Ultimate Supreme Dictator

Today was a slice of fantastic covered in wonderfulness with a side of amazing! I had so much fun! I got to have lunch with my wonderful theater friends today and we enjoyed taking over Minsky's...even though there were only three of us. Especially because there were only three of us! Jason and the girls are on a father-daughter camping trip tonight so I decided to go get into some mischief. A local arts foundation is doing a sports-themed installation in a gallery downtown, and tonight's event was CALVINBALL. If you don't know what that is, do yourself a favor and read every panel of every Calvin and Hobbes cartoon ever made. Basically, I was in a room with a bunch of people and a bunch of sporting equipment and we made up the rules as we went along. The best game we made up (in my opininon) was a kind of plastic cup lacrosse game in which the person who caught a bouncy ball in their plastic cup got to tell the person of their choosing what to do. One guy made his friend call his grandmother. It was so great! After that I went to a Rock Band party with some improv friends. Sweet!

Brictocentric

I seem to be featuring Bri a lot these days...or at least the past two. But it's only right that she gets center stage tonight, since her class put on a musical tonight! There is nothing funnier in this world than watching parents react to a hundred five year olds trying to execute simple coreography while singing 'Old MacDonald had a Farm.' Seriously, at one point, the kids all clasped their hands under their chins and tilted their heads to the side and the entire auditorium went, "Awwwwwww!" It was too funny. Especially when Bri got to the car and her first remark was, "Some of my friends thought it was embarrassing to be in the show." I asked if she was embarrassed, and in her supremely confident way she said, "Nope." Oh, and the musical theme was 'A Day in the Country.' Bri chose her outfit without any help. She insisted. With all the pink she wears on a regular basis, I have to wonder what her teacher thought when she rolled into the classroom looking like a creative marketing technique for a new Pepto Bismal safety cap.

Suitcases of memories

One of the PK's at our church was celebrating his sixth birthday today (although look at him you'd think he was turning 8! The kid is a gentle giant!) so there was cake and root beer floats for all. There were also party hats, so naturally, I wore one around all evening. I would have put the picture of me sporting a hat on here but......well..........yeah. I had a great day today, too. I was just busy enough to have zero bored time, but I got to enjoy myself as well. I also got caught up with a ton of homework today. Since finals are approaching (fast) I have very few assignments left to complete (relatively speaking) and it's all becoming very manageable. Hooray!

Der Schlüssel des Autos.

Yeah, so I got a decent car today. What did you do?

Where's Jess?

It's time once again for another round of THUNDERDOME!!! We are going into the sixth season now and this will be my fourth time participating. Jared decided to use the 'draft' technique again, so names were drawn out of a bag and placed on teams randomly. I have a great team (Joe is in it, yay!) and I can't wait to get to playin'....which won't be for a while since this round doesn't officially start until July. Cool beans, though! I am very much looking forward to it!

Nyeah, nyeah!

If you click on the picture and enlarge it you will see Tom making a face at Leigha through the window of his car. She was making them right back, just like I told her to. Project Improv rehearsed this afternoon, woo! We had a little extra time after running the longform so we played some circle games, which was a lot of fun. We played a really neat one called 'Ninja' that was a lot of fun. I can't wait to play it again!

You're drowning in the river!

I had a meeting this morning for the Kansas City Improv Festival. It was a rainy day so it was nice to be in a coffee shop. Mmm.....coffee and improv....planning. Not quite as good as the real thing, but I love being a part of the process. Jason and I felt like getting out of the house on the lovely rainy day, however, so we decided to just kind of get in the car and see where the wind took us. We ended up going to Bass Pro Shop and walking around for a bit at one point. Sometimes I swear those kind of stores are meant to traumatize people...they have a lot of taxidermied animals all over the place, and this particular store had a prominently displayed black bear descending, claws and teeth a blazin', upon a hapless stuffed deer. Nice. Real nice. I get ironic amusement out of such places because they are so foreign to me. "Huh, huh, camo? In pink? What will they think of next!" This evening my friend Austin had a 'jam party' at her place, so I went over after the theater stuff and her friends played accoustic guitars while we all sang and harmonized and such....it was really relaxing. Mmmmmmmm......music. As good as the real thing.

