Overheard

Part of a conversation between the oldest niece and nephew (9 and almost 9-yrs-old):

"That was in the 1900s... before we were even born." -N

Skunked!

In the game of cribbage a 'skunk' is when you get two corners ahead of your opponent.  In our family, we have a small figurine of a skunk that is kept in the possession of whoever was skunked last.  This skunk is mainly kept between me and my mom by this point, but my sister and I play a lot now, so two years ago my sister printed out and framed a picture of a skunk to pass between us.  I had seen and commented on the skunk at every visit, but had no idea what it was really for until a few nights ago when she skunked me for the first time in two years.

I made a vow not to leave with the picture and last night, my vow was fulfilled.  I had died one point away from turning the corner and I killed her in exactly the same fashion.  The skunk has been returned to it's rightful place on top of the piano and all is as it should be.  Of course, my sister will be out for revenge and of course, anything can happen, but for the time being, the skunk is hers.

The final board:

The skunk back where it belongs:

If you want to see what my sister had to say when she won look here.  As for me, the tables have been turned.  That is all.

 

Shopping and Frog Juice and Other Diversions

This year's Christmas adventures began with a trip to College Station to pick up my mother and take her to Waco where we had a wedding to attend.  Mom had been back for a week and staying with my sister Rachel in Houston.  We had agreed to meet halfway, so that neither one of us had to drive excessively far in a single day.  The wedding was simple, but very lovely and followed by a trip back to College Station for the night.

Sunday was church and hang out in College Station, then Monday was the trek to Houston.  We had the afternoon and evening with just Rachel's family, then around 9:00 my sister Julie's family arrived.  There will be a few more on Christmas evening, but the stats at the moment are 6 children in the single digits (4 months to 9 years) and 6 adults.  The kids generally get along and there are enough people and activities that they are fairly content (although we are certainly not lacking in tantrums).  Rachel's new house is filled with air mattresses, toys and games (frog juice is a card game), and piles of shoes.  There is of course the occasional game of musical cars as teams are picked for the last minute shopping.  

I've already been called "Rachel" more times than I can count, especially by Julie's husband and the middle niece.  How often has she been called "Sarah?"  Zip.

So the last couple of days I've been immersed in the standard family meyhem, but I love seeing everyone again.  Even if they don't know who I am.

Evelyn

THIS JUST IN:  First time meeting the new niece :)

End of Semester 7

Hello.  Well, it seems that the longer I'm in school, the longer the days get, so I haven't been able to organize my thoughts in a while.  The end of my next-to-last-semester hit like a whirlwind, but there were some great times too.

In five days, I went to four Christmas parties, participated in strike, pulled an all nighter, and had a read-thru for The Seagull.

The Seagull is the next show I'm stage managing and will be my last at Baylor.  We just had the one rehearsal before the break then will hit it hard when we come back so that we'll be ready to open February 9.  The all-nighter was the result of my final sound project and happened (unfortunately) right before our theatre banquet.  

The banquet itself was pretty lame, but the company was good as always.

We stopped by my apartment to lounge for a bit before the after-banquet festivities began.  Anna went paparazzi for a while, then we tried taking pictures together.  We failed several times and ended with this one; not the most elegant, but somewhat picturesque and a pretty good

representation of our friendship :)

Not long after banquet the finals hit, which for me meant two days of essays and projects right on top of each other, then three days off before my last and favorite final.  This was my favorite test for two reasons.  1) I did the math and discovered that I needed a 35 on the test in order to make and A in the class and an 85 to make a 100 for the semester.  Let's just say I didn't lose any sleep over it.  2) The last question on the test was this:

One of Mr. Farris' [our professor's] favorite composers is...
A) Haydn

What more can you ask for?  So with that excruciating test out of the way, I spent the rest of the week cleaning, lounging, hanging out, shopping, and all around spending some rare quality time with the roommate until this past Saturday.  But that's a whole different story.

Black Friday

I have never intentionally participated in a Black Friday and certainly not in the madness waking up at 4am to shove my way through too many people in too small a space.  But midnight--that's a different matter.

