We Got Our Babyback Babyback Babyback�
2004-09-30,

Talk about your actor's nightmare-- I have a cold. It started yesterday afternoon, on my way home from work. I started feeling funky, and by the time I got home, I was abnormally tired. By rehearsal time, I was woozy. This morning, I woke up sniffly and grumbly, which made me quite nervous because I'm supposed to be singing, after all. The last thing I need is to turn into an old blues singer, vocally, right before the show starts. Thank goodness, my voice seems to have cleared up, which just leaves me with the sniffles. That's something I can manage and still be able to perform.

I've been actually almost busy at work today. I made my first testing charts, and am told that they are quite fine, which was more than I was expecting considering how small a thing it really was. I guess knowing how to do things has its advantages.

I'm a little worried about my head shot for the cast board for La Mancha. To those who don't make sense of that last statement, everybody in the show gets their picture taken and they get displayed at the entrance to the theatre. They were taken a few days ago by a local pro photographer. The thing is, when she took the head shots, I don't think any of them were even remotely serious in nature. Granted, I'm not generally serious in nature, but I'd rather not be seen as a complete goofball to the general public. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. Goofball it is.

So on to the big news: our paperwork came back from the Chinese consulate in New York today. I got a call from H earlier saying she was in the middle of making copies. That made it just over a week there and back, which is great. Now we just need to get the rest together. We still have some pictures to print, and H is bravely tackling that as we speak. Goodness knows she's no technophile, but the process is pretty simple so I think she can handle it without ripping out too many hairs.

So we're that much closer. It's nice to have all this movement in the process after so much waiting. Not that we're done with the waiting. First there's the waiting for the agency to translate and send, then there's the waiting for a docket number to let us know that we're officially registered in China, then there's the Really Long Wait for a match, which right now should be about six months. Granted, the process was taking eight months when we started out, so it's possible that another month might get shaved off the wait. It's impossible to predict.

I just remembered something that I neglected to speak of from the summer-- vacation. We once again trekked out to central Ontario and to the Doc's cabin. This trip, however, the weather did not so much favour us. A Toronto weatherperson dubbed it the Summer of Disappointment, and well named, apparently. Our first day there it was pretty nice, but I was fending of complete exhaustion from sleeping for three hours (the night before leaving was the cast party for The Music Man) and then driving for ten hours. Then for the next five days it was cool and/or rainy. Everyone was bored and restless at one time or another. Hilary wanted to do absolutely nothing but swim, though we did manage to force her into a couple of hikes. Our one good swim day was on Saturday - the day before we left - and only just barely. It seemed to make everything better, though.

One of the hikes was on Bon Echo Rock. This time we went by canoe to get there, a trip which was pretty hairy at times due to the nearly choppy waters. But as H and I are seasoned canoeists, we fared well (though the trip home was very lone due to the headwind), and it was well worth it for the view. The Rock up close is something to behold, for certain. There's nothing like coming into contact with one-billion-year-old rock. It's beautiful and inspiring, and certainly explains the influx of Whitman-inspired artists, writers, poets and philosophers that frequented the place during the early 20th Century, including Muriel Denison - the aunt of the man who built the cabin in which we stayed - who owned a hotel (which has since burned down) right on the Narrows. She was also author of Susannah of the Mounties, which was turned into a Shirley Temple movie in the 30's. When we got home from our excursion that day, we poked around the cabin and came across a copy of that very book, signed by the author. And it's a pre-production copy, no less. I think the Doc really needs to investigate what kind treasures she has in her little place before they walk off with one of the summer tenants. Needless to say, we got a decent Canadian history lesson that week.

Speaking of Canadians, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the band Bare Naked Ladies for finding them annoying in the past. I blame my friend Jason (not coincidentally, a Canadian) for ruining them for me for some time. I'm all better now, and they're a good time. Except for that damn monkey postcard song.

-- End Transmission --