Who the heck do I think I am?

Hey, UK peeps!

So, I will be in London in early March... Already trying to make some plans for sightseeing, theatre, and such....

Between 28 Feb and 12 March, who's around? I'm kinda mostly stuck in London, but if people are able to take any time to meet, I'd love to meet up!

We're leaving for Infinitus TOMORROW!

Leg one of our journey starts once I pack my car and go to A's house, where we will pack the car MORE and then drive to our hotel which is just south of Philly.

Leg two will be getting up Sunday and booking down to the other side of D.C. where we will catch the AutoTrain. Adventur! Train overnight in our little "roomette".

We will arrive in Orlando Monday morning and proceed to the Royal Pacific once we get our car off the train. We will have WiFi definitely in the hotel tomorrow night, but I don't know that we will on the train.

Then INFINITUS begins OMG.

This whole last couple days have been weird. Because of the intense heat I've been basically living in my bedroom instead of the front of the house (because here's where the A/C unit is). It's been surreal, only going out into the rest of the house when necessary. I've also been doing all the little things one does when leaving the house for almost two weeks: cleaning out the food gone bad (so it's not all even more STINKY when I get back) and all the packing that couldn't be done until I was done with the items going in. And dealing with all the last-minute stuff that we're dealing with in preparation.

And in the midst of this, pegkerr turned me on to this HILARIOUS blog on Buzznet: Mark Reads Harry Potter. I've caught up with his reading of SS and CoS and the 15 chapters he's read so far of PoA. They are hysterical. He's reading each book and blogging the experience, one chapter at a time, trying to remain as spoiler-free as possible - not easy when people spoil him in the comments. I really feel for him, about that, because the absolute charm of this project is watching him discover everything as a first-time reader who, remarkably, knows next to nothing about HP. It's great fun and needless to say his reviews are GOLD. He's fair when he sees a critical problem, but overall he's experiencing the wonder and the WTF and the OMG that is the first time through a series with this many twists and turns.

He apparently came to this project after reviewing Twilight in the same manner - and I'm reading that now. OMG, so funny. He totally calls Twilight for the POS that it is (I mean, really, it IS) and is HATING every chapter with more and more hatred. These are endlessly entertaining, folks.

Mark Reads Harry Potter - go all the way back to the beginning, it's High-freaking-larious.

Also, ABC Family is doing HP weekend again with previews and inside looks at HP&theDH, but I'm excited because at 11:00 I am going to watch MOOSE ATTACK! on Discovery. It should be all kinds of AWESOME. I mean. It's about MOOSE. ATTACKING! It's got to be cracktastic.

Maybe worth a second glass of wine. I think so, don't you?

(Oh and in other news my house got chosen to be a ratings family. I think. It just said 337, no unit number. I may have to take the paperwork with me and go online to file to make sure they don't want my landlord's unit instead of mine. Because fuck yeah, I want to be a ratings family!)

I'm being slightly crazy and driving home from Infinitus. I'll be doing the trip in 3 days: Monday, July 19 - Wednesday, July 21.

My plan is to make it somewhere between Charlotte and Raleigh, NC on the first leg. Then I can get to my aunt's in Philly on the second leg and home to Boston on the third.

So: Anyone in North Carolina want to host a Gwen on that Monday night?


Also - anyone coming back up to any of those locations who would like to ride-share? Since I'll be all alone on the way home....

It's been a weekend of really good food.

First, we had the Wellesley Players' Annual meeting on Saturday night. Always a good group of people. Some community theatre groups really aren't very social outside of shows, but this one really does function more as a large support network, as much as it is a group of people with a common interest in theatrical production.

The "entertainment" was fun - in that it was mainly a singalong. Yeah. Get about 50 musical theatre geeks together with a professional piano player and a tonne of music books. Stir. Very silly.

And there was one young lady for whom this was her first contact with us - how adorable is it that she came to Fiddler, loved it, decided, "I must get involved with this group" - saw the party notice on the website, asked if she could come, signed up to sing, hung out... I mean, seriously? That's just awesome.

