The longest day, ever.

My driver is out of the picture for drivingso we've switched roles. First of all, Kansas is a long state. And flat. And twenty questions is less than thrilling. "Oooh! Oooh! Is it corn?"

Everyone is getting frayed nerves. I was the brunt end of a joke or two today, which was out of boredom, but still smarted, and I was touchy for the rest of the day. (Bible quotes degenerated into firing proverbs back and forth at each other, which ended with finding verses with our names in it. Rachel isn't the paragon of virtue, exactly, and the one that was such a riot over the intercom begins, "Oh father, I cannot stand..." That and having handfulls of m&m's shoved in my mouth pretty much ended my patience. Then the truck ran out of gas. We are all tired, and everyone tried to be helpful, which resulted in everyone running around like the headless chickens, no one was listening to our leader because everyone had their own idea of what should be done. To sum up, we're tired, and it's a long trip, and it'll be good to be stationary for three weeks once we hit Dallas. Thank God tonight is an early night, with a late start tomorrow. We'll all get sleep.

The girls all bonded tonight over "The Prince and Me" which was cute. Sometimes sitting around and laughing at a dumb movie is a great de-stresser.

Other than those altercations, everything is going well. We are definately becoming more of a family, as we bond and get to know each other better. Every new home we have to retell our life stories, so soon we'll be able to go around the table with everyone else's. We have a few down days in Dallas before our first show on the eighth. Hurrah for sleep and shopping!

More updates from Texas!

For your information, I'm Rachel's little sister, Allison, and I'll be updating her blog when she can't get to a computer...

Travelling

Travelling

So, we're here in Denver. Last night we stayed in Salt Lake City, the night before in Boise. It is taking forever! The suburban (which broke down yesterday) is fixed and going to catch up to us tonight, late. We'll be eating breakfast tomorrow at quearter of 5. What a wretched hour to be awake. I'm hoping I don't have to go first on the driving...

And speaking of driving, my pilot seems to have really messed up his ankle playing volleyball, so I may have to switch jobs tomorrow...

We're off!

We're off!

Today is our last day in Portland. Last night was our final (and only) dress rehearsal with food service and everything. It went pretty well. We gave ourselves and extra hour to set up, and ended up with half an hour of down time (which means we're still behind timewise, but not too behind). We are all going to be very tired of Chicken Adobo by the time we're done with this tour. It's good, but not something I'm going to want fifty times between now and thanksgiving. We've packed Ramen noodles in the canopy for when we just can't eat another bite.

The actual run went very well. We had one missed quick change. One of my dressers - and it takes three of us - mysteriously disappeared right before the change. So Vicky went on with her veil on sideways and only half covering her face. We'll work on it. The only other problem was the lighting. It wasn't completely dark and there were lots of windows in the fellowship center. Thus, it was hard to tell when the blackouts were. By the way, I'm going to start (ha) ending sentences with prepositions. I was reading "Letters to an American Lady" and CS Lewis wrote that he hates the rule against it. He says it was perfectly admissible until some guy decided that since you can't do it in French, you shouldn't do it in English. I go with Lewis. It makes sentence construction much easier.

I've sent out another round of postcards, if any of them have begun filtering through. Those of you who are inclined to write back, my mail will be forwarded to me every other week. I really don't like postcards (it's getting her to shut up that's the trick), but it's been the most convenient so far. Anyone who wants actual letters may ask for them - or just wait for them to show up. At some point I'm going to get tired of cutting things down to fit on half a three by five card. I feel like I'm writing shorthand.

I went today to the post office and bought a gazillion stamps. Letter and postcard. The lady there had no idea how much it cost to send letters to Canada, and once she found out how much, didn't have the right denomination of stamp. Poor Nicole was standing there, and the lady kept looking helplessly at her, as if she should somehow come up with that information so she didn't have to look it up. The end result was Nicole getting letter stamps, but none for our spiffy touring cast postcards (look for those later on down the road -- also a handy reminder to pray for us, as we all sit there staring at you. By the way, I had just changed into that t-shirt when they gave the picture call, so everyone else is still dressed for church...)

I'll be able to blog more soon....

Mind Numbing

Yesterday was our second dress. We didn't even get through the whole show -- we had to vacate the church by 5. We ran 45 minutes late in set up, so there went Act 2.

Today is a free day. I got up and made biscuits - minus gravy, unfortunatly. Then Aaron and I went over to the kitchen trailer, unloaded it, and washed down all the pots and pans. Woo.

We're supposed to be making a trip to the coast today, weather permitting. It's been raining in Portland all week.

We leave on Wednesday. Trying not to think about it. It's odd to think we're actually going to be heading out on the road!

