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I Ain't Reading This. Not Enough Pictures
LJ friends, Once again I ask for your forgiveness for interacting less, or just "liking" things and moving on rather than commenting. A lot on my plate again.
Thursday morning and the reality has set in: 11 days until I go on tour!
Good grief, where does the time go.
It was nice and chilly out this morning, thank god, so I opened the screen to enjoy it, rushed through breakfast, and began transcription. I won't be able to accept new jobs for the entire week of tech rehearsal, so need to get this job submitted early so I can squeeze in one more before I fly out.
Worked on it all morning, stopping for lunch. I'd planned to practice but instead repotted all of the firefly petunias. It's cool out (for now), I can leave them outside today and tomorrow, and I'd rather do it now and deal with the wilting myself than leave Jameson with a bunch of newly-potted, distressed plants.
Before:
After:
Then I finally dug out my suitcase. Time to start throwing stuff in there.
Luckily I've left it as a sort of time capsule from the last tour, so a lot of things that I need are already in there. But this year I've got new stuff to bring like my shockingly heavy transcription pedal, and several mutes that I haven't used in the past. I'll have to do some finagling.
And then, night shift at the hat shop.
Today's hat:
Getting into the spirit I suppose.
My custom Kathy Jeanne hat finally came in! I was excited, but when I saw the custom interchangeable trims my heart sank. My boss had already looked at them, and must have seen the look on my face, because he nodded and said, "Yeah, they're not what I was expecting either."
It was supposed to be just their normal ribbon-and-flower, removable.
Here's how it looks on their hats typically:
Here's what they sent me:
The immediately noticeable issues are
1 - For some reason they have made the flowers detachable from the ribbon. Nobody asked for that. This meant putting a heavy felt backing on each flower, then bulky metal clips. I have no idea why they decided to do this.
2 - With the felt backing and metal pin attached, the flowers are now very heavy. Because of that, the standard ribbons used for trim are no longer strong enough to hold the flowers. Especially that navy blue one...WHY did they make that one half the size?? When I attach the flowers, the trim ribbon cannot hold the weight and is pulled away from the hat, causing the flowers to lean away from the hat as well.
3 - The pink flower is not the color that I asked for at all. It was supposed to be fuchsia (a darker purplish-pink.) This is like Barbie-magenta. Unusable.
4 - The quality of the trims is very poor. There's visible glue, the ribbons have loose threads, and the elastic on the blue ribbon is already coming apart. I'm not sure that either trim is actually realistically usable. Did anyone even test these designs??
The silver lining: The hat itself is perfect (it's the same straw hat as the stock image above.) It fits perfectly, it's handmade, it's their usual high quality hat base. This is wonderful because I can attach my OWN trims. I'll get a black ribbon to make a Panama-style trim; I'll go to the thrift store and find interesting scarves to adorn it with. Or to a fabric store to get wide satin ribbons, or jeweled laces, or patterned fabrics...or frankly anything that appeals! Getting my hands on the Kathy Jeanne base hat without trim is actually awesome for customization. Considering I purchased this essentially at wholesale price, it was worth it just to have the plain base hat.
Overall I'm disappointed and exasperated with Kathy Jeanne's sad attempt at removable trims. There's no way they'll be able to sell the current effort as a product line. But now that I'm leaving, that's a problem for my boss. I hope he just drops the topic with them. Clearly these people were not ready for such a revelation haha. A shame. We were so excited for our idea!
Unrelated: in our company hub (Sling) my boss has listed me as "OFF from October 24 - January 5." In other words he won't be removing me from the employment roster, and wants to consider me for potential rehire in January. It's good to know that he want's me back once tour is over (it would be nice if I didn't HAVE to go back, but we'll see. It was a good job as far as retail goes, so I'm very grateful!)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Friday I was up to type this post up and plow through transcription.
I got it done right before lunch, then after lunch went to get a deep tissue massage.
I don't get massages often because I don't like to be touched, but once a year or so I'll suck it up and go do it.
Maybe deep tissue was a bad choice, because I came out of there sore, dizzy, and feeling a little sick. I've since read that this is pretty normal for that intensity level, so will have to remember for next time. I tried to compensate by resting and drinking lots of water, but felt like crap for the rest of the night.
Had meant to practice but didn't, the aftermath of that massage made the idea of fine muscle movements for two hours seem impossible. Instead I wrote to my aunt, texted my step-aunt and grandma to see how they're holding up after my step-grandpa's death, and did some more packing including pouring misc toiletry fluids into travel-sized containers and gathering some clothing that I want to bring.
When Jameson was done with work we went to Lowe's for a new pool skimmer, then to Chick fil a to pick up dinner and come home. I had some wine to console myself from feeling sore ;)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, my shoulders feel like ground meat but I don't feel as yucky as yesterday.