Then Sunday a bunch of Players also went to a production of Annie Get Your Gun starring the young woman who'd played Tzeitel in our Fiddler. She was amazing - head and shoulders the best thing in the show (though their Frank had a great voice and was absolutely gorgeous, he was a weak actor). And afterward we went to dinner (technically I invited myself and A) at a restaurant down the street. We were all SO HUNGRY by the time we got to dinner that we were eating the berries out of our sangria glasses, praying for the bread to come, etc. But the food was excellent - I had mushroom ravioli - if a smidge more than we were planning (or had cash) to spend.

And then I had a fabulous dinner last night with byronhaverford at Market in Boston. I actually ate tuna! It was seared and rolled in a cracked rice cracker crust and it was really rather yummy. Then I had the lamb chops (mainly because someone in our party Sunday had had lamb and it put me in the mood), C had the bass, and we each hogged our desserts - his was a carmelized banana cake and mine was an absolutely DIVINE passionfruit souffle. Stuffed. And nearly 10:00 by the time we were done - gotta love fine dining!

An even more pleasant surprise to find that apparently, old job never shut off my T-pass, so when I went to add value to what I thought was a Charlie card with about $10 on it, I instead found that I had a Monthly Pass expiring on 5/31/10 (which is what it always says, then resets on the next month). I had been told they would drop the recharge once I went off payroll. Apparently someone has goofed - but I'm happy as it got me into town and back for "free" basically. (And yeah, if I'd known THAT, I'd've totally gone in to town that way the day I wound up paying $30 in parking!!!)

Of course that means I'm not 100% certain where the other Charlie Card is....


Meanwhile, shared my resume with a consulting / recruiting professional and she suggested changing to a "results-based" resume (yeah, the arrogance of that kills me), and beatricedwinter says I should craft multiple resumes focused on job area (i.e., one for conference planning; one for arts administration, etc.).

What are y'all's resume strategies? It's not a bad thing to redo the resume, mind, especially since re-uploading them generates activity / new interest on job boards.


And in totally other news: OMG, I have diverted a DISASTER of double-booking.

Back at Christmas, grouchyoldcoot gave me a gift certificate for tickets to see a touring company in the Pittsburgh CLO summer season. We had to pick the date and fill out the response card, and mail it in. Tickets were supposed to be mailed in April.

We looked at the schedule, selected our performance (Curtains) and date (June 26th), and sent it in.

And forgot about it. And I didn't update my calendar.

Last night, halfway through dinner, something triggered my memory banks. And I said, "OH, CRAP!! June 26th! A. We were supposed to get the tickets in April and it's May; B. THAT'S THE WEEKEND OF OUR REGISTRATION STUFFING PARTY!!!!" Ack. I simply cannot bail on that!

So, on the way home, I called Joel, who confirmed he had not received the tickets. This morning, I started calling around to confirm the tickets and hopefully get them changed.

Heh.

Well. First phone call only tells me that the ticket request was passed on. She transfers me to someone who tells me that they were processed and mailed and "There are no refunds or exchanges" - well, phooey on them, I think. But we might as well get the tickets and if nothing else, he can go with someone in town. Which would suck, but still. And I'm not convinced there's nothing that can be done, either. Because it's not like I want to exchange shows, I just want to change the date. But, she tells me I can call a different number to request a reprint. This phone call (after convincing the girl that yes, zip codes do start with 0 in some places!), confirmed that my tickets did exist, but I could talk to someone else to request a reprint. That someone was Luke, who, when I requested a change of date, said, "Sure!" and told me the available dates.

The show runs Tuesday - Saturday of that week. And I'll be in that part of the country the weekend before for Bardic Roundhouse in the MK. So. What do I do?

"We'll take Tuesday, thanks!"

Yeah, I am a master. Of course, this assumes that I will still not be working and have no demands on my time - but y'know, that's okay. I will take a job over "Curtains" if necessary, but as I do have the time at the moment, it's an elegant solution.

So it looks like I'll be in Pittsburgh on Monday, June 21st. Anyone want to get together?


Meanwhile, I am now back on the diet - balancing that with the fact that I have massive leftovers from Saturday's party (one of the advantages of being on the clean-up crew).

Resolution to the accident: The assessment for repair was for less than $500, so it doesn't affect the woman's insurance negatively, and I now have a check. I will call my mechanic to see about doing the repair on the ultra-cheap, I hope, and use the rest to help defray the cost of Infinitus.


