Klutzy Incidents—November 2010

November 1—Shrek

I worked the first day of the load in for Shrek today. I parked in the garage close to the venue and immediately failed to locate the stairs leading out, as usual. Obviously, I figured it out and made my way to work. I discovered that I was working carp, which involved mostly tying on drops. Drops (short for backdrops) are large pieces of cloth, which, when unfolded and spread out along the floor, you tie to battens (hanging pipes) by first tying the center on and then tying about every third tie out to the left and right edges. Easy enough. Except, of course, I got stuck working with an idiot who insisted on tying every tenth tie or so, meaning the drops wouldn't stretch out properly and kept bubbling up. I told him repeatedly that he was doing it wrong, but he ignored me and at one point, when he thought I was out of earshot, said "You don't tell me what to do." I complained to one of the house guys and a roadie about it, and they both told him he was doing it wrong. Of course, aforementioned idiot still managed to find something to fuck up: After getting the drops tied on, each drop flies in the air so we can run heavy pipe through a pocket at the bottom of the drop; the weight of the pipe keeps the drop in place. The pipe is put together in several sections that screw or snap together. You feed one section of pipe through the drop, pause, attach the next section, and so on. This idiot I was working with tried to build the whole pipe on the floor and then feed it through the drop. That is not only heavy and unsafe, but it's not even physically possible since the total pipe length is about fifty feet, and there wasn't room enough to do so. Thankfully, the roadie yelled at him so I didn't have to.

Sooo when I got home that night, I emailed the coworker who doesn't like me and begged him to call the stage manager so he'd hire him instead of said idiot. Of course, since the idiot coworker was there on the load in, he'll probably be there on the load out. I'll have to try to avoid him, both then and tomorrow, when we come back for the rest of the load in.

November 2—Election Day!

I was back at work at Bass Concert Hall today to finish loading in Shrek. I avoided the idiot from yesterday as much as possible today and thus passed the day more happily. Also, the stage manager told me he'd heard from the coworker who doesn't like me, whom I had emailed to tell him to call for work. Possibly it is suicidal to help out somebody who dislikes me, but fuck it. It can't possibly be worse than working a moron like the one I got stuck with yesterday. Anyway, today's trouble came later, when I was leaving. It was much colder than I had anticipated, plus it began raining on me as I walked back to my bus stop. I fought to retrieve my umbrella from my bag, then to keep it from blowing inside out, and then to keep from dropping my dollar for the bus. Then, when I arrived at my car at the park and ride, the water from the top of the umbrella blew inside the car as I struggled to put my bag in the car and get in without getting wet. *sigh* I'm glad I voted early; I might not have bothered due to the weather if I'd put it off till today.

November 3—Possibly the Grinch had a point.

The one advantage of the early onslaught of the holiday season is that I start receiving a lot of coupons in the mail for places I couldn't normally afford to shop. On the upside, I have doubled my supply of silky nightgowns and nicely scented soaps, but on the downside, I have not doubled my closet space, plus I keep wasting time and water finding excuses to take showers with my nice soaps.

Aforementioned nice soaps came from Bath and Body Works. As a rule, I never shop there because everything is expensive and usually doesn't smell good, or at least not good enough to justify the cost. However, I had a coupon, so I decided to use it. I walked in and browsed, sniffing everything in the store. Most of the scents didn't appeal to me, but I eventually located a couple I could live with. I actually bought one out of a sense of guilt after I tipped it over and spilled some on myself. And the counter. And the floor.

Anyway, then I went to Victoria's Secret and bought a bra. I don't particularly like Victoria's Secret; I infinitely prefer Frederick's of Hollywood, but what the hell. I had a coupon for a free thong and ten dollars off a bra. It was not until I returned home, much later, to wash my new bra that I discovered that instead of having only one obvious place to insert the hooks for the straps on the back (it was a convertible bra), the bra had multiple openings for said straps so they can be spaced at different widths. I know this can only end in disaster. Stupid options. Oh well.

