taz_39: (Default)
This post covers Monday and Tuesday.

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MONDAY

I woke to find my Aunt outside on the pool deck, enjoying the peace and quiet of the morning.
I'm glad that someone appreciates it; at this time of year I spend every possible moment indoors no matter how pretty things seem out there!

I joined her and we chatted for a while until Jameson was up. Breakfast, then we got ready and headed over to Epcot! Attendance is a bit low there right now because of the heat, because it's between festivals (Food & Wine, and Garden), and also the Magic Kingdom has just premiered their new light parade so everyone is over there. We had easy parking and rode the tram to the front of the park.

We had a bit of trouble getting the whole of Spaceship Earth in frame!
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We enlisted some help from bystanders. There's the whole thing but now we are tiny, heehee.
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Once in the park, my Aunt had mentioned an interest in French cuisine so I surprised her with lunch at Chefs de France. One neat thing about Epcot is their Cultural Representative Program, which gives international professionals and students a chance to live and work in the US while representing their country and culture. This means that if you go to China in Epcot, or Norway in Epcot, France, etc, there are real citizens of those countries working there and interacting with you.

I'm noting this because in Chefs de France, the waiters primarily speak in French and only a little English. Which wasn't a problem..I've had a bit of French, and it's a Latin-based language anyway, so we didn't have any issue. But it sure made it a more authentic (and a bit intimidating) experience :)

Since it was so hot out we wanted to eat light. We got a 9oz carafe of wine to share, a lovely small salad, and a charcuterie.
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Everything was wonderful, we really enjoyed all the different flavors we could create with combinations of bread and cheese, fruits and pickled veg. My favorite was the goat cheese with the walnut bread and a grape. We didn't even manage to finish it, and I wished Jameson had been there because he'd have polished it off!

Next we walked through misc countries like Morocco where we explored beautiful tiled back alleys, and Japan, where we caught the drummers performing and looked at the kawaii merch in the store.



From there I started to take us all the way around the lake, but it was so damn hot that I decided to backtrack us to America to hear Voices of Liberty in the rotunda. It was the first time I've heard them without a massive crowd and being pressed against the back wall. We got to sit on low stools close to the center, and they sounded so amazing.

Rather than walk back to Spaceship Earth, we rode the ancient ferry across the water. It was a nice ride but those boats are from at least the 70s and imo they badly need refurbishment or replacement. Now that Epic Universe is open, as much as I love Disney, Epic makes a lot of things there look VERY dated. I'm sure that Disney will step up at some point but....yeah. I just, ya know, noticed.

We rode Spaceship Earth and that was nice, then Living With the Land because it's just so chill. Partway through that ride Jameson texted to say he was here. He met us at the entrance and we rode The Seas with Nemo & Friends, did a quick walkthrough of the aquarium, then hoofed it to Mexico for dinner!

It was rather busy inside the pyramid, but still such a cool ambiance. We each ordered a cocktail and an entree featuring mole negro. I love their mole chicken, but they've changed it to a pork shank and while that was also delicious I do prefer the chicken (it came with veggies and the pork shank only came with rice and plantains.) Still, I could drink Disney's mole sauce! So good!
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Having walked 5 miles today in heat indexes of 112°F (44°C) we were way too tired to stay for fireworks, and headed back home.
It was so nice to share today with my Aunt and Jameson. I'm tired from the heat and the overstimulation that is Disney, but glad and grateful that we got to enjoy this today.

Back home we watched LEGO Masters followed by Below Deck (my Aunt's preferred show) before hitting the hay.

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TUESDAY

A slow morning as we recovered from a hot day at Epcot. 
Jameson left for work early, and my Aunt and I talked as we drank coffee and ate breakfast. 
There's always so much family stuff to talk about, and reminisce about. 

We took an afternoon dip in the pool and each had a nice drink. I meant to take a pic but the sky darkened and we had to scurry inside for a typical Florida thunderstorm. It rained for about two hours while we made ourselves BLTs and cut veggies for snacks and talked some more. After lunch we went to a nearby shopping plaza to look for outfits for my Aunt, who is trying to discover her style! She's recently retired and working on living for HER, and less for others. We didn't find anything worth buying today, but she thinks she prefers a more "tailored" fit for clothing, so that's a start. 

For dinner we met Jameson at Lazy Dog (a chain but it's not where my Aunt lives to my knowledge.) They were unfortunately pretty slammed with several 10+ tops and one massive table hosting an entire girls soccer team! So it was noisier, busier...and slower service than usual. But we did get our drinks and food eventually, so it was nice. I just...I should have cooked, but cooking is still a point of anxiety for me and I wasn't in a frame of mind to cook more this week I guess. 

They had chicken lettuce wraps, like those at P.F. Chang's (P.F. Chang's are better, sorry Lazy Dog!)
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Back home we just sort of decompressed with tea. Jameson watched the Cubs game while my Aunt and I looked through her photos of her childhood from the 70s. It was amazing to see both her and my mom as small children, and my grandma as a young mother. Not to mention the cool 70s cars and tech and OUTFITS!! I'd totally wear most of their clothes! 

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Wednesday:
A little more time with my Aunt, then she'll have to fly back home. Jameson will be working from home. 

Thursday:
General cleaning and laundry, practicing trombone, and perhaps I really should cook something for Pete's sake. 
taz_39: (Default)
Oh look, I don't have to do a disclaimer for a bit!

This post covers the weekend.

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FRIDAY

Ugh. After the party I still had packing to do, plus it had been raining while I was walking home so had to hang up my outfit to dry, get a shower, scrape all the fabric tape off the clothes...but actually the thing that kept me up late was typing the last blog post! Uploading and resizing pictures, describing the evening, etc can take a long time. But I almost never regret it.

I was finally asleep around 1:30am, but drinking alcohol makes sleep elusive for me, and then I had to get up around 6:30am for more packing, breakfast, and putting my soul into my body (I am one of those folks who needs "me time" in the morning to fully wake up.) Uber to the airport, where I was too early as usual but walked around and looked at stuff until it was time to board. I found birthday card with a shiny colorful beetle on it for my nephew, hopefully he will like that.
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Flight was normal, and at the end of it here came my trombone, once again Arrived Alive. It came down on the regular luggage belt this time instead of Oversized.
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I'm gonna say this and sound like a jerk for saying it, but here goes: I think that at least 50% of the men who complain about their instruments being damaged by airlines, are throwing their instruments in the case and expecting that to be enough.

It's not. EVER.

And on top of that, I think that a lot of guys out there do not understand how to properly put a foam cone in the bell. What they don't usually seem to get is that the cone is supposed to extend BEYOND the edge of the bell and touch the edge of the inside of the case instead of the bell. If you put the cone into the bell and it's flush with the edge of the bell, it does next to nothing to protect it because any impact will still at least partly go into the thin bell edge. The whole point is for the cone to absorb impacts and deflect impact force away from the bell.

But anyway. I'm sorry to rant about this or disparage men, but when I see these guys posting pics of their crushed horns post-flight, all I can think is, "Well it's no wonder if you shipped/checked it like THAT." I've still got two more flights to go, and there's plenty of chance that mine will be damaged, too. But at the barest minimum, I’d at least I know that I've done everything that I can do to prevent that.

TL;DR the trombone was safe once again. I took a shuttle to pick up the rental car, which was quick and easy because I'd done all the paperwork online. Drove the 2.5 hours to Bloomsburg, which was really 3 hours with stops for dinner and a few supplies (detergent, pads.) I picked up my sister Raven at my sister Kate's house (Kate and her family were out so I just kidnapped Raven) and we checked in at our hotel. We chatted and caught up while I did a load of laundry. I was so tired that I was doing the thing where I just blindly move stuff around without accomplishing anything, and she'd been up at 5:30am, so we both went to bed early.

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SATURDAY

I was awake at 7:30am, hungry. Hotel breakfast was oatmeal with fruit and two boiled eggs and coffee. Typed this up and stayed in the dining area for an hour or so. Eventually Raven got up and had breakfast too. When it was time to check out we loaded up and moved to another hotel; there's an event going on in our hometown this week and getting reservations for two nights in a row had been difficult. Luckily we were able to check in early so that I could drop all of my luggage.

We ended up going for lunch at a popular local restaurant called Root 11. They serve a lot of healthy and clean stuff, we've both eaten there before. Rave got an Apple Butter Shredded Chicken sandwich (I've had that one before and it's very good) and I had some sort of grilled veggie thing with mushrooms, squash, kale, onions, Swiss cheese, and balsamic on a big fluffy pita. I also added shredded chicken.

Root 11 art, local artist.
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There's a natural foods shop attached to the restaurant so we browsed a bit to kill time, then finally gave up on procrastinating and went to Kate's house for our nephew's birthday party!
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Kate and her husband both work in the medical industry, and they saved up to buy this gorgeous historic house downtown. This was my first time seeing it. Raven gave me the full tour, and we chatted with Kate as she cut fruits for the party. As guests began arriving we moved outside so the kids could play at the various activity stations Kate had set up: wading pool, tree swing, balance beam, art station, music corner, and toy corner. We enjoyed cut fruits and veggies and vodka spritzers (I stuck to water to rehydrate after more-than-usual drinking this week.) It was hot and humid out so we'd all take turns ducking inside to cool off in the AC.
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Kayle (my stepsister) and my stepmom and all of Kayle's family showed up and I hugged everyone. We caught up a little but really deep family catch-ups don't really happen at public social gatherings; we'll probably get more time together later. Jonah (our brother) couldn't make it because he's on an annual trip with his friends, but his fiancee Danielle showed up and it was awesome to see her! They only recently got engaged and I am so happy and proud for them :)

As dinnertime rolled around we enjoyed local pizza, followed by a huge carrot cake that Kate had made herself (the birthday boy's favorite flavor.) He threw a fit when forced to sit and listen to "Happy Birthday," and Kate laughingly said he hates that part every single year. I don't blame him! The cake was wonderful. I could tell that Kate had made some healthful substitutions (she's known for her clean cooking/baking) but personally I really appreciate that and look forward to it in her food. We stuck around to help clean up as much as we could, then hugged and parted ways. I took my stepmom to her house, and Raven and I returned to the hotel to decompress.

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SUNDAY

Raven and I got up around the same time, packed up, and went for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Affordable and delicious! I went pretty hard on the protein with egg whites, tomatoes, and biscuits, while Rave got pancakes and eggs. We talked about family things and personal things, enjoyed our meal, explored the silly "country store" that's attached to all Cracker Barrels. It wasn't enough time, but it was good to see her again. I drove her to Kate's and hugged her goodbye, because she's leaving this afternoon. 

From there I went to my stepmom's house knowing that she'd be at church, and I practiced bass for about 30 minutes which wasn't enough but it'll have to do, I squeeze it in when I can. Then drove to Olive Garden to meet my high school band director, and high school business teacher, for lunch!

We should have taken a pic together but none of us thought of it. They absolutely pelted me with questions, but I'd kind of expected it; these two have been supporting me, well, since I was in high school! They wanted to hear all about the tour and what rehearsals were like and what the theme parks are like, etc etc! I felt bad to spend the whole time talking about me, me, me, and several times changed the subject to what THEY are up to, but it always bounced quickly back to my doings, so I did my best to appease their curiosity. If nothing else, I'm happy that they were so interested, and I've always ALWAYS appreciated their support and interest.

Here they are outside the circus train back in 2017. They came to a show and I gave them a tour pretty much everywhere it was allowed including the train :)


Me and Ms. Rheude, my band director who encouraged me to play the trombone and had a direct positive influence on my career path. I hope I've made her proud! 


We chatted and enjoyed each others' company for a solid two hours, parting with promises to meet again soon. While that was happening, my sisters were having a talk with our stepmom--personal family business that I won't detail--and I knew they'd started the convo without me because no one answered their texts. Nervous to interrupt what might be a serious conversation, I took myself for a walk, drove to my stepmom's house to make sure she wasn't there, and finally went to Kate's where I found everyone on the porch hugging it out. I'd essentially missed the convo, but all was forgiven. 

We ordered Indian food and ate all together with all the kids at Kate's big dining room table. It was chaos, but the food was good and we haven't all had a meal together in forever. Tomorrow Kate has to work and on Tuesday Kayle has to drive to Philly to take her husband to the airport (he has to go back to work), so this was our only time to all be together. It was really nice. 

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Monday:
Running errands with stepmom, probably taking her to lunch, then to Kate's to help with the kids. 

Tuesday:
More errands, and not sure what we'll end up doing but I hope to practice. 
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**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer. DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers Wednesday and Thursday.

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WEDNESDAY

Got up and had brekky, checked out the hotel breakfast but as expected there wasn't a lot to work with. Waited patiently until 9:30am and then practiced bass trombone with the mute in. No one complained. It was pretty rude of me to start that early, but I wanted to do it before lunch, knowing that I'd probably not want to practice afterward.

Nate and Joanne are (were) company managers for My Fair Lady. Joanne was a manager for the first year so I never got to meet her on tour, as I joined in the second year. But Nate was one of "my" managers so we know each other pretty well. They met me at the hotel and we rode the Brown Line to Armitage Avenue. It's really nice and quaint with lots of small shops and restaurants, old trees, people walking their dogs, etc. Nate is local to Chicago and loves this area, and picked Armitage Alehouse for us for lunch.

As the kids say, "The vibes are immaculate."

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It's meant to look like a 1920s British pub but in Paris, says Nate. I wouldn't know, but it certainly was beautiful. They had a really nice cocktail list so I tried a Singapore Sling (gin, cointreau, pineapple juice, cherry juice/liquor, maybe some other stuff.) It was quite good and not too sweet, though I could have done without all that ice.
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Both of them raved about the pot pies so I ended up with the steak and ale pie, which is served on a bed of mashed potatoes and with a marrow bone stuck through the middle.
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I've never had bone marrow before (like, as an intentional part of a dish) and it was...ok. Readers know that I tend to not like oily or fatty things, so the marrow wasn't my favorite, but the flavor was nice and I was happy to try it. The pie itself was very delicious, tender juicy beef and lots of peas, carrots, and onions with a flavorful ale gravy. Crust was crispy and perfect on top but soggy on the bottom from sitting in wet potatoes (I just didn't eat that part.) I didn't want to bring home leftovers so ate the whole dang thing knowing that I'd be too full for dinner.

We walked and window shopped after that, chatting about different tours and tour politics and what we'd been up to. I have trouble socializing sometimes but did a good job for once, asking Joanne a lot of questions about herself and learned that she's done 3 tours and some local Shakespeare company productions, and is looking to do more tours in the future. She and Nate are currently both doing Kinky Boots but are on a break between seasons.

After a while we parted ways. It was very nice to catch up with Nate and meet Joanne, and I'm sure that our paths will cross again!

I wandered a bit to find a bank where I could pick up a $50 for my nephew's birthday (wish I'd gotten him an Actual Present. Sorry kid.) Back to the hotel to digest and rehydrate. Thank you, Morning Me, for practicing before lunch so I didn't have to force it on a full stomach later!

Typed up this post and spent a solid hour walking around in my stupid heels plus learning how to apply fabric tape to make my top less revealing. Figuring out where to put the tape was like working out a pliable puzzle, and I wasted at least ten pieces on this test-run before ending up with something that looks like it'll work.

The goal is simply to not have my bra peeking out/visible from certain angles. This is close enough, and I'll try again tomorrow.

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As the sun was going down I decided on a walk to work off some of the pot pie and help me sleep well tonight. I went down to the Navy Pier, which is a little over 2 miles round trip. There were a lot of people. The view was nice.
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On the way back to the hotel one of our keyboardists messaged to let me know he had my tickets for the show and party. Someone in management probably forgot to separate mine out so I could pick them up at the box office (I'm not supposed to come backstage while laid off.) Ah well, at least I know where they are.

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THURSDAY


Had weird dreams involving getting lost in places in Chicago...but gist of the dream was my brain subconsciously suggesting that I go to the theater, get my tickets myself, and bring some stuff to throw in my trunk while I'm at it. Hey, honestly...weird way to deliver the information, brain, but not a bad idea.

Technically I'm not supposed to be backstage if I'm not working. But also, technically my tickets are supposed to be accessible without me having to come backstage. My coworkers shouldn't have to be errand runners for me either. And so after breakfast, practicing the bass for an hour, and packing more things to throw in my trunk, I walked to the theater.

Snuck myself in no problem. The stage door was easy to find because our GIANT LOGO TRUCK was in front of it (and the two stagehands on a smoke break would have been sign enough even if the truck hadn't been there.) Wore my ID badge and walked in like I knew exactly where I was going and no one said boo.

First stop was the pit. I found Collin's (Key 1) spot and an envelope with my name on it right there on his stand. Nabbed it, and on the way out I noticed that the Chicago trombonist had left his bass out so I took a peek. It's a Yamaha 613H with a gold brass bell; in other words, it's an older version of the bass trombone I just bought for this show. This is now the third bass trombonist that I've met who plays a Yamaha trombone with a gold brass bell on this show. Safe to say I've made a good choice then, eh?

Next was the band's dressing room to access my trunk. Mine was on the bottom of a stack, but I am a big beefy woman and managed to lift or drag the boxes above to get to mine. I threw in my computer lap desk, a few cans of veggies that I hadn't used and didn't want to waste, and my new BATB sweater which I don't want to wear around children. Put everything carefully back the way I'd found it.

Last stop was Fergie's (the Beast's) dressing room because he's using one of my party tickets for a family member. I snooped around until I found it, left the ticket propped on a Beast plushie, and sent him a photo. Mission(s) accomplished. On the way out the door I filled my water bottle at the backstage cooler and stole some candy from the unoccupied Stage Management office (not real stealing, the candy is out for guests :p )

Hey, I'm nothing if not an opportunist.

The weather was sunny and pleasant, and with tickets in hand I was finally starting to feel excited.
The day I've been waiting for is here!!
I get to see the opening night performance of Beauty and the Beast!!
In a SOLD OUT house, with front-and-center seats!!
And attend the company party!!
In Chicago!!


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Obviously I'd still much rather be in the pit playing my heart out. But this is such an incredibly special thing that I'm getting to do. I've NEVER ONCE gotten to attend a show that I've performed in. This will be the first time, and it's SO special. I am very glad now that I make sure to be here for this moment, because it will never come again. A lot of things might happen in my life after today...but once it's happened, today is something that cannot be taken away from me.

It is endlessly amazing to be a part of THIS show.
It makes my heart burn.

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The rest of my day was spent in nervous and excited anticipation (the nerves have to do with the outfit haha.) I tried to do chill stuff, chat with Jameson, watch anime, etc. until finally it was time to go. Got my little suit on with loads of fussing with fabric tape. Put on the uncomfortable stripper heels and immediately regretted not leaving earlier because it would take me twice the time to walk anywhere in those things. 

