My Sweet Mandy B and Indy

Yesterday was a highlight of my time in Chicago. I finally got to do what I was arguably most excited about! You see, there is a cupcake shop in Chicago called "Sweet Mandy B's", and I know a very sweet (and often sassy) Amanda Belscamper.

So, I'd been waiting to take my sweet Mandy B's to the Sweet Mandy B's since I heard about it. Now, unfortunately, there were some technical difficulties and I don't have any pictures of Mandy in front of Sweet Mandy B's and for this I am very sad, but I did get cake, and that makes things better!

Before cake, however, there was pizza! We went to Pequod's Pizza for lunch. It was on The List, but it would have been nice if the list had told us that it was going to be a 50 minute wait from the time we ordered to when our food was on the table because if we'd known that, we would have gotten an appetizer! It was good though. Apparently they're the "best pizza in the universe" and have a famous caramelized crust. It was good pizza, that's for sure. We enjoyed it and it was nice for us to get to sit and talk because there was not nearly enough time for that this past week. It's ok though, because I will be back!

After that, it was cupcake time. The cupcake was really good! I got a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. Mandy and I took our cupcakes to the playground and sat on the swings because sugar goes perfectly with childhood pastimes.

After that, Mandy and I went to Cloud Gate which is the real name of "the Bean." That was pretty cool. After that, we bummed around a bit before going to "Saco Saturday." Mandy and her friends in Chicago (who include another former TAD who I knew before this week) wanted to have a weekly Taco Tuesday dinner when they moved to the city, but Tuesday didn't work for any of them, so when it moved to Saturday, it became Saco Saturday. We didn't eat tacos though, we went out for Thai food. After dinner, we tried to fix Mandy's friend's flat tire. It was a very exciting night!

Even though that doesn't seem like the most insane night ever, it did solidify my desire to come back. Technically, I will be back in March when I have a residency in Western Springs, but I mean my desire to move to Chicago in the fall. Fingers crossed!!!

This morning, I had to say goodbye. The visit was farrr too short. Mandy made me pancakes for breakfast and then I was on my way. One good thing about this upcoming residency is that it is in Indianapolis, IN, so I'm leaving civilization for more civilization, instead of saying goodbye to my best friend and saying hello to somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Excited to find out that Indy is on EST!

I met Jas at O'Hare and we were on our way. On our drive, we talked about birds, what we'd done on our break and figured out that we're on the same flight to Minneapolis on our way to our respective spring break destinations -- no joke -- great tour partners think alike apparently.

Also on our drive, I saw a billboard for a Hampton Inn that said "the road to comfort is right this way" which led to me saying "Well, I'm on the way to the Marriott, b*tch!" I've been very excited about this Marriott. We stay a lot of different places but I just knew deep down that this place would be good.

I. Was. Right! We got a classy hotel because we are classy people (Jas is working on his Boston accent, so we say the word "classy" a lot, plus, I am legitimately a classy broad). We need to swipe our keys just to get to our floor of the hotel! That is class. Seriously. There is also a concierge lounge on our floor and we had hors d'oeuvre (pronounced by us as "horse doovres") for dinner. Plus a pool and fitness center! So, that's Indianapolis for now. Jas has been making fun of me because I needed to watch Grease: Live but I regret nothing (because our classy hotel obviously has a large screen TV and cable!!!).

Measure for Measure and Mindy's Hot Chocolate

Ah, another blog post! The time has come for me to recount my activities of the past two days! They've been interesting to say the least!

I slept in yesterday before taking the subway (I'm getting very good with the subway here) to meet Mandy for lunch. We went to The Corner Bakery which was a Panera/Cosi type place. After lunch, we went next door to Do-rite Donuts so Mandy could buy a half dozen for her co-workers, and since we were already there, I decided to treat myself.

Oh, donuts. Donuts, donuts, donuts. Chicago has a lot of them and this was a pretty good one. I count myself lucky that I've only gained five pounds this week, because it easily could have been 10*.

*I haven't actually weighed myself in like three years so any weight gain cannot be confirmed nor denied.

After that, I walked to the Harold Washington Library on Mandy's suggestion -- she knew that nine floors of books might be enough to entertain me for a little while. Yes, nine stories of books. I was so overwhelmed by it all that I just walked around wide-eyed for a while, riding the escalator up and down! Eventually, I found the travel section on the sixth floor and read up on Central America for a while (Central America is next on my to do list, dates/time TBD).

After the library, I wandered for a bit. This included a trip to heaven on Earth -- Target. I did some other shopping and putzed around Chicago until it was dinner time. I went to Portillo's for dinner because it was on The List. It's a hot dog place but they had lots of options and I was there for two reasons: cheese fries and milkshakes. Those two things may or may not be the meaning of life... They're probably the meaning of my life at the very least.

Portillo's was an experience. The inside was colorful (as you can see to the right) and the portions were big. I got a small fries and shake! Small! Does anything in those pictures look small?! I don't think so. They asked me if I wanted to go with a large and I almost said yes until they showed me just how big the small actually was and I realized how swift death would be if I upgraded. I really liked that the fries didn't come covered in cheese like one might expect, they came with a tub of cheese for dipping. And there was a lot of cheese... I love cheese. It was a success for sure.

Rainbow Bard wall art!

