That one time I tripped an Argentinian baby.

This blog post has nothing to do with the theme of my blog, but I hope it makes you laugh.  It made me laugh.  Holy shit, did I laugh.

WELL.  There I was at work, being all front desk-y and whatnot at the Mountain Road Resort in Stowe.  It was a bit of a slow night, so I was in the middle of the Gossip Girl season 1 finale (I know, the trashiest of trashy shows, sorrynotsorry) when a man walked in looking for a last-minute place to stay for the night with his wife and 2 children.  I gave them a room and the keys and one of those infant playpens for their toddler.   

Here's the room they ended up staying in.
Pretty swanky, eh?

Next thing I know, the guy is back and said they were having trouble getting the room door open, which isn't uncommon.  Some of those locks are finicky, lemme tell ya!  Since it was pouring rain and their room was in the far building, he offered me a ride and I gladly obliged... until I saw the car.  It was a tiny Honda Accord JAMMED to the roof with road-trippy things and the front seat also had the folded-up playpen.  His 2 children were also in the car and they were both sobbing.

I somehow squeezed a butt cheek onto the passenger's seat next to the playpen and the guy HANDED ME his wailing baby and then started speaking to him in Spanish.  He calmly explained that they were Argentinian and were bringing their children up to be bilingual.  And then they were all screaming in foreign languages and I felt a liiiiiittle out of place.  I was just like, petting the baby and cooing all the Spanish words I knew at him (agua, banyo, senorita... that's about it) and he pretty much calmed down immediately.  At the same time, I was small-talking with the parents and willing my butt to stay balanced on the stack of travel books I was perched on.  That 30 second car ride felt like 3 hours.

When we finally made it, and at the sight of the indoor pool, the older child finally stopped sobbing.  Miracle of miracles.  I finagled the key to get the door open and held it open for them.  The baby immediately toddled through the doorway, tripped over my extended foot, and face-planted onto the rug.  The wailing started, my face turned redder than a lobster on Sunday, the Spanish started up again, and I felt terrible.  


Overall though, it was just hilarious.  I felt horrible for tripping their baby, even if it was an accident, but at the same time I almost couldn't help but laugh.  The situation was just so ridiculous.

Welcome to my life, everyone.  It's always an interesting time at work.  Maybe I'll post a few more hilarious hotel stories soon.  They're actually just as funny in print as they are in my head.  Weird.

That time Eliza gooped mayonnaise in my hair...

Let's start with some background information for this blog post:

1) I'm in a play. (Thoroughly Modern Millie, COME SEE IT!)

2) I have to curl my hair every night.  The heat from the steam rollers has fried it beyond belief and I feel like a crispy piece of toast.

3) I like avocados so much I'm willing to mush them all over my head.

And there you have it, all the information you need to know to understand why I'm smearing goop in my hair.  Regular conditioner was just not cutting it, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and concoct a secret potion to give me sleek and shiny and healthy and un-crispy locks.  It consisted of 1 avocado and 1 cup of mayonnaise.  Oops, I guess it's not so secret anymore.  I love both avocado and mayonnaise, so it was a challenge not to forgo the hair conditioner and just eat the stuff.  Eww, just kidding.  I do love mayonnaise, though.

The mixture basically just looked like light
green guacamole.  Break out the chips!

 We set up in the bathroom and my trusty hair stylist, Eliza, volunteered to get her hands goopy.  What a trooper.  As you will see in some of the following photos, deep conditioning your hair is a lot like dumping a bucket of green vomit on your head.  It's chunky, sticky, has a pungent smell, and drips down your neck.  Mmmm.

Wouldja look at that schnozz?  Dang, that's huge!

Eliza's hands post-application.  She licked them clean.  (Just kidding.  (but really))

And then I had to let it sit for 20 minutes.  I found a shower cap I had swiped from a hotel and voila!  I look like a glowing spa patient.  Right?!

After 20 minutes, I hopped in the shower to furiously rinse my hair out and, surprisingly, it didn't take long.  And now, about 2 hours later, I feel.... LIKE A WHOLE NEW GAL!  Well.  Sort of.  The new me smells faintly of mayonnaise, but whatever.  I could get used to that.

Bruce Bogtrotter and the stinkiest breath I've ever had.