I still made decent time. The theater is beautiful (as many theaters are):
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My seats were AWESOME. 5th row back and just left of dead center. 
It was definitely a sold out house so I was impressed that they'd waste such coveted seats on That Random Trombone Chick. 
(The red star in the yellow circle on the seating chart is about where I was tonight.)
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I went to the pit to heckle everyone and introduce myself to the Chicago trombonist. Collin kindly passed up a gift that the band had gotten from Masumi (a dancer who was injured last week and couldn't be here tonight.) She commissioned enamel pins with the opening night date, and also an adorable baguette! You KNOW I will display both of these proudly! 
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The show was incredible. I just....wow. Top to bottom, an amazing, immersive, joyful performance. The audience was super hyped too! In fact, there was a standing ovation for Be Our Guest!! People were on their feet before the number even ended. What a rush to be in the audience when that happened :) 

During intermission I tried to handle the barrage of social media coming in related to Beauty and the Beast's opening night, and posted some thoughts of my own. Overall I like the use of screens; there are one or two scenes where I didn't care for them (wolf attacks), but for the most part they were very cool and added depth and motion that really drew you into the story. The costumes continue to amaze me; somehow they really make it seem like the furniture-characters have furniture legs. But the biggest jaw drop for me was watching the ensemble perform "Gaston," which involves ACROBATICS for nearly everyone on stage...and then they have to stay on stage to do the next scene!! That is SO HARD to do. Just imagine running at top speed, until you can't breathe are wheezing and your legs are cramping...and then suddenly having to stand still and hold a casual conversation for the next five minutes as though nothing has happened. That's what they're doing up there, folks. Unbelievable. 

In fact, after the bows were over and everyone was milling out of the theater, of all the words people used to describe the show, the number one word that I heard tonight was "unbelievable."

You KNOW it's an excellent show when people are leaving the theater amazed and exclaiming. Honestly, I was blown away too. I am so, so grateful that I got to see our show!! Now I'm even more motivated to play my best every single night, so I can support and match the energy on stage! 

From there I found Sarah (French horn) and her sister, and we walked to the bar together. My feet were already killing me in those shoes. I was expecting the opening night party to be fun, but it was EXCEPTIONAL. We were all greeted by two hosts who bowed and smiled and took our tickets, then three servers immediately presented us with trays filled with a variety of wines to choose from. Right at the damn door. Damn! 

I took a moment to set my wine glass down, and was instantly offered hors d'oeuvres from a parade of three different servers bearing trays filled with gigantic shrimp, delicate morel mushroom tarts, savory Italian meatballs on skewers, and more. In addition there was a table full of delicious options. 

A shrimp tower: 
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An adorable Chicago dog stand, with mini dogs and all the fixings to make your own Chicago dog: 
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My little sampler plate which included a veggie potsticker, some sort of pretzel bite I think, and a mini lobster roll that had huge generous chunks of lobster! 
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Later on dessert was, of course, The Grey Stuff! 
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There were also cupcakes, mini milkshakes and cheesecakes, and a few other treats that I didn't quite get to see. 

It was incredibly loud in there, but I stayed for at least an hour and made sure to walk a full circle of the bar, congratulating anyone that I recognized and toasting with fellow bandmates. Having enjoyed some of the best possible seats in the house to watch our show, and then being treated to this lavish party, I did indeed feel less jilted than I've felt all week. 
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I left fairly early. Full day of flying and driving tomorrow, you know. 
Walking in the stripper heels at that point was an absolute agony, but it was late at night and I was alone so I acted as though nothing at all were amiss and strode confidently to the hotel...where I quickly peeled the shoes off and wiped up the blood (not joking, my feet were bleeding.) Good lord, why do women wear heels!!

What can I say: tonight was a joy and a treasure. The only things that could have made it better would have been A) being allowed to play opening night myself, and B) having Jameson here to enjoy it all with me. Otherwise, I really have to give big kudos to Disney not only for putting together a legendary-level stage show, but also treating even one of their lowest-tier musicians as though she were a Disney princess.

I was showered with gifts tonight.
I felt valued and wanted.
Yes, I had to pay extra out of pocket to be here, but my goodness. It was well worth it, to me, in the end. 
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(and if anyone asks me again why I'd rather work for Disney that Epic Universe, I'll be referencing this post. Universal would NEVER.)

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Friday:
Flying to Philly, driving to Bloomsburg...and doing laundry! 

Saturday:
My nephew Declan's birthday party, and reconnecting with family.

Sunday:
No idea! Family stuff I suppose. 
taz_39: (Default)
**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer. DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers Monday and Tuesday.

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MONDAY

Up early, breakfast, general messing around, then getting an Uber to O'Malley Brass Instruments.
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The shop is run by Miles O'Malley, no direct relation although the last name does imply that we're probably some sort of distant cousins or whatever. Obviously I am interested in his trombones because they say "O'Malley" on them! But also because Miles is an excellent craftsman and I was curious to try his instruments.

You guys gotta understand: Miles makes his horns entirely in-house, by hand, which is so incredibly rare.


We caught up for a bit--Miles and I worked at BAC Music in Kansas City together for a time and a lot has happened since then--and then I got to try some of his horns. He had two large tenors for me, one in gold brass and one in yellow brass. 
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Some details of the F attachment tubing and rotors, and the intricate bell engraving which is done entirely by hand by a guy named Adam.
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Some points of interest for you non-trombonists are the braces, which are the parts that look like a rod or bar ending in silver tubes. The silver parts are shaped kind of like fish vertebrae, and the entry points of the tuning slides (which are the topmost curves in the left picture) are somewhat flared, both unique features that to my knowledge are not found on other trombones. Miles says he's also put a lot of thought into the brace points between the bell and the F attachment tubing in order to allow for more resonance while still providing structural support.

(This brace point is the primary one and is standard on all trombones, but he's used his own logo-shape-design-thing so I wanted to show it.)

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Miles's years of experience and his skills aside, my expectations were pretty low. I mean, most major instrument manufacturers have been around for decades. They have factories, and the highest-tech equipment, and budgets to hire loads of workers. Miles has himself, a fellow creator/designer, a bell maker/engraver, a machinist, an assembly/repair guy, and a buffer. That's six people, plus a few seasonal kids that he hires for misc smaller tasks. In addition to trombones his shop also makes trumpets, individual parts for both trumpets and trombone, and some French horn parts.

Naturally he has produced very few trombones so far, and most of those were on preorder. I'm assuming that the two I tried are kept as floor models. Floor models get handled and beat up a lot. So again, my expectations were low. I don't doubt the quality or Miles's abilities, but he's just starting out and can't possibly be producing excellent horns just yet.

Right?

Actually...............

As I played, moving up and down the range of the instrument, paying attention to response and tone and slide quality and balance and a whole slew of other things....I found myself becoming more and more impressed. This was a REALLY good trombone. The biggest surprise came when I tried jumping octaves, and found it incredibly easy compared to other trombones I've played...even including my rare and legendary Earl Williams trombone.

Like, I tried to play a high E, and it came right out. No fighting or squeezing or twitching the slide millimeters to try and find the microscopic sweet spot that would allow the note to sound. It was just...there. I'm sure that this all sounds like gibberish to you, but know that to trombonists it is a BIG DEAL. Traditionally some notes do not sound as good/come out as easily as others on certain instruments. On trombones those notes are usually E natural and B natural, especially the high ones. To have them just pop out loudly and proudly and easy as apple pie is a DREAM.

I "can" play a high E natural on my Williams, but it's not pleasant. I have to fight for it.
Evidence video (the high E occurs at the 00:11 mark):




But it comes right out on this big ol' O'Malley tenor! I was VERY impressed! Too bad I just bought a bass trombone and totally won't be able to afford an O'Malley trombone until AT LEAST next year. But in the meantime, damn, it is SO COOL to see my surname proudly displayed on such a fine, handmade instrument!! Great job, Miles!!

After that Miles and Adam gave me a tour of their workshop. I recognized many of the same tools and machinery that I've seen at Warburton Music, Shires, BAC, and other manufacturers over the years. I won't bore you with talk of mandrels or dent rollers or buffing compounds; just assume it was all Really Cool Stuff. There were huge rolls of raw sheeted brass, and bells in various stages of shaping, and rotors waiting to be assembled, and all kinds of mysterious (to me) tools and gadgets.

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Partway through, Yuexin (machinist) came through and introduced herself, and through her I answered some questions about my musical background and current activities. We chatted a bit more, I played the horns one more time, and as I was leaving Miles graciously gave me a logo shirt! I will wear it proudly. And start saving for one of these trombones!
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From there I Ubered to the really awesome local grocery that had the tasty-looking hot bar.
This was my treat to myself for NOT blowing loads of money these past several days :)

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Look, they had chicharrones! I've always wanted to try these but the fact that they're basically pure fat continues to deter me. But they look so crunchy and amazing! Ah, maybe next time.
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So, so glad I went back for this hot bar. It was SO GOOD.
I got a big salmon filet, and some brisket burnt ends (they threw the burnt ends right in with the main slices, and they were all caramelized and crunchy/chewy...AMAZING.) I got a pork rib that was so tender I could easily crack the bones to get marrow, and some Cajun shrimp rice that made my nose run from the heat but was so tasty, full of plump shrimp. And on the side I had sliced grilled veggies, asparagus, and a big chunk of spiced roasted sweet potato.

I am very jealous of people who can eat here every day!!

After a little break to digest I practiced bass, then made plans with a former My Fair Lady company manager who is in Chicago and wanted to grab lunch. That'll be something to look forward to in addition to the opening night party :)

The rest of the night was chill, typing this post and packing for the move downtown tomorrow.
Jameson messaged to remind me that LEGO Masters was on, and that's how I found out the TV in my room doesn't work. ARGH. It's ok, I'll watch it when it's streaming tomorrow.

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TUESDAY

Had a lousy final sleep at this motel because the AC decided to go haywire in the night. I had set it at 75 and woke up freezing at 66! Argh. I'd better not get sick. 

Blew the morning doing car insurance research (I'm having a coworker drive my car on layoffs) and typing this whole post up. At 10:30 I checked out and Ubered to the downtown hotel. 11am is generally too early to check in anywhere, and this was no exception. But they will always hold your luggage for you, so I dropped it all except for my purse and grocery tote and took myself to Whole Paycheck for lunch. The hot bar is priced by weight, and that makes it very affordable for someone like me who doesn't eat big meals. $11 later I was full. Walked to a nearby park to enjoy fresh air and kill time. 
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I started to walk to Navy Pier but only got partway before realizing that I'd probably be able to check in soon. Back to Whole Paycheck for groceries for the week. I was very well-behaved but accidentally bought double protein when I picked up tofu, decided against it, went to put it back but found an associate restocking/blocking that area, and then I wandered elsewhere and COMPLETELY forgot about it at checkout. Argh. My plan is to not open it at all, and leave a note for housekeeping hoping that one of them might enjoy it. 

This hotel room is a mite different from the motel. But you know, I feel comfortable in both.
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I unpacked and ate dinner and felt very tired indeed. A nice hot shower, chatting with Jameson, and some lavender tea was helpful. I skipped practice entirely but that's all right. Wrote the motel a good review to help bolster their business. 

While I was doing all of that, the company truck was pulling up to the Cadillac Palace to begin load in. 
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(photo courtesy someone in our group chat)

I'm happy to be here for the party...I'm LUCKY to be able to AFFORD to be here, and that my plans had already included time in Chicago such that I only needed to alter those plans a bit to attend. Our violinist is not so lucky. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't still hurt, that another trombonist is in rehearsal right now with the rest of the band. And that the show will go on without me for a MONTH. That's not to say I think I'm important to the show, but that I'm feeling left out :/ But I knew that this layoff was coming. And ALL of the horns/winds/strings will be laid off for all of the other union cities, so it's not like I'm alone in these feelings. It's mainly because we've just started and this is the opening week. That makes it more emotional, and a lot harder to be cut out. 

All right, now that's off my chest...I'm just glad to be here! To watch the show, spend time with friends, and celebrate the start of tour with everyone! It'll be a fun and exciting 48 hours in Chicago! 


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Wednesday:
Meeting some My Fair Lady friends for lunch, otherwise no plans. Practice at the hotel, practice walking in heels and using the fabric tape for that revealing top. Would be nice to go for a walk.

Thursday:
Daytime is free, then at night it's seeing our show followed by the company party! Yay!
taz_39: (Default)
**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers Wednesday and Thursday.

---    ---    ---    ---    ---    ---

WEDNESDAY

Up at 6:30am to do laundry!
Because A) no one else is insane enough to get up that early so I got the ONE washer and dryer to myself, B) I want to put a packing cube of clothes in my trunk and today is our last day to load said trunk, and C) We leave for Chicago on Friday!!

Soon enough laundry and breakfast were done, and after sorting my clothes into take-and-not-take piles I loaded them up and took them to my trunk on the 2nd floor of the theater.

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Then down to the basement to practice. I only played for 30-40 minutes, then back upstairs to steal leftover bagels from the crew breakfast and back outside to pick up lunch from Simone's Kitchen, a Mediterranean place down the street. Chicken shwarma bowl, yum!
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Then I took a short nap, waking up when the front desk called to let me know a package had arrived. It was my cheap-o gold Amazon sandals for the opening night party. I tried them on and they ARE comfortable and DO fit, but they are quite higher and heavier than I'd thought. But wearing them means I won't have to get the pants hemmed so there's that.

A little more chilling out and then to the theater for the employees-only merch sale!!
I was there early...convenient, because they ended up opening early!
Intention was to get a collectible pin and a t-shirt, but the night before they had sent a list of all the stuff that would be available and I was also interested in a zip-front hoodie. They are leftover merch from Australia and will not be replenished once they are sold, therefore it's a limited availability item. It's pretty expensive, but the salesperson brought one for me to look at and the quality was impressive (a weird thing to say about a hoodie I guess.)

So the FOMO won out and I bought it. After getting it home and trying it on I was doubly impressed by the quality again; it's thicker than most hoodies I've owned, and all of the text on it is embroidered, not printed. That right there would explain the cost. And the zipper has an interesting claw-hook mechanism at the bottom, I think it's supposed to line up the teeth properly each time? I tried searching for it and haven't found anything like it yet. And ultimately, it's just PRETTY and I like it!

The hoodie in question:

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(I'm almost afraid to wear it tbh)

The collectible pin is just a miniature of the main graphic for the show. It's very heavy for it's size and is a real Disney collectible/trading pin, with the little Mickey head backing.

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I immediately added it to the collection that lives on my bag.
I have a pin for all of the touring shows I've been on, except Elf.

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After that, dinner and getting ready for the show and walking to the theater as usual. Here is me in my pit blacks and with my backstage ID in the hotel hallway (I was doing a DITL for Instagram which is why this photo exists.)
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The show went normally, and afterward the rest of the band wanted to take Ryu (violin) and I out for drinks since we are the only two getting laid off in Chicago. The rest of the band is Chicago-local so they are allowed to work. We each enjoyed a drink of our choice and chatted with everyone. Partway through the night we were offered "green tea shots" which funnily enough do not contain any green tea :p but are called that because of the resulting color, which is similar to that of green tea. I was a good sport for once and accepted the extra drink. Pretty tasty!

For the rest of the night I mostly geeked out with the ladies over anime (turns out we ALL watch it), helped our drummer try to book a hotel in Chicago because somehow he'd forgotten to take the buyout, and commiserated with Ryu about having to go a month unpaid. It was actually the best time I've had in a large group social setting in a long while :)

Finally at midnight we called it quits and went to bed. After all, tomorrow was our final matinee in Schenectady!

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THURSDAY


I slept poorly (common for me after drinking) but was up at 8 for breakfast, typing this blog up, and a little packing.

My new instrument insurance policy went through, so now I feel a bit better about all of those upcoming flights. Not great, but better.

Very soon it was time for the 1:30pm matinee. It was well attended and a good audience. I thought we played pretty well. Before we knew it it was time to pack up and say goodbye to Schenectady! Wow...it feels both like we've been here forever, but also like we just got here. I am happy to leave, but also sad to be laid off for the entire month of July (the Chicago run.)

It took me a long time to pack up, but that's not really surprising with such a small pit and twice the equipment I'm used to touring with. I got the tenor, mutes, and stands put away and took the bass with me to the hotel where I packed it carefully for flying. Packed some more stuff in my suitcase and was surprised to find it was overweight. I should have had the new shoes sent to Chicago...and perhaps should not have bought so much clothing this week! I had to choose some items to leave behind, but nothing important...I went with some heavier sweatpants, a roll of cling wrap (which is amazingly heavy), and some spice blend jars that had been gifted to me in the first place. That fixed it. 

Rehearsals are over. This tour has officially begun.


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Friday:
Flying to Chicago, probably just going to get groceries and crash at the hotel assuming everything goes smoothly.

Saturday & Sunday:
Lying low to save money. Practicing bass trombone (assuming it arrives intact.) Possibly visiting O'Malley Brass Instruments, but since it's a holiday weekend that may wait until Monday.
taz_39: (Default)
**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers Monday and Tuesday.

---    ---    ---    ---    ---    ---

MONDAY

I was ripped out of a deep sleep at 5am by the fire alarm in our hotel going off.

I put in earplugs and almost went back to bed, but then remembered that the hotel probably HAS to call the fire department and they'd be checking rooms. So I shuffled out the door and down four flights of stairs to the side entrance, where most of the cast were standing about yawning and with arms folded in a posture of anxious waiting.

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We were around the back of the building. A fire truck must have pulled up to the front pretty quickly, because only 20 minutes later the truck looped around the building and left. The firemen waved at us as they drove past. We all shuffled back up the stairs. In my room the bathroom light was on and the sink was running...I suppose that means the firemen/hotel staff had checked it? Nothing else in my room was out of place.

I read my book for a while and managed to doze for an hour, then gave up and got up.
Made my overnight oats fun today by adding little marshmallows :)

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Then I spent quite a while working on notations in my Beauty and the Beast music because there will be another trombonist playing the show in Chicago (per Rule 24.) There are changes to articulations that we've decided on, or parts where the conductor is cuing us in in a specific way, or parts where tempos change suddenly. Leaving little notes in the music about these things is helpful to all the musicians who will see the part after you.

When that was done I wanted to go for a walk before it became unbearably hot (east coast United States is in a heat wave) so grabbed a water and wandered around nearby Union College campus.

I appreciated these big old trees which provided relief from the oppressive heat.