This Thanksgiving we heard of a nearby outlet mall that was opening at 12am (actually, some stores opened as early as 10pm).  My sister, Rachel, and sister-in-law, Snow, and I tossed it around for so long that it finally became absolutely necessary for us to check it out.  If it was awful we could leave without putting much of a dent in our schedule and say to each other "remember that time we tried Black Friday and it was a bad idea..." which is of course preferable to that nagging question of "what if?"  We left just before 4am.  

We didn't cover a lot of ground, we didn't buy a whole lot, but we walked out quite pleased with ourselves.  We each left with a few useful purchases and a few indulgances and many laughs over the ridiculous situation and some outrageous merchandise.  One of the best laughs came from our photo booth experience.  Rachel and I had never used one, so we decided that it was high-time we did.  We barely managed to squeeze in -- Snow actually poked her head in from outside the booth -- and took our awkward pictures.  Then we used my camera to take a picture of us outside the booth and it turned out to be more epic than the one inside the booth.  Oh well.  It was still an extremely worthwhile first photo booth experience.

So...remember that time we tried Black Friday and it was legendary?  

A snapshot of our photo booth pictures.

Post-photo booth snapshot.

Leaving.  My camera unfortunately only has a date stamp, not a time stamp, but notice that it is the day after Thanksgiving.  Also, notice that Rachel and I are sporting hats that were not in the previous pictures.

   

Frolicking In the Mud

(The sequel to Singing in the Rain)

Also known as Fall Break Pt. 2.  One of the reasons we wanted to revisit Mary Poppins in Houston instead of Dallas is because we had been planning for a month or two to go to a Pumpkin Patch in West.  The long-awaited adventure came after a full week of deluge and five of us made our way to the Pumpkin Patch.  Most anticipated and worthwhile was the corn maze, we split ways early on (my group finding the first dead end) and came to the place where there were three options and three of us.  We decided to each take a path and play Marco Polo to find each other again.  Forget Marco Polo in the pool, the game should only be played in a corn maze.  It was AWESOME.  There were a few other fall activites that we took advantage of -- hayride, rubber duck races, a corn cannon, and a cow train.  

We left for a Dairy Queen dinner then came back after it was dark for a Haunted House which also turned out to be in a cornfield.  Mostly the scariest part of the Haunted House was the mud that we were getting stuck in (Lauren lost one of her shoes for a while) and could no longer see.  We passed an area with a bunch of fake gravestones, at least one of which read "R.I.P."  Cynthia asked what it meant, so we told her 'rest in peace' to which she said, "Oh, I always thought R.I.P. was a really famous dead guy."  The best part; however, was the chainsaw.  Anna had heard it before we went in and was already unhappy about then so when the chainsawer actually passed us, she screamed and ran backward, slipped in the mud, fell over, and pulled Lisa down on top of her.  I'm not sure that's the friend I want around in a dangerous situation.  For a simple family farm, we had a wonderful adventure in my very first pumpkin patch.

The parting of ways at the first crossroads.

Anna had a sausage dog.  As a pig, I find that absolutely scandalous.

The cow train :)

Practically Perfect in Every Way

...or every once in a while.

Fall Break is a random day off in the fall -- but just one.  We all agree that the label is a bit of a misnomer, but a day off is a day off.  For the first evening of Fall Break this year I went with two friends (one fellow stage manager and one actor) to see Mary Poppins in Dallas.  It was not the best adaptation as Mary became unlikeable and the mother, the only character without depth in the movie, became the only character with depth in the play with the exception of Bert who was just as charming as ever.  The production however is filled to the brim with what we call "flash-and-trash" -- essentially a lot of technical tricks and treats with only a fluffy plot to support it.

After the show, we went to the stage door and asked for one of the stage managers.  We chatted with him for a while and asked if we could see the arrangement backstage.  We mentioned that we could come to Houston and he invited us to meet them there and watch a full show from backstage.  

