Cold Foot!

Hey Gang!

Brian's turn to write a post. Been a few, I know. But with the wedding slave drivers cracking the whip lately, i havent had much time for blogging. But since I am mere hours from my vacation, i thought i would drop in and update folks from Orlando!

We loaded out of Tampa sunday night, at a pretty good clip i must say, and then hopped on a bus and drove to Orlando. About a 90 minute drive, we were in bed by 3am. Not bad, by touring standards. Slept on and off for the better part of 12 hours yesterday, surfacing now and then for food and water. Load in at the Bob Carr performing arts center was to start at 6:00pm. We started dumping the first truck and it didnt look pretty outside, weather wise. The first carpentry truck unloaded, they backed in the Electrics truck. Wouldnt ya know it, they open the doors and the skies opened up. It was raining sideways for a good 20 minutes while June dumped the truck, her first time. Fun right?

Ah, backing up. June Abernathy is filling for me while i take a month off for the wedding and the honeymoon and what not, and is doing a little extra fill in time for our deck electrician. Wonderfuly lady i met on Drowsy, she is married to our flyman from Drowsy, Kevin Lowther. Another great person in this biz. She lives in the tampa/st. pete area, so training was no problem. She spent our week in Tampa learning the rig and the show call. She is making 3 or 4 jumps with Grease. Previous work includes, but is not limited to, Phantom, Lion King, Les Miz, Beauty and the Beast, Showboat, and the list goes on. I am hoping she can teach me a thing or two about the show!

So the load in here in Orlando, i was letting her do it on her own, so she got a good feel for how it was doing it with herself and 4 locals. As the 2nd to last piece was rolling into the building, off our truck, someone pushed a double stack of lighting truss riiiiight into my ankle. I was facing away from the piece, so i never saw it coming. See below.

Below is my wound. Pretty nasty bruise going on now. Fun. But after X-rays, No damage! Yay!

So I went to the hospital, they took x-rays, didn't see turn up anything, and they sent me on my way. Got back to the hotel, just as the load in was ending, so I met up with the crew at the bar. Also joining was Chad Decaprio, an old college friend of Beth and I's. He held his own with the crew and it was a good time. Getting up in the morning, not such a good time.

But now we are at opening night, they are running soundcheck and June is doing this one on her own! Should be a good show, and then hanging out after, and some sleep before my flight home tomorrow! WooHoo!

Updated Tour Route!

We've gotten an updated tour schedule for GREASE and we're booked through June of 2010! Check the Route to the right to see if we're coming to a city near you...

p.s. be sure to scroll down past the Hoboken entry for NEW past-dated entries!

12 Days to Go

I am sitting here on my parents couch in Bel Air, for one of the last times as a single gal of the Cochran name. While there have been many exciting things happening recently, I'm feeling a little melancholy. I feel like every time you get to an exciting new point in your grown up life, there's more anticipation to grow up and get older and do that thing you've never been able to do before, and that overpowers any sad or scared feelings hiding in back. Or maybe I'm just forgetting the sad and scared part, because what's the point in remembering that? The happy feeling at the end of the road is really all that matters.

Now I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea here - I have never been more happy, excited and 100% sure about anything in my entire life than getting married next week.

I think I am just really feeling the emotional weight of everything. And maybe it's hitting me a little harder than I expected because I'm an only child, and I feel like I'm leaving my parents, who truly are 2 of my best friends in life, with no one else around to annoy the crap out of them. (Although grandma can get feisty sometimes... )

The concept of "home" is a little confusing these days too. Bel Air has always been home. But now, none of my stuff is really there, and I have to sleep in the guest room because we took the bed. Day to day, the hotel of the week is where we call home. And while Hoboken is where all my stuff is, we haven't spent enough time there to really make it feel like home quite yet. Plus it wasn't any fun being there all by myself on Saturday night! (My cheerios weren't really interested in discussing what color we should paint the living room walls.)

I know things won't really be that different from how they are now, but there's something about it that's just getting to me. Maybe it's the anticipation of this day that has been building for 26 years, and more specifically the past year and a half. Or maybe I'm just not used to having this many emotions so close to the surface and randomly popping out in public places. And maybe stress and exhaustion are playing a tiny little part in all this too.

Ah well. Tomorrow is another day. If nothing else, typing this up made me feel better.

And I will finish this post off with the news that our fabulous new dining room table that I have been pining after for 2 years is being delivered tomorrow! I guess growing up isn't all bad :)

Atlanta & Tampa

Atlanta was HOT. Fortunately, we had a roof top pool at our hotel which was conveniently located across the street from the Fabulous Fox Theatre. The Fox in Atlanta is one of three remaining Fox Theatres in the country. It's absolutely beautiful inside! All three theaters have a sort of theme and this one's is Arabian Nights. Here are a couple of shots I took of the house...