After recovering from my cheese coma, I walked to the Navy Pier for the main event of the day. I bought myself a ticket to see Measure for Measure at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Except that it wasn't just Measure for Measure. It was Measure for Measure in Russian. Before you ask, no, I do not speak Russian. There were subtitles. 

I had no clue what to expect but I was excited! Now, I have been super interested in the Chicago Shakespeare Theater since I heard about Othello: The Remix while working at the Shakespeare Theatre Association conference in 2013. Oh, for those of you who don't know, I worked at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival for two years... This, however, doesn't mean that I know my Shakespeare. In fact, it probably makes me dumber than your average Shakespeare fan because I pretend that I understand stuff when I don't. Back to Othello: The Remix, now I thought that it was just a cool concept (click the hyperlink -- they translated Othello into American hip hop) and then in 2014, I spent five weeks teaching regular non-rap Shakespearean Othello to a bunch of high school sophomores. Now, teaching Othello led to a lifetime of stories (the most notable being the "Yo Ms. Jaffe... Who wrote this?!" story where a student asked me who wrote the play on the day of their final exam) but it has continued to draw me towards Othello: The Remix/Chicago Shakes. And this is why I was willing to shell out some dough to go see Measure for Measure.

Like I said in the last paragraph, I am your dumber than average Shakespeare viewer. PSF did Measure for Measure while I was working there so I had done some research on it but never actually saw it. I knew the general concept is "man is condemned to die, is ok to let nun sister sleep with a corrupt politician to save himself" and I was right. But, when you consider the fact that Shakespearean English is nearly as foreign to the modern world as Russian is the the English speaking world, combined with the cultural difference between America and Russia made it a memorable night. There were parts I got, parts I didn't get, parts that I understood and thought were weird and parts where it look liked people were just walking around the stage for no reason and when I left, my mind had been blown. 

I do think it was weird that no one after the show (both this one along with the one I saw on Monday) asked me to help take apart the set afterwards, but oh well, their loss. (That's a joke cuz after our shows every week, we offer "a TOTALLY FREE workshop entitled HOW TO TAKE ALL OF THIS APART AND FIT IT INTO THE BACK OF A FORD F-150!!!". I don't actually want to take apart a professional production's set, but after 35 weeks of touring, a person can forget the rules of grown up theatre). 

Onto today! Apart from the Shakespeare, the greatest moment of my Chicago adventure occurred today. Today, I took the train to Myopic Books, which is a used bookstore from The List that asked for its visitors to not take any photos. It was your typical used bookstore, although there weren't any cats hanging around. After that, I had my greatest moment. I went to Mindy's Hot Chocolate. Despite its name, Mindy's Hot Chocolate serves more than hot chocolate. In fact, hot chocolate is a very small part of their menu. They do brunch and dinner, they have insane desserts and are also on the expensive side of things. No regrets! I got their old-fashioned hot chocolate, which came topped with homemade marshmallows and chocolate ganache. It. Was. A. Masterpiece. I got my mom a bag of their mix and am definitely going to be the favorite child once she gets it. This is the place that will bankrupt me if/when I live here. Their special of the day was also a chocolate cake, which I considered getting with my hot chocolate just because, but when I saw it, I knew I'd made the right choice to just stick my hot cocoa -- not because it looked bad, but because I would have died. My blood would have just turned into chocolate and I would have melted into nothing... I need to put the mix in the mail before I end up drinking it myself.

After that, I went to the grocery store. I'm like Mandy's fairy godmother, except instead of Prince Charming, I make her dinner. I'm determined to stock her fridge with a few meals before I go because she's a busy lady and this way, she won't need to worry about food!! I made some lentil/bean vegetarian chili and am going to make some mac and cheese in a bit.

And that's it for now. Tomorrow Mandy and I are going to actually get to spend the day together and then it will be time to go to Indianapolis on Sunday!

Time for Pie

This morning started out with a cinnamon roll, as all good days should. Mandy approved of my decision to eat the cinnamon roll that I got her, saying that she had lots of time for Ann Sather's (she'd meant to tell me to go there but forgot, luckily for us both, I did my research).

I didn't have a lot planned for the day -- lunch with Mandy and then nothing. Big, fat, nothing. Mandy and I went to The Protein Bar for lunch. They do "healthy healthier." I'm not sure what that means but their veggie quinoa chili was good.

After lunch, it was time for pie. I had a college professor who said that after every audition/performance he would "go get pie." This meant that he and his friends would go out and trash talk whatever they'd just seen and yes, pie was usually involved. I've never really been a pie person, but I have adopted the expression about getting pie.

This might have been part of the appeal of Hoosier Mama Pie Company. It was on The List and even though, as I've said, I'm not a big pie person, I didn't have anything to do, needed something to do and decided that this should be that thing. They had a lot of different pies -- I went with classic apple. It was good, but I wanted something ah-mazing from a store that sells nothing but pie. Warm would have been an improvement. Long story short, if I needed a pie for some type of event or party, I would order it from these guys, but if I wanted a snack, I wouldn't take the subway that way again.


After pie, I took the subway back towards Mandy's. I made a pit stop at the grocery stores to get supplies for the afternoon's activities, which included baking banana-walnut-chocolate chip bread for my favorite former tour partner and making some dinner for myself.