A and I have figured out that we will take the AutoTrain from VA to Orlando for Infinitus. We have a little private compartment (called a "roomette", how cute is that?) and thus we will have my car in Orlando and also all the Stuff we need to bring. No shipping! No hoping that the stuff arrives on time! No extra airline fees for checked bags! A little room to ourselves where we don't have to do all the driving, and we can stretch out and maybe even sleep on the way! It will be an adventure.


Now that my crazy theatre schedule is done, we actually went to see a MOVIE yesterday. Amazing! The images move on a big screen, and all that. We saw "How to Train Your Dragon" which was thoroughly cute and charming and fun (and bears no resemblance to Norse culture at all, but neither did I expect it to!). Note to Vikings: Dragons own you, not the other way 'round. Though I will say it's predictable that the "surcharge" for 3D movies keeps increasing every time we go. Then again, it's been almost a year since we saw a 3D movie at this theatre - the last 3D film I saw was "Avatar" and that was in Pittsburgh.


This has been a really intense week over in HP Alternity, including several late nights in a row and rather full-time days of major playing. Which has been amazing, in the thick of it, but wow, really draining too. But Barty Crouch, Jr, has been making more of a showing lately, and my, he's an interesting fellow!

So, I'm in Pittsburgh, a week early because grouchyoldcoot's mum passed away this weekend. We'd been planning to visit her and her husband for Christmas - now that's up in the air. I'm not even sure how long I'll wind up visiting - whether it will be through Christmas as planned, or longer, or what. I may or may not pass back through Rochester on the way home; this is also unknown at this time.

Of course, I had about 8 hours between when we decided I would come and when I left, so my hasty departure meant that a few things were not packed (nothing I can't replace), and a few things were not done (like running the garbage disposal to get rid of the eggshells), and a few things were done ahead of time (like leaving a note and rent check for January for the landlord) and a few things will have to sit until I get back (like my severance check, Dad's SS check, and any bills that come in). I should be able to pay the bills I've received out of what's in the checkbook, no problem, and a lot of my bills are autopay - cable, electric, phone, insurance - so that'll all take care of itself.

I didn't get to clean the house yet (that was a this-week project), and I haven't made room for the other sewing machine. Though I may be able to put it in the car if I do go back through Rochester.

I postponed the lunch I had planned with my friends at the vendor, the ones I worked with closely, and we'll reschedule in January.

Meanwhile, I called unemployment for the first time today to report no earnings. Man, I need to actually get back to looking for work!

One interesting thing was that on a lark, I brought the radar detector out with me, figuring that I could call the company if it still didn't work. But it worked! I don't know why it didn't all the times before when I tried to restore it, but this time, yay. And it's been working, yay. Of course, I didn't know that in the meantime NY passed a ban on them. Luckily, so far, I haven't been stopped (knock wood!). Of course, speeding is also illegal, so... in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. But I don't need to be caught, in either case. My dad got a ticket in Georgia a couple weeks ago. Bastard got off with only a $75 fine. I've already had two tickets in NY, neither for actually speeding (they were both downgraded), but even without the points or anything, they were over $200 each. No, thank you! There's no need to speed that badly.

As etakyma posted, we went back to HP: The Exhibition on Friday and took our sweet time walking through it. The names are WHACKED. I don't think very many of them were ever meant to be seen close-up, because they are really totally made up, Monty Python types of names (no, there's no throat-warbler-mangrove, but some come close). The frustration of the day was not being able to look at some of the costumes in 360 degrees - which we knew would be the case, the way things are setup - but I think we can look for screencaps of some of the angles we wanted to see. I should have brought a mirror, really. The silly moment of the day came right near the end. We were looking in detail at McG's and Sirius's costumes - they are two of the last things on display - and trying to make out the back of Sirius, to see if it has a riding slit up the back of the coat, or not. We each had mini-mag-lites, though the battery in mine needs to be changed. We were using A's light to try to get a better look at the construction. One of the docents asked what we were doing. We explained ("No, we're not taking photographs, we're not touching, we're just looking with a mini-flashlight"). Where all the other docents had been happy to let us do our thing, once they figured out that we weren't disturbing anything, this guy had a problem. With a 10-watt pocket torch. A few minutes later a security guy comes over and tells us that we can't use the light. Whatever - it was the *last* costume. We'd been in the exhibit for 3 hours already, dude. What on earth is the objection to a teeny flashlight that can't possibly cause fading?

