The Pink Notebook

Ah, a fast connection for uploading pictures

2006-08-11T14:20:00.000-04:00

OK, now I'm in a good fast-connection place, so I'm uploading the last of the photos that I was going to share from our trip "out west". I'll even try to get them in order:

A grizzly we saw at Yellowstone

An elk from Yellowstone - there was lots of wildlife out there!

Disneyland of the west, also known as Old Faithful - too many people!!

An old homestead at the foot of the Tetons - I'd love to live there!!!

Bryce Canyon - really beautiful, we must have about 400 pictures just from there.

Balanced Rock at Arches National Park - it'll fall over in a few more million years!

The requisite trip to Four Corners, which is cheeseball, but you just have to go so you can say you've been there.

The Gateway Arch in St Louis.

If you want to see more, like I said before, you'll have to make the trek out to Pittsburgh. We'd love to have visitors!

I think I'm caught up....sort of

2006-08-11T11:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I just finished reading the two (yes, just two) blogs that I like to read - written by my old high school friends. You'd think with just two of them, I'd do a little better keeping up (I had to go back to their April archives before I found posts that I remembered reading). And really, you guys may be the only two people who actually read my blog (well, that's not true - I know Reed reads it, if I'd ever update it).

So I've learned a lot about Jenny's life and her move to join me here in PA - okay, so the York/Harrisburg area is just as far from Pittsburgh as Baltimore is, but at least now we're in the same state :). And I've learned much less than I'd have liked about KT's trip to Alaska to work with Habitat for Humanity.

So now, you guys can learn a new little tidbit about my life: I'm pregnant! It's a bit scary and really rather draining at this point (why on earth do they call it "morning" sickness - they should just call it "two or more months of feeling like crap all the time"). I'm really having trouble actually eating the amount of food I'd need just for myself, let alone the extra 200 or 300 calories per day for the extra human growing inside me. Ah well, I've been assured that it will go away soon. I really hope so, 'cause I can't take much more of this.

Let's see, what else? Oh, I'm going to try to post those photos again. Let's see if that works:

Hooray - it worked! - here's a Bison at Yellowstone
Ah - Mount Rushmore, with me added.

OK, so I have about 8 more photos that I was going to upload, but they're taking too long on my puny dial-up connection. And I have a meeting I have to be at in 1 hour, so I'm going to give up now and wait until I'm somewhere with a faster connection.

Bad, bad blogger....

2006-07-06T10:47:00.000-04:00

OK, so I've been busy. Excuses, excuses. I was working in Milwaukee (yes, I had internet access, so really not a good excuse) and then I came home and went IMMEDIATELY on a vacation. Todd and I took my parents' RV and drove across the country to Yellowstone and then down into all the canyons of Utah. It was really a great trip. But we spent A LOT of money on gas..... 6000 miles at somewhere between 6 and 8 miles per gallon..... you do the math.

OK, so I'm having some trouble with posting the photos from the vacation. Hmmm. Anyway, we took about 2000 pictures (we each had a digital camera along, so there are lots of duplicates). I was going to post about 6 of them, but the website is not cooperating. Ah well. I guess that means if you want to see them you'll have to come visit me in Pittsburgh (evil grin)....

So here's what's going on with me right now: I'm working at Carnegie Mellon University for 6 weeks teaching stage management in a pre-college program for high school seniors-to-be. It's kinda fun. Tonight I'm teaching a workshop on Theatrical Unions, which I was going to gear toward the technical students, but apparently the kids who signed up are overwhelmingly actors, so I guess I'll be concentrating more on Actor's Equity Association. Guess I learned about the others for nothing.

Other than that, I'm just lounging around for the summer, which hopefully means I can make some actual progress with circus stories. Next in line is Wilkes Barre, PA, I think. Maybe I can also make progress with my garden (in which I lost all but 1 pepper plant), books I want to read, and some other projects I'm working on.

BTW - KT - Todd and I are going to be in NYC for about 5 days or so in August, about the 15th-20th. I'd love to get together if you're back from the Habitat from Humanity thing by then! (Maybe if I read your blog I'll find out if you'll be back, so I think that's the next thing on today's to-do list.....)

LASIK

2006-04-22T14:17:00.000-04:00

So, as usual, I've been delinquent in posting recently. I see that Jenny has given up on sending me comments that say "More! More!!" :)

And Reed still hasn't answered the challenge to comment on his visit with me in Albany.

But the best excuse I have to explain why I haven't posted anything recently is that I GOT MY EYES LASERED!!! And it's the BEST thing I've done for myself in a while. I can actually see! And when I went back yesterday for my one-day follow-up appointment, I could almost see the whole 20/20 line, which the doctor said was an excellent result for one day after surgery. I have another appointment next Friday, and I expect my vision to just keep getting better for the next week or so. When I woke up today it was better than yesterday, so it'll just keep getting better! For anyone out there contemplating it, you should definitely go for it!

That's all for now. I have lots of road signs to go read and TV to watch without glasses :)

Cincinnati, Ohio, March 2001

2006-03-30T15:19:00.000-05:00

Ok, so clearly I've skipped ahead in my telling of circus stories. This is because my parents are currently on a vacation in Cincinnati. You may wonder about the phrase "vacation in Cincinnati". Really they're on an Elderhostel trip, in which older (though I think my parents would object to this adjective) people go learn something, since they need something to do with their surplus of time as retired people. Anyway, my mother loves to call me at 8am to tell me ridiculous trivia. Fortunately she has not actually been waking me up this week, since I'm in a tech week at work and putting in a stupidly large amount of hours.

