Exploring the backroads

Well, it was time...my Station Wagon is on its last leg so it was time for a new form of transportation. A friend of mine was trying to convince me to invest in a scooter but I was having trouble figuring out what to do with my massage table when I needed it. He told me to strap it to my back and when I got up enough speed it would just lift me off the ground and I'd make better time. I'm not sure about that idea but I'll keep it in the back of my mind. So the hunt for a car began. Truck, small car, truck, 4Runner, Explorer, Rav4, Pathfinder...finally settled on a very very very clean 2000 Ford Explorer. I got in on Saturday and I love it already. Don't hate because it's a Ford, y'all are just jealous because I'll be First On Race Day ;)

My new baby!!!

Don Quixote - A tale of windmills and women

So I just recently got done doing Don Quixote with Svetlana's Dance Academy in Temecula and it was a lot of fun. She originally asked me to do the main girl, Kitri, in like March, I said sure I'd love to...and then I crashed the quad and broke my arm. I didn't think I'd be healed enough to partner with a fresh out of the cast arm so I started prepping for the street dancer role, a more mature role that's second down to the main role. So I learned that part and after my cast was off, Svetlana or Sveta as I call her, came up to me and was like "I need you to be Kitri." I asked why and she told me the couple she was going to hire to do the main roles flaked out on her and now she has nobody to do it. I figured my arm would be fine so I said yes...but I still didn't have a guy. So I switched my brain around and started learning Kitri, who's on stage for practically the whole ballet. I called a few guys I knew to ask if they'd be interested in dancing Don Q with me but either they were way out of town or they never got back to me. Sveta finally called Jose who did Beauty and the Beast with me a few years ago and he said yes he'd dance with me. Needless to say I was ecstatic, Jose is very fun to dance with and easy to act with...besides he's just drop dead gorgeous. So we started rehearsing and everything was going smoothly. Dress rehearsal went well, the pas de deux (partner dance) went very well, besides my tutu coming unhooked which I blame on Jose, he's the only one behind me. Then the morning of the performance comes and I get a text from him saying "call me...now". I call him and he tells me his whole right arm is asleep and has been since he woke up which was like 3 hrs ago. What we figured happened was he slept on his arm wrong and pinched a nerve in his back which cause it to be numb for that long and he couldn't lift it above his shoulder. We have multiple overhead lifts in the ballet so we decided to get to the theater early and figure out what we were going to do. There were certain lifts he wanted to keep in there even though I objected loudly, so we tried them. All I can say is even time he lifted me it was like I had a knife in my chest and it was being twisted. He would either grunt, groan or moan when it hurt and that killed me. We made it through the show and shared a teary eyed hug at the end and hoped his arm would be better the next day for one more show...but it wasn't. We had to change more of the second show due to his exerting himself the day before and causing himself more pain but we made it through. Right before bows he crouched down in the wings and started to cry, I knelt down and hugged him and whispered "we did it". He hugged me back and dried his eyes before we went out to bow. Despite all the pain my partner went through he kept going which is the mark of a professional. I had to rise to the occasion as well because I couldn't rely on him for all that I normally do because he couldn't hold me, so that was a test for me. I had to jump extra hard and high to get myself off the ground because he couldn't just throw me like normal. It was a good experience for me. Despite all that, rehearsals in studio were fun and humorous. We make faces at each other, encourage each other on and yes we laugh at each other when we fall. Here are some pictures :)

Me and Alex playing with our fans...being weird!!

Starting position for my first variation

My first costume...I had 4 costumes to wear in about 2 hrs

Strapping them on!! Natalie wearing her shoes that she wore for cards in Alice in Wonderland

Me and Andy (Don Quixote)

This is how the couch looked for a few days before the show

Me and Jose, final pose of our pas de deux

Show day!!!

Stretching before rehearsal...the good quality pictures are credit to my little sissy

Killin' time waiting for the teacher

Total candid shot...I was making a face at something and she turned the camera and CLICK!!

Yeah we do weird things...I was playing a game with a guy across the room. I'd hold up fingers and he'd tell me how many were up...lame I know but it was entertaining 

Kitri and her two friends

Me and the best stage crew ever...the stage manager was MIA for this picture
Left to right: Jon (stage right), Travis (sound) Cable (rail or curtain)

Me and Ian, the rich guy that wanted to marry me in the ballet

Me and Don Quixote :)

Kitri and street dancer

Kitri and Josh

Sissy love after the show!!

