Yearly Archives: 2012

I have a lot of catching up to do here! I’ve been away….I know. I’ll try to be better these next 4 weeks, honest. Please don’t give up on me!

Session 1 of my official tenure as acting & musical theatre faculty at camp in Michigan ended on Friday for me, followed by a glorious weekend back home in Cincinnati on Saturday and Monday with lots of family, food, and great fun, then a whirlwind trip to New York and back on Sunday, an unfortunate cold that decided to tag along for the entire trip, and it all ended with my looooong drive back up to Michigan Tuesday afternoon. I do plan to recap everything over the next few days, with tons of photos, before session 2 of camp gets too busy, but for now I’ll start with this while I catch up my severe lack of sleep:

Do you remember these sweet, tiny craybies…mere specs of future crays, lost in the depths of enormous gravel and a sea of water? So sweet! So tiny!

I remember those sweet, tiny babes too. Which is why I was absolutely beside myself with disbelief to come home on Friday night to these porkchops.

Total porkchops.

I realize they’re about 2.5 months old now, but is it really fair for our babies to be so big already?

Aren’t they beautiful? Looking more and more like their pretty mama every day!

Little Mav’s, those craybs. What a legacy!

They’re so great, we love everything about them! But as of next weekend, 12 of our original 16 craybies will have found a loving home at Monfort Aquarium, 2 will be joining my sister in Chicago, and two – GiGi and Ace – will remain with us.

Can you believe how big and blue they’ve gotten?

I am so proud of these little champs!

P.S. We’ve also added an adorable, teeny tiny little brown and yellow snail to our brood – he came home, quite unexpectedly, on an aquatic plant we’d gotten for the crays to chow on. He’s a very welcome surprise! :)

After a 7.5 hour drive on Monday, I arrived safely in the bustling metropolis of Blue Lake, MI. Population: Me + about 3 other people, and a crap ton of bugs. Excellent. But the scenery is gorgeous and the weather isn’t too bad either, despite un-airconditioned cabins nestled in the shaded woods of Manistee National Park. And in this area of Michigan they have these beautiful, silky-looking, really dark brown Canadian squirrels that I just love. Monday evening after the drive I got all checked in and settled in my rustic cabin, found the local Meijer store to pick up some basic eats, and walked to the lake for a pretty sunset view. Things are going to start getting crazy busy crazy fast, so I probably won’t have time to blog much in the coming weeks, unfortunately. Today is all about faculty and department meetings, campus tours, and getting myself organized schedule-wise for the coming weeks. Tomorrow we meet the campers, hold auditions, and start with an evening intro class. Boy, does this ever remind me of the excitement of going to theatre camps at Texas State for two-weeks when I was in high school! Only now I’m faculty instead of camper, and being that this is an actual camp, in the woods, with real live insects and rustic living and stuff (instead of a college dorm in a city), and my staples include Deet bugspay, sunscreen, and campfire roasting sticks instead of microwaves and cute clothes. Bring it on.

Before I left was able to spend a whole week of quality time with Ted, which was just awesome. We did so much and relaxed so much, and before I left I was hoping to have the time to do a nice blog post about it all but, turns out, packing for 6 weeks in the forest will suck that time right out of you! So we’ll settle for the abbreviated version. Most of it I’ve already blogged about (beach, etc.), so I’ll just focus on the weekend.

We:

• Went bowling!
• Went on a Haunted Cincinnati walking tour Friday night
• Went blackberry and blueberry picking Saturday morning
• Went on a Cincinnati Civil War and Newport Gangster walking tours on Saturday afternoon (It was about 107 degrees out, by the way)
• Got some FroYo at the new FroYo place in Anderson
• Used up a Groupon to try Bayou Fish House for some delicious Fish n’ Chips in Newport
• Watched a few movies
• Checked out the brand new, beautiful Washington Park in downtown Cincy
• Had a goodbye lunch at City BBQ and goodbye breakfast at The Original Pancake House
• And of course, we packed, loaded my car, cleaned the house, cooked some meals to freeze, loved on the crays, etc.

I have pictures, lots of pictures, but wi-fi in the woods isn’t what I’d call superb, so most of those will have to wait for another time. Here’s a few to tide you over. More later!

