Did you miss me?

Hi,

I know it's been a while.  Lots of things have happened for me, for you, we should discuss it all.

But not here, lets go someplace ....better.  Like my new blog!  www.sempercasus.com

I know, its a big word and its in a different language ( The blog name, not the whole blog (It means "Always an Adventure" in Latin)).  I combined my two blogs into this one.  The theatre will still be there, the adventures will still be there and hopefully, so will you.

So join me won't you?

Thanks! :)

EM

Say What? - A Work Adventure

Work is always an adventure…yes?  Anyone that has a job has crazy stories about what misadventures happen while they count down to Friday. 

In my job I do a lot of hiring, which means that I have to do a lot of interviewing.  I am curious about people (my mother calls it nosy), I like to talk and interviewing allows me an opportunity to indulge both of these at one time.  Sounds good.

I know that interviewing is a stressful situation and I have been on an interview once or twice myself, so I know how nerve wracking this situation can be for job seekers.  Every once in a while I am surprised by the things that are said during the interviews.  Whether they were blurted out unintentionally or not, these are a few of the comments that were three comments said to me that have stuck with me.  There are more, as I’ve had to interview people off and on for the last 7 years, but these three make me giggle every time.

“I was so happy when I was a fish”- When I asked this person what their favorite job from their resume was, this was their answer.  I scanned this resume quite a bit and could never find anything that said they were a fish.  So when I inquired about when/where they were fish-ified, they replied in a parade they were in, but that it was not on the resume.

“elle a commencé à parler français fo aucune raison” – Did you understand that?  Good, cause neither did I.  I loved this interview because this candidate was so nice and really enthusiastic.  They were from the U.S., English was their first language and they had spent a year in France for studying abroad at some point.  Then, with no warning, in the middle of answering a question, they switched from English to French for a few sentences, and then back into English like nothing had happened.  They best part was that when I asked them to tell me what they had said, because they had spoken French for a few moments, the answer was an indignant “I did not.” 

“You would be so cute if you dyed your hair” – This came out at the end of the interview when I ask if the interviewee has any additional questions, comments or concerns.  This person was incredibly nervous and I thought this was such a cute thing to say, even though it doesn’t sound that way.  This person had a very cool hair color and I would have loved to have it myself.  I choose to believe that they were referring to a more edgy hair color than that my hair didn’t look good. (I hope)

Do you have any funny stories for your adventure that you call your work day?  If so, I would love to hear about them!

Why do I do this to myself?

You may have heard that I have a habit of doing stupid things.  In fact, this whole blog is dedicated to the silly and stupid situations I manage to get myself into.  And this one is no exception...

So, I heard about this audition a little over a month ago and thought that maybe I should go.

Never mind that I haven't performed in a full show in over 11 years, or that I didn't know any of the songs, any audition songs, can't dance, and had about 1 day to get anything ready for the audition.  It still seemed like an adventure that I should go on, if for no other reason than because of how badly it could go.

Which is how I ended up going to this audition on the last day of auditions, in the very last audition slot and with a song that I knew, but that I had never heard played on the piano.  So I had no idea if the key that the music was in was a key I could sing or not.  Cause really, preparation, whats that?

The day of the audition I had milk with breakfast (A no no), I warmed up by singing along with the radio at the top of my lungs and got lost on my way to the theater.

As I walked in, I had no resume, no head shot and had to tell them I had no idea what the music I was holding sounded like on the piano, since I don't own a piano.

I audition and go on my merry way.

The next day I get called back for a call back.  Right before the call backs I get super sick.  I have to call to tell them I can't make it and the part goes to someone else.

Fast forward to last week.....

I get a call from the theater.  The person they cast is unable to fulfill the role and would I be interested in filling it?

So now I have a month to step into the role, learn the lines, choreography and the music for this show.  Everyone is off book and ready for fine tuning...I have had the script for 48 hours.

This can only end badly, right?

Lesson learned:

My husband should have bought me a piano. (My husband thinks this is not an actual lesson learned, but that just makes it obvious he needs to learn this lesson).

This theater was clearly desperate. (if your hopes rest on my shoulders....my the gods help you, clearly you are in trouble)

Don't tempt fate! (those three witches will get you every time!)