This little girl was so shy to come see me but she was soooo cute!!! I dropped down to her level and she gave me the biggest hug, she didn't really want to talk, she just wanted to look at me and hug me :)

Beautiful flowers I got from a cowboy :)

Me and Tommy (cowboy) ;)

Mommi and me...I love you Mommi, thanks for all the support and love
you've given me throughout the years
I love you to the Milky Way and back!!!!!

Life Experience part 2

So after I got my arm set I was in my first cast for 3 weeks. It took me awhile to get used to sleeping with my extra weighted arm but I managed. It was either on my right side with it up on my body pillow or on my back with it over my head. The over the head one proved dangerous at times when I'd twitch in my sleep and hit my head with a hard cast but I'm still alive ;) I was able to get off the pain killers pretty quickly so that helped. The doctor wanted me to stay in my sling as much as possible to keep the swelling down but the best feeling ever was to just let my arm hang at my side and let my elbow straighten out...amazing!!! So I went back after 3 weeks, in which my arm shrank a bit and I could move the cast about an inch up and down my arm, not good. So I got a new cast, still camo, that fit my now skinnier arm and was about an inch shorter than my last one and my what a difference an inch can make. With my first cast I could barely bend my elbow and I couldn't touch my left ear, let a lone my shoulder, but with the second one I could put my earrings in and touch my shoulder...hallelujah!!! I had one check up between my new cast and when I was supposed to get it off so I had a plan to try and put in motion with the doctor. I was supposed to get my cast off after Memorial Weekend, which meant that I'd have to go to Palm Springs with my extended family with a cast on that I couldn't get wet, so i asked him if I could get it off early so I could get in the pool and not have to worry about it. I blamed it on the fact that I didn't want to disappoint my 2nd cousins that I couldn't get in the pool and play with them, which is true but I did want it off by this point. He agreed, only saying that I better be careful with it...I agreed right on the spot! So I went back in 2 weeks and 2 days later and got it taken off and was given a velcro brace to wear when not in the pool. Early on I was given a stuffed animal horse that I affectionately named Quad that had a cast around his left front leg to match mine. So he got his cast off too!! The doctor told me to wear the brace like a cast for 2 weeks and then I could ween myself off of it. Well anyone who knows me knows that weening myself off something, like my brace, involves taking it off one day and never putting it back on...so that's what I did :) I had one more checkup after my brace was off and a few more X-rays and my bones are doing great. New bone is growing back where the break was and my strength is coming back. It still clicks and clunks when I use it but it's on the mend! :)

Quad

This is how I took my showers

I was so happy when the swelling went down enough to get my purity ring back on

(L to R) broken, right after they set it, 2nd cast

2nd cast...still camo...still awesome!!!

Getting our casts off!!!

Quad was so brave :)

Fresh out of my cast...it left really weird!!!

The brace I got

I'd say 85% better...just took this picture :)

Life Experience!!

Well I had a life experience that I've never had before and I hope to never have again...I broke my first bone or bones in this case. I was riding a very fun quad at a friends house and I had the shifting down pat! I had been circling the house for awhile and thought it best that I practice circling the other way, since you can't circle one way in the desert the whole time...so I proceeded to circle the other way. I have found that if you ask it nicely, a tree will move for you but apparently either I didn't ask or I didn't ask nicely enough but I rode straight into one without any warning and with it not having the courtesy to step out of the way...so needless to say I broke both bones in my left arm. Went to the ER right after that with my arm looking like a Charger lightning bolt and after a few X-rays the doctor proclaimed it was broken and the bones were off by 9mm...that's a lot. So the next day, which was Wednesday, Mommi and I went to Poway to see a Orthopedist to see about getting my arm set. The first words out of his mouth, besides hello, was you need surgery. Or he could try and manipulate it back in place, which had a 60-70% chance of lining it up enough that I wouldn't need surgery. Might as well try it! So the doctor gave me a rather large shot of Novocain right in the break and then the nurse hung my arm by my fingers and put a 12lb weight on my bicep to get gravity to straighten it out as much as it could. Then the doc came back in after 12-15 minutes of hanging and started what felt like yanking on my arm. I didn't watch what he did but it felt like he was trying to re-break my arm. Anyone who says you cant feel your bones or your bones have no feeling...they're lying!!! The Novocain helped but I could still feel my bones moving around in there and it hurt like heck!! Both the doctor and the 2 nurses were very surprised that I didn't scream, cry, shout or moan through the whole yanking process. I took more X-rays after that and got a cast. The doctor brought the X-rays back in and said my bones aligned perfectly!! Thank you Lord I don't need surgery!! Here are some pictures of my experience ;)

My Charger bolt...it was a lot worse before I got it straightened out before the ER

My awesome splint...Dad pointed out that my arm shouldn't bend there...
thanks Daddy!

