Halloweekend: complete.

Finally, the big day. Happy Halloween, everyone! We finally got around to carving our pumpkins today. Jason and the girls decided to get some stencils and so cool designs, I decided to freehand my cool design. Ultimately, we ended up with a butterfly, a cat, a flaming guitar, and Pacman. If you know my family at all, it's pretty easy to figure out whose is whose, so I will allow your active mind to fill in the blanks. Leigha was Princess Leia, Brianna was a flying hot dog. They got a lot of comments as Jason took them trick or treating. Meanwhile, I put on my peacock costume and handed out candy, putting the finishing accessories on between roving gangs of small children asking for a handout. (Seriously, we accept this as a normal tradition and people flip because I sometimes wear bright green boots?) When the domination of our own neighborhood was complete, Jason went to work and I took the girls to Austin's. Her neighborhood barricades off a few streets and has a big Halloween block party every year. So much fun! After we came back to her house she treated us to cupcakes, pumpkin pie, cider, and hot chocolate. I really am spoiled to have such a lovely and considerate best friend like her!

Tinycups!

Dustin and Alanna invited us all over to their house for a game night tonight. We didn't really do a whole lot in the way of game playing, but we all enjoyed each others company a lot. During the course of the evening Alanna had to go to the store for something and the Starbucks in the grocery store had samples of some java chip iced beverage. Um, yes please. I also had my first show with Alternative NRG tonight, and it went really really well. Clint happened to be in town and he came to see us, which was a huge bonus! My favorite part of the show was when I got to play this horrifically rude human lady who was unapologetic about how supremely awful she was. Everyone kept setting me up to be terrible and I came back with, "Yup. You're right, I am disgusting, aren't I?" But the highest point for me during that scene was this little gem:

‎"You killed over my cat!"
"Ha ha, yeah, totally! Ran that little guy over, put the car in reverse and backed right over him again."
"Wha.....you're a monster!"
"Oh quit complaining, you got a perfectly good potholder out of the deal."

Baby's first

Chelly and Tiffany made plans to see Rocky Horror tonight, so I decided to tag along. We had a blast joining in with the rowdy crowd whose entire reason for going to the movie is to mock it. There was a live cast there as well, which was a lot of fun. We bought a prop bag so we could participate in the various interactive parts, such as ringing a bell, snapping rubber gloves, covering our heads with newspaper, and even chucking toilet paper at the screen. At one point everybody gets up and runs around the theater as well. So much fun!

Kick it into high gear!

I had a wonderful day. Acting class was hilarious, TJ showed up in his Halloween costume and then did a serious scene in it...his outfit being 'Blue haired police clown.' He had on highlighter yellow fuzzy legwarmers with bells tied to them! Awesome. At noon when I was done for the day Jason surprised me by showing up at the school and taking me out to lunch! It's his day off and he was in the area getting music for Leigha, who has decided to take up flute this year in the school band. It was fantastic, getting out during the middle of the day with no immediate deadline or babysitter to have to worry about. We had a blast, AND I received a glaringly insincere complement on my purple hair from a very straight laced woman. I swear I saw her twitch as the 'if you can't say something nice....' rule went through her head. I'm okay with people not liking my hair, even saying so. It's a bold choice, and bold choices aren't for everybody. But they ARE very much for me. I live in an age where I have the possibility of having purple hair...so why not? Obviously that's not a rule to live by as an all encompassing mantra, but hair grows out. If I can have fun with something temporary, why not? So I do. I finished Leigha's costume tonight (just in the nick of time for her to wear to school tomorrow!) and finished some accessories for mine, the bulk of my costume having been finished prior to this evening. While I sewed, Jason and I watched 'Sweeney Todd.' Yeep! So glad I was able to keep my eyes glued to my fabric during a few key points!

