Moving Day Hard Cider with a Side of Gluten

What do you do with a packed-up apartment, 5 flights of stairs, and a pair of crutches?

How many actors does it take to move an entire set up 3 flights of stairs at 7am?

If you take 1 cab every day from 204th St. to 108th St. at 6am, how much less expensive will it be vs. an Uber?

How many swings are necessary to obliterate a professionally made Tinkerbell piñata?

What percentage of the NYC subway stations are handicap accessible? (Oh, sorry. Too serious.)

How much trail mix, popcorn, and apples can you eat before never eating them again?

At what point does strapping your $290 full-sized mattress on top of an SUV with rope and driving in rush-hour traffic through all of Manhattan into Brooklyn with strong signs of rain become a good idea?

And, please, someone, tell me: How did I end up in Amherst, Ohio?

RECIPE: Moving Day Hard Cider with a Side of Gluten
Prep Time: 3.5 months 
Bake Time: 2 months (6-8 weeks)
Chefs: 3 (someone to carry you + a podiatrist + an idiot)
Nutritional Value: Calcium
Allergens: Obviously gluten; maybe a little pride

Ingredients:

• 47 years of total formal schooling between your 2 sisters and you that end in a split second. Tears. All the stupid streaming tears.
  
• That's all the the happy you get: and it wasn't even that happy: I mean, it was happy, but there were tears: Let's go: One broken foot
• If you can try to fit it in here, aim for a misdiagnosis of a foot sprain instead of a break. That way, you can properly damage it further. (re: "idiot")
• If you're lucky, break ("sprain") the foot exactly one month out of the end of your touring production. This ensures that you'll be less than two weeks out once you receive your proper diagnosis. This means... I think you know what this means.
• Aim for the tour on which your injury occurs to be fully dependent on the actors to load in, set up, and load out the set. That way this means this ensures TOTAL USELESSNESS AT LEAST PART OF THE TIME.
• That was severe. Don't aim for that. Try to be useful. You are. Just never express it. Never say at the 7am Bronx elementary school with 3 spiral staircases that you "wish you could help." Just... be quiet. 

• 
• The date of June 12: The date in which your transportation system up & down stairs flies to Costa Rica. The date you must go home.
• One particular airport, the only particular airport near your particular location of residence, that cancels every flight to Cleveland for the next few days due to "air traffic control."
  (I really wanted to find some sort of meme that truly captured my frustration and plane-old utter confusion at how air traffic control could be responsible for canceling flights days in advance. I mean, I get it, but give your customers a less vague reason. I need to share with you what you find when you Google Image search "air traffic control memes", because I kind of feel like they knew that bitter people were going to Google that, so they ensured that only the snarkiest, most specific air traffic control references were used to cause alienation and thus further confusion.
   
  
   And, finally, two I found right beside each other that, together, may be the reason why everything we think we know about air traffic controlling is wrong:
• $119 cab ride from Brooklyn to New Jersey during rush hour. There's a working airport there. And while I appreciate everything you do for my life and the lives of all of the people in the sky, air traffic controllers, I am clearly still a little mad.
• But you'll get over it once you settle back in your (1) cozy childhood bed in Amherst, OH.
  
• Speaking of Women's USA Olympic Gymnastics, there's a (1) movie being shot in Amherst, OH this summer. I'll let you take a moment.

OK, are you ready to come back?

Let's begin again.

• (1) Movie: Written and starring the hilarious Melissa Rauch from you and your father's favorite TV show together, "The Big Bang Theory". Set entirely in Amherst, OH, shot entirely in Amherst, OH, living and breathing the energy of Amherst, OH. A feature film. Guys. When you watch this movie. You will see my high school. The small-town Americana Main Street downtown. One of our really sketchy bars (or maybe it's the nice one?) in our row of sketchy and nice bars. A real live Amherst home. Perhaps our 1-screen $3 movie theatre. Perhaps my old substitute teacher famous infamous for being an extra in the Shawshank Redemption. I don't know. But it's really pretty ironic that it's shooting here, now, and about a gymnast with an injury. 

