goofball on a train

I was up at 7 and finishing my transcription, submitting it, and planning dinners by the time Jameson got up. When he went to the gym I cleaned the bathrooms and briefly practiced bass...my first lesson is tonight and it's an hour long, so I don't want to overdo it. Then lunch and to the grocery for dinner ingredients.

I did a lot of cleaning last week on my day off, and it felt strange to not have a laundry list of To-Do's.
I felt restless without something demanding my attention. That, and I was nervous for the lesson later in the evening.

For dinner Jameson wanted to treat himself to Taco Bell, so I said ya know what, I'll treat myself to Chinese!
(I don't like Taco Bell, and Jameson can't eat Chinese because the MSG makes him sick.)
I enjoyed steamed seafood with veggies and char siu ribs. There seemed like enough food for like eight people so I'll be eating that for the next 3-4 lunches.

Then it was time for my lesson. I drove to Will's house and was greeted by his 5-year-old Italian greyhound whose name is Baci because that means "lots of kisses" in Italian, and Baci loves to give lots of kisses! We started with Will examining my bass trombone. I think it's a good horn, but wanted a REAL bass trombonist's opinion. He absolutely loved it, especially the slide (which to be fair any trombonist bass or not would agree that it's a good one.) He'd never played a Minick-modified horn, so now I think he understands why they're so sought after. That guy knew what he was doing. (Read about Larry Minick HERE if you like. It's his obit, but it does explain why his work was/is so prized.)

That done, we started with some basic warm-ups and exercises so Will could see where I'm at. I was nervous and internally cringing at how poor I sound compared to Will...but also, that's why I'm taking lessons, you know? To learn and to improve, on an instrument that I don't normally play. There's no need to be embarrassed about that.

I learned a great deal from Will in that short hour. About how tenor players need to have a faster airstream, but to play bass you have to slow it down and spread it out...like fogging up a window with your breath, as opposed to blowing out a candle. I learned that I've been playing some of the pedal note positions in the wrong spot, not knowing any better. It was actually fascinating and exciting, finding out all of the stuff that I didn't know. We will have another lesson in a week, which is excellent because it'll hold me accountable. I can tell right away that taking lessons was the right thing to do, and am excited for the progress that I could make with Will's guidance!

We went overtime but he still only charged me for an hour, so next time I'll bring him some Dragon's Milk beer.

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Friday, I managed to sleep a bit later but was still up before 8.

Missions accomplished:
     - Load of laundry.
     - Mixed up some garlic butter for garlic bread later.
     - Practiced the new materials on bass. I can tell a difference already just from the one lesson!
     - Clothing donation drop at a thrift store.
     - Food donation drop at a food bank.
     - Back home for leftover Chinese lunch.
     - Ran the dishwasher.
     - Ingredients list for tomorrow's dinner.
     - Dug through my storage bins for stickers to put on my bass trombone case.
     - Worked on Foodie Finds.
     - Finally washed and vacuumed my car. Ever since the mouse invasion there have been remnants of nest materials, dried droppings, and that faint yet distinctive Small Animal Smell floating around in there, plus I've been eating meals while driving for over a month. Now it's nice and clean.
     - Small impromptu funeral for my beautiful firefly petunia. RIP. This little plant brought me so much joy, and I hope to own another in the future when I'm not tearing around the country every few months.

At it's brightest:


And now, the poor thing is completely dead. The green things are weeds.
I am sorry, dear flower, but we'll meet again.


For dinner I had planned to make us this upscale chicken parm sandwich...but Jameson had recently shared with me a TikTok of someone making dino nugget chicken parm, with each little dinosaur draped in it's own little blanket of provolone...and it was just so cute and fun. And he's been struggling mentally this week, so I thought, let's be kids tonight. Let's pretend we have no worries other than imagining our vegetables are trees while biting the heads off our dinosaurs and watching junk TV.

Chickie parm NUGGOSAURS with "trees" and a garlic "land."


Some dinos had provolone blankets, some had mozzarella pillows, and some had both. All had marinara and a sprinkle of parm and herbs. The garlic butter is homemade, on store-bought ciabatta.

Fun and delicious. What's not to love?

Right before bed I received a new transcription job, this one is 3 hours instead of 2.

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Up around 7 on Saturday for coffee and transcription, breakfast, and when Jameson left for the gym I made "Big Mac sauce" for our burgers and formed the burger patties.

Then packed lunch and clothes for Epic, ate lunch, and procrastinated on practicing because I didn't feel like it but did ultimately get 1/2 hour in. Some is better than none. More transcription, then had Jameson show me how to start the grill so I'll know how to operate it without help in the future. Working with open flame scares the eff out of me, but like anything else it just takes safety precautions and getting used to. Sadly our burgers crumbled on the grill, but I was able to salvage them by bringing them inside and cooking them in a pan. The flavors were great but mine was essentially a sloppy joe!

Calm night of watching Severance, gaming, watching anime, working on Foodie Finds.
There are people in the vacation rental next door making a huge racket at time of this writing, but I'm gonna hope they quiet down by midnight.

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Sunday, up super early for Epic.
I was startled by the oven clock reading 4:30am...and then remembered that it was daylight savings. No wonder I felt extra tired.

It was a hot day so we did not have to wear our costume jackets, thank goodness.
There were about 5,000 people in the park, we were told (throughout all five worlds, not just ours) so we had decent crowds. It felt close to what it might feel like when the park is open, with people waving and asking us questions and actually gathering around to watch us perform (usually they just keep walking.) All in all a very good performance day, aside from being very sweaty!

I tried to do transcription between sets but they've changed our schedule. We now leave earlier, but our breaks are a bit shorter and too short to get actual work done. I don't mind, but I will have to plan for more transcription on non-Epic days from now on.

Getting out earlier meant I had time to actually pick up dinner for Jameson and I! Whole Paycheck for sushi and a few small things. Back home Jameson was feeling nervous; he got called to do jury duty on Monday, and he's afraid it'll interfere with his physical therapy. He will find out more tomorrow morning, hopefully.

I wanted to practice but Jameson seemed to need company, so instead we ate dinner together and watched two episodes of Traitors. I am annoyed that I didn't get any transcription OR practice done today...but have to remember that making plans doesn't guarantee they'll happen, and that life sometimes directs one to do other things like be there for one's partner, and that's ok.

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Monday & Tuesday: Days off. Lots of transcription, more chores, a visit to the bank and listing items that I don't use for sale online.

Wednesday: Epic rehearsal/performances.

Wednesday's hat:


Comfortable and fluffy. Just what I needed today.

Hat shop was normal. It was rather busy so we met our sales goal. I was annoyed because at the end of the night the keyholder was nitpicking how the hats looked on the shelves, so we didn't get out of there until nearly midnight (closed the store at 11pm.) But whatever, that's retail, and I have to accept that an employer who doesn't care how late I get home is just a part of life.

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Thursday, I got up an hour early so I could start reviewing my transcription project earlier. There was a LOT to do today plus a 7-hour hat shop shift.

Today's activities:

- Reviewed, edited, and submitted transcription project. It took two hours. Phew.
- Publix for pumpkins for carving tomorrow and cheap sushi for dinner
- Called my Aunt back (she'd called yesterday while I was at work) and caught up with her
- Impromptu final load of laundry so I could pack all of my clothes for tour
- Practiced and marked my book for Elf
- Measured ingredients for overnight crock pot oats and laid them out to assemble when I got home from work
- Chopped down dead banana trees
- Packed snacks and dinner for work
- More tour packing

My original firefly petunia, and cutting.


I think it may die before I leave :(
It got some kind of root rot or fungus, the cutting has it too, and nothing I do seems to help.
Oh well...it's been a fun and beautiful plant.

