June!

Recently, a friend reminded me that I have this blog. So...this post is for you, Tim.

Life is pretty good. My main show is finally open so I can sleep and eat and shower on a schedule like a normal person. My other show is going to open...really soon. I hope. Did you know sea lions aren't the most compliant animals?

Roommates are still good. Tonight we made homemade ravioli, marinara sauce, garlic bread, and banana bread. I'm drinking a bottle of my very favorite beer. Jazz night starts up tomorrow. Epic television plans with a friend Friday. Bridal shower Saturday. Sushi Sunday. Xmen First Class comes out this weekend. So much good.

Really...that's all I got right now.

My dinner was delicious.

My Brain is Irritating

So I should be on day 8 of 9 with Detox, but we're amending the diet. It's not really fair for my cast and other co-workers to suffer from my lack of carbs. We moved on to Phase II a couple days early, except we're amending that too. It's supposed to be adding back in meat, some more dairy, and some grains, but not enough. We're making it fit our lifestyle better and working out more frequently to make up for the food choices we're bound to make. For instance: I want to make dishes that I can easily pack to take to work and eat between shows. Pasta is excellent for such things, but isn't supposed to be eaten for 3 more weeks. Screw that. I can have coffee again though. Thank god.

I came to an interesting conclusion around 10:15 pm last night though. We were sitting at Applebee's, preparing to officially end Detox by ordering formerly forbidden food when I realized now that I can have pasta again, I no longer crave it. My pasta craving was intense on Day 3 and Day 6 of Detox, but the MINUTE I told myself I could have it again, the craving lessened. Thus: My Brain is Irritating.

All in all though, the diet has been a good idea so far. I'm slightly more motivated to work out, I lost some weight and intend to keep going (albeit in a healthier fashion), and I had the willpower to not consume pasta, bread, cheese, or coffee for a week. I thought I was going to FAIL on the coffee part, but I am stronger than I thought. Huh. Go me.

Bliss

I am going to the Hershey Pantry this morning.

That's all.

We're All All Right

Pretty much everyone is in town now. A fantastic amount of people arrived in the last three days; it's been so great. All my favorites are here now. The people I have been spending time with are wonderful, of course, since I don't associate with un-wonderful people, but the two I spent the most time with last summer are now here (one being my roommate!), so all feels right in the world. Also, we saw Pwese, which was a delight as always.

Different dynamic this summer. It's kind of interesting to watch it form. Not sure yet how I feel about it. I want to make an active attempt to be less bitterly sequestered than last summer...only time will tell. We had an impromptu cast get together, which isn't as impromptu as it seems since a) 2/3 of the cast lives next door to each other, b) we actually kind of planned it, and c) who else would we hang out with? I like it though.

We embark on Music Rehearsal #3 today. Adventure? A little bit since we're going to try to actually be IN our venue for part of the day. Eep! It's been rather cold here lately. The Floridians and Texans are not pleased. I'm okay with it, but not so happy about it either. Good thing the park is closed today and I can wear a hoodie.

No new pics of the set, maybe later today. I haven't been to the venue in 3 days due to orientation and rehearsal. Really, things are going quite well and the only thing that would make this better would be Life-Changing Chicken Dip, constantly available. Mmm...chicken dip...

Also, allergy town, population: my nose.

Accident Soup

Today I will tell you the tale of Accident Soup.

Once upon a time there was a girl. She liked cooking. It saved money and it was healthier. Also, it was fun to make messes. One evening this girl decided to make dinner. She got out some bun (rice vermicelli noodles), red bell pepper, green onions, leftover chicken breast, garlic, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, powdered ginger, and crushed red pepper flakes. She heated some water to soak the noodles in, sliced half the red bell pepper, sliced 3 of the green onions, diced the chicken, and minced the garlic. She drizzled sesame oil and rice wine vinegar in a pan and heated it. She soaked the noodles. She added the garlic and chicken to the pan.

OH NO! The noodles soaked too long! Quickly, she drained them and rinsed them in cold water. She added them to the pan along with the red bell pepper and green onions. She added soy sauce and a tablespoon of peanut butter and the ginger and red pepper flakes. The noodles were getting gluey. A little more soy sauce...no bueno. Balls...what else to do? Not wanting her uberly cheap dinner to be ruined, she added some chicken stock. She stirred. She added some water. She put it in a bowl and added some fresh cilantro. And...WHAZAM!
Accident soup.
The end.

Productivity, question mark

Apparently I'm not allowed to take more than 2 days between posts. Some people have been tetchy and anxious and I can't be responsible for that kind of thing. So here is another multi-topic-ed post for YOUR enjoyment.

