Rain, cars, and bears

  Yesterday a storm came in about 5:45, right in the middle of fondue. It was bad enough that they shut down the fondue for about an hour and then brought everyone back from their cars and fed them. We had to wait for it to torrent rain, hail, blow open doors, get one of the trucks stuck in the mud, all proceeded by a lovely dust storm. It was serious, but sadly only about an hour long so we still did the show, but starting at 8:15 not 7:30. It was our biggest house of the night at just about 2,300 so there was no way they were going to cancel.
But everything comes with a silver lining. While I was waiting for the show to start I was sitting around with Hannah in the costume room and I was cold.... so I put on the extra bear costume.

josephine and Blosephine

 Last week some of the tech crew and the town employees put on a the Medora Musical Parody. There were tears of laughter on my face for most of it. instead of casting people as the band they put blowup dolls in our place. Mine's name was Blosephine.

 We also played a rodeo around the same time. It was fun to watch! No one cared about the band, but i didn't care. I just liked going to a rodeo and watching all those cowboys. Ahhhhh....

Pasta sauce plus surprise visiter

 We had a sudden rain storm in the middle of a show. Right on the singers heads. Then when they were running off stage Candi fell and sprained her thumb. But slipped and fell SO hard and it turned so black so quickly everyone thought it was broken so she was rushed to the ER in Dickinson.

Post storm sunset

 My car broke down about a week ago. As it turns out the exhaust pipe was old and had come loose and was funneling the exhaust up against the trunk instead of out of the way. Luckily there just happens to be a nice teasing hillbilly who also happens to be a car magician. So my car is not only getting fixed but getting other things fixed that I had given up on, like the use of my drivers door handle. Honestly I was over it, I'm used to reaching around at this point. But Daryl says he can fix it. So I'm happy. At this point my car has all the amazing features: only one of the windows goes all the way down, the back windshield/tailgate is taped into place since the latch fell off, the drivers door handle doesn't work, the doors don't seal so it's pretty loud on the highway, and now it has a melted spot in the carpet in the trunk about 6" in diameter. But Daryl has hope for my car (he's not scared by a dump, in fact, I think he kind of likes them) and so I am going ahead and having him fix the handles, replace the timing belt and see if he can get the doors to seal properly. As my mom said, the car is just getting some character.

Obligatory running picture

And another

Blacula and Hands

I have been trying to get the show memorized so we can move the music stand that sits in front of me in everyone's way. I did the show twice with the book closed, so last night I told Patti I am officially off off book and to move that bad boy. I probably could have been off book a long time ago if I had tried but I kind of just let it happen. 

Obligatory running photo

My other goal has been to get in 10 miles of either hiking or running. I mostly haven't been doing it but it's been a good goal. Basically my life consists of running, hiking, playing fiddle, getting creative trying not to hate dinner, hanging out at a bar in Medora. It's a good life, although, I woke up pretty homesick today. Mostly I just REALLY miss my kitty cat. I've haven't gone this long with out my little black furball since I was 19. Sometimes I sit cross legged on my bed and think "If Blacula were here he would be sitting in my lap even if it wasn't comfortable for either of us. He would be purring and wiggling trying to get comfortable then he would suddenly freak out for no reason and run away."

We are playing about 40 hours a week and my hands are feeling it. I already have tendonitis in both hands but it doesn't flare up much. but both hands are feeling a bit stiff and achy. Not terrible yet but as a precaution I'm trying to ice them as well as my shoulder at night. I don't want them to get any worse.

Josh Ritter

I've also been really obsessed with Josh Ritter recently. Here's a few songs. His songwriting combines a sort of sweetness, a sort of brutal honesty, and fantasy. Here are some of my current obsessions. And I have decided to just hit you with the crazy right off the bat.

The Curse
      
Hopeful
     
Lillian, Egypt 

Hiking

 

I went on my first long like a couple days ago. It was supposed to be a 5.5 mile loop. But there is a trail that is two trails at once (the Maah daah hey trail goes on for 96 miles so it combines with in park trails) so I thought I had gone to far and booked it back the way I came so I would make it to my show on time. I then got super mad when I realized I walk almost to my next trail change for the loop but I turned around because my trail was not labeled the same as it is on the map. But as it turned out I'm glad I did turn around because I saw a wild horse. And the wild horse saw me and neighed  happily and started running towards me (I was wearing a black baseball cap and grey t-shirt and am about the right height from the front and the horse's view was a little obstructed, so I assume I looked like a friend). Which scared me because I was a little on high alert because I almost stepped on a rattler earlier. But pretty quick the horse realized I wasn't another horse but it kept walking towards me slowly. So I put my hands in the air and tried to look large and imposing. I would actually LOVE to have a horse come investigate me but if it got upset and hurt me by accident I would have had a 2 mile hike to my car and a show to play at 7:15. So I gave the horse a wide birth.
Other than the horse my hike involved:
1) Almost stepping on a rattle snake and waiting for it to make the first move so it didn't get scared and then watching a good 2 1/2 ft of it slither off.
2) Wading through the Little Missouri River
3) Jumping over a smelly muddy crick and not quite making it
4) Balancing on a tree branch to get across another muddy crick
5) Doing it all again (except the rattler) because I turned around and came home a 1/4 of a mile from where my turn would have been. The lesson here is to compare the trail app on my phone to the in hand map and find mistakes like that.

