West Salem, Wisconsin

I haven't blogged in an entire week, which might be the first time that has happened in the history of my tour life! You guys missed out on all of the goodness that is West Salem, WI, so I shall now give you the SparkNotes version as I completed my 39th residency yesterday and have moved on to Rock Rapids, IA.

Noodle 2

We had a Noodle 2 problem this week. A few weeks ago, we had The Saga of Noodle, our very depressed, broken windshield wiper and last Sunday, we realized that the other windshield wiper was breaking as well. Replacing this guy went a lot more smoothly than things did with the first Noodle, but now we have two dead windshield wipers sitting on the dashboard of our truck because we plan on having an epic windshield wiper sword fight at some point!

God bless, Wisconsin, because one of the things I got to eat this week was chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. Yup, someone made cheesecake and decided, hey, I think I can make this better SO THEY DID. We also went to a local barbecue place that is campaigning to be on Drive Ins, Diners and Dives. Did I get barbecue? Obviously not, but I am a good tour partner and went with Jas and had the side-dish life! Their fries, corn muffin and milkshake all got my stamp of approval! 

I love food.

Also close by was La Crosse, WI. La Crosse like lacrosse, aka the sport that my family is obsessed with. I had to visit and they had a geotag! Unfortunately, the geotag wasn't actually lacrosse-related but there is only so much you can do!

Yesterday was show day and things went well. We played another game of "Guess That Name!" which is quickly becoming our favorite game. It took the kids 57 guesses to get it this week. One of the guesses was Jaffe, cuz why wouldn't it be? That name is pretty great if I do say so myself.

Other events of this week included introducing Jas to Pitch Perfect and Frozen, finding out the identity of Zoom on The Flash just to discover that we have to wait an entire month for new episodes, the purchasing of a Superman shirt to wear to Batman vs. Superman and getting a really sweet, superhero-themed gift from our homestay's daughter (who we spent the week trading fan theories on all of our favorite shows with). We drove to Rock Rapids, IA today, (which is where I am now) and watched the Oscars tonight and my 40th residency begins in the morning!

Super cool.

Walmart Scavenger Hunt

As I keep telling Jas, "life with me is never boring," and I think I proved this again yesterday.

Apparently we were supposed to get an oil change/tire rotation like 5,000 miles ago (oops!), so we went to Walmart to fix that. We were told that the wait at Walmart was going to be two hours. That is a lot of time to spend at Walmart when all all you needed to buy was fabric glue and painter's tape. Luckily for us, I'm brilliant! I suggested we complete something that I had always wanted to do: a Walmart Scavenger Hunt. And we did.

It was supposed to be a competition but we decided to make it a team effort to kill nearly an hour of our wait time! Afterwards, I made Jas take a picture of me in the cart because I am a child.

Speaking of our cart, if you were to look inside it, you would find the following items:

• 4 different types of M&Ms
• Item with a discount sticker
• Strawberry scented candle
• 5 different types of nuts
• Item of clothing for a pet
• Monopoly
• Nonstick pan
• White pepper seasoning
• Plant pot
• Laptop bag
• DVD costing less than $5
• Naan bread
• Light bulbs
• Video game boxer shorts
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Basketball
• 10 different yogurt flavors
• Sidewalk chalk
• Cookbook

One item you did not see on that list but was, in fact, in our cart was a disposable camera. Apparently they still make these and I decided that we needed one! Jas begrudgingly agreed to indulge me and we shall now be documenting the remaining weeks of our tour on FujiFilm.

Coo coo coo.

I also ended up wearing a penguin suit from the play (the penguins are five to seven year olds) because life is weird.

Today was show day, where I received a card with a picture of what I believe is me as the genie coming out of the lamp and a Flash t-shirt (once again, life is weird, but weird definitely doesn't equal not good). Tomorrow, we're on the move again as we return to Wisconsin for some cheese (ok, we aren't actually going for the cheese but that is a small detail).

You Really Ought to Give Iowa a Try

Sometimes I do real world things instead of purely blog-related things which is why all has been quiet on the (mid)western front recently.

My designer bedroom. No biggie.

I am in Oskaloosa, IA, staying in an apartment that belongs in NYC. This apartment is actually straight out of a magazine! And I mean that literally because it has been featured in a magazine. It's a pretty insane place. The one drawback is that the bedroom walls don't actually go all the way to the ceiling, so privacy isn't really a thing at the moment.

We also have a topnotch kitchen and have been cooking up a storm. The first thing Jas and I did when we arrived on Sunday (apart from picking our jaws up from the floor) was make jalapeno popper mac and cheese, which means that we have had jalapeno popper mac three out of the past four Sundays. That's a thing. It is a very awesome thing. I live a very exciting life.

So much space for activities!

