Break a leg! Augh, I broke my leg!

That's a funny line from the musical, The Producers.

Unfortunately, it's how my most recent show, Rumors started. Thursday night dress rehearsal, the night before the show, I'm out in the hallway practicing my "fight scene" with my fellow castmate and we hear a big crash from the stage. We peek onstage and hear the director yell "Can we have a hold?" That NEVER happens in dress rehearsal, because that's the night you have to keep going no matter what.

HOWEVER, this was a special case because our lead actor FELL OF THE SET AND BROKE HIS LEG!! Literally broke his ankle, tore some ligaments, and had to have surgery the next day....which is the day that we opened. Now, Brad's doing great, for a guy who'll be spending the next 10 weeks on crutches, for those of you who are all "Ali, you bitch, it's about him, not the show!" He's fine. Promise.

But the show....what were we to do? The director took the male castmember with the smallest part, and gave him the biggest. Then he brought in an outside person to come in and play the smallest role. Opening night arrives, and these guys are AMAZING. The new lead had the entire part MEMORIZED. Hell, I still mess up half of my lines, but he didn't need a book, didn't need cues from the stage manager. It was like Jesus Christ descended from above to play Ken Gorman in Rumors. Our new cop used a "cop notepad" that had his lines in it, but he barely peeked at it, and let's face it, he wasn't familiar with the show at ALL before coming on.

Bottom line, this show is hysterical. It's awesome and I'm so proud to be in it. See our great cast photo (with a pic of Brad above the stairs!)

House Hunting - Part Three

After the day before's 4-day house hunt, Jon and I sat down and started to really dig deep into what was available in the area. After jotting down the addresses of some single-family places, Jon turned to me and said "Don't freak out about the price, but look at this place." He then proceeded to show me a multi-family house. Now, for those of you not in the area, a LOT of houses are older multi-family houses, which means that they have been turned into 2 or 3 apartments. We talked at one point about looking at multi-family houses, then decided to focus on single-families, but this multi-family was having an open house that started in the next 15 minutes, so we decided "what the hell" that we would swing by.

Holy gorgeousness. First off, I know. It's pink, salmon, whatever. I'm over that. This place was amazing. The owner is a stone mason or something and he'd renovated the entire inside. Granite counters, bedrooms with fireplaces, gorgeous tiles in the bathroom, a washer/dryer included with each unit. We are talking fabulousness. There are two apartments inside, each with 2 full bedrooms (maybe 3) and at least a bath and half, if not a bath and three quarters. It's FIVE minutes to walk to the T, and it's just so effing pretty. But, it's significantly more than a single-family. We'd live in one unit while renting the other, but is it enough? We made an appointment to look at it by ourselves with our agent tomorrow, so it remains to be seen. But seriously, this place is nice. We'll see what our agent thinks, since he always finds something wrong....

House Hunting - Part Two

Lots of houses looked at today, and by lots, I mean 4. I had a wicked headache by the end, not due to the hunting, but due to the jog I took earlier in the day. But, I digress, here were the houses we looked at on Saturday:

First, this house is the house where the bassett hounds live. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out an earlier video in my blog of barking, howling bassett hounds. It looks very pretty from the outside, has an above-ground pool and a beautiful deck. I walk by it every day on my way to the T, but I was curious why there were no pictures of the inside....until we got inside. First, the people that lived there were hoarders. Our agent thought they had NO intention of moving, and it would take these folks a year just to get all their stuff together. I mean...SO...MUCH...STUFF. Add that to the shoddy construction and the water damage, and we were out of there

Next we headed more towards Malden Center to look at this place. I know the seafoam green and weird vines on the fence aren't helping, but it had a really great porch, decent construction, small, but neat and well constructed rooms. It only had one bathroom, but a half could be added, as well as some counter space. There was a big fenced in yard and plenty of parking. And then we went downstairs and met the SNOWMAN. That's apparently the term for an asbestos heater, because it looks like a big paper mached snowman. Anyway, it's 7-10 THOUSAND dollards to replace, and I, for one, don't like cancer and don't like to try to rent cancer to tenants. Sad, but not for us

Just a few blocks away was this gem, built in 1996, which is totally uncommon for the area, considering how old Boston and the suburbs are. Most houses are caves from the 1300s, so something in the 20th century was a real treat. It had a brand new heating system, great layout, more modern feel. I really dug it. There was interest from others looking, so I know we would have to move fast. But, as we were driving away, we realized it was definitely NOT withing a 1/2 mile of the T stop. Turns out, it was almost a mile away, which is farther than we are NOW. So....no good.

Our final stop of the day, and climax of my headache was this house, which is really close to the T. Although it was balmy in Boston that day, it was still a bit chilly, and the agent for the house was uber-late showing up, which is annoying. Then, he zipped us through all the rooms, so I hardly remember everything about it. It was...ok. Close to the T, garage, decent yard. But the inside just felt so old. Small rooms, older construction. I know we probably can't find a modern house here, but this was just a sad looking house. Nothing MAJOR. It's not going to fall down, but it looked tired. This house looked like it had run a 1/2 marathon and needed a nap. BUT, it was the most suited for us that day.