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There is an interesting building near the rugby field called Nott Memorial, a 16-sided structure used as a sort of museum and lecture hall. It wasn't open for visitors, but was pretty to look at.
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Equally if not more beautiful was this adorable cluster of mushrooms along one of the walking paths.
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I'd wanted to spend more time investigating, but it was 96 degrees (35.5 C) and I'd been out in the sun for 30 minutes already, so headed back downtown. It was nice to get out in the fresh air at least.

On the way back I swung by The Whistling Kettle for a "sconewich." I've had one of these before while on tour with Tootsie.
Different flavor this time: cheddar herb scone, ham, Swiss cheese, and apricot jam. Delicious!

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Not wanting to go back out in the blazing heat again, I ate lunch and had a cool shower and mostly chilled. I wiped down the flat surfaces in my room, played some games on my phone, read my book, chatted with Jameson, and hydrated. I put new corks on my cup mute because the new trombone has a bigger bell; I'll have to file the corks down tomorrow when the theater is open to us again.

For dinner I braved the heat once more to hit a NY-style pizza place just a few blocks away.
With all of the New Yorkers who snowbird down to Florida, you'd think we'd have better pizza...but no, we've lived near Orlando for 7 years and have never found authentic New York pizza near us.

I got one slice and a salad. Aaaaah so good!!

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Watched LEGO Masters with Jameson and that was pretty much my day.

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TUESDAY


The fire alarm went off AGAIN around 2am.
I don't like this trend.

It was shut off pretty quickly though, and it was easier to go back to sleep. I was up at 8 for breakfast and to fix my Chicago foodie finds, which I hadn't updated for the hotel this company will be staying in. Around 10 I went to the theater to practice and also to fix the cork on my bass trombone mute. I'd shaved the original cork down to fit the other bass's bell, and turns out that's too small for this bass. The added cork looks messy but it works and gives a much better sound, so hopefully that'll be an improvement until I can get the 3D-printed mutes out here.

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On the way out I saw yet another photo op being set up. It's not complete yet, they are adding some kind of LED lighting and even MORE roses if you can believe it, lol.
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Back at the hotel they had not cleaned my room yet so I thought I'd missed cleaning staff's pass. Ate lunch and was generally bored because it is still horrifically hot outside and I didn't want to go running around out there getting all sweaty. Cleaning staff came by right as I was finished eating so I hung out in the lobby for about 30 minutes to give them space. She did an excellent job on my room, and since we only have 10 more days in Schenectady it'll probably be the last time I get it serviced. Took a short nap, read my book, and was generally lazy.

After dinner I went to the theater early, dressed in blacks because we have an invited audience for this dress rehearsal. The band's road cases have been built, which will house all of our instruments and work-related equipment for this tour (instrument stands, mutes, cleaning supplies, etc.) Sometime this week we will get together and Tetris all of our stuff in there. 

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Before the show tonight, Josh (Key 1) handed us each a program. 
Our first programs from this show, this tour! 
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I've had my name in a LOT of programs over the years. But I don't think any have been as meaningful to me as this one. 
Every day I'm still digesting the fact that I'm here and doing this. I'm the trombonist for a Disney Broadway show.
It's still unbelievable and will be for a while.
I stared and stared at this program until it was time to play. 

The show went "ok," although we had to stop during Be Our Guest because one of the ensemble women was hurt (either her knee or ankle, it was unclear.) From what I've heard she's all right, but the show had to continue with one of the swings jumping in to cover her spot. 

Personally this was not one of my better shows; I felt low energy and unfocused. But that's ok...sometimes it happens, and I'd rather it happen during a rehearsal. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Ryu (violinist) and I walked out the stage door together and were startled when the huge mob of people waiting outside cheered and applauded as soon as we appeared! Usually the musicians go unnoticed. It was nice :) The actors probably got MOBBED. 

And now I'm going the heck to sleep. With earplugs in, and if there's a fire I guess I'll burn to death!

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Wednesday & Thursday:
Our first preview shows at night, possible rehearsals during the day. We are now more or less finished with "tech," and I guess this is a sort of "soft launch" in Schenectady with our official opening being in Chicago (which I'm annoyed about as I won't get to be there, but what can ya do)
taz_39: (Default)
**DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. Thank you.**

This post covers the weekend.

---    ---    ---    ---    ---    ---

FRIDAY

I got to sleep in just a little, but was nervous about playing my bass with the group for the first time.
Walked over a bit early to assemble it, take pictures, warm up, and tune up.

Here's the new kid!

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Details of the wraps, and the cut bell (also called a screw bell or bell flare.)
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It was a very short rehearsal, only two hours.
During the break, three different musicians approached unsolicited to tell me, "This one [new trombone] sounds warmer."
Being the insecure, self-critical person that I am, rather than taking this as a compliment, I immediately started second-guessing the purchase.

Was it TOO warm?
Is the difference THAT noticeable?
Should I have tried the version with the YELLOW bell instead of gold brass?
Was this a mistake?

All because of compliments. Yep, I'm one of THESE. Sigh.

But at least I'm conscious of it. I said thanks, added that I'm still getting used to the horn and that I hope it'll be a good fit for this show. Everyone had nice things to say. If I write about this now I can look back in a month or two and roll my eyes at how absolutely ridiculous I was for feeling insecure today.

The rest of the day was chill, I received a bunch of stuff I'd ordered to put in my trunk including a 3-quart Instapot, lap desk for my laptop, a small coffee grinder, and a box of Mezcla bars which are my favorite and aren't available in some cities. For now, that and a packing cube of clothes should be plenty. I can add more things as the tour goes on. I decided to do laundry before bed as well because we've got some busy days coming up.

One more thing: our merch stand is almost set up! It is so beautiful!

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I saw fleece blankets, water bottles, mugs, a Belle tiara, a fuzzy Beast keychain, and what looked like magnets. The purple coffee mug is heat-activated and rose petals appear when you add hot water. My favorite was a HUGE Gaston beer tankard! There will also certainly be t-shirts and sweaters.
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They did a fantastic job with this logo.
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SATURDAY

I made sure to sleep in. I needed it.

Packed my meals and walked to the theater carrying my Instapot to put in my trunk.
Passed the merch stand on the way. They've added more stuff! Shirts and sweaters, a Belle doll, and I see the iconic plates from the animated movie (I want two of them!) among other things. I'm very curious about the little mirror with the black face....maybe it's a toy?

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There was also this photo op near the box office that wasn't there before. It's a little hard to tell from this pic but it's a booth, you can walk inside it so that you'll be framed with the rose.
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While putting the Instapot in my trunk I noticed that there were loads of these little name tags scattered all over the bottom of it.
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They were different shapes and sizes, rectangles and squares big and small. Our violinist was nearby putting things in her trunk too, and she didn't have any of these tags. Looking more closely, I realized that most of them did not have my apostrophe. Aha! That would (sort of) explain it! They probably started printing my name without the apostrophe, but in Disney's system I have it, so they had to re-print with it added back in, but had already cut and laminated the other sheet without the apostrophe and then didn't know what to do with those. Lol! The poor person who probably panic-dumped these labels! I will check with other musicians in case we're supposed to have a bunch of tags for some reason, but I doubt it. I will stick one on my trombone case for sure...

I warmed up in the trap room. To alleviate my insecurity about how I sound on bass trombone, I decided to be a sneaky snoop. I went to the pit to look at where people had set my audio levels on their Avioms. Hate to say it, but you can tell that someone sucks when half the pit has them turned way down or off. But no, in the majority of mixes I was at a completely normal volume. Yay! Only the trumpet and French horn had me turned significantly down, but that is normal because we are all right next to each other. This made me feel a lot better :)

And then when I was finishing my warm up, the Reed 2 musician came in. We said hello and all that, then he mentioned he'd overheard people telling me that my new trombone sounds "warm." He said, "I'm a reed player so I don't know anything about that, but I know that this one sounds better to ME." Double yay!

So now I'm going to stop worrying about it. I'm sure in a week everyone will have forgotten what my first bass trombone sounded like. It is not worth the stress.

Today was wandelprobe, and as such, our first time rehearsing with the actors!
A mic was passed around the pit so we could introduce ourselves, and we waved from our little hole in the ground. Then we got started with rehearsal. It was awesome!! Everyone sounds AMAZING. And I can see a lot from my spot near the pit wall, I'm so excited to watch when people are in full costume at the run through tonight!

For dinner break I walked back to the hotel, chatting with Jameson about his day. He's getting ready to go on his work-related cruise as a Disney producer! Still so incredibly proud of him and hope he has an absolute BLAST.

Took this picture while waiting excitedly for our first full show run through tonight.
It's the stage screen, and the pit net, reflected in my trombone bell.

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The run through went very well. Considering that it was our very first one, everyone did an amazing job! There were mistakes, but I would have been more surprised if it had been perfect on the first try. And the effects in this show are ASTOUNDING. The way the set pieces move, and the way lighting and high-tech screens and illusions are incorporated...I can only see about 1/3 of the stage from my spot, but what I could see was mind-boggling. People are going to LOVE this show!!

Afterward the band unanimously decided to have a celebratory drink at a bar across from our hotel. This was our first hang all together, and although I'd only planned to stay for one drink, turns out my coworkers were VERY curious about my circus background and wanted to hear all about it! So I stayed for a solid 4 hours, mostly drinking water and trying not to lose my voice describing what traveling year-round on a 1950s passenger train and performing 400 shows per year had been like! I did get to ask a few questions of my own, and learned a lot about our drummer and a little about our reed 2, and played the "guess my age game" with the other two ladies of the pit :p

Overall this seems like a wonderful group of people, and I hope that we'll have lots of time to get to know each other.

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SUNDAY

The band had been scheduled for a TBD rehearsal in the afternoon but it was canceled! Yay!
My whole day was free up until 7:30pm!

I was up way too early, but made the most of it by making a grocery list and Ubering to Target (I can't wait to be in a city where there are grocery stores within walking distance!!) and then swinging by the theater essentially just to steal bagels from the green room :p I wanted to go to the farmer's market again but was headachy and tired, only had one drink last night so it's probably the weather + allergies + not enough sleep. Had a restful day doing a lot of nothing, then after dinner went to the theater early to warm up on the bass and hit some spots I'd had trouble with last night.

I should perhaps mention that the availability request for the EPCOT Candlelight Processional was sent out yesterday! Once again I am bookmarking the ONE Monday rehearsal, which I will have to attend or risk losing my cast member status. I've now done this twice before while on tour, it's always harrowing and crazy, but also a reminder that few people have the privilege to do this or are even capable of doing this even given the opportunity. I'll be cranky for 48 hours, but also will have lots of fun and will be very grateful :)

Anyway, tonight Josh (our Key 1) brought in real apple cider and fresh apple cider donuts he'd gotten at the farmers market. They were delicious and gave me nostalgia for my hometown; every year at the Fair you could get apple cider freshly pressed in front of you and it was amazing. This was just like that :)

I thought today's full run was better than yesterday's overall. Still some intonation problems but a lot of that is because the pit is very cold. We also had to stop again during the Gaston/Beast fight scene, but I couldn't tell why; they took it as an opportunity to practice what happens on stage when whatever-it-was goes wrong ("technical difficulties" announcement, opening screen comes down until they're ready to move on.) Otherwise, fine show. Now I am looking forward to a full day off (though no idea what I will do with myself!)


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Monday:
A day off! The only things I have planned are to eat out for lunch and dinner as a special treat, and I'd also like to go for a walk (not much else to do in Schenectady I'm afraid)

Tuesday: Possible afternoon rehearsal followed by a show run.
taz_39: (Default)
Thursday, work at Epic, the usual routine.

Super hot. We had hoped it would rain but sadly it did not, so it was just stiflingly humid.
Our sets were well attended however, and I saw Small Bee Photography there again, so perhaps we'll have some nice photos of our sets too :) It is so incredibly awesome of these pro photographers to give us FREE access to the images that they take.

At the final set there was a "show dump" happening right when we were going out to start our performance.
A "show dump" just means the audience is clearing out of the theatre and back into the street. The circus was dumping, and all the people who had just seen that show were pouring into our performance space in Place Cachee. We only have one handler and there was no way she could clear all those people out by herself.
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(photo courtesy touringplans.com)

So I went out there as Phillipa, ahead of our cart and the handler.
Saw our tech fighting the sea of people to get to his audio spot.
Planted myself in the middle of the square packed with people, looked around, and shouted,
"AH, SACRE BLEU! I MUST TEST ZE ACOUSTICS IN ZIS SPACE!"
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Put my trombone up and started playing short loud notes: "BAP BAP BAP"
...and a few longer ones right at eye level for good measure: "BLAAAAAAT"
While doing that, swinging slowly in a circle, forcing people to move away from my slide.

They scattered like roaches!

"Jules" came up behind me and parked the cart. "Wow!" he exclaimed, in character. "Zat was effective!"
I gave him a pleasant Phillipa smile. "Well! I do my best."

When our day was done I got ready to go see Mariah's band play downtown. I wiped myself down with a "bathing wipe" that I picked up ages ago somewhere on tour. Quicker than a shower, and ensured that I wouldn't clear out the venue with my stink. Had started to drive over there when Jameson sent me a long audio message. Turns out he's already being poached by another branch of Disney corporate. This is only his second day of work!!

This one is called Disney Live Entertainment (DLE) which is a part of Imagineering and for whom Jameson has interviews MANY times. They want him to be a producer for them, temporarily, on the Disney Magic cruise ship at the end of June! The ship will be in the Bahamas and there's a band he'll supervise during rehearsals. How cool! He was SO EXCITED.

This is the thing about Disney. Once your pinky toe is in the door, YOU ARE IN. Buckle up and prepare for liftoff.

Feeling happy for Jameson, I continued on to Judson's Live, the venue where Mariah's band Raspberry Pie was performing.
Ages ago I promised to come see her play, and was glad to be able to keep that promise :)

ExpandRaspberry Pie at Judson's Live )
I decided to leave before the end of the second set, having been up since 5am and knowing that Jameson would want to talk my ear off about his exciting cruise ship opportunity. Got home and as predicted he had a lot to tell me! I listened as he described the job and how it had been offered, his speculations about what it would be like, etc, until midnight when we finally wound down.

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Friday, Jameson had to pop over to Disney to work out some technical issues with his logins, but he was back by lunchtime.

I had breakfast and hydrated, washed our sheets, made the bed, did laundry, typed this post, got ingredients for sesame chicken salad for dinner, got the chicken marinating, and made the spicy citrus dressing. I "should have" practiced but was feeling cranky, don't wanna, didn't. I was in a bit of a mood, perhaps from drinking too much the night before and not getting much sleep.

Ultimately I'm grateful that our non-standard lifestyle does generally allow large chunks of time to rest if I choose. From 2pm to 4pm I was able to doze, read, decompress, and try to gentle myself back into a pleasant mindset. I was 50% successful. Cooked the chicken and assembled the salads, which are napa cabbage, romaine, the sweet-spicy chicken, mandarin oranges, pomegranate seeds, toasted nuts (your choice), crispy wontons, avocado, sesame seeds, and a tangy citrus dressing. Jameson loves it and that makes me happy :)

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Saturday. I was kind of a slug. Breakfast and mostly practiced, spending 1 hour on Beauty and the Beast and 1 hour on the Chicago tribute band stuff. I am starting to (barely, sort of) feel better about the Chicago music, but will be happy when that gig is over with.

Jameson went for a walk, and we both kind of lazed around, then decided, why don't we use some more of our Disney Dining Discount coupons? We looked at the resorts, and Jameson recommended Flying Fish which is at the Boardwalk resort.

Got our reservations and drove over around 5, enjoyed looking around a bit, and were seated very quickly.
Very cute steak and seafood restaurant with whole schools of glass flying fish dangling from the ceiling.
We each got a drink (sauvignon blanc for me, vanilla bean bourbon for him) and I got the following:

Strawberry Gazpacho (vegan)
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Ash-crusted Salmon with Herb Risotto, maitake mushrooms, baby turnips, greens, and shellfish broth
(I got too excited and dug in before remembering to take a pic)
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Matcha Bavarian Cream with guava curd, sesame white chocolate, and vanilla panna cotta
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Jameson had the shrimp cocktail appetizer, "Frutti di Mare" entree (assorted shellfish with pasta and red broth), and this Hazelnut Chocolate Bar that came with a golden truffle.
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All of it was extremely good. The gazpacho was visually stunning and also amazingly complex in flavor, herby and tart and fresh. There were tiny cubed vegetables hidden in it. The salmon was very interesting, I assume it's capped in charcoal powder with maybe a little salt. The crust wasn't very flavorful but did give a fun smoky, crispy texture. The risotto was excellent, and I could have eaten those baby turnips in a bag as a snack lol. The matcha guava dessert was VERY good, matcha and guava go together quite well. Jameson's favorite was the shrimp cocktail which featured plump white wine-braised shrimp, though he loved the flavorful pasta in his main dish too. We both felt "meh" about the choco-hazelnut bar as it was kind of one-note; a little fruit would have been welcome with it, that's all.

Once again we were able to use a 50% off coupon. With tip it was probably about $100 each (in other words it would have been $200 without the coupon!) Very, very grateful for our castmember perks.

Back home I took time to move some of the furniture off the pool deck because we're having it sealed tomorrow.

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Sunday, Jameson kept kicking me in his sleep and almost kicked me out of bed!
So I finally just got up ahead of my alarm. Poo-head!

Had breakfast and then moved the heavier pool deck furniture outside of the screen, swept the pool deck.
The sealant guy came around 9:30 and after an amicable chat he got to work.
I had hoped to go for a walk, but received a surprise transcription job so plugged away at that instead (it was supposed to be sent on the 30th so I'm a bit annoyed that I've lost those days to work.)

Pool deck dude was done a little after noon. He always does an excellent job and is THE only contractor we've ever called back (three times now.) I always write him a very good Google review with pictures, so this time he asked me to take photos while he was working and made me promise to add them to my review, which I'm very happy to do. His work was $$$$ and it made me cringe, but I definitely couldn't do this myself and it took him 3 hours, and we only have to do it once every 3 years or so.

After that, lunch and trombone practice, all three sizes of trombone. Then back to transcription while Jameson watched the Cubs game.

Checked my email during a transcription break and was thrilled to see that the music coordinator for BATB has finally sent our music, and play-along tracks!! There are only TEN DAYS until tour begins, and I am seeing our actual music for the first time. Turns out, it's exactly the same as the Australian version. Wooooo!!

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Monday:
Transcription, rehearsal for the all-chick Chicago tribute band.

Tuesday: Transcription, and finally getting this Chicago tribute band gig out of my face.