Are you still not ready to finish these ingredients? Because I can stop now and come back--- OK! Let's finish talking about coincidences.

• ... Nope, that's pretty much it. Just find 1 summer of your life right after your first real acting job in which you then have to leave New York to return to a small town in Ohio for an indeterminate period of time, and then stick a big feature film right smack dab in the middle of your town, and then show up at an open casting call at the same mall as where you once worked at Victoria's Secret. Oh, but do remember that you're on crutches. You know you still can't do anything on crutches. Right? Making your last ingredient: PATIENCE. 

Instructions:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

OK, OK, I know, I know it sounds so silly but yes patience is key-- ... Ha-HA-- ... No, but seriously. 

1. Take, for example, a young girl's stomach. Can she expect it to be in proper working condition at all times? Well, actually, I guess that's not too much to ask for, but-- Take, for example, someone who has had stomach issues for years. Is there going to be a 1-cure-fix-all method? Will he or she need to reevaluate the eatability of his or her favorite foods of all time, ice cream and pretzels? Patience, my dear stomachs, patience will let you know when it's time to enjoy those glorious rounds or mounds of dark wheat and yeast once again. Patience will guide you away from nightly bowls of lactose. PATIENCE... gives you this:

A stylized photo of your first breakfast sandwich in years, in plans of starting a new hashtag, #tastytuesdays. You rightfully held that back. 

2. Think of the young man who moves all of his (booted) girlfriend's belongings down 5 floors in 90° heat with only 1 other guy, puts it all in a storage unit, and then by himself drives a full-sized mattress he strapped to the top of an SUV through NY traffic, only to unload it & her suitcases again at his apartment. Patience? Saint-ience. There's another young man of another young lady's hand who jammed all of her grad school belongings into a teeny tiny little car two times, once by himself, and then drove all the way to a different city to drop it off. Who are these young men and why do they have so much PATIENCE? To the aforementioned mattress strongman, his patience was rewarded with a 6-pack of  and a carton of . And that was our dinner. (Did I also feverishly pop open a beer-shaped bottle of alcohol when our moving day ended, sweaty and exhausted, even though I didn't move a single thing? Yes. Yes, I did. It was a difficult day to watch.)

3. You have to think to yourself: What can I do with a 100% free, open schedule in a beautifully quiet, peaceful, Midwest town in the beginning of summer? You have no job, ability to drive a car & thus leave the house, or real responsibilities. I made myself a daily schedule that was full of memorizing monologues, writing, playing the piano, searching for jobs, and working out. Have I ever followed it? Absolutely not. However, I have spent hours (more than schedule-ly alloted) memorizing a new song on the piano & fiddlin' out a few others. I've had a phone interview with a new start-up organization by one of the New Housewives of... somewhere. I, only yesterday, finally wrote down in a Pages document (acknowledging your judgment, moving on) some scenes to a webseries I've been thinking about. And my stars I have gone through approximately 80 episodes of "The Office" and that is not nothing. Yes, I wanted to write every day. I wanted to be truly productive. Have I wasted my time? Maybe some days, a little bit. But, with time, with PATIENCE, I have at last gone through all of my emails, applied for a plethora of new nanny jobs, and now am finally fed up enough with the fact that I haven't written anything that I AM! See! You just have to get angry enough at yourself. Don't do something, wait a bit, still don't do it, and then retaliate! Against yourself.

I'm not saying you should stop doing productive things. I'm not saying you shouldn't properly follow a to-do list. Getting things done feels great. Making that phone call or answering that email that you've been putting off for weeks feels splendiferous. But if you need time to do other things (more prevalent-- or less prevalent, sometimes), do them. Just do something. Maybe I shouldn't be watching 5 episodes of "The Office" in one day, but 1 is OK. And, in time, with patience, there's always that one day in which I don't watch any. And I feel good about it. 