The bread I made (although I admittedly used the shortcut of store-bought cake mix) was superior to the pie in my eyes. I also got to lick the spoon, which I didn't get to do at the pie place. For dinner, I made a zucchini/beans/rice skillet. It was super easy and there are leftovers sitting in the refrigerator for Mandy when she gets home, but it was a little bland. I think next time, I'll add in some onion or something (fyi: the skillet did include more than just zucchini, beans and rice -- there were green peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes and cheese in there too).

Now I'm working on a plan for tomorrow as I multitask with a little bit of MCT work.

What Are All These Birds Doing?

As promised in my last post, I shall now describe today, aka Tuesday, January 26.

Today, I said goodbye to Jas -- for now. He hugged Mandy goodbye and then we had a moment where we were like, do we hug to say goodbye? Do we not? Mandy stepped in and told Jas that she and I never hugged until the end of the tour in May (which is true) and Jas and I have now set our calendars accordingly. Tour partnerships are the strangest relationships...

After that, I went with Mandy to work and by that, I mean, we rode the subway together. I got the seven day Ventra card (which looks and feels like a credit card... way to go Chicago) so I can basically ride the subway as much as I want between now and Sunday, so I wasn't too worried about where I was going. We spent most of the train ride trying to figure out what I could do with my day because odds are, I won't see Mandy until tomorrow morning based on her internship/work schedule. Several museums were free and I decided that I would go to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which apparently no one knew existed...

So, after walking Mandy to the front door of the Goodman Theatre, I turned around and got right back on the train I'd just gotten off and continued on my way. The train was the easy part, because after the train, I -- you guessed it -- got lost on my way to the zoo. How is it possible for one person to get so turned around so frequently? I think I would fare a lot better if my cell phone didn't try to help me out. Give me a real map and I'm good but my stupid "smart phone" flips me around so much that you'd think it was a Motorola Razr in 2003 (still bitter that I never got one of those bad boys).

So, part of my reasoning for picking the zoo had to do with Aladdin. In MCT's Aladdin, there are penguins. Yes, I know. There are lost penguins in the desert, which is strange to say because technically Antarctica is a desert but what seven year old knows that?! There is also a fabulous scene in the play where Sinbad the sailor and his amazing sailors come across the penguins and one of the sailors says "What are all these birds doing?" Then the penguins coo and it's adorable. Well, Jas and I have come up with our own, adult version of the line which involves a word beginning with the letter "f" that isn't fit for print. And now, whenever we see a bird (and sometimes when we don't), we say this line and act like it is a lot funnier than it is. So, yesterday, when we were talking about potential things we could do during our next residency, which is in Indianapolis, I mentioned that there was a zoo and that it would be pretty funny if there were penguins there. Once again, we thought this idea was a lot funnier than it actually was, so today, when I had to come up with something to do, I decided that I would go to the zoo and take pictures of all of the birds.

So, yes I went to a zoo that had gorillas and zebras and giraffes and all I took pictures of were birds. Ok, I also took a selfie! When I texted Jas, he seemed very impressed by my dedication to our cause. Our cause being stupidity, of course.

I made a meme.

The Lincoln Park Zoo is, by the way, working on a penguin exhibit for 2016, so when I return here in the fall, it will be waiting for me. Jas has added this to his calendar along with our hug in May. (God, tour partners are weird...).

After the zoo, I retraced my steps to the train station and then went on to get some grub! I'd read about The Chicago Diner, a vegetarian diner (meat free since '83) and wanted to give it a shot. And wouldn't you know, I accidentally ended up in Chicago's gay neighborhood. My gaydar is clearly a much better guide than my phone's GPS. On my walk to The Chicago Diner, I also crossed paths with another place I'd been hoping to go -- Ann Sather. Ann Sather is on The List courtesy of both Buzzfeed and Thrillist. It's a double whammy. But more on that in a second.

I really like finding vegetarian restaurants. I'll have been a vegetarian for a whole year on Sunday and while I maintain -- as I always have -- that it probably won't last forever, I have made a resolution to continue looking for exclusively vegetarian/vegan restaurants when I travel because I always enjoy them!

I ordered the Cajun Black Bean Burger, which was a black bean patty, sauteed onion, mushroom, spinach, tomato, fried jalapeno, cheddar sauce and creole mustard. It was spicy, but fantastic! I also had to order a vegan shake, a) because (no)milkshake and b) because it is "award winning." I need to judge these things obviously! It was good, although more expensive than I would have liked. The burger was so big that I couldn't finish it and I took it home with me for dinner tonight!

After my belly was full, I turned back towards the train station and again walked past Ann Sather. I already knew what I was going to do. Ann Sather's cinnamon rolls are their claim to fame.
I may not be as versed in cinnamon rolls as I am in vanilla milkshakes but I still had to give them a try! I went in and got two to go (two cinnamon rolls for $3.50! The price alone adds to their infamy). Now, one cinnamon roll was supposed to be for me and one was supposed to be for Mandy. Notice how I use the phrase "supposed to be" because after eating the first one this afternoon, I'm not sure the second one will ever see Mandy. When I got it to go, I didn't realize that they'd given me extra frosting! I will be licking that container clean after I finish eating roll number 2 (because it's going to be screaming my name in the morning... sorry, Mandy). I waited until I was back at Mandy's to open the bag so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat them cold (and also because I was still digesting lunch) but at Mandy's I warmed up the roll and the frosting and nearly died. Top notch rolls of cinnamon right there. The highest notch. The most wonderful notch. Sorry not sorry, Mandy. I'll take you back there, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do and this girl needs to eat more cinnamon rolls!

