I hate dial up.

After church today we drove down to my mother in law's. We haven't come down in quite a while, so it was nice to see her. We're helping sort through some things and get furniture rearranged and such, and she promised us a few of the better castoffs. Yay! I'm going to have end tables! These are two of her horses, just chillin' by the fence, doing what horses do. Yup. This evening we went into town for some Dairy Queen and while we were driving down a side street some local hoodlums hit our car with a tomato. It's so nice to be from a place where young folk have something to do on a three day weekend and don't have to resort to such petty acts of lameness. I'm sure some do, but out here...that's pretty much the only option they have. That and Wal-Mart. Woot.

I just killed you in my mind

Holy cow. Seriously, just....I mean, wow. If I could give out awards for "best improv night," tonight would pretty much come in first. Tonight was Thunderdome, season 2 round 3. Burnin' Sternums vs. Fluffer Nutter vs. Type O Positive. (I just noticed Pete is blinking in this shot, so sorry Pete!) First up was Burnin' Sternums. They had a hilarious piece set at a family reunion. You just gotta love it when the first line is, "This potato salad is really watery." Next up was Nifer and I. We went backstage and "warmed up." Which pretty much involved us going, "Uh...okay, remember to be good." We had planned to just do three scenes, each about 7-10 minutes apiece. We ended up doing a spontaneous 25 minute freeform set that felt like it flew by in about 2 seconds! We got thunderous applause and roaring laughter, fueled by a lightning storm of comedy. (sorry, so sorry) As we came off stage Jared was giving us the "rock" salute. People swarmed us to shower us in complements, it felt so, so good! I've never experienced anything like it! After a short intermission Type O Positive finished out the night with an improvised play about a girl who had to choose between her love of a man and her love of candy. It was a lot of fun, we all laughed a lot. While the audience voted we all went back onstage to play a round of freeze tag (two people do a scene until someone yells out "freeze" then tags out one of the players, takes their exact position, and starts a brand new scene) In the end, it was announced that Type O Positive won and would be heading on to the final round. Yay for them! Afterward we celebrated with drinks and I accidentally broke my glass by knocking it over. Whoops...... I had been thinking about posting a picture of just Nifer and I, but this was truly an amazing show because every person there did a fantastic job and I am so proud I got to be a part of it.

iPlod

For the past couple weeks my iPod has been sitting in the bottom of my purse, unable to be played. Why? Because I just kept forgetting to CHARGE it. Yeah. So today I finally got it out and plugged it in, then treated myself to a lovely drive to and from Bonner Springs. Windows down, music up, sunglasses on. Yup, great drive. Tonight was the second Friday night show at the Imp, hence the drive. When I got home this evening Jason told me he had built the compost bin I've been asking for all Summer (yay!) but that, because of ten thousand other home improvement projects, he had been unable to complete until now. I turned on the light and stepped out onto the back deck to see it, and whew! It was much colder than I was expecting outside! It was a pretty toasty day so I was not at all expecting it. Has August decided to forgive me, or has it given up based on the fact that it only has two days left?

I feel something moving....

So this is what it looks like when improvisers play Twister. Yup. Try to contain the contents of your stomach. I assure you that Nifer is not surgically grafted to Patrick's leg. Oh, and in case you're wondering, left hand hadn't been called yet. We went like six rounds before it was and had to keep balance on three limbs. Today was pretty much unremarkable in every way. They said we were supposed to get rain and our area was the ONLY section of town not to get a single drop. It was raining when I left the Imp but we didn't get a single drop. Grr! I'm so so sick of the weather, I would have loved some rain! This is the part of Summer where everything is just disgusting and you just want it to go away. I'm not big on Summer as it is. In fact, in my opinion, August is pretty much the worst month. I'd say February, but even THAT has a holiday in it. In fact in my family that's also when my sister's birthday is and Jason and I's (???) anniversary.
August hasn't got anything going on for itself. Get a job you lazy month!