Bejeezus, I have not blogged for a solid 2 weeks.  That's a disgrace.  Unfortunately, nothing spectacular happened to me within those two weeks, hence no blogging material.  Actually, that's a lie.  Plenty of junk happened to me and I got plenty of free food, but who has time to write about what's already happened when there's so much other crap happening all the time?!  I can't keep up with myself, guys.  I'm a whirlwind of activity.

So anyway, here I am at 2am.  I should be sleeping because I have to wake up in 3.5 hours, but YOLO I'M BLOGGING INSTEAD.  Tonight was such a great food night.  The majority of the cast went to Frida's in Stowe for dinner before our 8pm show (remember last time I went to Frida's?  Read about it HERE.)  I went with some plain ol' corn tortillas and frijoles-- played it safe and delicious.  And, of course, we ordered chips and guacamole.  4 platters of guac, to be exact.  That's enough avocado to choke a horse, lemme tell ya.  It was vuuuundaful.  The only downside: Mexican breath for the rest of the night.  I chomped on gum and breath mints, but to no avail.  I'm still a stinkmonster at this very moment.  I'm going to keep track of how long it takes to become an unoffensive breather again.

                                   

And THEN, after the show we had a cast party.  Potlucks are always difficult because 1) being gluten, dairy, and meat free makes me an extremely annoying party guest and 2) I always forget to bring something, so I'm the douchebag freeloader all the time.  However, this time was a little bit different.  There's another girl in the cast with a gluten allergy and a few others who are lactose intolerant, so one of our lovely production team members made a gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate cake.  With raspberry sauce.  Drool.  As I was leaving, she asked if I wanted to take any home and I was like, "aw, no, but thank you, it was delicious, blah blah" and then she said, "okay, well then it's going in the garbage...."  I bet you all know what that means.  As soon as she said that, I knew I was going to end up taking it home because I'd feel guilty if I didn't.  Ugh.  So now, I have not one, but TWO plates of chocolate cake.  What am I going to do with all this cake, you ask?  Wellllllll.....

It'll probably end up something like Bruce Bogtrotter in that scene in Matilda.  You know the one.  Gross.  But oh-so victorious.

And while I'm here talking about chocolate and gluten free junk, shout out to Judith and Katie for bringing gluten/dairy-free cookies to the cast party!  I may not have been able to eat much of the dinner-ish food, but I was SET on dessert.  I love my cast, I love dessert, I love everything.

And there you have it.  The fastest way to my heart-- provide food that I can actually eat and I'll like you forever.

The most pathetic blog post I've ever written.

My well of word-vomit has run dry for the moment, so here are more pictures than usual to make up for it.

Homemade gluten-free and vegetarian spring rolls!

Gluten-free s'mores.

Bonfire.

Goddamn, this is a pitiful excuse for a blog post.  Whatever.  I'm gonna go take a nap.

Expensive food + me = not BFFs.

I had an awkward amount of time between rehearsal and work today.  My body was like, "TAKE A NAP" and my brain was like "GO DRESS SHOPPING" and then while they were bickering I went out to lunch.  Sneaky move, eh?

I ended up at the Green Goddess because all I wanted was a huge ass sandwich (huge-ass sandwich, not huge ass-sandwich, because those are two completely different things. Wink.) I was positive they'd have gluten-free bread.  They were out (dagnabbitblargheddycrap), so I ended up choosing the make-your-own-salad option.  I don't remember all the junk I told them to dump in there, but can you really go wrong?  No.  Not when there are grapes involved.  Finding grapes in your salad is sort of like walking into a hotel in Chinatown where the floor is cut into little bridges and there are goldfish swimming all over the place.  It's surprising and I never get sick of it.

Look at the SIZE of that thing!  That bowl is literally larger than my head.  You're probably wondering how much it cost.  I know I was when they handed it to me... but I'm not going to tell ya.  I'm kind ashamed to have paid so much for one salad, especially since I was still hungry afterwards.  Ugh.  It looks hearty and wonderful, but 95% of it was just greens.  Not to say it wasn't delicious, I just happen to be a black hole and I demand sufficient feeding.

So.  Lesson learned: don't go out to eat unless a) your mom is paying for you, b) you're prepared to barter your first born child, or c) you were gonna go blow it on more clothing you don't need anyway. 

Living on my death bed.