And that was basically my day! I've been chilling at Mandy's for a while now, thinking about food and taking way too long to type out this post. I'm also trying to decide what to do tomorrow. I'm meeting Ms. Mandy for lunch but then what else? I don't know yet! Suggestions are appreciated!

The Chicago Pizza Marathon and Other Stuff

I could write about this Monday and Tuesday in a singular blog post but the past two days have been so full that they deserve their own bloggy love and so this post is strictly about Monday, January 25, 2016.

As I said, it was a full day! First of all, Mandy finally got home and I got to see my love! I filled her up with mac and cheese and then we went to sleep because it was very late. On Monday morning, we let her head out to work and then Jas and I went out about an hour later with some insane plans.

Spotted.

I'd made myself a large, interactive map of things I wanted to do in Chicago. Most of them involved food, but Jas added two more to the list. We needed to get real, Chicago deep dish and he had two places in mind, Giordanos and Lou  Malnati's, so we planned a pizza marathon (later renamed the Pizza Path because we wanted an illiteration). I'd told Jas about the pizza marathon Whitney and I embarked on in Venice but this ended up being completely different and probably a lot crazier!

We figured we would start our day at the Navy Pier and go through the Amazing Chicago maze so we took the subway from Mandy's and when we got off, immediately set off in the wrong direction. Yes, I led us a complete mile in the wrong direction. Thank you, stupid GPS! Although, as we both agreed, we probably needed to walk that mile to make room for all of the pizza we were going to eat. (Later, when we recounted this incident to Mandy, all she had to say was "That sounds familiar." Ok, I get lost a lot! But it's ok as long as I say "it's an adventure!" while I'm walking off in the wrong direction).

We did eventually get to the Navy Pier, where we discovered that there was a Giordanos, which we took as a sign that we needed to get our first pizza before we could do anything else. We didn't have any pizza judging criteria until we started eating pizza and I will get to the break down in a bit, but for now, just know that we each got the lunch special (Jas got pepperoni and I supposedly got cheese, although our receipt said sausage...) which was pizza and a salad.

After successfully eating some pizza, we went to Amazing Chicago, which is a maze thing that we read about online. For once, my ability to get lost was put to good use, although I did run directly into my own reflection in a fun house mirror. I would have liked it if the maze had been bigger, although Jas seemed ready to get done when he realized that the maze included a few bangs and surprised that made you jump. And by "seemed ready to be done," I mean that he told me that he was ready to be done.

After that, we headed off for more pizza at Lou Malnati's, which meant walking back in the direction that we'd come from and then some (it's just like touring in Montana except I was walking and there were signs of civilization!!!). Since we'd already sampled one pizza, we were able to come up with some solid criteria while we waited for our second, so here it is:

Thomson and Jas's Pizza Path Score Card:

Rules of the Pizza Path:

1. Eat pizza

2. Discuss pizza

3. No pizza left behind

Giordanos:

Pros - shorter waiter time (only 15ish minutes, although this had to do with us ordering the lunch special) and the lunch special lasted from 11am-3pm (a whole hour longer than Lou Malnati's).

Cons - I may have accidentally eaten a sausage pizza there. I don't think I did, but still.

Lou Malnati's:

Pros - Cheaper and a more inclusive lunch special (even though we missed their lunch special since we arrived for our second lunch around 2:30 and it ended at 2, we did see that their lunch special included soup or salad and a fountain drink, while Giordanos' simply came with a side salad).

Cons - see lunch special hours situation and wait time was 30+ minutes

Cheese to sauce ratio (aka: the winning factor): Giordanos definitely dominated with the cheese and thus we proclaimed it our winner (although we're the real winners in this situation!!!).

Top row: Giordanos; Bottom row: Lou Malnati's

After pizza, Jas and I decided it would be a good idea to get donuts(?!). We wanted to try the Doughnut Vault, but they were closed, so instead, we ended up at Firecakes Donuts, getting donuts that we really didn't need but ate anyways. And they were good donuts, yo!

After donuts (and sitting in Macy's for like an hour... long story), we met up with Mandy. Mandy has an internship at the Goodman Theatre and was able to get me a ticket to opening night of their newest show Another Word for Beauty. She would have gotten Jas a ticket except that Jas wasn't supposed to be here... So, Jas went to see Star Wars again (oh, in between pizza, I did my best to push Jas's buttons by asking him questions like "What is a light saber?", "What is the force?", "Are these movies about fighting stars?", "Are these movies any good?". ...Jas is a diehard Star Wars fan and I have an awful sense of humor). The play was interesting. It was about a beauty pageant in a Colombian prison and is actually based on a true story. Yes, Colombian beauty prisons have beauty pageants! Who knew? 

At the afterparty, I got to meet "Mandy's crew." One of whom I already knew as a former TAD and the rest who I'd essentially met through snapchat. I'll get to see them again later in the week but we talked a lot about Chicago and what they thought about the city and my plans on moving here. It was cool. There were also tacos!

