Hell Week

Let's recap, shall we?

Dateline: Saturday, January 31
It's Jason's birthday, but he's selflessly agreed to share it with tech day, a.k.a. the day from hell. After about 5 1/2 hours of readjusting the lights, timing the music cues, and endless other tedious little necessities to make a production worthwhile—ok, fine, and a nice little potluck lunch—we call it a day and all go home to rest and recuperate before reconvening that evening for J's birthday dinner at the local steakhouse. Dinner is nice, mostly uneventful, other than that the staff overheard the birthday part and therefore insisted upon singing to Jason while he wore a coffee filter on his head. Mercifully, they skipped the paper toilet seat liner around his neck.

We then adjourned to our friends' house where we played Pictionary until I got mad about being ridiculed for my inability to accurately depict the globe and hid the dry-erase board; and then we played charades. I had gotten all dressed up for the evening and wore my ridiculous killer four-inch turquoise snakeskin boots. By the end of the evening, I thought they were to blame for the resulting back pain and so I settled into a nice hot bath when we arrived home. While easing my aching back, however, my chest decided to join the party. Naturally, I assumed this was my esophageal spasms rearing their ugly head again. Unfortunately, neither of them eased up for many hours and I was up most of the night in excruciating pain accompanied by nausea and was unable to keep any medicine down.

Dateline: Sunday, February 1
Way back when I scheduled rehearsals and asked for conflicts, nobody mentioned that this was Superbowl Sunday. So, 1st dress rehearsal started at 2:00 p.m. I was exhausted from being up all night, but rehearsal went well and it's a quick show, so we were pretty much done around 4:oo p.m. We stopped by the home of some friends afterward to share in their traditional brisket and socialize while the DVR'd game played in the background. Unfortunately, pretty much upon arrival, the pains started up again. So my dear friends packed up us up a to-go package and sent us home so that I could writhe in misery in the comfort of my own home. And then we pretty much repeated the activities of the night before.

Dateline: Monday, February 2
The first thing Jason did upon awakening was to go and get the phone and the phone book, hand it to me, and tell me to call the doctor. I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't done so because I wasn't hurting that much at the moment and it's easy to blow these things off in the cold, clear light of day. Consequently, I saw my doctor around noon and he asked if I was absolutely sure that this was the same pain that I experienced with the spasms because without my history, if someone reported these symptoms, he would want a CT scan to rule out an aortic aneurysm. My response: "Well, now I'm not." The hospital was able to schedule the scan right away, so we headed over and did that, and then went to lunch. As we left the restaurant, Jason asked me to call and check messages. I told him that there was no way they would have called already and he responded that if it was bad news, they would have called. Well, lo and behold, there was a message from the nurse. "It's your gallbladder." And asked me to return her call. So I did. She then told me it was "acutely inflamed and severely diseased" and they'd like me to have surgery that evening to remove it and the surgeon would call me around 5:00. Wha? To make an exceedingly long story infinitesimally shorter, I then went to my after-school theater program, told them classes were canceled for the remainder of the week, the surgeon scheduled me for an office visit first thing Tuesday, followed by labs, then surgery early that afternoon, I asked my producer to run 2nd dress since it was scheduled for Tuesday evening, told him I'd try to be there Wednesday for 3rd dress/preview, and that I'd be at opening on Friday come hell or high water.

Dateline: Tuesday, February 3
Surgeon's first words were that the lining of my gallbladder was 8mm thick whereas a healthy one should be 2mm thick. He sent me over for admittance to the hospital and tentatively scheduled my surgery for 2:30 that afternoon. Spent a few hours being poked and prodded, taking a shower with some sort of antibacterial soap, having an IV inserted, and generally being prepped for surgery. Went in to surgery a little early, all went well, I am now gallbladderless, cast stopped by to see me after surgery, and I spent the night in the hospital sleeping intermittently, having vitals taken, watching bad TV, scarfing Jello, and talking the nurses' ears off.

Dateline: Wednesday, February 4
Surgeon came in shortly before 8:00, gave me a recap of the surgery with some details I could have lived without, saw I was eating a liquid breakfast, said I could have solid foods, and said I could go home. Hooray! I waited for my real breakfast—I was hungry!—and got dressed and fled the premises. Spent the day sacked out on the couch with my good buddy Vicodin and then went to rehearsal that evening.

Dateline: Thursday, February 5
I have no real memories of this day.

Dateline: Friday, February 6
Opening night! It went very well and I was very pleased. Shockingly, I did not go out with the cast and crew after the show.

