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.

Veteran's day and hiking

Looking awful sassy on my part

We played a "veteran's day" concert on Sunday. I know it's not veteran's day, but Medora has their own. On it they have a free concert for veteran's (that's the third time in a row I've written verteran's... vertebrate veterans?) and then they get into the musical for free as well. They were a GREAT audience. That's the thing about country music, the kids who should be up and screaming don't give a crap and the old foggies are clapping and smiling and even dancing sometimes.

Today I went for a hike at Painted Canyon. It is UNREAL. I swear it's not really on planet earth. It's mars mixed with middle earth. (actually there is a butte that I call Weather Top in my head that I see on my drive home.....) Again, I took a bunch of pictures but they are on a disposable. I'm feeling less and less silly for having brought three of them. I did about 4 miles in about 70 minutes (I ran the flat parts) in 80 degrees at noon. Maybe one of those miles was flat, the rest was up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and oh god I'm cold and think I'm going to puke I think I have sunstroke! I'm exaggerating a bit but I did actually get chilly at one point on my final ascent back up to the parking lot. Maybe that was just horror when I realized I was only half-way up and my so-called in shape thighs were burning and I couldn't drink from my water bottle because I was gasping too hard. I came home, ate till I was ill and fell right to sleep until I had to go to fondue.

I'm super proud of myself but also think that maybe I should start hiking earlier to avoid the sun. It's not that hot, but perfect blue clear skies mean blinding sun. I've also discovered a medium sized gray fly that loves the taste of my blood, mostly notably from the backs of my knees. It and it's friends have found me on both of my hikes. I am running on the theory that it is a horse fly but mostly I have been calling it "Jackass." This name could be used in a sentence like "GET OFF ME YOU LITTLE JACKASS!!!! GAHHHHH! EEEK!" Usually accompanied by childish flailing.

I tacked a trail map to my wall and I've starting marking off where I have hiked. I've got this crazy idea in my head that I'm going to hike the whole thing. on the one hand I think I could actually do it. On the other hand some of those trails are really long and you can't start in the middle so I would be looking at a 5 hour hike. Part of me is all "I've got this!" but the reasonable part of me is reminding myself I have to play a show every night. I've got 2 months so I'll see how much I can get in.

New book, Massage and hiking pictures!

Left to right: girl I don't know, Mark, Mathew (Carolyn's man), Carolyn, me, Nick, Kayla, Kevin, Girl I don't know, Chet, Candi, Gerry. All at Little Missouri's bar.

I think I forgot to mention my 75 minute massage. It was a full body and about 10 minutes into it I was laying there on my face thinking "god this is restful, I hope it helps my shoulder." And right then she said "I'm using extra essential oils on your shoulder since my darling, you are tense." It was amazing, she would work on my right shoulder arm or peck and it would just feel nice then she would do the same thing on the other side and it would hurt like blazes. She said she could feel the difference in temperature on my left shoulder so it's probably constantly inflamed.
So after the massage and stagger into the reception all relaxed and completely confused with my hair all messed up and this guy who has been chatting with the masseuse says "Oh hey it's the fiddler!" Then they start talking about my shoulder and he had me try a couple things that pretty much proved that my left shoulder is totally weird. It turns out he is a chiropractor and he offered to fix my shoulder right there. He said he wasn't licensed in North Dakota but the masseuse seemed cool with him so I said go for it. And I'll be damned, he actually did fix it. I mean it's still weird and always will be, but the range of motion improved by about half an inch. I probably should have someone do that every 6 months or so...

I started Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley last night. I'm so hooked. I love her so much I didn't even read the back, I just started reading (that's always the most fun anyway). It turns out it's an urban fantasy about a 15 year old boy who lives with his dad on a national park that has...... DRAGONS. It's such perfect timing to be reading this! I was sitting on the Chuck Wagon patio reading it and he finds a dragon (unusual since they are notoriously hard to sight despite being as large as a decent sized house). But she is dying and his mom died two years before and he and his dad are still dealing with it and then his dog died six months after his mom and then there is this big beautiful animal that was killed by a poacher and he loses it and so did I. So I was sitting there with all the tourists around me reading about a teenage boy crying with his head against a dead dragon's giant scaly nose while I covertly dab at my eyes and then I discovered Carolyn and Mathew were sitting right behind me and I hadn't even noticed. When I say that it sounds really melodramatic but they way that the book puts it is really not. His voice is so kind of funny and self deprecating that it actually took me a while to realize that the protagonist is really depressed.

Here are Hannah's picture's from our adventure:

And don't forget cute little Hannah!