My large cutting, though, is currently doing very well though also suffering from being outside in temps above 85°F (29°C). I don't expect it to survive while I'm gone.So here it is while happy. I want to remember it like this.



A big swallowtail that was resting on my neighbor's banana.


Today's hat:


It was my last shift at the hat shop, and I couldn't decide which hat to wear.
I brought my own, a stegosaurus hat I'd gotten from Etsy one year. But was quickly told I wouldn't be allowed to wear it after too many guests asked where I'd gotten it.

This was probably the weirdest day I've ever had working retail.
( Hat Theft )

All of this DID make me calm down and feel better. But damn. What a way to end my two-month employment with Chapel Hats.

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I barely slept because I was worried about the overnight oats. I had assembled them right when I got home at midnight, but something troubled me about them. And then in the middle of the night I realized what it was: last time I made them, I'd set an alarm for 4am and had started them THEN. In other words, by starting them at midnight, I'd overcooked them :(

The good news is that they were still perfectly edible and flavorful. The bad news is that the fruits were overcooked and essentially became applesauce with very soft oats on top. To try and counteract this I got up at 7am to cut up a fresh apple, toast some pecans, and run to a gas station for a Nature Valley bar to crumble up (those f*ckers are super crunchy haha)

Adding crunchy items did help. I had mine over Greek yogurt.


I wanted to go back to sleep, but there was too much to do.

After breakfast I got to work on the pumpkin and seeds. A messy business as usual, but those seeds are so worth it!



I carved the orange pumpkin, put a Skellington face on the white, and put them outside with the squash that Kate sent me last week.


My carving is a derpy li'l guy!


Cleaning up from that took a while, then washing our bedsheets, putting them on the bed, and folding Jameson's laundry as a small surprise for him while he worked (it's his least favorite chore.) I also packed to 98% completion, cleaned up the guest bedroom, and put the sheets on the guest bedroom bed. I'd meant to weed out front but felt too tired.

Was glad to splat in front of the TV for a bit with Jameson. I will miss him while I'm away :(

I'm doing all this "extra" Fall Stuff because it's our only chance to do it before I leave.


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Saturday. Cannot believe that there's only one day left before I'm supposed to fly off.

To be completely honest...I have never felt so negative about going on tour before.

Usually I look forward to the freedom...being in places I've never been before, discovering foodie finds, networking with other musicians, playing a fun new show. I think this time is different because it's only a short two months. It feels less like an adventure and more like sacrificing the holidays so that I can make up some of the money I lost over the summer. Maybe once we get started it'll feel better about it, but right now I'm just anxious.

After Jameson left for a massage, I

- Cleaned both bathrooms including bathtub and shower
- Vacuumed
- Watched part of my step-Grandpa's funeral online (grateful that they thought to stream it for those of us who couldn't be there in person)
- Wiped down the kitchen
- 90-minute drive to Whole Paycheck for wings because I want to make them for Jameson one last time
- Dusted
- Weighed luggage
- Wrote out contact info, important dates, and plant care info for Jameson. I do this every time I go away.
- Weeded out front

I'd intended to practice a bit today too but was not feeling up to it. Considering I'm about to be in rehearsals every day for a week, I think it'll be ok. Famous last words.

Dinner was a pizza, air fryer wings, and a glass of wine. I feel so stressed haha :/

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Sunday, Jameson slept in for as long as he could. Overnight Jollywood rehearsals begin for him this week, and that's gonna be really hard on him.

I was up at the usual time for breakfast, and also to review travel info for tomorrow and my contract for the tour. Briefly researched the hotel and found that they've got free breakfast, hooray hooray. Because I hustled yesterday and got pretty much all of the cleaning done, today all I had on the docket was

- Descale hot water kettle
- Brief practice session
- Overnight oats for tomorrow's breakfast
- Water plants a final time
- Pack anything remaining to pack
- Put away anything remaining to be stored
- Give homemade caramels to our neighbors
- Neighborhood walk with Jameson

All of these things got done, and we had Pub Subs for dinner. I am nervous and excited for tour to start, and Jameson is nervous and excited for Jollywood. We're a mess but a good mess haha.

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Monday: Travel to Richmond, KY

Tuesday: First day of tech rehearsals for Elf

Wednesday: Hopefully, a special surprise involving chestnuts + tech rehearsals

Thursday: I think we'll already be in Wandelprobe, jeez

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!)

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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 ;)

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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.

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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.

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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 was a bit weird.

I shot out of bed at 7:45 because my phone rang and, not wanting to wake Jameson, hustled out to the living room with it at the speed of someone holding a cat about to throw up.

It was UPS calling to explain why my aunt's firefly petunia cutting hadn't been delivered yesterday as scheduled. Turns out the house number was wrong...but not really because A) I've been sending stuff to her for years and haven't had a problem before, and B) when you google either her house number OR the house number that UPS has on file, both take you to the same house. Which is SO WEIRD.

But like, whatever guys! If it's the same location for you, just deliver it please!!

And they did. I must say that it showed up looking a heck of a lot better than mine, when I first got it :p
Frazzled but otherwise seems fine.


After that I was awake whether I liked it or not, so had breakfast and tried to figure out what I should try to accomplish in the coming weeks before tour. I ended up

- washing the guest bedroom sheets
- digging all of my mutes out and getting them ready for use
- packing dinner for work
- taking the car for an oil change and once-over since it won't be driven for two months
- getting a car wash (the vacuums were broken so I'll have to do that separately, booo)
- closing one of my credit card accounts which I never use any more
- thinking about practicing trombone and then not doing it
- rescuing a small frog that got into the house
- filling out more paperwork for tour
- eating leftover lasagna
- listening to Jameson tell me about his interview between coughs and blowing his nose

Aah yes I hadn't mentioned that. Jameson has a head cold, is being inundated with work and also rehearsals for Jollywood starting next week, AND he was surprised by a last-minute interview this morning with Carnival, for the producer(?) job he'd applied for weeks ago. They STILL haven't made an offer so he's probably not going to take the job. The main issue is that we'd have to move, so he'd have to sell the house while finding a new house AND working both nights and days AND commuting to Orlando for Jollywood. I don't think it's realistic at the pay rate they're offering, and neither does he. He's trying to think of it as a good practice interview.

After all of that, today's hat:


I was feeling snarky about the winter hats. WHY do we have winter hats, when it won't be cold until at least December? WHO do they think is gonna buy these? When it's 90 degrees out, who's even gonna want to try them on? I thought maybe if I wore one it would draw attention to them...and it worked a little. At least, someone did try on the same style I was wearing.

Sales were kinda slow but I managed to help a guy find a top hat for his Halloween costume, and then he got two flat caps besides. Sometimes when sales are slow and I make a decent contribution, Maui's "You're Welcome" pops into my head (ironically of course.)

When I left (non-closing shift) they were only a few hundred away from the sales goal, so maybe they hit it.

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Friday I slept very poorly, my nose kept closing up and suffocating me in the night plus I was exceedingly hungry and woke at 4:30am ready to eat a whole alligator by myself. Endured the hunger for three more hours, then got up and made myself an egg sandwich with turkey bacon, tomato, and cowboy candy on a wheat English muffin. That was nice :)

I was definitely not feeling great. Jameson's cold may be trying to launch an invasion on me. But I'd rather get whatever-it-is now, than two weeks from now when I'm about to go on tour.