Wednesday morning fever

Austin came over this morning before school so we could do some Halloween costume tweaking. She brought me breakfast, sweet thing that she is! We had a blast trying different combinations out on her until we got just the right look. See the ties on her ankles? Those are attached to some leggings she's wearing. While she was trying to figure out the best way to tie them up, Spartacus was flipping out. "I want to BAT AT THOSE!!!!" It was hysterical watching him stalk her, not knowing exactly what to do with the situation at hand. "Oh man...it's one of the big people, what do I do?" I've been having a bit of the creeping crud lately. I'm fine during the day but in the late afternoon I just feel ZONKED. Hopefully I just need to sleep it off and rest up a bit more than I've been doing. Either way, it's kind of nice that I can sew while sitting on the couch. If I gotta be laid up at least I can finish up a ten year old's Princess Leia costume!

Making tracks, gathering momentum

I didn't realize this until I posted the picture, but look at Zak and Joey's practically mirror image postures and facial expressions here! That's good improv, people! I doubt they even realized what they were doing! That's really super swell. I had a wonderful day. My classes get out at noon on Tuesdays and Project Improv rehearsal isn't until three, meanwhile the kids are at school and Jason's asleep. What's a girl to do? So Sarah A. and I decided to go shopping in Westport since she was also free and didn't have to work until 3 as well. Convenience: She works at the school! We'd have been foolish NOT to. She showed me a cool hippie shop I had been previously ignorant of, and I showed her my favorite thrift store. We got some coffee and headed back. Lovely, just lovely! We had an abbreviated but very productive rehearsal with PI tonight, and it was power packed with massive quantities of FUN. I was home in time to spend a wonderful evening with the family and get some homework and costume sewing done. Hooraisin!

....Meanwhile, back in the board room

(We open on the same board room from my March post. There are subtle changes. Instead of a grease stained pink pastry box containing crumbs and half a bear claw, we see the camera pan to the end of the long table where the lumpy businessmen and women have gathered around their co-worker who has just blown out the candles on a large, unimaginative sheet cake. They halfheartedly cheer as they take off their degrading conical party hats and begrudgingly make their way back to their seats. Suddenly the large chair at the other end of the table swivels around to reveal the head executive, who was present but beneath our notice up until this time. His fingers are jammed into the fat fold that triples as a chin.)

"All right, now that we've finished our distraction for the afternoon...."

(The birthday girl lowers her eyes and slowly removes her party hat)

"We can get started."

(The table creaks as he lifts his enormous body and begins to pace the room, hands behind his back. His co-workers can't help but find their minds wandering to Kafka's 'Metamorphosis.')

"As you all know, in this time of economic downfall, our contract with Wal-Mart's department of confusing marketing has been cancelled. We are down, but not completely out. Thanks to my keen business acumen I have saved us all by signing supplementary contracts with various mall stores. This should keep us afloat until Wal-Mart has some kind of PR nightmare that requires our help to distract the public again. The first mall store to request our aid is Aldo. Thoughts?"

(silence permeates the room as the suits try to hide the fact that they are secretly eating cake under the table as he talks. We hear an exaggerated sigh from the same female who piped up last time)

"Sir...how quickly do we need to launch this campaign?"

(The boss half-turns from his hands-behind-his-back stance, interrupting his thoughtful gaze out the window as he imagined himself to be as dashing in real life as he is in his imagination, having watched one too many episodes of 30 Rock and mentally pasting his face over Alec Baldwin's.)

"Pretty quickly. We already have enough exposition and scene setting text to drown a horse here. And call me Jack."

"Uh....but, sir, your name is.........."

"I know what my name is. Call me Jack. Please."

(uncomfortable pause fills the room)

"Okay........JACK. Since you want this done fast, stay with me here. Aldo sells shoes. Right?"

(All heads in the room swivel in the boss.......er.....Jack's direction.)

"Correct."

(The heads snap back toward the speaker)

"What do shoes make you think of?"

(Heads swivel back toward Jack)

"What? Clowns! Obviously! That's brilliant, we'll put clown shoes on a mannequin and put it in the window! Perfect!"

(A shuffle as everyone prepares to do just that.)

"No, no no. That's not it at all." (everyone resumes their seats) What we need to do is make people THINK about clowns without being blatant. Because everyone knows when you think of clowns you think of shoes, it's a transparent market strategy."

"You're right........so what's the plan?"