Two weeks later, Cynthia and I ventured to Houston, stopped by my sister's, went to my nephew's t-ball game, then made our way to the Hobby Center.  Both of us sat on headset the entire time and I spent the first act sitting stage left behind the stage manager who was calling the show.  I looked over his shoulder at the calling book and he showed me the screens he watched from a deck of TV monitors that he used to call his cues.  For the second act, Cynthia sat there while I shadowed the stage manager stage right.  He took me through all the checks he has to perform and he showed me a lot of the mechanics for what happens stage right.  In fact, I stood on stage (behind the nursery) during one of the songs.

It was a priceless experience, following the professionals, asking questions, and seeing what it's really like backstage (not that different than us except much more high-tech).  So while the plot may not have been what I was looking for, my Mary Poppins excursion was practically perfect in every way. 

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Alana!  Hope it was colorful!

Kaylee.2

She's back!!  After about three weeks of not seeing Kaylee again, Christina and I assumed that she had moved on and wouldn't be coming back even though we fed her.  Last week I heard a few isolated meows that sounded like her, but never saw the cat that made them.  This Tuesday Christina ran into Kaylee in the parking, gave her a bit of loving, then instead of following, Kaylee actually led Christina to the door of our apartment and invited herself into our apartment.  She is adorable and as precious as ever, and has made the conscious decision to stay with us.  She never bolts for the door like she used to, but lazily watches us come in and spends hardly any time in the windows even though they were her favorite haunts last time.  Unfortunately, Christina and I are met with the same predicament that we cannot keep her past this year.  Know anyone who's looking for an extremely loving and easy to care for cat? 

Kaylee

This is an old story, but certainly one worth sharing.  On the first of the month I was dropping off my rent check and right by the door was a gorgeous cat begging for attention.  She had a collar, so I gave her a bit of loving.  She was very unhappy when I had to leave and followed me to the mailbox.  When she followed me back to my apartment what else was I supposed to do, but feed her and love her?

My roommate was home at the time, so we made the mutual desicion to try to find her owner and therefore take her in for a few days so that we would have custody of her if she was claimed.  We bought the stuff she needed to be temporarily adopted, named her Kaylee after the character in Firefly, and made the posters, but when we went to put them up one of the office ladies said that Kaylee had turned up around Easter and had been practically living on her back porch.  The search then turned to a new owner since Christina and I both didn't have a place for her after this year.

Kaylee's a very vocal cat and will let you know when she is unhappy, for example if you come home but don't pay attention to her right away.  Or if you cook and don't share with her.  Or if you leave.  Fortunately, she's a sucker for loving and you can pet her for a while to make her forgive you.  She's odd for a cat in that anytime you want to pet her she will accept it gladly.  Kaylee certainly ruled the household from the moment she came in, although we did not allow her to scratch the furniture.  

Unfortunately, having spent so much time outdoors, she wasn't fond of being cooped up.  We would let her out on the balcony every now and then so that she could be outside and almost a week after she followed me home, she made the jump and we haven't seen her since.  So for five days, Christina and I were the happy owners of spunky and extremely lovable cat named Kaylee.

Photo Hunter: Anything Goes

The theme is Anything Goes.

Anything Goes is a musical by Cole Porter.

Cole Porter is mentioned adoringly by the Man in Chair in Drowsy Chaperone.

Drowsy Chaperone is a spin off of that era's musicals.

Musicals are bright and fun and I just finished uploading all of my pictures for Drowsy Chaperone which is in the style of Anything Goes.

How's that for a train of thought?

"I don't wanna show off"

An airship!

Photo Hunter

Photo Hunter: Sports

I don't like sports.  I am terribly unathletic and don't see much point in all the hype given to athletes.  However, under the influence of friends and family I have come into a recent appreciation for softball/baseball/t-ball.  It certainly helps if you know the players personally and can shout intelligent phrases; plus, it is a good excuse to be outside for a while -- a luxary hardly granted to a theatre student.  That being said, here is my ode to sports:

My nephew's first t-ball game...

My high school friend, Courtney Oberg, playing for Baylor...

Stuck

Early last Tuesday morning I was awakened by my roommate after she discovered  that her car battery had died.  I agreed to jump start her car after class and went back to sleep.  Eleven o'clock and done for the day I returned home for a quick jump start and thus the adventure begins.