Today's doings:

- Watered the petunias
- Practiced trombone
- Travel planning for Christmas (the tour gets into Charlotte on the 23rd but doesn't perform until the 26th, so I will try to fly to Orlando instead, spend Christmas with Jameson, then drive up to NC with my own car to finish the tour out)
- Vacuuming the car at the local RaceTrac
- Confirming my first two company flight options for tour (I guess this is really happening!)
- Hat shop Zoom meeting at 3. It was super lame but we were paid for it, so, whatever.
- Main Street Philharmonic Christmas tunes added to my iPad (we have a rehearsal next week)
- Received and reviewed feedback from previous transcription job, and received a new job to start
- Ate many snacks
- Picked up Panda Express for Jameson and I

- Rescued a gopher tortoise who was crossing the road! The two cars in front of me went right over him and he was RUNNING, clearly terrified. I didn't care that it was rush hour, I stopped and put my 4-ways on, ran out and picked him up (he was heavy!) He flailed as hard as he could and hissed at me--I didn't know tortoises did that!--and I plopped him in the grass to continue on his way. He was absolutely adorable but there was traffic queuing up behind me so no time to enjoy him. That's like the third animal rescue this week, wtf is going on haha

(stock image since I didn't have time for a photo)

Now that the flight info is rolling in I'm starting to feel that this tour is upon me, and how hectic it's going to be.

I mean...I'll be performing nightly in a different city every week, while doing transcription work and keeping up on my Main Street Philharmonic and Candlelight music. Then in November I'll have to fly from New Jersey to Orlando, rent a car, rehearse for Candlelight that same night until 3am, drive straight to the airport, and fly to Minnesota to perform the next night (absolutely zero sleep.) Somewhere in there is Thanksgiving, and Jameson's birthday. In Greensboro I'm visiting my aunt and my former college roommates. Then for Christmas I'll fly to Orlando, celebrate with Jameson, retrieve my car and drive 10 hours up to NC, perform the last shows of the tour, drive back down, and have New Years.

Also keeping in mind that on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or New Years Day, I could be called to perform with the Main Street Philharmonic or Candlelight with no notice.

And then when it's all over, I'll be out of work again.

...why didn't I become like a dentist or something :P

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Saturday I committed the crime of sleeping in until 8:30am, which meant I didn't start on transcription as early as I wanted and was a bit huffy about it by the time Jameson woke up. But this was just me not being kind/patient with myself.

Today's doings:

- Transcription
- Picked up a new water filter for the fridge, Brach's pumpkins for Jameson, and premade grocery sushi for me
- Packed dinner and snacks for work
- Practiced trombone
- Cleaned the bathrooms
- Took out the trash
- Went to work.

Today's hat:


Finally wore the Panama hat! It's a $180 hat, and was surprisingly uncomfortable, not very ventilated at all.

I also have to mention THIS majestic addition to our offerings:


A buffalo hat! I was absolutely GUSHING over it, and when I found out we'd only gotten six of them in and hadn't yet ordered more I was SO MAD. My boss was like, "I can't believe you're so excited about this hat," and I was like, "EVERYONE is going to be excited about this hat!"

And I was right. The buffalo hat was on the sales floor tonight for the first time, and by the end of the night we had sold four of the six. And the only reason we had two left is because one was kept hidden in backstock and the other was on my coworker's head all night. The two of us glared at our boss and said, "You must order more of these." He got the hint :p If there are any left for my shift tomorrow I will wear one, but I doubt they'll still be there.

Around 10:30pm we noticed something odd. People began leaving Disney Springs...in crowds.
The area doesn't close until 11:30pm on weekends, so we were very confused. Was there some special event going on at the parks?

But no, we figured out that it was because Governor DeF*ckFace declared a State of Emergency over Tropical Storm Milton. I hadn't even known another storm was coming for us, but indeed it seems to be brewing in the Gulf and aiming right for us this time. Expected to be weaker than Helene, but the coastal cities are still trashed from Helene's fury and with the storm coming directly across Florida even Orlando will experience damage.


Driving home reinforced the theory that people had left Disney Springs early because of the pending storm. Traffic was absolutely crazy around the Walmart near our house, it was actually backed up almost to the highway exit with people trying to turn left into the Walmart AT MIDNIGHT. People had left early to rush to the store and stock up.

When I got home Jameson had been following it too, and he suggested we pick up some supplies in the next few days before it hits. He has lived in Florida for 20+ years and I trust his judgement that we will indeed need to weather this one. We already have candy, booze, and water, so imo need very little else :p

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Sunday morning I woke to the sound of rain. It was also significantly cooler than it has been...75°F (23.8°C) at 9am, a miracle! Still humid as hell, though.

Before work I wrote this post, did a few hours of transcription, packed dinner, booked a massage for next week, and was gonna practice…but then I looked outside and saw that the bananas were ready!

See, that one near the top turned yellow. That means it’s time.


My neighbor Tom was outside so I hollered over to him. He brought us a beautiful pineapple last month, and in return I’d promised bananas.

I chopped ‘em unceremoniously off the tree.


They were oozing a terribly sticky sap, so I washed them and laid most of them to dry on a sacrificial towel, handing Tom a bunch for he and his wife to enjoy. Not sure how long they’ll take to ripen. But hey! My first banana crop!


I also gave Tom’s wife a firefly petunia cutting, which she’s very excited about :) And then I had to clean up quickly and rush to work.

As usual, you'll have to wait to see today's hat since I have the late shift at the hat shop.

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Monday: Finishing my transcription job + more tour prep + cooking dinner.

Tuesday: Transcription review and submission + hurricane prep + night shift at the hat shop.

Wednesday: Day off and potentially a hurricane. We will see what happens.

Sunday's hat:


A Kathy Jeanne which we've been calling "The Ladybug Hat." I didn't sell it but did sell another Kathy Jeanne, lending more credence to the idea of wearing the hat you hope to sell.

It was a weird night at the hat shop, we had lots of customers but a very difficult time making any sales. I got cornered no less than three times by people who just seemed to want to talk my ear off about their lives...I guess it killed time nicely but unfortunately we didn't meet our sales goal. There was also an issue with one of our new employees having "visitors" while on the clock; it seems like her partner or a good friend(?), and I have noticed that he is in our store every time she's working. He was here again tonight and stuck around for at least an hour with her while it was busy and she should have been helping customers. I guess management decided tonight was the night to confront her, because when I came back from my break she was crying and a keyholder was talking gently to her.

All I overheard was, "I feel like I've been criticized non-stop here!" and then I had to turn away and organize hats so as not to roll my eyes. She has probably not worked much retail. if you take corrections in the workplace personally, you're going to be weeping every few minutes lol. Supervisors will always find something to nitpick, either because they WANT to or because they HAVE to to make it look like they're busy, and either way it has nothing to do with you. (unless it's malicious and in this case it definitely wasn't.)

In all honesty, I was ALSO feeling over-criticized that night. First I was corrected on a very minor and subjective choice of hat organization, and later I was chided for sweeping while there were many customers in the store (there was spilled popcorn and candy on the floor, and imo a food spill is a good justification for a quick spot-sweeping no matter how busy it is. But next time I will leave the spill untouched for people to trample, and I will reference tonight's events if anyone asks why I didn't take care of it. Ahh the joys of retail.)

But sorry chica, inviting friends and romantic partners to come distract you at work makes your supervisor quite well justified in correcting you. She's lucky not to get a write up. She'll either figure that out and buck up, or quit I suppose.

She did end up leaving three hours early due to being upset (sigh) so we were shorthanded for closing. But it was two keyholders + me, a former retail boss, so we easily crushed all the closing tasks and were clocked out early.

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Monday I slept until 9am. I needed it, and it still wasn't enough either.

Had just coffee. My guts are being weird, probably from A) stress and B) being sedentary on the days that I was doing transcription and C) having to eat dinner at 3pm on closing nights at the hat shop. Waited around to see if I'd get corrections on my transcription job, then when they didn't show by 10:30 I practiced my Disney trombone stuff.

Lunch, running some small errands, packing for tomorrow, checking on my banana. The fruit looks ok and that's all I can ask for. We're also supposed to get a tropical storm/hurricane this weekend so it may be a moot point.