"Well, the opposite of clown shoes is pointy stilettos. So.....what if we did that? And legs. Just legs."

"Hmmmm........I don't think I like that. It's TOO radically different. We need to have SOMETHING in this plan that makes them think of clowns, or else how are we going to sell shoes?"

"That's just it....the legs are upside down.........."

(pregnant, breathless pause)

"In a pile of BALLOOONS! And what's more, there are inflatable guitars in there too!"

(A flurry of excitement as the businessmen agree and we hear little sound bites of conversation such as, "Let's not even buy new balloons, let's look through the promotional drawer of free crap that clients send us with their logos printed on them!" and "I sure do miss my 401k.....")

"I love it! Let's do it! Meeting adjourned!"

(The room empties quickly as all the businesspeople stampede toward the door, the vision clear in each of their minds. As the camera pans back across the room we see papers float gently to the ground as we zoom in toward the end of the table where the birthday girl has taken the remains of her cake onto the floor and is stabbing at it with a fork, her hair disheveled and a wild gleam in her eye.)

"Happy birthday to ME..........."

My side of the wall

I had bought a bunch of red plastic cups for my party because, let's face it, if it's not a child's birthday (with themed cups bearing the images of cartoon characters) or a dinner/hot beverage gathering, you need red plastic cups or it's not a party. I cleaned up most of the mess last night and left out the stack of unused cups. Brianna took that as an invitation to build herself a pyramid. Amazing how nobody has to instruct us to construct sculptures out of garbage, it's almost an instinct. Yet somehow, serious recycling seems to be a relatively novel concept. Lamesauce.

Forever Young

I had a busy day today. A workshop at the school, a (condensed for my part) Brazilian dance demonstration with Austin after, and then I came home and spent time with the family before making party preparations for the evening. It's been a while since I've had people over so I invited a group of school friends to come. Austin and Chad were absolute troupers, staying from start to finish! Thanks, guys! Also, Austin made creative use of Brianna's tutu skirt. She said, "I don't think Bri will mind..." before proceeding to run around the room with it like it was a scarf in a bullfight, then modeling it as hair. Very cute! We were all very lucky around the middle of the night when a local sports field started lighting off a ton of fireworks for the end of the season and my back deck provided the perfect viewpoint! Beautiful. A very enjoyable evening with a gaggle of wonderful people. Absolute perfection.

The downpour

I have a ton of just lovely people in my life. I really do! This evening I had the fortune to be able to hang out with some of them in Westport. That's Sarah L. in the picture, she's Matt F.'s girlfriend. We had a blast hanging out and doing really stupid little dance moves to the music that was playing. The floor was all wet with rain that people had tracked in, so that made it interesting. While we were chillaxin' a group of theater friends from school showed up and we merged factions, which was a blast! So great to see everyone!

I am not left-handed!

The girls had a half day at school today, I have two tests tomorrow while they have no school at all. I think I'll play the cymbals as I walk out the door screaming the national anthem while riding a horse with cowbells tied to his every hair. At any rate, since I am studying and had no time for food-makings since the only break I allowed myself was used for grocery shopping, we decided to eat out. An employee was wiping down our tables and offered to get us refills if we could just take our straws and lids out of the cuffs, so naturally Jason and I decided to use that time for sheer productivity. En Garde!

Start wearing purple, wearing purple!

Even when my life is not-so-good, it's pretty rad. I had a rough patch today, but you know what? Austin was so right there for me, sweet thing that she is. And then I came home and Jason was right there for me. And then Zak texted me and he was right there for me too. And then Matt F. Facebook chatted with me and was right there as well. I am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful support network to count on. When one thing went wrong today, I had four amazing people to help me out, making me three ahead if my math holds............(question mark) Austin wins the blog shot today, though, because A. she let me keep my lunch leftovers in the fridge at her office area (she works on my campus) and B. isn't she adorable? We had parent-teacher conferences for the girls this afternoon. Bri has one teacher (who says she's great academically, needs to focus more, and she's a really funny little thing) and Leigha has several (who all say she does well but they think she can do better if she applies herself) so it was interesting. At least they didn't pull out large disciplinary files and sigh heavily when I walked in the room....or worse, just laugh and shake their heads. I can only imagine that's what my mom had to go through with my teachers.