First of all, my car is designed terribly.  Here's a visual aide:

This is a sideways (don't ask me, ask blogger) picture of my battery with the positive terminal clearly marked.  What is missing?  That's right, the negative terminal.  Against my better hopes, I pulled out the car's instruction manual in hopes of locating the hidden terminal.  I was told that it was "a bolt under the metal part on the driver's side in front of the radiator marked with the letters GND."  Great!  What's a radiator?  After about fifteen minutes of me peering into the depths of the engine compartment, Christina and I switched places and I realized that I had been leaning over the sticker that marked the bolt hidden under a scrap of metal whose only purpose was to hide this bolt the whole time.  Here is a visual of how far away the negative terminal is from the acutal battery:

The positive terminal is the red bit at the top of the picture and the negative is under the discoloration on the bottom edge of the picture.  After we had overcome the poor design of my engine, Christina's car was easily started.

Round two began when she did not have enough time to drive around and let the battery rejuvinate itself and got stuck at Office Depot.  On an errand of my own, I wasn't far away and met her there.  We started her car up again without a fuss and since I had a slightly more fluid schedule I offered to switch vehicles so that it could run like it needed to.  Christina gratefully agreed and we went our seperate ways.

Far from the reaches of campus, I was stopped at a traffic light, about four cars back.  The engine began to sputter and I just knew that Christina's car was going to give out again.  I tried to save it, but there was no hope.  The next step was to locate the hazard lights and turn them on, then put it in park.  Not long after I realized that I couldn't push the gear shift past neutral, I realized that the hazards weren't working.  The battery was that dead.  

Christina was far away, but immediately turned in my direction when I called, then I called my sister to see if there was anything else I could do.  Meanwhile, I was stuck at a traffic light with my foot stuck to the brake, no efficient way to alert people of my troubles, and a gas station so close that I could almost touch it but could not hope to reach it.  A godsend in the form of two guys appeared saying, "We want to push your car into the gas station, is this okay?"  I told them that, yes, indeed, I would allow them to take me out of the middle of the road.  They stopped traffic and pushed me in and were back on the road before I had a chance to say thank you.  Christina fortunately had AAA and was able to sit out the last bit of the day getting the battery replaced.  Now I rejoice when I see that her car has changed spaces since it means that it has left one location and has successfully returned to the apartment.  

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Shery! Hope it was beautiful.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Miguel!  Hope it was so much fun!

Three Visually Adept Mice

Not long before making my way back to my Waco apartment, I recieved a text message from my roommate reading, "Can I get a hamster?"  This was of course puzzling because we already have a mouse.  Our Jasper is endearing, but it didn't seem important to have another rodent.

Still, mice are social creatures and thrive when they have company.  As it turns out, we had mistakenly decided the gender and Jasper is a girl, therefore Jasper can have mouse companions without the fear of mice babies.  Therefore, Christina bought two more mice rather than a hamster.  The initial integration did not work well and one of the mice escaped on the first day.  So when I got home there was black-and-white Jasper in one cage and brown-and-white Emma in the other and the rumor of Dodger.

I was beginning to believe that Dodger had made it to a world beyond our apartment when Christina found some chewed up bits of foil that we have wrapped around our burners.  We proceeded to find an increasing trail of evidence around the kitchen.  I began to mark the trail with crime scene numbers and fortunately, only one bag of chocolate chips were compromised.  For about a week, this is all I knew of Dodger:

Then, the trail went cold for two whole days.  When I finally believed that the poor creature had crawled into the trash and I had thrown her in the dumpster, I recieved a text message from Christina saying, "I'm going to be as artful as possible when I say I've managed to dodge any future theft of my chocolate."  She had found the prodgical mouse under the vaccum cleaner (which I had just put away only a few hours before) which is stored in the bathroom, a good distance from the kitchen in mouse terms.  There was much rejoicing in the retrieval of our pet and the loss of an unattended rodent.