I felt low-energy so spent two hours lying down, reading or watching TikTok. Didn't even eat snacks, just had tea.
These times where I feel bad tend to coincide with extended periods of stress and lost sleep, so it's no surprise any more.

Oh yeah, and look what I found at Walmart today! What the hell is Dawn thinking!!


More fool me for actually buying it...but you know what? It's not bad. It's a very mild scent, so I am finding that I like it more than some of Dawn's citrus scents which are often very strong.

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Tuesday I was up at 7:30 only so I could have quiet time to myself before this extremely long day. Packed a bag with hat shop clothes, toiletries for showering, and meals and snacks for the whole day, then off to the Magic Kingdom.

Here are the guys performing their first set in front of the castle. It was 90-something degrees (32C).


Everyone seems to be doing well. Tony, one of the full-time trombone guys, is into gardening and we've talked at length about our mutual hobby. He immediately asked how my firefly petunia is doing. Since he is so interested and clearly a good gardener, I am going to bring him a cutting on Thursday, the day I'm subbing for Keith. I could tell he was trying very hard to hide his excitement about getting a cutting, it was adorable :) I have a small one growing in an Italian ice cup with holes punched in the bottom, he can have that one.

There is some sort of "recycled items" competition going on for Halloween, where each competing department makes something spooky out of recycled materials. Here is the band's super-weird entry (please do not share/repost):


It even has a styrofoam brain inside (I guess Keith made it):


Good luck with that, ya weirdos :p

In other spooky news I was able to play the Halloween music in the parade today!
The Halloween charts are "Cruella DeVille," "Grim Grinning Ghosts," "Pink Elephants," and "Poor Unfortunate Souls." It felt slightly early in the season to be playing these, but the red/orange/yellow fall decorations all over Main Street USA were helpful for creating the proper mood :) I was very grateful to get to play the Halloween stuff today because it may be my only chance with the storm coming on Thursday.

I also did one set, finally getting to play the Mary Poppins Medley in the park for the first time.
Before Flag Retreat I took a shower in the locker rooms under the castle, knowing that I had a full shift at the hat shop that night and having gotten quite sweaty and gross while performing.

I wonder how many people can say they've taken a shower under Cinderella's Castle!
It was amusing to think about.

At 5pm I drove to Disney Springs and clocked in to find that we were deeply shorthanded, with three people having called out including our boss. And it was pretty busy too. It was just Jordan and I in the shop, and we did our best, but even so we were $100 short of the sales goal when 10:30 rolled around. After a brief discussion we decided to stay open right up to 11pm, and if a sale was meant to happen, it would. The result was a mob of annoying teens coming in at 10:57 to do selfies in hats...but right behind them came a couple who were looking for cowboy hats! It turns out the man was an undercover cop who wears them for his work, and his wife just wanted one for the beach. Jordan worked on counting/closing one of the registers while I worked with the two customers to find them hats they'd like. And we made our sales goal after all! I felt good to have sort-of been a part of that.

Today's hat. It's hard to tell but it's actually orange just like the pumpkin on the bag behind me. The lights and iphone camera washed it out. And interestingly, continuing the trend of "Wear what you want to sell"...I sold one of these orange hats tonight. 


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Wednesday, thank god it's a day off. I woke up feeling rough due to the long workday yesterday.

The tropical storm is a hurricane but so far still a Cat 1. I kind of wonder if all the hype about this is just fearmongering and herd-mindset tittering. Sure seems like it right now, but I'm also not totally ignorant and know that the Gulf has the conditions for rapidly escalating storm systems.


Yesterday while at Disney I received both a review of my first transcription job, and a new job assignment that is twice as long. This sent me into a bit of a panic because I'm working multiple jobs this week plus the tropical storm coming through. It made me cringe to ask, but I requested an assignment with a later due date. To my surprise they simply moved the due date for this assignment about four days forward, which is absolutely perfect because now I can start it on the weekend, after both my 18-hour workday and the tropical storm have passed. Phew!

There were many things that I wanted to do today but I was thwarted when my phone suddenly decided to stop working. It's easy to forget how dependent we are on our phones until we don't have them.

You can see here that there's something wrong with the battery. The charge keeps dropping drastically (those red lines are when the phone crashed on me) and/or it's not charging fully.


After talking with Apple support I decided to try taking it to Apple-certified techs at Best Buy, per their recommendation. The phone crashed partway there, leaving me to guess the way to the store (how did we used to get ANYWHERE?? omg.) When I got there they wouldn't even look at it, just said, "You'll need a new phone" and quoted me $640 for it! I was shocked and angry; the Apple tech had made it sound like the problem could be fixed or at LEAST looked at. But they didn't even touch my phone or attempt any diagnostics.

I tried calling Apple again and set up a new appointment for one of their actual stores, even though it will cost me another afternoon. Then went to an AT&T to see if they could cut me a deal as they're my phone carrier. They quoted me the same price, adding that I'd have to pay off the remaining balance on the broken phone as well. I don't think it's at all fair to ask someone to pay the full cost of a phone that stopped working of it's own accord after only two years of use, so I decided to keep the broken phone and deal directly with Apple on Friday. If they can't help me out with either a repair or an exchange, this will be an expensive lesson learned and possibly an Android phone in my future.

Other things that I managed to do today:

- Reviewed the feedback for my first transcription job and asked questions of the proofreader
- Bought dinner for myself and Jameson for tonight
- Packed meals, clothing, and another all-day bag for myself for tomorrow's 18-hour day
- Threw away my dead jalapeno plant and black sapote tree
- Did laundry
- Messaged/Emailed family and bosses to let them know to email me with anything urgent, since my phone is acting up
- Set up my phone and computer to use Disney wifi, so that I can hopefully do transcription tomorrow if the band gets rained out
- Appreciated the Giant Mountain of Candy, which is what's getting both of us through this hectic week


And instead of practicing trombone I allowed myself to rest, which is just as needed as everything else.

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Thursday: Hurricane Helene but she's not supposed to get here until evening, and I'm scheduled to perform at the Magic Kingdom, AND I'm scheduled to work the hat shop at night. We will see how many of those things actually happen.

Friday: Transcription, visit to the Apple Store.

Saturday: Transcription, probably cooking us some meals and cleaning.

Sunday: ???

You see, I am typing this on September 12th.
We are already nearly halfway through September.

Got up at 6:30am on Thursday, did NOT want to be up that early but life is life.

Did about 1.5 transcription modules, had breakfast, did another 30 minutes until it was time to get ready for work.

Today's hat:


A leather flat cap, handmade in Belgium and selling for around $130.
It's the only flat cap in the shop that looks "ok" on me. I am eating lunch super fast because I was offered a paid 15 in place of an unpaid 30, and took it (money is money.)

It was a very slow shift, I sold what I could but most people were just coming in to kill time before their meal reservations.
At 4pm I clocked out and drove 10 minutes to Epcot.

The Food and Wine Festival is going on right now, so there is Remy and Ratatouille decor everywhere.


( Night at Epcot )
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Friday, I got up at 8 to get as much done as possible before my hat shop shift.
Something I ate or drank last night did not agree with me; I didn't feel nauseous but (TMI WARNING)            my body definitely wanted something to get out, ASAP. I suspect the kabob or the carrot salad, it's hard to believe the drinks would've had anything to do with it.

Anyway, those "interruptions" messed up my timeline a bit, but I still did an hour of transcription training, washed our sheets and made the bed, practiced the first act of Elf, and packed myself dinner. I felt exhausted but also know that tomorrow is a day off and maybe I can allow myself to rest a little extra.

Today's hat:


As soon as I walked in Rin, the quietest retail worker I have ever worked with, jumped in front of me in a full-on goth red-and-black getup, 13s painted under her eyes, flapping her arms excitedly. "HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH!" she said. Oh! I hadn't realized...but I'd conveniently worn red and grey with black shoes, so thought, why not do a novelty hat to celebrate!