A date to remember

I'd like to begin this post by giving a shoutout to my closet for always being there for me in times of need...I started the evening by thinking to myself, "Well...I feel retro today." Then realizing that most of my retro-style clothing was either A. worn recently or B. wool with long sleeves and such. Much too warm for a humid late April night. So I scavenged. I threw myself head first into the abyss of clothing and tried on about ten different combinations before I found...the ONE. And I do think it's a keeper. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention and by golly if she didn't birth one adorable fashion baby tonight!

Laydeez night!

Tonight was the opening night of the school's production of 'Antigone' so me and my girlie crew saddled up and went out together! That's me, Austin, Stephanie, Corin, and Corin's best friend (Lauren?). It's so much fun to be an acting student and go to the plays, we all tend to sit in the front row and you can hear people behind you reacting to something someone on stage did that's funny to us personally because we know the actor. Good stuff! Austin and I went to Steak and Shake after with some of the other acting students and crew members, and she got cold but her jacket was in the car, so she pretended to storm off like she was mad at me, and I was saying, "No, wait! I didn't mean to say that about your mom, I swear!" And when I turned back everyone at the table was STARING at me. I had to say, "Guys, we're messing around." Everyone laughed. Sometimes you forget that being an actor means you're extra convincing when you play around like that.

Break (for) me

If you don't like the blog picture for the day, feel free to blame my dad. (Ha! That's for making me wear braces!) Between classes and homework I was able to squeeze in two long distance phone calls today, one of them to my parents. With as busy as I am lately, I haven't been keeping in touch the way I would like to. Luckily, they aren't the passive aggressive types who file missing persons reports and circulate my picture to milk companies. Thanks, guys!

My sand is much too sandwich

Today was one of those days where I swear I lived in my car. I had school through the afternoon (2 tests! Back to back! Yay!) then did homework (Yay!) during my hour long respite before saddling the girls up. Leigha had her first softball practice this evening, but it overlapped Girl Scouts by half an hour, the activities plus drive time totaling about three hours, which spanned from the earliest acceptable dinner time straight to bed time. So I drove Leigha to softball practice, got her out early, made them eat sandwiches in the car as they put on their GS sashes, then dropped them off at Girl Scouts. I got myself some dinner while doing additional homework, then picked them up and stuck them in bed. So I could do more homework.

What news of the outside?

Dear outside world...

If you are reading this, then perhaps there is hope for me yet. A large and scary homework monster has been stalking me for several weeks and at this present time, I fear it has the better of me. But fear not, for as long as there are two working brain cells rattling around inside this cavernous skull of mine, I shall fight him off with what waning strength I posses. For now, I only ask that you send me good wishes...and pizza.

Yours,

Jess

Oh, it's THAT kind of day!

I sang in church this morning. While we were practicing before the service, Charlotte was setting up offering and enlisted the help of two young girl scouts. Nice. Brianna has a gold mustache. I had a pretty decent day. I could use a little less homework in my life right now, but the semester will be over in about a month, so either way it's going to stop before too long here. On the plus side I had Project Improv rehearsal and watched some MST3K this evening too. Score!

Speaking of Sharpies...

Yet another example of how a Sharpie in your purse can be very useful! There's a great eatery in Kansas City that has good-natured graffiti all over the walls and tables. I went there today for lunch and decided that I needed to make a contribution in the form of my own stamp on the local society. This is a given nickname that I go by sometimes. I was feeling incredibly sparkly this afternoon so I decided to go with it. Can you find my siggy? Let me know if you ever see it!

Milk good!

After a week straight of 6 hours of homework every night, I needed to blow off a little steam! Finals week is swiftly approaching. Luckily, my friend Corin was up for hanging out, so we went to a karaoke place. No, we didn't do a duet of 'Ebony and Ivory,' why do you ask? The place was awesome, too! It was full of people who didn't really want to do karaoke but were totally up for listening to it, and I got to go up three times in the course of an hour! Sweet! I'm just going to go ahead and give Jason a shoutout for being over the top incredible and understanding. I am pretty much the luckiest girl in the world!