Kitschen

I spent most of today doing THIS to my kitchen. Goodness sake's I can't wait to replace the floor in there. Be that as it may, I love love love how it's turning out! There's coffee wallpaper in my kitchen! *Squee!* Jason's mom came by today, finally returning back from a 3/4 cross-country drive. She gave the girls a couple books she picked up in Yellowstone including the classic, "Who Pooped in the park?" a book about how to track wild animals. It's cute, imaginative, and I can't at all picture Brianna being found by a search party three days after following a deer the next time we go to Wyoming. She's just not the type. *ahem* No, seriously, it's a cute book and I think the girls will love it.

Bump, set, SPIKE!

Leigha decided to take up volleyball this week. Her friend Keegan was there today as well for the "skills test" and team placement. They graciously slowed their frantic running around for a few seconds to allow me to snap this picture. Nice. Jason and I got a lot done around the house today. My closet is nearing completion, I just have to finish the stripes and do some touch up work. Later I'm going to replace the light fixture (not that I have anything AGAINST bare bulbs....) and add an organizer on the other side (it's a teeny tiny walk in) but for now it will hold my clothes and that's good enough. Hype 7 rehearsal tonight was fantastic. We're gearing up for the festival and introducing more longform to our repertoire. I got to do the monologues for the armando we practiced (a monologue is delivered then scenes are performed based on ideas from the monologue. Rinse and repeat.) which was a lot of fun. We're really starting to reconnect again after a funky month or so. Yay!

She's fluffer and I'm nutter!

Ladies and gentlemen, the cutest improv duet in the history of the world. Able to cuddle at the speed of light and equipped with mary janes of justice, together, Nifer and I are Fluffer Nutter! Tonight was the tech rehearsal for Thunderdome. The teams slated for battle this Saturday are: Burnin' Sternums, Fluffer Nutter, and Type O Positive. We drew numbers to see what order we're going in, got info on call times and whatnot, then did a quick runthrough of our sets. Jason went to his fantasy football league draft this evening and we couldn't find a babysitter so he ended up taking them with him. I was done pretty early so I picked them up on the way home. Leigha proudly showed me the list she wrote of Jason's team and Jason proudly showed me the plaque he got for coming in second place during last season's tournament. Yay, Jason! Spartacus stayed home all evening and was very clingy when we all got home. Poor kitteh. Tomorrow I'll snuggle him extra hard.

Tommaaaaay!

Tommy is pretty much the cutest little guy in the history of ever. (for those of you with contradicting opinions, let me just point out that all your viewpoints are, in fact, valid. They are all the cutest.) Every time I tell someone about Tommy I say, "Oh, he's the kind of baby that when you hear he's sick everyone says, 'Whaaaat? Tommy's sick? Noooo!'" Lately...he's not so much a baby anymore. Tommy is Jenny and Jason's youngest son and he is quickly turning from baby to young boy. Every time we see them he has new words to say and he's running a little faster and looks a little older. Ah, the curse of growing up. He's still the cutest, though! We went to Jenny and Jason's place this evening for some bbq and convo. It's been a little while since we've gotten together so it was great to reconnect with them. This afternoon Jason took the girls to the Kansas City Air Show. I would have gone with them, but he decided about fifteen minutes before Nifer was scheduled to come over for some rehearsing. Thunderdome is this week and we're getting both excited and nervous for it.