So on Tuesday, I called my parents' house to tell my mother to read the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss (about punctuation - HILARIOUS!!!), having forgotten that they were in Cincinnati. My dad called in and got the messages, so my mother felt compelled to call and remind me that they were not at home. But, of course she had other fun things to say. I guess one of the seminars about Cincinnati talked about how the river has flooded several times in the past, the most recent being March of 1997 while Ringling Brothers (my unit) was in town. That was a popular story that was told often leading up to our visit to Cincinatti in 2001 and recounted by many during our stay there. Apparently the arena, which is right next to the river, flooded up to the 7th row of seats or so. Here are some good photos: Enquirer Flood Photos. The big round building is the ballpark and the smaller, squarish building behind it is the arena. Couldn't find any good close-up photos of the arena, but I think that the flood happened on the Sunday before the show got to town, so they just didn't even get there. Could've been a lot worse if there had been 10 elephants or so stuck in knee-deep water....

Anyway, I then told my mother about my not-so-fond memories of Cincinnati. By this point I was living on the train, so I did not arrive early to set up the animal lot. That job had been given to a team of people who had trailers - Jon Weiss, the human cannonball, and Brian, the head of the elephant department. Once I gave up the job of setting the lot, I usually didn't so much agree with how the lot got set up, but really I didn't spend too much time worrying about it, since I couldn't do much about it.

During the load-in we had a problem with the pie car (the food service trailer). I can't remember exactly what it was - I think they couldn't find a hookup for water, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I do remember that I spent a significant amount of time during the load-in dealing with pie car issues. Our office trailer was parked on the sidewalk along the side of the building under the highway overpass. This was its spot from years past as well and apparently many people knew from experience that there were many birds roosting in the structural sections of the overpass. So we covered the office trailer with a tarp that week :)

Later in the load-in day, the GM and I were sitting peacefully (well, as peacefully as possible) in the office when the whole wagon got jolted. We darted outside and found one of the transportation guys on a Harlan pushing a wagon into its storage place behind our trailer. Turns out he had run into the office trailer with his Harlan. This is the same guy who had.....well I'll leave that one as a surprise for when I tell the Seattle stories, but this guy was very careless and was always doing things like running into 16-wagon with a Harlan (16 wagon is the name of the office trailer - it used to be one of the regular-sized circus wagons and it used to load onto the train to travel between cities. Most of us on the show knew what was stored in each wagon and called them by number: "Go to 55-wagon and get me the bicycle for the clown gag" etc. I still know what was in many of them and I still know a lot of the load order for the train. I'll tell about that stuff later.) Anyway, back to the story of Anthony Lande and running into 16-wagon with a Harlan. We almost fired him that day but for some reason decided against it. I sometimes wish we had, since he caused us further headaches in later cities. Ah well, it doesn't matter now!!!

As far as I remember the rest of the week went smoothly, or at least routinely, which means there were many bumps but they were standard bumps. I'm pretty sure I'm remembering correctly that the loading ramp to the main arena floor was fairly steep (going up from the street) and with a big curve in it. That always makes for a fun time - load-in is harder, load-out is harder, getting animals past each other safely is harder, etc. But I don't remember any particular incidents.

I just remembered why I don't remember any incidents. I left Cincinnati at some point during the week. I only remember that because the airport is in Kentucky. I have no idea where I went (maybe the new American Airlines Center in Dallas, maybe the flooded arena in Houston - can't remember) I just know I was gone for at least 2 days of the engagement.

So, at the end of the week it became time to load out. It was pretty cold and sometime during the 4 hours of loading out at the building it started to snow. That wreaked utter havoc on the loading of the train - the ramps were slick so the wagons had a hard time getting up, the cars themselves were slick, so moving the wagons down the long line of flat cars was difficult. Generally it was a miserable load-out. I'm pretty sure I had forgotten my scarf (or maybe this was the first really cold load-out we'd had - we spent January in Florida and I don't remember right now where we spent February) so I was pretty cold and we were out there for more than the 2 hours that it normally took after the arena load-out was done. We were fighting the snow the whole time. And the flat cars park right next to the river, so there was a wicked wind the whole time. We finally got the train loaded and I got to go home to my train room.

It's a fairly long trip from Cincinnati to Baltimore. We were scheduled to arrive on Tuesday at about 1:30 in the afternoon after leaving Cincinnati on Monday early morning (2:30am-ish). So it's like a 36-hour train trip. Well, I got really sick on that train run. Usually I liked the long runs because it meant more time off without cell signal or email and more time to cook good meals and watch our taped TV from the previous week. On this train run all I wanted to do was stay in bed. I even threw up once and I'm one of those people who will do ANYTHING to avoid throwing up. It was terrible. And we arrived in Baltimore late, so we ended up with an overnight load-in for a Wednesday night opening. It was awful. I'll leave most of the gory details to the Baltimore posting, but just believe me, it was probably the most miserable load-in of my entire time on the circus.

Split weeks suck!

2006-03-23T14:09:00.000-05:00

So, in this post (which is long overdue, I know) the problem is that I can barely remember anything from the next circus week. So I'll do a little circus and a little other stuff.

Circus:
After Hershey, PA, we did what's called a split week in Springfield, Mass and Albany, NY. As you may have guessed, that means we played two cities in one week - two load-ins, two load-outs. Painful, really. Truth is, I don't even remember what the arena in Springfield looked like. I can't picture where my trailer was, I can't picture where the animals were, and I have no idea what the inside of the place was like. No memory of it at all. And I don't know the name of the arena either (but it's not the Dunkin' Donuts arena, 'cause that's in Providence hee hee). I do remember that the drive from Springfield to Albany is short, so it's the first time I drove a trailer. I drove the GMC truck pulling the relatively small laundry trailer. The General Manager, Dave Brown, drove my truck and trailer. It actually turned out that driving the laundry trailer was harder, because it's a ball-hitch type trailer (just that little ball sticking out from the back of the truck and the tongue of the trailer sits on the ball). My trailer was a fifth wheel, which mounts in the bed of the truck, so I think, in the end, you have more control with a fifth wheel trailer. Anyway, that doesn't really matter. We got to Albany, and I remember a bit more about Albany than I do about Springfield.