I made a lasagna! I made it with the intention that my roommates could eat some of it after rehearsals, but they've been so tired, they haven't tried it yet. But I have and it rocks. Here's what I put in it:

Sauce: 1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes, 3/4 diced yellow onion, 4 cloves of minced garlic, 1 pkg frozen chopped spinach (messily thawed and drained), 1 package sweet turkey sausage links with casings removed (browned before added to sauce), some sugar (to cut acidity), a little salt (to...do whatever it does that makes it taste good), a dash of paprika, and generous sprinklings of black pepper, dried sweet basil, dried oregano, and crushed red pepper flakes. Oh, and about a third a cup of water to make it thinner. It simmered for like an hour.

I mixed a 15 oz container of 2% ricotta cheese with an egg, some grated Parmesan cheese, and a lot of dried oregano. Layers: Sauce, 3 whole wheat lasagna noodles, ricotta mix, mozz and parm, sauce, noodles, ricotta, mozz and parm, sauce, noodles, mozz and parm. It got baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes covered and 15 uncovered.

**You should all note this is like the 10th lasagna I've made so I actually do sort of know the recipe. Except the seasonings. I just add stuff til it tastes right. Bazinga! Still a recipe failure. Aw.

Wow. Okay. I also finished Sally's hats and gloves and got them sent off to her. (One is pictured on the left.) Then I started making some baby hats. I'm on my second baby hat right now. I'm trying to think outside the box for my baby items. For instance-not just pale pink and pale blue hats. Not just hats. I'm hoping it works. I need to get my Etsy shop back up and running. It's just kind of sitting there idly right now. Goals for that are: new/better pics, baby items, and trying harder. It's the trying harder that's gonna get me.

Roommates and I had a little bonding Sunday night. We went out to dinner and Stefanie got to have Red Lobster for the first time ever. Then we went to a poker game and Janelle played for the first time ever, which meant she, of course, royally kicked all of our butts. I'm hoping for a poker tourney this summer.

All right. I told myself that with the new blog I would be positive and not bitch and rant all the time like in the old bitchy, ranty blog, but this is still bothering me so I'ma talk about it cuz it's my blog.

Basically, lots of people I know are getting married and buying houses and having babies (in fact, six different friends either announced babies or engagements THIS WEEKEND) and it makes me feel bad about my life. Not because I'm lacking something, but because THEY think I am. I don't wish them ill. I don't want them to not be happy. I'm not jealous. I just don't like the following:

1) I do not like losing friends because we don't have anything in common anymore because I am single.
2) I do not like losing male friends because they got married and being the platonic female friend isn't kosher.
3) I do not like the phrases "Oh, I'm sure you'll meet someone soon", "Well, you've still got time", and "So...are you seeing anyone?"

I don't actually want to get married or have babies, thank you. I like traveling and having a career. Just because I'm a female in my mid-twenties does NOT mean I need a man and a baby to be happy. And apparently, MSN knows what I'm going through: "Single Women Still Feel 'Spinster' Stigma" The subtitle is "Annoyances worst in mid-20s to mid-30s." Great. I can't wait for the next decade. Thanks a lot, MSN.

Whew. Wait. I don't feel better. You mean that venting one's frustrations on the internet doesn't instantly bring about a feeling of golden-hued contentment?! Damn. Back to knitting.

Vindication for My Laziness

I did not go to the gym today. I went on Tuesday and Wednesday and fully intended to go today. Instead, I was a gym failure. I was going to feel bad about myself because of this, but instead I got all self-righteous as the day went on about all the awesome things I've done in the past 36 hours that should make me feel good about myself.

I acquired tickets to the Hershey Bears game without bribing someone else to get them for me.

I walked to the grocery store AND used a reusable bag. (Yay Earth Day.)

I went to Yarn-Love and only bought 2 skeins of yarn that are already promised to a project.
I made all my meals today AND they were all healthy.

I have made good progress on Sally's second hat.

I got Karyn's approval on my current Etsy pricing and projects, as well as Sally's finished hat and gloves.

I got lots of Hershey related work done today...lots of questions answered.

I looked up some post-Hershey employment options. Even made a spreadsheet.

I updated my resume.

I only screwed with Pat Shiner's mind for 10 minutes last night.

I went to Chocolate World and only spent $7.00 (with discount).

I only ate 20 Jelly Belly brand jelly beans for my snack today.

I gave Stefanie some Mucinex and now she feels better.

I planned a lasagna for my tired roommates' dinner tomorrow.

So in short, screw you gym guilt! I'll go tomorrow.

Also...completely unrelated: Janelle brought home goldfish. Now we have herbs and pets. We're SO domestic.
(Photos from top: Hershey Bears in action, Sally's earflap hat, Hershey's Extra Dark chocolate with Pomegranate flavored pieces, Goldy and somethingorother our new fish)

Lessons Learned

I learned a few lessons today. Yes, even at my ripe old age, I can still learn lessons.

First: patience isn't a bad thing. As antsy as I was to figure out what I'm doing the next few weeks, I spent the day focused on smaller things. I got my ID. I visited my venues. I had lunch. I hung out in the costume shop. I saw sea lions. And then some work came my way and all is well for a while.