More practically and honestly, I could merely say "don't waste your time like I usually do." But where's the learning in that? Only PATIENCE, my cumquats, brings you a calmer stomach, a healed foot, a larger perspective on motivation, and the newfound, passionately heartfelt statement: 

I NEED NEW YORK CITY. 

~*~*~*~*!*~*~*~*~

Howdy, there! I thought it'd be real fun to rediscover some of my favorite memories of my now FOUR boots! Wow! I am truly a lucky girl. Enjoy-- and let's stay safe out there! LOL, am I right, ladies?! 

             

The glory of living.

Rocky Road (back to NY): Flavor of the Day

Rocky Road is noted as the "Flavor of the Day" because we currently are experiencing a different flavor of city/state every. single. day. However, there does seem to be a feeling of this "road" back to somewhere at almost all times... Once you leave the West Coast, your life is no longer Coconut Basil Sea Salt. Therefore, I invite you to enjoy the novelty of this Flavor of the Day, though I ask for your patience in event that it remains the Flavor of the Day, at least figuratively, every. single. day. 

Ingredients

• The one tourist attraction that anyone has been remotely interested in since Oregon: Frankenmuth, Michigan. [Now, Frankenmuth is a Bavarian town in Nowhere, Michigan housing the world's largest 365-day-a-year Christmas store to which my extended family vacationed to multiple times. This should tell you something about my family. Now, too, when I say "anyone/interested", I mean "me and one person/she visited alone". We were able to take our always on-the-dot, not-a-tourist-trip 1-hour dinner break after our show there in the downtown area, where I saw some familiar sights from childhood-- like an oversized wedge of cheese in which we took pictures (yes, in) and the outlet malls where my cousin, sister, and I bought matching all-teal outfits.] 

Who EVER would've thought-- LEGITIMATE gluten free options at a hearty German restaurant?

• 1 box of matzoh, 1 bag of raisins, 1 bag of diced walnuts, 1 box of matzoh ball soup, 1 apple, 1 microwave, and cheap wine = Secular Seder at the Super 8 in Saginaw

• 4 days without a phone: These days shouldn't exist. They shouldn't be a problem. They shouldn't matter. They shouldn't be what happens after a swim in the toilet. They shouldn't ruin things. They shouldn't create both mayhem and magic. They should only create magic. They shouldn't be what lands you in Evanston on your day off in Chicago because you have nowhere else to exist without a phone. They totally should bring you to Evanston. You're clearly conflicted about not having a phone for 4 days. Were you happier? Were you healthier? Can you envision a world where shouting can be heard in other states & we all just shout to each other? Do you now have an Otterbox? 
• 3 people with Narcolepsy-- or however many you find to meet at your first planned encounter with anyone else with narcolepsy ever, the 2014 Narcolepsy Network Walkathon in NYC. 

Perhaps manage to get any photo besides the backs of those walking in front of you... Just a thought.

• 1 restaurant that you swear is an obvious parody of/nod to/statement against/(but why??) Chipotle. It's name is sweet green. 

OK, so take a look at this: Those menu boards on your left are typed out the same way with the same font and the same choose your own adventure as the boards at Chipotle. Instead, you choose your SALAD or brown rice/quinoa bowl adventure. OK. And those assembly line workers? Same process as the old Chipottel. Literally, swap every Big Burrito food item out with salad ingredients, and you've got sweet green. But, as caloric and cheesy as Chipotle is, it is all locally sourced and the related buzzwords-- and, if you want to, it's easy to make healthy, hearty choices there! So, sweet green, I love a good salad and perhaps not all of your restaurants look like this and I'm probably making all of this up,  but... chill. 

I like your Gabriel Garcia Marquez quote, though.

• A half of an aisle devoted to maple syrup! Vermont, you are beautiful in more ways than one. The moose candy available for purchase in your Holiday Inn sure contributed. 

The maple syrup would be across from the Elderly Cereal, based on the way this aisle is progressing.