So, that was Monday Funday. I also bought myself a ticket to see Measure for Measure on Thursday at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. It's in Russian. Yup, Russian Shakespeare. There will be subtitles involved but still, I'm psyched. So much theatre that isn't for children!!! I love it. (I mean, I still love children's theatre, but I've done Aladdin for 20 weeks now! I need to see something new!!!)

The Airport is Far Less Stressful When You Aren't Actually Flying

Hello from me and my unbooked week!

Yes, three weeks into the tour and I've got a mini-vacation. I can't get used to it because after this week, I've got my "official" schedules vacation in March and then no time off until May!

I finished up a great week in Green Lake -- seriously great! I got to design the lights and the shows went incredibly (minus the kids turning on the projector screen mid-performance... that was kind of weird). It was also my 20th time doing Aladdin! I might have mentioned it in a previous post but I'm going to say it again here because that is totally crazy to me! 20 freaking times! And my 35th residency overall!

My next residency is Indianapolis, IN, which is cool for a few reasons: 1. It is, without a doubt, the biggest place I've done a residency in and 2. After a year and a half of high school "in Indiana," I'll finally be able to say I've legitimately been there (although technically, the University of Indiana -- which is where my high school diploma is from -- is in Bloomington which isn't close to Indianapolis). Now, if we were going from Green Lake to Indianapolis, it would be a five to six hour drive day and that's cool, except that we're driving from Green Lake to Indianapolis over the course of six days! And do you know what is directly in between Green Lake and Indianapolis? Chicago! And do you know who is in Chicago? Amanda Belscamper!

Yes, tour partner numero uno! Also, fun fact: I am both her favorite tour partner and her only tour partner! (Another fun fact, she's my favorite too. Sorry Jas, but I've only know you for three weeks!).

Jas is in Chicago with me right now and it's great, except for the fact that he shouldn't be. Jas was supposed to fly to New York this week but then that crazy storm hit and his flight was cancelled. So he's stuck with me for another two days -- taking the earliest flight he could get out of Chicago on Tuesday. This also changed our plans for the truck a little bit...

I do love my geotags

We'd been planning for us to drive to the airport, park the truck there, say our goodbyes and have him fly off while I take the train to Mandy's. Him not leaving until Tuesday left us with a few different options. We decided against trying to find parking by Mandy's because a) driving the truck in a city, especially a very, very large city isn't fun and b) Mandy's car was recently set on fire and MCT can't afford that. Our final decision was to drive to O'Hare anyways and leave the truck there even though neither of us was leaving the airport via plane. We then trudged through the airport with the luggage that we wouldn't be carrying through security and caught the train. I managed to get the O'Hare geotag without getting on a plane! Awesome. And as the title of this post suggests, it is way easier to go to the airport if you aren't flying!

Although Jas definitely would have preferred flying out today, just saying.

Jas and I took the train from O'Hare, which involved lots of new things. First of all, I had to get a fancy Ventra card. It's a plastic card like a Charlie Card except it looks even fancier and is re-loadable (so I'll be holding onto it for future adventures). And then we had to catch the train. That wasn't very hard since O'Hare is the last stop on the blue line so there's only one way to go. While we were on the train, we had a delay due to technical difficulties (I blame Jas because any time he travels by plane or train, things seem to go wrong!). Once we were back on our way, we transferred to the orange line and then walked from there to Mandy's place.

But, Mandy was out, so we made ourselves at home. And by that, I mean, we walked to the grocery store so I could make us so jalapeno popper mac and cheese! We also got salad and garlic bread so we had a really shnazzy meal. I'm pretty proud to say that I can almost make the popper mac from memory now, so that will definitely come in handy! Jas was impressed by my mad skills! As was Mandy's roommate. Mandy, who introduced me to the jalapeno popper mac at Homeroom this summer is still MIA. She'll be back eventually, just not yet.

Either way, Jas and I are planning a great day for tomorrow while Mandy is at work and in the evening, I'll be heading to the Goodman Theatre to see whatever show Mandy got me tickets for!!!

ALSO, break out the cake and balloons because this is my 400th ever blog post! I started this blog for my trip to South Africa in 2013 and have since taken it to Europe, Canada and half of the country! Hopefully, it lasts a lot longer (and maybe a book some day?! That would be pretty cool! Who knows!!!).

Bowl cozies and Kewaskum

Today, we got a little blast from the past! Actually, several blasts from the past. And by past, I mean last week.

First of all, we knew that we'd been interviewed by the Kewaskum newspaper and that they were planning an article on the play last week. We'd asked if they would email us a copy of the article, but since I am incredible impatient and knew that the paper was released on Thursday, I looked it up, and there we were on the front page of their trial e-paper app! If I zoomed in, I could kind of make out most of what had been written -- enough to see that both Jas and I were quoted, which is pretty cool. I took a screenshot of it on my phone so you can all test your vision and try to see what it says. Not being content to just see part of the article, I made the decision that I would try calling the paper (their number is 262-626-2626, I kid you not) to see if they would send us any copies of the paper and they will! Three copies will be going to Missoula where we can retrieve them in May! (Or the tour office might forward them to us at some point, we shall see).

So. Many.