Wednesday: Transcription, packing for Epic, getting my trombone stands and mutes ready to ship to Schenectady.
taz_39: (Default)
Posting early because Friday was very exciting and made for a long post.

My journal is ultimately for me and my memories, so don't feel obligated to like, READ.
There are some pretty pictures for you to scroll past. Enjoy.

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Friday May 16, 2025.
A day that will live in our hearts.
It was a "karma wave"...and boy did we ride it. You'll see what I mean.

We got up early, excited for our celebratory day at Hollywood Studios!
We got to the park around 9:10am, thinking that it had opened at 8, but it was actually 9, so we got better-than-usual parking! Didn't even have to ride the tram.

Walked right through the gates because we are fancy-schmancy Cast Members.
The first thing we did was to go to Guest Services to ask for Celebration Buttons.
Jameson has worked for Disney for YEARS and has never worn one, and of course I haven't either. But today was special. He got one that said, "Music Producer DEG!" and mine said "BNB National Tour!"
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(BNB is the acronym for Beauty and the Beast used in the theme parks. On tour it's BATB. I went with theme park version today.)

We paused to take photos of the pins, and Jameson used the photo to finally announce to friends and colleagues that he's accepted the Producer role.
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I am so proud of him!!!
And we were both just in awe, all day today, that we were getting to celebrate these life-wins TOGETHER.
We know how rare and special that is.

Next, we walked to Galaxy's Edge to try and queue for Rise of the Resistance. It was down, so we rode Mickey's Runaway Railway instead. I've ridden it before but Jameson hadn't, and I really wanted him to experience it. The tech used in the ride is very cool, and the 2-D aesthetic is fun and cute. We enjoyed it very much!

We used our Cast Member snack coupons to each get a free Mickey pretzel and bottled drink, then decided to see what wait times for Smuggler's Run were like. On the way there we had to pass the queue for Rise of the Resistance again, and we saw some people start to run toward it ahead of us and wondered why. They entered the queue...the ride had JUST opened back up! We rushed over and were able to walk the whole queue and board the ride with only a 10 minute wait!! On a Friday in May! A miracle!! (The average wait time for this ride is 1 hour!)

Neither of us had ridden it before, and once again we were blown away by the tech and visuals and overall ride experience. In fact we would have been willing to ride it again if the queue hadn't filled up!

From there we wandered a bit and window shopped. As we passed Oga's Cantina, Jameson noticed that the queue was lower than usual (it's a very popular bar and can be difficult to get in without a reservation.) We asked the hostess about the wait and were told 15 minutes, so we decided to go for it.

We had waited a grand total of just 60 seconds before our names were called and we were ushered inside!
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I can see why this bar is so popular. It's incredibly, intensively themed, the bartenders are extremely in-character, and drinking there is really an experience. Each drink that we saw looked unique and exotic; there were some that bubbled with dry ice, others with black ooze dripping down the lip or strange foams frothing over the top.

Jameson got the Fuzzy TaunTaun: Ketel One Botanical Peach & Orange Vodka, Bols Peach Schnapps Liqueur, Orange Juice with Tangerine, Pure Cane Sugar, and ‘Buzz Button Tingling Foam.
I got the Nysillin and Bubbles with Brub Berry Essence: Empress 1908 Gin, St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, Blueberry-Lime Juice topped with Tonic Water and garnished with an Edible Hibiscus Flower.
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Both drinks were amazing, with Jameson's having some very strange foam that caused one's lips to tingle and then go a bit numb! He let me try it and it was a very fun sensation. We wrapped the experience up with a Rodian Ration jell-O shot: Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Dekuyper Pucker Sour Apple, Green Apple, Sprite, and Boba Balls with a Pop! This was really cool and a lot bigger than we expected, it was supposed to be a petri dish and had pop rocks and red chocolate "gravel" sprinkled on top. The boba balls inside were juicy and refreshing. Texturally this was fun to eat.
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A bit more wandering, then we went to see the Beauty and the Beast stage show.
Jameson has a good friend who plays Belle, and she got us VIP seats!! We were front and center!

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It was a lovely show, and of course made me think of the tour adventure awaiting me in June :)

We also had to go see Muppet Vision 3D, which is going to be closing permanently in early June. This was essentially the last time we'd ever see this show in person. It's a great show, funny and cute, but it's dated and I can see why it's being closed/replaced. It was a privilege to get to see it one last time.

For an afternoon snack we went to a random bar where Jameson got a beer and we shared a charcuterie.

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Next we rode Toy Story Mania, which is a shooting game. Jameson won, of course, as usual, and I sulked good-naturedly :p

We decided to try queuing for Smuggler's Run again as the wait time was only 45 minutes. But 45 soon turned into an hour, and longer, and by the time we were nearing the end of queue we both badly needed a restroom! Daunted by the thought of working our way aaaaaall the way back through the line (it is QUITE long), I volunteered to find a Cast Member to ask for help finding a restroom. The woman I found, Elaney, was so gracious; she immediately led us backstage to an employee restroom, without even knowing that we were Cast Members ourselves! When I saw that she was nervous to be taking us "backstage" I quickly told her that we work here too, and she was VERY relieved. Still, the fact that she would go out of her way like this for non-employees is exceptional, and we both took note of it.

Elaney let us rejoin the queue about where we'd left off, which we were very grateful for. Smuggler's Run was fun as usual (we've been on it three times) and this time we had two kids piloting our ship so we crashed A LOT haha. Jameson was laughing his head off, and I have to admit doing a bad job smuggling was a lot more fun than successfully delivering our cargo!

By the time that was finished we only had a little time before our dinner reservations. We just window shopped and enjoyed the vibes, then went to the most exclusive restaurant in Hollywood Studios: The Brown Derby.

You may remember that a few days ago when Jameson called me at the car dealership to tell me he'd gotten the Producer job, after hanging up with him I "got him something special." It was this reservation for this very fancy restaurant! Jameson has only eaten there once before, when he was too young to remember or appreciate the experience. And I've never been inside at all. I figured there was no better way to celebrate our achievements...and I was right :)

The first thing that went amazingly right was we met Dana.
Dana is a longtime Disney employee, possibly a manager at The Brown Derby. He noticed our Celebration Buttons and asked what we were celebrating. We told him, and he congratulated us and then engaged Jameson in a discussion about the "good old days" of Hollywood Studios since they'd both worked there around the same time period. He was just lovely, and when it was time for us to be seated our server started to take us to a standard table but Dana said, "No, let's celebrate properly!" and ushered us to a comfortable booth.

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From there we were treated to an incredible meal!
Jameson had a refreshing gin-and-lemon drink, I had a French rose wine.

We shared these escargot with
Roasted Garlic Béchamel, Crispy Prosciutto, and Puff Pastry.
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Jameson's entree was the Pan-Roasted Halibut: Braised Bok Choy, Roasted Cashew-Jasmine Rice, Olive Oil-macerated Heirloom Tomato, Thai Coconut Sauce.
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I had the Root Beer Brined Pork: Creamy Polenta, Pickled Corn, Herb Chimichurri, Barq's Root Beer Lacquer.
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It was absolutely incredible. I don't think I've ever had pork like that. Sweet but also a slight bit of heat, and the veggies there on the side are pickled which gave a great hit of acidity against the sweet pork and rich polenta. I was very surprised when those mini corn ears turned out to have been smoked by themselves, they had amazing flavor!

For dessert Jameson got a poached pear with vanilla panna cotta, and I did the Derby's famous grapefruit cake.
Both were incredible, but I have to admit that the poached pears were better than the cake. The flavor was so complex, fall spices and smooth clean panna cotta...it was just WOW.

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With dessert, Dana brought us each a celebratory mini-flute of champagne!
We made a very grateful toast to our career successes.
Throughout the day we had been talkng on and off about how we felt, what these recent life-events mean for us, what our hopes and dreams are for the future. This whole day was absolutely perfect, and this exquisite dinner was the perfect way to wrap up a celebration of each other. We have both worked extremely hard. Life is unpredictable and things may still not go as we hope or plan. But we had today. We had this moment where both of us had something amazing to celebrate, and the means to make this memory, which will live with us for many years to come.

Probably the most memorable of all was getting the check for this extravagant dinner!
Here was the crest of the "karma wave" we'd been riding all day :)
We were Cast Members, so we knew we'd get a discount.
But I had also brought our Cast Member Dining Discount coupons, which range from 20% off up to 50% off of a meal in the parks. I asked our server if The Brown Derby accepted Dining Discount coupons, fully expecting that they wouldn't (they usually can't be used in the upscale restaurants.) She asked me to give her a coupon and she'd see if she could apply it. I handed her the 50% off coupon, because why not? If there was a time to use that one, it was now. Again, fully expecting her to come back and regretfully inform us that she couldn't apply it, and perfectly happy to pay with our regular discount.

To both of our amazement, she came back with the check and no coupon.
WE GOT 50% off our meal!!!
I couldn't stop smiling like an idiot. We quickly paid (I gave her a MASSIVE tip) and got out of there, joking that they'd probably chase us down for the rest of the bill!

We considered sticking around for the Fantasmic show, but it had been a scorching day and we'd been outside in 90-degree heat nearly the entire time. We were wiped. We drove home, happy and full and exclaiming over how exceptionally WELL this day had gone. I seriously felt that the universe was celebrating with us.


Tally of Awesome Things:


     - Excellent parking
     - A mere 10-minute wait for Rise of the Resistance
     - Getting to see Muppet Vision 3D one last time before it closed
     - Getting into the most exclusive bar in Galaxy's Edge with essentially no wait time
     - Getting "rescued" by an amazing Cast Member in the Smuggler's Run queue
     - VIP seating at the Beauty and the Beast stage show
     - Special seating, complementary champagne, exceptional service, and 50% off our meal at The Brown Derby!!!
     - Getting to spend an entire uninterrupted day with each other, and both of us in a good place in our lives.


To try and pay back some of the "karma wave," or "pay it forward," as soon as we got home I went to the Guest Services website and filled out a Cast Compliments form for both Elaney (the woman who helped us in the Smuggler's Run queue) and Dana (who went out of his way to make our evening exceptional.) When Cast Members receive kudos, they don't necessarily "get" anything other than a pat on the back and a certificate. But I used all of my skills with words and did everything in my power to show that these two really deserved recognition. So who knows...at minimum I hope they are touched by these words and proud to be who they are :)

Here is what I wrote:


"I have TWO cast Members to recognize!

"First was Elaney working on May 16 around 4pm at Smugglers Run. My partner and I had been waiting in queue, and he suddenly needed a restroom. But we were almost to the ride, and weren’t sure if we’d make it all the way back through the queue in time for him. I went looking for assistance and found Elaney, who guided us to a nearby restroom and waited with us to ensure our safety and comfort. We were then able to rejoin the queue and still ride the attraction. Elaney was empathetic, kind, and most of all she put our safety and health first. We appreciated her so much today, and really wanted her to know that and to recognize her for that.

"And next we have Dana at the Brown Derby. We made dinner reservations at this special restaurant to celebrate both of us recently getting amazing career advancements. We were wearing celebration pins, and Dana noticed and took time to inquire what we were celebrating. We told him, and he not only congratulated us and engaged us in a lovely conversation, he also seated us at a comfortable booth and arranged for us to each receive a flute of celebratory champagne to toast our success! The evening was already so special, but Dana went out of his way to make it EXCEPTIONAL. We will remember our fantastic meal at the Brown Derby for years to come.

"Both of these Cast Members showed us what it means to actively apply The Disney Way, and how that seemingly small extra effort can turn a guest’s experience into not just a day at Disney, but a treasured lifetime memory. As Cast Members ourselves, my partner and I were touched and inspired by the service we received from these two individuals today. We would appreciate if you could pass on our gratitude and thanks."

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If you've made it this far, congrats, you've probably met your reading quota for the entire day.

What can I say, today was incredible. We are both grateful beyond anything in words.
taz_39: (Default)
By the time you are reading this it will be May. (Unless you are reading this on DW.)

FINALLY.

April felt like it took forever.

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Monday. I was awake at 6am for reasons unknown. Tried to go back to sleep but was restless.
Having "too many" days off in a row does this to me sometimes. Guilt about not doing more with my time.
Also, specific anxiousness today about Jameson's Disney interview.

I could tell he was anxious too because while he didn't roll around in bed much, he did get up at 8am which is quite early for him.

I kind of wibbled around aimlessly today while Jameson worked. Went out to get bagels, listed one or two things for sale on Ebay, and that's about it. I didn't want to start bleaching the shower until after he'd left, same with practicing. We ate lunch together, then he got dressed in a nice black shirt and khakis and I hugged him and wished him luck, and he nervously made his way to wherever Disney Event Group was holding their interviews.

As soon as he left I got to work on the shower. Working with bleach is hell and a half, the fumes are horrific no matter what I do (had the fan on and the door open and left the room several times and STILL got a headache. But the stupid shower is clean.) Tried to practice but the headache made it difficult, then I was interrupted multiple times by people at the door and phone calls from my bank (investment surveys) and Place Cachee Jazz updates, so I finally gave up and called it quits after 30 minutes.

Jameson was home sooner than expected, and told me all about his interview. It seemed to go well, and he is feeling positive about it, but he is realistic in the understanding that he may not get the job anyway as there were many other candidates. I just want him to get a win for once. He's worked SO HARD.

He had to work some more and my headache was getting worse before it was getting better, so I laid down quietly to read my book while he tried to undo the mess his boss had made of his work recently. At dinnertime I felt much better. We went to Publix so he could get groceries and we could both grab dinner. There was an "LJ26" prompt which involved writing about holidays/celebrations, so I did that because it was a slow day and because I hope to wring another year of paid services from LJ despite not being able to pay for a dang thing :( I hate politics.

Around 8:30 poor Jameson's day was not over, he had sound check for his performances with The Hooligans at Epcot this week. Since I had been a good-for-nothing all day I continued the trend by lying on my stomach and watching anime until he came home.

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Tuesday, I managed to stay in bed until 7:30 but had still been awake at 6am.

Breakfast and packed meals for Epic tomorrow.
Practiced bass for a bit and worked on Foodie Finds.
Avoided eating lunch because I wanted to be able to eat more at Epcot later, so just snacked instead.

Around 2 I hit the road and went bouncing into Epcot. Yay!
CLICK HERE for video of the EPCOT fountain. Sorry that DreamWidth can't be bothered to allow embedding.

These half-fake topiaries are cute. I say "half-fake" because there ARE real flowers added to most of them, but they're mostly artificial.
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A dragon topiary outside Japan.
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I first went to Honey Bee-stro for one of the treats I wanted to try.
Honey-glazed Cauliflower with Honey-roasted Carrot Purée, Wild Rice Pilaf, Spring Vegetables, Honey-blistered Grapes, and Sunflower Brittle.
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Most foodie reviews I'd read had mentioned it, and it absolutely lived up to the hype.
If you're a fan of texture you'll love this. Crisped roasted cauliflower with a smoky, somewhat spicy seasoning; sweet juicy grapes; chewy and earthy rice; fresh veggies. And then the sweet and delicious carrot puree was like a sauce for all of it. All topped with crunchy, nutty sunflower brittle which I could have eaten an entire bag of by itself. So glad I read the reviews because this was totally worth getting!

Next I sort of backtracked because I wanted to ride Living with the Land.
I couldn't remember if I'd ever ridden it, and if I had it would have been when I was 12 years old.
The ride did seem familiar, especially the thunderstorm scene at the beginning, but truthfully I'm still not sure if that was my first time riding it or not!

If you've never ridden this one, it's just a slow relaxing boat ride through Disney's greenhouses and a whole bunch of faux "climate zones" such as a forest, a desert, a rainforest, and an American farm.

The faux landscapes, with little animatronic chickens and monkeys and whatnot, made me wonder how on earth Disney is going to answer to the cutting edge technology on full display over at Epic Universe. They will HAVE to DO SOMETHING.

That said, the greenhouse is very impressive. All the different gardening techniques on display, and REAL fruits and vegetables growing! I am still sad to have missed out on the giant tomato plant; in it's place was some sort of chayote I think? At least, that was the biggest vining plant that I saw aside from the cucumbers. Speaking of the cucumbers, they were GIGANTIC and very cool to see.

There's a Hidden Mickey in the shrimp tank as well! Ssssh.

From there I wandered a bit, enjoying the Garden Festival displays like a butterfly tent and the various floral installations.

CLICK HERE for some video

I had a glass of sauvignon blanc from Canada, and a strawberry nigori sake from Japan.
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For dinner I returned to Honey Beestro for the chicken & waffles.
The chicken was pretty standard, and it was a thigh which I was bummed about as it was more stringy and fatty than I would've liked. But the flavors were on point, especially the little dollop of honey butter on top and the slightly-spiced honey drizzle. Yum! The cornbread waffle had jalapeno bits in it and was VERY good.

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(photo courtesy wanderandwilde because I ate mine without time for a photoshoot)

From there I had to hustle back to the stage in America, which was all the way on the other side of World Showcase.
Jameson / The Hooligans had sets at 5:30, 6:45, and 8pm. I went to all of them and cheered as much as I could!

CLICK HERE for a short video of Jameson performing!

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Jameson's friend Tracy joined me for the last set, along with more friends whose names I don’t know. We had fun cheering together, and when the sets were finished we went to the American bar and each got a drink before the park closed.
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Wednesday, I was up sooo early for work at Epic.
Went to Whole Paycheck first for the few things I like to get from there, then as I threw my car in park at Epic, realized I'd taken my ID badge out of my bag last night, switching it out for my Disney ID...and had never switched them back. Argh! Had to text my manager and have him come rescue me. How embarrassing! (Literally this happens to everyone at least once though I promise)

From there it was a normal day. I practiced bass and made sure to drink a full bottle of water before my workday began since I'd been out drinking and tromping around in the heat yesterday. All of our sets went well, but now that it's Actual Guests in the park, we are already having problems with people walking directly onto our set WHILE we're doing a show. Today we had a drunk guy get behind us and start dancing, and at another set some kid was doing a livestream and started getting all up in our faces for it, and had to be threatened with calling security before he finally stormed off. One of our handlers also had to face an adult tantrum from a guest who refused to clear out of our performance space ahead of our set.

Watching people behaving as animals before the park is even open doesn't give me much hope for the future of humanity, folks.

But to be fair, MOST people were lovely, watched our set and enjoyed it, and seemed to be having a great day in this exciting new park. So that's good :)

When I got home Jameson was at his Epcot gig. I did laundry, packed meals for tomorrow, scraped my makeup off, responded to misc emails, and typed this post up. Now Jameson is on his way home and I'm splatted on the floor because it feels nice.