• $2.99  for a margarita. Cinco de Mayo. Dayton, OH. One option for a Mexican restaurant. Heavy on the salt. 
• A Yelp search for a Mexican restaurant (any Mexican restaurant, please) in Dayton, which yielded a sponsored ad result for Taco Bell. The top review read thus: "Ok, it is Taco Bell...why are you reading reviews of Taco Bell?"                 (there is beauty in the breakdown)

"Don't drink margaritas out of a pre-mixed container,"

I told myself. "No," the bartender told me.

• One really shady white lie [... if a white lie is indeed a lie that is only partially untrue, but only minimally untrue and mostly true because lying is physiologically impossible for me] to get you to an airport you're not flying out of.

So close... and yet so far away-- No. I was definitely really that close; I could've walked up those stairs and stand-by sat myself on a plane. So, definitely "so close". Psh, colloquial phrases.

I imagine you want to hear the lie. Continue reading. Yes, this is like the 11pm news.

• One hundred million uses of string   --- that only the brightest, most passionate of minds devoted to string could think of

TSWA '14 = Strung Along
TSWA '14 = balls of string
TSWA '14 = balls of fun
TSWA '14 = BALLER (you'll want to click on this)

• -

This is where this draft ended. One and a half long, hard, and tired months ago. What was it that drew me away from finishing a strongly promising, clearly deeply invested post and leaving it to sit, useless in my Blogger account for ~6.5 weeks? What was it that separated me, yet again, from writing this damn blog? What was it that broke my leg? What? What was it that brought me back here yet again? And, for the love of God, what was that LIE?!?!?!?!

Only one way to find out. Tune in next week (or tomorrow, or something) for 52 Recipes of Disaster: the OHIO EDITION.

(See? Just like the 11pm news. You wait all that time for nothin'.)

Catsup Catch-Up

Ingredients

- 3 wine tastings = ~27 samples of wine 

    (catching up on lost time)

- 1 bartender named Matt at a farm-to-table restaurant who gave us free natural fruit sodas and an all-organic dessert platter as we convinced him to get back into theatre

    (catching up on his life story)

- 3 nights at the Fountain Grove Inn in Sonoma Wine Country to make up for 1 night at the Knight's Inn 

     (the Knight's Inn needs to catch up to life)

- 90 million items on the gluten free menus at Greenleaf's in Ashland, OR

     (world, get on the Pacific Northwest's level: every single one of Portland's crazy unique food trucks had gf options, and that includes the mind-blowing savory PB sandwich, fancy crepe, and weird gourmet french fry trucks)

*CATCH UP! from the airplane from NYC to Denver to Burbank, CA! (difficult to obtain, special order upon request)*

- A group of strangers waiting at the quiet airplane gate at 7am on a Wednesday + the ever-consistent CNN HLN flatscreen TV + Puppy Conan: [Why was CNN showing coverage of the Conan Show? The only answer I care about is PUPPY CONAN. (you must watch all the Puppy Conan links)] Resulting in the entire gate laughing together. About puppies. Especially the Toronto mayor pug. 

- 1 revelation from which these men can't hide: The on-flight movie was Frozen. (Did they know I was coming?!) As soon as the credits started rolling, a rush line to the bathroom flooded the aisles. Who did it mainly include? 30+-year-old men. Duly noted.

Instructions

 1. Take 5 ironic selfies in your onesie.

 2. Get tipsy off of the first few 1/8-filled glasses during your first wine tasting, so you have an excuse for responding to the wine-waiter's photo of his 23-year-old son with an unenthusiastic "he's tall". 

 3. Discover the winery that has sparkling wine produced only for Disney, a chardonnay recognized by National Geographic, and the sparkling cuveé commissioned by the White House for the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit Meetings. So, for all intensive purposes, they ended the Cold War. (and are still cool enough to celebrate rainbows).

 4. Get Tink wasted. JUST KIDDING DON'T: don't do that to anyone: rather, nurse your own glass gently with her and ask her father for her hand wing in marriage.