The day started out unfortunately slow but picked up after 8pm thankfully.
And I had a wonderful surprise!

As I finished checking a customer out, a woman came up to the register and said something like, "I hope this isn't weird but...I'm bringing you a part of your digital life, in person!"

It was brittdreams from DreamWidth!!! She lives nearby and happened to be at Disney Springs, and thought she'd drop in to see if I was working!! AAAAAAAH this was such a treat! I've only ever met my LJ and DW friends a few times in person, but each one of them has been absolutely wonderful. And I admire brittdreams SO MUCH. Like most of us on these blogging sites, she writes about her work and her general life, outings and travels and day-to-day. But in doing so, she shares a deeper look at the challenges that she, specifically, faces, as a black woman. Reading her blog has revealed to me many areas where I've been blind to my entitlements...or rather, society's built-in entitlements. That aside, she also works damn hard at everything she does, and shares her travel adventures (especially what she gets to eat!), and all of this means that I look forward to her posts and root for her endlessly on the interwebs :)

We chatted a bit, as much as we could; the store was kinda busy and she had to get home. But we got to meet in person!! Really made my day!

Before I knew it the shift was over. And back home, Jameson had two pieces of amazing news!

1 - His masters degree arrived in the mail! He's going to get it framed :)

2- While he was holding his degree and pondering what opportunities he could now apply for with it, his phone rang. It was Carnival Cruises, inviting him to interview with them for a music production position!!! He applied for this job over a month ago, really wanted it, and was elated to finally hear back from them today!! I am SO EXCITED for him!!

Of course, we have both had bad luck and let-downs when it comes to exciting interviews/auditions, so my excitement and hope are tempered with bracing myself for the aftermath if he gets rejected. But at least he's got an interview and a chance. This job would take him to Miami, either a few days a week or we'd have to move there (we need more details.) This is actually a factor in our favor, because being touring musicians with no children or pets, we are more flexible than most when it comes to relocating. But again, we need to wait and see.

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Saturday, I was up at 8 to type this post and harvest my jalapenos.


I'm making cowboy candy! It's just jalapenos boiled in sugar and spices, and it tastes fantastic as a topping for eggs, sandwiches, etc. Think spicy pepper jam. Good stuff.

In firefly petunia news, one of my cuttings (the smallest one, that I started out in a dish of water) has survived and is now growing exponentially!! I will repot it before going on tour, and would like to give it as a gift to my Aunt. She has always been so supportive of me, and I'd love for her to have my first cutting from this rare plant.


It glows very nicely, though being so small it's hard to get my camera to focus on it :p


When Jameson went to the gym I worked on transcription modules, then hit the grocery before lunch.
After lunch I practiced and then made the cowboy candy.

Sugar, apple cider vinegar, chili powder, garlic, celery seed, turmeric, and ginger.


The sliced jalapenos and garlic are added to the slightly thickened syrup.


The finished jars. I'm not water canning them, so they'll go in the fridge and last a month or so. We are supposed to wait a week before eating them, to let the flavors mingle. Yum!


Cleaned up after that, vacuumed and mopped the floors, and chilled for an hour. I ended up doing more transcription modules after dinner. I'm now more than halfway done.

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Sunday...I was up at 8 because there's so much to do :(
Would really like to sleep in one of these days and have eight hours of sleep.

The firefly petunia (the main plant) was the brightest I've ever seen it last night.
I had to put it on the floor so I could sleep!




This is the most blooms it's ever had too. I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible because once I go on tour it will probably have to live outside, it will not be getting full care, and I expect it to either die off or die completely. In fact tomorrow I'm probably taking another cutting, since I've promised the first one to my aunt.

Anyway I won't bore you with the rest of my day. In summary: typing this post, doing transcription modules, going out to get printer ink, installing said printer ink, getting cheap sushi for dinner, practicing Main Street Philharmonic stuff, and going to work the closing shift at the hat shop. "Today's hat" will appear in the next post since I have to post this before work tonight.

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Monday: A day off. I need to catch up on cleaning, take a petunia cutting, and other chores.

Tuesday: Hoping to take my transcription tests + closing shift at the hat shop.

Weds & Thurs: Days off. Jameson's Carnival Cruise interview. I might pick up some Papa Pals, and I plan to possibly make a batch of caramels and send them out just so I can check it off my To-Do list. Definitely making dinner one of those nights. And definitely expect to be taking the transcription onboarding tests by then.

The firefly petunia was glowing mainly from the leaves and stems last night. I like when it does that :)


Jameson told me all about his haunted house adventures when he got home (around 2am, good GRIEF, he's a night owl for sure!) and said the Insidious house was amazing. Also that he didn't have to wait more than 50 minutes for any of the houses, meaning next time we need to make sure we don't book our trip on a holiday weekend. He and I were only able to see three haunted houses because of the crowds; by contrast he and his friends were able to see seven houses plus a stage show last night. Jealous!

Despite being awoken at 2am I was up at 8am for breakfast. It had rained hard last night so I took the opportunity to fertilize the bananas while the soil was still wet. They are looking good, though they may be ready to harvest while I'm on tour!


The second tree also has a banana flower now!! But I suspect it's coming too late in the year to bear fruit. We'll see.


The rest of the day was a day off. I hope that doesn't make me lazy.
I worked on Foodie Finds, watched anime, wrote a letter to my grandma, received a mute from a friend who's letting me borrow it, ate snacks, and generally WAS lazy. Working at the hat shop is not difficult, but it is 5-7 hours of standing and moving around and, well, WORK after all. For dinner I made us Dude Diet Cheeseburger Fusilli which we've enjoyed many times before.

Before bed I received onboarding paperwork for Elf. Once that's processed I'll get an official contract. Eeeeee!

Near the end of the onboarding paperwork was the question, "Is there anything else that you'd like tour management to know?"
I said, "I am willing to make and eat Buddy the Elf's Breakfast Spaghetti."

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Friday, I slept poorly again. Latent tension or anxiety I'm sure.

Jameson got his official offer and schedule for Jollywood Nights. The event is being extended an extra week this year which is great, more money for him and more enjoyment for guests.

I got my official Elf contract offer and payroll setup paperwork, and filled them out right away.
It's official. Looks like we both have our holiday gigs lined up!
Here are the cities for Elf on Tour. You can see dates and get tickets HERE.


The week of Thanksgiving Elf happens to be in Milwaukee, which is very close to Jameson's parents. He's hoping to fly up to visit, and then we can all be together and they can see the show. That would be awesome, I really hope it works out!

Then came the cringey task of letting Main Street Philharmonic and Candlelight know that I'm no longer available for Nov/Dec. I feel bad about it, but if all they're able to offer me is substitute work (as opposed to actual scheduled performance dates,) I'm sorry but I can't just wait around hoping for calls from Disney that may never come. Hopefully they can understand that.

And in October I will give two weeks notice at the hat shop. Thankfully none of those people follow or check my social media (to my knowledge) so I should be able to share the news online without serious consequences.

Anyway. Spent the morning filling out the paperwork and contract. Jameson went to the gym and for a haircut, and I went to the bagel shop and to Skechers for lightweight black sneakers for tour. I'd meant to practice but air-tromboned instead.

Today's hat:


I hadn't planned to wear another cloche, but the sun hat I'd picked out wasn't right.
It turned out to be a good choice because just a few minutes into my shift a woman walked in, saw my hat, and immediately lost her absolute mind over it! She not only bought the hat I was wearing, but also two more Kathy Jeanne hats and FOUR hat boxes, for a total sale of $600. I was the hero of the shift lol.

