recent escapades: holidays, auditions, improv

A random recent discovery of mine has been the fact that I enjoy sipping coffee and espresso drinks out of Caribou coffee cups as opposed to Starbucks cups. The reason? The dark brown lids of Caribou cups equals a sense of warmth, whereas the white lids on Starbucks cups are neutral but cooler and don't give you that warmth. Also, when your drink splatters out of a Starbucks lid, it's very visible afterwards and looks sloppy. It all made sense when I thought back to college days. Our university had light pink and light blue trays, and Rebecca and I would always get the color that coordinates with our outfit, until one of her art teachers/friends stated that he picks whatever color suits the food to be served. If the food is hot, he picks pink (warm color). If it's a cold dish, he picks blue (cool color). Makes sense, right?
     I say this every single month, but it's crazy that it's February already. In my last post I spoke of an upcoming show with the G&S Opera Company, but a few weeks ago, I withdrew from the show for a couple of other upcoming performance opportunities. One outcome from auditions since then is a role I just heard back about last night. I got the role Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard at JPAC at Morton College. I'm extremely excited!! It's my very first supporting role in Chicago! JPAC is the theatre that also put on Phantom and Man of la Mancha, and a good number of the Sunset cast members were in both of those shows with me. It'll be a lovely reuinion!
      
    Pre-holiday Chicago highlights: Zoo lights at the Lincoln Park Zoo with my friend Denise. A Saturday filled with Mexican food then ice-skating at Navy Pier's Winter Wonderfest with Denise and Jill. This city is a gorgeous one to be in during the Holidays.

 
   It was a blessing to be able to spend a couple of weeks with my family for the Holidays! I roadtripped to sweet Carolina with a friend from highschool who now lives in Milwaukee. Of course we listened to every single Carolina song I could find on the drive down.  My family was originally not going to exchange presents this year since our gift to eachother was going on a little cruise, but our little brother Jonathan spent all of his birthday money on gifts for each of us. We HAD to get gifts then! As expected, we were getting stressed out of our minds going Christmas Eve eve shopping, but we all were please with the outcome. On Christmas day we hopped in the van and roadtripped to Miami, picking up Matthew along the way in Orlando. It was the first time we didn't feel disgusting in all of our "First day on the cruise" photos since we had a buffer day and weren't driving through the night then hopping aboard like we have done in the past. I highly recommend buffer days. We enjoyed the sights of Miami, then of Nassau, and Great Stirrup Cay which is Norwegian Cruise Line's private Island. I brought back a starfish and 2 beautiful seashells that I bought from "an island man" that "worked me a great deal". 
Our most favorite moment of the cruise was getting to see comedian Rich Purpura. The very first evening on the ship, Mom, Rebecca, Matthew, and I were enjoying hot tea and cookies on the top deck and reminiscing of our favorite comedian ever, Rich Purpura, that we saw perform on a Disney ship. When we got back to our cabin I read the paper which tells us the next day's activities, and I pretty much freaked out. Rich Purpura was on our ship and was doing a show the next evening!!  We made sure to get front row seats, we laughed the hardest out of everyone, he loved us "Carolina girls", and Rebecca even got pulled up on stage for a "magic trick." We met him afterwards and expressed our fan-ship, and he signed two DVD's and gave them to us. Later onAfter the cruise, we stopped back in Orlando to have dinner with my aunt and uncle! It's always fantastic seeing them. After New Years excitement, and a delicious lasagna meal made by my brother, Matthew, I had to say goodbye to my family and return to Chicago. Those moments are always tough.

                                
        The evening of my arrival back in Chicago helped lighten everything back up, because we started Improv level C. It continues to be such great fun. Our teacher was in Level A with Tina Fey back in the day! We all LOVE him. Another one of the many cool things about him is that his son goes to the same school as opera singer Samuel Ramey's child does, and he sees him all of the time.
I had my very first improv performance recently! A few of us Second City female students did a workship with the Sirens, an all female improv group, and then opened for their show that same evening. It was such a different experience than doing a theatrical show. You had no idea when/if the audience was going to react. It's definitely a whole new dynamic to get used to, but it was very exciting. Our first class performance will be February 24, which most of us are highly anticipating. ;)

Next escapade posting? Santa fe!