"We're drinking my friend...

... to the end, of a brief episode" - One for my Baby, Frank Sinatra

I have said it before, and I will say it again. This has been by far the best show I have worked on in my professional career. And it has come to a close. And we have certainly done our fair share of drinking, to the show, to each other, and to everything.

The last two weeks have been great. Since Banff two weekends ago we have had fun.
Tuesday was Cam's birthday (Frank) so our director hosted our party for him. She cooked up Caribou stew and Cous cous and I made a Apple sauce chocolate cake. We had some drinks and Cam pulled out his banjo and we had a little concert. He has a band and some original songs he played as well as some Sinatra that he has been trying to convert to banjo, most specifically "Something Stupid".

Wednesday Mark (the other actor) had been comped to the Stage West show "One Hit Wonders". So the two of us headed out for buffet dinner, stuffed our faces, had two plates of dessert and a very funny show. Stage West is not exactly my idea of theatre, but is fine. This one was great. It is a review style show performing songs we all know by groups that are one hit wonders. The sets included: Bubble gum rock, Wonder women, Power ballads, Early 80s, and Wedding songs. It was hilarious. Some of the costumes were terrible, some of the performers were weird, but it was enjoyable. Aaron Walpole, 3rd place in Season 3 of Canadian Idol was in it.
Friday we have five hours between shows and we usually help ourselves to a drink or two and have dinner together. Just relaxing and hanging out before we have to go back to work. And after our two show day we got dressed up and the two attractive men and I walked over to Theatre Calgary for their opening of "Doubt". And enjoyed some free wine for their opening night reception.

Saturday, Logan and I had plans with three different groups of people. All were appealing, but I didn't know about. Before I left work on Saturday I declared that all I wanted to do that night was have some drinks with my hubby at home. When Logan and I had decided which party we were going to he checked his email to get the address and we learned that we were supposed to be there at 6 and it was already 7. We jumped in the car, grabbed some McDonald's to eat in the car, on the way to the liquor store. As I entered the address on the GPS I saw that it was going to take us 45 minutes to get there. I opened by big fat mouth "all I wanted to do was drink at home with you tonight." And that was it, we turned around and headed home.

We made a few phone calls and suddenly we were having in impromptu Wii party. Stef, cousin Jonathan and his girlfriend Megan, Mark from the show and Lisa who is staying with us right now all gathered in the basement for Wii, booze and laughs. (And apparently some dancing).

(Stef, Megan, Jonathan's feet, Me, Lisa, Mark)

I have been drinking (heavily) with Mark for several weeks at this point and I have seen him put back more booze than should be possible and still being able to walk and talk straight. Apparently Rum treats Mark differently than the Vodka martinis we have been drinking.

Dancing...Falling

All in front of Stef who was trying to play Guitar Hero, who was providing the underscoring for the dancing.

Sunday. Mark had slept over. The three of us waved as Lisa went off to work and we enjoyed banana chocolate chip pancakes and hours of He-Man. Then Logan and I went to the Boat show. And we were lucky enough that people at the door had extra tickets and we got in free.


Thursday we had our last planned dressing room party. This time was a straight pot luck. No theme and no planning. It was a great haul of food. I made homemade bread sticks and three dips; tomato sauce, tzaziki and 3 onion dip. I also made banana chocolate chip bread. There was also mushroom turnovers, three special cheeses, two pates and veggies and dip.


Friday was our last two show day and Lunchbox always has a pizza lunch. More food, drinks and more fun. After the second show the box office had extra drink tickets (the evening show ticket comes with a drink ticket for the theatre bar). We figured that we couldn't let them be wasted so we all headed next door for a drink. While there we talked with many people who saw the show that night and one table bought us a round of drinks. I ended up not going home until the 10:00 bus.


Saturday was our last show. It was a good one. I put together a little prank (not something I usually participate in and it made me really nervous). We joked throughout rehearsal about ladies throwing panties on the stage, as they would have for Frank Sinatra himself. So I had two plants in the audience to throw panties at the curtain call. It shocked the boys and Mark's face was so red and he got all shook up. Cam bent down to pick up the panties just as Mark did his bow and they ran into each other, butt to face. After the show we loaded up The Rogue and I drove them to the airport.

Colposcopy

Colposcopy is a medical diagnostic procedure to examine an illuminated, magnified view of the cervix and the tissues of the vagina and vulva. Many premalignant lesions and malignant lesions in these areas have discernible characteristics which can be detected thorough the examination. It is done using a colposcope, which provides an enlarged view of the areas, allowing the colposcopist to visually distinguish normal from abnormal appearing tissue and take directed biopsies for further pathological examination. The main goal of colposcopy is to prevent cervical cancer by detecting precancerous lesions early and treating them.