I later went to Banana Bay, the military surplus store at 51st and Airport, to purchase a new backpack. My old backpack has holes wearing in it, and when I worked at the Long Center a couple of weeks ago, I saw that a large drift pin in my bag was poking through a formerly small hole and enlarging it. So I went out today, attempting to locate a new bag identical to the previous one. I drove down 35 and took the 51st Street exit, only I failed to stay in the right lane, and I was forced to turn left on Airport. Traffic was extremely heavy, so it took fully five minutes for me to execute a simple U-turn. Anyway, I eventually parked in front of Banana Bay and walked inside, wandering around amongst the bags. In the process, I knocked down part of pyramid of large ammo boxes, accidentally pulled a bunch of messenger bags onto the floor, and then tangled the bags I was actually looking at amongst themselves when attempting to select one. The bag wasn't even the one I wanted, which they did not have in stock. My new backpack is too large, but it has certain advantages over the old one, like not having holes in it.

November 4—At least they have the sense to keep plenty of paper towels on hand.

Today I went back to Bath and Body Works to use the coupon I got yesterday. Much like yesterday's trip, I had an incident involving trying to sample a lotion. I couldn't get the tester to squeeze any lotion out, squeezed it too hard, and covered my hands in smelly goop. Thank God they have sinks in the store.

November 5—Tanguma

I did a lot of cooking today. I made Oaxacan mole verde, seven-layer dip (including making my own guacamole, tomatillo sauce, and salsa), and flan. Somewhat predictably, most of my efforts disappeared quickly, but not before making my kitchen look like a tornado had hit it. There were bits of shredded lettuce and cheese on the floor, mole on the counter and ceiling from when it splattered, and an overflowing sink full of dirty dishes all jammed into place and slyly wedged in place with a spatula.

"Good grief," was all my dad could say as he stared, awestricken, at the carnage.

"It was what I needed."

"It looks like Mary Tanguma was in the kitchen."

"Huh?" I asked.

"Mary Tanguma was a maid we had when I was growing up. She always made huge messes in the kitchen. No matter what she cooked, there were always dirty dishes everywhere, flour on the ceiling . . . but it was spotless when she was done. She was messy, but she was a good cook."

I chose to interpret the story as a compliment.

November 6—Burnin' Alive, Part II

Exactly one year to the day I worked the AC/DC show when I'd coughed so much I lost my voice, I began coming down with another sore throat this afternoon. I haven't been sick since this time last year, and I swore myself then that I would never again be that sick. So I left the house and bought some cold medicine. Once at home, I made chicken noodle soup, winter squash soup, and apple pie in preparation for what I fear may be a few days of illness. If not, at least I'll have food. And, as you might suspect, said cooking involved a fair few klutzy incidents. I dropped parsnips on the floor, the winter squash turned to mush in the pot and will likely cause me to throw the soup out, and I dropped a couple of apple slices on the floor—after they'd been mixed in with the flour, of course. Crap.

After cooking, I did a bunch of laundry and sorted the contents of my toy box. I emptied it and cleaned it thoroughly with rubbing alcohol (to get rid of the rubber smell), which thoroughly irritated my already annoyed sinuses. Then I laundered all the lingerie, grabbed a marker and a bunch of plastic bags, and set to work organizing the toy box. I now have labeled bags for each outfit and various accessories. Now, of course, the inside of the toy box smells like isopropyl alcohol, rubber, and the marker I wrote with. *sigh*

November 7—Shrekked

I worked the load out for Shrek the Musical at Bass Concert Hall tonight. I left the house, triple checking to make sure I had everything, totally convinced I'd forgotten something, but I had not. I arrived early on purpose because I knew I'd have to park on Dean Keeton in those awful spaces you have to back into, a feat I have not yet mastered. So I took care to arrive before most of my coworkers so there would be plenty of empty spaces, that way I'd have plenty of space to botch my parking job without botching anybody's car. I parked perfectly at the first try, sighed, and killed time drinking tea and listening to music. Finally, I grew bored sitting in the car and walked over to the theatre.