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Saturday, I received an email from the transcription job that I've been approved to start training!
I'm very nervous about it, especially with the tour coming up, but am going to plow ahead and do my best. I could certainly use the money and the new skills set.

Disney's Candlelight coordinator also got back to me, and said that if I want to remain on the call list despite my unavailability I need to attend at least one of the three overnight rehearsals. The only one I could possibly make would be on 11/25 because that's a travel day on the tour. And to make it I'd have to fly from Newark to Orlando, rehearse overnight from 6pm-3am, then basically go straight to the airport and fly to Milwaukee in time for the afternoon sound check and evening show. It's....a lot. I'll have to see if NETworks will be cool with it.

Things I did after breakfast: filled and sent transcription paperwork; practiced the 2nd act of Elf; dropped some pants off at the tailor for hemming; got wings and hot sauce for dinner. I'd meant to do more but the tailor took longer than expected. There's a lot to do before I go on tour such as cleaning, preparing my car for storage, prepping the plants for my absence, packing, learning the music of course, and gathering some Christmas presents in advance. Not to mention the hat shop, starting the transcription job, and maintaining my memorized Main Street Philharmonic music. There's plenty of time, but also two months can fly by quickly so I gotta stay on top of stuff.

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Sunday I had taken the day off from the hat shop because our friend Alan (a sound guy that we worked with on Ringling Bros) was doing a Queen tribute show in Melbourne and we wanted to meet up!

During the day I practiced my entire part for Elf, washed my trombone, and made us some air fryer bagels as a mid-meal snack.

We found the recipe on TikTok but it's pretty simple:

   - Slice a bagel like you would a pie, in eight chunks/"slices", making sure NOT to cut all the way through the bottom.
   - Fill the cuts with cream cheese of your choice.
   - Brush with a butter glaze.
   - Air fryer at 400°F/204°C for 8 minutes.
   - Let cool a bit and enjoy!

Here's a plain bagel with garlic herb cream cheese and parmesan butter brush, before and after air frying.
(We also brushed it with butter again after I took this pic.)


And here's a cinnamon raisin bagel with honey cinnamon cream cheese and a cinnamon sugar butter brush.


Both were fantastic! Different than toasted bagels because they were more crisp on the outside, the cheese got crisped on the outside too, and the insides of the bagel were soft and saturated with liquid and flavor from the butter and cream cheese. This was super easy to do. I can think of many other great combos like chocolate chip bagel and strawberry cream cheese; blueberry bagel and lemon or strawberry cream cheese: cheddar jalapeno bagel with chipotle or BBQ cream cheese. Etc etc.

We drove the 1.5 hours to Melbourne and retrieved Alan for dinner at a burrito place together. He seems to be doing well, in fact has hardly changed at all since we last saw him seven years ago! I don't have a pic but Jameson took one (he's asleep as I type this) so may post one later. We got caught up on our doings. He's having fun with the Queen tour and says they're extremely popular in France.


After dinner he took us backstage to meet the Freddie Mercury impersonator, who turned out to be an older Scottish dude with a VERY thick accent and a fantastically crass sense of humor! He and Jameson yapped it up, swapping stories about the time they met Brian May or the time they've performed Queen's works. It was clear they'd hit it off, and later Alan sent the guy's contact info so they'll be able to geek out even more haha.

This was the tribute band's last show and it ended up being a great audience despite Melbourne having sort of an "older demographic." Lots of standing up to dance and cheer just like at a rock concert :) Jameson is a Queen superfan so I was worried he wouldn't like them, but he had loads of good things to say (some critiques, of course, but he said he was nitpicking.) I'm not a Queen superfan, but could tell that the impersonator had put LOADS of research and effort into emulating Freddie Mercury. He was very impressive, and the band sounded great.

Afterward it was load out for Alan, so we waited a bit while he packed his equipment and then went outside to hug goodbye. It was very cool of Alan to take us backstage, get us tickets to the show, and spend time with us! Glad we got to see him again :)

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I completely forgot to post this blog before the concert last night, so am speed-typing the last bits this morning.
Our pool solar heater broke last week, and the pool guys came to look at it this morning while Jameson was sleeping, and said they didn't have the right part (I swear he took and sent a picture of the exact part -_-) They'll try again next week.

Today: practice, starting transcription training, calling NETworks to see if I can go to that Disney rehearsal, making dinner, Jameson has a rehearsal for a Hooligans gig at Epcot.

Tuesday + Wednesday: Hat shop shifts. I'll also practice, and will probably have more transcription training.

Thursday: Another day off, not sure what will happen. 

Woke up to glorious, glorious rain and a temperature below 90. Hooray!

I was scheduled for a rehearsal day at Disney, and it was doing an all-day drizzle when I arrived. We went out for the first set and as soon as the door opened there was a peal of thunder. Nope! We all piled back downstairs. We ate our packed lunches, and I played through my Halloween stuff. The guys played Rochut etudes or drum exercises, watched YouTube, chatted.

I got caught up with Keith (full time trombonist) and he’s doing well. Most of the guys are. They were able to do the second set which included two songs that I had wanted to record for choreo purposes, so that was great for me.

And the Fall decor is up, which makes me feel a bit nostalgic and also wistful for cooler temperatures.



For the parade they did the “dog bone” which is a shortened route that is shaped like a dog bone, hence the name. I placed myself at the “When You Wish” stopping point. Two of the trumpets have found me in this photo lol.


Also took a look at the spooktacular merch on Main Street. Tempting stuff! Sent a lot of pics to Jameson’s mom. (Reminder that you can enlarge images if you want a closer look. This is a tiny fraction of all the spooky merch in the shops.)


I was supposed to do the 3rd set but it got rained out, so instead I practiced and read my book and showed off pics of my glowing petunia to the guys. Overall I was a waste of space today, but am VERY grateful for, essentially, the free money and free Fall vibes. It must be nice to be a full time member of this band.

Back home, dinner and chill.
Jameson got an email from Disney's Candlelight Processional offering him a performance date.
I got an email from Disney's Candlelight Processional informing me that I'd be sublisted again, to fill in if a regular member is out sick or wants to be with their family. It would be lying to say I'm not frustrated and feeling inadequate, for having part-time work and gig economy contracted work instead of a "real job." But I need to remember to be grateful to have these opportunities at all, because many people do not. And if it's hard for me as a 40-year-old to be earning the same wage I earned in high school, imagine being a high schooler in 2024 with 2024 prices, and earning 2006 wages :(

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I was still in a mood on Friday morning re: always a last-resort musician and never a first call, so while Jameson was at the gym I dusted and then mopped so aggressively that I broke the Swiffer and will have to get us a new one (well, the truth is I got it jammed between a desk and the kitchen cabinets and yanked it free instead of being patient, and the head snapped off.)

At Disney Springs before going to work I swung by Sephoria for a sample-sized Commodity Milk perfume. I don't wear makeup or have any skin care routines, so have not been in a Sephoria before and don't care to go again. I've simply got heartache for Autumn Things, and am hoping that this perfume smells like chai. And as a Disney Springs worker I get a discount that makes it worth trying.

Today's hat:


You needed to see the shirt to understand why I chose the peanut butter-colored hat :p
I got just as many complements on this humble bucket hat as on the fancy derby hat last week. Just goes to show that the right hat at the right time is always a good fashion choice haha.

It started off moderately busy, but a big thunderstorm rolled through and cleared everyone out pretty quickly between 7-9pm. It rained very hard for quite a while. Though the rain was nice it made the night seem to drag on; I'd rather it be at least a little busy to make the time go faster. Though I did have time to notice, for the first time, that our lights lining the ceiling are fashioned from bowler hats!!