Just as I got off the phone, our contact walked in with a woman. This woman lives in Green Lake but is also the sister of the woman that we'd stayed with in Kewaskum and was there to drop off a bag full of bowl cozies. Let me explain, our homestay last week proudly showed us her collection of bowl cozies, which you put around a ceramic bowl before you microwave it to save your fingertips from being melted off when your food is done cooking. We thought they were pretty cool but we never could have imagined someone handing us a bag full of bowl cozies just because! So, now Jas and I have a whole bunch of bowl cozies to fight over! Like a lot of bowl cozies! And I don't even have any bowls!!!

On top of all of that, one of the cast members made us rainbow cupcakes! What a time to be alive.

Stuffed French Toast

Sometimes, you just find really good food in the middle of nowhere. In fact, that's the majority of the concept of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives but seriously, today I had a meal where I could feel my arteries closing up on me. In 75 years, when I experience heart failure, I will look back on this moment as the one that did me in.

There is a restaurant here in Green Lake called The Little Corporal. Jas and I went there when we arrived on Sunday and I wanted eggs so I got a breakfast skillet that was fantastic (and covered in cheese) but I saw the item that I knew I'd have to come back for: deep fried french toast.

Yup, deep fried French Texas toast.

We went back today and I didn't just go for their French toast; I got their stuffed French toast. Let me explain: they took two pieces of Texas toast, battered them, deep fried them, stuffed them with cream cheese and covered them with strawberries, powdered sugar and whipped cream. I should be dead.

I took a pretty, pre-pig out aerial photo of my meal, but once I started to dig in, I realized that this was not a meal to be appreciated from the outside and that you blog-readers needed the uncensored version of events, so here you go:

Yummm.

Before I ordered, I told Jas that I wasn't sure I should be doing this and he told me that I could do anything I put my mind to. After lunch, I told Jas that just because I could put my mind to something doesn't mean I should because that was a lot of French toast for one person! I regret nothing, but still a lot of French toast!

It Will Only Go Up From Here

This is the forecast for the week and all I have to say is that after today, it will only go up from here.

The Color of the Lake has Yet to be Determined

I have been too cold to blog this past week because oh my goodness, it has been so far below freezing that I'm pretty sure I froze and have just finally started to thaw out. Which is great because now we're in the negative numbers again.

So, let me review my time in Kewaskum. First things first, it is KEY-wah-skum. And after that, not a lot happened. Jas and I fell into a comfortable routine of driving 10 miles to the nearest gym in the am, returning to our homestay, getting clean, and eating a lunch that was completely drenched in cheese before heading out to rehearsal. If that isn't "the dream" then I'm perfectly fine right where I'm at.

We put on two great shows yesterday with a surprise cameo! The surprise cameo was me. Roughly five minutes before showtime, Jas told the kids that we know the whole show and could step in for any of them at the last minute, *fast forward four minutes to someone getting injured and me putting on a child's costume*. Also, I had to be wearing a pair of socks that couldn't have possibly clashed more with the costume.

I look like a Keebler elf.

The thumbs up is because they videotaped the performance and Jas and I are super psyched to see it. And yes, I did wear my socks like that for the show because why not?

The actual color of the lake is still TBD

This morning was my shortest drive day in a year of touring! Actually, my shortest drive day up to this point had been Malta to Chinook last year at 69 miles and that would have been a year ago tomorrow, so I guess it's fitting that today beat the record by one whole mile. Jas's shortest drive day ever was 10 minutes long... I am not amused.

Our drive was only about an hour, so after saying goodbye to our homestay (who gave us each a loaf of homemade bread as a parting gift), we drove to the gym to make the best of our week long passes and then it was north to Green Lake, WI.

The Truck Says...

I know that I'm from the Northeast and that I'm supposed to be hearty and laugh at the temperatures that make other men shiver but I'm not. I get cold. I get cold and I complain about it. And, it is cold here.

No.

Yesterday, Jas heard me groaning/screaming at the news anchor when I heard how cold it was going to be through the wall at our hotel. I just don't like it.

But, going out in the cold is a necessity or so I am told, so yesterday, I bundled up to head out to Kewaskum, WI. Kewaskum (which if anyone knows how to pronounce, we'd greatly appreciate your help because we have no clue) is where I am now and is the home of our next residency. When I got in the truck in the morning, it said that it was -8 degrees, my phone said that it was -9 degrees and I said "Are you f***ing kidding me?!"

Our drive yesterday was a short one by TAD standards -- only 4.5 hours! On the way, we took a short detour and stopped at the National Eagle Center where we got to hang out with eagles and be their friends. Along with some eagles, there were lots of interactive things to do and read; we really liked the Native American story that was about how the eagle got such great eyesight -- apparently the eagle and the slug switched eyes for the day and the eagle just decided to never give them back. Moral of the story: If an eagle asks you to trade eyes, don't.

New friend!

By the way, eagles are gigantic. Like scary big when they're up close and personal, which they were! After we left the Center, I saw a few wild ones flying over the truck and that was insane (Jas was asleep for that and the moment when we crossed the border into Wisconsin).

It became very clear that we wear in Wisconsin very quickly. The first hint (other than the giant sign on the highway) was when the song "Black and Yellow" came on the radio, except that it wasn't Black and Yellow, it was "Green and Yellow" and the song was about the Packers. We stopped for gas and it was basically a cheese shop!