In Albany, the loading area is a downhill ramp. Getting trucks and wagons in and out was not simple. And there's really not much in the way of a loading dock where we could leave anything parked, so we had to unload each truck and then move it out of the way. Yuck. That takes up lots of time and on a split week, there's not much of that to spare.

I don't remember having to do a whole lot with the load-in, but I think that's because I was dealing with the animal areas. The tigers were put in an empty dirt lot about 1 1/2 blocks from the arena. During the show, they'd be put in their transport cages (those small black cages that drive onto the arena floor to get the tigers into the center ring during the show) and be towed by Harlan (that's those little tugs like they use at airports for luggage carts) to the arena. It was not the most ideal location and I got numerous complaints about it from the tiger owner, Josip Marcan. So I spent much of the first day trying to get enough power and water to that area for the tigers and Josip's trailer.

I also spent some time dealing with power and water for the small number of trailers that were able to park at the arena. It was me, the 2 lead horse guys, Jon Weiss (the human cannonball), Sara Houcke (tiger presenter), Angel Quiros (the high wire act had negotiated having one of their house trailers be at the building in each city), and 2 elephant guys. It turned out there wasn't enough power available for all of the trailers, so I ran my trailer off my generator for the 3 days we were there. It meant that I couldn't really go anywhere, because the generator was mounted in the bed of my truck. Also it was loud, but I can pretty much sleep through anything, so it didn't bother me too much.

Reed Fisher, a good friend of mine from Virginia Opera, stopped in Albany on his way to Cooperstown to work at Glimmerglass Opera for the summer. So he got to see my fun tall-man's trailer and meet my new kitty. As I recall, Gandhi was surprisingly brave when Reed visited. Reed probably has plenty of opinions to offer about the visit, so I'll let him put those in my comment book.

OK, so really, that was a lot more than I thought I had to say about that week. Here are the few things I was going to say that aren't about the circus:

1. I've been cooking a lot recently and have realized that I love it. Also, some friends of ours gave us a subscription to Cooking Light for Christmas and I LOVE IT! If you like to cook and have trouble finding recipes that you like, I highly recommend it. Everything tastes great, is low in fat and calories, yet fills you up quite well. It's amazing how much better Todd and I have been eating since we started getting that magazine.
2. I found an online game that I just can't get enough of. It's called This is notpron and it's HARD. But I love it, 'cause that's the sort of silly stuff that I love. I'm only on level 12 and I'm currently somewhat stuck. I know what I have to do and how to do it, but I just can't actually do it (it's called cross-viewing and requires crossing your eyes to make two pictures meld into one, sort of like those old stereoviewers. My eyes just don't want to cross like that). Anyway, I love it too and if you like puzzles and want to learn a bit about HTML and your computer and web searching and lots of other stuff, you should try it.
3. Finally in my list, genealogy is so much fun. I've just gone back to my search after a while away and immediately found a new piece of info that I didn't have before that gets one of my lines back into the 1700's. Of course, it makes it that much harder, since there aren't as many records that far back, but it's such a challenge. I love getting people started on genealogy, so if you have any interest and you want a jump start, I'd be happy to help.

Hershey, PA (May 15-21, 2000)

2006-02-19T21:31:00.000-05:00

I don’t remember who drove my trailer for me on this trip from Hartford, but I don’t think it was Steve this time. But now that I’m thinking harder, maybe it was. I just remember arriving on the parking lot of the Hershey Park Arena and smelling chocolate in the air. It was GREAT!! I remember this venue pretty well, since it was on the grounds of Hershey Park, where I’ve been many times in my life. It’s the closest amusement park to Baltimore, so we went there lots when I was a kid. I used to remember the park in reference to the front entrance, but now my perspective of the park is the entrance via the gate that leads to the backstage area of the arena. It’s interesting how that changes my whole view of the place.

Somehow, I did a lot in Hershey. We arrived and spotted trailers out in the parking lot, a pretty far walk from the arena. There was plenty of space, though, so I didn’t have to cram people together too tightly. The animal area set up in the section of the parking lot at the top of the ramp down to the backstage area. We set the elephant tent and a large tiger area. There was enough space here to set up the tiger exercise ring at the end of their line of cages. It was great to be able to see the tigers out playing. The horses went into the barn area that is already a part of the Hershey Park Arena grounds, so their tent didn’t have to get set.

We loaded the show in and did the rehearsal. The biggest problem with this arena is the very small hallway to get from backstage to the arena floor. It’s also at a 90 degree angle to the arena floor, so entries through the portal during the big parades were difficult and I think we even changed the order of them a bit, since elephants and horses don’t like to pass each other at close range.

I took part of one day that week to go pick up my kitty, Ghandi. That was a nice time. Then he hid in the trailer for several days. But I told that story already.

Also, we got free admission to the park that week, so we took some time on Thursday or Friday (I think) to go ride some rides. The park opened a new roller coaster that week, so the Ringing clowns took the first ride on it.

I also remember that there was some uproar of some sort about the tiger act presenter (I’d say her name here, but it starts to get dicey when I don’t know the details and I don’t want to slander her online. You can figure it out if you can get your hands on a copy of the program from the 130th edition of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus). For some reason, there was talk of the guy who owned and trained the tigers possibly presenting the act several times that week. I think it had something to do with some health problems that the presenter was having. Anyway, the tiger owner was a short, bald man, not all that attractive, while the presenter was a tall, blonde woman, rather striking and lovely. So in the end she wasn’t pulled out of the show after all. I won’t give any further opinions about that issue, but you can form your own if you’d like.

I had lots of visitors this week, since my family is from Baltimore. My parents came to see the show for the first of many times. Also my friend Heather from college came to see the show. It’s possible there were others that I’m forgetting – let me know if you’re one of them!!