Living in a multicultural house is very interesting. We have four Canadians, two Southerners, and then people from Washington, Oregon, New York, Wyoming, and Pennslyvania. Just the merging of expressions is funny. We've been trying to convince the Canadians not to refer to anyone south of the mason-dixon line as "Yankees." They won't take kindly to that in Texas. And we're working on Vicky's pronunciation of "southern." So far it's "sowth - urn." "No Vicky. Say "suth-urn." Once she's really there it will be some variation on "su-thun." But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Oh, and she hates large bugs. Good thing it won't be cricket migration season when we get there. Oh wait....

Tea is probably the biggest thing we fight over. The "su-thun-ers" like it sweet (me too- a holdover from Texas). 2-1/4 cups sugar to a gallon is just about right. The "Yankees" like it unsweetened. The Canadians like instant crystals -- none of this brewed crap. It's a constant battle.

Canadians don't like American Chocolate. We don't have the "right" kind of candy bars, and the chocolate tastes funny. The only thing they seem to be extatic about is the caffeine level in Mountain Dew. Apparently in Canada it's caffeine-free. What, we might ask, is the point of drinking Mountain Dew then?

What to put on biscuits. That was the big debate this morning. Should it be gravy? Honey? Jam? or Peanut Butter?

So, yes, this is what prompted the quote below. I can't wait to see what choice phrases I pick up by the end of tour? Like "proh-sess"(for process) and "dekl" (For decal).

Being Bilingual

Quote of the Day: Being Bilingual

"Where y'all going, eh?"

Almost there...

Almost there...

We leave one week from today. Tomorrow we finish working troublespots in act 2 and then we have a full runthrough in the evening. Costumes are almost done, and praise be to God I got enough done (with lots of help -- you should have seen J.P. sewing Nicole's headscarf..) that I don't have to do anything after hours tonight. Huzzah, because I'm "after hour-ed" out.

It is going to be a great show. I got to watch more of it today as we ran scene by scene than I've seen since the first few days of rehearsal. Wow have things changed! So many new characters, and new "stuff!" I hope those of you that get to see it will enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed putting it together. It is strange, though. We've worked so hard, but its still hard to grasp that once the main push is over, we still have to perform it!

You should see what I look like as a small pregnant asian woman!

Taking a Break

Taking a Break

Today has gone very well on very little sleep. Living with this many people does lead to some interesting situations, especially when people forget to close doors. On either side, in order to get from the bathroom to the upstairs dorm, you have to walk past the door to the common room. This causes problems if you forget to bring your clothes with you to the shower. Today someone flashed the world. Oops.

I have a huge pet peeve in theater -- it manifests itself in many smaller pet peeves, but the overriding one is: People sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong. Example: Actors. They're terrible about this. They try to direct each other, they contradict the director, they ask the costumer,"is this what I'm going to be wearing, and are you sure this is the right one?" Today someone wore the body of her costume for rehearsals, and everyone had an idea of how to improve it, or what it should look like, or "You know what would make this really cool?" Sorry guys, there is already plenty of input into this one, and we've spent a great deal of effort accounting for every variable. Most likely we discussed your suggestion ten hours and three costume meetings ago, and vetoed it because it wouldn't work. There are several people who get automatic impute: The director, the designer, and the person who gave us the costume budget. That's all folks!

I have my lines memorized...All 21 of them! That's probably a dozen more than I expected to have, so "it's a good thing!" I even got a compliment on one of my many characters. It was a one line part, so it's nice to be noticed on something that small. I love working with this director. Plus, he's good at reminding actors who's really in charge. We need that a lot. Myself included...

Sleep Deprived

Sleep Deprived

We are all running around like the proverbial chickens sans heads. Tomorrow is our first run of act 2 off book, and the next day we run act 1. Tonight I slept through dinner (meaning just to lay down for a minute) and will be costuming as soon as I finish this post and walk back to the house. The costumes are coming along slowly. About the time I think I finally have time to work, something else gets added to the schedule.

I, tonight, am not memorizing lines, because I already know both of mine. Wait, all three if you count the group yelling scene. But tomorrow we all go barefoot, in keeping with Balangao traditions, so its time for a pedicure. Soon I'll have to stop painting my toes.

Today's funny rehearsal story:
I have a scene where I carry on a sick child. Yesterday my note was "it looks like you're carrying a stuffed Bert doll (I was) instead of a real child. Make it more weighty." So I picked up a sandbag, wrapped it in a blanket, and carried it on. But, I didn't have time to tell the lead, so she was expecting a stuffed doll and got a twenty pound sack instead. She lost it, I lost it, and Tekla did too, having seen me wrap it beforehand.

Prayer partners, prepare for your first postcards!