In OHIO.

Right!?

We started out the 4th snoozing in til’ 9:30 – no alarm clocks allowed – followed by catching some serious sun at Anderson’s 4th of July parade! Gotta love patriotic small town parades!

For lunch I noshed on fresh cherries and a few slices of the unfathomably delicious Dewey’s Pizza (the Green Lantern pizza – pesto, goat cheese, artichokes, garlic, mushrooms, and the freshest dough around…heavenly!), leftovers from Tuesday’s date night, which consisted of gourmet pizza at Dewey’s in Oakley,  a split bowl of Aglamesis Bros. mint chocolate chip and black raspberry chip ice cream while we sat in scenic Oakley Square, a long walk at dusk catching fireflies through the thick wooded trails at Stanbery Park, and an episode of Master Chef, cuddled up on the couch. It was a pretty excellent way to enjoy a summer’s eve together!

After lunch on Lady America’s birthday we road tripped 30 minutes east to East Fork State Park where we drove around the park for about 45 minutes, taking in some gorgeous heights and breathtaking scenery (seriously, in Ohio, who knew!?), checking out the dam and trails, exploring some hidden coves, and finally heading to the lake…with a real live beach, to swim and splash and sun and relax. Pooped from a day of sun and excessive heat (at 99 degrees with 60% humidity it was just too hot to cook out), we picked up some seriously delicious subs at Jersey Mike’s Subs and settled in for movie night before heading to Alms Park at 10 o’clock for some celebratory 4th fireworks.

I’m loving all these long summer days off, exploring and relaxing with Ted before I leave for Michigan on Monday. I’m so grateful that I have this whole week off to prepare for camp and hang out with an awesome guy before I ship out. Life is beautiful!

Monday afternoon Ted and I hauled off ten of our beloved crayddlers to their new home.

Of course, it was tough.

I cradled them the whole 45 minute car ride, then stayed in the car, bawling, because I couldn’t bear to walk inside with Ted and give them up. I’m a real pansy when it comes to letting go of pets. It’s tough.

It took well over a half hour to catch and package the little devils. You’d think with sixteen porkchops swimming around that the net wouldn’t have a hard time ensnaring one or two. Ohhhhhhhhhh, but they knew. They’re insanely fast backwards swimmers to begin with, and even though this was the first they’ve ever seen of the dreaded long-handled green net in their short lives, they instinctively knew that it meant trouble. Magically, the instant that net found its way into the tank, we went from sixteen visible crays to zero. They barricaded themselves in plants, on plants, under plants, under gravel, atop heaters and air hoses, between crevices, and under the rock until we eventually had to empty out the tank of every single decoration aside from the gravel and water itself. Even then, they were still difficult to capture – whizzing up and down and backwards and forwards and every such direction to avoid the net. When one was finally caught we filled a quart-sized freezer bag with about a cup of tank water, released the squirming and utterly terrified crayddler in, tried to swish as much oxygen in as possible, and sealed up the bag and placed it in a storage tub. Rinse and repeat.

We had grand plans of observing the crays for a few hours first to find the bullies, and pickers, and the menacing ones to relocate first. We partially succeeded, but ultimately ended up just catching whoever we could catch. We purposely tried to keep anyone who was little, shy, or missing one or many appendages (5 of the 6 keepers currently are). We figured that with the bullies out of the tank these little guys will stand a great shot at regenerating their missing body parts, getting more food to eat, having more room to grow and run, and less troublemakers around so they’ll feel safe molting and growing. It also means we gave up some of our biggest, brightest, bluest crays, but with confidence that these sweet little guys we have left will now be able to grow up to be big, bright, healthy, happy, and outgoing crays.

In all the chaos of catching crays and removing plants to catch said crays, we were able to get our first really solid tank cleaning in since they were born, which though traumatizing as it happens, feels wonderful now we’re sure, and their tank looks great!

So, then there were six.

Naturally I miss the other ten, but the six we have in our care are so pretty and sweet and the fighting has decreased exponentially!