Next up: my first split week! (2 cities in one week - argh!)

Six months in the tall man's trailer

2006-01-14T16:23:00.000-05:00

This circus story is pretty much guaranteed to provoke some laughter.

Imagine living in a house built for someone who is 7'7" tall and his wife who is 5' tall. I did, for 6 months. OK, it wasn't a whole house, just a 40' long travel trailer. It had been custom built for Ringling so they could provide appropriate housing for their contracted "tall man" during the 128th edition of The Greatest Show on Earth. When he didn't return to perform on the 130th edition, there was this extra trailer sitting around. Since it was a usable trailer, it was assigned to a staff member on the show, rather than buying a new trailer for that person. That person was me - how fun :)

Anyway, here are the fun points that people usually laugh at:
1. I couldn't reach the shower head. If I wanted it to point a different way, I had to use a shampoo bottle to knock it around.
2. My bed was about 9 feet long. I had a box on the bottom of the bed that I never unpacked after I moved into the trailer. It never bothered me.
3. Speaking of my bed, they don't make tall-man sheets. I had to use two flat sheets tucked into the mattress instead of a fitted sheet.
4. There was A LOT of unused space in my trailer. I couldn't reach the highest shelves, so it just didn't make sense to put anything up there. At least in the bedroom I could stand on the bed to get to stuff. :)

I sure learned a lot by living in a travel trailer. I learned how to drive the biggest truck you can drive without having a commercial driver's license. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but after a small Geo Prism, a Ford F350 dual-axle super cab sure seems like the biggest vehicle on earth.
Then, I had to learn how to hook the thing up to the trailer. Not an easy feat. You have to be able to back the truck up to a fifth-wheel hitch on the trailer and make them connect. Then you have to drop the trailer off its legs and onto the truck. Boy, every time I did that I just watched amazed as the back of the truck just kept dropping and the trailer legs were still touching the ground. I was sure I was going to pop the back tires. But, I guess that's why it was a dually.
Pulling it around the country was definitely a feat. I gained confidence with it by first driving smaller trailers on short trips while someone else drove my truck and trailer. Once I felt comfortable driving my own trailer, I took a few trips with someone else along with me, in case something happened. On my first trip by myself (Wilkes-Barre, PA to Lexington, KY), I "ran into" a Burger King and have never lived it down. I didn't really run into it - I pulled into its parking lot so I could get lunch. After eating, I didn't feel like I could turn it around in the parking lot, so I continued around the building. The space got fairly narrow next to the drive through (NO I didn't try to go through the drive through) and then as I turned out, the pavement sloped toward the building. Apparently, I scraped the top of the side of the trailer all the way across the corner of the drive through. I think I pulled a few shingles off of it. I didn't actually realize it at the time. I was getting gas a few miles down the road and a police officer asked me if I had stopped at a Burger King a few exits back. He showed me where my trailer had hit the Burger King and I was flabbergasted. Oops.

Backing the trailer up was the hardest part. I didn't really ever learn. It's just not intuitive. Usually if I had to back up my trailer at an arena, like when I was parking it for the week, I'd have someone else do it for me or I'd have Hans walk along in front of the truck and tell me which way to turn the wheel. Finally, just before I moved out of the trailer, someone told me the trick - put your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel and then move your hand in the direction you want the trailer to move. I still never got good at it.

Yeah, travelling the country in a travel trailer was really kind of fun. Maybe I'll do it again when I retire. And then I'll make my husband back it up.

Back to the circus stories!

2005-12-22T12:07:00.000-05:00

I know you were all waiting and waiting for the next installment. Sorry it took so long for me to put this up. As I'm sure you're all aware, Christmas is an insanely busy time.

New Haven, CT

New Haven blurs together with Hartford for me. I'm really not sure which one is which or if I'm remembering just one and not the other. One thing I remember quite well from New Haven is the fun circus parade we had that week. It was probably Thursday or Friday of that week and we all came to work around 10am for probably about a noon parade. There were parade shirts for the staff and the performers were all in costume. The elephants lined up (well behind all of the local bands that were marching with us). We had several old circus wagons that were brought in from the Circus World museum in Baraboo, WI (old winter quarters for Ringling Bros.). Although it made for a long day, it was lots of fun. And the promoters served us a big barbeque after the parade on the top of the parking garage adjacent to the arena.

The animals were housed inside the loading dock in New Haven, which meant we didn't need to set up the two tents, just the picket lines and horse stalls. My trailer was spotted in the small parking lot outside of the loading dock. It was definitely cramped in that lot!

Other than that, there's not much memorable in my mind about New Haven. I kept learning about the show and how it ran. I shadowed a few of the crew guys during some of the shows so that I'd know how that aspect went. I wish I'd done that more throughout the time I was with the show, but there just wasn't time if I wanted to get everything else done. Ah well.

Next time - fun things to know about my trailer (which was originally built for the tall man on the previous tour).

"Get to know your friend (again)" email

2005-11-29T15:28:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-11-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

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!!!!!

2005-11-05T17:55:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-11-05T16:56:00.000-05:00

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.

Gandhi's fun circus adventure

2005-10-28T17:57:00.000-04:00

So, I promised you Providence, RI today, but I'm going to go back on my word. Since Katie mentioned my darling cat in her comment, I am going to digress and tell you all about his time traveling with The Greatest Show on Earth.

