Much to the surprise of my blooming plants, there was a hard frost at our house last night. the frost formed in a weird way. it looked like little spikes sticking straight up. Note Brian scraping the frosted car windows in the background before driving me to the bus stop. What a good guy.
Dear iPhone Friends,
I just became addicted to a game called Words with Friends. It’s a Scrabble knock-off that lets you play multiple games at a time with multiple friends. Basically once you download the app and create a profile you can start playing with friends or with random strangers. You make a move, and then it notifies the other player that its their turn either by Alarm, or via a little red badge on the games icon, assuming that you have your settings adjusted for it). It’s basically an updated version of “Chess by Mail” … in fact they have a chess version of the app too, but right now I’m all about the Scrabble I’m sorry, the “Words with Friends Free.”
I’m pretty addicted right now. I’m currently have 3 games going right now, and its not quite enough. So you need to go download the app, create a profile, and start a new game with “Rubbercarp” … I’m waiting…
I should mention that there are 2 versions of the App. The paid version (boo) and FREE version (yay!). They are the same thing, but the free version (which I have) shows you an ad that is easy to skip after each move you make. So yeah, get the free version. Then start a game with me.
We had some friends over for lunch yesterday before rehearsal (two people who are in the show with me and their spouses). My friend Eric (who has the lead in The Gypsy King and who some of you may also know as Peter Pan) and his wife Michele have the biggest 7 month old baby I have ever seen.
Elliot is super cute and loves animals. Pepper thinks that babies are tasty. It’s a perfect match.
She went back for more…
I’ve mentioned that I’m really behind on my blogging. Like REALLY Behind.
I took this video almost a month ago.
Hank (my parent’s dog) came to visit a couple of weeks ago and tore into one of Pepper’s toys. Apparently “Hank” felt bad and sent Pepper a new toy along with a care package from my mom back around Valentine’s Day (again, I’m behind, I know).
I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but I sound like a idiot when I hear myself talking to my dog. Maybe that’s why I didn’t post it back when I took it.
Or maybe I’m just behind…
Anyway, she loved it!
This is Stine. Just to head off any confusion at the pass – Brian was not as overjoyed as I was by a delivery of fruits and vegetables last Wednesday morning.
In an effort to eat better, prepare more of our food rather than purchase it from the food court, and support local farmers and farmers markets, we signed up for a “Community Supported Agriculture” or CSA box for home delivery. Full Circle Farms is just one of the many providers of this local service, and we have been very pleased with the results so far. (Thanks for the recommendation, Tanya!)
Once every other week, a box of fresh organic partially locally grown fruits and vegetables is delivered to our doorstep before 6 a.m. on Wednesday mornings. Every other Tuesday is like fruit and vegetable christmas eve, and we leave the porch light on for fruit and vegetable Santa!
The outside of the CSA box
Our bounty
More of our bounty
I’m not sure what half this stuff is. Especially that lumpy white thing in the middle (I suspect it’s something called a “parsnip”). But, that’s half the fun. This will test our boundaries of food comfort, and get us to try some new things. I’m really excited, and if anyone has any good vegetable recipe’s, let us know!
I snuck into the house today and caught my first glipse of the set from the balcony.
Tomorrow is our first day onstage.
That is all.
I haven’t been sleeping well lately and as far as I can tell there are a few reasons for this. I don’t get home from rehearsal until about 11:30, and although I try to go to bed right away, I mostly wind up laying in bed not being tired for at least an hour or two.
During that time my mind is generally trying to wrap my brain around the choreography for the big “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat” number in the show. As a cast we have really struggled with this song, as only a few of us are dancers in any sense of the word. And unfortunately I am not one of those select few.
I’ve always struggled with any dancing, no matter how minor, whenever faced with it in my chosen line of work. Most theaters in town have long since given up calling me in for any dance call, in fact, Peter Pan was the only show I have ever been in where I went to the dance call and was still cast in the show. As it turned out, they didn’t need me to dance in the show at all.
The Gypsy King thus far has been a different experience. Although there was no dance call, we knew that this one number in particular would require some actual dancing, rather than just choreographed staging. And when it came time to start the big dance number most of us were pretty anxious about it.
To our choreographers credit, the combinations are very accessible and well thought out for a green group such as ourselves. I rarely if ever struggle with performing actual physical movements, for me the problem comes when I try to chain large chunks of them together. Its memorization and remembering what I’m supposed to be doing when. Its insanely hard for me to remember what comes next while I’m focusing on doing the task at hand, and since I’m not a strong dancer I spend alot of my focus worrying about making each moment look right. In short it’s just a different vocabulary for me. Its almost like trying to learn another language. Because it is.