House Hunting - Part 1

Yesterday Jon and I sat down with an agent recommended by my friend and classmate Robin. His name is Rodrigo, and he's fantastic. Honest, not pushy, happy to help, but happy to back off, he's everythin we could want in an agent. He took us through the buying process, how he works, expectations, etc, and we then discussed looking at houses. I had just seen a house go on the market that was advertised as a "Handyman's Special" so I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to be the house for us, BUT we were so anxious to get out there and looking, we agreed to go to the open house.

So, it was basically a complete shithole. You can see from the outside, it is one of those cool, classic New England houses, which we really like. The liking stopped there. The ceilings were so low I could touch them without getting on my toes. The floor was warped, the ceilings also dipped, and it had no fewer than 3 front doors, leading us to believe it had been used as an illegal multi-family in the past. The best part of the whole thing was that a quarter of the basement was rock. I mean, a big fucking boulder, as though it was landscaped. When they dug the foundation, they probably discovered a GIANT rock and thought "Well, hell, we'll just build the house on it!"

We didn't mind it being crappy at all. Rodrigo pointed out a lot of things to us to consider when looking, and it was a great learning experience. We're eager to look at more now!!

Have you heard the Rumors?

I'm in a new show! My good friend Lance is directing Neil Simon's "Rumors" in Haverhill, and when he lost and actress and had to recast a part, I got to audition. I got the role, and I'll be playing Cassie. Usually in shows I'm some wide-eyed ingenue type, but this time around I get to have fun. Cassie is a jealous, manipulative woman who loves picking fights with her husband, and, thinking he's having an affair, decides to starting hitting on everyone at a party they're attending. And that's not even the point of the show! The guests are all trying to hide the fact that the hostess is missing and the host is upstairs having been shot through the earlobe.

If you are around and want to go, the show is in February - email me about tickets!

Christmas wrap-up

Jon and I had a fantastic Christmas this year, on our one-week whirlwind trip to the midwest. After his last final, we flew early in the morning to Indianapolis, drove 5 hours to St. Louis, and divided three days between his parents. It was great to meet our new nephew, Sutton, and spend time hanging out with siblings and all of our other nieces and nephews. On Christmas day we drove to Sullivan, Indiana to spend a few days with my family. We exchanged presents, played games, watched movies, and went to a basketball game for my alma mater (high school). After a couple of days, my sisters, their husbands, and the two of us trekked over to Bloomington to watch the Hoosiers dominate Bryant and then stayed with my best friend Justin and his wife Michelle at their house in Indy. We woke up the next morning, had breakfast with Michelle, watched Avatar, and flew back to Boston! A lot to cram in in one week.

We did great in the present exchange this year, I think. I gave Jon some cologne, a Top Chef cookbook, and a kitchen science kit thingy (much cooler than it sounds). Jon got me slippers, a travel kit for all my makeup and bathroom stuff (so I don't have to use plastice Target bags anymore) and my new digital camera! Sadly, I left the charger in Boston, so I only got St. Louis pictures before my camera died. We got lots of Best Buy gift cards from our parents, and I came away with some great scarves, makeup, etc from my sisters. I also got a really pretty business card holder from Jon's dad and step-mom, and some iTunes gift cards from my mom, a big "ticket" to hang in my theater-themed guest room, and other little things that were just perfect. Justin and Michelle also got us some things that will be helpful in preparing to expand our family.

All in all, a great holiday, but we're happy to be home. We're doing a very chill New Years Eve with just the two of us here at home, which will be nice. IU is playing Michigan, so hopefully that's on TV, and we have our trusty Gamecube to provide us entertainment. I hope all of you had a great holiday!!

Finals Update

Hey all, just a quick note to let you know how finals are going....

Negotiation paper was handed in on the 30th of November, Mediation paper was mailed in the 10th of December, Law and Literature paper will be handed in this week. In-class exams are the 17th and 18th of December, in Criminal Procedure II and UCC: Sales, respectively.

After that, it's a trip to see the Nutcracker, and then a trip to see the Slutcracker (the burlesque version of the Nutcracker), and then off to the Midwest for the holidays!

Hope your December is going well!

Beachy Christmas

Jon was bummed that our house didn't have that Osmond-Family-Christmas-Special feel to it, so last night we went out to Michael's and Family Dollar on a mission to make our house a little more Christmasy. The result turned out great!!

Jon hanging up little garlands over the smaller doorways

What happens when Ali tries to hang ornaments on the garland.

Finished garland - it has pinecones, big gold ornaments, little red ball ornaments, and a tiny red bird.

We bought matching stockings for us and the pets and used "thickers" stickers to personalize them. Note that we couldn't fit "Harley" on a little stocking, so hers just says "Harls"