Splint and sling

The contraption they used to help gravity out  before the yanking started

My arm after the yanking...perfectly aligned!!!

My totally awesome camo cast!!! ;)

2 weeks

Well just 2 more weeks until season is up :( We're doing one more little show, it's actually a silent auction, that different people will do choreography for. The pieces I've learned so far are fun and both, so far, are slow and not speedy fast...which is a nice break ;) Don't get me wrong I love fast dances but it's nice to change it up so you don't get stuck in one style or speed. So my last day on contract is March 16th which is the day of the show/silent auction. Hopefully everyone will enjoy it and it'll end on a good note :)

Don Juan!!

So for all of you people who look at my blog, thank you by the way, y'all get to hear about Don Juan first...aren't you lucky!! So I'll be performing at the Lyceum Theater in downtown San Diego Horton Plaza on Feb 14 8:00pm, Feb 16 8:00pm & 17 2:30pm...wow that was a mouthful! So far I'm a Gypsy and a random girl in Don Juan's dream...I can't say too much about it because it's a premier never before seen production but I do want to warn you that it is a more adult based show, just a heads up for you with small children. I know I was just saying how happy I was that Nutcracker was over but now I miss the stage and I can't wait to get back on it. We had a bit of a heating problem in the studio a few weeks ago when it got so cold, anyone remember that? So in the big studio upstairs we have 3 propane heaters, very old fashioned, that work great for heat. But over that week when it got down to 24 at my house the heaters wouldn't work, so we were all dancing with layers on. One day I had on a leo, tights, 2 shirts, a jacket, knee high socks, 2 pairs of legwarmers and stretchy pants...and I was still cold! So finally we got the heaters fixed and we all thawed out the next week. Onto another story, it's a well known fact that most guys, meaning like 90%, in ballet are gay. Which is unfortunate because some of them are pretty cute but we girls have no chance :-/ So in Don Juan there's a fighting scene and the guys have to like bounce back and forth in a boxing/sparing kind of move. Just because, I like to learn the guys part so when they do that boxing step I do it too but facing them. I find it very entertaining that I can do that bouncing back and forth more manly and aggressive then any of the guys can...the girls all laugh and agree with me ;)

Sam and I one of the days the heaters were out...it seriously never warmed up in that room!!

So if anyone is interested in coming to see me perform in Don Juan you can get tickets at sandiegoballet.org :)

No more Nut!!!!!!!!!

Hey y'all!!! So Nutcracker season is over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It definitely is a bittersweet thing, all dancers gripe about the dancing and the music but we would all be really unhappy and lost if we didn't do it every single year. 6 shows in all and 3 locations from Montana to So Cal. Now we get 2 weeks off for the holidays and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself...besides turn my alarm off ;) I helped Alden with 3 jobs this last week with the Percheron boys and it was a lot of fun. It's been a while since I've done that and it felt good to be around those gentle giants again. Since I've been helping her as of late, I needed to dust off my cowboy hat and wear it keep rain out and heat in, since it rained on all 3 of the jobs I did. One of the jobs was right after a student show of the Nutcracker so I put my boots and hat on in the parking lot of the theater, thinking I'd be saving myself some time later. I had more time then I thought so I made a quick jaunt over to Starbucks before getting on the freeway. I was cold so I didn't bother to take my hat off when I went in to get my drink. The barista was looking down when I walked in and he said his normal speech "Hi welcome to Starbucks what can I get you today?" I think that's what he said. In the middle of the word Starbucks he looked up and saw me and paused for a good 2 seconds between star and bucks, I think the hat took him a little off guard ;) So I ordered my drink, he made it and then I left. I got called Ma'am more times in that Starbucks by different people then I ever have in my life...I should wear the hat and look country more often ;) Here are a few pictures from the jobs with the boys!!

Stuart, Cisco and Loomis :)

Diamond and Cruiser :)

Watching a helicopter drop off Santa

Me and Diamond 

Ricky decided to climb all the way up to my back...love this cat!!!