Lucid dreams

I started my Halloween costume this evening! Any guesses?

Blergh...

All that running around caused the tireds to catch up with me today. Did my schooly stuff and made an awesome dinner in which I did NOT almost poison my family because I definitely DID check the expiration date on the meat WELL BEFORE I put it into the oven to fully cook and make the house smell wonderful. And if I did, well, at least I caught on BEFORE I popped a piece into my mouth and spit it back out.

Puns of steel

We woke up in Chicago this morning, went to the airport, and flew home. *Whew!* It looks like such a quick trip when I go back through the pictures, but I feel like I've been gone forever! Since we were already in the part of town that has a ton of pumpkin patches, we swung by a farm on our way home to pick some out. We let the girls each get a small one (for Rosalina the babydoll and Spartacus, naturally) and each member of the family got one as well. When we did finallly get back to our own doorstep, my package of Tastykakes was waiting for me. Home SWEET home!

Maine Lobstah....Wicked Good.

We got up bright and early and pointed the rental car Northeast, driving up the coast of New Hampshire. (Yeah. Check the map.) We left the highway and traveled along a local road that wound its way right along the shoreline. We paused at one point to dip our toes in the freezing cold waters of the Atlantic. The shore was all rocks, but due to the tumbling of the waves they were polished smooth! As the water pulled back from the beach you could hear the rocks clacking against one another. Sounded like a chorus of ten thousand castanets! The leaves, of course, were gorgeous. Like fireworks in the daytime. (If you're my Facebook friend and want to see them, I posted a ton on my profile.) We entered Maine and stopped at a cute little place right on the water. I got a lobster for lunch, named him Charlie, then ate him. Yummmm! We took a very similar trip to this one when I was a kid and my mom got a lobster and allowed me to keep the claws (which I had for years!) so I gave the claws to the girls. After lunch we headed back into New Hampshire and caught a flight out of Manchester and into Chicago, where we stayed overnight. Maine lobster for lunch, Giordano's Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner. Lucky lucky me!

Haunting history

Woke up in Philly and had breakfast at the hotel, boarded our plane and headed to Manchester, New Hampshire in the middle of a Nor'-Easter! Yikes, that was bumpy! The flight was so early and short that when we got to the airport we took about half an hour renting the car, then spent another 45 minutes driving to our hotel. When we checked in, they were serving breakfast still. That was an intensely eerie feeling. "But....wait, we just came from four states away and they were serving hotel breakfast when we left!" After checking in (awesome staff! They let us check in at 9:30am!) we went to Salem, Massachusetts, home of the infamous witch trials! That's me in the graveyard/witch trial memorial site. I thought it would be cool to do some black and white shots and have some fun with it. Cool town! And it's October, so there was a lot going on, including a street fair! We left Salem after a while and headed into Boston, where we toured the USS Constitution and went around town seeing the sights and such. After getting stuck in a bit of rush hour traffic on the way out of town we hit up Joe Fish seafood restaurant where I tried oysters for the very first time!

Butts and bells: both have cracks.

We got up waaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaay too early this morning, groggily made our way to the airport, and flew from KC to Milwaukee (pausing just long enough to get some sausage at the airport) and from Milwaukee to Philadelphia. When the flight landed (and we woke up) we checked into our hotel, then took the train into town. Apparently we're having a Nor'-Easter, so it rained alllllll day long. The girls' new shoes were sopping wet, as were mine and Jason's, but no matter. We still managed to check out the Liberty Bell (no longer housed in a phone booth on the side of the road!) , Independence Hall (with new and improved facade-hiding scaffolding!) and had cheesesteaks at Jim's on South Street (mmmmmmmmmmmm!). Somehow I also managed to procure six boxes of Tastykakes, fit them all into a flat rate priority mail box, and shipped them home to myself. (nice.) Finally, we came back to our hotel dripping wet and exhausted after a fantastic day.

