It's Hard to Tell if This is Actually Happening

Last week we flew Topeka to Albuquerque to play in Rio Rancho. I didn't write about our week in Topeka because there was nothing to write about.
Exception: My parents had cookies from Gayla delivered for our opening night.

And Dianne and I went to the art district in NoTo.

He was all over town

Everything in New Mexico was wonderful, right down to the Uber drivers. My breakfast wasn't supposed to be free, but the hotel employees told me they thought I was cool, so I ate free eggs and english muffins every morning. Rio Rancho itself is beautiful; I took some time to run around the desert parks and to the Rio Grande, and with a few days off between our arrival and showtime we had the opportunity to travel.

I don't know the name of these pumpkin looking things

One of our firsts stops was the Ojo Caliente mineral springs. I bathed in the mineral pools while gazing up at the bluest sky I've ever seen, framed by dusty mountains and cliffs. Unreal. After a round of bathing, a clay caking session, and brunch, a few of us climbed the surrounding mountains. The trails are filled with shards of eight hundred year old pottery, cacti, and other shrubs that don't thrive in the North East. We kept our eyes out for snakes, of course.

I noticed and abundance of small lizards in New Mexico, and we saw a few teeny tiny hummingbirds in our travels.

I spent a day in Santa Fe. One of my elementary school classmates told me about her summers here, so I always associated thoughts of the city with her adventures. My first stop was Meow Wolf, the interactive installation piece on the outskirts of town. I don't want to reveal too much, because it's one of those things you need to be surprised by yourself, but I will say it is a Courage the Cowardly Dog/Twilight Zone tripping inter-dimensional is-this-really-happening experience. You're greeted by black lit almost three dimensional animal drawings speaking out of context sentence fragments, then taken into many different worlds filled with subtle details you can experience with all senses, not taste but maybe taste if you're feeling invincible.

In the lobby

Our next stop was a completely different kind of artistic experience: Georgia O'Keeffe. I was first introduced to O'Keeffe's work when I was in elementary school. My art teacher focused mostly on her flower portraits, but a museum attendant informed me that the flowers only comprise about eight percent of O'Keeffe's work. I was excited to see the other styles she produced throughout the twentieth century and the influence she had and success she experienced in her lifetime.

After burritos, Dianne, Lizzie, and I explored the town center. We were accompanied by traditional music at the central pavilion (it was Santa Fe Bandstand) as we walked the chili covered streets. I stepped into a shop to figure out what the chilis meant, and I must have looked puzzled because immediately an employee asked if I had a question. Once I asked, some locals laughed, and I was informed that New Mexico is the world's chili capital, so the chilis are everywhere.

For eating. For decorating.

On our way home we learned our Uber driver is a frequent stand-in for Ben Stiller. He showed us pictures of himself and the actor together on set as we rode through the evening's thunderstorm. It's currently monsoon season in New Mexico, which is something I learned backstage from the local wardrobe crew.

Other important things:
New Mexico is actually called the "Land of Enchantment."
Village Inn serves free pie on Wednesdays.

Independence La Crosse

Our stay in La Crosse was the first of what will be at least three visits with the Mississippi River towns. After a week of studio time and orientations in St. Paul my company arrived in this small river town settled in the western bluffs of Wisconsin to tech our show. As I promised, there was ice cream. My cast and I frequented Pearl Street Ice Cream for dessert, and I say "frequented" because we were there every single day. These are the ice cream flavors I ate: butter pecan, snapping turtle, maple walnut, and cookie dough, all covered in sprinkles in a chocolate dipped sprinkle cone. Our first trip to the most popular (also only) ice creamery down town was sponsored by our CEO in celebration of the announcement that our company joined the Cirque du Soleil family. My cone was 3/4 in my body by the time we walked two blocks back to our riverside hotel to watch the Independence Day firework display. La Crosse gave us all kinds of fireworks, including smiley faces, and ended with four fire cloud explosions à la The Wizard of Oz (1939, Technicolor.) Were these fires intentional? I don't know.

Me, Bri, and Ice Crea

We explored a few miles of the Mississippi together on the LaCrosse Queen, a replica of early 20th century grand river boats. Our boat stopped as we approached the Canadian Pacific Railway bridge. I've seen a number of Bascule bridges in my trips to the Jersey shore, but this was my first encounter with a Swing bridge. The bridge swung open for our vessel to pass through twice on our journey, and I had a slice of Dominos in my hand each time.

SpEaKiNg Of PiZzA my cast and I took a sweaty post-rehearsal march over to Polito's Pizza for several slices one evening, and I did something. I don't think my ancestors will ever forgive me. I ate pizza covered in mac and cheese. My college pizza shop served pizza topped with penne, and I never bought it because I thought it was "disgraceful." I can't believe I was so close-minded to wonders of the world such as this. The mac and cheese pizza was delicious and I'd do it again. But Mom Mom can never know.

Other (not pictured) pizzas I consumed include the veggie flatbread from The Crow and Big Al's flatbread (which I ate whilst watching The Boy and drinking Bogle Chardonnay.)

The bottle of Bogle I purchased cost twice as much as it does back home, but it was worth it. To my surprise, it was the wine of choice at Jules Coffee House, home of the most delicious scones I have ever eaten in my life and also some chocolate infused coffee. These sones are crumbly, but also soft and covered in sugar and I will miss them. Get the blueberry oat or cherry oat if you go.

For a more substantial breakfast I suggest Cabin Coffee Co. They have a number of locations in the midwest and maybe in Georgia, so when asked if I'd like to become a club member I declined. At this location patrons have the option to sit in a saddle to consume their fluffy egg and cheese bagel.