Atlanta was also full of wedding planning galore, with 2 weeks left before I left the tour and 2 1/2 for Brian. Mostly we worked on following up with everyone on RSVP's and doing the seating.

And, as always, Atlanta was filled with several trips to Mary Mac's Tea Room for the most amazing, delicious southern comfort food there is. I said this last time too, but if you're in Atlanta, it's worth the trip!

www.marymacs.com

My goal in life is to be able to make yeast rolls and cinnamon rolls of that caliber. We do have a fully equipped kitchen for it now...

I went and saw the movie "Julie and Julia" while we were there and I loved it! I thought it was such a well done, adorable, fun movie, but it made me want to be home in that kitchen of ours!! (Not to be confused with the kitchen in our hotel room which had this great little sign on the counter saying that they would be happy to provide us with silverware and china for a "nominal fee". I think that kitchen had as many cupboards in it as our kitchen, but they were all empty!)

Atlanta ended with a trip to the W hotel in Buckhead where a bunch of the cast went to Whisky Blue, the roof top bar, to celebrate Bobby's (one of our merchandise sellers) 40th birthday on the Sunday night after the last show. It was lots of fun and had a SPECTACULAR view of the city, which made my Shirley Temple taste even better. However, I think the coolest part was the giant elevator, that all 30 of us fit in at once, with it's very own white leather couch inside!

Tampa was super fast for me. I was there Monday - Thursday and then flew home to Bel Air on Friday. I was busy busy busy getting caught up with work most of the time, but I did manage to find to to go out to dinner on Monday night at Fly Bar, just a short walk from the hotel, which had GREAT food! Another definitely recommendation, if you're ever in Tampa.

In fact, I ate at several great places in Tampa! Wednesday, Brian and I went out to lunch with Aunt Linda to a delicious Greek restaurant in Ybor city. Everything was really fresh and yummy! (But I can't remember what it was called!)

Thursday for lunch, Denny, Jose (the asst. co. mgr. for the month) and I went to eat at this great Spanish/Cuban place which I, again, can't remember the name of! Something about Columbian maybe??? Anyways, the food was AMAZING, and there was so much of it I barely dented my chicken and yellow rice. There was more than enough left for Brian's dinner.

The best part of Tampa was definitely Thursday night! Before the show, Denny and the company threw Brian and I a going away/happy wedding party! Denny got these ridiculous cupcakes in all sorts of fancy flavors, there was a banner that said "Brian and Beth - September 5, 2009" and coozies for our drinks that say "Mr." and "Mrs.". Everyone pitched in and gave us an incredibly generous gift to help us start our life together and maybe even get a new mold-free refrigerator!! :)

After the show, everybody went out to this cool wine bar a couple blocks away called Taps. The food was great and the wine selection was pretty spectacular as well! The neat thing about Taps is that they have all of their wine by the glass in cases with sliding doors, and each bottle has a tube and dispenser coming out of it. One option, if you want to taste a bunch of different wines, is to put money on a card and then above each bottle of wine is a price per ounce and 3 buttons for 1 ounce, 2 ounces or 3 ounces. You put your card in the top, which lets you slide the door open, choose your wine, pick how many ounces and your wine is poured for you! I've never seen anything like it and it's pretty brilliant! We had a great time and I would say i'll miss everyone, but I'll be back in a month!

And now... 4 weeks off for a wedding, a honeymoon and some time at home in Hoboken!

Welcome to Hoboken!

Well, it's official. Brian and I are HOMEOWNERS! We closed on our very own 2-bedroom condo in Hoboken, New Jersey this past Monday!

Here we are after we walked out of our attorney's office, keys in hand!

We didn't close until late in the day on Monday, so we spent the night on an air mattress in the dining room after our first dinner in our new home! (Panera Bread soup served on the floor!)

Bright and early Tuesday morning Mom and Dad R. came down from Massachusetts with a van, and Mom and Dad C. came up from Maryland with a truck! We had a bunch of friends come by to help us move, clean and paint throughout the day too!

Marc washing the front windows.

Sharon, Joe and Kelly scrubbed and clorox-ed the kitchen from top to bottom!

Kelly ended up with the horrible tasks of cleaning the MOLD out of the back of the refrigerator, and getting the sticky tar-like dust collection off of the top of the cabinets! She definitely deserves the good friend medal of honor for those ones!

For those of you who don't know the backstory on the condo, it was owned by a bachelor for 8 years until he got married this past May and moved in with his wife. So not only was the apartment un-lived in for 3 months before we got there, I don't think he ever lifted a finger to clean the whole time he lived there! Mom R. has thus dubbed him "pig man".

