Mickey Gilley, Minnie Mouse, and Knitting!

So I'm back at the beginning. Just as as I was debating giving notice, the teacher I replaced wanted to come back, so I am unemployed once more! Still kicking it, ribbon twirling, showgirling, and whatever the client wants while trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up! (Trophy wife is not an acceptable answer Though it is a tempting one, it requires dating. Which drives me batty!)

Pic from a J and D gig last week at House of Blues. (I am ashamed at how much I love that outfit) And Yes. That is elderly Mickey Gilley crooning away behind us. We were in good company as party entertainers!  I've been engaging in a lot of knitting and puppy therapy in the last week as I battled a rough cold. Results: a sweater and slippers! Now to add a career to my results. Hmmmm.....

New sweater and headband!

Minnie and Bandit tried to help with picture taking!

Cookie monster slippers!

Minnie in her Minnie Mouse Halloween costume! (Also a knitting project)

Taking it day by day and trying to figure it out. If life were easy, it wouldn't be this much fun!

Rolling Along

Life continues to be a little crazy. My grandfather into nursing rehab and then hopefully he will be in assisted living soon. So now its back to trying to figure my life out! Baby Bandit is settling in. From a puppy mill gone way wrong (they are wrong to begin with but absolutely awful when way out of whack), he spent the first eight months of his life being criminally neglected and has not been socialized with people at all prior to coming home with us. Every day he gets a little less afraid, a bit more confident, and fluffier! He loves to play and loves Miss Minnie. Minnie is getting accustomed to the idea of him. She does want to be the alpha (she fits right I with the women in our family) but is slowly coming around. She is just a great loving little girl who doesn't know how to play. Hopefully she and Bandit will continue rub off on each other. They already are! The job hunt is also moving along. I have some part time work and an interview at a charter Jr high tom that is still looking for a dance teacher. As was explained to me, recent in laws in Texas have made it impossible for schools to hire a non certified or qualified teacher. To be qualified, you have to pay the state and pass their subject tests (which if they are anything like the state arts tests I took in high school, are an absolute joke. Fingers crossed!) If the teacher is not certified, Texas schools have to send letters home to parents. Needless to say, one of the schools that wouldn't even give me an interview cut the program rather than hire a non Texas certified teacher. So now I'm playing by the rules and starting my alternitive certification. Hopefully it will work out with the dance teaching job! Theatre wise, I've had some response off all my emailing and mailings, but Houston theatres are still cliquey and very tight. I have an offer to choreograph 9 to 5 this summer. It's at a community theatre where they hire professional directors and designers. I loved the last time I worked with this director and am excited to work with him again!

"No. You're a Comedienne."

Life simply refuses to settle down. Working on rolling with the river and not against it, but sometimes you just want to fight it! I haven't ended up with a teaching job, so I am starting to look at how to get my certificate and flexible jobs. Already have a job hooked up through J and D. They do most of the events in Houston. They are super sweet, treat their people well, and pay better than the company I did similar work with in New York. Starting to look for more part time teaching jobs and temping and subbing to fill the checkbook when the events are slim. Then I can take a show with TUTS or whoever if I can book it! The big monkey wrench right now was caused by my grandad. My grandad is 90 years old and still lives by himself with some help coming by to clean and get him his meals. My uncle who was taking care of him passed away in May, so after he had a rough fall the other day, the question is what next? I'm up in College Station at his place with my dad as we all try to sort it out. Life is on hold in it's own way until that is figured out. So Minnie and are here for comedic relief.

(Safety first with Minnie!) On the puppy front, sweet little blue eyed Brewski fought through Parvo, but was then beaten by distemper. It was a damned shame that such a sweet dog was not only dumped at a a shelter, but he was also never vaccinated. Get your dogs vaccinated! So we have been on the hunt for another friend to be for Minnie. She is so sweet and snuggly (and amazingly obedient), but she doesn't quite know how to play. So we're hoping to get one to play with her from a now defunct rescue in Abilene (the head of the rescue's dad has cancer, and she has shut it down in order to take care of him). There are three boys left there. We're going up to visit soon and get Minnie a four legged friend. Bandit is our favorite via photos, but we're open to which ever boy Minnie likes!

(The beautiful and probably troubleful Bandit! And he has a tail!) For now, just waiting on Dr.s, nurses, insurance, and the powers that be and watching tv with Grandad. Currently watching the '36 rendition of Slowboat. I haven't seen it in a long time and it's amazing how close the Zambello version is to it! (Though we didn't have a cowbell or a moo in the melodrama!)

Cause life just keeps rolling along! (I refuse to Oscar Hammerstein phonetically spell that out!)

Update with B's: Blogging, Boots, Boating, Borders, and a Blue Eyed Brew

I debated stopping my blog with leaving New York, but I'm hoping I can still find interesting things to write about. I'm back in Texas. Finished off Oliver! the last weekend in July and hit the road. It was a good run with a great group of people. Some young company hiccups, but I have faith in Harbor Lights to pick it up as they grow!

