Good workout

Dragged myself to the gym yesterday, and did 20 minutes on the elliptical and then 20 minutes on the treadmill. I did the "forest walk" with a max speed of 6.0 and incline of 15. I felt fatigue not even halfway through it, so I knew I was getting a good workout. I kept with it, and felt so good when it was over. Caught my breath in the locker room and took a shower. Saw that nice looking guy with gray hair/all over tan. He was wearing a red jock strap. Very handsome....

4 Day Weekend

Jared gave me Friday off; making this a 4 day weekend for me. Had one day left which I had to "use or lose." Not doing much, picked up some tile Friday for the master bedroom bath project. The tile guy is not very good, and wasted a lot of tile putting the shower together. Had to have the handyman guy chip out 2 + tiles so that the plumber could fix the pipe positions that he screwed up originally. He had them set for a conventional hot/cold water setting, but since there is a shower panel going in, the connections have to be a lot closer. Now the drywall has to be reapplied and the tiles set around the new configuration. The bedroom is now a lighter version of the kitchen; cavern moss meets sage green. I noticed the popcorn is gone from the ceiling as well. I made a coleslaw Friday, walked to the market to get the mayonaisse. It is too harsh for my taste, a lot of celery seed was called for in the recipe. I found another recipe online which I think would be better. I like a sweeter, more mild coleslaw. I'm making split pea soup today, still need to chop the veggies for when the peas are done simmering. Not much going on, which I like.

And on the 7th day, Edna rested...

Whew! The concert is over, and it was a great success. Some flaws here and there, but overall it was very good and the audience was very appreciative. My glamorous Edna did not get the ovation I was hoping for, and I didn't feel that I sold my number as well as I could have. After the concert, I just ran back to the dressing room to start putting my stuff away. Girls have so much stuff! Turned in my lavalier (cordless mic) and helped carry some risers to the truck at the dock. Couldn't do that in heels!
We had a very spontaneous encore number that we just threw together at the last minute. In view of the California Supreme Court decision, we sang "Marry Us" from Naked Man while showing the ruling toward the last part of the song. It was very emotional and really made an impact. We performed the number at our last concert, so it was still fresh for many of us. Me singing it in drag kind of led to the absurdity of the moment, I felt. I was trying to hide behind the piano.

ch-ch-ch-Changes.....

Felt like crap Monday, but after resting and taking some Ny-Quil knockoff stuff, I'm feeling so much better. It might be that chemistry between me and Brook; Don knows what I mean...
Anyway, the shaving of my face is complete; no, that isn't a picture of my younger brother - that is me.
The second picture is dowdy Edna. The third, of course, is glamorous Edna. This is going to be some concert...

Ugh!

Today had so much promise...
Practiced some of my music for the upcoming concert. "Try to Remember" is coming along nicely. After lunch, I went with John to get some cheap jewelry for Edna, and a backup "shmatta" for her frumpy scene. I'm just not trusting stuff I bought on eBay to get here on time. I really need the glamorous Edna wig to get here, but everything else I'm not so confident. I did a "buy it now" for a white feather boa (with gold tinsel accents) for Edna because I felt it would compliment her outfit the best. I bought the rainbow one from Q-trading, but I'm having second thoughts about it. Got a stupid migraine in the store, and the flashing just about ended when I got to the parking lot. Went to Home Depot, and got some stuff for the house. The shower needed a "goose neck" adaptor because the shower head needs to project out further into the tub area. It works much better now with that part installed. I spent some of the evening shaving my legs. Looks pretty weird now, I can't remember when my legs weren't hairy. And the goatee is gone! The mustache is next, and I will miss that the most.

Whatta Day!

I had a very productive day, even though it was the start of my 4 days weekend. I left around 10 AM for Revivals; I had those stupid "Members Only" jackets to donate along with a bag of stuff John gave me for goodwill. They did have anything good there for me to use for my Edna Turnblad costume, even though the guy behind the counter kept saying, "All clothing is $1!" But alas, no glamorous dress or frumpy house-coats to be found. I then headed over to Ross (dress for less) to see what they had. I found two outfits, one that I knew would be perfect, and the other a back-up. It was kind of funny at the check stand; the customer behind me just loved the dress I got. I went home and tried them both on with the fat suit, and I had a winner. So after lunch I went back to the mall to return the other dress and bought some pumps at Payless that work so well with the dress. I thought I would be a size 12, however, size 11 was even too big. The size 10's pinched a little, but at least I know they will stay on my feet. I went to Steinmart, where I found some clip-on earrings and a little butterfly pin to keep the top of my new dress closed since I don't have "real" cleavage. I bought some pantyhose and came to the realization that I am going to have to shave. Face, legs, arm pits. It would be pretty gnarly to leave that hair on my body. I ended up winning an auction on eBay for a housecoat, it looks pretty drab, which will be perfect. I'm going to marry that with a pair of slippers I knitted a while ago and a wig with curlers in it. That will be my dowdy Edna look. I have a feeling I'm going to bring the house down with glamorous Edna. It is just so comical.
I had my hair appoint with John K at 4 PM, and then dinner with Brook at 7. We went to the new restaurant on Arenas, Cafe Palette, and the food was very good. We then walked over to Spurline, where they were setting up for karaoke. I sang 3 songs, and then Brook invited me back to the place he is staying at. It was a nice sleep over, although I must say I need more work with the bump master. 'nuff said.