So when I get home at night, I’m still pretty riled up from rehearsal and its very hard for me to calm my brain down in order to allow me to sleep. Mostly because I’m trying to go over everything in my head.
Of course, now whenever anyone comes to the show they are going to see this dance number and think: “That was it? That was what he was worried about.” Because in real time its over in less than a few minutes. And to answer your question, yes, yes it was. And do hope that everyone does get a chance to come out and see this show. I’m just in the Ensemble, but I really think that this show is worth seeing. It is ridiculously funny!
After all, they hired funny. They didn’t hire dancers. And it shows.
I have really been a terrible updater lately. I guess like anything it goes in waves, and its just important to get back on the wagon.
Rehearsals are going well, we start Tech next week and open in about 2 weeks. Everyone is pretty excited to get this show in front of an audience. Comedy is hard, and it’s exhausting work so although we just finished our 2nd week of rehearsal it feels like it has already been 3-4 weeks that we’ve been working on it.
Weak update I know… but I need to ease back into my pattern of frequent updates =)
I just wanted to take a second to plug this website I just discovered.
Like most people my age, we don’t have a landline and we rely entirely on our cell phones. So what do you do when you misplace your cell phone? Normally, I would take Christine’s phone and call myself, but what was I to do when I was home alone? And what are people who live alone supposed to do? Sure, you could email or instant message a friend to call you, or I’ve even seen several people post their phone number to their Facebook status in hopes that someone will come to their aid.
I was about to IM someone when I thought, I’m not the first person to have this problem. Someone has to have already realized that there’s a need here and have already found a simple solution to the problem. And indeed after a few quick Google searches I came across wheresmycellphone.com.
Just plug in your number, and the website will give you a call.
On the following screen it wisely gives you the option to donate a dollar or two via PayPal (assuming you found your phone).
I did by the way. I donated a dollar. I appreciated the free service and the team of people who took the initiative and the time to set it up.
The counter at the top of the page indicates that over 3 and half million calls have been made by the site. Even if 0.1% of the people who used it gave a dollar, they’re still doing pretty good for an automated website. I need to get one one of these brilliant ideas myself.
For the record, my phone was in the basement. I remember going down there this morning, but I certainly don’t remember taking my phone out of my pocket… I’m blaming Tigger.
Today I start The Gypsy King. The first music rehearsal is tonight, and the official “Meet and Greet” and Designer presentations are tomorrow. Here we go!
I’ll see everyone again in about 3 months or so.
If you need me, I’ll be in Issaquah.
This is the first of several posts to share some of the pictures that we took in Hawaii. I have decided that I’m definitely my father’s son since I took about 1300 pictures during our vacation… most of them were sunset pictures (I’m still playing with stuff on my camera) and I took a couple of hundred pictures during our whale watching trip.
Here are some of the pictures from our first full day in Hawaii. We started off to with a morning trip the ‘Iao Valley State Park:
A bus of Asian Tourists which pulled in as we left.
On our way out of the valley we stopped at a botanical garden. There are various nurseries like this all over islands. They are like Molbak’s, but with 20 acres of planted gardens that you can stroll through. Since this was still early in our trip, I figured it would be good to get this out of the way early as Stine still had a good amount of the “Spring Fever” running through her. So walking through entire gardens full of plants that she could never have seemed like a good idea.
I think all of these photo credits should go Stine as she took the camera from me about 5 seconds after we were inside, I had only taken one picture at the point, but apparently I had missed some flowers. Here are some of my favorite pictures that she took:
These pear looking fruit are the size of grapefruits
Don't I just look thrilled to be here ...
Stine was excited that they had a Pog Frond
As you can imagine she certainly came out there with delusions of grandeur regarding what is possible in our small (and Marine Temperate) backyard. But I know it made her pretty happy!
We returned to the hotel for an afternoon of playing on the beach and relaxing by the pool:
I hope everyone found their Valentine too.
UPDATE: Brian’s “birthday cake”, which is actually mint chocolate chip ice cream, with Oreo cookies. It was nice to have a meal at home after an entire week of eating every meal at a restaurant.
Last night, it became your birthday when we began our descent into Seattle. There was some turbulence, and I’m not a great flier. You were entertained by in-flight programming – a show about recreating contraptions designed by Leonardo DaVinci. I think they were making a variation of a catapult.