Anyway. Lots of sketches, lots of names and titles and little details. I totally forgot to copy out Umbridge's questionnaire for the teachers, and the O.W.L. papers, but that's okay. There were so many little things on the Common Room notice board that you couldn't read. Man, I'd love to have some time to throw on protective gloves and actually manipulate some of the artifacts.

We each bought a program guide (more reminders than anything), and I replaced my Nimbus hat with an HP: The Exhibition cap, and I also got a wicked cool mug that is heat activated. With hot liquid inside it, a Marauders' Map shows up on the outside. Very nifty. Also noticed HP music boxes from SF Music Box Company, very expensive in the gift shop but very *not* expensive on the SF Music Box Co's website. Not for buying right now, though.


Sunday, while J's mother was busy dying (wah), went to the Wellesley holiday party. Interesting confirmation that my audition for Hodel was *not* pointless, but that there weren't enough other people auditioning within the same age range, so that they had to cast everything younger. Still, I know I'll have fun with the role and was assured by many that I'll be great. Whee.

Monday, when I got in to Mom's, we went out to her pastor's house. It's her pastor's 53rd birthday, but she cooked dinner for 15 people - because she loves to cook. Okay by me! We had salad, beef burgundy over noodles, butternut squash risotto, and two kinds of cake and two kinds of ice cream. Yum, yum, yum. Also, although these are 'church' people, they are the least churchy group I've ever known. Even when I lived in Rochester, I can say definitively that these folks do not shy away from the innuendo and the double entendre. Much blushing was done by nearly everyone as we all embarrassed ourselves and each other. Very fun. (The topics included how quickly one can get drunk on champagne, first experiences with marijuana, the effect of long nails on certain parts of anatomy, etc. You get the picture. Christians with dirty minds!)


Ah. J is now done for the time being so we are going to get dinner. YAY. Food.

What a contrast.


Okay, for one thing, Azkatraz ROCKED. Yes, it was stressful and OMG exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time. The lows were really not all that low and the highs were astronomically high.

As Leslie said today, "How wonderful is the Goddess?" because things worked out beautifully for Flourish to come down and do this, and without that I wouldn't have had a room.

And WHAT A ROOM. It's amazing and perfect and overlooks the exhibit hall where our panel will be.

I ordered room service last night (which was YUMDelicious!) and watched the first couple hours of TV that I have seen in a week that isn't Harry Potter. And I SLEPT. It's amazing how much just a little sleep can do for your outlook on life.

I met Phil Foglio, too, and gave him an OTW pin. (Of course, some of the folks in his booth immediately started down the "But if it's an all-ages product and the fanwork is NOT all ages...." Le Sigh.

Now I'm in the Quantum Quest panel, waiting for Wonder Women and following that Burn Notice. Talk about crowd control lessons!

Found a CVS, but forgot to pick up all the things I needed... but maybe I'll score some of them on the floor this weekend. I know Heidi took the metallic sharpies and I should get one of them to carry.

Leslie's booth is #1317. If anyone out there is at CCI, stop in!

Seriously. I've ducked them - pretty much successfully - for basically (gulp) 20 years.

( My high school found me - cut for the uninterested. )

Oh, and Amy - you'll laugh. Guess what came in the mail yesterday? I'll give you a hint: You predicted I'd get one. No? Well, I can get that second potholder.


In other news, taxes are done, yay! I should get my refunds just in time for Gulf Wars.

However, US Air sucks. This is the second time now that I've booked travel and had it completely not go through. You know how you click the "Purchase" button and it tells you "We're processing your request; don't click this button again or you may buy it twice!" and you wait? Yeah. Well, apparently it didn't work. I was supposed to go to Mi-No-Hi this weekend, but no. No ticket, no confirmation, no transaction on my credit card - NOTHING. As if I never pushed the button. ARGH.

But. Coraline 3D was even more rockin' the second time, and Watchmen comes out soon. Gang, we may actually have to leave Gulf Wars to go to that again.

Okay. I know, it's been a while.

And I know, I'm a bad friend: I haven't been reading journals nearly as much as I should. No Time! Life is made of teh crazy.

Not that there aren't some good things happening, but really? This week has been twice as long and stressful as it should be.