Let's get some shoes!

We took the girls to get some new shoes after church tonight. It took forever because the selection was beyond picked over and Brianna's size seemed to be a vague mystery size that the shoe companies were unwilling to make. Seriously, we tried on a range of size 13-3 and none of them fit her right! They were either waaaaaaaaaay too big or too small. So strange. At any rate, we FINALLY found what we were looking for. Leigha excitedly picked out some black converse with flames on them, Bri finding a pair that actually fit her AND looked good (not to mention the fact that they lit up and were on such heavy clearance they cost $5! Maybe her size was just discontinued and that was the last pair in the universe that will fit her?) and Jason exasperated and done with the whole experience. Seriously, look at his face!

Who needs fiction?

The first part of Brianna's Halloween costume came in the mail today. Oh my. We're going to be putting wings on that thing before all is said and done. Meanwhile, Leigha has finally chosen her costume, and will be trick or treating as Princess Leia. YES. So yeah, today's total awesome level consists of dressing my daughter as processed meat, running into Austin in the hallway at school, a spot of improv, and improving frozen pizza with the use of fresh-cooked bacon bits. I'm going to go ahead and call this one an epic win!

La la la leftover!

We had so much fun at Stix last month that my girl crew from church decided to go out again, this time to the Cheesecake Factory! During the course of the evening Ashley lost her wallet under the table. We figured it would be an easy find...until she crawled under the table with my phone as a flashlight. We lifted the cushion up as she scoured the perimiter of the seats and the wall adjacent to the table...but the only glimmer of hope was her discovering what turned out to be a butterknife wedged into the gap between the beadboard and the floor. Our waiter came by and helped us move the table...at which point I saw her card just sitting there in the middle of the floor. "There's nooooo way she missed seeing that just sitting there." I thought to myself, before coming to the realization that it had been under the table poles! So yeah, just a tip for the next time you drop something under the table and can't find it. Check there first, otherwise you'll have an entire restaurant staring at you, as well as an obnoxious friend with a camera getting a ton of embarrasing photos chronicling your events on the cold, hard tile of the Cheesecake Factory. Speaking of photos, that's us in front of the JC Nichols fountain, which has been dyed pink for breast cancer awareness month.

Separation Anxiety

Happy binary day, everyone! After church this afternoon I just managed to catch the final performance of 'A Devil Inside' at my school. Thank goodness, too! We need to write papers on these shows, you know! Well, now you know. Anyhow, Sean is recently dating Hannah, but Sean's character in the show (for some unexplainable reason) attracts the attention of several stalkers. Matt Y. showed up for probably the fifth time today to see it (he's writing a more in-depth analysis) so he wore a t-shirt upon which he used a sharpie to declare his love for Sean. Nice. Here he is keeping Hannah from Sean. Nice!

Ducked goose

Seven fine folks (including myself) on a great night out, seven seats to a row at Thunderdome. What could be more apt? There's Chad, Austin, my purse, Matt F., his new girlfriend Sarah, Zak's new girlfriend Mary, and Zak. Epic fun ensues! The team that won the (spinning!) championship belt was Generation Gap, who won my round of Thunderdome this season, and it was very well deserved. A great night out all around!

Photobomb!

Today was the performance of our scene from 'Proof' for my acting class. We did the scene in our class a few times then had the directing students step in and work with us, and we performed in front of their class. It looks like we're in a laundromat because we're having to work within the confines of the set of the current play in the theater, which also happens to be our classroom. (I love that.) The scene went well and we were very proud of ourselves....oh yeah, and TJ (all the way on the left, but not the photobomber, that's Joey!), who you may remember as the chocolate sauce guy, took the notebook I was supposed to find during the course of the scene, hollowed out the pages, and filled it with live crickets!!! I opened the notebook and they went everywhere! One was crawling up his shirt as we finished the scene. We left the theater and I busted up laughing in the hallway as he said, 'Gotcha!' I should have known. Oh, and the audience didn't even see the crickets! They had no idea it had happened! Wow. Today was also the homecoming parade for the girls' school district, and both their girl scout troupes were walking in it. Bri came over and gave me a big hug, and Leigha handed me a bag of candy. The school's marching band played OkGo's 'Here it Goes Again.' I love that song! As for Jason, well, he went to Memphis on business today. Flew out this morning, came home this evening. They were taking a plane to the aircraft boneyard, so he was the only passenger! The pilot had him come up front and actually fly the plane for a while. How was your day?