In reality, most of this week hasn't been that exciting. We've spent a lot of time at the gym and catching up on DC's Legends of Tomorrow (since we're now caught up on The Flash). I've also had The Music Man on a repeated loop since this is my first time in Iowa -- apart from a few hours in MCT 78 on my drive to Alabama in June -- and that musical takes place here. I have mixed feelings about that because I don't love that musical but it did lead to the revelation that Jas played Harold Hill when he was in sixth grade and now I'm on a hunt to find a recording of this production. Either way, as they say in the play, you really ought to give Iowa a try.

Where the Pony Express Started and Jesse James Ended

Once upon a time, the St. Joseph, MO welcome sign said "Where the Pony Express Started and Jesse James Ended." Apparently that sign has since been taken down, but the legacy still stands. St. Joseph has quite the history!

In honor of that, today we started our sightseeing at the Pony Express Museum, which is housed in the old stable of the Pony Express. They're very proud of their part in such an iconic portion of American history (as they should be) although, I would like to point out that the Pony Express was only in operation for 19 months (something I knew pre-museum visit). Everyone acts like the Pony Express was this huge, epic portion of American history but it was extremely short-lived! St. Joseph was also a jumping off point for the Oregon Trail, which brought back a lot of memories of playing that game in computer class when we were kids (Oregon Trail, for whatever reason, is something that all 90s kids have in common -- back when we got to use computers one day a week and had to go to a specific classroom to do so, unlike today's first-graders who each have their own tablet or laptop).

After that, we walked a few blocks to see where Jesse James ended. The house is no longer on it's original property (it has been moved twice) but we were told that we could "see the bullet hole."  (What an incredible slogan). We didn't. I'd read from the little pamphlet I'd picked up that James was shot in the back of the head while fixing a picture in his house and Jas and I were really confused as to why someone would shot him from outside and through a wall when they could shoot through a window... Well, no wonder we were confused because after a long day, I got on Wikipedia and found out that the person who shot James was inside the house. These are things that we could have undoubtedly learned if we'd paid to go inside the house ourselves, but we didn't do that, so we didn't see the bullet hole but we did see the house.

After that, we drove to Kansas. We've been here for nearly a week and this whole time, Kansas has literally been five minutes away and we had no idea. We knew that we were an hour from Kansas City, but we didn't know that we've basically been sitting on the border for five days now! All we had to do was drive over a bridge! When we were in Kansas, I said "there's no place like home" because how could I not?! And now I can say that I, like Dorothy Gale, have been to Kansas (still working on finding Oz). 

After Kansas, Jas and I went to lunch at Cheddar's. Jas has been psyched ever since he found out that there was a Cheddar's here, so we had to go (I'd never been to Cheddar's). A really cool thing was that we knew a cast member's mom worked there and we got to request her as our server! It was very cute and I now give Cheddar's a big thumbs up.

In theatre news, tomorrow, I will be playing the role of Aladdin. I was going to be playing my dream role of Sinbad the Sailor, but then our Aladdin got sick and dropped out, so we were trying to rewrite the show to somehow allow me to play both roles, but now we've got a parent -- yes, a parent -- to step in for Sinbad and I'm, oddly enough, playing the titular role. This brings my tally up to four in terms of roles I've played in Aladdin apart from the genie (The Mysterious One, Dinazade, Cassim and now this). Fingers crossed that I can keep a straight face!

The Glore Psychiatric Museum

All week, people have been telling us that we need to go to "the Glore." That is local speak for The Glore Psychiatric Museum. We've heard several people say "you won't find many towns with their own psychiatric museum," and that is definitely true and this museum was one of a kind.

The museum covers the history of mental health treatment and the history of St. Joseph's Lunatic Asylum No. 2. When it was in operation, it was called St. Joseph's Lunatic Asylum but when it was converted into a museum, it was named after George Glore, a hospital employee who had patients create some of the first exhibits as part of their therapy.

I don't want to say that the museum was insane because that seems cliche but it was out there. It started with a video that covered some of the history of mental health care in America, but to me was notable mainly because they talked about a facility in Worcester, MA and pronounced it "War-chester" (it's Wooster or Woostah if you're really, really hardcore Bostonian). You can actually watch the video online and the offending portion is at the 1:25 mark. We then got to see some of then some of those first exhibits I mentioned and then the morgue. There was a lot of creepy stuff there -- like a display of thousands of metal objects that a patient had swallowed in 1874. We also got to find out about lobotomies and other barbaric and sketchy treatments used back in the day. As Jas said after we left, it wasn't exactly a fun museum but it was an important part of history. Afterwards, people kept asking us if we'd enjoyed ourselves and "enjoyed" definitely wasn't the right word to use.

As I said before, it was definitely one of a kind!

St. Joe, Yo

This is a quick update from me and St. Joseph, MO (yo).