Pics to come later ;)

Happy 4th!! We’ll be spending the day together, cooking out, eating, relaxing, enjoying the great outdoors, and hopefully playing with some fireworks. Hope your 4th is just as festive and relaxing! God Bless America!

Ted was out of town Thursday-Saturday for a theatre conference in New Philadelphia, Ohio while I stayed behind in Cincy to work my last day at the museum after a year-and-a-half (bittersweet!) and to continue running Next to Normal shows. Ted managed to stay safe amid the raging storms this weekend, dodging three tornadoes that touched down within several miles of his hotel and a house across the street from the hotel that was struck by lighting. Though both the New Philadelphia area where he was and the Cincinnati area where I was endured some pretty forceful winds (up to 60 mph), sand storms, flying debris, downed trees, and power outages, power was restored to Ted’s hotel after 9 hours of no lights, no a/c, and utter boredom, which is just plain lucky considering many parts of Ohio witnessed a ton of damage and won’t have power for another week yet. Anyhow, he’s back home, all safe and sound.

While Ted was away I spent Saturday morning blackberry and blueberry picking at a farm in Milford.

After two hours of early morning picking, I walked away with the pride of having picked our own food, a bundle of fat blackberries, and hundreds of sweet blueberries – a few handfuls of which quickly found there way into a homemade healthy blueberry lemon loaf later that afternoon (recipe forthcoming!), and nearly the rest of which found their way into Ted’s mouth shortly thereafter.

Then I stopped at the library to stock up on some juicy summer reads for the first half of camp…and took a nap.

Sunday after the matinee performance we closed Next to Normal, and to celebrate the closing of a fantastic production, the earning of my last four equity membership candidate points (!!!), and the beginning of my one whole week of freedom from any and all jobs before I head to camp, we enjoyed the wind and rain of a summer evening storm rolling through, stopped by the new Smash Burger joint nearby to try out their burgers and fries, treated ourselves to Dairy Queen blizzards and peanut buster parfaits, and redboxed We Bought A Zoo. The burgers at Smash Burger were good (though I’m not inclined to waste my calories on “good” burgers – only outstanding ones – I’m looking at you Kopp’s, Butterbees, and Culver’s!) but the Smash Fries seasoned with garlic, rosemary, olive oil, and sea salt were out of this world awesome! I have a bad feeling that I’m going to crave them – often. They really were that good.

We Bought A Zoo was pretty great too. I’d highly recommend renting it for a movie night this summer.

They crayddlers are still growing by leaps and bounds. You can tell they’re getting chunky because they start to look like this:

When they look like they’re wearing a sweater 3 sizes too small (see the white-ish gap between their body and tail?), it means they’ve gotten too big for their current shell and need to molt it, resulting in this:

A fully formed cray molt (at the back of the tank). When they molt they shimmy out of the shell that surrounds their eyes, antennas, pinchers, legs, body and tail, which is really cool and really creepy all at once. It’s kind of frightening seeing that in the tank, thinking you’ve lost a cray, until you realize that it’s just a molt.

Happily and sadly, the crayddlers, all sixteen of them, are thriving and are therefore getting too big and too boldly mannered to live comfortably and harmoniously in the same tank, so we’ll be parting with ten of them today. I’m really bummed about this, as I want nothing more to than to be able to keep and raise all of sweet Mav’s babes, but we know it’s best for their health, growth, and happiness if they have more individual space. We’ve found an excellent aquarium and local fish shop in Cincinnati owned by a pair of brothers who take great care of their fish and are very kind-hearted and knowledgeable. They will be the new home for our most of our porkchops. We stopped by last week to check out the accommodations and they have several marvelous, sizable, planted aquariums that I think our crays will be very happy in. I’m sad to have any to let them go, but I know it’s for the best.

Other than that, I’m taking this full week off to finish my camp choreography, lesson plans, preparations and packing, taking the car in for its check-up and some light repair work in preparation for the road trip, to do fun summery things, to sleep, and to spend some quality time with Ted before I leave for Michigan. I’ll try to pop by a few times this week, and of course I’ll have internet access at camp for the purposes of occasional blogging, though I do intend to spend much of my time up there unplugged and enjoying the peace of the great outdoors, just as a word of warning.

Lots happening here!

What have you been up to?