Breakfast, reviewing my transcription (the audio is two hours long so that's about how long it took me) and submitting it so I can receive another job. Before lunch, a trip to Target for Tour Things: Travel Clorox wipes, travel-sized dish soap, a sponge, laundry detergent sheets, ginger candies for motion sickness...stuff like that.
Lunch and then playing through my Disney music for a change. Then more packing.
By the time all that was done, the new transcription job had come in. This will be my last job until after tech rehearsal for Elf in Kentucky. Tech rehearsals are a messy business, usually 8-10 hour days and last-minute scheduling changes, so it's a bad idea to commit to other things during that time. Hopefully after tech, transcription will slot right into tour life.
But for now, off to the hat shop.
Today's hat:
I'd originally planned to wear a purple cloche, but that was too much purple; and then I wanted the white version of this hat, but it had been sold out. Ah well, the black is fine anyway.
It's homecoming for some of the local schools, and Disney Springs was packed with kids in fancy dresses and sharp suits. We quickly met our sales goal, but also spent way more time than usual putting hats back in their places as big groups of kids (and adults) kept coming in to do photo ops, flinging the hats wherever when they were done, and then leaving without buying anything. I kept my little NPC retail slave mouth shut and picked up after people.
My boss was there for part of my shift, and gave me a real-life in-person SMH for leaving him in a week :p
He reiterated that he wanted to keep me on the employment roster: "You're a good one."
Yay, that's what I want. Whether I come back to work here or not, I want them to want me back.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday I woke up dreading my hat shop shift after a restless night of weird dreams. But what can ya do.
Breakfast, starting transcription, packing dinner, random small errands until it was time for work.
Spoiler alert: Sunday's "today's hat" will be my new Kathy Jeanne hat, but with one of the hat bands we sell in the store instead of those sad glue-covered messes that they made me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This next week is my last week at home. After that it's off to Kentucky to begin eight weeks of Elf the Musical!
Monday and Tuesday: Two days off in a row! Lots of tour prep, lots of transcription, definitely doing at least one walk and cooking dinner once. Some sleep would be kinda nice too.
Wednesday and Thursday: My last two hat shop shifts. Also hopefully completing my transcription job and being mostly packed for tour.
Thursday morning and the reality has set in: 11 days until I go on tour!
Good grief, where does the time go.
It was nice and chilly out this morning, thank god, so I opened the screen to enjoy it, rushed through breakfast, and began transcription. I won't be able to accept new jobs for the entire week of tech rehearsal, so need to get this job submitted early so I can squeeze in one more before I fly out.
Worked on it all morning, stopping for lunch. I'd planned to practice but instead repotted all of the firefly petunias. It's cool out (for now), I can leave them outside today and tomorrow, and I'd rather do it now and deal with the wilting myself than leave Jameson with a bunch of newly-potted, distressed plants.
Before:
After:
Then I finally dug out my suitcase. Time to start throwing stuff in there.
Luckily I've left it as a sort of time capsule from the last tour, so a lot of things that I need are already in there. But this year I've got new stuff to bring like my shockingly heavy transcription pedal, and several mutes that I haven't used in the past. I'll have to do some finagling.
And then, night shift at the hat shop.
Today's hat:
Getting into the spirit I suppose.
My custom Kathy Jeanne hat finally came in! I was excited, but when I saw the custom interchangeable trims my heart sank. My boss had already looked at them, and must have seen the look on my face, because he nodded and said, "Yeah, they're not what I was expecting either."
It was supposed to be just their normal ribbon-and-flower, removable.
Here's how it looks on their hats typically:
Here's what they sent me:
The immediately noticeable issues are
1 - For some reason they have made the flowers detachable from the ribbon. Nobody asked for that. This meant putting a heavy felt backing on each flower, then bulky metal clips. I have no idea why they decided to do this.
2 - With the felt backing and metal pin attached, the flowers are now very heavy. Because of that, the standard ribbons used for trim are no longer strong enough to hold the flowers. Especially that navy blue one...WHY did they make that one half the size?? When I attach the flowers, the trim ribbon cannot hold the weight and is pulled away from the hat, causing the flowers to lean away from the hat as well.
3 - The pink flower is not the color that I asked for at all. It was supposed to be fuchsia (a darker purplish-pink.) This is like Barbie-magenta. Unusable.
4 - The quality of the trims is very poor. There's visible glue, the ribbons have loose threads, and the elastic on the blue ribbon is already coming apart. I'm not sure that either trim is actually realistically usable. Did anyone even test these designs??