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Thursday:
Working at Epic followed by my last bass trombone lesson with Will.

Friday through Sunday:
Days off. I was able to get TWO Disney rehearsal days so there will be much tenor and bass trombone practice, cooking, and prep for tour.

taz_39: (Default)




The preview day that Jameson and I selected for Epic Universe was Saturday April 5th.

We got up a bit early and fought traffic to the guest parking lot.
(This is one thing that still badly needs work...it took us 20 minutes to get into the lot from less than a mile away, and the park isn't even open yet! I really hope they add more access points soon.)

As we were parking, my WhatsApp started pinging. It was my Epic Universe group chat.
The photo/media ban had been lifted! We were allowed to take pictures and video!!
And here I was pulling up to the park, ready for a full day of seeing it!!


I've never had much luck with money...but BOY do I have good luck with life experiences!!

As we were walking to the Chronos portal, parking employees and security guards and EVERYONE was shouting to guests, "The photo ban is lifted! Take pictures! Take video!" One even screamed, "Someone, take a photo of meeeee!!!"

Everyone has had to keep quiet for SO LONG. It's hard! I think we are all relieved and excited to share what we've been working on all this time!

The Chronos portal, the entrance to Epic Universe, and my first photo of the park!
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We walked in and were in Celestial Park, which is the hub where all the "world" portals meet.
Here there are gardens, lots of food options, rides, and kiosks for future shops (most of which are still closed.)
It is a very beautiful park, and has been well-documented already, so I didn't take many photos here.
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(stock image)

The primary ride offerings are the Stardust Racers coasters, and the carousel.
We watched the coasters for a while...they are beautiful to see, and I've heard that they're one of the best coasters Universal has ever done. I can believe it. The carousel was running, so we rode that. The animals are not attached at the ceiling, which makes for a really cool effect and you also go up higher than expected! The animals are all based on constellations. It doesn't move in a plain circle like a traditional carousel, either, and that was surprising and fun.

CLICK HERE to see my footage of riding the carousel


We continued to the Wizarding World / Ministry of Magic portal, because we wanted to grab a drink and catch my show's set before seeing the Circus Arcanus show.
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It was such a cool thing, to walk into this park as a guest for the first time.
Looking around...there was where we rehearsed for 3 hours one day because there were paint fumes where we normally rehearsed. Here's the wall I watched someone "age" for a week. There's the shop where we got to watch a magical creature animatronic being installed. It is truly such a special thing to have seen a theme park being built from the ground up!

Anyway, we first stopped at Bar Moonshine for a fancy cocktail featuring absinthe and limoncello (no idea what else was in it but it was delicious!)
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I could hear my group performing outside, so as soon as we had our drinks we rushed out.

For the first time: meet Phillipa, Chandler, Jules, and our puffskein named Plume!!!

CLICK HERE for footage of the band performing!


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(video and first 2 photos from Attractions Magazine, last photo from me)

I am SO GLAD that we don't have to hide our show any more!!!

These three (Mariah as "Phillipa," Adrian as "Chandler," Adam as "Jules") are "the PR Trio" that I've been talking about.
They're the three who are chosen to perform any time there's a PR event or Warner Bros. execs in the park. So of course they did an amazing job today!!

After they finished I was gratified to see one of our stage managers take a group photo of them and immediately share it on LinkedIn. The media ban is INDEED lifted. Hooray!
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(photo courtesy Brendan)

Soon, I'll have media of my own performances to share! How exciting!

We finished our drinks quickly and queued up for Cirque Arcanus.

Jameson in the queue. The theming of the queue gave us both a bit of nostalgia for our time with Ringling Bros.
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The show was, once again, mind-blowingly incredible.
I'll say it again: if you get a chance to visit Epic Universe, this show is a MUST. Make time for it in your itinerary.
The level of performance, and staging technology, happening in this show, is going to change the entertainment industry.

We explored some of the Place Cachee shops and mentally bookmarked some things that we might want.
We visited Cosme's wand shop so I could show Jameson the circus Ringmaster's wand, and introduce him to Cosme herself (all of the Place Cachee / Ministry of Magic performers share break rooms and dressing rooms, so I see all of the Cosme performers, Aurors, Exchange Students, Living Portraits, and Circus performers, EVERY day!) Cosme has a custom wand, and showed it to Jameson, that was super cool :)

We then used my wand to cast a few spells around the park, getting a niffler to drop it's horde of coins and making some musical instruments move around in a shop window!

From there we entered the portal to Super Nintendo World.
The last time I was able to go, the park was still heavily under construction. This was my first time seeing it complete!

CLICK HERE to see the portal to Super Nintendo Land courtesy Attractions Magazine

We saw that Mario and Luigi were out for a meet-and-greet, and only had to wait about 10 minutes for that!
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We explored the gift shops and saw LOTS of things that we wanted, but managed to narrow it down to a few things haha.
Since it was about lunch time we decided to eat at Toadstool Cafe.
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(stock image)

The theming in there is absolutely adorable. Every once in a while Bowser's flying battleship floats through and the lights dim, things become ominous, ADORABLE, then it moves on and the Mushroom Kingdom continues going about it's business :D

All of the restaurants in the park, by the way, are self-serve, which is SO MUCH FASTER.
There are QR codes at every table. You scan them for the menu, pick what you want, order it, and pay.
Done. No waiting for the check. No hoping your server heard you say "No mayo" above the racket. You just eat and leave when you're ready. We absolutely loved the convenience of this throughout the day!

Anyway, We got a bunch of foods to try!

Jameson had spaghetti and meatballs. I tried his meatball and it was delicious, tender and with a little bit of spicy heat (not too much, just barely noticeable and very tasty!)
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(LA Times photo)

I had the chicken Caesar salad, which I realize is "boring" but A) look at the adorable Super Star plating! B) I knew we'd be eating A LOT today so tried to at least be slightly healthy here lol.
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Mushroom-shaped "garlic knots." Very tasty!
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Our dessert, a Question Box tiramisu. The question box was shortbread cookies, and inside was an absolutely decadent and delicious tiramisu. We enjoyed it very much, and it looked so cute!
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We decided to walk our lunch off at Berk.
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(stock image)

This is the only park I'd never visited during construction, so I was very excited to see it. It did not disappoint! The theming is immersive and adorable. It's a land definitely geared toward a younger audience, but it is also beautiful and there's lots of people of all ages to enjoy. We tried to ride a Viking water boat ride/shooting game, but it broke down while we were in queue so we ended up bailing. Then we queued up for a Toothless meet-and-greet, which was going smoothly until a huge crowd of INFLUENCERS showed up with media passes and bogarted the line (-_-#) What started as a 15-minute wait became an hour.

But we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that once the park was open, the wait would be at least 2 hours long, daily. Not only that, during previews meal and merch prices are HALF OFF. There were only about 11,000 people in the entire park, across all the worlds. Every queue that we were in, every experience that we enjoyed today, was EXCEPTIONAL compared to what paying guests will have to endure. We made very sure not to EVER forget that, and be appreciative even while waiting!!

Finally, our patience was rewarded :)

CLICK HERE to see our meet and greet with Toothless!

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As you can see from the video, the level of expressiveness and interaction from Toothless is astounding. I know that he is controlled by a puppeteer, and also some of his sounds and expressions are controlled by someone with an iPad somewhere. Seeing al this artistry and tech come together in this experience was absolutely wonderful. We got to see several small children interacting with Toothless, and you could tell...they completely thought he was REAL. It's going to be a very memorable experience for kids and their parents, that's for sure.

We saw lots of other cool interactive tidbits throughout this world, including an Astrid and Stormfly meet and greet, and several fun statues that would move or make noise if you turned a big wheel at their base. I'm sure loads of footage will be forthcoming...we didn't take as much footage here because of all the media/press swarming around while we were in this world. I felt silly with my little phone while surrounded by people wearing stabilizers and high-fidelity mics and thousands of dollars-worth of media gear. Let them document this for you :)

We entered the Untrainable Dragon stage show. You can already see this show in its entirety on YouTube because it's in Universal Beijing. Jameson had seen it before, but I hadn't. Again, the technology and puppetry, animatronics and acting and staging, all made for an incredible show! In my opinion the Circus show is still "the groundbreaking one," but this show is also extremely impressive and well worth seeing if you can stand the wait.
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(stock image)

We wandered Berk a bit looking for the Mead Hall, yet somehow couldn't find it? Not sure what our problem was haha.
From there we went to Dark Universe for a cooldown and a drink. The Toothless queue had been in the sun for nearly an hour, and the show queue hadn't been much cooler. Stepping into Das Stakehaus, we were greeted by blessed darkness and cool air :D The whole ambiance is to make you feel like you're underground, among twisted tree roots and coffins shifting in the soil of the walls. The lighting is reddish and dim, and it flickers every once in a while whenever Frankenstein's daughter harnesses the town's electricity for one of her experiments.

In other words, it's a VERY cool restaurant!
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(stock image. I'm sorry for all the stock images but I was far more intent on enjoying my experience than being an influencer!)

Jameson had a spiced beer, and I enjoyed a Darkthorne Mead which was a very tangy, sweet cider featuring blackberries, vanilla, and spices. Jameson took a lot of footage here for his mom, who enjoys all things spooky.

Outside the restaurant it is quite themed too. Some vampires on display:
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As we were rounding a corner we saw Bride of Frankenstein doing a meet-and-greet! Couldn't resist!
We had a big ol' philosophical discussion. She knew right away that I was a musician....I wonder how.... ;)

CLICK HERE
 to see our interaction with Bride of Frankenstein


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I'm kind of going out of order here, but actually the first thing we did when we got to Darkmoor / Dark Universe was try to ride Monsters Unchained. I was very apprehensive about it, but Jameson really wanted to try it so I screwed up my courage.

Nothing to do with monsters....EVERYTHING to do with MOTION SICKNESS.

The queue was incredibly themed and amazing to walk through, I'm sure there will be MANY spoilers soon (HERE is one of the ride.) The preshow is apparently amazing too...but we didn't get that far. Right before the preshow is a holding area where they show you what the ride will be like...yikes. I could feel the blood draining from my face as I watched the seats jerk around, sideways and around and nearly upside-down. Nope. Even just 5 minutes of that was going to be too much. Universal is known for using high-res screens and simulated motion to create an immersive experience. This is not something that my brand of motion sickness can handle, at all. Jameson and I looked at each other, then backed out, following the single-rider lane out to the gift shop.

I'm sorry that we missed out, but also, crisis averted. This was a definite case of "know thyself." Many other people will greatly enjoy this ride. For us, it would have ended the day!

We returned to Super Nintendo World to ride some rides we KNEW we could handle lol.
The Mario Kart ride was awesome! First the queue, which was themed to look like Bowser's castle study. The second part was a factory for the Bomber Bills and Bob-ombs, I didn't record that part. Bowser's study was great, I loved the titles of the books, the Bowser-sized furniture, and the little Boos floating around!

CLICK HERE to see my footage of Mario Kart queue


The ride itself uses Augmented Reality, which is just so incredibly cool and immersive. It felt like you were really in the game at times! There probably won't be many POVs of this ride because cameras won't be able to focus through the AR goggles. If you've played Mario Kart, it's very similar. Jameson got 117 coins, I won with 132! TAKE THAT MUAHAHAHAHAAAA :p
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(stock image)

We rode Yoshi's Adventure as well. It's meant for little kids BUT is worth riding for the incredible view of Nintendo World. HERE'S a good clip of the ride in Japan, the one in Orlando is exactly the same.

We went back to the gift shops for the items we'd picked out earlier, then returned to Ministry of Magic for dinner.
Neither of us were deeply hungry, so we treated ourselves to butterbeer and butterbeer crepes.
I got to try the crepes during restaurant testing/rehearsal, but Jameson had never had them and he loved them.
Definitely one of the best dessert offerings in the parks!
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We cast a few more spells, including a kite shop spell that blasted air on us and a mysterious shop where a Demiguise apparated and then faded away. So cool.
We then walked the Ministry of Magic queue. The ride was not open (it's had troubles since day one), but the queue is so immersive, incredible, themed, and MASSIVE, you have GOT to check it out!

THIS Attractions Magazine footage is better than what I got, so check it out! Simply astounding.

We hit one more gift shop, then it was after 7pm and time for us to leave.

Wow.

Such an incredible experience, that we were grateful to have.
Being able to see and do as much as we did, without massive crowds and essentially for free/at significantly reduced cost, and with a fraction of the wait times, is something that will NEVER happen again in our lifetimes. This was an experience I'll never forget!!

Back home, I lined up our modest merch haul for a photo.
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Jameson got the Mario Kart magnets for himself.
He also bought me that Place Cachee picture frame shaped like the Phoenix Arch. He got it so I can put my first decent show photo in it. This was so thoughtful and sweet! I can't wait to find a good photo for it!

For myself, I got a Chain Chomp shirt and a matching Chain Chomp enamel pin (Jameson saw it at the register so I HAD to get it lol)
The Japanese text says "Wanwan," that's what Chain Chomp was originally called. "Wan wan" is the sound of a dog barking.

My wand is pictured just because I've shared it here in Friends Only posts, but not in public ones (I think.)
We also kept our Bar Moonshine cups as a sort of souvenir.

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I know I've said it like 80 times but this was such an incredible experience.

I know that the park will be packed and crazy and expensive the minute it opens. But in a year or two, if you have a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. There is no other theme park like it out there. Even with previews (not all rides working, not all restaurants and shops open) we had an incredible time, and this is going to be well worth a visit for anyone coming to Orlando.

Thanks for following my journey of working for Epic Universe, and getting to experience it!

Starting today, there will be LOADS of footage of the entire park.
The jig is up, the secret is revealed!

I cannot wait to work in coming days and see footage of our show popping up!!
taz_39: (Default)
Monday was a "day off."
I was supposed to be at Epic, but someone somewhere messed up our schedule and we ended up with two PAID days off. Whee!!

Jameson was up early for physical therapy, so I got up early too to finish transcribing.
I started off strong but after Jameson left I decided to vacuum, dust, touch-up clean the shower with bleach, then finally bit the bullet and went shopping on macofalltrades.com for a refurbished iPad.

I use my iPad for most gigs. Musicians can easily airdrop music PDFs to each other, and it's easy for me to upload big Dropbox folders to ForScore. Right now I have all of my Disney music on my iPad, plus my Easter gig music and Steamboat Lillies gig music, all of my bass trombone stuff, and a load of show music and ancient Real Books that I don't want to lose.

My iPad is an ORIGINAL iPad Air! It's so old that there have been no updates for it for a long time, and I have to keep it in Airplane Mode otherwise it will freeze up. But lately it's been freezing up anyway, and the battery barely lasts a full day anymore, and I can't even sell it on trade-in because nobody will buy it. Time to ditch it before it crashes and I lose everything.

Anyway, spent $$$ on a 13" Air, and was trying to go back to transcription when I got bombarded with texts from one of the musicians on the upcoming tour I'm signed with. She was having a freakout just like I had a few days ago!

Had I heard anything new?
Why don't we have music yet?
Have I tried reaching out to anyone?


I was delighted to hear from her! See, I'm NOT an overreacting Karen after all! Three months IS far too long to keep your employees in the dark, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

I was able to share with her all of the legwork I'd done recently, and though there was little to show for it at least there was the text from the Music Coordinator saying that I'm "confirmed" on Thursday. After chatting with her I also decided to message the trombonist who's currently doing our show in Australia to ask him for a pdf of my part. I didn't want to have to do that, but feel like if we musicians don't scrounge these parts ourselves, we won't see them until a week before the gig when management finally gets around to it.

After that it was time for lunch, then I had to cook some beef I'd thawed, then pack lunch and dinner for Disney tomorrow. Then I FINALLY got back to transcription, but it just took so much longer than usual...it's a different type of case so there was a lot of terminology that I had to look up because it was new to me. This is why you can't assume a shorter case will be easier.

Somewhere in there, my "church eggs" arrived from Zimmerman's in Pennsylvania!
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There were 18 eggs in total (I'd expected 16) and there were supposed to be 2 or 3 of each flavor from 2 different churches.
Somehow we ended up with 8 peanut butter eggs, 7 coconut eggs, and only 3 buttercream eggs (which is a big shame because those are my favorite!), and from 4 different churches to boot!
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I am definitely NOT complaining! What an adorable grab bag of eggs. The woman gathering the eggs for me had sounded excited and flustered over the phone, so I think she lost her mind a little bit and just started throwing eggs in the box :) I was impressed that they all arrived intact, and after a bit of time in the fridge to firm up they'll be ready to enjoy. I made sure to write the store a good review on Google. This is the first time I'll have real "church eggs" for Easter since I was a little girl, and I'm so grateful that this person was willing to send them to us.

Even after dinner I had to continue transcription, but finally completed it (there is still the audio review to do, sigh.)

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Tuesday, rehearsal day at the Magic Kingdom!


For a rehearsal day, I'm not filling in for anyone, so the day is based around any music that needs to be worked on or any practice that I want to get in on any aspect of the gig. We start with a 10am play-through of lesser-used pieces. Today we had two new ones which our boss wants to incorporate into the parades, "Heigh-Ho" and "You Can Fly." They were quite easy and after the play-through I decided to focus on memorizing them by the end of the day. I more or less did that (will have to solidify it in my head over the next few days), then went up to watch one of the band's sets, then filled in on the second parade for Keith.

I used the lunch break to practice bass as well, and that was very nice! Will was working today, so he kindly gave me pointers...I essentially got a free lesson!

After that, I decided to have a Small Adventure.
I've never walked the whole of the Utilidors below the Castle before. Why not give it a try!
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(photo from pinsacrosstheworld.com)

The Utilidors are one big loop around the castle, probably about a mile long, with a central corridor cutting directly under the Castle. Also, did you know that guests can tour the Utilidors? It's called the Keys to the Kingdom Tour.

Anyway, I walked for what seemed like a long time but was only about 10 minutes. Did not see much except the utility tunnels, storage areas, a lot of engineering rooms, lockers for custodians and other types of essential staff, and lots of signage telling you where you were and where you were headed. There were some boards with general announcements, about castmember events or health screenings or what-have-you that you might see in any workspace. I reached the midpoint/corridor that slices below the Castle, but passed it and kept going.

This next part of the circle was much the same as the first, but part of it broke off into a sort of attached rectangle with some interesting offices, like Retail Merchandise Design or the fire alarm control systems for the Hall of Presidents. Here is where I found a huge chunk of hallway devoted to rare enamel pins! Specifically, hidden mickey pins.
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(sample photo)



Hidden Mickey pins are NOT sold in the parks.
They are given to employees to give to guests during pin trades.
Since they are harder to get than the regular pins and a limited number are released each year, they are rare and highly collectible. And apparently, under Cinderella's Castle in the Utilidors, they keep the last several years' worth of hidden mickey pins on display!

