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Oh what a lovely day today was...

Despite staying up far, far, far too late last night, I managed to get up early and go to the post office to mail off some b-day cards and a check for my roomie. Then, I got to work early so I treated myself to an A&W Cream Soda from Plaza for lunch.

During A-shift, I not only had a delightful hour and a half deep sleep, but I started progress on my hat to complement my scarf, and, by day's end had used 2 skeins of yarn and nearly completed it!

Adam just were on this inspired artistic craze today, him continuing his artwork on his T-shirt and me crocheting away like an old lady at tea time. There's really something magical about Nickel Creek that had us in the zone all morning, and the day only got better when we turned on some good old Frank. The one and only. WOOT.

Then, to make things better, I saved money by making lunch at work, didn't have to go out in the cold, and had some delicious Philadelphia cream cheese on my blueberry Costco muffin. Ah, America, how I miss thee sometimes.

But the day REALLY kicked into high gear when halfway through the 4th show, the orchestra pit lift decided to stop working, and our show was CANCELLED! Seriously. And not 15 minutes later, a decision was made that the 5th show was CANCELLED as well and we were sent home an hour and 15 minutes early! Talk about a gift from up above!

Of course, in true Japanese style, we had to hide our exuberance and joy behind "zane"s (I'm sorry that this happened), and "daijobu"s (It's alright. No problem). Deep down I think everyone was excited to get to go home early, but we had to maintain some respect and show how disappointed we were for the guests.

Aka NOT!

It's Friday night (of my week), we got out of work EARLY, and I got home before the rain with plenty of time to COOK dinner for myself. I mean, that's just fan-frakkin'-tastic!

Oh. And due to the cancel and schedule, I got off easily and didn't have to sing the 2 "All of Me"s for which I was scheduled. I basically got paid today to crochet a hat. Wow.

So I'm in a good mood, even if I have to go into work on my day off, Wednesday. Cuz tonight I'm HUB'bin' it for the face-y Sayonara and celebration of one of our few-and-far-between show cancels.

I will say one thing, however. I think it is quite despicable, deplorable, and straight-up rude to laugh at other people's misfortune. It's why I truly don't believe in comedy that humiliates someone. And today, I found myself reaffirmed in my belief that several of the people I work with are jack@$$es.

See, Joe went to the upstairs hallway to sleep during B-shift, which I did not know. And by the time I was already on the bus starting my commute home, other people suddenly realized the situation and asked if anyone told Joe. And not in the nice, concerned, I-care-about-my-coworkers way.

In the I-really-hope-he-doesn't-know-so-we-can-laugh-at-his-misfortune way.

Which, in my humble opinion, is exceptionally rude. But I'm not surprised. This is my friend, after all, and people don't seem to care what he or I feel or think.

So, after said realization, I asked if anyone would mind texting or calling him to let him know, and of course, that request fell on deaf ears. So suddenly I was stuck, but I had faith in Destiny that she would come to the rescue.

And never fear, rockstar that she is, she did.

But I was disgusted that my co-workers would so nastily want to humiliate and inconvenience someone like that.

And I was really thrown off my rocker when a story was shared about a similar situation when everyone decided to super quietly sneak out of the boys' dressing room and leave someone sleeping unaware of a show cancel. I just can't believe how mean people can be.

But I'm still in a great mood and just heard from my best friend from college. So I'm off to drink away my sorrows!

Blow, Gabriel, Blow

Okay.

So I think this typhoon is having an identity crisis.

I mean, it had a pretty good idea of how to behave last night. It threw out some pretty nasty wind and a little bit of rain while we were sleeping. And it did a good job of waking me up every 30 minutes from 6:30 this morning and making me want to stay asleep all day.

But it got a little confused around 8:30 AM. It seemed to think that merely heaving and whistling and blowing like the wolf attacking those poor 3 pigs would be enough. And as I took some extra time to get ready (since we were warned about the possibility of difficulty getting to work) I looked out the window and was a bit confused. See, it was sunny outside. Not just sunny, but cloudless blue sunny skies. And warm. Seriously. Like a solid 65 or 70 degrees. With just some crazy wind. And not a drop of rain.