Rain shows, hair dying and hiking

Tonight we had our first rain show - sort of. Rain shows are when the stage is too slick to dance on safely so most parts of the songs where there is a instrumental solo and they dance are gone. One glaring exception is the fiddle solo in Mountain music right at the beginning of the show where I run down to the cookie. So today they all step touched and stared at me while I played 24 bars of fiddle solo from the band shack since I wasn't sure if it was raining enough to get my fiddle damp or not. It was pretty awkward.
It was only sort of a rain show because before we got to any of the songs that are changed they changed it back to a normal show. So we finished the first act and then another front came in and the second act was cancelled.
I was super grumpy and opted not to go down to the Rough Rider with the cast. Instead Carolyn and Hannah (costume intern) and I hung out in my room and dyed Hannah's hair. It was one of those magical nights where somehow everything we said was funny, and even sometimes clever. While I dyed Hannah's hair Carolyn just sat on my bed watching my random list of music videos on Youtube and yelling about how much she loved all the 80's hair and country music.
This morning Hannah and I hiked out to look at the petrified Forrest in the park. I took a million pictures, but not on my phone. My phone battery is swollen and about to burst into flames so I am phoneless at this time. Honestly this is a great place to have this happen, if I need someone I just wander over to their room. Anyway, I took pictures on a disposable. So when I get them I will post them. It's just like the old days!

Rain out

We had a rain out yesterday. We really needed it too. I think everyone needed a break from the sameness that we all live in. We went out to play pool for a while in Medora then headed back to Belfield about midnight. I was walking into my room when patti (who had not been out with us) came scampering at a very fast pace across the lawn in her jammies with a mostly empty bottle of wine yelling "Josephine!!!! Josephine!!!" And I say scampering because no one in their right mind would call it running. "Will you go to the Rough Rider with us?"
"Uh, sure Patti."
"Okay! Don't take off your dress!!!! I'm putting mine back on!!"
So about ten of us walked to the Rough Rider, which is one of the two bars in Belfield. And believe me, it is ROUGH. We went on a Saturday and witnessed a girl pee her pants and keep dancing, a girl get a concussion and a guy get thrown out of the bar by his hair, literally leaving some of his hair in the owner's hand. I'm a tough girl and I wouldn't go there alone. Not with all the oil workers that are here with nothing to do. But with the band or cast with me it is just an experience.
The days are melding into one large lump of summer. The only reason I know what day it is is because of our Chuck Wagon patio sets. I remembered that we had one today when I was in the shower. Luckily I still had time to catch a ride, but it was scary. But even once I realized I had a set today I still didn't know if it was Wednesday or Thursday. My thoughts on that mostly consisted of  "I get to have a pasta bar tomorrow for dinner if tomorrow is Friday, but if tomorrow is Thursday I won't. Hey, that guy in the audience has a great smile!" Obviously I'm a deep thinker on stage. Actually I often think about food or clothing during the horribly boring kid's song we do 15 minutes before the show. Or sometimes I just look for nice looking guys in the audience. Yeah, apparently I really am that shallow.
A couple days ago I went to Montana at midnight. Tyrel is assistant house manager and a cool guy. We were hanging out a a bonfire that Emily (one of the show's hosts) generously hosted at her place and when we headed out at 12:30 I said I was going to go check out the bar since that's where the boys had gone. He pointed out that in Medora they close at 1am. Then he said "We could go to Wibaux, Bars close at two there."
"I'm game"
"...I was kidding."
"Oh... well I guess you just learned I'm always down to go on random trips."
"Ah hell, let's just go."
So we did. Even though all we did was stop in for a drink and write our names on dollar and stick it to the wall it was totally worth the 30 minute drive. I guess I just really like the idea of running over to Montana for a drink. Also I like having a friend who will randomly drive to Montana with me in the middle of the night.

Parades Pranks and Chili

 July 4th we were in the parade. Then fondue then the show. After the show Sheila the "first lady of medora" who is the widow of the man who made it into the tourist town that it is, hands out ice cream and we watched fireworks from her front lawn.

left to right: Carolyn, Kayla, Lauren, Patti, Dana. I'm me and Dan is the boy.

 It's a terrible picture but I wanted to show my eyelashes. I was DEAD SET on wearing my red white and blue eyelashes all day.

Carolyn and I

There has been a rash of pranks recently. A while ago Kayla's furniture got rearranged while she was out at a party. Then a couple days ago Marc got taped into his room. He couldn't open his screen door.... excuse me for a second BAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Everyone suspected me and Kayla the most. I'm actually proud that people think I am that creative. Sadly I'm definitely not that subtle. Those two pranks haven't been claimed and if I did something like that I would have been parked in a lawn chair waiting to laugh at him trying to get out. All of this is possible because people leave their doors wide open because they lock automatically. Typical hang-out protocol is; take off make-up, grab your drink, grab your keys, leave your door open.




We are desperate to know who taped him in, just because I want to shake their hand. It's like I'm living in the juvenile prank version of clue. Everyone suspects everyone else.
It was Zach! In the parking lot! With the packing tape! 


 Last night was Chili night. By which I mean I made a giant pot of chili and people ate it. ALL of it. It was fabulous. I had a kind of stressful day yesterday and coming right home to open a bottle of wine and start chopping veggies while a bunch of people sat around joked was exactly what the doctor ordered. As sort of egotistical as it sounds I think I kind of needed the ego boost of everyone liking my chili. I had one of those days where I got yelled at, then someone else "apologized" for being terse with me but it was one of those apologies that is just designed to make you feel bad. So comfortable and homey was what I needed. I will definitely be making more chili. Especially since I fed lke 10 people and spent about $12. And I did it all without my underwear on. I have to say, possibly my favorite thing about living here is how I get to constantly wear my pajamas.