Woolgather gender bender

My Acting 1 class is doing 'The Woolgatherer' this semester. We've been doing this thing where we all have 'stations' and all the girls play Rose and all the guys play Cliff. Today the teacher was gone but we still had to show up and work on our stuff. We had an uneven amount of girls and boys, however, so Hilary decided she'd rather play Cliff anyhow. After a while we noticed Justin was playing Cliff in a decidedly feminine manner, so we all decided they should switch roles and play the scene together. Nice.

This isn't the hammer

I don't ever remember this kid's name.......he's in my German class but he rarely comes, and never on time. Recently he broke his hand and got a cast put on. You can tell it was recent because this picture, taken today, has him wearing the cast. Pretty recent, if you ask me. So I saw the bare cast and told him, "Yeah....that's the saddest thing I've ever seen." Bare cast? It's like carrying a sad little sign around your neck that says 'nobody cares that I broke my hand.' So I reached into my purse for my Sharpie and promptly rectified the situation. Yes, I carry a Sharpie in my purse. Says a lot about who I am, doesn't it?

Vroom, pow, and other onomonopeia

This is one of my favorite mugs. I wish I had a real Vespa, and do plan to own one at some point in my life. For now, however, it holds the beverage I use for homework fuel...which is what I did today. Homework, that is. I filled up yesterday. Too bad I don't have a Vespa....it would have only been like $15. For the fuel, that is. Not the Vespa. I wish I had a Vespa.

No more sparkling.

I hate my car so so much. I was driving home this morning after my classes when my alternator just DIED. I knew it was going out, but I didn't know they could just kill the whole system like that...I thought once the car was running it would be fine until I got home. Unfortunately for me, while I was driving home my radio died. I had just thought, "Huh..........that's weird." Figured it was the battery, but since the car was running I thought if I kept going it would stay running until I turned the car off. I called Jason and let him know there was a problem. Just after that, my whole car went 'BAM!' And shuddered. I was going about 75 and it just shut down! I lurched to the right lane, thankfully traffic free. I called Jason once more to let him know to come get me. Thank goodness I married an aircraft mechanic. Alternators cost $150, but labor is EXPENSIVE! I'm so glad I have a guy who knows how to fix things! After we went to Auto Zone he was able to fix it within a couple hours and I drove my car home. Yay, Jason! I'm so glad it didn't rain today!

I'm a beautiful butterfly

Volleyball wasn't embarrassing enough for me, so I decided it would be fun to join a softball team. Now, like I said, v-ball is something I've done off and on my whole life. Softball and/or baseball isn't something I've done since I was last forced to play in a PE class. So........yeah, in high school I didn't have PE my senior or junior years, and my sophomore year I took swimming and health, so the last time I've played softball and/or baseball would have been during lifetime sports my freshman year of high school in (dare I say it?) 1996. Fourteen years ago. Yowza. Imagine my utter shock when I found myself able to catch and (AND!) hit the ball. Not well, but I did it! Sweet! I'm guessing my marginal v-ball skills I acquired contributed a significant portion to my success today in practice. Here's hoping!

This city, so pretty

KCXRC had a very VERY successful night tonight. Not only did we sell out, we had to put about fifteen people in chairs in the lobby! Sweeeeeet! It was the first time we've ever done a stand up showcase, and it went over very well! We had four stand up performers as well as about four improvisers trying out their stand up routines for the first time! One of the improvisers was Zak, and he did an amazing job! I was so proud that I was able to say, "Yup, I know him. He's in my troupe!" This afternoon I had a little bit of time before the show and I don't have the key to the theater, so I went for a little walk downtown and snapped a few shots of Kansas City in full Spring splendor. It was really nice! I love it here.

Three headed monster

Anomaly Orange (light) had a show in Harrisonville today. Zak, Matt and I met up at the coffee shop and warmed up. We had a massive crowd that made for an incredibly receptive and appreciative audience! It's always really cool to perform for people who don't get the chance to see improv all the time. They respond very positively to things a more jaded audience might ignore. The owner of the coffee shop was really cool, too. He made us all order food and drinks on the house before we left. Super yummy coffee, too! I can't wait to perform there again!