I walked in the stage door and immediately recognized the coworker who doesn't like me, who had his back to me. I didn't say anything at first and went straight to the sign in sheet, growing annoyed with the coworker standing in front of it who couldn't find his name on the (alphabetical) list. I gave up, stole the pen from him, signed myself in, handed back the pen, and turned around in time to say, "Oh hey, you made it!" to the coworker who doesn't like me. Then somebody I hadn't seen in a while got my attention, so I talked to her till work began.

Ah, yes, work. I got assigned to work with the idiot I'd been trying to avoid. He seems to dislike me as well, which frankly is a welcome relief since I do not want that guy talking to me. I managed to escape him soon enough and got to work taking the deck apart. To my horror, the roadie handed me a cordless drill to remove the railing from the edge of the deck. I hate drills, and I despise cordless drills. I don't know why that is. I can handle a chain saw with no problem, but a simple (cordless) drill will nearly dissolve what little resolve I possess. Luckily, not to mention predictably, the battery on my drill died within seconds, so I avoided most of the drilling. Then I got another battery for mine, got back to work, and, predictably, couldn't remove the last screw from the last piece of wood. I left the roadie to deal with it and moved on to something easier, that being helping lift heavy pieces of the deck onto the cart. The assistant stage manager was kind enough to express concern on my part; I assured him that I was fine with it. More to the point, I'd rather do heavy lifting than use a fucking drill.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully apart from the dusty drops making me sneeze. My idiot coworker failed to fold a drop properly—seriously, all he had to do was fold it from downstage to upstage, and he somehow managed to get a 180 degree twist in it. I choked back a laugh as another coworker muttered, "I see what you mean," referring to my whining about him.

After we signed out at five a.m., a coworker asked me for a ride. I groaned inwardly since said coworker lives somewhere around Woodward, and I live in Cedar Park (the exact opposite direction), and I wanted to go home. I gave him a ride anyway, briefly got lost on the return trip (as usual), went home, tripped over Freefall as I walked in the front door, and passed out.

November 9—Vox (Un)pop

I seem to be mostly over the cold I started coming down with the other day. Nevertheless, I've lost my voice. I changed my Facebook status to "Lauren Brown lost her voice again," and before long, somebody clicked "like" on it. So much for thinking my social graces might be improving.

November 10—Tomato Red

This morning I worked out as usual, and then I made some breakfast. Thoroughly canceling out the benefits of the exercise, I cooked some sausages and tomatoes. After I drained the sausages, I added the tomatoes to the pan—not very gracefully—and they splattered hot grease everywhere—including across the back of my right hand. I have three painful red marks there now. At least the tomatoes were damn tasty.

November 11—Tanguma, Again

Tonight, I made beef stew and banana bread. I didn't have enough nuts for the banana bread, so I just used extra banana. Naturally, I spilled nuts all over the counter and floor, further lowering the nut supply.

Happily, I avoided calamity during the making of the beef stew, but I did spill some on the counter when pouring the leftovers from the pot to a leftover dish.

November 12—"And go audio—No, wait!" is not how it works.

Tonight I worked a show call running the sound board at the Rollins, the black box theatre in the Long Center. I showed up at 6 to get a run through on what I was doing. Aside from running the audio board, I was also responsible for the slides that showed on the screen onstage. Said slides were cued from a Mac laptop. In case any of my readers is unaware of this fact, I loathe Macs—and this is why. The stage manager was trying to prepare the slide presentation before the show and failed, which meant that the first of the two shows only had three slides altogether: one for preshow, one generic background during the show, and one postshow. During the second show, the Mac froze and died twice. Sadly (or rather, happily), it wasn't my computer; otherwise I'd have dumped it out of the booth into the house.

