TGI-Frida

Thank goodness it is Friday!

As our second week of touring comes to a close I am fighting off a sore throat/cold like it's the plague. I woke up Thursday morning with a very sore throat and haven't been able to kick it since. Luckily yesterday was an easy show day. Just one performance at 10:30 am. I was back at my apartment before 1pm and got right back in bed. One perk of morning performances is that our work is generally done pretty early in the afternoon. Today's schedule unfortunately was not as pleasant for those of us struggling to belt out our music. We had a two show day with no real break between each performance. The first was at 9:15 and the second was at 10:45. Once again I was home early, but believe me when I say I am very happy it is the weekend.

Once again we had our share of fun road stories. I feel a little ashamed to say though that a lot of the schools and kids are already starting to blend together. I find myself asking 'wait what school was that at?Were we at the catholic school on Monday or Tuesday?...and what day is it today?' Overall the students have continued to be very receptive of the piece. Today's younger audience was our biggest struggle yet. The teachers had to continually ask the kids to be quiet and sit on their bottoms. And each time we made them laugh it took a good 30 seconds for them to calm back down and listen to us again. A little frustrating especially when you're losing your voice. Competing for the attention of a room full of kids under 8 is like competing against a small army. You can probably put up a good fight, but when alls said and done, you're probably going to lose.

Another wrench that was thrown into our first show this morning was an impromptu prop switch-eroo. A certain prop that is supposed to be preset at the top of the show had been forgotten. Nothing too major. But it did give us a great exercise in first of all thinking on our toes and second of all how to communicate with another actor without the audience knowing. Luckily the message went through and we were able to retrieve the prop just in time for the scene it was needed for. Phew, it was a close one.

I hope I'm not jinxing us, but we have been very lucky in the tech/props department. Very few things have gone wrong. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for our poor POP tour van. I'm not sure if I mentioned our realization that the breaks were practically shot. But earlier this week while we were driving back to La Jolla we heard an loud alarming sound that sounded like our tire had popped. We pulled over on the left shoulder of the 5 freeway to find our tires were all in tact. Puzzled and confused we had to call our company management people to save the day. Turns out something didn't get fully screwed back on after they fixed our breaks. Thanks car people, I feel really safe now in this van now!

Then a day later a strap of someone's bag got caught in the latch of the trunk causing it to be jammed for a day or so. Thankfully after our show yesterday the boys in our cast were able to force the door open from the inside and save the day (and her purse). Now I remember why it's good to keep boys around sometimes.

Anyways, I must be off. But many more stories to follow, and hopefully some recipes too! I've been cooking quite a bit, including a huge fajita feast for my cast, but I have failed at taking pictures. Oops!

Happy Weekend!