I'm sorry I couldn't take photos, but rules is rules.

Additionally, there were many old black and white high-def photos of Walt Disney. Walking around the park, meeting with developers, waving to guests, hanging out with costumed characters, stuff like that. One of the funniest things about these photos is that Walt smoked, and was often holding a cigarette or cigar when these photos were taken...but in most of the photos they've been edited out!! I did find one, however, where he was holding a cigar :)
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(photo courtesy Snopes. I couldn't take a pic of the one I saw, sorry.)

There was other stuff too, little memorials to Disney's Fire and Police/Security staff, and some blueprints and robotic parts for Tiki Room birds, stuff like that. I'm really glad I went exploring...there were some MAGICAL things to be found in the secret tunnels under the Magic Kingdom!

I left before Flag Retreat, ate dinner in the car on the way home, and caught up with Jameson before buckling down to set up my new iPad. Look how much bigger it is than my old one! I can't wait to be able to SEE my music!!
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I transferred all of my music PDFs and ForScore files over...and just as I was doing that, the Australian trombonist who is currently playing the new version of the show I'm gonna be on, sent me a PDF of his book! Awesome! I can't wait to get started on it!

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Wednesday, finished my transcription job and sent it, then continued working on marking my music (highlighting mute changes, writing in cuts and edits given in emails, bookmarking pages for quick access during practice.) After lunch, grocery for dinner ingredients. I didn't practice because the next thing I had to do was watch a bootleg of my touring show and add timestamps. Without an official recording to practice with, a bootleg is the next best thing, and with timestamps I don't have to navigate a 2-hour video to find the one song I want to work on. It takes a lot of time now but is worth it.

Dinner was butter chicken meatballs, which I've made before, served with brown rice and peas.
After dinner, blowing more money on a decent saute pan. I recently bought us a cheap one and got what I paid for, the bottom is warped already. And then a case for the iPad too. As though to make up for my money flying away, our scheduler for Epic wrote to say that he needed me to cover an extra day in April. Yay!

All that aside, a quiet night. Jameson has been in a mood lately because he's covering for his boss at work, plus doing a special project, and he pulled something in his arm and it's hurting him. And he hasn't heard back from the Disney job he interviewed for last week either. Again. As usual. I'm upset for him. I don't know how to help him.

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Thursday:
Lesson with Will. Misc chores and practice.

Friday & Saturday: Days “off.” Should receive more transcription work, will practice and cook.

Sunday: Disney day.
taz_39: (Default)
Right before bed, another spoiler sent via a facebook friend:
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Finally @bioreconstruct and his helicopter have caught us in costume AND with our instruments!
We still did not have our prop, though, so that should still be a surprise for most people.

(I am still under the NDA, but at this point Universal has officially shared our existence and that we're a trio of musicians with a puffskein, plus I haven't had backlash for the other @bioreconstruct photos I've shared, so I will risk this and see what happens.)

Anyway, was up to do transcription. Finished one case and started another shorter case, which sadly had incredibly poor audio and was difficult to work through. This is why you can't judge a case by it's audio length; it may be a short clip, but the clip could be VERY complicated to transcribe. In fact I worked on it for the whole time that Jameson was at the gym, which was frustrating as I'd hoped to practice while he was gone, too. Ah well. Finished all of the transcription and now only have to review everything and ask my bosses some questions.

I also found a general store in Harrisburg, PA that was willing to ship me some church eggs!
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(stock image of peanut butter filled "church eggs")

The name of the store is Zimmerman's, which has been around since 1915 and always carries multiple churches' chocolate filled Easter eggs. The eggs are on preorder at most churches during Lent, so I knew I'd better try to get them now or never. The buttercream are my favorite but the peanut butter are awesome too, coconut coming in third :p I got two of each kind of egg from the top two popular churches in the area. Now they just have to somehow not melt on their way here. We'll see how they do!

And then when Jameson got back from the gym, I whipped up the Quaker Maple Bacon Instant Oats to try.
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They were surprisingly good! Weird, but good. No pieces of actual bacon or even fake bacon, just a sort of smoky aftertaste and smell. And the label says "made with MILK ingredients," so while it doesn't say what or how much, I have to assume that it's lactose or whey for sweetening purposes (many Quaker cereals are sweetened with whey concentrate.) Boo. Still, it was fun to try!

After that I went to the grocery for taco salad ingredients, and back home went for a walk. It was sunny and 70F with a brisk breeze and not a cloud in the sky. I'm surprised that we can still have days like this, this late in the spring in Central Florida. Usually by now I remember it being 10 degrees hotter. Not complaining. Didn't see anything special on the walk, it was just good to get some fresh air.

Finished transcription, got notification that the firefly petunias I'd ordered for family have shipped so I notified my fam and sent care instructions for when they arrive. Also ordered myself some vanilla lavender chai, a sample pack, because when I'm feeling anxious sometimes I buy myself small waste-of-money things online. I am anxious, btw, because I feel that I really ought to hear more about the upcoming summer tour, and am impatient to hear something and worried until I hear something. This is typical for me, and simply means that I'm impatient, not that anything is overdue or in jeopardy. Right.
..............right?

Taco salads were nice as usual. I had an Underberg afterward and that felt nice too.

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Had stress dreams, so did Jameson. His were about his job interview today. Mine, weirdly, were about the pork roast I plan to make today. In the dream I had to make it for a huge group of people and only had enough ingredients for Jameson and I. I've always been very stressy about cooking/baking so this is no surprise.

Mariah (one of the other Epic female trombonists) had messaged sometime in the night to say that her grandpa had passed away, and could Andrea or I fill in for her today. Technically I was free, but by the time I woke up to read the message it was 7:30am which is when I'd usually be leaving for Epic. Fortunately Andrea had apparently been up and responded at 6:30am to say she could do it. Anyway, not to be selfish but I really needed today to finish this transcription job, so I'm glad Andrea could do it. (Obviously if she hadn't been able to I would have no matter the inconvenience to me.)

After reading through those messages and eating breakfast I got a late start on transcription review, but plugged away until Jameson went to the gym, then ran to the grocery for ingredients. Back home, switched over to practicing because I did not practice at all yesterday and felt guilty about it. I haven't been memorizing my Disney stuff either, entirely because I feel overwhelmed about it, and because it's not something I was asked or required to do, just something that I took upon myself in case I was needed with our 2nd trombonist out with an arm injury. But it doesn't seem like I AM needed, I haven't been called at all and his subs must be covering for him. There goes my motivation for memorizing the 2nd part.

Well, I got in a good hour of bass practice then went back to transcription until lunch time when I prepared and seared the pork tenderloins and got them going in the slow cooker with peach jam, bourbon, peach balsamic, a bit of soy, molasses, spices, onions, and garlic. This is a photo from the last time I made this but it looks just the same. Also, it was so good that I did an entire post just on this recipe, HERE.


After lunch I made the slaw and some iced tea, and set Hawaiian rolls out to thaw.
Am I getting a jump-start on summer with this meal? Lol.

While doing all that, Keith messaged to ask if I'd cover at the Magic Kingdom for the next two Sundays and I said yes before considering that Mariah might need one of those days for her grandpa's funeral. So I quickly texted back and forth with the Epic Trombone Ladies, and it seems like we should be all right. Phew. I am grateful for the additional work, but in this particular situation I'd waive "Disney Priority" and help Mariah first.

I went back to transcription around the same time that Jameson began his interview with DEG. He was using headphones and had the door shut so I couldn't totally tell how it went, but heard him laugh a few times and speaking passionately about his work at others. When he emerged he told me it had gone well, and that he should hear more by Thursday, and that if there's another interview it will likely be in person. Fingers and toes, fingers and toes. Crossing ALL of our fingers and toes.

Back to transcription review until it was finished (yay!). Now all I have to worry about tomorrow is getting the frankenbone cleaned, practicing, and packing for Epic.

Before bed, received a startling offer to join an Asian tour of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!
This is my first international tour offer. Something that I've hoped and dreamed for.
And I will have to turn it down, because I've already said yes to another equally-dream-job tour!

How strange life is. A few months ago I was scrubbing toilets and selling hats.

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Wednesday, barely slept at all because my mind was racing about what touring Asia would be like, and from angst about not having heard back from the tour I've accepted. Now that this other offer has appeared, I would REALLY like for the other tour to confirm with me, again, that I'm signed with them, A) because they've been silent for 3 months exactly, B) because they haven't sent any paperwork or info as yet, C) because it would be the worst thing in the world to decline a job for another job and then find out you don't have the other job, and D) because I am the type of person who really badly needs legitimate reassurances, or something more than a verbal agreement.

I mean, unless something has gone horribly wrong, I am still slated to head out with the tour I've accepted.
But waiting to know FOR SURE makes me feel like someone is twisting a knife in my stomach.
Just yes or no, guys. Please.

The MD, bless his patient heart, did get back to me to say as far as he knows everything is still a-go.
That is indeed reassuring, but I'd also like to hear it from the music coordinator if possible.

Anyway, was up too early, ate breakfast, drove out to Pat's with the frankenbone.
He went to work on it right away, and I started the drive out to Clermont to kill time but he called to say he was done before I got there. Drove back and we talked about trombone nerd stuff for a bit, thanked him for his work, and drove home.

Where I proceeded to eat lunch, pack for Epic tomorrow, and screw up my courage to call the music coordinator. He did not answer so I left a message. And then I did nothing for the rest of the day because I felt discouraged, annoyed, and put out. I HATE being in limbo, it drives me absolutely bonkers. This should be a set job. I should not be fretting to this extent. But three months of silence plus having to turn down another offer, while trying to patiently wait to hear from someone...it's really, really hard for me in ways and on levels that I can't describe. It makes me absolutely squirm inside.

Jameson was also in a bit of a funk probably for the same reason, as he's supposed to hear back about his job interview tomorrow. We binge-watched three episodes of Traitors and went to bed early, knowing it would be hard to fall asleep anxious.

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Thursday:
Epic, followed by my bass trombone lesson. I hope Will isn't put out when I show up with my show makeup on lol.

Friday:
Epic again...and Jameson will get to see the park, and my show!!! I am nervous and excited. He will get to see more of the park than I ever will, too, and I'm jealous of that.

Saturday:
A day off. I'll have to do a lot of transcription.

Sunday:
Filling in at the Magic Kingdom. I'm looking forward to it.
taz_39: (Default)
Was up and out the door for Disney at 9am.

Before that, per the teaser posted by Disney Theatrical last week, here’s who they’ve chosen to be their Belle and Beast on the national tour: Kyra Belle Johnson, and Fergie L. Philippe.


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(media courtesy Disney Theatrical)

I don’t know either of them, but damn, beautiful humans and great singing voices.

At the Magic Kingdom it was business as usual starting with the morning parade, followed by a set. Both went just fine. A lot of people in the band are currently out sick or just now getting over misc illnesses, so I tried to put out good vibes and wash my hands frequently. I think it was a normal day, nothing to report except that I'm a bit rusty on this-and-that song, not surprising when one is asked to keep 20 pieces of music in one's head and pull them out only once a month or so. And I got in my 7 miles/17,000 steps.

Back home I packed food and a bag for tomorrow at Epic, and was going to practice bass, but Jameson said he felt dizzy and then spent the next hour or two throwing up :( He thinks it is food poisoning because he was feeling all right all day until dinner, but I'm keeping in mind that he's been feeling under the weather in general lately too and this could be one of the viruses floating around. When he seemed to have nothing left to "divest," I brought him ice water and a Dramamine and a bowl to puke into, and he got into bed. I dug out every anti-nausea thing that I could think of in the house, disinfected all the touch points that I could think of (doorknobs, light switches, remotes, fridge and microwave handles, countertops, etc), then spent two hours silently fighting anxiety as Jameson rested.

I am not a caretaker-type...and also, both my parents died of horrible illnesses.
Additionally, the trumpet player that I worked with on the circus had cancer and the final year before he passed, he stood next to me on the bandstand in terrible pain, and I cannot tell you what that put me through mentally and emotionally as there was nothing I could do but silently witness his suffering.

So when my loved one gets sick, my mind immediately jumps to the Worst Possible Scenario, and I am in terror that something awful is going to happen and I will be useless at the critical moment.

Therefore I was awake well into the night, and slept very fitfully in the guest bedroom, getting up every few hours to check on Jameson.
Oh, forgot to mention that today was Jameson's first day of physical therapy for his hand/arm. He said that it went well, and he's been given some exercises to do at home. He was supposed to have another session tomorrow but per the incident under the cut, he will be staying home and resting instead.

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Friday, I guess it's Valentine's Day. Not a very romantic one for us...poor Jameson.

I was up extra early so that in addition to getting ready for work, I could run to Publix for ginger ale, crackers, bread for toast, rice, low sodium broth, and applesauce with electrolytes added. (I'd have gotten Pedialyte too but Jameson can't have lots of salt so instead opted for the broth.) Before leaving for rehearsal I checked to make sure that he was all right, and left a note that if he needs me he should call right away.

Later on he was awake and well enough to do some work from home, and later still he was hungry and ate much of what I'd gotten for him. He said he wasn't nauseous at all any more, just shaky and exhausted. So it was food poisoning after all. Phew.

Meanwhile, my last day of full-time rehearsal at Epic Universe!!
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(image from discoveruniversal.com, artistic rendering of Ministry of Magic at night)

As I've said many times now, this has been an incredible experience.
I have memorized new music, and learned how to act (wouldn't call myself an actress but have done more acting now than at any other point in life haha.) I've met a lot of great musicians and great people. And I have been a part of the opening of a whole new theme park. Not many people can say that!

And now that that's said....I NEED A BREAK!

Our schedule was 9am-6pm every single day for the past five weeks, and for me it was 8am-7pm if you include the hour of commute time at each end. This left me with "Me Time" of 6am-7:30am each morning, and 8pm-10pm each night, with Saturdays off. That's it. Every other waking moment has been Epic Epic Epic Epic.

I need to catch up on chores.
I need to make us healthy meals (it's been over a month since I got to cook)
I need to prepare to go on tour, including learning bass trombone and scheduling bass trombone lessons.
I need to learn another trombone part/20 more songs for Disney.
I need to start transcription work again.
I need repairs on my car and around the house.

And loads and loads more things that I can't even think of right now because I'm exhausted.

I've gotten off track with griping there, sorry.
It was our last day of full-time rehearsals. I saw people in other departments getting weepy, but we were all very decidedly dry-eyed. Our whole troupe very much needs a break from this.

We slammed through rapid-fire show runs until lunch while a helicopter circled overhead. It was @bioreconstruct, a local guy who charters a helicopter to fly over the new park and get footage of the construction. I won't link to his accounts because he's peeking into the park without permission I assume, and with the NDA I can't share his footage. But it's easy to google him and find his videos yourself if you want spoilers.

After lunch we took a field trip....to SUPER NINTENDO WORLD!!!
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(artist rendering from WDWmagic)

I was so excited to come here! And it was better than expected!
While the park was still heavily under construction (especially the Donkey Kong portion) there were a lot of fun interactive elements that we got to try out. I can share more about this "world" because technically it already exists in Japan AND Universal Studios Hollywood, and there's loads of existing footage of what's in store.

We split into groups of 3 or 4, and each group was given a "power up band" which helps you to interact with objects in the park.


(borrowed from YouTube)

Even if you don't have the band there's still a lot to do...like punching the iconic question blocks, bricks, and POW blocks. I ran around punching as many blocks as I could until my hand was sore! They've constructed the bottom of the bricks to be very satisfying to punch, and the sound effects, as you can see from the video, are true to the game.

Additionally there were mini-games hidden throughout the park. A lot of these involved insanely hi-def interactive screens and effects, or required you to put in a good physical effort to get results. It felt like you were really IN a Mario game!

This video does a good job of summing up the mini games available. I played 2-3 of these with my group and it was awesome.



There weren't any character meet-and-greets yet, or live entertainment offerings (I mean the games ARE the entertainment) so once we'd done a round of games we returned to our own world breathless and happy. To be honest, this world was a bit overstimulating with all the music and noise and activity, but the fun factor made up for it!

We then slammed through a few more show run throughs, and before we were released for the day our show director gave a little speech thanking all of us for our hard work and reflecting on our rehearsal time together. He'll be back in a few weeks for brush-up rehearsals (because our important prop piece is not ready yet, I suspect, and he needs to train us on it) so this wasn't a goodbye, just a "Good job and see you again soon."

And finally, we were given permission to take a photo against the blankest of blank white walls that we could find!
So here we all are, everyone who was involved in this five-week rehearsal marathon for our show (name of our group is top secret and TBA)
Congrats on making it through, and here's to opening Epic Universe Ministry of Magic together!
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Back home, Jameson was recovering well and had done quite a bit of working from home! He has also booked a trip to Hawaii for a friend's wedding in September, which I'm VERY pleased about because he never takes vacations and he is so incredibly overdue for one. I told him excitedly about our visit to Super Nintendo World and as a gamer he was very jealous (sorry dear!) then I unpacked, practiced bass trombone, and we had a nice quiet night.

(Taking this opportunity to add that there's a Friends Only post going up alongside this one, with more "sneak peak"-ish things...)

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Saturday my blessed day off, but full of catch-up work.

I woke up too early but used the time to type this up and enjoy Me Time with coffee and breakfast.
Then laundry, and starting my newly-received transcription job, and when Jameson got up and went out for errands I vacuumed and cleaned our bathrooms and practiced bass trombone and packed for Disney tomorrow. More transcription after lunch, then we drove downtown to see Alton Brown at the Dr. Phillips Center!
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Jameson and I both enjoy competition cooking shows, so when he asked if I wanted to see Alton this weekend I was thrilled!

Finding dinner downtown on a weekend has become more and more nutty, even with more restaurants popping up. We tried a new Mexican place that looked nice, but after we were seated we were completely ignored for a solid 20 minutes. No water, no "sorry about the wait," no nothing. So....we left :p and probably won't be back. Instead we went to The Bao Spot, which is a weird little hole in the wall that is for some reason space-themed and where the food is served completely at random. We'd been here once before when going to see Peter Pan, and knew that even if service was lacking at least the food is awesome.

Jameson got his UFO burger 20 minutes before I got my bao, and was therefore completely finished with his food by the time I started eating. Also, since we'd sat around at the Mexican place for 20 and my food took 20 to arrive at the bao place, I then had to rush to eat so we could get over to the Phillips on time. Whatever, I had the soft shell crab bao again and it was fantastic, and tried a "cosmic fish" bao that was good but not as good as the crab.

