Hi, Blog-readers and friends!
It's Wednesday night here, and it's been a good long while since my last juicy blog-post - a negligence for which I apologize wholeheartedly. The problem is that really not much has happened in the past week and a half. I've been waiting for another car to explode, or another insect infestation, or perhaps a tornado could zip through the city, landing a lamb through our front window. That would make for interesting blog-fodder. Being an aspiring writer-of-sorts, I don't know how I feel about publishing anything that doesn't have a plot, but I hope everyone will enjoy reading about our day-to-day lives here in Auckland. I'll do my best to make it interesting.
Did I mention that Brandon is now a "mechanist" for The Phantom of the Opera, which is the mainstage production downtown until December? The guy who lives above us (Jay) manages all the largest stages downtown, and he's the one who hooked B up with the gig. It's great experience for Brandon, who is glad to be working in an actual theater for once. His official title is "mechanist 11," which should give you an idea of how large that production is. Mechanists are only one of about four different divisions of the "techies" doing the grunt work backstage while the actors and dancers get to shine out on stage. Brandon definitely would prefer to be on stage, but you know that part where the phantom lures Christine into his lair and Raul is trying to get in, and then the door suddenly slams open? That's Brandon, hiding in the shadows, who opens the door, and he has to make some dramatic choices about how to go about it. How exactly would the Phantom open a door?
The problem with that gig is that it's every night except Monday from 6:30 to 10:30. Over the summer Brandon and I adjusted to the idea of having to spend the day apart, but we cherished our evenings. Now we're not even getting those! What's more, the other jobs that Brandon has been offered at restaurants and such require those same general hours. Brandon told Jay up front that he only wanted to do matinee shows, but Jay keeps booking Brandon for evenings. Brandon has put his foot down for next week, but for the past ten days we've been juggling who takes the car to work, who takes the bus, and I have been spending the evenings home alone, mostly eating pizza and watching Sarah Palin videos on youtube, which are funny, but no substitute for my fiance.
And if I were some normal adult who had gotten over her pre-pubescent scared-of-the-dark-jitters then it would be a little bit more bearable, but by around 9:30pm the apartment is usually making its goodnight groaning sounds, and the weather's been stormy, and I end up leaning over the couch saying, "Hello? Anyone there?" into our dark hallway until Brandon comes home. It's really pathetic. I know that some twenty-somethings daydream about having a place of their own, but I'm a wreck without a roommate.
So, this Phantom of the Opera gig is going to be temporary, which means that come Monday Brandon will once again be looking for employment. Of course, I'd be totally happy if Brandon wanted to just take care of things around the apartment and eventually help me produce one of my plays, which, heaven knows, is a full-time job. We're not hurting for money right now, and we certainly don't need much. However, I think he wants to be throwing some coins into the old coin purse, just for the sake of throwing in his own coins.
Anyway, remember Geoff? He's Brandon's Kiwi Dancer Friend from his first cruise contract. He's basically a professional actor bum, and he hooked Brandon up with an audition for some big commercial that pays well and would require 15 days of shooting. The audition specifically called for American accents and some acrobatic or dance experience. Now, Brandon is fairly athletic and limber, and he's got the most American accent of any American ever. So, he went to the audition. The first part was cool; he just had to say a few things into the camera, which garnered him a spot in the second round of the auditions, and that's where the acrobatics came into play. The entire hour of that bit was spent in some gymnastics studio where the casting agents had Brandon and about 25 other people standing on each others' shoulders. They wanted to test for balance, I guess. The idea was to form human pyramids, and then form human pyramid shapes. I really really really wish I'd been there.
Well, I'm starting work on a new play, so maybe Brandon can produce that when he's done with the commercial gig, or the Phantom gig. I'm so glad that he's getting a chance to audition for stuff while we're here. I really think that there might be some sort of cosmic purpose to Brandon not getting a 9 to 5 job just yet. This is a great time to spread those acting skills and the quarter-of-a-million dollar theatre education that we both got.
I, on the other hand, absolutely loathe sales. However, I really love yoga, so I do my best not to complain about the sales parts of my job. Unfortunately I feel most apocalyptic about it on Mondays, which is when Brandon has to deal with my "maybe we should just quit everything and move to Wellington" schpeel. I also usually pretend not to want a crumpet on Monday mornings, just to express how very depressed I am. Brandon's a rock. There are about 500 members at the gym, and I'm surprised how many of them I already know by name. And I'm getting some regulars at my yoga classes. I'm starting to look more into yoga certifications that could help me get gigs at other gyms. Ahh... that would be so awesome. There are also some personal trainer certifications that I would love to get. This would be a really great year to take care of some of that stuff. How great would it be to go back to the states as a fully qualified yoga teacher and personal trainer?