When I joined the circus, it was the first time since I'd moved away from my parents' house that I was going to be living somewhere that I could own a pet. So I immediately decided to get a cat. My friend Heather told me that she had friends that had a cat that would have some kittens soon and they'd be ready for adoption right about when I was going to be in Hershey, PA with the circus (that was May 2000). Unfortunately, it turned out that they decided to keep all of the kittens, so I was suddenly in Hershey, where I had planned to get a cat, with no leads on a cat. So I called my mother (in Baltimore, which is only 1 1/2 hours from Hershey) and asked her to start looking in the newspaper and the Pennysaver for free kittens. She finally found a woman that had 2 younger cats (one 1 year, one 6 months) to give away, so there I was in my huge Ford F350 supercab dually truck (another story for later), driving to Baltimore to get a new kitty. I met my mother at this person's house, since my mom was going to lend me her cat carrier to get the cat back to my trailer in Hershey. I picked the younger of the two, the little 6-month old boy cat, simply because we couldn't catch the 1-year old girl.

I loaded him up in the cat carrier, and of course he cried all the way back to Hershey. We got back to my trailer and I let him out of the carrier and he immediately went and hid in the darkest, smallest spot he could find between the sofa and the wall. I think he stayed there for a whole day, until I finally pulled him out. Anyway, my next job was coming up with a name for him. I had decided I wanted to name him after one of the circus tigers. Their names were Vanya, Assam, Jaipur, Gandhi, Tibet, Tora, Jasmine, and Appollo. (OK, so I didn't remember all of those names off the top of my head 4 years after I left the show - I had to break out the program. I did remember 4 of them, though....) I really wanted to name the cat after a tiger that had the same coloring as him (he's an orange tabby, so he's most like the Bengals called goldens - orange with orange stripes), so that would have been Vanya or Assam. I liked the name Vanya, but then I realized that Vanya was a girl tiger, and it didn't seem to be quite right for my little boy cat. I finally picked Gandhi because it was my favorite of the boy-tiger names. And it seems to still fit, since I later was told that Gandhi was the craziest of the tigers out on tour.

Anyway, little Gandhi was about to start his fun year and a half on the road with the circus. I'm not sure how fun he really thought it was, but he seemed to get used to it. Since I was driving from city to city, I started out by putting him in the cat carrier and putting it in the back seat of the truck for each trip. I was afraid to leave him in the trailer for fear that something would fall on him. The cabinets had catches, but they certainly could have come loose. Eventually, I decided he shouldn't be shut in the carrier for the whole trip, so I started letting him out. On the longer trips I brought his litter box and food and water dish into the truck and put them on the floor of the back seat. He really started enjoying those trips - he'd stand on the back seat with his front paws on the edge of the window and look out at all the interesting things, or he'd climb up in the dashboard (on the passenger's side) and enjoy the sun coming in, or he'd sit on the back of the bench seat between me and the passenger's seat and just look around. It kept me from feeling like I was driving all by myself and he seemed to enjoy it too. There were a few times when I was afraid I'd lost him. On one trip, I stopped at a rest area and got out to stretch and he slipped out of the cab too and hid under the very center of my trailer. It took some work to get him out of there. Then, when I was leaving San Francisco, I got out of the cab at a traffic light to check the connection between the trailer and the truck and left the door open. I didn't really think about having left the door open until about 5 minutes later when I didn't know where Gandhi was. The next 15 minutes or so were a panic for me, since I couldn't find anywhere to pull over and check for him. It turned out that he was hiding under the back seat and probably hadn't even noticed that I had ever gotten out of the truck.

At home in the trailer, his favorite part was the blinds. In a travel trailer, the blinds are held to the wall and have a cord laced through them as a guide up and down so that they don't flop around during travel. When the blinds were down, Gandhi could crawl past the cord and nestle himself into the blind against the window. He was good at figuring out which way we were facing and which blind would be sunniest! Sometimes he could look out at the horses or the elephants - what a lucky cat.

While the show was in Phoenix, the General Manager was having his train room re-floored and had to go stay in a hotel for a night. He left his dog, Maxine, a rottweiler, with me for the night. I think that was probably the most traumatic experience Gandhi had on the circus. I don't think either animal knew what to think of the other.

In Los Angeles, I was convinced by Garrett, our transportation department head, to adopt a little black farm cat. Gandhi seemed to be a bit afraid of her. It turned out that she was a royal terror and really belonged on the farm, so during the run in Anaheim I took her back to the farm. She never even got a name. Ah well.

In San Diego, it was time to get Gandhi fixed. My friend Katie, who I went to high school with, was living in San Diego at the time and went with me when I picked him up from the vet (Did you go with us when I dropped him off too??) Then we went back to my trailer to hang out and spent most of the time laughing at the poor cat with the big cone collar around his neck. I took pity on him and took it off far sooner than I was supposed to. I didn't think he'd be able to eat with it on.

Gandhi's next big adventure was in Cleveland, OH (October 2000) when I got promoted and moved out of the trailer and onto the train. Of course, he was scared to death again of the new place. I can't remember where he found to hide in the train room. I think it was under the sofa. He got used to it pretty quickly and started to like it. Then came the first Sunday night after the move. Sunday nights were the night to leave a city, so an engine would hook up to the train and we'd head out. The hooking up part is usually somewhat jolting and always loud as the slack between the cars gets taken up. It scared Gandhi to death (again) and he came and crawled under the covers (the train usually pulls out around 3 or 4 am) right next to me. He would have stayed there for the whole trip if I hadn't made him come out. He eventually got used to the train while it was moving, but he never liked the hooking up part. Every time we left a city, there was a fuzzy blob next to my leg.

Gandhi didn't have as much opportunity for fun adventures on the train. He didn't ever really have to leave the train room, since I wasn't driving anymore. And even when I did drive, he could stay on the train during the move. There was a window in my room that we had put a table next to, so he could get up on the table and look out the window, but I don't know if it was as exciting for him as being in the truck. Eventually we left the circus to move to Pittsburgh and he got to be scared to death again of another new home. Poor little guy - he's not big on change. Once we got a second cat, he got better at it - when we moved with both of them to a house that we bought, neither of them was very scared.

So, that's the story of Gandhi's adventures on the circus. People always ask me if he's a really peaceful cat when I tell them his name. No one expects my answer to be "Oh, he's named after a circus tiger - I didn't even think of the man when I named him."