Highlights of the night included selling a Panama hat for $180, and my boss dropping in and telling me that Kathy Jeanne is working on my hat, they'll send it to our store so I can buy it at the employee discount + contribute toward our sales goals, and that we are just waiting for the owner of Chapel Hats to see if he'd be willing to go in on a new "interchangeable trims" product line with Kathy Jeanne. Either way, I'll have a hat with removable trim which I think will come in very handy. There are the two custom trims; then there are also elastic trims in the store that I could put on it; and then there are the fascinators which may be pinned to it. I intend to get a lot of use (and marketing for misc products) out of this hat.

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Saturday, I couldn't sleep so was up at 7:30am for no reason.
Made iced tea, swept the front walkway, took care of the petunia and cuttings.
When Jameson woke up I washed and changed our sheets. Made a quick trip to Target for a new Swiffer.

Watched The Boy and the Heron, finally. It was hurtful to watch. I suppose it's a lot of symbolism of grief, and processing personal trauma. It came across very "What Dreams May Come," which if you've ever seen that I'll bet you were only able to watch it once, that's how painful THAT was.

Our friend Rebecca was in town, she's Head of Wardrobe with Feld Entertainment and a total bada$$.
(CLICK HERE to learn about our friend Rebecca)

She lived on the band's train car in our Ringling days (mid-2010s.) We have a lot of great memories together :)
Jameson and I picked her up and we went to dinner at The Stubborn Mule, all of us getting the prix fixe for $40 each. I decided to live it up and have two glasses of wine because "it's been a week," what with hospice visits and retail work and feeling low in the self-esteem department.

I had the Korean sticky ribs, ratatouille with rice, and chocolate cake. Ratatouille not pictured because it was just a mess of veggies over rice, it was tasty just not very photogenic.

The ribs, despite being a starter, were a half-rack! So I ate three and took three home. Can't wait to fight Jameson for them later :p


Cake was cake. Can't complain about chocolate!


We talked about ALL things: our past together in the circus, all of the countries Rebecca has traveled to with Feld shows, some drama and experiences she's had on those shows, spilling tea on what circus friends and family are up to these days. It was really good to connect with her, we haven't seen each other for YEARS, probably close to a decade! I'm annoyed that I didn't think to ask for a group photo before we parted ways. She's currently doing the new Feld show, called "Let's Dance!" It's still in rehearsals but there will be performances this coming weekend, I work but maybe Jameson can go.

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Sunday, I woke up feeling those two glasses of wine a bit but nothing some water won't fix.

Late breakfast and then practicing trombone and packing dinner for work.
I'd wanted to go for a walk but didn't get up early enough before the heat hit.
Picked up two Papa Pal visits for Tuesday, both at the same memory care facility I'd visited last Monday. I didn't see any for the hospice place this time.

Visit 1 is a dementia patient who's hard of hearing and likes walks, watching TV, and games.
Visit 2 is a mid-60s guy in a wheelchair who rolls around with a speaker and loves listening to music and chatting it up.

Not sure what to bring them but sure I'll think of something.

I'll be doing a closing shift at the hat shop tonight so Today's Hat will be in tomorrow's post.

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Monday: Probably a walk, closing shift at hat shop.
Tuesday: Papa Pal visits, possibly cooking dinner.
Wednesday: A day off, not sure what I'll do with it yet but probably chores.
Thursday: Also currently a day off.

Thursday night we went out to see one of Jameson's friends perform his original music (classic rock style.)

It was at this dive bar/club, but it wasn't too crowded and the drinks were good.
Enjoyed listening to the band and catching up with an assortment of Jameson's buddies between sets.


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Friday I woke up too early, used the time to research what should come next for my firefly petunia.
I am very pleased with how it's bounced back from shipping. It's only been a month and it's twice as big and looks much improved.


However there are some dangly limbs with top-heavy new growth at the tips, which makes me think it might be time to try some cuttings. Here is one of the dangly limbs in question. Someone also suggested that I could bury the plant's main stem, bringing that limb down so it touches the soil and could produce roots there. 


I also noticed that this week is scheduled to be slightly cooler, and heat indexes are below 100°F for several days in a row, so I am thinking to start acclimating the plant to live outside. This would free up the grow lights for use with cuttings.

In addition to all of that, I have a developing seed pod!


The pod could take months to develop, and once it does there is no guarantee that the seeds will produce bioluminescent plants. Something about which genes get passed down or whatever; it's like a 50/50 chance of getting glowing babies. So I will probably just harvest the seeds for now and sort that out at a later date.

While Jameson went for a walk I practiced, packed food for work, made a grocery list, researched petunia stuff, and went to Target for some stuff. Oh, and sent my order for my custom Kathy Jeanne hat, making sure to get my boss in the loop and also suggest to the milliner that she experiment with attachment designs so we can do this proposal for an interchangeable trims product line. My boss wrote back today and said he's pitching the idea to corporate and the owner, so I'll be interested A) to see if they accept it and B) to see if he gives me any credit at all or takes it all himself. To be fair it IS his idea, he does deserve the credit, but I'm just hoping he'll throw me a bone for my part in laying groundwork for this discussion to even happen.

I decided that today was Fedora Friday, and wore this white fedora with all-black. Fedoras don't look good on me but oh well.


And all of my coworkers were wearing graphic tees, despite them being outlawed in the employee handbook, so I will wear one on Sunday in solidarity.

The shift was fine, it wasn't as crazy as last Friday so maybe there are fewer people willing to stay out late now that school has started again? I somehow managed to sell THREE Tilley hats! They're $100 each and have a lifetime warranty, but they are HIDEOUS. I don't know who is wearing these or why. Unless you're about to spend a month in the jungle or something I can't see a need for 'em. Well...three people out there are now ready for a jungle safari :p

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Saturday, I'd had stress-dreams about the petunia, limbs snapping off or the plant dying :(
If this one dies, it's not like I can just go out and get another. It's a special plant...and it was expensive!
It will make me feel a lot better to get a successful cutting.

I mixed up it's fertilizer and had breakfast, then went for a walk before the heat got too oppressive.
On my walk I saw a beautiful clearwing sphinx moth, and found a beautiful dead butterfly.

(CLICK HERE to see the sphinx moth)



Back home I did laundry, then drove to Whole Paycheck for salmon filets and a few other things.
Jameson spent the afternoon watching scary movies while I prepped dinner stuff and repotted the petunia.
Original pot:


Post-potting. I did take it inside before repotting to see if the roots glow, but if they did I couldn't see it at all. The roots were very thin and sparse. I'm hoping that burying the main stem will allow more roots to grow. I do think the plant looks more comfortable, closer to the soil like this.


Also, not sure if you can tell but that flower in the middle has a slight pink tinge to it! Perhaps the plant has a pink variety in its ancestry.

I made sous vide salmon with lemon dill sauce, lemon orzo, and roasted broccoli for dinner. Fancy for no reason.
Put the petunia out at night to acclimate to the humidity. It'll be out there until afternoon tomorrow.

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Sunday, I hadn't slept well but that's ok. I didn't work until evening so had a generally chill day.

Coffee and breakfast. Checked on the petunia and it was fine. It started wilting closer to lunchtime when the heat index got above 90°F, so I brought it inside and it perked up almost immediately. Practiced the trombone.

Partway through the day I got two exciting Papa Pal visits!

The hat shop has only been giving me about 18 hours per week so far, so I've decided to supplement by doing Papa Pal on some of my off days. Today I noticed that there were two upcoming visits only five minutes apart. Turns out one is at a memory care facility and the other is at a hospice, and both of them are "companionship visits," meaning instead of scrubbing toilets or mopping floors I'll be spending the time engaging someone in conversation, playing games or doing arts and crafts, and generally just chilling with a new senior friend :)

THIS is why I signed up to do Papa Pals; because it seemed like an opportunity to provide social and emotional aid. Not only that, these two visits are through actual medical facilities and I'll have to check in with a social services agent once I get there, which frankly makes me feel a whole lot safer than just showing up at a random stranger's house and hoping they're not a weirdo.