We've had to do lots of work stuff since we've arrived and most of the sight seeing will happen tomorrow and Friday but worry not, because we have had fun! Yesterday, I took Jas to his first ever breakfast at Perkins! Because yesterday was pancake day and pancakes are great. I also discovered that St. Joseph has their own geotag and took the charming picture you will see on your right.

Today, we had more work stuff to do but there is currently spinach and artichoke mac and cheese in the oven because I'm a genius! I'm turning Jas into a mac and cheese addict, which, comparatively speaking, is a good thing to be addicted to.

Welcome to the Nut House

This week's residency is in St. Joseph, MO and on this week's edition of "Where Are They Staying?!", we're in the Nut House. That's what the locals call it at the very least! We're staying in a historic home that was built in the 1870s and owned by Pleasant E. Chesnut, hence the name. My mom requested a picture of the house so you can see that on your left.

LOOK AT ALL THE COLORS.

We haven't done a lot of exploring in St. Joseph yet, but we did go to the grocery store last night to stock up for the week. This isn't particularly exciting except for the fact that we were buying supplies to make mac and cheese but while we were there, something even more incredible happened! I found rainbow bread. RAINBOW BREAD. I recently read an article about a place in New York that is making rainbow bagels and I was dying on the inside because I have no way of getting them but apparently I don't need to go to New York to enjoy technicolor carbs! This morning, I made myself some very special, rainbow toast.

In terms of another literal "nut house," there is a psychiatric museum in St. Joe that we're hoping to check out. St. Joseph is also where Jesse James died so we'll probably make a stop at his old house too. There is also a doll museum, apparently, but we might decide to skip that one for obvious creepy doll reasons.

Only 45 Degrees From Ordinary

First of all, the saga of Noodle, the broken windshield wiper, has officially ended. It was quite dramatic! On Wednesday night, we bought a replacement wiper. On Thursday, we tried to change the wiper... in the snow. We were standing outside of one of the schools we were doing a workshop at and the secretaries watched us struggle, apparently. We also asked parents at rehearsal if they could help us! We were desperate. Yesterday, we stopped at a Jiffy Lube for help because we couldn't take it anymore (and you can't have a naked windshield wiper without a blade) and badabing badaboom, no more Noodle problems! Thank you, kind Jiffy Lube employee!

Now, I know that the saga of Noodle all had you sitting on the edge of your seats and trust me, the rest of my blog will only be a let down after that, but please keep reading!

Yesterday, we visited the world famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway: home of the Indy500 and the Nascar Hall of Fame. Neither Jas nor I really care about Nascar but this was a whole "when in Rome" situation, the same way I visited the Talladega Speedway when I was in Alabama. We opted out of seeing the Hall of Fame since we wouldn't know who was in it anyways and chose the bus tour of the track. The sign said that the bus was going to go around the track at 200mph but the sign lied (we assumed that the sign was a liar when we bought our tickets but oh well).

After our lap around the track, we drove downtown for some more fI wanted to be the "I." I'd read that they had the signs at the Capitol Building (the signs move) so that is where we were headed. We saw a sign at Monument Circle, which has a giant monument dedicated to Indiana's Civil War troops, but continued on to the Capitol Building. At the Capitol Building, there were more statues about the Civil War (I didn't know that any Civil War battles were fought in Indiana, but Jas says that if there were Civil War battles being fought in Vermont, they could be fought anywhere) but no "ndy" sign so we retraced our steps to the first sign we saw and I accomplished my dream of being the "I." I have another dream of being featured on the MCT instagram, so I made sure to show off my MCT swag.
un. I was on a hunt for a specific sign. Indiana tourism has been running a campaign with the hastag #LoveIndy and part of that have been sculptures that say "ndy" and you get to be the "I."
I also made Jas be the "I" and was sneaky and got a picture of him smiling when he wanted to take a goofy photo (said goofy photo was also procured).

After that, it was time for food! We love food! We were really hunting for cupcakes because I'd read about a cupcake place online but we thought we should also get lunch while we were out. We ended up at City Market, which is your Quincy Market/Reading Terminal type place except not as big. I would consider it to be a triumph because we found a grilled cheese stand! I got what was probably their most standard sandwich (a lot of their sandwiches had bacon) which was white bread, American, provolone and chive cream cheese but it came with a pickle and potato chips!!

After grilled cheese, it was cupcake time. We walked to The Flying Cupcake, which was fittingly on Massachusetts Avenue. I ended up getting two cupcakes because cupcakes... I got the Red Velvet Elvis and the It's Not a Hoho. I'd say that the Elvis was the winner out of the two, but the real winner was me because I got cupcakes!!! The title of this blog post is inspired by a sign we saw as on Massachusetts Ave. -- which cuts diagonally through the other city streets -- and said "Only 45 degrees from ordinary." I didn't get a picture, but I like that expression because I think that I might be 45 degrees from ordinary too.

