Down to the Nitty Gritty

So....you know how sometimes you think...."Hmmm....I'm tired of the way this room looks. I'm gonna change it." Well....that's what I've been feeling about my bathroom since I arrived home. I just redid it like 3 years ago, but I did it sort of "on the cheap" because I was able to use materials I already had on hand. And now, the quaintness of it has faded. So....I was at the Habitat for Humanity REstore the other day and found some really nice tile to redo the floor with. So...last night after a full day of rehearsal, I started chipping the tile off of the floor. It was very tedious and the cement board underlayment was getting all jacked up anyway, so I thought...I'll just pull this up and replace it, too. It certainly made for faster removal.

Then...as I'm pulling up this cement board I realize there's a little wood rod under part of it. Well...let's just say it went WAY downhill from there and now my bathroom floor looks like this.




Wah wah. So, as you can see, I"m down to the rafters even. The floor was so discusting and rotten that I just had to tear it all out. SO...lucky me, on my day off today, I get to finish tearing that all out and put in a new subfloor and underlayment before i can even start on my tiling. :( My goal is to get the subfloor in today. Wish me luck.

We had the producer's run-through of the show yesterday. It's all going well. We should be in good shape by the time we open. Having a good time.

I think I'm gonna go see BABY MAMA today if I can escape the bathroom.

Oh...here's a pic of my new friend Heidi. She's fun. She plays the maid because of course there's a maid in the farce. :)

I Got to Kansas City on a Friday

Okay, okay...so it was a Monday. Who the hell cares? All that matters is that I am back home safe and sound after WAY too long on the dear old Mercury. I have actually been back for about 3 weeks now and have been neglecting my blogging. So....I'm catching up.

The end of the contract was great. Pretty much went off without a hitch. Getting off the ship, however was a nightmare. It took HOURS! Then....they only booked a tiny little bus for the 70 or so people signing off, so Gary and I said screw it and hopped a cab to the airport. It was the best $20 I ever spent.

It seemed only appropriate that the second I step off the boat, the first thing I see is this....



Yep....the Medical Examiner was waiting to take a body off the ship. Apparently someone bit it during the cruise. People are surprised to know that people die on the ship all the time. Probably one a cruise or so. At least once a month. You gotta figure....2000 people floating around the ocean with an average age of 65? It's bound to happen. I don't usually have to see the van to offload them, though. Apparently there's room for 6 in the cooler in the medical center. So actually...you get a bigger room if you're dead than when you're alive. Go figure.

On the UP side....when I arrived in Omaha, my mommy had made me all my favorite things for dinner. It was SOOOOOOO great having a real Nebraska steak. I missed them so. My friend Anne-Marie takes pictures of delicious food. Don't ask me. I think it's weird, but I guess it's a British thing. Anyway....I had my mom take this to make A-M jealous.



So...I stayed in Omaha a few days, then ventured down home to KC. Since my niece and her husband had moved out, my house had been vacant for about a month, so it was a little musty when I arrived, but it is now all cleaned up and aired out and finally feeling like home again. I've started right back in on projects of course. I spent ALL day today cleaning out my basement. Again. Still more to be done, but it's coming along.

I started rehearsals at the American Heartland Theatre for a farce called PERFECT WEDDING. It's the usual story....groom wakes up on wedding day with the wrong woman and the best man (that's me) tries to create a story to cover it up. Add a wedding dress, four slamming doors, and one toilet brush....and hilarity ensues. It's going quite well. The cast is full of very funny people, so that's making it fun. I haven't done a play (for those of you non-theatre types, that's a show without music) in seriously 10 years. Crazy. So many lines!

Well...that's it for me. I must get some sleep as I have reahearsal tomorrow. I'll try to blog more, but since I'm home, my life doesn't seem nearly as interesting. And if it bores me, I can't imagine what it's doing to you.

P.S. I'm addicted to online poker. Damn you, Jimmy!