Second: rescue missions for cilantro are futile. Yes folks, it seems as though the rescue mission was actually a murder. Senor cilantro appears to be on his last legs...last roots...there's gotta be a joke in there somewhere. Anyhow, I clipped him down a bit (and used some of his leaves in my breakfast burrito thing) and I'll see if the roots take and he livens up a bit. If not, into the trash he goes and some chives or something go in his place. That's the life of an herb.

Third: I suck at recipes. I can tell you what I put in things, but I cannot for the life of me tell you how much. Especially with spices and liquids. I use phrases like "several shakes of chili powder" or "a sploosh of milk" or "til it tastes/looks/smells right". Therefore, my amazing recipes can never be duplicated by anyone else because I can't tell them what to do. For instance, my dinner tonight was some rice vermicelli, chicken, asparagus, scallions, 3 basil leaves (from my new basil plant), 2 cloves of garlic, some peanut sauce, some soy sauce, some rice wine vinegar, and some pepper. No clue how much, which is too bad because it's definitely too thick a sauce for these noodles. I think I used too much peanut sauce. Oh well. Guess it's a good thing duplication is futile.

A Week in the Life

So here we are. A new blog. Sounds exciting. This blog is partially so friends can keep up with me, though things like Facebook and text messages do a decent job of that. This is also partially to show off my knitting prowess and culinary skills. I considered a specialized blog for the knitting and the food and decided that while the knitting one may still happen, I don't cook enough for an entire food related blog. Essentially, this blog is going to be real random, but all me. Cliche, right? Too bad. My blog, my randomosity. (Warning: I apologize in advance for the scatter-brained-ness of this post.)

I just finished one of those 1000 mile, multiple-day-long road trips. I say "one of those" because this is the sixth I've been on since 2008. This time it was Iowa to Pennsylvania. Thankfully I have friends dispersed around the country and they let me crash on couches and in spare rooms. It's normally an 18 hour trip and at one point I could have done it in 2 days, but I am too old to do that sort of thing anymore. I get sick of my own company after a while and there are only so many times you can listen to the Harry Potter 7 audio book (which is, incidentally, 21 hours long). Here's what I did this time 'round.

Tuesday: I left Iowa at an easy mid-day time. I met up with the FoodPlay National Troupe in Watseka, IL and got some quality hanging out time with Carlton and even better than that...

Wednesday: I got to see a performance! It was a lot of fun to see the set-up, warm-up, and show as a regular, non-troupe member. After the show, which was somewhere between pretty good and great in my opinion, I drove a leisurely hour to West Lafayette, IN where I was entertained by a friend I met at the Texas Shakespeare Festival back in 2007. Oddly for a theatre person, most of his friends are NOT theatre people. They were pretty awesome though. A good time was had. There were beers, $1.50 wells, and maybe a phone call or four.

Thursday: It was on to Columbus, OH to stay with a friend from high school. She pulled out a bunch of yearbooks and it was crazy to remember things from an entire decade ago. Then I felt really old.

Friday: The last leg took me across the rest of Ohio and the western half of Pennsylvania to lovely Hershey, PA. After only 2 hours in town, friends stopped by with my ticket to the Hershey Bears game and we set off for dinner. My first hockey game was awesome. Bears won, 3-2. Karyn then had the less awesome idea to trek from the Giant Center across the extensive parking lots to a bar on the other side of the park. Her theory was we'd get there before those who had to fight the 10,000 people leaving the game. It would have been great if not for the rain that plagued us. By the time we got there we were soaked through. Great time though. As Lydia put it, we are now "intrepid". Really? I thought I was just cold.

So that brings me to today. There was some grocery shopping, a little more unpacking, and the best part: a little bit of lunch-having. I created a pasta dish: whole wheat penne with canned diced tomatoes, asparagus steamed with garlic and basil, and a little extra-virgin olive oil, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Super easy, super tasty. I'm on a healthy cooking kick. It's too easy in this kind of environment to go out to eat with people all the time. It gets pretty costly AND not always healthy. So there's a goal. Work on that. Easier said than done. I have a friend coming back this year who does horrendous things to my diet. So many indulgences...

I'm back at Hersheypark for the summer, stage managing two shows and (hopefully) having another fantastic summer here in Chocolate Town. Even though I am REALLY going to miss my cast and crew from last summer, I think we've got some good things in store. There are several people returning, a few friends of friends, and lots of new folks. That's one thing I really love about the nomadic theatre thing. I meet more people at each new job than I ever could in another career.

Also, there are sea lions in one of my shows this year. Does your job have sea lions? I didn't think so.

(Photos from top: I-65 in Indiana, the FoodPlay performers juggling around their stage manager, the "intrepid" and thoroughly soaked group at Parkside, penne with olive oil and asparagus, some of the cast and crew from "Beyond the Dragon Gate" 2009.)