HEY, EVERYBODY.  I don't suppose you're curious about my current bodily functions, are you?  You are?!  Great, well let's talk about them.

I'm sick as can be.  Well, yesterday I was sick as can be.  Today I'm still pretty darn sick, but at least I can walk.  For the most part.  Anywho, I spent all of yesterday either in a semi-coma or reading trashy romance novels (nothin' keeps me awake like one of those tired ol' forbidden love plot lines!)  So that was that.  Until yesterday, I'd never spent an entire day in bed.  I must say, it was actually quite nice not being able to move.  No one expects you to be anywhere or do anything because you're too sick to function.  It was great.

And then I woke up this morning and was able to ingest solid foods and my fever was relatively under control and I was LOVIN' LIFE.  But then all of a sudden I couldn't swallow and things got really uncomfortable really fast.  This might be TMI, but it got to the point where I couldn't swallow without feeling like I was going to split apart, so I just started spitting in a bucket.  It's disgusting, I know.  But hey, kind of amusing right?  "Hey, there goes Caney with her bucket of spit!"  It's not really very funny to me right now, but if (WHEN) I get better, I'll probably be mortified and a little bit proud of my problem-solving skillz.  Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Me with my bucket.  D'aww.

So.  Turns out I have almost-strep.  I went to the doctor and she couldn't see past my tonsils because they grew to the size of baby elephants.  The swab test came out negative, but she gave me the antibiotics anyway because it looked like strep and because I was so pathetically whiney.  

On a better note, I finally got to use the cute little tissue wallet my play director gave me!  It's been sitting untouched in my bag for a week, so I'm a little bit overly excited to be using them.  Thanks, Amena!  This pack'll be gone in no time.  Literally.  I'm like a faucet.

I was trying to look excited, but it came out as... sickly.

And there you have it.  I'm a disgusting human being.  I hope, for your sake, you haven't come into contact with anything I've touched recently.  I've got the Midas touch... but with germs, not gold.  Hopefully tomorrow will be an even better recovery day... Fingies crossed.

Workin' on my NIGHT CHEESE.

I suspect most of you know all about night cheese.  And for those of you who don't, it's a wonderful thing and should be practiced regularly.  Here, watch this:

If you were too lazy to watch that 17 second clip (I don't blame you, staring at a video is hard work), basically what happens is Tina has a late-night cheesy snack attack and then plays it off like she was sleeping when Jack knocks on her door.  Classic.

Cheese is the most major craving I've had since giving up dairy.  I've been deprived of my night cheese and DAMMIT, I wanted it back!  Until-- dun dun duuuun-- my dad came home from the grocery store today with a bag of THIS: 

That's right, folks, soy-based shredded cheese made with vegetables.  YUUUMMMM....?  I worked on my night cheese around 1am, prime snackin' time.  Everything tastes better late at night, but this stuff was actually more appetizing than it sounds.  Has a bit of a different aftertaste, but I ate it by itself so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

--BUT WAIT.  After stuffing my face with night cheese for a little while, I finally came up for air and glanced at the nutrition facts, where I thought my eyes deceived me.  For there, the second ingredient on the list, was casein-- a dried skim milk thingy.  This stuff contains milk!  GWARGH.  My happy night cheese quickly went awry.   

So here I am, 1:45am, cautiously awaiting any unpleasant dairy symptoms.  Fuck you, night cheese-- I give you endless praise and all I get in return is a stomach ache.  

Cozy Fingies.

The day started off on an unusually exciting note when I checked facebook (first thing in the morning because c'mon, who doesn't love some pre-breakfast stalking) and saw that the Donomar Inn was having a yard sale.  I LOVE the Donomar Inn (it's currently owned by my high school AP English teacher and her partner, but they're now trying to sell it.  On the off-chance that anyone reading this is looking to buy the cutest little B&B that you ever did see, check it out).  In high school, my class went on a little congratulations-you-survived-AP-English outing to the Inn and I immediately fell in luuuurve.  It's a beautiful old Victorian filled with sunshine and knick knacks and vintage furniture and themed rooms and OH MY GOSH I wish I could buy it.

So anyway.  Due to my love for both the Inn and its owners, I was pretty wicked excited and was all set to hop in my car and roll on over when I realized that I already had plans and wouldn't be able to make it.   Ohhh, the disappointment!  Ohhh, the despair!  I wallowed for a while and then watched the first 15 minutes of Cheetah Girls to cheer me up (let's be real here, nothin' cheers me up more than a bunch of tweens decked out in fake fur with nasally singing voices).