There's some work-related crap, which is probably not of much interest to most of you and I may put in a flocked (for my protection) post later.

There was the site visit for AZKATRAZ, which was utterly fabulous and wonderful and I got to hang out with some amazing HP fans and also got to spend not one, but TWO evenings with the incredible and awesome rani23 whom I miss like whoa and love more than my luggage.

There was the RECOVERING from my first trip to California. I know, right? But the only time I had been planning to go before, there was a hurricane moving up the east coast that grounded my plane, so I had to cancel the trip. So YAY for my first time in CA and OMG, San Francisco is BEAUTIFUL. Except for the panhandlers. They're not so gorgeous.

There's hpalternity, too, which is EATING MY BRAIN because really I don't want to do much other than play, because it's so fun.

Then there's Tribute, which is the show I am stage managing. Now, ordinarily, y'all know, I don't like to stage manage. I really hate the responsibility and the pressure and yeah, I'm good at it, but I'd much RATHER be on stage, doing what I frankly do the bestest in the whole world.

But I agreed because I knew the players were in a tight spot and there really weren't any roles in the show for me, nor really any other shows I wanted to do this fall, plus of course, with all the travel, I knew my chances of getting cast in anything were slim to none.

I mention the travel. I've just completed Five (count'em 5) Weekends In A Row of travel, including TWO road trips to Western New York, a plane to Pittsburgh followed by a road trip down to WV, and two other airline trips: Orlando and SF. And yes, my arms *are* tired.

This means not only that I have a pile of laundry about as big as my bed, but that I had to miss a lot of rehearsals. Well. A handful of rehearsals. With a director who was not really invested in blocking, but more letting the actors mill around on the stage to "find what works" (gods, I HATE that kind of director). And I was *totally* up front about the travel beforehand. We tried to get an assistant stage manager, but she couldn't make all the rehearsals either and pulled out early. The producer was filling in for me on the nights when I couldn't be there.

And then. The director up and quit. This Tuesday morning. Three and a half weeks before opening. And his stated reason for quitting? "The Players do not share my belief in the importance of a stage manager." What. The. Frak? There's been never a word to me about any sort of difficulty. He's completely non-communicative, and IMO wasn't doing a great job, but that's hardly my fault, yo. The moment I read the email I thought, "You a-hole. It's not me. You want to quit for some other reason and you're just using my (hello: PLANNED) absences as an excuse." (Sure enough, I talked with the producer and the president of the group last night and there was, in fact, some other kind of reason.)

Anyway, so yeah - I don't take it personally and I'm not at all hurt or upset by his accusation that I wasn't being a real stage manager. There wasn't anything to manage yet, and besides, he knew I was going to be away and said in production meetings that he was okay with it. I can't help that the production meetings were held on days when I was out of town, either - my conflicts were known *before* the meetings were scheduled. So, yeah - not my fault, dude, and not like I'm sorry to see the door hit you on the ass on your way out.

We now have an amazing director, one of the best directors in this region, which brings me to a whole other level of angst, but that's okay. And in the three days since this director has been gone? Uh, yeah. Already a better show.

But. Something I didn't need among all the other stress.

Oh - And I've recorded two fics for SpellCast Readings this week. One is edited and off to the producer; the other needs to be edited (tonight or tomorrow morning).

Now if I could just find my bills to pay them....


In totally other news: I'm sure you've already seen this, but The NYT Editorial Board Endorsed Obama for President.

(And Yay, Connecticut. But that's old news.)

Hm. I also have to figure out how to get to the polls that Tuesday, between work and rehearsal.

My great-aunt died around 8:00 this morning.

So that's three for me, two in the last 36 hours.

I'm off to Florida in about an hour; the funeral will be Monday, but we don't know what time yet. It's likely that I will change my return so that instead of coming straight back to Boston I will stop over in Baltimore for the funeral and return either Monday night or Tuesday.

Too soon to tell, but I should know something more by the time I get to the airport, so I hope I'll be able to discuss with the ticket agent while I'm checking in.

I'm glad I always pack extra clothes.

On the bright side, I'm feeling very good about traveling. Though it does mean that I'll be a great deal more emotional at her service, because I'll still be saying goodbye to Morguhn.

'Dicea, I'm thinking of your story about your neighbour, too, and I'm going to stop now before I cry more.