I know that the visits might not go all hunky-dory, especially the hospice visit. But I'm happy for the opportunity...and maybe this is strange, but I'm excited for them. I'm not a very emotional person, but listening to nursing home interviews as a TSOLife employee for the past several years really has touched me (see THIS entry.) 

Anyway, I really hope both visits go well.

A few hours after lunch Jameson left to meet some friends for a movie. The theater is at Disney Springs so they're going to swing by and visit during my shift! I'm weirdly nervous about it but it'll be fine. After he left I took a quick trip to Walmart for a tiny orchid flower (for the person in hospice) and a cup of Mexican rice pudding (for the person with dementia.) Back home a quick shower and typing up this blog...dinner, and then off to work.

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You'll have to wait for the next post for Today's Hat photo. I'm wearing my pink graphic tee with a banana and a strawberry on it, and grey dress slacks. I'm thinking a pale green hat would be nice, or maybe I'll get REALLY crazy and try a tan cowboy hat!

Monday: Visiting my two Papa Pals, rest of the day is free. I may take cuttings from the petunia, we will see how it's doing.

Tuesday: Working the mid-day shift at the hat shop.

Wednesday: A day off, I'll practice because I've been granted a rehearsal with the Main Street Philharmonic on Thursday! I hope we play through the Halloween stuff!

Day three at the hat shop, and I have started noting hats with particular personality and giving them secret names.

Good morning, "Strawberry Creme."


And to you, "Live Laugh Love."


"The My Fair Lady."


"The Undertakers." These are interesting because they're sort of novelty hats, but are made of real leather and are quite expensive.


"The Nostalgic." I was surprised to turn this hat around and find a railroad spike accessory in the band. Which, of course, triggered memories of my life on the circus train; the sound of the iron wheels screeching on the tracks; the smell of coal tar on the rail ties; the rocking motion of the train as I'd fall asleep at night.


The cowboy hats and fedoras tend to trigger less-than-kind stereotypes in my mind, so for now they mostly remain anonymous.

Today I learned some new things about some of the hats. Different weaves of Panama hats and their breathability, and the history of flat caps. Most interested to learn that flat caps were once required by law in 1500s England, to be worn by any working class male over the age of six. Insane! I also got to rummage through the fascinators to help a bartender find one for an upcoming 20's night, that was fun (fun fact, our fascinators are all handmade by one woman in New Jersey.)

Otherwise nothing exciting happened, which is great.
On the way home I picked up sushi for Jameson and I.

This job makes me tired in a social battery kind of way. To be a good salesperson you have to be engaging, attentive, enthusiastic, maybe a little fun. I'm a hardcore introvert, so being "on" and interactive is very draining for me. But I am also an entertainer and a commercial musician. And that means that when there's money involved, I have the ability to flip my engagement switch "ON" and be an Entertainer personality for, say, the duration of a retail shift or a Disney performance. Which is why I was (surprisingly) a pretty decent retail manager for several years, and have been a successful musician and entertainer for theme parks, circuses, and cruise ships despite introversion. I think of it as a secondary skill, that happens to use more mana than my standard skills set. So I will only turn it on if expending that level of energy is beneficial in some way.

Or when I'm desperate and can't find work otherwise.

Today's hat. Notice how it matched my hoodie ties. Bling bling, bitches.


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Friday was my late shift at the hat shop, which I was not looking forward to. I don't like working late, and was also warned that drunks like to come make trouble in the shop after the drone show (we are right next to Raglan Road.)

In my free time before work I trimmed the banana tree, changed our bedsheets, and made the firefly petunia comfortable under it's grow lights. It's getting larger and the temptation to take cuttings is strong; I might try one or two over the weekend.

It's been four days of no trombone practice, and I am worried about it. But I felt very tired and wanted to soak in some quiet, recharge my battery before the night shift. Jameson and I watched Olympic break dancing (impressive!) and ate lunch, then he had a work meeting so I quietly watched anime, made us some iced tea, and halfheartedly scanned Indeed for jobs until it was time for work.

It wasn't as bad as I expected; we had some people walk through with huge beers, and some people stumbling and with the glazed look of drank-too-much, but no one caused trouble. I couldn't believe how crowded it got as the evening went on; between 9pm-11pm it was almost non-stop, absolutely packed in that tiny shop. Whether people were buying hats or not I'm not sure because I never got near the registers, two of my coworkers stood stolidly behind them while the rest of us worked the sales floor. I made sure to carry one of the claw-grabby-thingees with me so people might feel less bad about asking for hats from the higher shelves (as an introvert I'd feel bad to ask someone, which is why I thought carrying the claw would make it easier to ask.)

I felt exhausted when the night was over, and grateful that Saturday will be a day off for me.

Today's hat.


Interestingly, I received compliments exclusively from MEN while wearing this one. With the white sun hat and the cloche last week, women came up to me and exclaimed, "That hat looks so good on you!" But while wearing this one, not a single woman said anything about it. This is intriguing! My theory is that because the other hats were more feminine, women could see THEMSELVES wearing them, and thus those hats looked more appealing to them. But this hat is more masculine, so perhaps it is perceived differently by men and women both. Or maybe it's just an odd coincidence. Someone should do a study!

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I had incredible trouble sleeping, probably because I'd had coffee to get me through the night shift and it kept me up. I was up way too early, wolfed down breakfast because I was absolutely starving, then lots of errands because a day off is rarely a true day off, is it.

First the bagel place (chocolate chip, blueberry, and honey cinnamon cream cheese for Jameson; French toast, veggie, and egg for me) then to the grocery for things to make lunches next week (I'd wanted to make dinner tonight but will probably be too tired.) A load of laundry, fertilizing the bananas, ironing some clothes, and taking a surprise cutting from the firefly petunia because a piece of it broke of when I nearly dropped the plant this morning, whoops. Watching women's Olympic soccer with Jameson. Brazil vs the US! It was quite a good match :) Lunch, trombone practice, making those keto peanut butter yogurt pops that Jameson loves. And much needed rest. We had both hoped to do this-and-that today, but both felt tired.

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Sunday I had work but not until evening.

Breakfast, Jameson went to the gym, I vacuumed, cooked ground turkey, ate lunch, then when Jameson got back my aunt called and we talked for over an hour. She's on a rough patch in her life, and has decided that the quote, "There's always another shoe," from the TV show The Bear sums up how things go for her most of the time. I get that.

I'd meant to practice but by the time we were finished my motivation was gone. Instead I watched some anime, watched Jameson game, and eventually left for the hat shop, eating dinner in the car along the way because there'd be no dinner break for me tonight. I only had a five hour shift, and there was a steady-yet-not-overwhelming stream of customers, so the time went quickly. Today was the first day that I felt comfortable selling hats. Perhaps I have enough information, now, to give good recommendations. I sold three hats today that I specifically helped people to choose, which felt rewarding :)

Oh, and tonight I found a possible Hat Just For Me!
I don't really "do" hats, but we get a 40% discount so it'd be a waste not to pick one up. And tonight I found a top contender, quite by accident. I'll do a little research on it and will share a picture of it in a later post. But it was exciting to find the hat, because it is not only unique but also has a nostalgia factor that I wasn't expecting.

Today's hat:


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Let's see.

Monday: No work, I'm making potstickers and ramen crunch salad for dinner. Practice and exercise is the only plan.

Tuesday: hat shop.

Wednesday & Thursday: No work, so I'll cook one dinner and do errands and get some exercise. Maybe squeeze in a Papa Pal if there's one close by.

Friday: That hectic night shift again.

Saturday: Nothing scheduled but there's a shift available so I may pick it up, haven't decided yet.