Have I mentioned how spread out Indianapolis is? (Trick question because I know that I have). We used nearly 40 joy miles yesterday! It shouldn't take 40 miles to drive across a city and back! Insanity... Well, now it is show day! We have performances at 3 and 7pm and Jas is taking the stage as Palm Tree #1, so it's gunna be an exciting day.

Even Dolphins Live for the Applause

I promised a post about Wednesday, February 4, and I am a woman of my word!!! (I am also a woman who overuses exclamation points, but what can I say, I'm excitable).

F*** you, Noodle.

Indianapolis is a very spread out city. There is the downtown portion which is actually city-like and the part of the city we're in, which is the eastern portion that seems a lot more like suburbia. Yesterday we visited the downtown portion (which I guess I could just call downtown) and went to the Indianapolis Zoo. Before I can talk about the zoo, I must recount The Saga of Noodle. We have a broken windshield wiper that I have named Noodle because it is flopping around like a noodle (brilliant, I know). For the past few days, we have been waiting for our bosses to get back to us about fixing Noodle and in the mean time, Noodle has been getting more and more annoying. This has led to the new catchphrase "F*** you, Noodle!" which I've been saying a lot. Poor Noodle... BUT last night, we got a new windshield wiper blade so we can say goodbye to Noodle!

Last week, I wrote about going to the Lincoln Park Zoo and seeing lots of birds there but I didn't see any penguins! Well, the Indianapolis Zoo had penguins BUT we saved them for last so first I need to tell you about all the other animals we saw.

The very first animals we visited were the red pandas. I love red pandas. I have two main goals in life; the first goal is to eat mac and cheese on every continent and the second is to feed mac and cheese to a red panda (it could happen!). I mean, teaching children life skills through participation in the arts is an incredible experience but mac and cheese is what I was born to do. Anyways, I saw the red pandas and lost my mind. I was so excited that I was near tears. THEY'RE JUST SO CUTE! They were sitting in trees! Who doesn't love trees?! Jas and I also realized that a group of red pandas doesn't have a name -- because red pandas are solitary creatures in the wild -- and we decided that they needed one anyways, so I present to you "a cuteload of red pandas." Ohmygosh, it was so amazing. Pretty much everything after that was anticlimactic... But, I moved on with gusto (and by that, I mean I spent the rest of our time at the zoo talking about how we'd seen red pandas and how we should write an MCT show where the 5-7 year olds are red pandas).

We then moved on and saw... BIRDS! Not penguin birds but the other type of birds that I took a lot of pictures of last week. They made lots of noise in our general direction. We also got to see orangutans and Jas braved the reptile house despite his massive fear of all things scaly and slithery. (We didn't do the snake room though -- they actually had a separate exit for people like my tour partner who wanted to avoid the snakes). A lot of animals weren't on display because they're supposed to be warm and it is cold, but we did get to see a dolphin show! We learned all about dolphins, but the part I really liked was when they had the dolphins flip and jump and such and played Lady Gaga's Applause. Even dolphins live for the applause!! Mandy would have been so proud.

AND THEN IT WAS THE PENGUINS! Oh penguins. We made a vine for the penguins.

After the zoo, we drove through downtown and went to an AnyTime Fitness. It was in the Majestic Building, but like, only eagles can be majestic, so this building was obviously mistaken.

After our experiment in physical fitness, we went to Jockamo's Pizza, which according to Thrillist is the best pizza in Indiana plus it was approved by the kids and our contact. We split a pizza -- Jas ordered the lasagna pizza and I got the Jockamo Special. It was some good pizza!

After that, it was on to rehearsal. Rehearsal was kind of insane, this was exemplified by the fact that at one point, in giving direction for the kids to be excited, I yelled "This is not your average Thursday." It wasn't Thursday... But now it is! We have five workshops today before we ever get to rehearsal, so peace and love for now internet because I've got to go get ready.
 

Where Are We Wednesday?

Jas and I had a very interesting (mostly good) day today, but it was also a long day and I'm too tired to fully describe all of the insanity, so instead, I'm just going to share this picture from MCT's official Instagram. They have "Where Are We Wednesday?" and I'm one of the little red dots.

Updates on my specific Wednesday are coming, just not right now! But this has been your special preview.

Two Things

Last night, I forgot to include a very important thing in my post. It isn't really related to traveling, but I wanted to share it! Recently, we were able to order tour jackets from work and mine came in the mail and I wanted to show it off. I'm getting very close to owning a piece of MCT clothing for every day of the week!

Pretty spiffy, right?!

Also, today was laundry day and we went to Indianapolis's Laundry and Tanning Connection. Yes, it was a laundry/tanning combo! We didn't go tanning but I thought it was pretty nifty!!!

Just gotta find a gym now!