I'm so excited for all of the cheese! We got to our homestay and they have like nine types of cheese in their refrigerator! I'm going to get so fat and I'm going to enjoy every minutes of it.

Red Wing

A combination of a lot of fun and flat-out exhaustion have kept me from blogging since I arrived in Red Wing but I guess that means that the week is going well!

For one, I found out why Red Wing is called Red Wing -- it was named after a Sioux chief named Hupahuduta which translates to "Wing of the Wild Swan Dyed Red" because that's what he wore as a symbol of his position. Swans are cool and all but I haven't seen any of them while I've been here; I have, however, seen some friggin' bald eagles but more on that in a moment.

Jas and I have been having a very good first week. Too good, probably. We keep saying we're going to get ourselves fired because we're having too much fun. We had 91 kids at auditions on Monday which meant that we had to cut kids but things went fantastically for it being our first time as a team. On Tuesday, we ended up accidentally wearing matching outfits, so that was a very funny thing to happen on our second day.

Our second day also happened to be the day we saw the world's largest boot. Red Wing, MN is home to the Red Wing Shoe Company which celebrated their centennial anniversary in 2005 by making the world's largest boot which is a 638 1/2 size boot, meant to fit a 12-story-tall man. We checked and it does not appear that any old ladies are living in the boot.

On Wednesday, we did a few workshops and visited the Hobgoblin Music Store, which was neat.

Now, yesterday was a big day for us! We drove to Colvill Park which is where we'd been told that we might be able to see some bald eagles at this time of year. We were skeptical and vowed to take a picture of a quarter in a tree if we couldn't find any live eagles. But, um, we found live eagles. We found a lot of actual live, wild eagles and sort of lost our minds. I can't even begin to describe what we were thinking. This was just a cool -- if not slightly cooler than -- seeing a moose in Canada.

Today I bought my tickets for my spring break trip to North Carolina to see Whitney! In just under two months, I'll be flying from Milwaukee to Charlotte for a whole week.

And that's it from me from Minnesota for now! We've got two shows tomorrow and then onto Wisconsin on Sunday!

1250 Miles Later

I'm in Minnesota! Land of a thousand lakes or something like that! It took over a thousand miles to get here so that definitely counts for something.

I'm pretty sure that the MCT Employee Handbook includes a clause that says "Thou shalt not see other TADs without taking photographic evidence," so the first thing Jas, Whitney, Molly and I did before shipping off again this morning was take a selfie.

We then said goodbye for a bit as we climbed into our separate trucks and hit the road. We left at 8am but quickly transitioned into Central Time and lost an hour, so if we'd been smart, we would have left earlier, but oh well. Less than two minutes into our drive this morning, I said something that I know will haunt me for the rest of the tour (in the best way possible). Jas asked me if I needed to stop and get the ice scraper and I said, "No, I'm fine, I'll live." This, of course, implied that if something were to happen us, I would survive and Jas would not. I don't know how I could possibly know this in advance but I do know that it might not be the best way to start off a partnership! Like I said, however, it is definitely going to be a recurring joke because it has popped up at least six other times today.

Speaking of jokes, the spirit animal of our two day drive were several SNL sketches based on bad high school theatre because some of it rings all too true for us every now and then. Here is a link to one of those videos because it's too good not to share: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/high-school-theatre-show-with-reese-witherspoon/2864976

I drove all the way to Fargo where we met back up with Molly and Whitney for lunch at Qdobe. I found myself a snapsticker and Molly snapchatted a lovely photo of my thinking face without my knowledge... After lunch, we said goodbye to our friends and Jas took over the driving duties. We also changed the icon on the GPS to a burrito in honor of what we'd had for lunch.

I didn't realize how close Fargo was to the Minnesota border, because we were in Minnesota within five minutes of getting back on the road. That did not, however, mean that we were close to Red Wing, because Red Wing is basically on the Minnesota/Wisconsin border, so we had quite a way to go.

I slept for a large portion of the rest of the drive. The sun set at like 5:30, which was pretty lame. On our way to Red Wing, we passed Rosemount, MN, which doesn't seem like a big deal except that it is the inspiration for the fictional Mount Rose, MN from Drop Dead Gorgeous. I tried to take a picture of the sign as we drove by but in true Drop Dead Gorgeous fashion, it was a blurry, hot mess.

The rest of our drive to Red Wing went quickly but not quickly enough. Both of us were pretty spent at that point and went back and forth quoting the more offensive parts of the high school theatre SNL sketches.

Once we got to Red Wing, it became a count of how many times we could see the Red Wing logo. Even snapchat got in on the fun with their Red Wing geotag! We checked into our hotel and went to the Red Wing Brewery for dinner because we obviously had to pick the restaurant with the town's name in their name. The brewery had beer (obviously) and pizza. At the brewery, we were able to find the 2015 tourism guide for Red Wing, except that we realized that even though it was full of wonderful suggestions, it was absolute trash since it now 2016! Ok, that's a joke and there is tons of stuff to do here apparently!

Now I've spent the past few hours lying in my hotel room and taking far longer than should be necessary to write out this post. I'm now going to publish it without rereading any of it because I'm tired and need to get to bed so I can have an awesome first Monday of the tour tomorrow!