It's all your fault, Jenny!!!

2005-10-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

A while ago, I started a document that was my memories of the circus, written after the fact. I only got 2 1/2 cities written (Those of us on the show count our time by cities, as in "that happened 3 cities ago, right?" or "I bought these pants in Lexington." Weeks and months mean little on tour, memories are jogged by cities and arenas) but the file was already 3 pages long. Anyway, your prompting will, hopefully, get me to write more. Anyway, here's what I wrote about Philadelphia:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Philadelphia is where I joined the circus. It was sort of a training by fire – I just jumped right in and started working. I worked a few days, learning some things about the show, but right now I can’t remember exactly what. Then I went home to Baltimore for Easter, left my car at my parents’ house, took the train back to Philly and off I went. Easter Sunday was closing for the show in Philly, so by the time I arrived back at the First Union Arena (which may have still been Core States Arena back then), the load out was in full swing. I just followed Steve around, basically, and did what he needed to have done. I was informed that I couldn’t go on the load out floor without a hard hat, so I found one and jumped in. Steve had me checking the casual labor personnel – there were performers who got paid extra to help with load in and load out, but we had to make sure they showed up each week. I learned quite a few names that way.
When the load out in the arena was over, we walked over to the flats – at that time in Philly we were able to use a siding at the far end of the parking lot to park the whole train. I think that’s not true anymore. Unfortunately, there was another train stopped on the tracks closer to the arena, so the loading of the train was delayed until we could get that train moved and get the rest of the wagons and people across the tracks.
I wasn’t really clear on exactly what was going on at the time. All I knew is that I was not going to drive that truck and trailer that I was living in by myself to Providence, RI, so Steve was going to drive while I rode along. Which of course meant that we had Foster (Steve’s dog) with us on the drive as well. Also, we took Stashek, the floor boss, who was at that point filling in on pre-rig for Kazik, the TD. Kazik was off the unit because he was having some surgery to repair his leg where it had gotten broken (I think by an elephant) years before.
So, at about 1am we finally left Philly for Providence and the Providence Civic Center. I really thought we were going to crash several times because Steve sure looked to me like he was falling asleep at the wheel. It was light out by the time we pulled into the arena parking lot. It was pretty small, and I didn’t even know how much we were going to cram in there.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So that's what I wrote. Here's some explanation of things that might not have been clear. When I joined the show, I was assigned to live in a travel trailer so that I could beat the train to the next city and set up the main outside lot. The most interesting thing about it was that it had been the tall man's trailer on the previous tour. Ringling Bros had had it custom made for him, and then when he left after his 2-year contract was up, they recycled it for the Assistant Ops Manager on the Blue Unit - me. This tends to be a story that people like to hear about.
My bed was 9 feet long. I had one box that I brought with me to the show that lived at the foot of my bed and never moved until I moved out of that trailer. I don't even remember what was in it, I just know I didn't have to unpack it.
In the bathroom, there was a mirror that had been put in for the tall man's wife (who was short, shorter than me) that worked just fine for me. Then there was a mirror for him. When I started dating my husband and he spent a few weeks with me in the trailer, he realized that the wife mirror was too short and the tall man mirror was too tall for a normal 6' man. hee hee
I couldn't reach the shower head in the shower. If I wanted to adjust the stream a different direction I had to knock it around with a shampoo bottle.
I had to stand on the bed to reach most of the clothing storage areas in the bedroom.
There were shelves in the cabinets in the kitchen area that I NEVER used because I couldn't reach them.
Another quirk about the trailer that had nothing to do with the tall man was that there was a range top, but no oven. So I bought a toaster oven and did all of my oven-type cooking in that. The range top was a flat top stove, though, and I fell in love with it. Once we left the circus and bought a house, I insisted on a flat top range. It's the best thing ever (at least in the world of appliances)

Okay, that's enough for now. Tomorrow, Providence, RI. And more explanation of trains, sidings, my truck and trailer, pre-rig, and anything else you didn't quite get.

Running away to join the circus

2005-10-26T10:52:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been prompted to tell more circus stories. It only takes one and then I'll never shut up about it. I hope you're ready for it!!

It's kind of hard to just start talking about my time with Ringling Brothers - it's easier when I'm with a group of people and happen to mention it casually and then get a slew of questions - "Did you really live on a train?", "What did you do for them - were you a contortionist?", and the inevitable "How are the animals treated, anyway?"

I guess the best place to start is the beginning. I had a friend in grad school, Steve, who had left the circus to come to grad school. When we graduated, he got a better job with them and went off on tour with the Ringling Brothers Blue unit, 128th edition. I went off and worked a summer at a stock theatre in New Jersey, then went back to the alumni season of the program I had just graduated from to work on a show, then went back to NJ for a Christmas show and finally landed at the Virginia Opera in Norfolk, VA. About a month after I started working there, the circus came to town and it was Steve's unit (side note - Ringling Brothers now has 3 touring units - the red, the blue, and the gold. Red and blue follow the same routes but staggered by one year. The gold unit is smaller and plays much smaller towns) so of course I went to visit. I showed up to see him during the load-in, which was an overnight load-in. The animals walked into town from the stock cars at about 11pm and Steve arranged it so that I could accompany them. I walked with the Operations Manager, Dave, and got my first tast of PETA. Their headquarters is in Norfolk, so there were LOTS of protestors that walked right along with us. Dave insisted that everyone keep their mouths shut, since everyone who works for the circus and cares about the animals feels about the same way as I do about PETA. He didn't want any incidents to happen. Nothing actually occurred, but I came to realize that the animal walks were not usually that serious, quiet, and well-chaperoned.