Good Day!

Today went pretty well. Wasn't too hungover from yesterday, just a couple of Scotch & sodas at Streetbar. My rehearsal went well as Edna, the chorus even applauded right after my solo. I finally got the fat suit today, and it is a scream. It is somebodies commercially purchased Halloween costume; an overweight stripper. It had a red sparkly G-string and pasties on the body, but since one was already falling off, I removed them. It looks weird on me, but when you drape something over it, there is this outrageous "Mae West" figure that emerges. This just might be worth shaving for after all! I have started an early weekend; using some of my extra days before they disappear at the end of the month. So I can go shopping for more "Edna" stuff. I already got two wigs on eBay. My thinking is that I will have a frumpy Edna look followed by a sexy Edna. I know I can make it work! And it will be fab-u-lous!
The main thing that made it a good day is Brook called me at work and said that he would like to have dinner and drinks tomorrow night. Perfect! I'm going to try that new "Cafe Palette" and see how it is. I don't think Allen from the now defunct Rainbow (Cactus) will be working, which is a bummer 'cause we've become such good Pisces friends. At least I can tell him that I tried his new place of business next time I see him.
I will be shopping tomorrow to see what else I need to complete my costume. Exciting!

Edna's Debut

Yesterday, Saturday, was our runout concert at the First Congregational Church of Riverside. I had the house to myself as John had traffic school that day. I got my stuff in order, including making a lentil soup for the week, and had two chorus members come over for a carpool to riverside. We took my car, and I drove which was a pretty big step for me since my problems with driving that started 4 years ago. I did really well, and had my GPS in the car which saved us once we got into Riverside. We missed a couple of turns, but it was able to recalculate the route quickly and gave us the back street directions. There was a car show going on in downtown Riverside, which meant several roads were closed off. We were able to park in the back lot of the church, in an undesignated area, but I was assured by one of the people there that my car would be fine. We did some blocking for the hairspray number, then did a practice run through of the concert. We broke for lunch, and I went with 5 other members to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner. I ordered the vegetarian lasagna, but found out that they no longer had it in stock. So I got the angel hair with mushroom marinara sauce. It was OK, nothing special. We got back to the church just in time to change. They held the "curtain" a few extra minutes to allow more people time to park and filter in. There weren't a lot of people in the audience, but it was still nice to have a run through of the concert before we do it at the McCallum in two weeks. It went very well, and my Edna was stunning. Alan cued me when to start singing, and I had a better feel for the rhythm of the song. I also found out that our guest singer, Danny Mills, has a female fat suit leftover from a Halloween costume. He will have Andy bring it to rehearsal on Tuesday for me to try and see if it will work. Then all I have to do is go to a thrift shop to buy a muu-muu and matching accessories. I would really like to get a housecoat to go over the dress so that I can have a quick costume change. There's not much time, but I'm sure I can pull it together...

Only for so long...

I think "burning the candle at both ends" finally caught up to me. I've gone out too many times in the past week, and I ended up getting a migraine headache after going to the gym last night. I tried to go to the Valero station at Date Palm & Ramon, but there were people waiting all over the lot to get gas. At $4 a gallon, you would think it wouldn't be so busy. So as I was negotiating my way out of the parking lot, I noticed that my vision was starting to go crazy. And I know what that means...
I did make a pit stop at B of A to get some money and deposit a couple of checks. It was kind of cool because the drive thru ATM doesn't use deposit envelopes; you feed your check into the machine and it makes an image that you can review on the spot. I could hear it imprinting something on the check as well. And then when you get your receipt, it has a picture of the checks on it. Really cool.
I got home and laid down on the bed to try to get the aura from the headache to stop. It did calm down, and I was able to eat and take some ibuprofen. I had to go to Alan's cabaret show at Oasis; we were told to go to the 2nd showing at 2045. It was nice, but Alan felt like he was coming down with a cold (probably just allergies form this crazy wind) and his voice wasn't all there. There was also a very annoying automated light thing on the ceiling that kept cycling (kind of rotating) for no reason at all. And it was making a whirring sound. It was very annoying. Then it stopped when the show was over. Oh, well...what can you do.
I went home to rest after the show. Feel better today, although I can still feel the pain in my head if I sneeze or bend over. It will pass.