Dateline: Saturday, February 7
Whined to Jason that the recovery period for laparascopic surgery was 5 to 10 days and I should have been feeling better by then. He very sensibly and very annoyingly pointed out that I had maybe been overdoing it and should therefore expect to be on the longer range of the recovery period. Whatever. Don't confuse me with your logic, man. I'm above average, damnit!

Second show also went off very well and I was once again very pleased. However, I did elect once again not to go out afterward. Slacker, I am.

Dateline: Sunday, February 8
Exhausted. Decided that I would take things very slow over the next few days to fully rest and recuperate so that I can be raring to go by the end of the week.

And in the straw that overflowethed my cup of self-pity, I learned that the puppy we had applied to adopt will be going to another home instead. I am sad, dejected, forlorn, woeful, bummed, and these incisions itch like hell.

I Went to the Vanity Fair

I feel like maybe I should explain the evolving series of photos of my eyes as my profile pic. Pretty simple, really. Probably exactly what you think. And what the title implies. Vanity. Yep, I admit it. I'm obsessed with my eyes. I think they're my best feature and I've been complimented on them since before I was old enough to respond (and I started speaking at six months old [and haven't shut up since, it's been said]), so I have reason to believe that other people may also believe they're my best feature. Especially after the redux.

It's neither here nor there, but isn't it weird to be complimented on things you have no control over? I mean, it's not like a talent that I've worked hard at and developed. They're my eyes, just like your ugly ol' eyes are your eyes. Kidding! I kid! Relax. Geez.

Anyway, the profile pic here has somehow devolved into the place where I exhibit my ocular photo gallery. What I find particularly interesting about the current pic, although it's hard to see with it cropped down, is that my eye color is the one constant in the three images. Just changing the surrounding areas to black & white or to sepia makes it appear that the eye color has changed too. Ok, so only interesting to me. Fine. I see how you are.

But just so you know, I am even more vain about my feet. They're quite lovely, really. Long and lean and delicate and quite possibly the only things about me that those adjectives could ever be used to describe. I once planned a photo blog entry titled "Shoes I Have Loved" but the logistics of self-portraiture of the feet are trickier than you might think. Count yourselves lucky.

FBRNetwork News: The Frog Princess Begs a Boon

Muy importante. Please take just a moment to read the following post and then go vote. Thanks!

FBRNetwork News: The Frog Princess Begs a Boon

Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas

I would like to officially nominate "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" as the creepiest holiday song ever. Have you listened to this song? I mean, I've known it for years. It's one of those songs that you just run around singing under your breath without realizing it until fellow shoppers start giving you strange looks and you remember that you can't carry a tune in a bucket and you probably shouldn't sing out loud in public anyway, even if you happen to be Kelly Clarkson.

But, the other day, as I was happily singing along, I actually heard what I was singing. The gist of the story is that this little boy sneaks downstairs to try and catch a glimpse of Santa, and what to his wandering eye appears instead is dearest Mommy playing slap and tickle with old Father Christmas. Now, any normal child would of course be traumatized by the sight of Mommy making out with the old fat man who breaks and enters once a year to deliver presents (possibly a guilt offering, I now realize). In the real world, such a scenario would stun and horrify the child, resulting in a Madonna-whore complex the likes of which the world has never seen, one that will haunt every future relationship this poor child will ever have, and the years and years of ensuing therapy go without saying. But in the song, the child doesn't react with the appropriate revulsion. Of course not. No, instead he thinks, "Wow, that's really funny. Ya know what would be funnier? If Dad caught 'em! God, that would be a laugh riot." What kind of child thinks the only thing funnier than Mommy cheating on Daddy would be if Daddy caught her? Seriously. That is some sick shit right there. We may be a tad late with the therapy. Snuggle down with that story on this lovely Christmas Eve. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

The Un-Chick-fil-A'd Life Is Not Worth Living

One of the great disadvantages of chucking everything and moving to beautiful Oregon (ok, so maybe a general announcement of, "Hey, I'm moving to Oregon—write if you get work," is not chucking everything, but whatever) has been the complete and utter absence of the glory that is Chick-fil-A. My arrival in the Beaver State (shut it) seems to have been timed almost exactly with the closure of the Lloyd Center CFA, the only one in the state. I weep.