Nuffing

I had a full and interesting day...great rehearsal, amazing classes, a wonderful evening with the family, but for some odd reason chose not to take a picture until just now. Huh.

Happy Birthday, Austin!

Today was the anniversary party for Austin's 29th birthday. This picture makes it seem as though a wild rave was happening....perhaps that's just because I'm in it? I swear, she handed me the wings after I walked in the door. They were a party favor! Either way we celebrated her life and us chosen few enjoyed each other's company over tea and cherry yum yum pie. Austin's directing class is directing my Acting 2 class in a scene from Proof and though I'm not in her group we went over lines together. She read Hal's lines and I got into my Catherine character and acted out my part as she got ideas for blocking and character nuances. I also filled her in on a few tips about the actors in her group and how they had been working on the characters prior to this point so she could get a feel for how they would play the characters and what blocking would be most natural to their portrayal. Teamwork! It was so great hanging out and catching up, and I can't wait for the anniversary party for Austin's 29th birthday: the sequel!

Stylin' all the while

Lots of crazy random fun happened today, such as me playing frisbee on the lawn at school for an hour and the return of Project Improv. Not to mention Minsky's Pizza Madness. But forgive me for a moment of narcissism, because my picture reflects the most important thing I felt happened today: I looked and felt CUTE!

The woes of legitimate theater

I had a rehearsal today for my in-class scene from Proof. I thought I had the scene DOWN but alas, the lines flew rapidly from my head as soon as the action started. Ugh. I love theater, but oh improv! No lines! Most people I know who act say, "Wow, not knowing what to say would scare me!" Yeah. But in improv they're not waiting for you to say a specific thing to get to the next plot advancement. It's pure process! I love theater, love love love it, but oh the memorization! I finally got through a pile of clothing in need of repair this evening, though. So at least I feel as though I have accomplished some good. Yay!

And back again.

We flew back home today, leaving behind a sleeping pile of cousins and siblings. Believe it or not, throwing a party 60 years in the making is exhausting! We had some lunch on the way home and the kids made awful faces at us. Meh, it's better than the regular view of them being all happy and well-adjusted despite our best efforts to the contrary.

CAKE.

Grandma and Grandpa have been married for 60 years! Woot! That's their original cake topper...and I couldn't get Grandpa to look up from the cake for any of my pictures. True story! Our family hosted a party for them at their church, first as an open house for the congregation, then as a private party for the family. It was fantastic! I got to be the cake server, which my dad was generous enough to break up a new pack of Elixir guitar strings for so I could swiftly and neatly cut the cake into well over 100 slices. We had a blast telling stories and eating catered food (no dishes, woo!) and ooh-ing and ah-ing over the baby quilt we all came together to create. Oh, and if you're looking for a sappy closing line such as 'all because two people fell in love' you're not going to get it...except in contextual exposition. First of all because I hate those wall signs (anyone else think 'always kiss me goodnight' sounds incredibly passive aggressive?) and second because it's all because two people chose to stick it out for 60 years for the betterment of their family, giving us all a chance to know what real love looks like and making us say, "Hey...I want that." I owe so much to both sides of my family for giving me such a beautiful example to look to, and know that because of them my own children will be able to say, "Hey....I want that."

Twice as good as 300

We flew to San Diego this evening after school. Direct flights=THE BEST. We stepped off the plane and into the gorgeous Southern California October weather. (I'm not making a statement with the capitalization, those are all proper nouns. Word.....s) We grabbed our rental car and drove across town to Grandma and Grandpa's, and were greeted by a pile of siblings and cousins. Oh, and Jason is wearing Janina's hat in this picture. Didn't notice 'till just now. Oh well, Imma post it anyhow.