The audio itself was much smoother. I was a couple of seconds late with the exit music after the first show because I could not reach the CD player from the sound board. Who the fuck puts a CD player out of range of the sound board? So I moved it in between shows, and the second show went off without a hitch, audio wise . . . or, well, it would have, only the stage manager messed up one of my cues, again with the exit music. She said "And go audio . . . no, wait!" after I'd already started to fade in the exit music. Brilliant. I faded it out again, of course, but still.

Then, when leaving, I left a video adapter in the booth that I was apparently supposed to bring downstairs with me, only nobody told me I was supposed to. *shrug* And then I got lost in the Phantom of the Opera-esque backstage corridors and nearly couldn't find my way out of the building.

November 13—Next time I'll just plan a luau.

In one of my cookbooks, the recipe for Buffalo wings is right next to a recipe for something called "Fruity Beef Kabobs." The kabobs are appetizer sized kebabs made with meatballs and chunks of pineapple, glazed with sweet and sour sauce. The recipe sounded good, so tonight I decided to make it.

First, I shaped and cooked the meatballs. They were smaller than I would have liked, plus a few of them collapsed during cooking. They tasted all right, though, so I didn't worry about it and set to work chopping the pineapple. I stuck a toothpick in each piece of pineapple on a platter, and then, naturally, my dad walked in and grabbed one.

"Stop! Put that back!" I cried, snatching it away from him and replacing it on the platter.

"But I already took a bite out of it," he protested.

"That's too bad. There are thirty-six of those, and thirty-six meatballs. So no samples."

I ushered him out of the kitchen and began making the sweet and sour sauce. My dad had gone through the fridge and thrown away a bunch of bottled condiments that were past their sell by dates. He got carried away and threw away some perfectly good Worcestershire sauce and my sweet and sour sauce, so I had to make my own sweet and sour sauce. That in turn proved a challenge since my dad had also thrown away the light corn syrup and I had to use dark corn syrup, plus I didn't have enough bell pepper. I thought I didn't have any bell peper, so I cooked the sauce without it. Then I remembered that I had two small peppers sitting on the windowsill that I had picked from my vegetable patch. I hastily chopped them up and threw them into the pot. I inspected the contents of the pot in dismay, repulsed by the revolting brown sludge. I decided to throw it away and either live without the sweet and sour sauce or else just put mango chutney on the kebobs instead. I did a taste test first, and to my surprise, my homemade sweet and sour sauce was actually quite tasty. I brushed the kebobs with it, heated them in the oven, and sat down to eat. Naturally, it was at this last stage that I discovered that my pineapple was overripe. Also, I decided I didn't like the meatballs; I should have used ham chunks instead.

Then, of course, I returned to the kitchen to clean up. I had dropped a meatball on the counter without noticing it and it had shattered, sending meat crumbs all over the stove. Also, naturally, there was residue from sweet and sour sauce everywhere. It will take a good long soak in hot water to restore my saucepan.

November 19—New Friends and Former . . . Somethings

Tonight I went to a Rusted Shut show at Emo's. I donned fishnets and a black miniskirt for the occasion, and I milled around outside until my friend Dom, the drummer for Rusted Shut, saw me and called me over. We caught up for a bit, and then he introduced me to his friend Richee, the bassist. We hit it off and were chatting up a storm, like we'd known each other for years, when somebody who used to work at the Erwin Center recognized me and came over and butted in. Richee sulked off. I wasn't too pleased myself, but I didn't want to be rude. Of course, my former coworker stuck by my side the whole night. I was rather uncomfortable, even though we actually got along well, but I was also anxious to avoid an awkward scenario at the end of the night. My former coworker went to the restroom at the end of the Rusted Shut set, and I took the opportunity to leave quickly.

I walked down Sixth Street and then turned on Congress and walked through the Capitol grounds to get back to my car. Unbeknownst to me, the grounds were under construction, and my shortcut was roped off by orange plastic fencing. I clambered over it. In the process, I tore my fishnets, tripped, face planted, and flashed the couple in front of me who turned around to stare. *sigh* I'm grateful that neither my former coworker nor my friend Richee were there to witness that.

