"Get to know your friend (again)" email

So, in an attempt to stop feeling guilty that I never do these and send them back out when I receive them from my friends, I'm posting one here. Then I can always refer people to my blog :)

1. What is your occupation? Stage Manager

2. Do you like banana sandwiches? Probably not - I'd rather eat the banana with no bread

3. What are you listening to right now? a student practicing piano (I'm at the rehearsal space at Carnegie Mellon University)

4. What was the last thing you ate? Chai latte; real food - fries at lunch

5. Do you wish on stars? No

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? I'm not sure what to base this answer on - some shade of blue that goes well with my eyes, I guess

7. How is the weather right now? rain rain rain

8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? my husband

9. Do you like the person who sent this to you? that's a silly question - of course! Why else would she send it to me?

10. How old are you today? 31

11. Favorite drink? 1/2 7-11 cappuccino machine cappuccino + 1/2 7-11 coffee (cinnamon vanilla nut is the best cappuccino flavor for that)

12. Favorite sport to watch? TV: I hate to watch sports on TV; live: Baseball! Go O's!

13. Have you ever dyed your hair? who hasn't? yes

14. Do you wear contacts or glasses? contacts

15. Pets? 2 cutie kitties

16. Favorite month? any warm/hot one. if I lived in the southern hemisphere, it would be december January, february, but since I live here, it's June, July, August

17. Favorite food? MD steamed crabs, of course!

18. What was the last movie you watched? Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
19. Favorite day of the year? This past year it was the day I ate 22 steamed crabs in one day :)
20. What do you do to vent anger? tell my cats about it

21. What was your favorite toy as a child? Legos

22. Fall or Spring? Spring

23. Hugs or kisses? Kisses

24. Cherry or Blueberry? Cherry, but I'd really rather have chocolate :)

25. Do you want your friends to email you back? Well this doesn't really apply I guess with posting it on a blog

26. Who is most likely to respond? again, doesn't apply, but if anyone wants to copy this and post it in their own blog, that would be cool

27. Who is least likely to respond? surprisingly, my friends don't often put me down on this line, although I don't think I've EVER responded to one

28. Living arrangements? 1 hubby, 2 cats, 1 house in Pittsburgh

29. When was the last time you cried? Can't remember for sure; probably when my grandmother died in January

30. What is on the floor of your closet? I'm proud to say a shoe rack with my shoes neatly organized (we'll see how long that lasts)

31. Who is the friend you have had the longest? of those who might read this, I think it's Jenny, or Francesca if you count the day I met her at high school orientation

32. What did you do last night? rehearsal for Albert Herring at CMU, then I went home and read a book for a while before going to sleep

33. What inspires you? my great family

34. What are you afraid of? losing my parents

35. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? cheese, but turkey burgers
36. Favorite car? I don't really care about cars much, but this new Hybrid Ford Escape we just got is pretty nifty; when you stop, it goes completely silent, since the gas engine doesn't stay on all the time

37. Favorite dog breed? cats for me; I haven't been able to find a dog breed that I'd actually want to have

38. How long at your current job? hard to apply this to a Stage Manager who has a different job every month or 2; I've been with the Pittsburgh Opera for 3 years and only work 20 weeks each year there and I've been with the Florentine Opera for 4 years and only work 4 weeks a year there

40. Favorite day of the week? - Sunday
41. How many states have you lived in? 6 (3 are from working summers in those states), unless you count the circus, in which case I've lived at least week in 31 states and DC

42. How many cities have you lived in? 3, since I wouldn't count some of the places I've lived as "cities", and here I'm not even going to venture to count the cities on the circus - probably 80 or so
43. What is the last book you read? "Nerilka's Story" by Anne McCaffrey

Just as I thought...

I knew it. I knew I'd start a blog then get too busy to keep up with it. Argh.

Anyway, a gripe for today (or really for last week or so): I didn't realize that when I saved a draft of a post, the date for the blog was automatically set for the day I saved the draft, rather than the day I actually published. So my last entry about seeing the circus didn't really make sense, since the blog says I published it on Saturday, but really I published it on Monday. The Steelers game I was talking about was on Sunday during the 5pm circus performance. Not that anyone reading this really cares, but it's my gripe.