Anyway, I hung around the load-in for at least 4 hours or so. I met my future husband, although he likes to remind me that I don't remember meeting him that night. I met lots of people over the course of that week. I got to see a lot of the operations of the Greatest Show on Earth, and it was really a neat experience. I think I got too tired to stay around 3 or 4am. Later in the week, I went by to talk to Steve again and he had me interview with the General Manager, Jeff. I later found out that Jeff would be leaving the unit to tour with a different show, Kaliedoscape, so Dave would be moving up to General Mgr and Steve would be Operations Manager, so they needed a new Asst Ops Manager. A few months later, Steve called and offered me the job. It was very hard to walk out on the VA Opera and it's one of only two theatre contracts I've left early. I gave them about 3 or 4 weeks notice, so they were able to replace me before I left.

I joined up with the show in Philadelphia, PA just before Easter in April, 2000. It was the start of a really fun adventure, which had plenty of difficult moments as well.

More later.....

PETA go home!!

2005-10-20T14:35:00.000-04:00

So, this morning my husband left the newspaper open for me to the article that accompanied this photo:

You can read the blurb that went with it here.

And my response to those three accusations is "Untrue, Untrue, Untrue!!!" Now I have to be careful of what I write beyond that response, for fear that PETA will one day find this blog and quote some small piece out of context that makes it sound like I'm saying something that I'm not. I've already changed the words I originally wrote in place of "I'm saying something that I'm not." What a pain. And while I worked for Ringling, I wouldn't even have dared to write anything on this issue, positive, negative or otherwise because no matter what I said, they would have added some ellipses and made it sound bad.

Anyway, my husband I worked for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey for a short time (that's where we met) and can say from first hand experience that PETA does not know what they are talking about in relation to Ringling Bros. I cannot speak in relation to other circuses, as I have not worked for any other circus, but considering their lack of research and knowledge about the current conditions at Ringling, I would be loathe to believe any claims they make. My opinion is that PETA is working with 60+ year old information and 60+ year old photos and then lumping all circuses, past and present, into one and making generalizations.

Unfortunately, PETA members protesting the circus seem to be young (from what I've seen around the country), often college students who not only think they can change the world by themselves, but also that it's their duty to do so, violently if necessary. I have watched several of them get arrested, and it seems such a shame, since the acts they claim to be protesting against are absolute works of fiction. I wish these kids would spend more time checking out the claims made by PETA before blindly following them into situations that could be detrimental to their future lives in the world.

There are a few key things to know about Ringling Brothers:

First of all, the animals are treated better than the two-legged employees. For example, there are several vet techs that travel with the show and 2 vets that visit at least once a month each, but there aren't any doctors, nurses, physical therapists, etc for the people.

Secondly, USDA inspectors arrive on the three touring units every few months for inspections. There are sometimes minor problems (the carrots are being stored in a refrigerated truck that is 2 degrees too warm, perhaps) but not major problems, particularly with the health and well-being of the animals.

Thirdly, although I agree that wild animals should not have been taken from the wild in the first place, that happened many years ago and we can't change the fact that it happened. Happily, people are more educated now about that and animals are no longer taken from the wild legally. Since most animals currently in captivity cannot be safely released into the wild, Ringling Brothers continues to do the world a favor by breeding these (mostly endangered) animals and working with them in the traveling shows. One day there will no longer be Asian elephants in the wild - what does PETA want then? No elephants anywhere on this planet?

I absolutely support wildlife preservation groups and animal welfare groups, but I encourage any of you who agree with me to support any group OTHER than PETA. They (as an organization, not necessarily each individual member) are uninformed and don't seem to want to get informed. They also seem to enjoy being disruptive and handing disturbing photos to small children just before they go to see The Greatest Show on Earth.

And when the circus comes to your town, go see it. (If you live in Pittsburgh, it will be here Nov 2-6.) It's really a great show and well done.
___________________________________________________________________

So, I wrote the post above 2 days ago and decided not to publish it right away, because I was afraid I was being a bit harsh on PETA. So I went and checked out their website. And it made me even madder. I was wrong - they're not uninformed, they're worse. They're selectively informed. They take every incident on the circus and spin it so that it sounds bad. They mention that two of the baby elephants on Ringling have foot problems and are often sent off the road as a result. Well, that's GOOD that they're sent back to the Center for Elephant Conservation to have their feet taken care of!! Elephants notoriously have foot problems. It's not a result of being out with the circus. And the alpacas that they speak of are Felix, Jasper, and the one whose name I can't remember. Felix is an albino, so if he had vision problems it doesn't surprise me. The nameless one (boy, I wish I could remember his name) had some leg problems, but that didn't develop on the road. I remember being in Lexington, KY and sending the elephant Rebecca home to the CEC - she was being retired from circus life because she was having some problems keeping up. Animals get old just like people and Ringling treats the older animals with as much care and love as the younger ones.

Another thing that just gets me going about PETA is that they find disgruntled employees who've been fired (usually for coming to work drunk, not coming to work at all, using a variety of controlled substances, or, in rare cases, harming the animals themselves, which is grounds for IMMEDIATE dismissal) and PAY them to sign an affidavit testifying to some cruelty of some sort. They have an affidavit up there signed by Frank Hagan, a man who I hired (stupid, stupid, stupid me) to work on the floor crew, NOT the animal crew. While I was on the circus, he once went out to a bar after the show, started buying rounds of drinks for the whole bar, claimed to be the tiger trainer, and then skipped out on the tab, prompting the police to show up at the train looking for him at 3am. The General Manager was woken up to deal with it. Boy, if I had been the one woken up, he'd have been fired on the spot. Anyway, his claim of being the tiger trainer was a lie then, so I wouldn't be surprised if he lied about being a lion handler on his PETA affidavit.

It's a pity that these are the types of people hired on the circus, but it's even more of a pity that PETA takes such advantage of them.

I've got to stop now or I'm going to start beating something. And it won't be my cats, I promise.

