short, I took all their monies. :) I'm pretty sure that's the first Monopoly game I've finished in at least 10 years. Even with a computer doing all the math, it still took two hours. When I was a kid I played Monopoly with my cousins a few times, and I don't think we ever finished it. We always had to stop because my cousin Scott would start losing and then cry. He's the one that got married this summer. He doesn't cry when he loses games any more. :)

Figures

Last year, much like this year, I was in tech at the Lyric on Halloween. I was chatting with Donald, who was telling me that the doorbell kept ringing even though there was no light on the porch, and he even covered up the doorbells. I told him that it would be a good time to offload the banana nut granola bars we didn't want. He didn't think that was as funny as I did. No candy = doorbells.

This year, I had candy ready for Donald to give out. The doorbell didn't ring a single time. Candy = no doorbells. Figures. Luckily, there's no danger of Donald and me just eating it all, because it's Tootsie Roll Pops and we don't like them that much. I shall give them away at the theater.