Our seats were up in the balcony, but I'd never been up there at this venue and am always excited to see new stuffs. Plus, we could see the stage clearly and got to see the spikes on the stage for misc props.
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The show was basically Alton talking about parts of his life and career, and tying those parts in to food science such as thermodynamics and steam as vector for power. He demonstrated his favorite type of cooktop (carbon steel) by making an omelette right there on stage, and the grand finale was bringing four volunteers up on stage to do a steamed hot dog assembly line complete with condiments! That was hilarious and fun to watch, and fit the whole Alton Brown brand of food-humor. We learned a lot and really enjoyed the show, and I hope he's been having fun traveling the US and putting his knowledge and incredible life story on display!

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Sunday I woke a bit confused...Epic or Disney? Ah, it's Sunday, so it's a Disney day.

The normal morning routine, and I packed up my transcription stuff and brought it to the Magic Kingdom with me. I was surprised to see this sign on the door of the warm-up room:
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"Chickens" refers to the fluffy white plumes on the band's hats!
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The sign is telling us to take the plumes off our hats today because of the wind.
The plumes can go flying off, and sometimes bring the whole hat with it!

The parade was fine, our first set was fine. Between events I did transcription.
Our second parade was canceled because there was a guest band participating.
And then it was raining, so the second set was canceled as well.
And finally, we walked out to do flag retreat...and it started raining!

So, it was a very easy day. I was grateful...the guys were in a cheery mood because they got a break, and I got time to rest and transcribe.

When I got home Jameson was out with friends, so I did my usual thing of packing lunch/dinner, practicing bass, and I was gonna transcribe a bit more but ended up writing and posting this instead.

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Monday: Another day at the Magic Kingdom. It's not supposed to rain, but IS supposed to be in the mid-60s!

Tuesday: My first Epic Universe rehearsal as ONE trio, instead of all of us there at the same time. I wonder what we'll do?

Wednesday:
A day off!! I have so much to catch up on but it's gonna be a lot of transcription.
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On Sunday night after Main Street Philharmonic rehearsal, Jameson took me to the Be Our Guest restaurant at Belle's castle as an early birthday present!

Well, before that, our reservation was at 8pm so we had several hours to kill.

Right now it is between "tourist seasons," no major holidays going on, so foot traffic at the Magic Kingdom was fairly light. As a result we got to ride Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Under the Sea, and The Barnstormer in quick succession. Somewhere in there we used our castmember coupons to get a free pretzel and a bottle of water. I have been saying this since becoming a castmember, but what a thing it is to be able to just throw on my ID badge and walk around Disney at any time. What a massive privilege.

We arrived at Belle's Castle right as the evening fireworks were going off, which was quite magical!
ExpandBe Our Guest Restaurant )

Full and happy, we walked to the backstage gate that I normally use with the Main Street Philharmonic, then Jameson had to go to guest parking for his car while I slipped backstage, gathered my things from the band break room, and rode the company bus to the employee lot.

This was a magical night, and I'm so grateful. Jameson is very thoughtful...the best :)

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Monday it was back to the rehearsal grind.
Weirdly, despite all the pressure to memorize and learn quickly and do a zillion repetitions per day, it now feels like we are AHEAD. We're getting more breaks, and the focus is on small nuances of acting and doing full runs of the show rather than lines or the music.

We are still waiting on an important prop, and of course there will be more costume fittings. But...you guys, I think the show is SET. I think that if we had to perform tomorrow live in the park, we could all do it.

We did get to at least SEE our important prop for the first time, and it's beautiful! But there are still some kinks to be worked out in the design so we weren't allowed to mess with it just yet. Throughout the day we had several other casts walk through our "world," so each set of us got to do a full run with a real audience. All of the runs went great (there were some technical difficulties but OUR performances were on point.)

On the way home I stopped at Target because Tuesday is my birthday and I wanted to bring treats for everyone. I got mini sodas and seltzers, some chocolates, an assorted mini cookie tray, a tub of savory snack mix, and some fruit gummies. Kinda overdid it probably but whatever, we need a pick-me-up and any leftovers will be quickly snatched by the rest of the entertainment department.

At home I put everything away, packed breakfast and lunch, ordered dinner for pickup tomorrow, washed our bedsheets and put fresh sheets on the bed, emptied the dishwasher, showered, and typed up this post. By then it was 9:30pm.

I cannot wait for these full time rehearsals to be over.
Do you guys realize I've been eating dinner in the car, while driving, almost every day for the past three weeks?
Tired of it.

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Tuesday I was up 15 minutes early to allow for loading up the car with birthday treats, picking up my dinner (a Panera breakfast sandwich) and getting to the rehearsal building early to set up the treats. Everyone appreciated them :)
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We went out into the park as usual, but the vibe was kinda off today. It just seemed like a percentage of us were sort of...over it. Including myself. Our show director wanted new choreo for one section, and it was actually a really good change that had us moving more and being more dynamic. But we learned it almost all in one go, and personally I needed time to rehearse it in parts to be able to remember it all. Eventually we got it, though, and I'm looking forward to getting more comfortable with the new movements.

Nothing really to report...we're all just doing our best out here.

Back home it was bass practice, packing lunch, and a little chill time before bed.

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Wednesday, the only thing special was that someone left a bag of googly eyes out in our green room so I stuck one in the middle of my forehead. Because that's what you DO when there are free googly eyes.
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(Fun Fact: the background is intensely blurred because I took this pic in Epic Universe)

A lot of the actors were delighted and copied me...and so throughout the day I saw misc people walking through the park, practicing their roles, with googly eyes on their foreheads. It was pretty damn funny.

Other than that it was just another rehearsal day. We did some run throughs, had some audiences made up of other entertainers and/or construction workers. It's hot outside now so I drank lots of water. During the lunch break I went to Whole Paycheck since my only day off is Saturday and I won't have time for groceries otherwise.

Back home I packed breakfast, lunch, and dinner, practiced bass, had my hour to relax before bed.

Oh also...I have put googly eyes on my trombone.

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Friday: More rehearsal, of course.

Saturday: A day off. I'll catch up on what I can but need to rest too.

Sunday: Subbing with the Main Street Philharmonic all day.

TGIFebruary

Feb. 2nd, 2025 10:29 pm
taz_39: (Default)
Thursday's rehearsal was more interesting and dramatic than expected. Lots of ups and downs.
(DISCLAIMER: The opinions in this post and my blog in general are my own personal opinions and views, and do not represent or reflect the opinions or views of either my third party employer or Universal. There, I said it.)

REHEARSAL
We started off indoors running the script in groups a few times, probably because our show director had something to handle and needed to keep us occupied in the meantime. Then we went out to the park and set up in the same area as on Wednesday, not our performance area but nearby. We ran through the music about three times, then did run throughs of the show, then had to relocate to get out of the way of misc cherry pickers that were roaming around.

I might have mentioned that construction workers and other entertainers/departments often stop to watch our show rehearsals. Up until this week, we have been the only entertainers actually rehearsing in the Ministry of Magic world. I can see the enjoyment of people who stop to watch us, even though our show is incomplete and a bit weird without costumes/props. And afterward we always get LOADS of compliments...strangers are constantly coming up in the break areas or while we're walking through construction, to tell us how they enjoyed our playing. This is very gratifying. For one thing, pulling a theme park together is stressful for everyone involved and being able to provide a release from that to others, if only for a moment, is a wonderful thing. And second, it cheers me to think about what the guest reaction might be once the park opens!

THE DRAMA
After lunch there was a bit of drama because some of the shops in our "world" were open for test sales, and Universal employees were allowed to come shop there. Understand that this means people were being offered first access to exclusive, never-before-seen, limited edition merch created specifically for this theme park. If you're a Harry Potter fan, that's a BIG deal. So imagine how it felt to excitedly rush over to the shop for this special event, only to be told that because you're a "vendor" (i.e. third party employee), you are not considered a Universal employee, and won't be allowed to buy anything.

Several members of our cast are major HP fans, and so naturally, they were ticked. And frankly, I think they were right to be upset. It is obvious and expected that Universal employees will get perks above and beyond what third party vendors would receive. All of us understand that. But to flaunt that entitlement right in front of our faces today, by restricting us from the merch while Universal employees shopped right in front of us....I think you can see how this is tactless. They should have told us that we weren't included in this special event.

That experience left a sour taste in our mouths.
We were somewhat mollified, though, when we were instead offered the chance to taste-test some guest foods!

THE EATS
Restaurants in each "world" have rehearsals, too. They need to practice making the dishes, and wait staff need to practice greeting guests and reciting menu items and whatnot. And today we'd been rehearsing right outside Cafe Lair de la Siren, so we were invited in for an exclusive dining experience!

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(artistic concept of Cafe Lair De La Siren, where we got to eat today. Image from discoveruniversal.com via Universal)

Aaaaaand I CAN'T SHARE ANYTHING ELSE WITH YOU! Arrrrrgh. I am sorry!

Suffice to say the restaurant was beautiful (looks just like the above!), the food was very good especially DESSERT, and guests are really going to enjoy how immersive every aspect of this park is :)

MORE DRAMA
After that some of us were thrown right into a rehearsal "show" for a crowd of Universal entertainment employees and management. The group that performed did an awesome job. Then another group of us was asked to perform for some actors passing through. That group included myself, Rick (clarinet) and Brian (trumpet). It must not have been our lucky day, because one of the guys forgot his line and didn't realize it, which caused the next guy to mess up HIS line and say one for a later part of the script. I was able to clumsily "rescue" us by riffing for a bit until I could spit out a line for the correct scene, but it shook us pretty good and we went through the rest of the show very tense and not doing a very good job.

Afterward our show director had us talk it out: what had happened, why it had happened, ways that we might recover from such, plus encouragement and recommendations for how to move forward with future runs. I felt pretty disheartened and negative about it for about 15 minutes, then my brain whispered, "Hey! You're NOT an actor whatsoever! Remember?" and through that thought I was able to give myself some grace. I'd simply done my best. Brian was also very down on himself about it, so after the coaching session I turned to him and said, "Well, I think that no one can call themselves an actor until they've had an experience like that!" He laughed, and I hope that bucked him up a bit. Because it's true, every actor has bombed a performance, just like every musician has bombed an audition. It's going to happen, so imo just cringe when it happens and then pick yourself up and move on.

At home I told Jameson about the unusually eventful day. I packed lunch but didn't practice, as Thursday has been delegated No Practice Day, thankyaverymuch. Instead I gave my trombone a bath and chilled online while Jameson gamed.

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Friday, and I was so glad but dreading rehearsal because we'd been told to spend the entire day not as ourselves, but as our characters. This meant speaking with their accents, physically doing their mannerisms, and not saying or doing anything that they wouldn't say.

METHOD ACTING
It was HARD.
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I know that "real" actors do this all the time, in fact I've seen other acting groups doing it here already, as a group activity. At first I felt annoyed at having to do this, self-conscious and stupid...but then I sort of decided, ya know what, my character is essentially ME already, but with a French accent and without the goofy streak. She's sardonic, and sarcastic and dry, because after all she is FRENCH and also a 1920s female trombonist who has to be witty to survive. But she is also warm toward her fellow musicians, delighted by new things, and interested to hear what others have to say. With a foundational character in mind that IS rather close to my own personality, it became easier to BE HER all day.

Maintaining the new way of speaking for eight hours straight was difficult, and made my mouth tired! But when the show director called me by name ("Hey Megan, you're up next") I simply ignored him, or asked in a French accent who he was looking for, or if he had mistaken me for someone else. And he and I have already been snarking back and forth in general (we have a lot in common so get along well), so now I just did it with a French accent and with sayings that my character might use. It was easy, as I've had a lot of practice snarking at men :p He tried to trip me up and catch me as Myself several times throughout the day, but never once caught me being Me.

By the end of the day I was one of just two cast members who hadn't broken character all day, which is not really an accomplishment but it pleased me anyway. When the director said, "Ok, go home and have a great weekend!" I immediately popped back into Myself, yelled "WOOT, see ya later b*tches!" did a goofy dance and ran away, which got a big guffaw out of my peers. The show director said, "There's Megan! Where have you been all day?" :p :p

OTHER THINGS
Aside from "being our characters" all day, we did several runs with or without audiences just depending on who was walking by. I was very lucky because during my show a group from Celestial Park was walking through, and there were my friends Lea and Meka! Both are dancers/entertainers for that "world" and are also in rehearsal. When I was done I made sure to hug them both and catch up a bit. We didn't get much time but Lea was seeing Jameson later for drinks so certainly I'd get The Tea later.

The Ministry of Magic is really starting to come together around us.
So much more signage and decor than there was last week, and all of the animatronics and "fantastic beasts" seemed to be going at once today, they are probably testing those extensively. We are also finally starting to see other Ministry of Magic performers actually in the park (up until now most groups have been rehearsing indoors) so that was very exciting, for us and for them!
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(mooncalves being fed, Fantastic Beasts movies)

During my lunch break I saw that the drive to Whole Paycheck was just 12 minutes (in the evening it's 25-30) so I decided to get over there and buy the wings to save myself from fighting traffic at night. It was a good choice, and nice to just be able to go straight home after work today.

During a lull between run throughs our show director took us to the cafe and bought us each an ice cream or cookie, and thanked us for doing a great job, naming each of us and saying something positive about how each person has grown or improved over the past three weeks. He says that at this point he's very happy with the show, and for the final two weeks it'll just be touch-up stuff and minor changes. We are still waiting on props that we'll be using in the show, and probably more costume fittings, but the foundation of what this show will be has been established. That's very exciting, and I hope that we'll have a lot to look forward to after rehearsals are done.

I forgot to mention yesterday that the Ministry of Magic merch, and the general vibe, is AWESOME.
Of course I can't give details, but will say just this:

Think of the Roaring 20s fashions in Paris and America.
Then add a Wizarding World twist (robes, wands, fantastical creature patterns, etc).

Yep.
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Back home I put the groceries away, played bass trombone for 30 minutes, typed this up, and tried to stay awake past 10pm. Jameson was out with Lea and we caught up when he got back home.

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Saturday I was up relatively early to return the bass trombone case to my friend Bill, who had repaired my bass when it showed up damaged over Christmas. I was supposed to bring him homemade caramels, but there has just not been enough time to make them due to the setting, cutting and wrapping that's required. He'll get them eventually, just not today. We chatted for a bit, just general trombone nerd stuff. Then I left and hit Publix for a few things, then back home to wolf down lunch and practice trombone.

Packed a bag and a meal and an outfit for Main Street Philharmonic rehearsal. I feel like I've neglected the music for this gig, and feel guilty about it. But it can't be helped with all that's going on.

In the evening I made air fryer wings and Jameson ordered a pizza. I did laundry, we watched The Traitors, he gamed.
I watched several episodes of From the New World(Shinsekai Yori) which is a criminally underrated anime that feels appropriate in these times.

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Sunday, Main Street Philharmonic rehearsal!

I was up early to eat brekky and pack meals for Monday since I likely won’t want to do that tonight. Drove to Disney and walked the Utilidors under the castle for the first time in a while.

I watched the band’s first set since they were doing the Classics Medley, which is one I struggle with.
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Ate lunch and then practiced for the second set and parade (I did the parade last week,) then did the third set with the band. Chatted with the guys throughout the day and got all caught up on their doings.

I went out to watch them do flag retreat, and as they were finishing Jameson met me and we headed toward the castle.
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We had three hours to kill before our reservation, so went on several rides and had some snacks to tie us over.

I’ll share what we did and how the Be Our Guest Restaurant was in the next post :)

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Monday through Thursday: more Epic Universe rehearsals. Practicing my Disney stuff a bit extra to make sure I’m prepared to sub for Keith on Sunday. Not much else!
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Well, let's see what (if anything!) I can share about Epic Universal rehearsals without violating my NDA!
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I was up at 5am to work on transcription. I'll probably have to do that again for the next two days, so I'll be an awfully tired wreck by Thursday. Oh well, suck it up buttercup. Left at 7:45 and drove to the address I'd been given for rehearsals.

ExpandRehearsal Day 1 )

It was a very, very long day. Exciting, fun, stressful, informative...and long.
Afterward I drove to Whole Paycheck (it's right down the street from the new park) and ate at the hot bar, picked up a few things for packed lunches, and drove home. Told Jameson all about my day, unpacked, packed a new lunch for tomorrow, did a load of laundry, set me clothes out, showered, typed up this blog, and CRASHED.

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Up at 5am again, transcription. Submitted my first job and got through about half of the second job, so I may actually be able to finish it all tonight (though I won't submit it until Thursday, otherwise they'll send me another.)

Off to Universal. Another very full day of rehearsal, split with the first half of the day being music run-throughs and the second half working on the script and characters.

At the end of the day we had a sort of "situation meeting" in which availability and pay were discussed. Not going to lie, it wasn't the most reassuring meeting. But I'm gonna have to trust that our needs are being considered, and that things will work themselves out.

Ate at the on-site cafe and it was pretty good (got a personal pizza made fresh!) Will probably eat there again tomorrow for dinner.

Back home my bass trombone case arrived, and OF COURSE it doesn't fit my trombone :(
I will have to figure out what to do about that. The seller will let me return it but I certainly don't have time to deal with it this week.

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Wednesday, I didn't have to get up quite so early and that was nice. But I woke up on the wrong side of bed, mostly from the stress of managing multiple jobs plus these rehearsals and worrying about scheduling.

Rehearsal today involved run-throughs again, and a lot of time with the script and practicing timing and movement.
We also got to meet a VERY special person who will be a part of our show.....and I SO WISH I could tell you about it!! But I can't!! ARRRRGH

As the day went on my bad mood wore off. I was excused from transcription for next week, and we are expected to get full time rehearsals again, so that was a big relief.

Back home, my enamel pin had arrived, so here is my merch!
Thermal "Opening Team" mug, Epic Universe lanyard, and the enamel pin
(which was bigger than I expected but looks so cool on the lanyard)
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The Opening Team/Team Member enamel pin, which is much smaller. It's on my purse next to my Main Street Philharmonic Mickey pin.
Maybe they will fight to the death :p
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And, I realized that my bass trombone DOES fit in that case!! I have to take the longer tuning slide off, but it will definitely fit. I feel like an idiot for not realizing this but one generally doesn't have to dismantle their horn to that level, usually. Well, I'm willing to do it so I can keep this case. It'll still need some mods but this is manageable.