Like you mean it

We barbequed burgers at the house tonight. Mmmm! Jason made ranch dressing burgers. Sweet! Leigha decided to get a little goofy with the condiments.....that's about right. At least our DNA is pretty consistent about the type of personality it gives out. I had yet another day of homework eating me alive. At least this time I got to go to the library with my family. The end of the semester approaches and the pressure is on!

A sea of blossoms to cushion my fall. I have sprung.

A single tree on campus has flowered. Gorgeous. Reminds me of the cherry blossoms in DC this time of year. I spent most of my day at school. Classes, classes, and honors contracts. Bleah. I was so tired this evening. I did have something cool happen to me on campus this afternoon, however. I was walking through the main outdoor hangout where many of my young classmates hang out in this amazing Spring weather, and I happened to be with a couple friends. I heard my name called from across the way, and as I turned I saw a fellow acting student. "Hey! Jessica!......I love you!" I laughed aloud and replied, "Hey! I love you too!" Behind me I heard an indignant, "Hey! What about me? I thought you loved me!" Again I laughed as I replied to yet another acting student, "I do! I love you!" Next to me I heard a sharp gasp as my friend (yup, acting student.) say "What? I love you and I thought you loved me!" I raised my arms as I replied, "I do! I love you all!" And addressed the entire courtyard. I love theater students. I do have to wonder what all the 'normies' thought of such a spectacle. College=freakin' great!

Mad Plaid Skillz

Besides school and homework, the only thing I did today was play volleyball. On the plus side-my team made the playoffs. Minus-we lost the first game and we're done for the season. Bummersauce. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I wanted to get a picture of the team for the blog, but everyone departed swiftly from the game, so here are my differently colored Chucks. I would tell you I was trying to be cool, but that would be a lie. I just didn't feel like hunting for the matching one for either pair and they happened to be a right and left so..........yup. Don't say I'm not innovative!

It mus' be Monday.

Brianna is wearing six. SIX dresses in this picture. Wow. She was so proud of herself, too. She came downstairs all giggles and sunshine, dancing around and showing off her new layered look. She's unique, that's for sure. Jason made a huge mistake today...on Mondays he goes to Bri's class to volunteer during reading group time. Today was the first day he wore shorts on a Monday. If you're wondering why that's a big deal, let me rephrase that. Twenty five year olds in one room. Jason wearing shorts. Exposing his prosthetic leg. Wrap your brain around THAT. He said, "Yeah..........that was a mistake. I should have known better. Leigha was her usual self today, played with a friend and then worried about things a ten year old shouldn't worry about. "Make sure I have juice boxes, okay?" "It's on the list, kid, don't worry." "I know, but we're going to run out in a few days." As for me......I did homework.

Egg white. Get the yolk?

I had a friend take a serious picture of our family and a funny picture. The serious one made it in the blog........ (Bridge for sale. Takers?) We went to church where Jason and I made the music happen, and then we drove down to Sheila's. We had a fantastic dinner and hid an obscene amount of eggs for only two children. It takes them a LONG time to find them when you have a few acres of land to cover. After a while everyone was just like, "Hey, look where my toe is pointing! Oh wow, an egg!" Even the kids were tired of looking, I think. Oh well, it's better than the 'over in ten seconds' thing. Gorgeous day, too. Happy Easter, everyone!

Feathers, feathers everywhere!

Hippity hoppity

These are two perfect strangers I encountered in Westport today. What a great way to celebrate the season! Today brought our first thunderstorm of the season, hooray! All morning long it was rainy. I only had one class, however, so I got to spend the rest of today doing what I love-shopping! I found my Easter dress, yay! It's super cute. Can't wait to wear it Sunday!

Every day I love you less and less

Nothing special or clever here for April Fool's day. Why not go back to Google's front page for another laugh about the fact that they changed it to say "Topeka." Satisfied? Cool. Today was a blur of schoolness followed by homeness. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary happened to me today, although I was extra jumpy. I think that was the big cosmic joke of the day. I was ready for ANYTHING and got NOTHING. You win, April 1st..........good one.