A Sweet Escapade

Here is a post written by the ever awesome Snarky Rachel (aka Bella Rachel in previous posts)  I told her a story about something that knocked me off my feet a bit.  So what did she do?

She wrote it on my blog as me, knowing that I never would have posted it on my own.  So here is Snarky Rachel telling you a story about what happened to me from my point of view.  This is how all blogs are written, right?

I know that usually this blog is dedicated to the crazy things that happen to me and to my friends that are in my near vicinity. But, today, something so out of the ordinary happened to me that was incredibly sweet and unexpected and SnarkyRachel has forced me to write about it.

I came home late from work today, showered and then my husband and I decided that we would like pizza for dinner. I ordered pizza from our usual place and went casually about my business. Now, I will say that I consider myself a good tipper. I feel like delivering pizza must absolutely suck and I do my best to counteract that as much as I can. I digress.

Once the pizza was delivered I paid, tipped, took the pizza, and started to go inside with my food. The delivery guy stopped me, saying “Wait, I wanted to tell  you something.”

“Yes?” I replied, preparing myself for the latest pizza promotion.

Stuttering, he responded, “I just wanted to tell you....(long pause) You are beautiful. And I always am excited to come deliver here cause I know I’ll see you and I’ve never gotten it together to tell you before.”

Stunned, I paused for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. Then I told him that I am married, but that he had made my night. He said, “It’s not a pick up or anything, I just wanted to tell you.”

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this encounter...but I thought it was incredibly sweet. Or else I’m a better tipper than I thought. 

5k's are hard - Forts are easy

Miss Bookish Girl is a rock star and is participating in the Tinkerbell 5K at Disneyland this evening.  She had done the San Jose Rock N Roll Marathon previously and she was inspired to keep up this habit and for this, Snarky Rachel and I support her.  So we got in the car to support her.

We met up in our hotel room (where there were only two people in the room, we swear hotel management) and cheered her on as she left to participate in the 5K.  In the room (that only holds two people, get off our backs hotel managementt, we know!) Snarky Rachel contemplated what we could do to show her how much we love her.  The answer was obvious.

We called housekeeping cause we needed extra supplies to build our  fort! Rejecting Logic strikes again!

 

SR is carefully arranging pillows on top of the ironing board and underneath the blankets as extra height was needed.

Just to the right of the ironing board area is the TV, because no fort is complete without a TV.

The other side of our fort is supported by the beds.

All fort building was done under the watchful and approving eyes of the  little green aliens from Toy Story.

I am awesome in my sneaky fort building.

So proud! *Sniffle!

Very tired after all of this work.

Snarky Rachel taking a pic of me.

As the finishing touch, we decided to add the mattress from the pullout couch to  make it more mas comfy. Success!!

Portland Underground

I went to Portland for a family wedding a while ago.  Does this sound a bit familiar?  That's because I covered my astonishing powers of observation in this post here.

But wait, there’s more! For the low, low price of $0 (all you pay is separate shipping and handling), here is another story of shenanigans from Portland.

Did you know that there is a whole city located under the city of Portland?  A series of miles and miles of underground tunnels and areas stretch for over 5 miles under this city.  These “Shanghai Tunnels” are in the basements of the buildings and they connect to the other buildings through brick and stone archways.  This connects under the streets create a series of tunnels that get you from one side of the city to the other.  Or rather, they did, they don’t connect like that anymore (damnit!).  

These tunnels were used for...let’s say “unscrupulous individuals” who wanted to force men to work on ships and grabbed women to sell them into prostitution.  Crimpers (the name of the kidnappers) could make a pretty penny for supplying crews to ships. The practice of “Shanghaiing” is so named because men woke up on a ship at sea bound for Shanghai or the Orient in general.  On average it took these men over 5 years to get back to Portland, if they were able to survive that long under the harsh sailing conditions. For more information on this, and the tour I took click here

These tunnels have been featured on many haunted/ghost hunter shows and has had many reports of unexplainable tings being seen.  The promise of exploring a historical area, that is underneath an existing city, is a nice escape from the 90 degree weather, was involved in illegal activities, got me get away from from bickering family and the possibility of ghost hunting are a lure that I could not hope to be strong enough to resist.