The silver lining: The hat itself is perfect (it's the same straw hat as the stock image above.) It fits perfectly, it's handmade, it's their usual high quality hat base. This is wonderful because I can attach my OWN trims. I'll get a black ribbon to make a Panama-style trim; I'll go to the thrift store and find interesting scarves to adorn it with. Or to a fabric store to get wide satin ribbons, or jeweled laces, or patterned fabrics...or frankly anything that appeals! Getting my hands on the Kathy Jeanne base hat without trim is actually awesome for customization. Considering I purchased this essentially at wholesale price, it was worth it just to have the plain base hat.
Overall I'm disappointed and exasperated with Kathy Jeanne's sad attempt at removable trims. There's no way they'll be able to sell the current effort as a product line. But now that I'm leaving, that's a problem for my boss. I hope he just drops the topic with them. Clearly these people were not ready for such a revelation haha. A shame. We were so excited for our idea!
Unrelated: in our company hub (Sling) my boss has listed me as "OFF from October 24 - January 5." In other words he won't be removing me from the employment roster, and wants to consider me for potential rehire in January. It's good to know that he want's me back once tour is over (it would be nice if I didn't HAVE to go back, but we'll see. It was a good job as far as retail goes, so I'm very grateful!)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Friday I was up to type this post up and plow through transcription.
I got it done right before lunch, then after lunch went to get a deep tissue massage.
I don't get massages often because I don't like to be touched, but once a year or so I'll suck it up and go do it.
Maybe deep tissue was a bad choice, because I came out of there sore, dizzy, and feeling a little sick. I've since read that this is pretty normal for that intensity level, so will have to remember for next time. I tried to compensate by resting and drinking lots of water, but felt like crap for the rest of the night.
Had meant to practice but didn't, the aftermath of that massage made the idea of fine muscle movements for two hours seem impossible. Instead I wrote to my aunt, texted my step-aunt and grandma to see how they're holding up after my step-grandpa's death, and did some more packing including pouring misc toiletry fluids into travel-sized containers and gathering some clothing that I want to bring.
When Jameson was done with work we went to Lowe's for a new pool skimmer, then to Chick fil a to pick up dinner and come home. I had some wine to console myself from feeling sore ;)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, my shoulders feel like ground meat but I don't feel as yucky as yesterday.
Breakfast, reviewing my transcription (the audio is two hours long so that's about how long it took me) and submitting it so I can receive another job. Before lunch, a trip to Target for Tour Things: Travel Clorox wipes, travel-sized dish soap, a sponge, laundry detergent sheets, ginger candies for motion sickness...stuff like that.
Lunch and then playing through my Disney music for a change. Then more packing.
By the time all that was done, the new transcription job had come in. This will be my last job until after tech rehearsal for Elf in Kentucky. Tech rehearsals are a messy business, usually 8-10 hour days and last-minute scheduling changes, so it's a bad idea to commit to other things during that time. Hopefully after tech, transcription will slot right into tour life.
But for now, off to the hat shop.
Today's hat:
I'd originally planned to wear a purple cloche, but that was too much purple; and then I wanted the white version of this hat, but it had been sold out. Ah well, the black is fine anyway.
It's homecoming for some of the local schools, and Disney Springs was packed with kids in fancy dresses and sharp suits. We quickly met our sales goal, but also spent way more time than usual putting hats back in their places as big groups of kids (and adults) kept coming in to do photo ops, flinging the hats wherever when they were done, and then leaving without buying anything. I kept my little NPC retail slave mouth shut and picked up after people.
My boss was there for part of my shift, and gave me a real-life in-person SMH for leaving him in a week :p
He reiterated that he wanted to keep me on the employment roster: "You're a good one."
Yay, that's what I want. Whether I come back to work here or not, I want them to want me back.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday I woke up dreading my hat shop shift after a restless night of weird dreams. But what can ya do.
Breakfast, starting transcription, packing dinner, random small errands until it was time for work.
Spoiler alert: Sunday's "today's hat" will be my new Kathy Jeanne hat, but with one of the hat bands we sell in the store instead of those sad glue-covered messes that they made me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This next week is my last week at home. After that it's off to Kentucky to begin eight weeks of Elf the Musical!
Monday and Tuesday: Two days off in a row! Lots of tour prep, lots of transcription, definitely doing at least one walk and cooking dinner once. Some sleep would be kinda nice too.
Wednesday and Thursday: My last two hat shop shifts. Also hopefully completing my transcription job and being mostly packed for tour.
no subject
no subject
Those hat bands... I wonder if they decided it would be so much better to make the flowers and ribbons interchangeable and that's why they separated them? But I agree with you - not workable! Shame.
no subject
I agree, it would be workable for the flowers to be detachable and also interchangeable. But if you can’t get the base design to be functional before adding that feature, I think it would be better to not do it. The whole thing just looks like someone overthought it too much. Or didn’t think about it at all lol