November 22—It's such a comment-able shirt, though . . .

Today I visited the calendar store in the mall—not the same one where I worked two years ago since it's no longer there, but one owned by a married couple who live in town. I handed in my application while self-consciously dressed in paint stained jeans and my Future Blondes shirt, and the nicely dressed guy working there, whom I recognized from the store next to the kiosk two years ago, remembered me. He said I'd probably get the job since I've done it before, they needed a couple of new people, and one of their current employees is not working out. I gather that my dress code will need some revision before starting.

November 23—Phone Tag

This morning, the manager of the calendar store phoned me for an interview. Naturally, I missed her call, and she missed mine when I called back. She then left me another message asking if I could come in for an interview at five today. I called back and left her a message saying I could, and I hastily put on a skirt and drove over to the mall, nearly not locating the calendar store. I rushed in, fearing I was late, but I wound up waiting more than twenty minutes as I waited for her to finish interviewing someone else.

Anyway, my interview went well enough, and my new boss assured me that the outfit I had on was work appropriate. I resisted the urge to point out that I was not wearing a bra. I start work tomorrow night; I shall have to make certain that I am dressed better for that.

November 24—In Training

Tonight was my first night at the calendar store. They had me in the store, training, instead of down at the kiosk like in the good old days. Naturally, I lost myself many times in the thankfully-small store, and I dropped several toys and calendars. Also, I grew so annoyed with one noise-making toy that I surreptitiously removed its batteries. I wonder how long this job will last.

November 25—I fucking hate Thanksgiving.

Every Thanksgiving for several years running, something bad has happened. Last year I was sick; the year before that I was upset over a breakup. This year I went to the hospital. Yup.

It was only a bladder infection, but in case you've never had a bladder infection, holy crap is it ever painful. I noticed the familiar symptoms (I've had two bladder infections before) in the early evening, and I tried to ignore it, hoping I was wrong, that it would solve itself soon, or that I could wait till the morning to go the doctor. Aroud ten or eleven, I realized that none of the above was feasible. I felt worse than I have in a long time—arguably worse than this time a year ago when I had the flu—and I tried calling the twenty-four hour clinic. Being a holiday, it was closed. Fuck. So I asked my dad to drive me to the ER. Once there, I sat in the waiting room and filled out paperwork incorrectly. Then I spilled half my water bottle over my lap, and I went to the restroom to clean up. Naturally, there were no paper towels and no hand dryer in the restroom. I'm just grateful that the inevitable urine sample did not end in disaster, either by missing the cup or tipping it over, or by being walked in on, which was highly likely since the restroom I had to use was shared by the whole floor and had three doors, only two of which I remembered to lock.

Needless to say, I'm probably never cooking Thanksgiving dinner again.

November 30—The Most Awesome Master Carpenter in the World

Tonight I met Hank Schwemmer, the master carpenter over at Bass Concert Hall, for a couple of Guinnesses at the Posse. I took the bus to get there since I know better than to try parking on campus, and I walked (shivering somewhat) down Dean Keeton to San Jacinto. I crossed the street and stood, teeth chattering, at the light waiting to cross. I removed my iPod and fought viciously with my earbuds, only to realize that I had an audience in the form of Hank, who had arrived at the intersection at the same time as I had. I was surprised and pleased to recognize him in the semi-darkness since I was none too sure where I was going.

We arrived at the Posse without incident and enjoyed a couple of Guinnesses to the tune of lively conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, excluding my momentary panic when I thought I saw a roach on the floor which turned out to be a dead leaf. I look forward to hanging out with Hank again soon, which will no doubt be soon since I have agreed to knit him a hat. We arranged an art swap; in exchange for the hat, he gave me a wooden box drum he made. Ah, the benefits of knowing carpenters.