The Cancer Corridor

2005-10-15T11:17:00.000-04:00

The smoking habit continues to boggle my mind, each and every day. There's this one section of sidewalk between the stage door of the theatre I work in and the 7-11, where I like to get coffee, that we've dubbed "Cancer Corridor." When you walk out of the stage door, you encounter a sidewalk tumor of culinary school students, all smoking. It makes me not want to eat at any of the restaurants in Pittsburgh, since I've seen how dirty all of the young cooks are. Then, you walk down the sidewalk toward the 7-11 past a bus stop. Another sidewalk tumor that spreads out nearly the length of the block, and again, all smoking. I'm going to have cancer before I'm 40 from second-hand smoke.

Fortunately, my trips to the 7-11 are far fewer than they used to be now that I've started drinking the coffee in the rehearsal hall. However, I've realized that really, just about every sidewalk is a cancer corridor. And the smokers are just not very respectful of the non-smokers. I get smoke blown in my face all the time - people walking toward me, people walking in front of me - I can't seem to get away from it!

And here's my last and biggest rant about smoking. What makes smokers think that their butts are just going to disappear into the ether and not be a pollution problem????? The alley that I walk down every day just got repaved. I walked down it just after the pavers left and it was a beautiful (Ok, not really) expanse of new asphalt. I walked back down it that evening and it was FULL of cigarette butts. It really made me see the problem pretty clearly. Why can't smokers see that it's a problem?

My brain is empty today

2005-10-13T12:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had lots of thoughts while driving, but today I can't even come up with one of them. I think my brain emptied itself while I was sleeping last night. Really, that's not surprising, as it's the first good night of sleep I've gotten in a while. I've spent the last week and a half working 9:30am to 10pm. And that's 6 days a week, not just 5. I've finally got a morning off today. And tomorrow, which makes me jump for joy.

Aha - I've just remembered something I was thinking about yesterday. It wasn't while I was driving - it was as soon as I got home and my adorable cats met me at the door. They're just the cutest things, see:My blog-friend Blue Moon Mama (who also happens to be one of my best friends from high school) talks a lot about her "squeaker" - her almost-two-year-old boy. Since I'm childless at the moment (yes, I did say "at the moment" and yes that does mean we're talking about having a child. Please remove your jaw from the floor), I often feel the same way about the cats that she feels about her kid. It's pathetic.

Hummers (and H2s and H3s....)

2005-10-11T15:34:00.000-04:00

So, first, I must explain that the strange conglomerate of things I post about seem to mostly come from whatever I was thinking about during the drive to work in the morning. The other day I was thinking about what to eat for lunch, hence the McD's post. Today, I found blog material in the parking garage.

I'm just a little unclear about why anyone really needs a Hummer. Granted, I suppose there are specialized uses and needs for them. There are people who need to buy farm tractors, there are people who need to buy Hummers. But, really, someone who parks in the Theatre Square parking garage in downtown Pittsburgh every day? Does that person (in fact, there are usually 2 Hummers parked there each day) really need a Hummer? Clearly not.

So, since that answer was "clearly not", I wonder what prompted him/her to buy it. I've been told it's a "status symbol" since it costs so much money. To me, it says that the owner's status is that of someone with a lot of money to burn who really doesn't care a whit about the environment, our fossil fuel supply, or whether his car door gets run into by the door of the car parked next to him, since his vehicle doesn't actually fit in his parking spot.

Interestingly, there was a time when I wanted a Hummer. But that was before it was a commercial, consumer product. I had a boyfriend (now ex) who played the lottery (PowerBall) a lot and always told me that the first thing "we'd" buy when "we" won would be a Hummer. I'm pretty sure he meant the military-issued ones. Not that they're any better environmentally, but it was much more unique to own one back then. Anyway, we never won the lottery, so we never got the Hummer. Ah well. I'll take my little Geo Prism over the hulking monster vehicles any day.

This is not a defense of McDonald's

2005-10-08T15:54:00.000-04:00

So, this summer I watched Super Size Me and although I was fairly disgusted to see Morgan Spurlock gain 12 pounds in 7 days, I haven't stopped eating at McDonald's occasionally. I've found a few meals that can be eaten there which stay within a normal person's 1-meal calorie intake parameters (700-1000 calories for a lunch or dinner). And now and then, I like to have some greasy McDonald's fries, despite what happened (or didn't happen) to them during their 10-week stay in a jar on Morgan Spurlock's desk. (For those who didn't see the movie, I'll spoil it for you - the fries did NOTHING! 10 weeks after he poured them in a glass jar and put on the lid, they looked EXACTLY the same as they had when he put them there. Anything else would have molded and been disgusting. Why I continue to eat them, I don't know, but they're yummy anyway!)

People don't seem to take responsibility for the AMOUNT of food they put in their bodies. Just take a look at the McDonald's nutritional information chart. You can put together a fairly filling and tasty lunch with a normal amount of calories, just not by ordering a combo. It doesn't mean it's nutritionally complete, but it definitely doesn't mean that you will absolutely, for sure, no doubt, gain weight if you eat there a lot.

So, like I said, this is not a defense of McDonald's, just a rail against people who blame the company (or any other fast food chain) for making them fat. Taking responsibility for one's own actions is just not expected enough, and that bothers me. It should be expected AT ALL TIMES.

Finally figured out how to give it a title....

2005-10-06T23:02:00.000-04:00

Now that I've got a blog, and I'm "shouting" my thoughts at the world, I have some strange feeling that I need to explain why I started a blog and why it has the name it does and all sorts of "defenses" of my blog. So, I'm going to resist that feeling and not tell you any of those things. At least not now on the first post.

I'm also going to try NOT to vent about work here. Which gives me very little to say at this point. However, the VCR just stopped, which means that the Thursday night shows have successfully taped (the NBC shows, that is) and I want to watch them. So that's all for now.