I took all the pictures, but these pictures are used by permission of the Cascade Geographic Society/Portland Underground Tours, 2011 

All items featured in the tunnels have been found in the tunnels by the historical society that is excavating them.

Once you open the giant metal doors in the sidewalk, you walk down a steep steep staircase down into a long tunnel. You grab a flashlight and keep walking. Until you see this..

Yeah, that's a baby high chair.  That's just freaky

 This is the area when lit by regular bulbs

This is the area when the lights have been turned off.  That  light is a red bulb that is on to show what these passages looked like when you were using candles or lanterns.  It is DARK!

If you were doing something illegal, wouldn't you want to do it somewhere that people couldn't find you? Cue the tunnels!
This is an opium den, where people would pay for the bunks to lay in while they were chasing the dragon.  The top bunk was the least expensive, what with the chance you would fall off the bunk and hurt yourself. The bottom bunk was the most expensive and convenient.

Here is another shot of the opium den.  The stairs went up to one of the restaurant area alleys..easy access.  Already drunk? Now get high!

This is a picture of a chair and some tin cans...

Oh, you wanted more?  Fine.  This is a place where the people watching the "compelled laborers" would stay.  The cans are the alarm system.. If someone managed to get out,in the dark and not knowing where they were going, they would run into one of these.  Then the Shanghaiers would know were to find them.

These are miscellaneous artifacts found so far. Buckets, spoons, tools and more.

 

More alarms

This is one of the passages from one tunnel to another.  Usually a man with a chair and the alarms were somewhere near here.

I am neither a man or an alarm.

These are the shoes found in the tunnels.  If you were one of the lucky men "asked"to join a crew they took your shoes and threw you into a small, small cell with about 25 other men.

This is why they took your shoes.  If you managed to get out, and bypassed the alarm you would be walking on pieces of broken glass.  Glass covered the ground so you were crippled by shredded feet.

This is hard to see, but this is the inside of a cell. The cell holds one person and a chair.  More specifically, this is a cell where they would put women who were being sold into prostitution.  In the course of investigating this practice in the 1970's, one former crimper claimed he could break a woman of the idea of hope or escape in 8-12 hours.  

This is the same box.  Reports are that there is a smell of perfume in this area and the door to the cell opens on its own.

This is a coal chute...or maybe a convenient area to roll drunken men into the underground.  Either way, it was useful to someone.

Portland is one of the only cities known to have used "dead drops" as a frequent method of gathering able bodied men.  Imagine you're standing at a bar drinking and having a good time.  Suddenly the floor drops out from under you and you land in the basement on a stuffed mattress.  Congratulations, you have now been shanghaied.

No idea why these pics, and only these pics mind you, are blue.

This wooden Indian was also shanghaied by the crimper Joseph Kelly.  Apparently he had a deadline and could find no man that was as impressive a figure as this statue.  So he wrapped him up, told the captain he was unconscious and not to wake him up until they were waaaay out to sea.  Because of the impressive figure, the captain paid him the nice fee of $50 for this!

 

Because these tunnels are underneath the buildings above, these are pipes that the buildings need for modern convenience (water, sewer, etc...)  I'm so short, I fit under these with no problem.

More stairs to nowhere.  It is rumored that there were multiple layers underground.  Some went three or four layers down.

Once prohibition came about, what better place for an illegal bat than underground?  Then, add in some prostitutes.  All of this stuff was found underground.  The fan, the bed frame, the materials, the cups...all of it.  Plus you really only need one girl, cause she just says "Come around the corner" and then the men walk into some friendly neighborhood crimpers.

This place was fascinating and tragic.  To think that this practice was going on well into the 1900's this place makes you think about the things people are willing to do to make a buck.  

You want to know about ghosts?  Did something happen that I can't quite explain? Yes

 Did I see a ghost? No.  

But if you want to go ghost hunting, I'm game :)

More Questionable Logic

So that debate that I posted a few days ago?  That brief break was just intermission.

Logic Vs Amazon - Part 2

Doesn't everyone get into debates with friends during their free time?

No?

Ok then...