More to come later, my Ambien is kicking in pretty well right now. If I kept writing it would just make less and less sense.

The Little Mo River

The others screamed while this little porker posed for me

It's possible to do it without getting too muddy, but you have to take off your shoes so you can balance on the underwater part of one of the logs.

Health and injuries

My fingers look like this all the time now. After a show they have streaks of black to the first knuckle. This is post face wash, toothbrushing, cooking and dish washing if that gives you an idea of how deep those black lines go

 We had a serious injury two nights ago. Steve threw his back out doing a lift in the first song. Apparently he has an old injury that flared up when he did a lift (which is, apparently, a dead weight lift that is hard even if your lifting itty bitty Carolyn). He was a trooper and stayed on stage and sang his songs but he was out of the dances and most of the second act for that show. The next day they changed a lot of the blocking and who sang Steve's songs. We even cut Folsom Prison Blues. When I asked Chet how things were he said "Well, all our blocking is totally different and I'm singing a song I only know one verse to...... so it's great." Tonight Steve hopped on stage for his solos and otherwise stayed highly drugged in the dressing room. He is under doctors orders to not lift anything over 20 lbs. Actually I'm just assuming he's super drugged by the fact that yesterday he was on a stretcher going to the hospital and tonight he was on stage. That boy's a trooper.

I feel like I'm doing a decent job of staying healthy out here, at least considering how awful the food is. I have been hiking or running as much as I can and obviously performing a lot. Tonight I made chili again (Chris said my chili tastes like her mom's home cooking, which is like the best compliment ever from a Mexican, talking about your chili) and pigged out on it big time. But when it's my food I know that it's just beans and veggies and salsa and spices and the only butter in it is for sauteing the onions and garlic. The Chuck Wagon on the other hand might be anything. Really. Anything. No really. I found chicken in the mac and cheese the other day. I screeched in horror and ran to the trash to throw it away. I honestly thought I might have a Chuck Attack before the show. A Chuck Attack is when.... well when you eat bad food and your intestines feel the need to expel it. The food in Medora is so questionable we have a word for a sudden poop due to bad food. I think the main reason I am so into the chili making is that my body keeps screaming "I want nutrients!!!!" I find myself hungry like ALL the time, I'm assuming it's not a calorie deficiency, so it must be all the other things I'm not getting.

Zombie Prom

A group of people organized the Zombie Prom. At first I wasn't sure how far to go make-up wise. Then Carolyn showed up already all bruised and bloodied and I figured I might as well go for it. It turned out everyone delivered. I just worked with what I had but some people went out and bought stuff to rip up. Also, a HUGE thank you to John for bringing out his nice camera and taking the fantastic shots!

Kayla and Gerry

Kevin and Mark

Hannah, Carolyn, Patti and Lauren

Lauren and John will be great parents

This may be the greatest picture that will ever be taken of us. Also, I was really proud of my bloody leg

Patti, Dan and me

Dana hid her bite for most of the party then turned

Mark won prom queen (john won king)

Birthdays, riding and babies

Wednesday was Patti's birthday so Thursday most of the cast was a little worse for wear. It was a fun evening. We all dressed formal (I wore heals and a dress that has a petticoat!) and went to Boots (one of the bars here). Then we came back to the compound, built a fire, played flip cup (I didn't play, it's some relation of beer pong that I understand even less than beer pong. I don't like beer so beer drinking based games are lost on me). It was a lot of fun. All but maybe 3 people in the compound stood around near the fire and made bad jokes and shouted about nothing. Basically it was a frat party without all the frat guys and theater nerds instead, which is highly preferable in my opinion.
I went riding with Chris (female stage hand), Maddi (stage hand) and Anna (who I don't really know) Wednesday as well. We ran the horses hard. I've got the canter down pretty well so it feels solid and safe and I don't hold on, but when we run I hold onto the saddle horn like it's my life line. Which it pretty much is. At one point we were all running and we came to a little dribble of a creek. I don't know about the other horses but Bojangles jumped it. I was absolutely not prepared and screamed like a little girl. It was SO MUCH FUN though, and I did not, in fact, receive a saddle horn to the crotch and can still have children.

Speaking of children, one of the cast members in pregnant! I don't even like babies and I'm excited. She's basically already all of our moms anyway. We are all really happy about it. She and her husband set up this great reveal where they had everyone walk into a back stage area and then pulled a towel off a cake that said "we're having a baby" and everyone screamed. It was perfect. So there is going to be a Medora baby! The most amusing congrats was when Dana said to John "Well, at least now you know your penis works." Lauren sings "here for the party" and another girl came up to john and said "When Lauren said she was here for the party, I didn't know she mean she was here for the party." We are a classy bunch.