We just wanna have fun

I went to Lowes today to get the paint for my closet and met a man who I have named "Rude Larry: The Paint Guy." We'll call him RLTPG for short. (What?) I went up to the counter to get my paint mixed and immediately his girl-dar went off. You know, when a male home improvement shop employee sees a female, unaccompanied by personages of the male species, and they suddenly think, "Ah hah! She has come without a chaperone and must therefore not know what she's talking about." Note: Not all male home improvement store employees have girl-dar. So, okay. Paint. Something girls really DO know a lot about. Hello...home decorating? Paint is the engine that drives that machine, suckas! I said, "Okay, hi, I'd like a half-gallon of this..." (immediate interruption) "We don't have half gallon. We have gallon and quart." "Oh, oops, yeah, I meant quart, satin finish please." (I do always mix those two up, to be fair) He took notations down on the paint chip I handed him. "Okay, anything else?" "Yeah, I'd also like a quart of this (indicating another color) in soft gloss." "That's for kitchens and bathrooms." "Um, yeah, I know." Didn't say what room I was painting. Nurr. Not to mention, I know for a fact paint doesn't care what room it's in once it's on the wall. As you can probably deduce, I spent a good portion of the afternoon inhaling paint fumes in the closet. *cough, wheeze* This evening after dinner Jason and I split the girls up. He took Bri and I took Leigha for some one on one time. Jason took Brianna to the park by the lake then on to the bakery for cookies, I took Leigha to the Imp to see the student show. We all had a good time. I didn't tell Leigha what Bri and Jason were doing and she was really curious. "You'll just have to ask Bri when you get home." While at the show I was sitting in the front row of the theater and there was a reporter there for the KC Star. They're doing a spread on improv in Kansas City and have interviewed a ton of people involved in the scene, including John, so they sent a reporter to cover the show tonight. She took pictures of the action onstage, then whipped her camera around and pointed it at me for a good portion of the show, snapping furiously when I laughed at things. It was a little unnerving, but she explained to me afterward that they had asked for audience reaction pictures and then took down my name. That's never happened to me before...interesting. The shows were great and Leigha and I enjoyed ourselves. The second we walked in the door, though, she pounced on Bri and said, "What did you guys do?" And they talked about it until we forced them into their PJ's for bed.

What's the matter with kids today?

Ladies and gentlemen, the "Why Bother?" album. Featuring such hits as, "Remember us?" and, "We were cool 20 years ago!" Walkers and hearing aides have been digitally airbrushed out of photos and music videos, however, you can still see an authentic clip of the "Get off my lawn" montage on youtube. Seriously. I remember when I was really young (Leigha's age maybe?) and my teenage next door neighbor teamed up with a couple other girls from the neighborhood to form the "New Kids on the Block" fan club. Basically, they walked up and down our street chanting, "We love New Kids on the Block!" Over and over. Baby, you haven't got the right stuff anymore. Not much to say about today. I went to a children's clothing store to use a coupon and after browsing for forty minutes, hemming and hawing, finally coming to a decision and going to the front...they don't take coupons at that particular store. I said, "Oh....okay, thanks!" and started walking away and the lady said, "So is that a no on this purchase?" I said, "Well, yeah, I mean...I'll just go to another store. There are four in Kansas City." Viva la selection! (just mentally draw an accent over that 'i'.) Jason and I did a little bit of unpacking today. We came across one of our boxes of games. Now, you have to realize that when we moved to Kansas City we decided to rent for a year so we could find a good area of town to settle into and really take our time finding a house and therefore an awful lot of our things ended up going into the basement and staying packed the whole time we lived in that house....which ended up being two years. Back to today, I got the games out and set them on a shelf in the family room when Jason walked in. Both of us got the same confused look on our faces. "Um......we have Jenga? Did you know we had Jenga? When did we get Jenga?" Either way, we couldn't be happier. Every box unpacked is like Christmas morning for us.

You're awful, I love you!

I went to Jenny's this morning to pick up some salsa for Jason, he's nuts for the stuff and she made a ton and happened to mention she's sick of looking at it. I'm pretty sure Jason was in earshot at the time, if she wasn't talking directly to him, but I can guarantee that if he hadn't he would most defenetely have pole vaulted his way across a continent to say, "I'll take some!" *pfft!* So yeah. We chatted for a bit then I left to go to the dentist. Ugh. The good news is that I don't have to go again until my next cleaning, yay! I am now cavity free. The bad news is that since my mouth was numb I didn't get to drink my afternoon coffee. So instead of relaxing with a nice cup of happy I finished priming the inside of the closet then made dinner, then went to rehearsal. Before warmups Nifer and I had this picture taken of us. Why, you ask? Publicity shot for Thunderdome. Don't we look vicious? Grr! I wasn't feeling great at all, which stank, but at least now I have the assurance that even at my worst I perform at what would have been a pretty okay level before Chicago. I just need to remember what my teachers and classmates taught me out there and I'll be fine...it's hard to remember things when you're trying to forget the huge headache that's threatening to overtake your cognizant reasoning.

For Sparta!!!