The plane lost some altitude, my stomach dropped a little, and I searched the flight attendant’s faces for any signs of worry or for something out of the ordinary. I glance back at you, and with your headphones on, you and all of your freckles are focused on the show. Because you are the best husband in the world, you just spent the last week with me in the tropical sun working on your “tan”, even though the UV rays may have overwhelmed your delicate skin at any moment. You risked a constellation of freckles for me, heat stroke, and extreme boredom from sitting by the pool side without anything to do but read, simply because I cannot handle winter in the beginning of February.
I hear the landing gear lower as we make our final approach, and I look out the window at our city. Strangely, for the first time in a long time, I do not feel homesick for the Pacific Northwest, and I later realize that’s because the person who makes it feel like home is sitting right beside me. There is no one else I would rather be with – either in Hawaii or Seattle – and wherever you are is where I’m the happiest.
Happy birthday to the best guy in the world. I am so lucky you are such a great guy – especially when you refrained from laughing at me too hard as you helped me clean up an entire glass of tomato juice (with ice) that I spilled into my lap just before landing.
3 days before we left for Hawaii I hurt my hip playing in our weekly Saturday morning basketball game. I jumped with someone and when our legs got tangled up I came crashing down to the cement floor onto the backside of my hip.
I was able to finish playing, but I had lost any hope of being very effective for the rest of the day. The pain increased and by the end of the day I was having trouble sitting comfortably and walking up stairs.
It’s sort of hard to describe the location of the injury. There are two points that stick out the furthest on your hip. The top of your pelvis (known as the hip pointer) and then a few inches below where your femur sticks out opposite of your hip joint. The back side of this point on the femur was where I came down on my left side. It sucked.
I spent the next two days taking it easy and icing it. I got the point that once I was standing I could walk with minimal discomfort, and once I was sitting I could find positions that were comfortable, but transitioning between the two was very painful. Stairs were also problematic, as was any other movement that push pressure on the outside of my hip. It’s hard to explain, but once I was standing I was able to walk (pretty much) normally because once my legs were underneath me, the weight is on the inside of the hips and through the inside of the leg bones. Anything that put pressure on the outside of that bone (lifting the leg for example) was problematic to say the least.
Anyway, things slowly got better over the next few days. The night of the accident I was pretty sure that I would need to go see a doctor before we left for Hawaii but the next morning it felt a whole lot better. In fact each subsequent morning it felt better and stronger. And luckily by the time our flight rolled around on Tuesday morning I was able to sit comfortably for long periods of time.
Throughout our week in Hawaii I found myself become less and less aware of the hip injury. Every once and a while I would move too fast or extend it outside of it’s most common range of motion and I would be reminded by brief moments of pain, but for the most part I was begining to forget about it. That was until yesterday… when I met a wave that didn’t like me.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite things to do in Hawaii is body boarding. Well as per our usual schedule we were out in the surf by mid-afternoon yesterday. I had only gotten one or two runs at a good wave when I headed out to find another. On my way out I saw an unfortunate wave forming before me. It was swelling up to about six feet tall and was about to crest when I saw that I was in “no man’s land. ” I had no where to run, I didn’t have enough time to either move deeper into the water to get through it before it collapsed, nor could I run towards shore, because it would have come down on top of me. I was screwed. But still, I had to make a choice, standing still wasn’t a good option so I tried to move out futher into the wave in a vain attempt to reduce the damage coming my way.
When the wave hit me it picked me up off my feet and turned my body parallel to the ground before slamming me down onto my left side. There is some abrasional evidence that my thigh hit the beach first, but I pretty much didn’t notice or remember much of anything that happened once hip met the sand.
It was bad.
I probably would have screamed, if I hadn’t have been pretty much under water at the time.
Long story short (too late) I’m now a little worse off than I was after last weeks injury. I’m now at about 24 hours since it happened and I’m starting walk normally again, but yet here I am again facing a long flight sitting on my injured ass tomorrow.
I’ve stayed out the water today, which means that I’ve slowly been going crazy today sitting here next to Stine in the sun while she reads her book and works on her tan. I’ve been doing what I can to keep myself busy: reading, snoozing, writing long blog posts ob my iphone using only my thumbs and index fingers. But I’d say that aside from the world of hurt I’m in for during my 7 hours of flying tomorrow, I’m ready to come home.
Stine is pushing hard for me to make a doctors appointment now so that I could see someone as soon as we get back, but really who wants to go the doctor for a broken hip on their 28th birthday. Talk about feeling old.
Besides, while Christine thinks I’m looking at a hairline fracture, I’m personally keeping my fingers crossed for a bone bruise!