(Me moonlighting as Miss Kitty. I mean, being a bawd in Oliver!) We visited family in Mechanicsville, VA and Salem, SC along the way. It was great to see them all (especially when it included a day of boating with homemade peach daiquiris)! The last day of the drive, we dropped by the Twisted Branch Aussie Ranch a great little rescue operation in east Texas. My dad had said he didn't want a new dog when the inevitable day of our 15 year old Australian Shepherd's death came along. He changed his tune when it became a reality, but my mom had already concocted a scheme for a new dog way back in June. I would get a dog that would leave with me. Now it is two dogs! (One will still leave with me) We've been able to bring Minnie home (she is currently sitting on the floor only a few feet away from me, periodically fixing me with a stare to encourage petting), but Brewski has had some health problems

(Minnie's pet me face.) A purebred mini aussie, Brewski was dumped at a shelter by his previous owners. Somewhere between the breeder and previous owners, he was never vaccinated and came down with parvo. Karen who runs the rescue nursed him through it but he has been slow to get back to good health. She is afraid that his cough could be distemper (which be the end for the poor little thing. And it is entirely preventable with a vaccination!)

(Brewski is a beautiful little guy and so horribly sweet!) Hopefully we will soon get good news for our boy. Otherwise, it's just dropping resumes and cover letters and hoofing to try and get employed. A nearby school district is last minute looking for four junior high school theatre teachers and auditions for some local theatre companies. Fingers crossed!

Blarg!

Life in limbo continues weird and unreliable. Much like a window A/C unit! Our hours are super weird for Oliver, and I'm struggling to adjust. Which is killing my all over productivity! I was in for the Beauty and the Beast tour this week. Was kept all the way through without booking it. Once again. It makes me wonder. After going from being kept for projects in a rooms full of super broadway divas, I still can't manage to book a non union tour? (I pretty much stopped trying this year after being drug along by Shrek, never being kept to sing for West Side, and then my multiple final callbacks for Addams Family both this year and last year.) By this time last year, I had been back in New York for a month less, and had booked three paid shows and gotten a teaching job. This year, with my sturdier resume and much improved audition skills, I have had a teaching job and am working for free (my recent extreme Tennessee Williams life means I should take it with a grain of salt, but still!). I got an email last night from HISD. They finally approved me, and all of the jobs I wanted to apply for are filled. Somehow I doubt the elementary school that started as an all black high school during segregation wants a small white girl teaching dance. I haven't heard back from any other schools or districts. Trying to get up my momentum is still hard (not as hard as it was a month ago, but baby steps!) and it is so frustrating when I keep hitting brick walls. And I'm running out of bubble bath. Thank god shower gel can also make a good bubble bath!

Ends, Beginnings, and Pizza Limbo

With my life being the whacky upheaval the last few years have been, writing this blog has been a sort of therapy. It goes me time to think life through and write it out in a very different way than journaling. What started as a way to avoid talking about nothing but work with friends and family has become something completely different. Last night was my last night at Golda Och (Thanks to everyone there. The students and staff were all sweet and embracing to the gentile from Texas. My junior high school ladies even tried to get me married. Jewish mothers in training!) And it got me to thinking about what to do with this blog as I hop on new endings and beginnings. It's all far away from my original intent, but things grow and change on their own. Which means I'm going to keep writing. Especially right now. Until I move in August, I just have evening rehearsals and then weekend shows with Oliver. I'm in limbo, trying to enjoy my remaining time in the land of taste pizza. Then its back to enchiladas and margaritas!

The GTT Decision

It's been a rough start for 2013. With all that has gone done, I've sat down and done some major thinking about what is important to me, and I've come to a big decision. When Oliver! is over and my lease is up, I will be heading back to Texas. Being close to my family is much more important to me than I thought, and being so far away made all of the deaths and illness that the past two years have brought much more difficult. Also, I am tired of being poor. I love when I'm working, but when I'm not working, I'm miserable. I have 6 part time jobs and will end up working maybe two days a week. I worry about money to the point that I can't sleep. And the jobs I do have in between shows are exhausting and demeaning. There's only so much of that I can take! The state of the theatre is rocky right now. The middle ground is lost. Tours go out non equity and SETA instead of production, so there is no storing the nuts away for the winter of the next unemployment. Casts are small and many regional theatres are closing their doors. I know if I stuck it around, eventually the right show and the right team would come along and I'd have that Broadway credit (after much more regional theatre-ing). I'm just not patient enough to wait for it and wait tables until it comes. Broadway and most of what plays on it nowadays doesn't interest me. My voice, physical type, and dancing style are all not in vogue right now. I need another ten years on before I can play most character roles that suit my voice, so I'm heading back to Houston, looking to get a full time theatre teaching position and continue theatre in Houston's thriving store front scene. So Houston friends and theatre folk- I'm coming back! Let me know if you have anything for me (throwing it out there. I've done worse, annoying, self promoting things in New York!) I wouldn't take my foray into New York back for anything. It's been a blast, and I've worked with some amazing people and made some awesome new friends! The boots aren't done traveling. They are just two stepping and available for summers! And to my roomie, who left yesterday to start a new job and get married in San Antonio, thanks for everything. Go rock at life! (And I should be able to make your wedding now!)