I started priming the inside of my closet today. It's going to be so great to have it all done and organized and crap, I can't wait. This evening after church we drove out South of Kansas City a ways to meet up with Jason's brother Tim and his mom. She's flying out early tomorrow morning, (to see Jason's brother, Jon) so she's spending the night at our place. The girls said hi to Tim, he fueled up, got a drink and headed out. We hit Wal-Mart so I could get bread and milk and more primer (I ran out halfway through. Most of the bucket was used on the kitchen, the closet's not THAT big) then came back to our place. Sheila hasn't met Sparticus yet and she seemed pretty taken by him, even though he was being his poop-headed kitteniest just for her. Lately he's been prancing in front of a mirror on the floor in the basement (haven't hung it up yet) with a sock in his mouth, growling at his reflection. Yes, actually growling! He sounds like a tiny dog, it's so cute! The girls got pajama'ed up and sent to bed and we stayed up talking about future weekend plans for a bit. She'll be gone by the time the girls and I get up tomorrow morning, so it was nice to see her before she goes.

Four little maids from school are we

Jason and I were busy little elves today. We walked to the convenience store nearby to get some sodas then set to work tearing apart the inside of my closet so I could redo it in a non-idiot fashion. (seriously, we are beginning to think actual monkeys lived here before us.) I made some nummy chicken soup for dinner then went to Hype 7 rehearsal. We had fun, did a LOT of shortform and a LOT of good work. After, Nifer asked if anyone wanted to go next door (she's had a crappy day and 'next door' is a dive bar.) and all the guys begged off, so Nifer, Jen and I were going to go. While we were still discussing things on the sidewalk Julie saw us and we invited her to come with, so we had a lovely, spontaneous girl's night out. Well, girl's HOUR out, we all have things to do early tomorrow. It was so much fun. While we were at the table a lady came up and put her arm around Nifer and said, "Okay, the people at the poker table are betting on your age and they think you're twelve. How old ARE you?" "Um.....23?" "Oh, okay. *laugh*" and she walked off. Nice. Every time we go there people stare at us as we walk in because we SO CLEARLY don't belong there. *shrug* It's convenient and their food is decent.

Underpants gnomes!

Jason and I stayed home all day today. While restful, refreshing, and wonderful, it didn't exactly lend itself to picture taking. Here's us tricking Brianna into taking a nap........no....um, here's Jason trimming branches and mowing the lawn...eh, nah. Ooh, I know, how about the picture of me discovering I had two unread text messages because I didn't hear my phone? *snooze* In the end I just started taking pictures of random things around the house and settled on this picture of the table I refinished about a year ago. It had been in a flood and was muddy, cracked, and rusted. I sanded, filled, and re-painted it. Pretty, no? Also, those are some of my shoes. The galoshes aren't mine. Oh, and we're putting in a wood floor there over that hideous 1970's gold linoleum.

Technology is delicious!

Oh man......today's picture was a difficult toss-up. This morning I went to church, as always, and when we went to pick Brianna up from the nursery Dustin pulled out his iPod touch and instantly all the men in the room were gravitated toward it and standing in a circle making little manly coo-ing noises. It was hilarious. While at church one of the newcomers came up to me for the second Sunday in a row and said, "Okay...I swear I know you from somewhere." Two weeks now she's been trying to place me and has been unsuccessful. This afternoon I took a nap (I just haven't been feeling right lately.) and had a very odd dream involving my car not working properly and Nifer insulting me by saying, "Where'd you learn to drive, Japan?" A little after five Nifer came over to rehearse with me.......which ended up turning into us having a conversation until it was time to go to Julie's for her dinner party. I was sitting on her couch chatting with Nifer when another guest showed up, and it was the newcomer (Rachel) from church! (That's not her on the couch.) She walked in and I was like, "Oh! That's how you know me!" Her eyes just about popped out of her head and we both laughed at how freakish a coincedence that was. She came to one of our shows a long while back. Julie made a delectable roast with potatoes and carrots. Julie, I applaud you for your incredibleness. We played a couple games and I came home early-ish so Jason could go play poker, but it was called off this evening. I'm bummed he didn't get to go play because that's his thing, but yay for extra Jason time!