About a week later, we decided to try to integrate Jasper with the rest of the mice again.  Christina had read that we needed to put some vanilla on them so that they would all smell the same -- a neutral smell.  We put it on a little thicker than we meant to, so they seemed to be more preoccupied with getting the vanilla off than fighting each other, but it worked.  The three are now the best of friends and safely contained.  The end.

Photos: Top, Emma - our spastic blonde bombshell.  Bottom, Dodger - our independent brown-coat.

Photo Hunter: Orange

A few days ago, I went to Chili's with some friends of mine and somewhere along the way, Anna decided to carry Carissa there.  They decided to stop and smell the flowers by one of the dorms and Anna had to drop her in the grass.  It was however a great moment for picture taking that led right into an hour of laughter.  The whole event was just fun and conveniently enough for today, Carissa looks striking in her orange shirt.

Photo Hunter

Week 1.5

10 days into rehearsal; 8 days into class.

First run through of the show? check

First English book read? check

First scene written? check

First all nighter? ain't happened yet, baby!

I will fill in the blanks sometime not tonight or I might have to change my last answer :)

Austin Roadside

I'll keep my eyes open, but I'm not sure what I'm going to see...

Happy BIRTH-day!

Happy birthday, Evelyn! Here's to a child that managed to show up even Alana in dramatics (for the time being at least) by drawing out the labor process as long as possible then choosing to be born on the side of the road. And here's to Jules for sustaining such peculiarities! Congratulations to the whole family!

Last First

As I saw on someone's facebook, "Today is the last first day of school."  I overestimated my alarm (okay, I set my alarm for what it's going to be later in the semeseter when I need the snooze more) so I'm killing time before my first class, music appreciation.  I have only two project based classes this semester and only one show, which is roughly a third of the schedule I'm used to keeping so I'm hopeful that I'll have a lot more time to go adventuring.

It's been the perfect lead-in to the year and it's been wonderful to see people.  It feels so good to be back among the people that I have learned to love over the past three years, with voices that I can automatically recognize around the corner and jokes that we share so easily.  I want to milk it this year more than any other and find a way to be with them more and more, to make the get togethers happen as opposed to just saying, "someday, we'll have a tea party..." "someday..."  I also have a scheme in motion to get together with my few outside theatre friends.  These plans are so much more difficult to achieve since we don't inherently know each other's schedules.  With luck, our schedules will line up enough for once a week.

Anyway, the time went quickly and I have to move on.  I hope you all have a wonderful day like any other while I go make the most of my last first day.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Naomi! Hope it has been beautiful!

Tea for Two and Ten for Tea

The concept entered my mind two or three years ago -- let's have a tea party so that we can get dolled up with sundress and ridiculous hats -- but the execution was always down the road for me.  About a month ago, two of my friends excitedly told me about their recent purchase of antique hats and their desire to use them for a tea party.  Finally, the right stimulus was provided for me to decide to put this thing into action!  I also had a roll of 35mm black and white film that I wanted to use and had thought to take out a group of girls to Cameron Park, a lovely little pocket of Waco, to use up the film.  Since tea party attire seemed appropriate for a black and white photo shoot, I decided to combine the two events into one grand adventure for this past Thursday.

The day was a tremendous success.  My friend, Victoria, co-hosted and came over early.  She miraculously put curls into my hair and helped me make sandwiches.  The tea setting was a hodge-podge of dainty-ish cups and random serving pieces that somehow ended up in a relatively uniform blue and white theme, with a variety of interesting shapes and levels.  We squeezed around my table and had ourselves a good time.  The photo shoot also went very well.  There were only five of us by that time, but we went to a random little piece of Cameron Park called "Miss Nellie's Pretty Place" which has a fountain and some steps and presumably in the spring a lot of flowers.  We had a blast playing in the fountain, snapping pictures all the while.  Afterward, we decided we were hungry for real(ish) food and went to Chick Fil A, still dolled up in our tea party best (but without the hats).  All in all, I couldn't ask for a better way to start the school year, particularly my senior year.  Here is a slideshow of some of my favorite pictures from the day.  Enjoy! 