Yesterday was my third. Gotta love those days. First - most importantly, the doctor told me that he expects that to me my last visit. (Unless of coarse I have an abnormal pap in the future). But he figured that it would come back the same as before and therefore I would be clear.

I hate those things. I dreaded it all day. To the point that I asked the boys at work to try to distract me. One of the fellas brought in "Pippin" soundtrack for me, and that worked for the preshow. But during the show I was very distracted. I was aware and remember the first two songs but missed most of the show. We got to the second to last song, the most showy piece of our show, and I clicked on to my com "wow, how did we get here". I pretty much missed the whole show. I ran a good show, all the right things at the right time, I just don't remember.

Good times

I have been throwing around the idea of getting out of theatre. For more reasons than I care to go into right now. But it is Murphy's law that as soon as you decide something is bad/over/done that it becomes good.

I have had a very stress free, enjoyable time. We have had many social events. Between shows on Fridays we hang out and have a drink, just shooting the shit. (and have dinner, we have five and a half hours between shows!). On Wednesday we had a fondue party in the green room. Tomorrow we are going to Banff (because the actors are from Toronto and have never been). Everything about the show has been delightful. Including the show itself. They sing, the ladies love it, they laugh, we laugh.

Did I also mention I have a bit of a crush on Frank Sinatra. I have finished one biography and am looking for the next at the library as we speak. He lead a very fascinating life. He dressed well, drank well, spoke well and lived well.

Show photos

"Come Fly with Me"

My current show is delightful. It is a little lacking in the story department. But it is light and charming. I love it. It makes me happy.

Yesterday was opening. We had planned a Martini party, ala Frank Sinatra. Everyone brought booze and food and we had a great time.

Sidebar - Opening usually means gifts. I have been so uninspired by the shows I have been working on that I have been making cookies or something and putting a card on top and calling it a day. This time I was moved to do something more. I bought martini glasses for everyone. I researched martinis with names of the songs in the show, "New York New York", "Stormy Weather", and "Mac The Knife". There was also a martini created by a famous bartender for Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, "The Flame of Love". I bought mini bottles of the key booze in each drink and made recipe cards for that martini ingredient. I wrapped them up with cellophane and ribbon and they looked great.

The party was a huge success. The show comes down at 1:05 in the afternoon and we started drinking shortly after. The one thing about doing a lunch time show is that you can drink to excess, get drunk and sober up all before bed. I went to bed with a hang over headache. But it was all worth it, it was a great time!

Wow, January 14

Time has flown by.

It all started with the flu. I find that my body is very considerate and waits until I have days off to get sick. I am not complaining, this has come in handy more than once. However, this time it didn't check the calender and see that there was only two days off.

I was fine the whole Christmas holiday - entertaining kept me busy. After all of the family went back to Regina I spent the days prepping for my next show. We went to Canmore for New Years (which was delightful, by the way), and then on the 2nd had a Production Meeting at the theatre. The meeting was so laid back and everything was going well. I was told to take two days off and we will start rehearsals on Monday rested. I went home on Friday ready to relax. Saturday went well too. Then I went to sleep. It was cut short by the sudden urge to toss my cookies at around 1am and stuck around for the whole of the night. It is the worst flu I have ever had. You usually have a bit of a reprieve between bouts of throw up. I was up so much that Logan called in for work because I had kept him up all night.

I was in a bad way all of Sunday and Sunday night. I didn't even bother to see "if I could make it" on Monday morning. I called as soon as it was a decent hour. ***As a side bar, you don't call is sick in theatre. There is no substitute teacher, no understudy, no make up test. There is a tight timeline and rehearsal cannot happen without the stage manager, legally. Let's just say they had to call someone else in. Ouch.***
I threw up all day Monday but had a decent sleep on Monday night. I got up with full conviction that I would work on Tuesday. Not just "see how I was feeling", I had no choice. I made it through three hours of rehearsal before I excused myself and left for the day. Wednesday and on were the slow climb up the mountain of recovery.

Rehearsals have been going great though. "Come Fly With Me" at Lunchbox Theatre. It is one of the best rehearsal processes I have ever been apart of. There are two actors that sing to me all day, they have both done the show before (but not together), and everything seems to be coming together fairly easily. I am sure by typing that I have jinxed the sound levels session that is scheduled to happen in 20 minutes. Oh well. I am ready.