05/11/2006: "Hot, Hot and Not"

music: Dexter Freebish New Album...nice!
mood: wicked awesome

Ladies and gentlemen, I survived Florida, and what's more, I had a VACATION. Yes, a real one. True I crammed two weeks of Sun and Surf into a sleepless 48 hours, but it was fantastic. Upon arrival after my red eye flight I immediately went pool and beach side for drinks and shashimi. Yuh-mee. I caught up with Allison, who somehow I can't see 400 miles away but we are inseparable after travelling across the country. It was good times. There was sunburn, a steady intake of beverage including mango daqs and sorority specials. There were no shoes, and nothing but bkini and tanktop. AAAAHHHH yeah. Not a lot of eye candy or culture in Clearwater florida, but certainly the essentials for temporary escape. Loved the glf, the palms and the mild humidity. 88 is a good thing.

Rehersal dinner included the Burrito debaucle which was essentially about me being in cranky hungry mode for 4 hours on cinqo de mayo while the 1 waitress, helping our room of rehearsal dinner guests (of which several showed up who had not rsvped, doh) tried to get our orders straight after the computers broke. The scene was something out of a Ben stiller movie, everytime I THOUGHT my food was coming, after everyone else had theirs, it wasn't, twice it was a beef burrito instead of a chicken burrito. I survived though. Meanwhile the parking lot of this cantina was like a girls gone wild video waiting to happen. Is it aways spring break in Florida? I got flashing beer swag and glow in the dark thingies. ALso made a new friend. A bald black man named courtny who was super friendly and well past trashed but VERY entertaining. We laugh about it now, but prior to me getting some food in my stocmach (at 10pm) I was a bit on edge to put it mildely. At least Jason understood. Jason (who has found himself a WONDERFUL fiancee) and who was a good friend in college was SO on the same wavelength in regards to the 15 minutes he has before hungry turns to cranky. At least I'm not the only one.

The ceremony itself was fantastic. fun, sweet and Julie looked AWESOME. It was only 50 guests (plus 100 mosquitos who I rather think were crashers and judging by my ankles, had no need of coming to the reception since they already ate me!), and the gardens were nice. A bit on the cheesy touristy side, my moms garden spoils me to be sure, and having been to Bushcart gardens in Victoria, I knew I wouldn't be blown away, but lots of lizards anyway. No sleep literally on Saturday as my 6am flight Sunday required me to be on my way to the airport at 4 and at 3 we were at the Iquana Bar post partying. Grits and grease at the all night diner didn't help and made for an embarrassing puke session on the plane. I'll save this for an in person story, but is was groady. My performance in Danville was fun and sleep was even more fun.

Though I have agreed to continue to do about 5-8 hours of extra work each week fo our sister site in Arizona, for a nice contract hourly fee and though I had sworn I would give myself a break, the lure to audition for California Suite, a tight, witty, and moving play by Neil Simon. Just 4 actors (well 4 and a passed our prostitute) in four scenes which take place in the same hotel in california. Visiting couples fro London, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago deal with various scenarios. The movie starred Maggie Smith, Alan Alda, Michael Kaine, Bil Cosby, Walter Mathau, Richard Pryor and many others. I auditioned, poorly mind you, still exhausted from my weekend, and was plesantly surprised to find my good friend Michael Pease waiting to audition as well. How it was that I could play poker with him the week before and exchange emails with him since then and we did NOT know we were auditioning I'll never know but I was thrilled. I've known michael for probably close to 10 years and never been in a play with him. And now that changes, becuase we were both cast. Our other actors are a girl named Wanda who I adore. I've both auditioned with her and had her audition for me, and she is great. She's a nurse and is dating one of the founding members of Netflix, which kicks ass. We were talking at auditions and at callbacks afterwards about stuff and she was mentioning how she auditions for everything, gets a lot of callbacks and never gets cast. She has been thinking about giving up, just doing some volunteering. And I told her, do not quit. She will get cast. I was so right. The directors heard us talking in the hallway well after audtions and then just asked us to come back in to get scripts as they had cast it. Tom, our other gent, and my husband in the 3 scenes seems quite the fun one. Think a middle aged sinatra, married, kids, and going to vegas on business. I don't want to know what he does. =] Rehearsals start monday...this will be great fun....just the low key tight theatre experience I need right now.

In other news, my Hot or Not score I noticed has increase from a 6.2 to a 6.6. What does that MEAN exactly. And I ate an Outback steak house for the first time. The Awesome Bloossom/Bloomin Onion was hella greasy but yummy. The steak...very respectable, their beer selection...pitiful. I just think back to Australia and the Redback and Crown Lager. Even Coopers was good. Watched both overtimes of the sharks and edmuton oilers game last night. INTENSE! Sharks lost but are still 2-1 in the playoff series. I would love to see them get the cup. I would also like free tickets to the playoffs, but even my good bud Adam at the HP pavillion said not likely. oh well...


Winner of the week: Mom of course being that it is her weekend, Danville, CA for being BEAUTIFUL, and going barefoot. Oh and sick bags on planes. Those are good too.