Are We Done Yet?

Hey everyone! It was a Rocky weekend again. We've had three in a row because of the special Ohlone show that we did a few Fridays back, so Patrick and I are a little bit burnt out on Rocky right now and are excited for this two week break until the next show. Having fun is exhausting.

The cool thing is that on Saturday, I officially turned in my paperwork. That's right, I've been sucked into cast with or without (but mostly with) my permission! Another cast member's boyfriend, Doug, and I ended up turning in our paperwork on the same day, so I now have a starting date buddy, which is fun! I hate when you start something and it's suddenly a battle as to who is more dedicated because they joined first. That happened all the time at my old job and it drove me nuts! So it's really awesome that we ended up joining together.

So on Friday Patrick and I were exhausted from Disneyland, but we still decided to go out for drinks with our friends James and Aimee that night. Drinking, in particular, has been giving me a lot of trouble lately. I have always had a hard time stomaching the taste of alcohol, and a chaser or a cover up mixer does nothing for me. No matter what you do I can still taste the alcohol, and it disgusts me. Therefore, I drink very slowly because I have to get the nerve up for every sip. That ends with me not enjoying myself because I drink myself into a sleepy state and stay there. So it's much easier to just skip the drinking, but when has it ever been fun to be around drunk people when you're sober? It's frustrating, and people don't seem to get my aversion to drinking. Everyone is always saying "Oh, here, try this!" when, in reality, I can tell you beforehand with a certainty of almost 95% that I will hate whatever you hand me. Those who regularly drink alcohol don't realize the strength of what they have because they cannot taste it. I definitely can, no matter what the proof.

Getting ready to go out! :)

This, of course, has nothing to do with going out with James and Aimee. Patrick and I both had a lot of fun and were glad to have gone! However, the topic is still relevant because we did go to the bar. Oh, and most of the Rocky cast drinks.

On our way home from the bar, we all agreed on pizza. Around here, you can order almost anything through a website called GrubHub. You order from your phone or computer, and your order arrives within an estimated amount of time. For almost 2am, you would figure that a pizza place ten miles from their house would not have taken that long. Pizza isn't rocket science! But the pizza was taking forever. We kept checking the estimated time, and the longer we waited, the longer the estimated time got. Aimee ended up calling and cancelling the order after a very stern talk with the jerk on the phone, who kept insisting that she did not understand how the system worked. We all understood the system, the system just sucked! Pizza shouldn't take two hours! We were all frustrated, yet very tired, so Patrick and I headed home and ended up with Taco Bell. I, of course, approved of this decision.

On Saturday, we did the show at The Guild theater in Menlo Park. I finally got to do my fair share of helping out, including unloading the van, pat downs and purse checks, prop handling during the show, costume changes, cleaning up, and loading the van. We had an incredibly late call time, so Patrick and I both knew we were going to be exhausted by the end of the night, and pregamed with energy drinks. While we were waiting to be let in to the theater, Patrick surprised me with a gift that he had commissioned for me by our friend Julian. I was shocked when he pulled out a hedgehog hat for me. Anyone who knows me should know that hedgehogs are my second favorite animal (following giraffes, of course, but you can't have a giraffe as a pet). I could not be happier with my gift! Jules is so talented at knitting and the hat is beautiful! No wonder Patrick randomly measured my head a few weeks ago. After the show, we ended up at home near 4am, and passed out.

Yay, I'm a hedgehog! Thank you so much, Patrick and Jules!

On Sunday, we had another Spaceballs rehearsal. Patrick and I showed up at 4 to help with more prop building (everything is looking so good, I love the creative minds on cast), then we feasted on some really delicious sandwiches and salads and snacks, and got to rehearsing. Because I only have a very small role in the movie, my parts in the movie are actually mostly prop moving. This part is difficult because I've never seen the movie before this, so when someone says, "Bring this prop out at this point in the movie," I get very confused and have to ask a lot of questions so that I can get a rough idea of when that part will be so that I can be ready. It's also frustrating because I don't know the stage as well as the others do, so trying to envision the proportions of a bi-level stage on someone's lawn is super difficult. Regardless, I'm having fun, and eventually we will have rehearsals at the theater, so I'm not concerned.

Jack's industrial strength hair dryer that I've been assisting with. 

Let us end this blog post with some extra pictures that I've been forgetting to upload! We all love pictures! Yay!

Selfie with a fish! Look at this huge fish at the chinese food place down the road :)

Some of the pretty art that we found while walking around after getting some frozen yogurt this week!

Pictures of the awesome trolley horse that I forgot I took in Disneyland.

My super sweet gift from Jackie! An "Itty Bitty" Ariel, which was accompanied with a nice note thanking me for letting her use her car since I got here. So awesome!

Let's go to Disneyland! Why? Because it's Wednesday!