Between our job craziness the weeks have just flown by. A few interesting side-notes:
-- A couple days ago Brandon and I were watching an American movie and one shot of the movie was a bird's-eye-view of the main character driving on an empty two-lane highway. When I saw that shot I actually jumped because I thought the person was on the wrong side of the road. But no, they were on the AMERICAN side of the road. It was pretty trippy.
-- There's an ice cream that kiwis make that is basically considered a national treasure. It's called "Hokey Pokey," and is advertised as being honeycomb, but it's totally butterscotch. At first B and I weren't crazy about it, but we'd bought a two-liter carton of it, and now we're hooked.
-- Pip, the "head-trainer" (aka only trainer) at the gym is one of those people who says everything that occurs to her, and the other day she said, "Did you know that Kiwis have a nickname for Americans? We call them 'seppos,' which is short for 'septic tank,' because they're full of shit." And the thing is that I'm pretty sure that she likes me. I think she thought I'd think that was funny. What I never realized before moving here is that people who live outside of the states treat mocking Americans like an official past-time.
-- My boss walked into the reception area today when only I was there and said, "Sometimes I worry that I'm becoming a racist, you know what I mean?" That was awkward.
-- We bought kiwis for 69 cents a kilogram last week. Pretty cool.
-- They call raisins "sultanas" here.
The event that capped off the long "Labour Weekend" was a trip down south to pick up the tiger wall hanging that we accidentally bought on Trademe last week. Seriously, it's a big jungle tapestry with an enormous tiger in the middle of it. I'll try to post a picture. Brandon and I meant to leave much earlier to pick the thing up, but by the time we left the apartment it couldn't have been earlier than about 5pm. The town was called "Tuakau," and looked about an hour away on the map. Brandon and I didn't mind, since we haven't ventured very far south. We treated it a bit like a road trip.
I started out by texting the wall hanging guy -
ME: Hey! We're driving down to pick up the tiger wall hanging. Will you be home, or should we wait?
And this is how he responded -
GUY: At hme no wuries
We stopped at One Tree Hill on our way out of town, because we hadn't been back since our first day in Auckland. Now Brandon and I are able to better appreciate how incredibly lucky we were that it was sunny and warm that first day. That was definitely the best weather we've had since we got here. Monday (Labour Day) was sunny, but NOT warm. We only stayed at the summit for about ten minutes. We'll go back some morning when it's not a national holiday. On our way down the hill we stopped so I could chase around some sheep, which are treated like the New Zealand equivalent to squirrles.
Auckland itself feels like a big city when you're in the three-block region that constitutes "downtown," but it very rapidly becomes suburbs, and then very rapidly becomes the middle of nowhere. As Brandon and I drove south on THE freeway it took about five minutes to be in serious farm country. Then we turned off that road and drove for another thirty minutes before we got to Tuakau. Remarkably, we found the right road for the address, but the numbering of the houses was all out of order. It went something like this: 7, 25, 36, 4, 120, 72. I pity the Tuakau postman. Then, the road dead-ended at a gravel road that had a sign saying "Do Not Enter."
I texted the guy with the wall hanging, and this is, word for word, letter for letter, how our conversation went:
ME: We're out at the mailbox and we don't know how to get in
GUY: Keep cumin my hous furta blu contana outsid
[Brandon and I puzzled over that for a good long while, so the guy must have gotten concerned.
He then texted this:]GUY: Rd gos 2 gravel keep cumn up hil
We drove up the gravel road, past the "Do Not Enter" sign and found a sketchy little house with an enormous blue CONTAINER outside. A man with amazing facial hair came outside and gave us our tiger wall hanging while I very sneakily took this picture of him with my phone, just for all you blog-readers.
We high-tailed it back home pretty fast after that. We were thinking of driving another half an hour to visit some friends of Jay and Clarity's who are American and we have an open invitation to visit, but it was late, and dark, and we wanted to go home. So we'll save that adventure for another day.
We love you all, and miss you lots!
xoxo,
Brandon and Jenny
P.S. Here's a video of laundry day, in case you're interested:
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