So, after circus weekend, the following weekend was a convention in Orlando for my husband, to which I tagged along. I have several friends in Orlando and some of them work at Disney. So, lucky for us, we got into the parks for free one day. We went to Animal Kingdom, which we'd never been to. Boy, it was just WONDERFUL! The habitats for the animals are beautiful and really huge and the animals all look great. There's one safari ride which takes you through their African animal exhibit. There are beautiful African elephants and there was a baby. Also, there are white rhinos and there was a baby right at the edge of the road that our safari truck drove on. It was absolutely beautiful. Then, of course, Disney had to follow their ridiculous ride formula and we had to go "catch the poachers" in our safari truck. Silly. But the first part of the drive through the actual animal areas was worth sitting through the stupid animatronic baby elephant in the back of a truck that had been "saved from the poachers." Anyway, I wouldn't mind working there....

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Circus circus circus!!!!!

So, after I noted David's site and online diary, I started reading it myself. I'm not sure why I never had before. So, for one thing, there's certainly some corrections to be made to my recollections, but they're minor, so I won't bother (like show times and such - you guys don't really care, right?). But the other thing I realized is that his experience was FAR different than mine. As Boss Clown, he was considered management of sorts, but he seems to have had SO MUCH more free time than I did. I think that was generally true of the performers as a whole, but I also am a bit of a workaholic. I read three weeks worth of entries of his and he saw a movie each week while I was still involved in loading out. He did the animal walk each week following the last show on Sunday and then was free to do whatever until the train left. Since the load out took about 4 hours to get out of the building and then another 2 to get the train loaded, he and the other clowns had TONS of time to hang out. The other advantage he had over me was that he had been on the show for 5 or 6 years already by that time and had been to all of these cities before, so he knew where there were things to do and see in each town. I never motivated myself to go anywhere in most towns - while I was Asst Ops Mgr I worked 9-5-ish and usually just wanted to go home to my trailer and watch TV. Plus, since everyone else was working during the time that I was off, there was no one to go out exploring the town with.

And, the other thing to talk about that will certainly delay my circus tale is that I actually went to the circus last night. We visited on Thursday, but actually attended the performance yesterday. We ended up backstage before the show, talking to Tim Roberts, the band conductor. We also ran into our friend Gabor, a clown. The show was great, as usual. I thought the sound was a bit soft, but I think one of the biggest problems was that the house was so empty. Clearly the promoters should not have scheduled a circus performance at the same time as a Steeler game, even if it was an away game! They obviously don't know Pittsburgh very well.

Anyway, being there and seeing the show and watching some of the load out made me want to be back on the show again. I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about it so much. I finally got to sleep at around 3am. Ugh. It's really amazing how it gets into your blood. I'm fine for most of the year when the show isn't around and I'm happy working for the Opera. But then the circus comes to town and I want to be on the train when it pulls out. Even though I know it would go back to being tedious and difficult very quickly. These are the times when it doesn't surprise me that those who've grown up in circus families stay with the circus and even those who haven't stay on the show for a LONG time. As hard work as it is, I know people who've been with them 15-20 years who weren't circus people to begin with. I think I could have been one of those people.

At least I left for a good reason and then married him :)

Elephants are the most beautiful animals...

So, Thursday afternoon, Todd and I went to visit our few remaining friends on the Ringling Blue unit (the circus is here in Pittsburgh this week). We saw Stashik (that's a nickname for Stanislaw that he goes by and I don't think anyone knows how to spell it), who's the Floor Boss. He's the same as ever. We hadn't seen him in four years - the last time the blue unit was in town he was out having shoulder surgery. We also saw Gene and Kathleen. Gene has been the trainmaster for about 5 years and Kathleen has filled in a number of different jobs on the show. They told us that they will be leaving the show after St Louis (that's 2 weeks from now) to go live in Las Vegas near their daughter, Janene, who was on the road with the blue unit for quite a while. She was Todd's Assistant Lighting Director (unofficially) and took over his job when he left. She also married the general Manager, Jeff. Anyway, we also saw a lot of the floor crew guys that are STILL out there. And we visited for a few minutes with Troy, who is the head of the elephant department on the unit. He took us to see the newest addition to the show, Sarah, a baby elephant who's about 4 or 5 years old. She was born at the CEC while I was on the show and named after Sarah Houcke, who was the tiger act presenter at the time. Sarah (the elephant) was with the other "babies" in the elephant tent, the ones who were with the show when I started. I couldn't believe how much the others (Bonnie, Juliette, and Kelly Ann) have grown. I guess that's what happend to kids. Sarah is about the size Kelly Ann was when I started and she's just CUTE. Seeing elephants every day and getting to pet them and say hi to them is what I miss most about the circus. The way things are going with people leaving, that could have been my last chance to be near an elephant up close and pet her and have her check out my shoes with her trunk..... That makes me sad.