For a juicy brunch experience, get a mimosa flight at Grounded Patio Cafe. I kicked off my Fourth of July celebration with one of these. Also, they serve up a delicious lavender honey latte.

Flavors Right to Left: Lemonade, Cranberry, Orange, Grapefruit. Consume Left to Right.

I tried the Bor-e-alis at The Twisted Moose. It looked like this and it tasted like a juice box fantasy.

He watches over

I'm not a beer drinker but here is the world's largest six pack. This area smells strongly of sulfur and is filled with the bodies of dead dragonfly/wasp things?

A trip to Wisconsin is not complete without cheese curds.

Last time I was in Wisconsin I had these cheese curds.

This time I was in Wisconsin I had many cheese curds and I recommend these from Dublin Square.

Last time I was in Wisconsin I saw barbie legs in the window of a bar.

Bodega Brew Pub

And this time I saw barbie legs in the window of a bar.

Bodega Brew Pub

And that's when I realized I've been to La Crosse before.

Some things that I didn't know about La Crosse that I know now:

It is a Pepsi town. Pepsi is everywhere. On the vending machines, on billboards, sponsoring the arena, in the river probably.

La Crosse is filled with secret back alley murals.

The businesses of La Crosse are all connected from the inside, like Bath & Body Works and its portal to the candle part of the store. Restaurants are connected to businesses that appear to be completely unrelated and it's fascinating. Is it a zoning thing? Is it because everyone is friends? I should have asked but I was distracted.

One night I ran out to Grandad’s Bluff. The run was two and a half miles uphill.

Outside of our hotel was a display of decorated herons from the Pump House. They come out of the regional arts center ever summer to say hello.

We don't have black squirrels in Pennsylvania but here they are in La Crosse.

We don't have vending machine cigarettes in Pennsylvania but here they are in La Crosse.

I'm currently passing a wind farm en route to Topeka where we'll have our final dress for our partners at Nickelodeon and open the third season of PAW Patrol Live! "Race to the Rescue."

P is for Present

"C is for Cookie that you will bake for me"

Every year after Thanksgiving I go out and buy materials to wrap my gifts for Christmas and Festivus. Usually there is a design theme in my gift wrapping. This year, stocking stuffers and gifts to friends were wrapped in metallics, and gifts to family were wrapped in earth tones with twine and burlap accents. By the end of the holidays I am usually, and very conveniently, all out of those materials, which means I get to start fresh next holiday season. This calendar year I wanted to do something creative when it came to birthday present wrapping. My brother recently got into baking, cookies mostly, so he asked if he could have an apron for his birthday. After picking one up from Target I started thinking about how I would wrap it. I checked Twitter and toward the top of my feed was a post from Cookie Monster. And this is the reason brother's birthday present was wrapped in the likes of Cookie Monster. I knew immediately that I wanted the wrapping to have that raggedy Cookie Monster look and texture, so I purchased blue streamers from Deals and went home to work with my purchases, scissors, tape, a glue stick, brown packing paper.

First I lit my Lilac  Blossoms Yankee Candle to provide a sweet spring aroma. Also, the power was out so it provided heat.

To start, I wrapped the gift in the brown package paper. This would provide a base to create Cookie Monster's fur.

I wrapped the entire package in the streamers the way we used to wrap each other in toilet paper at my Halloween parties in the 90s. If you do this craft, start with the smaller ends and glue as you go.

The best way to get a fur like texture out of this paper is to cut the paper into fringe, similar to piñatas. To do this I wrapped the streamer around the package once horizontally to measure, then I cut the streamer and forty other streamers to be the same length. I then layered them in groups of ten and made small cuts about 3/4 the way across to create the fringe effect.

I then wrapped the pieces around the box and glued the uncut ends in place. I repeated this step one streamer at a time from the bottom working upwards.

I printed an outline of Cookie Monster’s eyes and mouth and gently applied them to the fur layer with glue.

The best part with decorative packaging is that it doubles as a party decoration. I can imagine a pile of presents that are decked out like Elmo, Big Bird, Abby Cadabby, and Two-Headed Monster. Part of me worried that my brother would like the wrapping more than the gift itself, but thankfully he was happy with both. He was definitely surprised to see our favorite Sesame Street resident on the table wishing him a happy 25th Birthday. 

The Pudding the Pudding the Pudding!

I've done A Christmas Carol ten times and yet I've never thought to explore the flavors of figgy pudding until recently. I found this recipe for figgy pudding but I made a few changes. I replaced brandy with rum because somewhere I found a fig pudding that used rum and that's all we had in the cabinet. I discovered, düring, that we only had Italian herb bread crumbs and not regular ones so I put crushed Cheerios in the mix instead. We didn't have nutmeg but we did have pumpkin spice and cinnamon so. And finally instead of dark chocolate I used semi-sweet chocolate. The recipe calls for three to four hours of baking but it was really like five and a half in a big Pyrex dish in a pan of water that eventually boiled away. I stabbed it with a fork a million times to see if the middle was done (we didn't have any big skewers) and eventually I had to leave for my show so I told my mom to give it another hour and then take it out of the oven. It sat in the refrigerator for a week and a half because I was too nervous to bring it to Christmas because it had to be heated before serving and I didn't want to show up to someone's house and take over their kitchen. Also, what if it was bad? I didn't want to be judged on Christmas. It was served ("It will serve, Ebenezer, it will serve.") on Christmas Day at a small family affair. My mom really wanted to set it on fire and I wanted to cover it with a thick glaze. Neither of those things happened. The final results can be seen in this video and also below.

Remember those pumpkins I was collecting? They're thriving even as I write this weeks after the New Year. I seasoned them up with greenery (and later, those tiny copper lights.)

My cast had a door decorating contest at the theatre. I hid a few characters from Oz in my snowflake wreath.