If you're gonna stay then don't make a sound

This is a cute picture of Leigha and Brianna trying on hats at a shop in Westport. Oh wait, my mistake, it's a picture of my kitten playing with my foot. Why one and not the other? Because the people of Re-Run Vintage (Broadway and Westport road) are very rude about telling people they can't use cameras in their store. I went to a planning meeting for the improv festival this morning. We got a ton accomplished and it's really coming together nicely as of this moment. After the meeting Jen and I went up and down Westport road putting up posters for the event. I'm really excited. Tonight I did a show, then movie prov, then played board games. I'm getting tired.

How sweet it is.

This is a picture of humiliation in all it's glory. Jason decided it would be fun to challenge Leigha on the Wii. He beat her pretty good in tennis and they moved on to bowling. Jason carefully maneuvered his mii to a particular side of the lane because he knew exactly how far to the left his ball curved after being thrown. He meticulously fiddled with the angle of trajectory until everything was JUST right. Then and only then would his arm swing back, with just the right amount of force, and release the ball. Leigha handed the wii-mote to Brianna in between frames. When it was her turn to bowl she would basically fling the device in whatever direction seemed handy at the time, and more often than not she had to try again because she kept releasing the ball into the crowd (side note-the miis that are watching jump out of the way and look aghast.) before finally managing to get it rolling down the lane. Their first game...she beat him by about 10 points. I was laughing pretty hard. Jason said, "Okay, fine, time for bed." Which, of course, made me laugh even harder. He looked at me, raised his eyebrows, and said, "Leigha..........get the remote." They played a second game in identical fashion. Not only did Leigha beat him by 36 points....she set a record on our console. Nice. Just so you know, the mii she's using (red) is the one she and Bri made to look like Spartacus. They put a hat on him because, "We don't know what his hair would look like."

Don't speak

Jen and I went out this afternoon to hang posters and put out postcards for the Kansas City Improv festival. We had a good time, it was a rainy day so it was nice to stop for a cup of coffee in the middle. I noticed that the cups nearly matched the green on the postcards. Brianna noticed that Jen had apples on her plate. Rehearsal tonight was pretty fantastic. I heard Susan and Mick's voices in the back of my head the whole time, and they had very helpful things to say! After rehearsal we played a board game called "Battle of the Sexes." It was pretty fun. Some of the questions were like, "Okay, so how is this a girl question?" And some were like, "Is that even English?" In the end, the boys won, thus proving that theater guys know a lot about girls and girl ways.

In Soviet Russia, coffee drinks you!

Melissa and I got together today for some long overdue coffee. As you can see, we chose the Starbucks in Target based upon it's sweeping views of shopping carts. It almost looks like she's trying to give me bunny ears with her arm behind me there. Nice. I would have applauded her if she had. We went to my place so I could do my semi-annual dumping of outgrown girl clothing upon her. Braelyn is about two and a half years younger than Bri, which is just perfect because by the time Brianna starts to outgrow her clothing and I FINALLY get her favorites away from her and hidden so she can't sneak them back, then get around to going through and pulling them out, Braelyn is just growing into them. It's a great system. I also gave her the carseat Brianna just outgrew. I had no idea what I was going to do with it until Melissa started complaining about how theirs is too small for Brae and she needed to get one. Bingo! It was great to see her again, it's been a while what with the busy busy summer I just put behind me. This evening I worked the soundboards at church again. I really enjoy helping out that way...I didn't realize how much being the soundperson can give you a subtle but very real power. I wonder if this is how Carl, Jen, and now Hans feel? I was walking to the car after practice and Eric made a snarky joke about me, then he said, "Oh crap, I shouldn't have said that. Now she's going to turn me way down in the monitor!" Ha ha ha....yeah, he's right. This evening Jason and I went out on the back deck to look at Jupiter (no, seriously, it's bright and teeny to the right of the moon) and when I turned around I saw a GIANT spider on our sliding glass door. This thing was positively gargantuan, probably about the size of a half dollar and bulbous to boot! I said, "Um..........yeah. I'm going inside. Kill it!" I got a drink of water and went downstairs. About five minutes later Jason came down looking sheepish. "Okay........I killed the spider." I sensed there was more to the story. "But?" "Um.........but I broke the broom." I laughed like crazy. Apparently he swatted at it and it fell to the deck and started crawling away, so he bashed it again and it was still moving, so he swatted again and stepped on the bristles, cracking the broom handle. Nice. At least the spider is dead. Take that, exoskeleton!