July 3rd

Our biggest fan. Another little girl was dancing and kept yelling my name. When I told her I liked her dancing she said "Yeah, me too."

As you can tell from the expression on my face I was not loving this noonday patio show next to the chuck wagon. I was sleepy and trying to chug coffee and got chastised by Matt the sound guy for trying to take it up on stage because he said I was going to spill it. Sadly he was totally right. The stage is rickety and I jump around so it was probably going to fall for that reason. Also I spill every drink within 5 feet of me nowadays. I don't recall always being like this... But don't think I didn't try to pout my way out of putting my coffee on a table.
We are playing four patio sets a week, seven fondue sets a week and obviously seven of the musicals a week. At the beginning of the summer the actors were getting jobs and I started to feel like maybe I should get one. Now I am REALLY glad I didn't because we are BUSY. I play from 5:20-9:30 with some days and 4-9:30 some days. But I am making bank. I got my first check for the non-musical work (troupe America pays us for the musical, the Theodor Roosevelt Medora Foundation pays us for the patio and fondue gigs, so different checks) and it was over $400. Our next one should be even more because we are picking up more and more patio gigs. I already have a hefty cache of savings as well as treating myself to things like new running shoes, a running hat, a new shoulder rest for my fiddle, a cup of fancy coffee and most importantly NEW UNDERWEAR.

 In other news I managed to leave my shoulder rest in Belfield for the show the other night so I had to improvise something so I didn't keep dropping my fiddle. I wandered around from tech person to tech person asking for foam or a tiny pillow. No one had any good ideas. Finally Dana walked up with a swimming noodle in her hand and said "How big?" I think what happened is that everyone was thinking very literally and Dana just went "Hmmm, foam? Noodle!"

So this was our creation. Half a noodle shaved down on it's curved side rubberbanded in place on top of my cord and next to my wireless .... what's the opposite of a receiver? Sender? output? I'm sure there's a better name. Next to my wireless whatever baggie.

Speaking of which, today I developed a terrible pain in my shoulder. I get those sometimes so at first I didn't think much of it. Fiddle players have shoulder pain. It's a fact of life. But then it spread down my back and it started to hurt to breath. Before the show Dan worked on my shoulders for a while and let me tell you, if I didn't have zero interest in him romantically and he didn't have a girl he wants to marry I would marry the man for his shoulder rubbing skills. Apparently he spent six months getting physical therapy for a neck something-or-other and he payed attention to what they did. Basically he sat down behind me and squeezed my should and went "oh HONEY, there isn't a knot because it's all so tense!" It was so funny, after only 5 minutes of him working on my shoulder I didn't feel like crying anymore. Partially because he took the edge of the pain but also, I think, because he made me feel like I wasn't being a baby about it. My shoulder really is that bad. So two things are happening. I'm switching from putting my wireless..... whatever on my fiddle to putting it on my belt because I think the weight may be contributing to my tension and then I am using the gift certificate for a 90 minute massage all the girls got and I am going in and telling them to spend 60 of those minutes on the left side of my back.

 Meet Dana, our chief electrician who is about three feet tall, loves balloons and blew everyone's mind on the bar patio by whipping our a large pocket knife and starting to curl all the ribbons on the bottom of those balloons. She is currently making pretzels in the lounge apparently. I'm pretty excited.
Today I bought groceries for chili, so I think we will be having a chili feed of some sort in a couple days. I bought enough so about 10 people could eat themselves sick. So I'm guessing the six people in the band will eat half of it and the 12 actors (who actually think about things like calories) will eat half of it.

I also wanted to make mention of Carolyn for being such a great friend. She had been a great help to me in the last week because she is the kind of friend who both encourages you to tell her every single detail about a boy if your interested in one, but will also bar hop with you until you find him. We at one point actually craned our necks to look in the window of a bar didn't find him and headed to the next place. It was both really creepy and oddly just fun. It was kind of like a quest we were on together that bonded us. In other news I was laying on her bed waiting for her to pee last night at 2am and I heard a CLANG CLANG CLANG!!!!! "GAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" She dropped her keys in the toilet before she flushed. It was a sad day for Carolyn. And also proof that my bio weirdness has not left me because I yelled "It's okay! Pee is sterile when it comes out of your body!"

 Matt (who volunteers at the stables as well as being our sound guy) has started taking us on trail rides where it is just people from the musical and he takes a little bit off trail. This last time he let us gallop for a while. It was AWESOME!!!!! I really really really really really really liked it. My horse was happier, and I was happier. We went up on the bluff above Medora and it is amazing. I'm petty sore from my first experience going over a walk on a horse possibly ever (?) but I figure the best way to cure that is to go again.
Nick did the world a favor by taking video right when we all started to gallop. He is not the most assertive person ever so his horses never give a crap about what he wants them to do. By the end his legs were sticking out the sides and he was leaning back over the horse holding on for dear life. It was pure comedy gold. The video can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3206518417344&set=vb.1697691591&type=2&theater Listen closely and in the background you can hear Patti and a screeching with laughter.

And finally another picture from a run. It just doesn't get old.