Okay, so that's enough about the current circus fun. Back to my chronicles of when I worked there. Sorry Katie, but I promised Providence, so I'm writing about Providence. Stories of train life later.

Providence, RI, April 2000

So, Steve and I pulled into the parking lot at the Providence Civic Arena at some ridiculously early hour. Steve parked my trailer for me and took the truck, his dog, and Stashik to the show hotel to get a little sleep before we all had to start working. Just a few hours later, I remember getting woken up by radio chatter. I can't remember what it was about, but I know it woke me up. That was to be my plight for the next year and a half - sleeping with the radio on and my cell phone nearby and being woken by one or the other far too often.

Honestly, I remember very little about the actual events that occurred in Providence. I can picture the lot where my trailer was parked and the elephant tent set up perfectly. I can picture the backstage area of the arena pretty well too and I can even picture the building operations guy. I couldn't tell you his name, but he looked like a hit man :) I do have a few specific memories about that week. First, I remember there was some sort of problem with the water meter we had (or maybe didn't have) on the fire hydrant. The water for the animal lot and any trailers parked at the building usually came from a fire hydrant nearby and the circus carried LOTS of fire hose to run that water as far as it needed to go. However, we usually had to have a meter on the hydrant, provided by the city, so that they could bill the show for the water used. I don't remember exactly what happened in Providence, but there was something - either we didn't have a meter and someone came and inspected the setup and told us we had to get one, or we had one that wasn't working or was leaking..... Aha - writing about it makes it all come back. I think what happened was that we were told that we couldn't have our lines hooked to the hydrant for the whole week - there had to be access if there was actually a fire. Usually this can be done with a Y splitter, but either we didn't have one at the time or it was the wrong size or something. So we ended up having to disconnect the water at night, which was truly a pain in the butt. Fortunately for those of us living in trailers on the lot, Jon Weiss (the clown who got shot out of the cannon) had found a water hookup on the side of the arena the size of a regular garden hose hookup, so we were able to run water for the trailers from there.

During the load-in (probably that Tuesday), Steve asked me to park some of the show vehicles once they had been fully unloaded. The first one he asked me to park was the 450 (Ford F450 dually with a high-walled bed which we used to transport the lot power equipment; also, it was a manual transmission vehicle). Unfortunately for me, the parking spaces available for the show vehicles all required parallel parking. I'm not too bad at the parallel parking .... in my little Geo Prism. However, the F450 is about 3 times larger and it had been several months to a year since I had driven a stick shift. Parking that truck took me at least 30 minutes.

Later in the week, we started getting inquiries from the locals about job openings. My first glimpse into the hiring on the show was a bit startling. Steve hired two guys that week (probably on Thursday or Friday) - one for floor crew and one for ring curb crew (explanation of those crews later). They were not the most savory looking people you ever saw and certainly not the most well-educated either. But, I guess you can't expect much more when you're offering $230/week. Anyway, he hired them and one of us (or maybe both of us - I was tending to just follow Steve around everywhere to learn what was going on) took them to get uniforms and meet their department heads. Steve assigned them to train rooms and told the head porter, Mitko, which rooms to give them when they got back to the train. They were working right along for the few days in Providence, and then, when the train pulled out on Sunday, they weren't on it. That's really what startled me most. We had spent a good deal of time and resources on getting them hired, plus we had given them uniforms, and then they just left with no notice 4 days after being hired. That didn't happen very often, but it was always a bit startling and really annoying that we would then have to go ahead and hire some more people to replace them in the next town.

The last specific thing I remember was that on my first real Saturday of work (the Saturday that I was in Philly was really spent filling out paperwork and not knowing what was going on), I showed up at 10am-ish since our first show was at 11:30 and the doors would open at 10:30. At about 10:15, Xan, our Production Manager, called on the radio for Dave, the GM. When he got no answer, he called for Steve. I replied that neither was there and I wasn't sure if I could help him, but what did he need? It turned out not to be an urgent call, but I was by myself in the office for the whole first show, basically the highest-ranked person on site until 1pm-ish. That was a bit scary for me, but I got through it and figured out a lot of how things worked that morning.

What's really sad is that I was going to say which city I'd be telling about next, but I no longer remember the order of the cities on the tour I was on. Fortunately for me, one of the clowns kept an online diary during that whole tour and I will just check his site for it. You should check out his site too - he's one of the most talented clowns I know! http://www.ontheroadwithdavid.com/OnTheRoad/Home.htm
and his online diary is at http://www.ringling.com/explore/backstage/clowndiaryarchive.aspx on the Ringling website. I hope they keep that there for a while longer.