Welcome back!

This is my great big third grader. Yeah, I can't believe it either. Today was Leigha's first day in the new school district. From monosyllabic dinner grilling replies it sounded like it went pretty well. She said all the kids in her class are now her friends, so that's good. Hopefully that will continue to be the case, childhood politics being what they are. Jason and I spent our first "free" day running errands (woo hoo! We're crazy!) and enjoying the relative quiet of the house. This evening's Hype 7 rehearsal brought about some drastic changes. Nifer volunteered to be the director recently and this was the first rehearsal. It was different, very different. We did a lot more working in scenes and such than H7 usually does, which I thought was great. A little more structure is what we need at the moment, I think.

In a cottage cheese cottage

Leigha got in huge trouble today. She was being absolutely horrible to Brianna, so as punishment I told her she wasn't allowed to do ANYTHING. She basically lost her last day of summer break, poor kid. It's her own fault, though. So we pretty much just stayed home and got stuff done around the house. This afternoon was "meet the teacher" night at her new school so we loaded up the newly purchased school supplies and headed out. Her teacher seems really nice, which is good. She laughed when Brianna said she was going to teach kindergarten this year. Bri has delusions of grandeur, apparently. After a quick trip to Target to get lunch crap for Leigha I headed out to the Westport Coffeehouse to Fluffer Nutter rehearsal. Nifer and I are in Thunderdome this month and tonight was our turn to rehearse in the space. Sweet. It was very strange being at the WCH by ourselves. We had fun, did some good scenes, talked a lot between. It was very laid back, which was nice. We work together quite often and we just got back from a week long trip in the same hotel suite together, so we weren't terribly concerned about a whole lot, mostly just using the space and working out our entrance and stuff.

Nom nom nom....

We went out for some sushi today with Jen and Hans. Brianna insisted on sitting between them. How cute do they look together in their little glasses? Aren't they adorable? We came back to our house and played some Wii. We came to the conclusion that next time we have a Wii party we have to have more than two remotes. Oh well. Whoever wasn't playing at the time was either being entertained by the girls, the cat, or my stash of Mad magazines that I recently found. It was super amusing to see three grown people (Jason was playing Wii with Leigha) flopped on our stomachs on the carpet reading Spy Vs. Spy. Jason went to play poker tonight so I'm here alone with the girls, who are sleeping. Um......the crickets are very loud here right now. *le sigh*

I hate playing cards....

Slept in until 12:30 today. Oh that was awesome. I spent all day with my family at home, which was really nice. Did laundry, which was even nicer. This evening we had a Hype 7 show. The show was at nine but we met at 5:30 because it was at the Imp and there was a 7 o clock show as well, so after warming up and such we ate at the chinese restaurant next door. I love that Leigha is the only one in this picture with her eyes open, I am so good. The show was okay. I had a lot of fun when I was on stage. I really missed my classmates today.

Goodbye, Chicago, it's been swell!

And that's it. The trip is over. *sigh* Our last class was today, we had Mick Napier in the morning and Rebecca Sohn in the afternoon. We worked with emotions and such. There were some pretty magical moments. When class was over they told us that we were the best class to have ever gone through the Annoyance Intensive. Everyone was reluctant to leave, we had such an amazing time together and none of us wanted to break it up, knowing full well we will never again be in the same room together. After class I met up with Nifer and we rode the el in rush hour traffic to Midway. Our flight was delayed, go figure, but we got on and took our last look as the glittering lights slid by under our feet. We touched down, got our luggage, hugged, and parted ways. Jason and Bri were there to greet me (Leigha is spending the night at a friends.) She colored a sign for me to welcome me home, it was very cute. I walked out of the airport and into the night, inhaling the sweet, clean scent of Kansas City. It's good to be back....but I already miss Chicago.

Last night she said...