Bell in the case:
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The case, screenshot of the ad because I forgot to take a picture because it's been an exhausting week.
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And finally....Jameson got his stitches out!! Yay!! He can start physical therapy in a few more weeks.
Meanwhile he's very happy that he can sleep normally without being so cautious of the stitches.

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Thursday: You guessed it: more rehearsal! I am blessed :)

Friday: Rehearsal again!

Saturday and Sunday: Catching up on house chores, starting memorization of lines and music, and hopefully cooking us a meal.

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So much happened. SO MUCH.

JANUARY:

Started the year with a layoff from
My Fair Lady (I can't believe that tour happened this year?! It feels like ages ago!) During the layoff I got sick with a flu, and so was feeling crappy and on misc medications when I experienced The Worst Travel Day of My Life.

TL;DR: tornado weather in NOLA, and our plane tried to land in it twice before finally giving up and rerouting to Tallahassee. From there the touring company expected us to fly out the next day...by which point the tornado weather would be over Tallahassee. Being sick, on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to flight anxiety, and not interested in an incredibly turbulent flight again, I dug into my own wallet and paid for a rental car (which turned out to be an excellent choice.)

Here is Jim (Production Management) holding my trombone at the NOLA airport where it magically appeared on the same night that we were rerouted.
 
Jim (Production Management) holding my trombone, which somehow landed in NOLA on the same night that we were diverted to Tallahassee.
 
Also in January, I gave my first-ever masterclass in Columbia, SC! Talking to a group of students about what it's like to be a touring musician, tips for how to get into that line of work, and Q&A ranging from health on the road to favorite anime to watch. It was a very rewarding experience, and I hope to do that again someday.

FEBRUARY:

Getting to spend my birthday week with my stepmom and sister in Pittsburgh!
 
Stepmom, me, and sister Kate :)
Later in February, my siblings arranged a 40th birthday trip to Mexico for us! An amazing treat, and finally an opportunity for Jameson to meet my wonderful siblings. All of us together :)
 
My siblings, Jameson, Jonah's girlfriend (now fiancee), and I.
Another magical experience on the Mexico trip was a visit to Rio Secreto, an underground river and cave system. We weren't allowed to take photos, but here is a stock image. If you're ever in Mexico this is a must-see.
 
Rio Secreto stock image
MARCH:

It was women's month (or something like that) so the
ladies of the pit orchestra got together for a photo. In touring shows, having six women in the pit is exceedingly rare.
 
Left to right we have Eileen (French horn), Victoria (Flute/reeds), Amanda (Violin), Me, Ellen (Cello), and Laura (drums).
We had an incredible sit in Chicago during St. Patrick's week. I was able to visit Eataly, experience "omakase" sushi for the first time, eat "omurice" for the first time, shop at an Amazon GO, visit a massive 3-story Asian grocery, and try a fantastic flight of Russian vodkas! And much more :)
 
The river dyed green for St. Patrick's Day in Chicago.
Almost forgot to mention that in Albuquerque New Mexico, I got to visit with my dear childhood friend Lauren, and spend time with my stepsister Kayle and her beautiful children!
 
Lauren and I. Lauren is a violinist and has taught hundreds of students in the Southwestern US.
 
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APRIL:


Visiting the Pacific Northwest for the first time.
Seeing the incredible Spokane Falls. (CLICK HERE to see the video, LJ won't let me embed.)

Other April events: finding out that I'd be
sublisted with the Main Street Philharmonic! Getting and then losing a digital court reporting job (they required certification and couldn't be bothered to tell me that before offering the job.) Meeting an LJ friend, geminiwenchgeminiwench . And the end of the My Fair Lady tour. The show had been expected to continue on to China, but Annie the Musical took that slot instead.

A goofy photo on stage:
 
Goofy faces
Photo op at the closing party :)
 
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And back home, my beautiful
vanilla orchid bloomed for the first time :)
 
'nilla orchid blooming!
Finally, Jameson took me to Disney's Animal Kingdom for the first time this month! There were many wonderful things about this visit, but what I remember most is getting to meet the cast of the Finding Nemo live stage show. Amazing!
 
Fishy faces :3
MAY:

Filling in on a
Florida Orchestra pops concert! It's been a long time since I did a symphony gig, so this was a very big deal for me.
 
Low brass section
Also during May 2024, my first performances as a substitute musician with the Main Street Philharmonic at the Magic Kingdom. This was...I hardly have words for how I felt. I have dreamed of performing for Disney since I was in high school, and here at the age of 40 it finally happened. It felt like a miracle.
 
Keith (the full time 1st trombonist) and me (his sub.)
A short reel of highlights from my first full day as a trombone sub in the park. Jameson got sunburnt, following us around all day and making sure to take footage. What a hero!
 
JUNE:

A happy month for me, with
Main Street Philharmonic rehearsals or sets around once a week. Later on we'd find out that the budget had been cut and I'd get far fewer calls. But I was grateful for the time that I got with the band.
 
Marchy march
JULY:

I was
sublisted with the Orlando Philharmonic, an orchestra I've been trying to get into since moving to Orlando six years ago.
I also lost my data entry job to AI, tried my hand at being an Uber Eats driver, and a few weeks later was hired part time at a Disney Springs hat shop. Got a firefly petunia (genetically engineered to glow in the dark.)
 
It looks ratty now but JUST WAIT.
Ate at Skyline Chili for the first time too!
 
Chili dog, red birch beer, cheesy fries!
AUGUST:

Hurricane Debbie, which blew through with minimal damage to us here in Central Florida.

In addition to the hat shop job, also started doing Papa Pal, which is a service to help the elderly with housekeeping, errands, and companionship. It was often difficult or emotional work, but fulfilling and paid pretty decently too.

SEPTEMBER:

Getting used to work at the hat shop, and taking
Hat-A-Day pictures in the back stockroom.
 
One of the better Hat-A-Day photos
Finding out that I'd be going on tour with Elf the Broadway Musical!
Going to
Universal's Halloween Horror Nights with Jameson!
Disney's Food & Wine Festival
at EPCOT for the first time, to see Jameson perform:
 
Hot stuff!!
Started my federal transcription job. I was so nervous! Still kinda am haha.
Got ready to harvest my bananas!
 
Banans.
Just two months later, and the firefly petunia was in full bloom and glowing SO BRIGHTLY. I was using it as a nightlight.
 
My preciousssss
Hurricane Helene, which again did not impact Central Florida too badly but was devastating to coastal areas :( All we had was a few tree limbs, debris, and this adorable baby turtle who got blown up onto our screens.
 
OMG so cute
OCTOBER:

Hurricane Milton
. It's been a stormy season. This storm was the scariest of those we've endured, howling winds and damage to trees and some house fixtures, but overall we weathered it very well.
 
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I was able to harvest my bananas right before the storm, and they were excellent.
 
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Continued work at the hat shop and Hat-A-Day:
 
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Voting. Not that it did any good, apparently.
 
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Kicking off Elf the Musical in Richmond, KY.
 
Swag.
NOVEMBER:

Getting some cool new
Delta trading cards:
 
Insert picture description
Jameson started rehearsals and performances of Jollywood. He also decided that he's going to have surgery to address the nerve issues and atrophy in his right arm.
 
Jealous that he spends time with these ICONS.
Pretty much my only Foodie Find during the Elf tour was this Japanese grocery in Stamford, CT. I could have happily eaten there every day.
 
Eel bento. So good.
An insane 48-hour journey in which I flew from Red Bank NJ to Orlando for Candlelight rehearsal, then flew out at 5am to Milwaukee for an Elf performance same-night. And all I got was this (pretty cool) enamel pin!
 
Insert picture description
And then, Thanksgiving and going to see Wicked with Jameson and his parents in Milwaukee!

DECEMBER:

Elf went down to NOLA, where I didn't see much due to loads of transcription work, but got beaned by this
cute Etch-A-Sketch prop in the pit!
 
Wanted to keep it but they took it back. Killjoys.
Completed 10+ transcription jobs. Jameson and I both got rejected from misc jobs and auditions that we were really looking forward to :/ Many times on this tour I was given my own dressing room, which is very rare and thus worth mentioning. Held a cacao pod for the first time.
 
If I even knew where to start with one of these I'd get one
Got to visit with my incredible, beautiful Aunt, my mom's sister. I love her so much.
 
Insert picture description
On December 19th I got some incredible, incredible news which I can't share yet, but hopefully soon. Unexpectedly bought a bass trombone. Met a facebook trombonist in person by complete happenstance. Flew home to spend Christmas with Jameson, then drove up to Charlotte to finish the final shows of Elf the Musical.
 
It's been QUITE the year. Mainly lots of musical opportunities resulting from onboarding with Disney via Candlelight in October 2023. Going on tour with My Fair Lady was a great experience, and getting to tour with Elf was also an unexpected pleasure.
But music is not very lucrative, and financially I was a bit in the doldrums this year. Really hoping to pick myself back up in 2025.

Plant-wise, watching the vanilla orchid bloom and eating bananas that I've grown myself were the definite highlights!

Where Jameson is concerned, his year was not nearly as fun as mine. I'm hoping that 2025 will be kinder to him, and will reveal opportunities and new paths for him.
Thanks for joining me for 2024. Here's to a great 2025 for all of us, wherever we may be, whatever our circumstances. <3

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After breakfast I got bundled up for the cold and hoofed it over to the nearest Bank of America, about a mile away.

I went there for a "banker's check," because the person I'm buying a bass trombone from would like to be paid that way. He lives in California, so the trombone will have to make it intact all the way across the country to Florida. It's a $,$$$ check and it made me cringe to spend that kind of money. But if I get the gig I'm hoping for, I'll get that money back and then some.

After that, walked to a Salvation Army nearby and had to wait outside for 15 minutes because I got there too early. Stamping my feet in the cold and pacing like an idiot. Finally they opened, and I warmed up and enjoyed browsing for nothing-in-particular. I'm always on the lookout for new khakis (I only have one pair left and they're very old) and black dress shirts, but I never find these things. Instead, look at this FABULOUS shirt that I found!
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It's hard to see in the pic, but it's a dark blue stretchy fabric with sparkling stars all over it. The stars sparkle silver or multicolored depending on light. It was only $4 so I bought it, and we'll see if I actually drum up the guts to wear it in public.

Walked back home, and on the way received some ASTOUNDING GOOD NEWS which I can't share yet but if you're an LJ Friend you know what it is! For now I can only say that it's a life-changing job opportunity, and I DO need that bass trombone after all! Overwhelmed with this, I unpacked my things and ate lunch in a daze, then started a load of laundry and spent much of the afternoon trying to gather my thoughts.

The evening show was fine, as far as I could tell. I am in the women's dressing room this week, and while I enjoy having my own space it's also nice to sit with a group of women, chat about this and that, hear everyone's plans and upcoming auditions post-tour, stuff like that.

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Friday, I could hardly sleep at all because every time I woke up my heart and brain were racing with this new job opportunity and what lies ahead. I'll tell you this much, it's another tour. And so I had an insomniac sort of night of randomly reading a book or googling this and that to try and lull myself back to sleep.

Breakfast and only a few free hours before we had to commute to the theatre for the first of two shows. I was extra-hungry so ate a Pop Tart. Show was ok but the audience was lame, very lukewarm.

During the break I stayed at the theatre and “air-tromboned” the music for my next tour. I’ve played through it before, but now that I know I’ve GOT the gig, it feels different. I’m making it “mine,” if that makes sense. A really nice feeling.

The evening show was all right, all of our shows are well-attended right now in the lead-up to Christmas.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday morning was more exciting than expected.

Upon checking my email, was shocked to see that I'd been offered a callback on a recent audition that I took...

...yeeees, the one that I'd assumed was a public rejection, after they posted a new audition listing and started specifically looking for "female trombonists" only AFTER I'd sent my materials in. Now I guess I have to open mouth insert foot on that. The callbacks are in early January. I won't be able to access my other trombones or audition materials until the week of the audition. Which isn't a problem per se, but it means I'll have less time to work on preparing than many others. But I will do my best.

After that exciting news I walked to Shapiro's for black-and-white cookies for the band. And more excitement happened!
The cashier's name was Greg, a really cool guy who was over the moon about the fact that I'm a trombonist visiting on tour. He hooked me up with a dozen fresh cookies, and also this fabulous Shapiro's Deli shirt with a pickle on it!!
thumbnail_IMG_9970.jpg

As if that weren't amazing enough, as Greg was excitedly pelting me with questions about touring and tromboning, someone came up behind me and said, "Excuse me, but are you talking about trombones?" It was my facebook friend and fellow trombonist Josh! We've never met in person, but he knew me right away (I think it's the iconic raspberry pea coat that I wear everywhere) and we got to hug and take a quick selfie. What are the odds that we'd both be in the restaurant at the same time, on the same day? How cool!
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We wished each other well on our respective gigs (He's doing a local production of "White Christmas") and chatted a bit about bass trombones since I'm buying one and he's primarily a bass trombonist. But we both had to be on our way after that. Great start to the morning!

We had two shows again, and I stayed at the theater again between shows to eat dinner and "air trombone" my new tour music. I would've liked to explore Butler University's campus, but it has been bitter cold here plus most of the buildings are closed for the weekend/holiday already.

Both shows went well and were well attended. We can probably expect some nice overage pay from Indianapolis!

Also, tonight marked the final performances of Jollywood at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
I wish I could have attended at least one show, but it wasn't meant to be this year.
Congratulations to the cast, crew, and Muppets involved. What a fantastic production to be a part of!
And of course, special congrats to my dear Jameson (pictured here with his friend and fellow performer, Lea)
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------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, I had gone to bed late because someone in the room above me was stomping around like an elephant until 1am :(
And also got up early because that's how I am :( :(

Made the best of it by packing lunch and dinner, eating breakfast, partially packing my luggage, and starting a new Megan's Foodie Finds for the next tour :) When the sun came out I bundled up and walked to CVS for a protein shake because I shorted myself one this week, plus I feel like I've been too sedentary because of the cold.

At the theatre, our two shows felt very long indeed. The vibe, from everyone, was wanting a break and wanting to go home and see family for Christmas. Still, both shows went well and nothing crazy happened. For the first show Mr. and Mrs. Boyce (Jameson's parents) showed up with Jameson's brother Kevin and his wife Debbie. We got to chat briefly afterward, and it was really great to see them and give hugs all around :)

After the second show I felt very impatient for my carpool to hurry up and pack (I'm always the first one out of the pit) but made myself relax. A few more minutes doesn't get me to Orlando and Jameson any sooner. Before I knew it we were back at the hotel.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow I'm flying with the tour to Charlotte, which for me is a layover and for them is the final city on tour.
From there I'm flying to Orlando to spend as much time with Jameson as possible over Christmas.
I'll be driving back up the east coast on Christmas Day to Charlotte, where Elf will have it's final shows.

Monday:
Travel day, last-minute Christmas shopping

Tuesday: Christmas Eve Day, probably unwrapping presents with Jameson and having a nice dinner together

Wednesday: 10-hour drive to Charlotte
taz_39: (Default)
A travel day to Indy. The usual, a morning bus and some flights.

I have run out of masks a bit early due to giving some to others over the course of tour.
But I am not upset, because now they've got FESTIVE masks at the airport! Look how cute!
thumbnail_IMG_9948.jpg

Do masks actually help one avoid getting sick? I am not sure. But wearing one among massive crowds of people coming from all over the world, at a time of year when viruses love to rear their heads, seems like a sane idea. Of course, I can just as easily get sick from going out with my aunt and uncle for dinner a few days ago, unmasked. Shrug.

I was stressed/anxious again on the second flight because the pilot was very worried about turbulence. It was great that he was communicative--I would rather know what he knows than get scared witless halfway through a flight--but because I'm a worrywart, I spent the first half of the very calm and just fine flight bracing as though we might flip upside down at any moment. Ridiculous. Even in the moment I know it's ridiculous, but once that fight-or-flight switch is flipped it's really hard to shut it back off.

Anyway, I was fine but extra-exhausted from being in High Stress Mode for the entire flight like an idiot.

We are staying at a TownePlace, which is a GREAT hotel because it's set up for extended stays.
That means larger rooms and full kitchens!!!
thumbnail_IMG_9949.jpg

Wow, a real fridge! I still will only have a small amount of food in there, but now I can get FRESH VEGETABLES without them being ruined by a cheap box fridge (there is something about the way mini fridges work, that causes fresh veggies to freeze and be ruined more often than not.) AND there was a Whole Paycheck in walking distance, so off I went and got many nice things for the week including lemon rosemary chicken, my favorite Koia protein shakes, a local canned coffee, and many nice veggies like salad mix and a cranberry butternut squash salad.

Back at the hotel I unpacked and was able to drag myself through another chunk of transcription before going to sleep.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, up a bit later than planned but that's not surprising after a travel day.

Breakfast and transcription. The hotel breakfast leaves something to be desired (the bagels are VERY stale) so in the afternoon I walked to Shapiro's, a Polish deli just a block from the hotel. Not only do they have fresh bagels, but also a cafeteria-style setup serving classics like heaping corned beef sandwiches, matzo ball soup, pastrami, and more. They make their own black-and-white cookies as well. So, I'll be back, probably on the weekend. Bagels obtained: blueberry, rye, and cranberry pecan.

Back home I finished transcription and started on transcription review, but we have a long commute to the theatre this week and soon it was time to go. We're playing a theatre on the Butler University campus, and it's "ok" but rather dated (60s I think?). The pit is in front of the stage, which is wonderful because finally I'll get to see most of the show!!!
thumbnail_IMG_9952.jpg

It was hard to play through the show without getting distracted, trying to watch what's going on on stage while not losing my place in the music. But actually, we all did really well, it was one of the band's better shows. I sort of wonder if it's because we can feel connected to the actors AND the audience this week, as we can see and be seen here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday I had breakfast and finished my transcription review.

I'd meant to go thrifting, but was feeling rather mopey.
Took a nap and had a weird dream, woke up and still had too much time in the day and nowhere to go.
All I can think about is how I'm gonna be rushing around on the 23rd to make some semblance of Christmas with Jameson, and all the cleaning that needs to be done at the house, and his surgery right on New Year's Eve...everything will be fine but on a day with nothing to do, I wished that I could've been doing something productive, to prepare for the next few weeks.

Anyway, went with my carpool to the theatre, had the evening show.
It was really well attended, and we also found out we've gotten some nice overages from Milwaukee.
Surprise money is always exciting!

The show went well, not as good as last night's but still certainly decent.

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Thursday:
Thrifting, trip to my bank for bass trombone moneys, practicing Disney music

Friday, Saturday, & Sunday: all two-show days. Might get to eat at Shapiro's or another local restaurant, and hoping to walk around Butler University a bit.

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