Hey everyone! Hope all is well in the other land. This is my second post this week (shocker, I know), but I like to recap everything after it's all done so I don't have so much to write about after the weekend is over, since I know we have a Rocky night on Saturday and a rehearsal on Sunday (and crazy stuff always happens during those two events).

So on Monday, Patrick and I were joking around and he said, "Let's go to Disneyland!" because he had a really dull work week this week and wasn't needed at home for anything, really. So after he said that, we continued to joke around about it when he very seriously said to me, "I double dog dare you. Let's leave at midnight." I'm not much of a get-up-and-go kind of person, so it surprised me when I agreed, and we started planning. Initially it was going to be a trip starting at midnight and then, during the day on Tuesday, we would head back to the hotel because he had a remote meeting he needed to attend. That would give Jackie and I time to chill out while he finished some work stuff, and then we would head back to the park. Unfortunately, his meeting was then scheduled to Wednesday, so we scrapped that idea and decided that, when his meeting was over on Wednesday, we would leave straight for the park and stay until Thursday night.

And so we did! What started as a joke became reality, and on Wednesday night we found ourselves in the happiest place on earth again. It was a hard trip. Patrick and Jackie are very much alike when it comes to Disneyland. They get really excited and very bouncy and they sing along to the music that they like (which I, for the most part, dislike very much), when really I just want them to shut up so I can sleep. I don't want their music to be so loud, and sometimes it becomes difficult because I end up being the third wheel because they're so in sync with each other all the time. They have an incredible relationship and it becomes hard to be a part of that dynamic because it's such a long standing duo and they have the same tastes.

After being in the car for so long, we were all super tired and needed some freshening up. I hate car rides!

Anyone who knows me knows I don't get excited until the end of something, and if I feel pushed to feel a certain way, I push back. When I used to go camping, I wouldn't get excited until we pulled up at the entrance gate. When Christmas comes, my social awkwardness makes it hard for me to react to gifts, because I feel like everyone is watching me and my reactions are forced. The same happens with Disneyland and Patrick and Jackie. They get so pumped up to go, when really I'm just dreading the ride. My excitement doesn't become real until we see the park, and by that point, I'm really frustrated with being around two extremely happy people for 6-7 hours. What especially doesn't help is that I have very little ears and my head phones hurt after a very short time, and recently I got a new ear piercing that prevents me from even putting something in my right ear. So while my left ear is listening to music that is more my taste, hard rock and weird bands are playing really loudly in my right ear, and it makes it very hard to sleep on a trip like this. When I get tired or hungry, I get grumpy real quick. So sometimes I'm very mean for no reason, and Patrick knows at that point that he needs to step back, give me space, and (if necessary) fix the situation. He's still learning my irritants, but for the short time we've spent being together 24/7, he's picking up on them very quickly.

So we went to Disneyland. Every trip is different, and I sometimes get lost in the park and forget the chain of events, so what I can tell you is that we went to Critter Breakfast at the Grand Californian Hotel on Thursday morning, where we met some of the lesser animal buddies from the different movies, such as Brother Bear, Chip and Dale, and Miko the raccoon. Breakfast was really fun. It was even something Patrick had never done, which was extra cool!

Chip!

Dale!

Miko! He had to go  on break before he got to our table. I was so excited to meet him :(

 I like bear butts & I cannot lie.

Aw thanks Kenai. :(

That's better :)

Koda!

We roamed the parks, stopped for lunch breaks and had some really good meals while we were there, shopped, pin traded, and rode a some rides (some of which I skipped while they went on, such as Tower of Terror and Space Mountain). Overall, it was a really nice trip. It's the first time I've been to the park where I have not left so tired and angry that I wanted to kill Patrick.

Patrick bought this sweater for me as a gift. On August 1st it had been 200 days since I quit smoking, so I got a gift! On 100 days, I paid for myself to get a new ear piercing :)

Stitch at Dancing with Disney in DCA!

This duck bit my finger. It was so cute!!!!!!!!

I thought this was really neat. Kalamazoo is a city in Michigan :)

Mmmm Dole Whip!!

On Thursday, we had planned to only go to DCA, but Jackie wanted to see a show called Mickey's Magical Map in Disneyland, so we entered that park in order to see that show. We are all so glad we went! It was so cool. There was dancing and singing and some characters that you don't normally see, like Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas, came out and sang.

King Louie!

Pocahontas!

Mulan!

Rapunzel & Eugene

Sebastian!

This guy is IN A BUBBLE HELLO DISNEY IS SO COOL.

Tiana

We had a rough time with the drive back (everyone was exhausted, and poor Patrick had to stop someplace and get out of the car for a while so he would wake up some more), and we hit some serious construction-related traffic right at the beginning of our journey home, so we began with frustration and ended with exhaustion. However, we all had a really good time and are glad we went. I'm not looking forward to the insanity that is supposed to occur in the next three days. We are going to be so busy, yet again! Life never gets old or dull!