*Also, I found out why Jas is "Jas" for everyone who has been wondering. For those of you who are now wondering why people would be wondering about Jas's name it is because Jas's real name isn't actually Jas, but Justin. His initials are J.A.S. and there were two other Justins in his kindergarten class and then history was made.

Dr. Samantha Nightmare

Day one of my drive from Montana to Minnesota is now complete. I am spending the night in Dickinson, ND, with Jas and two other TADS, Molly and Whitney.

I left Missoula at 6 this morning to drive to Helena to collect Jas and then we drove to Bozeman where we met Molly and Whitney at IHOP to caravan the rest of the way to North Dakota. It's been a long day (12 and a half hours from the time I left Missoula to the time I got to my hotel in Dickinson) so I'm going to keep this post short.

I got a new GPS for Christmakah. Her name is Samantha Nightmare. I call her this because the generic voice is named Samantha and then I downloaded some other voices and icons -- one of which is the "Dr. Nightmare" voice, which Jas and I turned on today. After Dr. Nightmare told us that we would be turning in over 400 miles, the GPS would occasionally spit out other spooky things like "can we take a trip to the cemetery?", "is someone following us?", "where is the closest abandoned children's summer camp?" and more! To make everything even more entertaining for ourselves, I'd selected the ice cream truck avatar to represent us!

Our drive is about nine hours tomorrow and then before you know it, we'll be doing a show!!!!!

2016

Happy New Year from the Jaffe girls! 

I’d like to start by saying “Welcome to 2016, dear readers!” 

I haven’t been blogging recently because I haven’t had anything to blog about – this is, of course a travel blog and I have not been traveling! My voyage from Missoula to Massachusetts in December did include some fun – like when I missed my connecting flight and my phone died and I stood out on the curb of Logan airport crying because I was just that exhausted – but that’s so 2015. Today, however, not only marks the earth’s complete revolution around the sun again but also my triumphant return to Montana. What’s so triumphant about it? Well, nothing, I just like being dramatic and feeling self-important (two things I obviously excel at). I’m getting geared up for another five months on the road and therefore must revive this digital diary of mine.

One thing I recently did in an attempt to improve life as a vagabond was register for TSA Pre-Check, which is this thing that can be yours for $85 and a criminal background check!!! It basically means you get to go through security without taking off your shoes and having to take your laptop out of your bag. I counted and I flew over two dozen times in 2015 alone!!! 

That means a lot of times in an airport security line. I was literally approved for this less than 48 hours ago so I wasn’t expecting that I’d get to use it today, although when I got to the airport, I discovered that no one was going to be pre-checked today because of the holiday. I can already see that I will have the same grievance that everyone else with TSA Pre-Check has and that is while we pay for the privilege of not having to get a foot fungus from whatever the person in front of us left on the floor, sometimes random people just get to enjoy the same perks. This was illustrated by the very loud woman across the aisle from me who was telling everyone who’d listen that she was going home to Maui and that she wasn’t sure what she’d done when she came here but they let her go through a shorter security line with her shoes on for no reason. First of all, if I wanted to hear your life story, I would have asked, secondly, your life story is awful and third, take your shoes off, lady, until you’ve paid that $85!!! 

Long live the scarf!

Horrible row mate aside, my early morning flight was pretty easy. This probably has something to do with my big scarf! I recently procured what might be the world’s greatest scarf. This scarf is basically a blanket. It is the exact width and length of me and no, I’m not joking. This makes it perfect for both keeping warm and shielding my eyes from the blinding light streaming in through Ms. Maui’s open window so I could get another hour’s worth of sleep. 

One silly, strange thing that happened on that first flight was that when I opened Hemisphere, aka United’s magazine, they had like a nine page spread on Wisconsin – one page for every week I’ll be there, I guess! (I was going to take the magazine with me, but decided against it, assuming that the puddle jumper I’d be taking from Denver to Missoula would have the same magazine – I was wrong, they only had the December issue). After reading that, I worked diligently on my little Sudoku book and cheated far less than I normally do! 

My flight from Denver to Missoula was pretty painless which officially means that I had the least dramatic travel day of all of the TADs! I did have some drama with some missing t-shirts that has yet to be resolved, but, this is a travel blog and not a t-shirt blog. 

1. A fellow TAD missed his flight after he was pulled out for a "random" security check. We're all putting quotations around the word random because his name is Arabic.

2. Our friend's suitcase was absolutely destroyed -- her luggage came out in plastic bags.

3. My tour partner, Jas, had the most dramatic day of all and isn't even getting to Missoula tonight! He's now in Helena because after getting to JFK and going through security, he missed his flight and was shuttled to LaGuardia where he flew to Denver. When he got to Denver, his flight was cancelled because there wasn't a crew! He has now flown into Helena, which is where I will be driving to pick him up in the morning. His luggage, however, flew to Missoula, so I drove to the airport to pick it up. It's pretty tragic, especially considering that he never got to say a real goodbye to his girlfriend with all the insanity.

MCT88

So, anyways, I'll be driving to North Dakota tomorrow with a stop in Helena to pick up Jas and a stop in Bozeman to meet up with our friends, Molly and Whitney who we were planning on caravaning with until it became clear that I would be taking a two hour detour!

P.S. I met my new truck, MCT 88. It is literally a child. Ryan Lind and I have sent more text messages to each other than this car has miles on it! It also has remote control lock and unlock buttons and automatic windows!