 5. Remember Matt? Praise his glory. And any salted caramel ice cream that stays your entire body motionless. 

 6. Eat this for dinner. (Thank goodness you gave up chocolate for Lent, right?, because now this is SO HEALTHY!)

 7. Encroach on a intimate private conversation. (They shouldn't have been in a hotel parking lot, that's all I'm saying.)

 8. 3 beds? Necessary? Possible?

 9. Demolish Portland('s food trucks)(' food). Brag about it on various social media. Catch a glimpse of what it feels like to be perfect.

Basically, Imma tell you all you need to know in 5 words: Pacific Northwest be courteously organic. 

That, and I realized everyone should live their life with a simple playwriting lesson in mind, taught to me by my lovely playwriting teacher at Northwestern: once you realize you have a routine, break it. When writing a play, this refers to keeping your readers-- and your characters-- on their toes and not letting the audience get ahead of the play. Breaking the routine, anything settled or "usual" or expected in your play (be it a character's behavior, sequence of events, or even the format), is what moves the story forward. If you feel yourself getting in a rut, find a routine and totally change it. 

I think that's what I just did with my life. I think it's what everyone needs more often than we let ourselves. I think it's cathartic. I think this is getting too serious, but I'm in a Rodeway Inn all night. I was unhappy in my weekly (actually, monthly) routine in NY: it was cold, wet, loud, sad, and never-ending fast. I worked 7 days a week, had consistently inconsistent hot water, took the same trains and busses, and saw the same sights every day because I had no time to do anything different. Then, all of a sudden, I was flying to California in 5 days. However, it's less about the stuff & routine that I left. It's all about the MOUNTAINS.

(cue Alice Ripley? No, absolutely not.)

I've lived 22 years of my life without seeing mountains. Or snow-capped mountains. Or waterfalls coming out of mountains. Or hiking up mountains. Or Shakespearean-themed towns nestled in the mountains. Or the view of mountains from my Super 8. Or hundreds of vineyards in mountains. Or driving through mountains for hours. Or cities so encapsulated by mountains that everyone feels they must wear flannel or modern young lumberjack-wear. Now I've seen all these mountains, and more. In hot places. In chilly places. In organic farm-to-table locally grown non-GMO grass-fed vegetarian sustainable picturesque storybook places. In hick town places. In kind places. In organic can mean more than food places. In how-did-this-trendy-fresh-cafe-get-in-this-nothing-hill-town places. In the Fountaingrove Inn and the Econolodge. And I keep asking myself "how have I lived in this country my whole life and not known what half of it even looked like? How could I have not known these breathtaking sights existed?"

Well, a. you could say "look at a book/are you serious?/did you go to school?/Anna." or b. you could be/have been in the same boat as me. (That's correct, there are only two options.) Needless to say: find yourself in the same locale/situation for long enough? Go. Leave! Go somewhere! Heck, I found myself in the same landscape for 22 years-- and that was spanning 3 different states in 2 different time zones-- and that's a routine in itself. Sure, I've seen Cancun and Niagra Falls and London and even the Berkshires which has mountains but I kinda think they're hills (plus, it's cold there)-- but they aren't tree-lined or red rock, pointy or tofu-shaped, snow-capped or desert MOUNTAINS. Who knew land wasn't flat?

But now we're in Fargo, so everything's flat. 

My mom recently started a brand-new, totally different full-time job. A handful of days ago, my 22-year-old best friend accepted an offer for a PhD program. Last week, my boyfriend bought a plane ticket for a 2-week-trip to Peru a month away. This summer, my dad's going taking off work to go South Carolina for 10 days. After this tour ends in June, I have no idea what I'm doing. Regardless of the reasoning or context behind any of these things, they all make the person happy or excited-- and they keep us on our feet. Yeah, it may involve some tough adapting, training, many years of schooling, money, planning, possible judgement from others, uncertainty, and a little bit of fear. (maybe a butt-ton of fear for the latter example) But dang. Routines be breaking. Life happens. Pacific Northwest be courteously organic. MOUNTAINS happen. 

Love,
Watching Fargo in Fargo