Today shall forever be known as the day my memory card freaked out and I lost all my pictures. Yeah, really. Class was amazing, Rebecca Sohn then Mick Napier. He gives really personal notes. Mine was to be more aggressive and grab the scene. Tried it, he was so right. Nice. After class Nifer and I went to Giordano's for some deep dish Chicago pizza (amazing!) then Grant Park to see famous Buckingham Square fountain, then we went to the Annoyance to see Susan Messing in "Messing with a friend." Fantastic show. About half my class was there. I introduced Nifer to Susan and Mick, she was so amused that she got to shake hands with Mick Napier. Two guys hit on her in the lobby before the show, it was hillarious. We hung out with my classmates after the show. I'm going to miss them, it's been such a great class.

For the first time I feel......Wicked.

Wonderful class session today. Susan was back!! I seriously LOVE her. I do! We did the most amazing stuff today. Stuff that made me think, why on earth don't we do this in Kansas City? I got to sit on the shoulders of two guys (who were standing fully upright, as in about six feet off the ground) while someone supported my legs and someone supported my back and another guy from the class was raised up in the same fashion as we waved to the empty cabaret tables and chairs as "King an Queen." Serious fun! This afternoon we had Mark Sutton again. We worked with emotions and status. Super intense, good stuff. Today I took five pages of notes. Awesome. Nifer and I have been her long enough to settle into a good routine and really be able to laugh at the other tourists. Our hotel is across the street from the Hancock building and at least four times a day we hear, "Oooh, isn't that the Sears tower? That's the fourth largest building in America!" *eye roll* Tonight we were going to see TJ and Dave, but unfortunately it's been sold out for weeks (I guess a Tony and Pulitzer award winning playwright is playing with them tonight) so we decided to try for the Wicked ticket lottery and yeah, my name got drawn! I saw it in New York (yes, by winning the lottery) a couple years ago and have been dying to see it again, so I figured I'd ask if Nifer if she wanted to see it and she was game. The ticket lottery is where you put your name in the hat (literally, it's a witch hat. Wicked witch of the West and all that.) and if they draw your name, you can buy up to two tickets in the first two rows for $25 each. We happened to get front row center (ahhh!) and it was incredible. Love it! We grabbed a coffee on the way back to the hotel and were walking up Michigan avenue when we heard a long, loud honk that went on forever. We looked over and saw two cars, a sedan (honking) and in front a small convertible with the top down. The guy in the convertible was just sitting there holding up the finger. This went on for probably two blocks. The situation was so ridiculous we were holding our sides laughing.

Midwest Metropolis

Okay...so, today we had Mark Sutton and another session with Rich Sohn. Lots of environment and object working today, fun fun! (that was indeed a sarcasm free statement.) During lunch about nine of us went across the street to a Chinese restaurant. It was so amazing sitting there talking with everyone about improv and what it's like in all the cities we come from. There are people in the class from Chicago, Boston, Toronto, New Mexico, Oklahoma, New York, Ohio, and of course, me from Kansas City. After listening to what everyone has to say, it is becoming more and more apparent to me how very lucky I am to live in a city with a thriving community. Some people were even saying how the people at their training centers don't teach them anything, as if they would really rather you just come to watch them rather than do. Yowza. After class I came back to the hotel and Nifer and I set out walking. We hit a couple stores then walked across one of the beaches to a Chipotle for some dinner, then went to Second City. There was a free improv show there, didn't catch the name of the troupe, if there was a name. It was pretty good, there was only one scene that I felt was REALLY great, but there were a lot of fun moments. Afterward we went out with Matt Reiss, which was fun, then he showed us his place on the 31st floor of a high rise that overlooks the river. (Sweet!) We chatted for a bit then remembered that we all have to get up early tomorrow, so it was time to get going. Sorry for the "we did this then this then this" nature of these blogs, but I am exhausted and pretty much have been coming back to the hotel, unloading on the computer and crashing. And right now, it's crashing time.

She's not messing around!