And then, by some great stroke of luck, my mother ended up in the general vicinity of the Inn and she needed very little convincing (ahem, begging) to go check out the yard sale.  So check it out, she did and ended up coming home with patio furniture, decorating ideas, and a couple of wonderful accessories picked out just for me by Ms. Donovan herself.  (Side note: Ms. Donovan, if you're reading this, I know you'd want us to call you Moira now, but I just don't think that'll ever happen).

After a long day of play rehearsal and then a ridiculously long shift at work, I came home to these fantastic new additions to my dress-up box.  The first is a beautiful hand-crocheted scarf.  Tres grandma-chic.  I haven't taken it off yet.

The second is a pair of royal blue velvet gloves with sequin embroidery.  I just about died when I saw them.  There was a split second where I wished I could go back to that black hole of a high school experience and redo the prom thang to wear these babies. (High school wasn't really a black hole (that was middle school, fo realz), but I would never want to relive it.  Shudder).  As soon as I put them on, I felt infinitely more elegant and instantly became the most sophisticated-looking person in the room.  Granted, the only other one in the room was Callie, our limpy dog, but hey.  I'll take it.

To summarize:

1) Next time you see me, I'll probably be wearing blue gloves.

2) Go check out the Donomar Inn's yard sale!  It'll be going on for a few weekends.  I'll probably be going.  Hollaaa if ya wanna carpool.

3) THANK YOU MUCHO, MS. DONOVAN!

That one time I drank rusty pond water.

Ya know what's great? Healthy eating.  Ya know what's not so great?  Drinking brown, foamy vegetables.

 

My mom's been really into juicing things recently.  She pretty much just throws a buncha random shit in a glorified blender and hopes it tastes (and looks!) good-- and usually it does!  Today's was a combination of carrots, apples, and kale, I think.  But I can't be sure because my mom randomly shoved a glass of it at my face and I obliged, not yet noticing the barfy color.

And then I drank it.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I ingested that foamy drink that resembles rusty pond water.  ...And it wasn't that bad.  I had to close my eyes to keep from gagging at the sight of it, but taste-wise it really wasn't as repulsive as it looks.

Cape, cakes, and pancakies!

It's been quite a day over here.  At the top of my to-do list was to make a cape.  And so make a cape, I did!  The good news: It didn't turn out looking shitty.  It looks like an actual cape, which is a miracle in itself.  The bad news: I'm an idiot and used a pattern for toddlers.  The cape goes down to my waist, as opposed to my ankles where it should be.  And I didn't even make it for me-- I made it for someone who's over 6 feet tall... Awkward.

Next on the list was drunk kitchen.  We didn't end up doing the drinking part of drunk kitchen because it wasn't even afternoon yet, so we ended up just doing the kitchen part.  Whatever, it was still a blast and a half.  How can you not have fun making POTATO PANCAKES?!  I picked up the mix at school during Passover because all that Jewish food looked new and intriguing.  I hadn't used it yet, so why not today!?  

They were harder to cook than we expected...mostly my fault.  I used about a cup and a half more oil in the pan than I should have and I might not've even read the directions on the package.  I had Linnea do most of the flipping because she's a more capable human being than I.

Here's the finished product: dinky and cute.  Potato-y and pancake-y.

Aaaand then they sucked.  Well, I suppose they weren't that bad, but they were pretty soaked with oil and tasted like old McDonald's hash browns.  But really, I mean what was I actually expecting?  I should've guessed that this little $3 box of Passover potato stuff wasn't going to fulfill my dreams of the perfect pancakes.

At least Linnea looks cute with her "yuck" face.

And then, to make up for the crappy pancakkies, we made cake.  Actually, they were brownies, but for the sake of the cute rhyme-y title of this post, we'll call it cake.  Thankfully, we made it from a mix where all that was needed was an egg and a cup of water.  Even I can't mess that up. 

Again, please appreciate me looking weird and demon-like and then Linnea looking adorable.  Story of my life, y'all.

How is it possible for a girl and a brownie to look so damn good together?!  I don't normally suggest this, but I think maybe she should consider marrying that chunk of deliciousness.