It was like the Santa Anas.

Well I'm guessing it's like the Santa Anas since I've never lived in California to experience them.

And it was the most beautiful fall day we've had this week. It seriously has rained and been quite cold for 5 days straight, but the typhoon, in its quest to be unique, felt it better to be clear and sunny.

And, as I've mentioned, quite gusty.

But I didn't really mind, because about 9:30 AM I got a call saying that we would be shuttled from E-Village straight to work at 10:30 AM. Which meant I got an extra half hour to chill on facebook and a free trip to work.

Which is ironic, because, except for the gusty winds, it would've been the nicest commute I've had this week. Except for the fact that the trains weren't working due to high winds which equals free shuttles!

I did look out at the bay on my way downstairs and probably saw the only evidence that a typhoon was really happening. The normally placid waters of the bay were frothing with giant whitecap swells and occasionally you'd see some sea spray crashing up above the sea wall. But don't worry... none of those waves were creeping up too high.

On the shuttle here, I heard stories about a coworker's friend in Osaka being picked up by the wind and thrown into the side of a building! She's fine... just a gash on her head and a hospital visit. And I saw my first car accident in Japan! (It wasn't bad at all either).

Also, my meteorologist friend Carrie sent me links about the typhoon and showed me how it was literally making a huge upside-down U-shape over the island of Japan. We just happen to be in the middle of that upside-down U, surrounded by the typhoon instead of in it, which explains the high winds and clear skies.

At least it kind of does.

But it gets better...

The typhoon did have the BRILLIANT inspiration to blow over and break the Halloween special event stage either sometime last night or this morning. Which I think is pretty fair since I'm mad at the stage too. I mean, we didn't get to see the show on Tuesday, so people today shouldn't either. (Clearly, I'm kidding).

Now how did this benefit me?

Said Halloween stage is in Waterfront Park, which is directly out the front doors of our theatre, and the stage had broken so badly that the whole entire American Waterfront section of the park (in which my theatre is located) was closed to guests until they could clean up the mess.

So, we had the pleasure of arriving at work and finding out our first two shows were cancelled, which, by the way, NEVER happens since we are a fully enclosed indoor attraction immune to the elements. We're about the last attraction they'll cancel, especially because we're so popular they'll do anything not to close our show. But, today, surprise! I only have to do the last 2 shows of the day!

Which, I guess, you could look at as annoying since I arrived at work at 11:15 AM and won't be working until 5:23 PM. But, I just thought, hey, we're getting paid to hang out in the nice safe, non-windy/howly theatre.

Now, foolishly, I did make one mistake, which I didn't realize until too late. Management came on the intercom and said we were allowed to leave as long as we were back by half hour for the third (now first) show and told our stage managers we were going. So I gathered a contingent to meet at Monsoon at 1:30 PM for lunch, and figured I'd take the hour before to just enjoy being at Ikspiari shopping in the sunshine.

Oh, foolish, foolish me.

I didn't think there was a need to be covert since they told us we were allowed to leave, so the translator heard my conversation about Ikspiari. When I went to say I was leaving with Joseph, we were unfortunately informed that due to safety concerns and insurance purposes, we were not allowed to leave backstage areas for the day. We could visit other stages or go to the cafeteria, but we were required to stay inside TDR property.

And this was my first time experiencing the Japanese inability to say no. They can literally craft a sentence and get to the word "no", but it's a serious impediment and they CANNOT answer no. It cracks me up! In the end, I didn't mind staying all day since I had planned on it anyway, but I do feel badly that no one was allowed to leave.

If I'd kept my mouth shut and just told them we were leaving, we'd have had a delicious lunch in our tummies.

Instead, I napped and soon will be doing 2 shows for the minimal park attendees.

And did I mention?

It's not even windy any more.

Clear blue skies, a beautiful warm late summer/early fall day, with just the occasional gentle breeze. You can even smell the ocean outside!

This typhoon sure can't figure itself out, but I don't mind. We got the morning off and it's the most beautiful day we've had in forever!