Got up, took a shower, grabbed a chewy granola bar, and took the red line north to the Annoynce Theater! My first teacher was Susan Messing (pictured) who I learned so, so much from. I took three pages of notes. If you ever get the chance to take a class from her, do what you have to do, just take that class. Anyone wanting specifics, you are so invited to consult me and my notebook, but in the interest of time (yours and mine) I won't go into it here. We had an hour for lunch and ended up at a place near the theater that was SLOW about getting our food out. By the time we got it (and we ordered right away) we had five minutes to shovel it in and run. Rich Sohn was our afternoon instructor and we did a kajillion scenes, some of them five seconds long! By the time we were done I was exhausted, the good kind. I took the train back and met up with Nifer. We hit Juicy Couture so I could drool over the cute clothing and wish I was a size 2, then went north to Wrigleyville so we could catch the Armando Diaz Experience at iO. I'm dissapointed they painted over the white swirly thing on the outside of the building. The show was pretty much the most amazing thing, like, ever. Seriously. While we were in the building we heard thunder, then during the Q and A session we heard POURING rain. We walked outside into sheets of rain and sheets of Cubs fans (rained out) and headed for the Taco Bell to finally, finally eat some dinner. It was midnight by then. After that we came back to the hotel. Exhausted. The good kind. I love this city, FYI.

I'm bean.

Long day. Very long day. Nifer came by at 5:45 this morning and we left for the airport. She hasn't been on an airplane since she was three so everything was pretty much exciting for her. 'Twas cute. We arrived and took the El downtown, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, got some lunch, then hung out in the vicinity which, by the way, is the Magnificent Mile. Sweet. About one o clock we headed to Second City. The founder of Hype 7, Matthew Reiss, is taking the classes there and today was his student show. I had to adjust to the shock of being there, surrounded by pictures of famous people who once took classes and performed there. After the show we talked for a bit, then Nifer and I walked across the city to our hotel, checked in, then wandered the Magnificent Mile again, all the way down to Millenium park where we took a bunch of pictures by the bean/Cloud Gate. As we were walking we heard music, live and loud, and realized it was Lollapalooza, half a block away. The band changed and a new one started playing. All of a sudden Nifer started pretty much peeing her pants....the new band was freaking FLOGGING MOLLY! We sat down on a retainer wall and listened to several songs, then walked down the street to get a little closer and we could see a ginormous screen with live feed of the band as they were playing. It was holy crap amazing, seriously. We walked some more and got a couple sodas before returning to the hotel to relax our poor aching feet. I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe this is real! This is so very cool!

It lasts longer

At the Roving Imp theater there are pictures on the wall of everyone who has performed in the group. They are arranged in order of who has performed the most shows. Tonight my picture was in a different spot for the first time since the pictures were put up. Why? Because there are now enough pictures on the wall to have bumped the top three over to the other wall! That's exciting. Also, Nifer leapt James, which is a pretty big deal. The picture order has been the topic of many lobby conversations over the past year and a half, even causing a performer to come back after several months of absence to keep someone's picture behind theirs on the wall. Anyhow, so yeah, did a show tonight. The high school show was supposed to be tonight but a lot of them couldn't make it, so John padded the numbers with Imps. I stuck around after to see Type O Positive at eight. I was going to see Trivial Prov-Suit at nine, but I was yawning through the (fantastic and hillarious) eight o clock set, so I decided to come home. I do have to be up really early tomorrow after all. I did most of my packing today. Most of it. I'm going to grab a couple more things before bed. Not sleep.....I doubt I'll be getting much tonight. I'm exhausted but really excited.

In the morning, there was chocolate.

Whoever decided to put those train tables in bookstores was a freakin' genius. Seriously. The girls and I hit the bookstore today so I could rustle up some reading material for my trip. I found two books that looked interesting, couldn't decide between them, and bought them both. The subject line of today's blog is the opening line of the second chapter of one such books. In my opinion, it's probably among the top 10 best chapter opening sentences of all time. Fantastic. Jason and I moved the computer downstairs today, FINALLY, and onto the new/old computer desk Jen gave me a little while back. The computer wasn't even invented when this desk was created, how cool is that? *sends out hearts to Jen via Care Bear stare* Did laundry and created a to-do list for packing. I can't believe it's almost time for my trip to Chicago. I've been waiting and saving nearly a year for this and it's almost here!