Here is a shot of Brian vacuuming - this may be the first and last time this ever happens, so we had to get a picture :)

Dad R. spent most of the day fixing things and making sure the washer-dryer was working (yes - that's right - we have our very own miniature laundry room!) while Mom R. was in charge of the painting crew in our bedroom. Mom C. worked on unpacking and washing all of our new dishes and kitchen things, while Dad C. washed the bathrooms, fixed a surprise toilet overflow and worked on all of the odd jobs that came up.

Wednesday was filled with more cleaning, more unpacking, more painting and several runs to home depot! Most important thing on the list - new toilet seats!!! (Pig man had the weird squishy kind!)

After a couple more coats of paint and a few hours to dry, we were able to move our bed from the living room to the bedroom! However, it got a little stuck on the way up at one point...

Fortunately Dad C. and Brian were able to figure it out after running out the back door and around to the front door to get at it from the other side.

Here are some pictures I took before we left on Thursday...

Front Door of our building

Living Room

The antique telephone table from Cleveland fits perfectly by the front door!

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Master Bath

(We have a 1/2 bath too!)

Our upstairs hallway - laundry room straight ahead, linen closet to the left and 1/2 bath to the right.

Our Bedroom

Our bedroom view

Our room again...

And again...

The 2nd bedroom/office/storage unit for now!

We wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who came to help us this week!

Mom and Dad R., Mom and Dad C., Kelly, Joe, Sharona, Marc, Bean, Danielle - you guys ROCK!

We got so much more done than we thought we would and couldn't have done it without you!

It was hard to leave on Thursday, as we headed back to tour. We're in Atlanta for the next week, then Tampa and then we're home for the wedding! 27 days!

Ft. Lauderdale

Ft. Lauderdale was a fun, busy week that couldn't go by fast enough! We didn't open until Wednesday night, so we had 8 shows in 5 days. Also, Ft. Lauderdale was the last stop for 3 of our wonderful ladies on tour, so there were lots of going away parties and other things going on.

Monday night we went out for dinner by the beach and ordered pina coladas, which came inside coconuts carved like monkeys!

Later in the week one of them ended up hanging out in the hotel lobby.

We also found this really great t-shirt at a souvenir shop on the beach. Since none of us actually wanted to spend money on it, we made Greg stand behind it and pretend he was wearing it!

The theatre in Ft. Lauderdale had this cut-out in the lobby that Kelly and I couldn't resist taking a picture with.

One day Brian and I were at a baja fresh-esque restaurant for lunch, and there was this iguana lizard thing on the tree outside the window that kept freaking me out because I couldn't tell if it was real or fake.

It was real.

On our last day there, we threw a surprise going away baby shower for Kelly, who was leaving the tour. (No, Kelly's not pregnant - just a long running joke with the company.) Here she is with all of her goodies - even a diaper genie!

And Denny got cupcakes with baby shower rubber ducks!

That night, Kelly was the first to participate in the official company mandate that any crew or management who leaves the tour must make a cameo appearance on stage during the dance scene. Here she is all done up!

This is her on stage - absolutely terrified - to the shock of all of the cast and crew who didn't know this was happening until she walked on stage in costume and a wig.

All in all, a great week - now - 4 days off before Atlanta!

A week in Ottawa

Ottawa is a BEAUTIFUL city! I wish we had had more than a week to spend there. It really feels like an old European city and is so clean!

The theatre facility was great! They even had a cafeteria in the building that was always open with delicious, low-priced food. But best of all, was the house curtain that we used for the show...

Yes - that IS a curtain made out of giant tassels.

One night on our way home we amused ourselves with all of the statues along the street.

It rained a lot while we were there, so Will wore a plastic bag on his head to stay dry.

The Prime Minister even came to see the show. He came backstage and took a picture.

Also, in Canada, they have the BEST frozen yogurt treat EVER - YOGEN FRUZ. They used to have one of these at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore and my family LOVED it. But then it closed about 10 years ago and we had never seen another one until last year in Toronto. And there was one in Ottawa too!

Basically, they take plain vanilla or chocolate frozen yogurt blocks (about the size of an ice cream sandwich) and put it in this mixer with whatever freshly frozen fruit you pick out, and it makes it that flavor. My favorite is vanilla frozen yogurt with pineapple! It tastes just like fresh pineapple!

The theatre had a "Greased Lightning" car in the lobby, but you weren't supposed to get in it. Kelly and I snuck in on the last night.

But the best part about Canada is, everyone in the crew has to wear a hard hat for load-ins and load-outs. They were not amused. (But I was!)