There's a First Time for Everything

This summer I had access to a wonderfully large kitchen, so I spent lots of time practicing my skills and making dishes that I have never made before.  Among these firsts were hash browns, cabanara, grilled cheese, and meatballs.  I am pleased to report that 3/4 of these experiments could be considered a success.

While my sister-in-law mentored me in the creation of the meatballs, my brother called in from vacation.  She kept mentioning that the meatballs were very big so I made a special meatball just for her:

 Now I'm back home with a claustrophobic kitchen, but am armed with an arsenal of yummy new dishes...especially full-sized meatballs.

Transitioning

I'm officially back in Waco!  I had a wonderful summer with the bro and sis-in-law with a very interesting show and a ridiculous job.  My room is half and half -- half prettiful and clean since the first thing I did was dust and half overflowing with suitcases and random items of varying usefulness.  Tomorrow is the big shopping/unpacking/reorganizing/cleaning/recycling day then I dive right into gatherings and the next project, The Drowsy Chaperone. 

So, 'Hello.'  It is my hope to post a few things tomorrow, but if that plan should go awry, here's checking in.  Happy New School Year.  

Photo Hunter: Artificial

What a nice theme, this should be simple, right?  Nope.  As I look through, I find plenty of pictures that are genuine or legit, but not so much artificial.  Still, pushing on I am pleased to present a pair of pictures from a little fruit stand in Hong Kong.  

These were taken looking over the rail of the Mid-Levels escalator -- the World's Longest Series of Outdoor Escalators.  The title itself is certainly not artificial, but I do have to wonder how much competition there is for it.  Anyway, I loved the colors in the market and how the yellow isolation brought out the woman's magnficant yellow jacket and how the green brought out the very interesting roofline that does not catch the eye in any other picture.  Without further ado, the Mid-Levels fruit stand with incomplete (therefore artificial) coloring.

And for fun, I also came across the picture of this dog from Thailand, whose ears were given artificial coloring.

Photo Hunter

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Rachel!  I hope it's a blast!  (figuratively, as well as literally...break a leg!)

Photo Hunter: Low

My niece at Christmas three years ago.  (Note: puffins = pumpkin muffins)

'Putting the puffins out of my reach?  That's just low!'

Photo Hunter

Help a Friend Help a Friend!

Hello!  I have two friends right now (Joey Melcher and Victoria Eisele) that are in a contest to win a walk-on role in a TV show.  The first part of the contest is pure popularity - get enough votes to get into the top 10 girls or top 10 boys out of nearly 2000!  The second part will be judged by the company on the appropriateness of their picture.  I don't know anyone more deserving than these two.  Joey just graduated last year and is struggling to find work as an actor and having this on his resume, even as a walk-on will certainly help!

It doesn't take long, so please pop on over and give my friends five-stars each!

http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/photos/view/698

http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/photos/view/611

You cannot vote more than once in a day, but you are allowed to vote every day until August 12, so if you remember you can give them a boost again!  Tell your friends; any help is appreciated.  Thanks!!

'That Was Wild!'

Do you ever have those days when you're shopping where you want to find the most outrageous things and try them on? I picked up the bug yesterday while I was in Target with my sister-in-law and ended up spending more time embarassing her than helping her. However, I think you will agree that the fabulous pictures I obtained was worth it. And as Shery declared, "That was wild!" I thought this was a fair assessment since most of the items were animal themed.

The hat that started it all. Adorable!

How can you resist when you're looking into those eyes?

Best. Sweater. Ever.

Isn't this the most fabulous purse? From the sleek length, classy coloring, and subtly decorated clasp it is certainly a keeper!

In this picture, the camera tried to protect us from the true color of the lining. Instead of a complimentary blue, it was a perfect purple -- quite an atrocious match. :/

Photo Hunter: Utensils

Utensil:
1 : an implement, instrument, or vessel used in a household and especially a kitchen
2 : a useful tool or implement
(courtesy of merriamwebster.com)

What luck!  I have a picture of a single object that fits both definitions of utensil, from one of my scenic projects last semester.

Also, need a writing utensil?  Another result of a scenic project...

Photo Hunter