And shortly thereafter, the Chick-fil-A in DFW airport was replaced with a Hebrew National. Please. A hot dog stand. I was devastated. Picture, if you will, a 30-something woman bubbling over with the excitement of a 7-year-old on Christmas morning as she sprints through the airport in a quest for the perfection that is the Chick-fil-A sandwich—a perfection that has been denied for months now. Imagine her as she arrives in the food court and giddily beelines for where she knows the beauty of that red and white beacon shines forth, only to pull up short when she sees in its stead a hideous red, blue, and yellow monstrosity hawking kosher hot dogs. Envision the precise moment that her inner 7-year-old realizes that Santa has taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and the only thing waiting under the tree is the giant hairball that Felix has so thoughtfully horked up. A little piece of me died in the DFW airport that day.

Anyway, the gist of the matter is that CFA sandwiches have sadly become a rarity in my life. I have even sunk so low as e-mailing CFA HQ asking if there were any plans to license a franchise in the area—no dice. It's a bleak future. So I accept alternatives. Recently, McDonald's has come out with their own version of this sandwich. It ain't the same, but it'll do. I may or may not have eaten them three days in a row on occasion. (Yep, it's a shocker that I gained seven pounds in one week. However did that happen?) So, please, Chick-fil-A, consider this a combination open love letter and a desperate plea imploring you to once again bless this great state with the perfect chicken sandwich. I'm pretty sure I could keep you profitable even if you had no other customers—and we both know that ain't gonna happen. Bless us, I beg of you. A location in a county featuring cheese, trees, and ocean breeze would be ideal. Thank you for your consideration.

Tag-errific

Thanks to Creth, I don't actually have to think of a topic this time. And there was much rejoicing. We'll pretend like we don't remember that post I started last week and quickly lost interest in.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
Hot chocolate. With Bailey's.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa used to just put them under the tree, but baby bro was (is) a brat and always peeked and Santa had to start wrapping them.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
I used to. I wonder why I quit.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
We get the tree the day after Thanksgiving and then decorate in fits and starts as the urge strikes. Then the boxes sit around for a few more weeks. They've yet to be taken back downstairs this year.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
I can't decide. We don't do Christmas dinner, but we have chips and dips and all manner of yummy snacky-type foods on Christmas Eve and then eat the leftovers all day long on Christmas Day. I love it all.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
Picking out our tree at the tree farm with the hayrides and petting zoo and cookies and cider and tree shaker and baler.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Quite late and reluctantly. I was not interested in giving up a good thing.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
In MY family, we open them all on Christmas Eve except the Santa presents. J won't let me open ANYTHING early. Spoilsport.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
With lights and ornaments. Duh. Ok, fine, with red, gold, white, silver, and a bit of green.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
Not my fave. I like to watch it, but I don't like to deal with it.

12. Can you ice skate?
If by ice skate, you mean creep around the rink very wobbly-like and then bitch about my sore ankles for days, then yes.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Bratty baby bro climbed a tree and filled up a paper grocery sack with mistletoe for me. It was sweet.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Peace, joy, and love.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Layered pecan pie. And by layered, we're talking a layer of cream cheese. Heaven on a plate, my friend.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Socializing with good friends/family and food on Christmas Eve.

17. What tops your tree?
A star! A star goes on top of the tree. There'll be no angels with Christmas tree enemas in this house.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
Both.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Olivia Olson's (NOT Mariah "Needless Vocal Frippery" Carey's) version of "All I Want for Christmas is You" from Love Actually. The girl was 10!

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yuck. Me no likey the peppermint. Or any mint, for that matter.

21. What do you want for Christmas?
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. I don't think there are quite five of you and I don't want to embarrass myself. Any further.

A Pound a Day!

No, this is not some amazing new weight-loss program offering impossibly fantastic results. No, no. This is what I supposedly gained over Thanksgiving week. Seven pounds. In one week. I didn't even think this was physically possible. I mean, come on. There's just no way. Theoretically, I reject this number. I'm telling myself it was fluids. Repeatedly. It's the only way I can handle the strain. I have, however, still walked around all week mentally reciting, "Seven, seven, seven, seven," and not in the good way.

On a positive note, because of the constant chorus of sevens, I have been slightly more conscious this week of the calories I've shoved into my mouth. But I did go to a party Saturday night where the table was almost audibly groaning with food and I didn't do so well at ye olde self-restraint. Quelle surprise. But, tomorrow's the big day. Weigh-in day. I'm thinking an eight-pound loss would be nice. I know that this isn't realistically achievable, but I'm thinking this pendulum ought to swing both ways. If it doesn't, someone, somewhere—and I'll let you know who just as soon as I figure that out—will be getting a very strongly worded letter.